The politics of crisis management by regional and international organizations in fighting against a global pandemic: the member states at a crossroads

Abstract

Despite new challenges like climate change and digitalization, global and regional organizations recently went through turbulent times due to a lack of support from several of their member states. Next to this crisis of multilateralism, the COVID-19 pandemic now seems to question the added value of international organizations for addressing global governance issues more specifically. This article analyses this double challenge that several organizations are facing and compares their ways of managing the crisis by looking at their institutional and political context, their governance structure, and their behaviour during the pandemic until June 2020. More specifically, it will explain the different and fragmented responses of the World Health Organization, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. With the aim of understanding the old and new problems that these international organizations are trying to solve, this article argues that the level of autonomy vis-a-vis the member states is crucial for understanding the politics of crisis management. Points for practitioners As intergovernmental bodies, international organizations require authorization by their member states. Since they also need funding for their operations, different degrees of autonomy also matter for reacting to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for international organizations is limited, though through proactive and bold initiatives, they can seize the opportunity of the crisis and partly overcome institutional and political constraints.

COVID‐19 and Policy Responses by International Organizations: Crisis of Liberal International Order or Window of Opportunity?

“…The authority of IOs is important in times of crisis because it determines where and how policy responses and decisions are made. This institutional setting, in turn, provides the opportunity structure which affects whether IOs can cope with or even benefit from COVID‐19 (van Hecke et al, 2021 ). Authority consists of two dimensions: the delegation and pooling of sovereignty (Hooghe et al, 2017 ).…”

Health crisis and the EU’s HERA: amplifying partial organizing with resourcing for stability, agility, and evolvability

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged international organizations, ranging from the European Union (EU) to the World Health Organization (Van Hecke et al 2021 ), posing questions about the nature of these organizations and their capabilities. The competencies of the EU in response to health crises are defined in its founding treaties.…”

“…Therefore, its ability to take action is particularly limited in the area of health care (Renda and Castro 2020 ), specifically in supporting national policies and encouraging coordination (Brooks and Geyer 2020 ). Indeed, there is criticism of the EU’s uncoordinated and ineffective response to the COVID-19 pandemic (Van Hecke et al 2021 ), but also hope that the “new building blocks of European Health Union”, including the founding of a new agency, the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), will add to the EU’s ability to cope with future crises. The founding of HERA is “carefully laying the groundwork for potential expansion of [EU’s] areas of activity, whilst avoiding formal treaty change” (Brooks and Geyer 2020 , p. 1073).…”

Policy recommendations of international bureaucracies: the importance of country-specificity

“…International bureaucracies also get involved in national debates outside of these regular programmes. For example, the World Bank gave policy advice during the COVID-19 pandemic (Van Hecke et al., 2021). Our concept of policy advice excludes more coercive means of influence by international bureaucracies.…”