Change in cooperation forms between international organizations: the case of WHO and EU

Since the 1990s, the cooperation between the World Health Organization and the European Union has intensified. This change has allowed the transformation from informal to formal relations between the two organizations since the 2000’s. Which factors have led to this change? Cooperation on international relations literature has mainly been developed around the relation among nations or including, at least, one state. Studies on cooperation between international actors and, in particular, between international organizations, has been developed more recently. The main interest in this field is understanding why international organizations should cooperate with each other. The explanatory variables highlighted by scholars are usually exogenous and put forward the potential impact of States’ positions on the international organizations’ decisions. In this article, I argue that this phenomenon cannot be fully explained only by endogenous factors and that the literature should also develop more studies about endogenous and mixed variables. Thus, I argue that we have to look for other factors inside OIs and for mechanisms that can link them together, like epistemic communities. I will demonstrate how theoretical concepts from sociology and public policies such as interorganizational networking and policy transfer can highlight other variables still largely untapped. This article will combine studies on cooperation between international organizations seen as structures such as places of interpersonal interactions among actors. It matters to study the inter-organizational and interpersonal skills. We will see to what extent the articulation between structures and agents is important. This article exposes an empirical case in order to explore theoretical issues. In fact, I will begin by analyzing the cooperation between the World Health Organization and the European Union. In a second section, I offer a review of the literature on cooperation and cooperation between international organizations to highlight their strengths and weaknesses. I will then be able to expand the study to the explanatory variables and their interests for the study. (Alternative Section : International Political Theory)