The Politics of Change: The Evolution of UN Electoral Services, 1989–2006

Schroeder, Michael Bluman

doi:10.1163/19426720-01902004

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Intergovernmental paralysis incentivizes agents with a stake in the IO to tolerate higher risks and pay higher costs to enact changes deemed necessary to keep the IO functioning (Loescher ). Further, intergovernmental paralysis empowers actors well positioned to implement informal change—such as bureaucratic actors that can reinterpret existing rules and occasionally deviate from existing practice (Barnett and Finnemore ; Schroeder ). Finally, these actors find it easier to direct change in instances where a small subset of the membership does not control key resources.…”

Section: The Executive Head: Institutional Autonomy and Authoritymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While crises enable an EH to take exceptional action, these exceptions may set a precedent when members find the action valuable and the head develops criteria to justify the deviation from established practice—criteria that the head and his supporters can use to identify other situations that warrant further exceptional action (Schroeder ). As exceptions accumulate, members perceive deviant actions as increasingly normal and in some instances authorize new organizational structures that routinize and legitimate a new practice (Vaughan ; Barnett and Finnemore ; Schroeder ). At the UN, Hammarskjold did more than take exceptional action; he also justified his actions in general terms (Zacher ; Urquhart ).…”

Section: Io Executive Leadership and Organizational Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Executive Leadership in the Study of International Organization: A Framework for Analysis

Schroeder¹

2014

Int Stud Rev

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What can the scholarship on global international organizations (IOs) tell us about the contributions of the executive head (EH) to organizational change? The empirics of IO studies frequently credit EHs with important changes, but these studies seldom consider EHs separate from the rest of the bureaucracy and thus make few theoretical claims about them. Consequently, it is difficult to assess whether this credit is warranted and why some heads are given more credit than others. This article argues that heads, such as World Bank President Robert McNamara and United Nations Secretary‐General Dag Hammarskjold, were influential because they did not just channel state and bureaucratic demands but made political choices that contributed to organizational adaptation. To make this argument, it draws on sociological institutionalist and constructivist scholarship on IO and leadership to develop an analytical framework where IO adaptation is linked to the EH's performance of two tasks commonly associated with executive leadership: defining a strategic plan and mobilizing support to implement that plan. However, it adds that when environmental constraints are severe, the conventional “follower‐oriented” mobilization strategies found in leadership studies are less viable. Instead, EHs can adopt an “opposition‐oriented” one intended to prevent the opposition from mobilizing while incrementally implementing key reforms.

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Section: The Executive Head: Institutional Autonomy and Authoritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Io Executive Leadership and Organizational Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%