How have democratic norms shaped intergovernmental organizations’ (IGOs) decision-making rules? This is the central question addressed in this comprehensive book. Alexandru Grigorescu argues that “normative pressures” and how states adapt to these pressures shape the rules governing who can participate in IGOs and how decisions are made. Normative pressures derive from the strength of a norm and the degree to which the status quo diverges from the norm’s prescriptions.

When a norm is strong and the status quo diverges significantly from what the norm prescribes, Grigorescu posits, normative pressures are strong and rule change is more likely (H₁ ). However, international actors do not necessarily yield to normative pressures and change rules according to what the norm demands. Rather, international actors will often attempt to defuse these pressures. They will adopt strategies to challenge, narrow, or broaden the interpretation of the norm or its application. The strategies adopted to defuse normative pressure influence if and how rules are changed. Grigorescu theorizes that when normative pressures are strong, international actors are likely to adopt multiple strategies (H₂). What strategy is adopted is influenced by the norm’s strength (attempts to alter the interpretation of the norm are more likely with weak norms; H₃) and how much the status quo departs from the norm (attempts to alter the application of the norm are more likely when departure from the norm is low; H₄). Also, when attempting to alter the interpretation of a norm, international actors will prefer broadening the interpretation to narrowing or challenging it (H₅). When attempting to alter the application of a norm, a narrowing strategy will be preferred over narrowing and challenging (H₆). Finally, the author expects that strategies to challenge a norm or its application are likely to lead to no change, narrowing strategies to partial change, and broadening to alternative change (H₇).

To test the plausibility of these theoretical expectations, Grigorescu explores five democratic norms and their effect on decision-making rules in the European Union, League of Nations, International Labor Organization, United Nations, World Bank, and the GATT/World Trade Organization. Specifically, he analyzes the following norms and related decision-making rules: fair state participation and what states have seats on IGO executive bodies (Chapter 3); fair voting and voting rules in IGOs (Chapter 4); transparency and publicity and freedom of information (Chapter 5); participation of nongovernmental actors and access (Chapter 6); and parliamentary oversight and the existence and prerogatives of parliamentary assemblies and the selection of their representatives (Chapter 7). In all, Grigorescu analyzes 72 instances of normative pressures and debated rule change from the early nineteenth century to today.

Comparing the empirical results to the theoretical expectations, the author concludes that the evidence generally supports the hypotheses. He also finds that while democratic norms have strengthened with time, and despite normative pressures that ebb and flow with time, there has been a gradual move toward more democratic decision-making rules. Also, he illustrates that norms do not act in isolation of one another. States strategically hedge norms against one another in an attempt to defuse normative pressure. For example, permanent members of the UN Security Council have offered concessions on transparency in the face of campaigns to have more states represented on the Council. In all, Grigorescu illustrates that the interpretation and application of democratic norms to IGO decision-making rules entails contestation and political bargaining in ways that often position strong and weak states against one another.

Grigorescu provides a theoretically and empirically rich story, and Democratic Intergovernmental Organizations? should be praised for its contribution to three literatures. First, this book contributes to scholarship on the design of IGOs. It offers an original perspective on how constructivism can explain the design of IGOs and provides an alternative to rational design and realist accounts. At the same time, I applaud the author for drawing complementarities among the logic of consequences, power politics, and the logic of appropriateness. Strategic action by states and the distribution of power among member states is central to Grigorescu’s analysis of democratic norms in IGOs.

Second, this book contributes to literature on norms in world politics. In contrast to research that emphasizes nonstate actors as norm promoters, Grigorescu considers how states act as norm promoters and challengers. In other words, his efforts to give primacy to states are laudable. The book also makes an important contribution to the international relations norm literature by highlighting how norms can spread from the domestic level to the international. This account differs from those that trace norms from nonstate actors to states or horizontally from one state to another state. Also, Grigorescu’s concept of “normative pressure” is an important contribution, offering an original approach to explaining if and when norms influence political outcomes. Moreover, the book offers innovative ways of measuring the strength of norms and normative pressures.

Third, this book has implications for scholarship on democracy in global governance. Grigorescu contributes to this literature by offering an empirical examination of the ways in which democratic norms have shaped IGOs. He offers a possible way of disaggregating “democracy” in international politics into discrete norms and applying them to distinct decision-making rules. All in all, this is an original approach to thinking about democratic norms in global governance. Moreover, he illustrates that there has been a progression toward more democratic models of governance in IGOs, a finding that has implications for normative theory on global democracy.

Despite the strengths of the book, some weaknesses merit brief mention. Grigorescu selects five democratic norms but only minimally explains why these five. Other democratic norms, such as accountability, are relevant but excluded without explanation. Not only are the selection criteria unclear, but one may also question whether the selected norms are the most significant democratic norms for global governance. Elaboration on what are the most significant democratic norms and how norms were selected for empirical analysis would have added to the discussion. Second, Grigorescu selects six IGOs at the outset and systematically analyzes the impact of democratic norms on these six IGOs. While methodologically advantageous, the decision to analyze the same six IGOs throughout the study does come at some cost. Not all six IGOs receive equal attention, given that not all norms are relevant for all six IGOs. Similarly, other IGOs with selected democratic norms that are highly relevant are noticeably absent from the analysis. For example, the EU is given great weight in the analysis on parliamentary oversight, rightfully so. Nevertheless, as Grigorescu acknowledges, parliamentary assemblies have been established in other regional integration systems, yet none of these highly relevant IGOs are analyzed because of the rigid case selection. Finally, alternative explanations to rule changes are only minimally considered. Even though the author briefly discusses the explanatory limitations of realism and what he calls “efficiency,” rational institutionalism is mostly absent from the analysis. Grigorescu finds that democratic norms have been less influential in security governance, for example. This observation begs for more explanation of variation across functionally different IGOs. Are there rational functional reasons why democratic norms are less influential in some areas?

Despite these weaknesses, Democratic Intergovernmental Organizations? is a worthy and stimulating read and deserves to sit on the shelf with central works on international organizations.