Making global public policy work: A survey of international organization effectiveness

Abstract

Do international organizations (IOs) actually help address global problems? This question is of major concern for global governance scholars and policy makers, yet few existing studies review issues of effectiveness across a range of different issue areas. This paper generates comparative insights on IO performance across seven policy domains, namely climate change, development, finance, investment, migration, security, and trade. Based on a detailed expert survey, we consider how key IOs in these issue areas perform across three different measures of effectiveness: constitutive effectiveness, compliance, and goal achievement. We also investigate causal claims on effectiveness, exploring how IO institutional design -and in particular measures of authority -influence their ability to shape policy outcomes. Taking stock of the distribution of authority across issue areas and policy functions, we ask whether highly formalized, deeply constraining institutional arrangements have a consistently stronger impact on state behaviour or whether less formalized institutions with fewer discretionary powers can also contribute to the effective implementation of internationally coordinated policies. Finally, we identify key cross-cutting challenges for global governance effectiveness, including political conflict and politicization, concerns related to legitimacy and representation, and growing problem complexity.

Analysing the performance of multilateral organizations facing major crises: Covid-19 in comparative perspective

“…The existing literature on the effectiveness of multilateral organizations is limited (Coen et al 2021), and the way in which this effectiveness is measured lacks an analytical reference framework that includes the different variables affecting the achievement of their objectives. According to existing studies, however, the ability to comply with the goals depends on both the powers attributed to them and the legal and economic instruments they have.…”

The organisational dimension of executive authority in the Global South: Insights from the AU and ECOWAS commissions

“…By using organisation theory, insights from the study may be used to set out design implications (see also Coen et al, 2022, p. 7). Insights into how organisational factors affect public governance is arguably a necessary precondition for using organisation theory to metagovern (Egeberg & Trondal, 2018).…”

“…Since the end of the Second World War, the rise of the executive authority of IOs worldwide has increased capacity for global problem‐solving but also challenged the sovereignty of nation‐states (Coen et al, 2022; Eilstrup‐Sangiovanni & Hofmann, 2020; Haas, 1964; Trondal, 2010). As public administration at the international level serves as a backbone to emerging supranational orders, that is, going beyond the nation‐state, scholars have become increasingly interested in understanding the scope of autonomy of international public administration (IPA), which is the executive arm of IOs (Barnett & Finnemore, 2004; Bauer et al, 2019; Cox & Jacobson, 1973; Fleischer & Reiners, 2021; Haas, 1964; Heady, 1998; Herold et al, 2021; Knill & Bauer, 2016; Marcussen & Trondal, 2011; Ness & Brechin, 1988; Stone & Moloney, 2019; Thorvaldsdottir et al, 2021).…”

Public Health Policy Monitoring through Public Perceptions: A Case of COVID-19 Tweet Analysis

“…This platform's objective is to elucidate the public perception of COVID-19 health policies as an indirect indicator of policy impact in a near-real-time manner. This platform has an advantage over the traditional policy outcomes assessment or impact study methods, which involve well-designed surveys or observational data collected over a long period of time [4]. In contrast, this platform continuously collects citizen-generated Twitter data about health policies and analyzes their sentiments and concern levels expressed about each policy.…”