Introduction

“We don’t do politics!” Every researcher embarked in the field of international organizations has heard this at least once from international bureaucrats, governmental delegates or civil society representatives engaged in multilateral negotiations. This book takes this apolitical claim seriously and questions the politics of IOs by building on the concept of depoliticization. This introductory chapter outlines our conceptual and methodological framework, including our empirical strategy and the overview of all chapters. It introduces the two key concepts for analyzing IO depoliticization, namely practices and logics, and summarizes the core argument advanced throughout the book. We argue that IOs participate in the depoliticization of global problems and their own action while their practices have depoliticizing effects that inform on the ways IOs function and shape world politics.