Transforming International Institutions illuminates how a slow, quiet, subterranean process can produce big, radical change in international institutions and organizations. Drawing on historical institutionalism and interpretive tools of international law, Graham provides a novel theory of uncoordinated change over time. It highlights how early participants in a process who do not foresee the transformative potential of their acts, but nonetheless enable subsequent actors to push change in new directions to profound effect. Graham deploys this to explain how changes in UN funding rules in the 1940s and 1960s—perceived as small and made to solve immediate political disagreements—ultimately sidelined multilateral governance at the United Nations in the twenty-first century. The perception of funding rules as marginal to fundamental principles of governance, and the friendly orientation of change-initiators toward the UN, enabled this quiet transformation. Challenging the UN's reputation for rigidity and its status as a bastion of egalitarian multilateralism, Transforming International Institutions demonstrates that the UN system is susceptible to subtle change processes and that its egalitarian multilateralism governs only a fraction of the UN's operational work.

"Transforming International Institutions is a tour de force that cements Erin Graham as one of the most important and innovative voices in International Relations. In this timely, well-researched, and theoretically innovative study of the United Nations, Graham revisits traditional understandings of how change takes place in the world's leading organization. With deep anchors in historical institutionalism, Graham meticulously documents a quiet revolution in the UN from an organization that was multilateral in theory and practice to an organization where a small number of states control agendas by means of earmarked budgets. This is a must-read for global governance scholars and practitioners who will benefit equally from Graham's historical research and analysis of the contemporary period." - Orfeo Fioretos, Temple University

"The United Nations has significantly transformed since its founding, as the practice of earmarked funding progressively took over the mandatory state contributions provided by the Charter. Based on extensive longitudinal research, this excellent book not only throws light on this crucial, troublesome and yet partly belowground change in multilateral politics—it also develops an insightful theory of incremental institutional design that further illuminates the plasticity of international rules and the continued efforts of decision-makers to remold them. A great scholarly accomplishment, both analytically and empirically." - Vincent Pouliot, McGill University

"Transforming International Institutions masterfully demonstrates how minor changes in United Nations funding rules had major unanticipated consequences; ultimately granting individual donor states substantial policy influence over UN agencies. Professor Graham's book makes important contributions to international relations theory and it is deeply grounded in history. But the book will also appeal to students and policy makers who are interested in better understanding how donor money has gradually become such an important determinant of what UN agencies do and don't do." - Erik Voeten, Georgetown University