The department of international relations examines international institutions and especially regional international organisations in comparative perspective. A major area of work focuses on the role that considerations of normative appropriateness, i.e., legitimacy, play in an international system dominated by power and interests. Current research addresses questions on the institutional design and legitimation of international organisations, their interaction and overlap as well as the politicisation of international cooperation. Ongoing research projects analyse the consequences of overlap for the authority of international organisations and the discursive self-legitimation of regional international organisations.