ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at international organizations from the public choice perspective. In the concept of contractual constitutionalism, the rules or institutional arrangements may not be imposed from outside but can only be set by the voluntary consent of all the decisionmakers concerned. Most studies analyzing the behavior of international organizations take nations to be the relevant actors. In representative as well as in direct democracies the national representatives are not directly elected by the voters but are usually appointed by the government or by the heads of the national public administrations, in few cases by the national parliaments. In the media as well as with insiders quite clear views exist about the performance of international organizations. Both the positive and the negative view of international organizations mentioned at the outset as well as the outcome oriented studies just mentioned use the "Nirvana" approach: Real life institutions are compared to an unattainable ideal.
