A Business Case for International Bureaucrats? Why NATO and the OSCE Endure after the Cold War

International governmental organizations (IOs) and their bureaucracies exist because they constitute an asset for their member states. This is hardly controversial from a political economist perspective. The literature is less united in understanding why and how IOs endure when the context changes and an IO no longer delivers its founding service. Neorealism and transaction cost theory assume that whether the assets provided by an IO are specific or general explains IO adaptability. This theory provides a parsimonious explanation for the trajectories of NATO institutional development since the 1990s, on which basis it has been developed, but it fails to offer an equally convincing explanation of the OSCE’s persistence. Adding an "actor-centred" perspective, this paper argues that international bureaucrats actively shape their organization in line with the "business-case" their institutional context offers.