Abstract: Dysfunctional international organizations are anomalies in world politics. Neither rationalist nor constructivist attempts to explain their existence, persistence and growth have provided viable results, so far. However, beyond enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of international cooperation, less obvious functions of international organizations exist. Drawing on a primarily realist perspective, this study argues that states can use international organizations to obscure unwillingness to cooperate or solving common problems and diffuse responsibility or shift blame when commonly agreed upon solution do not work out as expected. In such situations, dysfunctions of international organizations might even be welcomed by states, because they provide obvious reasons for failure and make blame-shifting strategies more credible. This argument is explored in a case study of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) – a dysfunctional yet growing international organization. The case study argues that states have only a limited interest in cooperating on drug control matters at the international level. Co-existence rather than cooperation is the major aim states pursue. Because states do not want to leave the achieved state of co-existence, they are not interested in a strong and functioning international organization in the field. The growth of the organization can be almost exclusively attributed to the technical assistance projects of the UNODC. However, a closer look at a recent high-profile assistance project shows that even in the operative realm states are not interested in the success of the organizations. Much more, they use the UNODCs technical capabilities to obscure their unwillingness to cooperate substantially on drug control matters when their interests are only marginally affected. The study concludes that in the case of the UNODC blame-shifting by states is one of the main reasons for the UNODC’s budget growth despite its dysfunctions. Although it remains unclear to what extent this insight can be generalized to all dysfunctional international organizations, the mechanisms identified seem to provide viable explanations for other dysfunctional organizations operating under similar circumstances.