Intergovernmental organizations in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic: organizational behaviour in crises and under uncertainty

Abstract

When Covid-19 broke out, many interpreted it as a crisis that would lead to fundamental changes in different areas of life. The article aims to assess whether this also applies to intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). By analysing the websites of a sample of intergovernmental organizations, we ask: How did the Covid-19 pandemic affect the behaviour of intergovernmental organizations? How can one explain this behaviour of intergovernmental organizations in response to such a major exogenous event as the Covid-19 pandemic? How can the Covid-19 pandemic be best conceptualized in terms of its impact on intergovernmental organizations? We show that the responses of intergovernmental organizations to the Covid-19 pandemic had two important features: (a) intergovernmental organizations responded in a synchronized way, and (b) the pandemic triggered wide-spread non-major adaptations to the changed environment, providing opportunities for legitimation work and minor repackaging of existing activities, but has not led to noticeable transformational change in organizations’ activities. We argue that the observed intergovernmental organization’s responses can be explained partly from rational-choice perspective and partly from sociological institutionalist perspective. Given our data, we argue that the pandemic can be conceptualized as an uncertainty shock, in terms of its impact on intergovernmental organizations.