International bureaucracies and their influence on policy-making: a review of empirical evidence

Eckhard, Steffen; Ege, Jörn

doi:10.4324/9781315267128-2

Cited by 28 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…This perspective highlights the linkages between tools, strategies and both substantive IO policies and institutional policy, to understand how IPAs shape the design of IOs and influence policy‐making (cf. Eckhard and Ege, ). Finally, there is a growing understanding that it is necessary to move from the observation of individual IOs and their administrations to wider organizational domains and inter‐administrative relations between IOs and IPAs (Biermann and Siebenhüner, ; Dingwerth and Pattberg, ; Johnson, ; Vetterlein and Moschella, ).…”

Section: An Administrative Governance Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Resourcing International Organizations: Resource Diversification, Organizational Differentiation, and Administrative Governance

Goetz

Patz

2017

Global Policy

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This article introduces, summarizes and contextualizes the key questions and findings of a special issue of Global Policy on the resourcing of international organizations (IOs). The article sets out trends in the financial resources available to IOs; discusses their organizational consequences; and highlights analytical implications for the study of IOs. We discuss resource diversification associated with growing complexity of the origins and types of funding available to IOs; the importance of non-state actors in IO funding; and contestation over the classification of resources. Resource diversification encourages organizational differentiation, manifested in major shifts in resource-related actor constellations and their impact on the autonomy of IOs; adjustments to budgeting procedures; and functional differentiation within IOs and the emergence of new types of IOs that are partly driven by resourcing. These observations invite an analytical perspective in the study of IOs that pays systematic attention to the administrative governance dimension of IOs; the entrepreneurial character of many IOs; and organizational fields as a focus of analysis. Read together, the 11 contributions to the special issue underline that paying attention to their resourcing can advance our understanding of IOs.At a time when newly elected US President Donald Trump announces severe budget cuts to the United Nations system, the relevance of resourcing for the functioning of international organizations (IOs) can be in no doubt. It has long been recognized that access to financial and other resources is critical to the evolution of IOs and to the realization of their global policy ambitions (Wright, 1957). Complaints from the leadership of IOs about inadequate resources also have a long tradition, and the mismatch between IO mandates, as set by member states, and available resources to carry out those mandates effectively is a recurrent concern (see Annan, 1993, for the UN). Some IOs, such as the African Union (Engel, 2015) or UNRWA (Bocco, 2010) appear to suffer from chronic underfunding. Others have a long history of repeated funding 'crises', typically brought about by either the unexpected partial withholding of member state contributions (for the United Nations see Claude, 1964;Taylor, 1991; for UNESCO see H€ ufner, 2017;. In other cases, resource mismatch has been the result of unforeseen demands on IO budgets, as in the case of refugee crises or natural or man-made disasters (McDermott, 2000). In view of these challenges, the need to reform UN financing and resource politics has been recognized and many proposals have been put forward over the years (see Muttukumaru, 2016 for a present-day reform proposal).A central finding of this special issue is that there are several critical issues that matter when studying the resourcing of IOs, beyond the overall levels of funding available and the details of resource allocation. Among these issues are:(1) the mix of sources of funding, namely, who provides the finances of IOs; (2...

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Section: An Administrative Governance Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Resourcing International Organizations: Resource Diversification, Organizational Differentiation, and Administrative Governance

Goetz

Patz

2017

Global Policy

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“…Two criteria guide the case selection. First, the ten most regularly studied organizations in previous research on IPAs’ policy influence are selected in order to cover the most relevant organizations in world politics (see Eckhard and Ege , p. 965). Second, to better reflect the empirical diversity of the population, ten additional cases are selected to represent those types of organizations not sufficiently covered by the first criterion.…”

Section: Application Of the Typology: Case Selection And Operationalimentioning

confidence: 99%

“… Source : Author's compilation. ‘Scholarly attention’ is based on Eckhard and Ege (, p. 965); YIO classification is based on the Union of International Associations (, p. 25) Note : Three types of policy field are distinguished: security (SEC), economic regulation (ECO), and social and environmental regulation (SOC).…”

Section: Application Of the Typology: Case Selection And Operationalimentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing the autonomy of international public administrations: An ideal‐type approach

Ege

2017

Public Administration

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International Public Administrations (IPAs), that is, the secretariats of international organizations, are important actors in global governance. This article develops a new typology of IPAs that captures the potential influence of these bureaucratic bodies on international policy‐making. The main argument is that when conceptualizing the varying roles and potential policy impact of IPAs, it is useful to distinguish between their ability to develop autonomous preferences (autonomy of will) on the one hand, and their capacity to transform these preferences into action (autonomy of action) on the other. Based on this premise, the article introduces four distinct ideal‐types of international bureaucracies and suggests indicators to locate a diverse sample of 20 administrations within the four‐fold typology. The results reveal the empirical diversity of IPA autonomy and allow for a first empirical assessment of the factors behind this pattern.

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“…It is therefore important to not only focus on the power of the individual member states (Stone, ; Manulak, ; Urpelainen, ), but also the institutional design of the agent (Eckhard, ). Equally, researchers who study the policy‐making influence of international public administrations (Bauer et al., ; Eckhard and Ege, ; Hawkins et al., ; Johnson, ; Johnson and Uperlainen, ) should consider the possibility of informal lobbying.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contested Implementation: The Unilateral Influence of Member States on Peacebuilding Policy in Kosovo

Eckhard

Dijkstra

2017

Global Policy

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International organizations play an important role in policy implementation. As member states do not necessarily resolve political disagreements before delegating tasks, this article focuses on how individual member states seek to influence policy implementation by international organizations. It argues that the institutional context in which delegation takes place affects the opportunities for such unilateral influence. Particularly when the agent has considerable autonomy, implementation is likely to be a contested process. The article presents evidence on the implementation of peacebuilding policy by three international organizations in Kosovo after independence in 2008. Despite the fact that the member states within the UN, OSCE and EU fundamentally disagree on the legal status of Kosovo, the organizations have deployed substantial peacebuilding missions. The UN, OSCE and EU have, however, different institutional designs: implementing agents in the UN and OSCE have, by default, more autonomy than those in the EU. We analogously observe variation in how and to what extent member states exert unilateral influence during implementation of peacebuilding policy on the ground in Kosovo. Policy Implications• Policy implementation by international organizations can be as politically contested as the decision-making by member states. Rather than avoiding the delegation of policy implementation, states should seek to balance between who gains during decision-making and who gains during implementation.• Strong states have a disproportionate amount of influence over policy implementation. Weaker states should focus on the institutional constrains in which such unilateral influence plays out. This is an effective method of setting boundaries.• The stricter collective control mechanisms in international organizations, the less likely individual member states exert unwanted unilateral influence. States should, however, also recognize that strict collective control often comes at the expense of the quality of policy implementation.• The nitty-gritty institutional rules on staffing and budget allocation significantly affect how individual states can influence policy implementation by international organizations. States should be aware that these politics of bureaucratic resourcing can also undermine the quality of policy implementation.

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International bureaucracies and their influence on policy-making: a review of empirical evidence

Cited by 28 publications

References 1 publication

Resourcing International Organizations: Resource Diversification, Organizational Differentiation, and Administrative Governance

Resourcing International Organizations: Resource Diversification, Organizational Differentiation, and Administrative Governance

Comparing the autonomy of international public administrations: An ideal‐type approach

Contested Implementation: The Unilateral Influence of Member States on Peacebuilding Policy in Kosovo

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