Recent international relations scholarship has adopted the perspective of organizational ecology (OE) to explore a range of questions related to organizational emergence, strategy, and death. These studies draw attention to organizational competition as the mechanism underpinning important transformations in global governance. We argue that existing work in IR that uses OE has overlooked the importance of another strand of sociological theory that focuses on dynamics of mutualism between organizations. We illustrate the importance of mutualism by focusing on a crucial case: the evolution of different “populations” of organizations working in environmental governance during its critical 1970–1990 period. Our analysis demonstrates that as the environmental consciousness of the 1970s took hold, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) increasingly captured new resources and stimulated new attention to the issue. Rather than viewing these new actors as competition, existing international organizations (IOs) sought to incorporate and legitimate INGOs, promoting their growth. And in turn, INGOs sought to support and legitimate the activities of the existing IOs, promoting growth of Secretariats and treaties. Our account offers an important organizational-level story that shows that dynamics of mutualism help account for the increased complexity of global governance.

中文翻译：

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环境治理是如何变得复杂的？了解环境非政府组织和国际组织之间的互惠关系

最近的国际关系学术采用组织生态学（OE）的视角来探索与组织出现、战略和死亡相关的一系列问题。这些研究将组织竞争作为支撑全球治理重要转变的机制引起了人们的关注。我们认为，使用 OE 的 IR 中现有的工作忽略了另一股社会学理论的重要性，该理论侧重于组织之间的互惠互利的动态。我们通过关注一个关键案例来说明互惠主义的重要性：在 1970-1990 年关键时期从事环境治理工作的组织的不同“群体”的演变。我们的分析表明，随着 1970 年代环境意识的兴起，国际非政府组织 (INGO) 越来越多地获取新资源并激发对该问题的新关注。现有的国际组织 (IO) 并没有将这些新参与者视为竞争者，而是寻求合并和合法化 INGO，以促进它们的发展。反过来，国际非政府组织寻求支持和合法化现有国际组织的活动，促进秘书处和条约的发展。我们的账户提供了一个重要的组织层面的故事，表明互惠主义的动态有助于解释全球治理日益复杂的问题。INGO 寻求支持现有 IO 的活动并使之合法化，促进秘书处和条约的发展。我们的账户提供了一个重要的组织层面的故事，表明互惠主义的动态有助于解释全球治理日益复杂的问题。INGO 寻求支持现有 IO 的活动并使之合法化，促进秘书处和条约的发展。我们的账户提供了一个重要的组织层面的故事，表明互惠主义的动态有助于解释全球治理日益复杂的问题。