Race and International Organizations

How do racial hierarchies affect the workforce of international organizations? Building on the concept of racialized organizations in American politics, we develop a theory of racialized international organizations. We argue that international organizations, like domestic organizations, are characterized by diminished agency of racialized groups, a racialized distribution of resources, Whiteness as a credential, and racial decoupling. Such processes in international organizations are affected by the racialized distribution of power and wealth in the international system, on the one hand, and racial hierarchies that exist in societies from which international organizations draw their workforce, on the other hand. Using the crucial case of UN peacekeeping, we demonstrate that the UN exhibits the four features of racialized organizations. First, staff hired locally in countries hosting multidimensional peacekeeping operations, which are situated in Africa, Asia, or the Caribbean, have fewer opportunities to exercise agency compared with international staff, who often hail from White-majority countries. Second, peacekeepers of color perform more difficult and dangerous jobs under worse conditions than their White counterparts, who thus hoard a common organizational resource – physical security. Third, Whiteness serves as a proxy for desirable skills in UN peacekeeping, while the knowledge and experience of peacekeepers of color are instrumentalized. Fourth, peacekeepers from White-majority countries demand and receive special treatment, thus deviating from UN-wide procedures, which constitutes racialized decoupling. We conclude by outlining a research agenda for applying the theory of racialized international organizations beyond UN peacekeeping, including in headquarters-focused intergovernmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations.