Respected individuals: when state representatives wield outsize influence in international organizations

Abstract

Abstract States are keen to send representatives to international organizations, instructing them to pursue national interests and monitor staff. Yet academics tend to ignore these individuals and approximate state influence by vote shares and other state-level attributes. Against this background, I examine when state representatives in international organizations wield outsize influence on decision-making. Based on scholarship of bureaucrats in international organizations, European studies and an interdisciplinary literature on negotiation, I argue that state delegates matter beyond their national affiliation. Empirically, I study one especially powerful institution in global governance: the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Elite interviews with IMF state representatives demonstrate that delegates carefully plan their interventions, behaving independently while also extending their constituents' interests. Based on the analysis of these interviews, I theorize ‘respected individuals’ to describe state representatives who can wield outsize influence on decision-making. Their prestige and impact depend on: first, perceived autonomy from their home governments; and second, relevant expertise, social skills and deliberative craft. In the IMF, respected individuals are most likely to represent relatively weak states; more generally, my work speaks to debates on the power of small states in international financial institutions and multilateral negotiations. Together, the findings explicate how individuals impact organizational decision-making, with important implications for practitioners in such institutions.