ABSTRACT
Multilateral institutions represent a form of international cooperation the world had not experienced prior to 1945, an evolution from the League of Nations and United Nations models, in which all member countries formally have an equal voice and vote. Their structure is inspired by the joint-stock model of private capitalist corporations, in which member countries are shareholders whose voting powers vary with their relative economic importance. In other words, each member country’s share of the votes is weighted in accordance with the combined amount of capital it has paid in and is guaranteeing for. All member countries are organised in a country constituency headed by an executive director who controls the combined votes of his or her constituency and sits on the institution’s board of directors. The size and composition of the country constituencies vary across the universe of multilateral institutions, but the principle of organisation is similar (Bøås and McNeill 2003, 2004).
