Roger, Charles B.Snidal, DuncanVabulas, Felicity2023-11-232023-11-232023Roger C, Snidal D, Vabulas F. The importance of rational institutionalism in the analysis of informal international institutions. International politics. 2023 Jul 15. DOI: 10.1057/s41311-023-00483-31384-5748http://hdl.handle.net/10230/58361Data de publicació electrònica: 15-07-2023The study of informal international institutions has advanced considerably over the past decade. Much of this work, including our own, has approached this phenomenon from the perspective of rationalist institutionalism. Yet, existing work has also been criticized from several conceptual, theoretical, and empirical angles. The recent special issue of International Politics on the “cascading dynamics” of informality by Cooper et al. (Int Politics, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-022-00399-4) offers an important example of such critiques. It builds on earlier work in the field, advancing our understanding of a number of processes and institutions, but also partly casts itself as a reaction to the approach we have adopted. We argue that key aspects of this critique are misguided and that Cooper et al. exaggerate the differences that divide us. Our aim in this article is to respond to their criticisms, clarify the key research issues at stake, emphasize the complementarities among approaches, and outline ways of moving forward.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41311-023-00483-3InformalityInternational institutionsInformal intergovernmental organizationsSoft lawRational institutionalisminfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess