Abstract
Abstract The secretariats of international organizations (international public administrations [IPA s]) constitute the institutional grid of global governance. While recent research has provided valuable insights into the independent capacities of international organizations (IO s) and the influence of IPA s, we lack systematic knowledge of how scholars conceptualize the preferences of IO staff. This is lamentable because understanding the (unifying) motivations of “international civil servants” helps us to make sense of their behavior and influence during the adoption and application of IO policies. To review how IPA studies conceptualize the preferences of international bureaucrats, this article suggests a fourfold typology of ideal-typical bureaucratic behavior. It distinguishes between the underlying behavioral logic and dominant bureaucratic goal orientation. Applying the typology to thirty-nine journal articles allows us to map IPA preferences and behavior, and shows that the literature predominantly views IPA s as behaving responsibly and less self-centeredly than could be expected from economic accounts of bureaucracy.
Highlights
State interests have long been considered the only relevant force driving world politics
To review how international public administration (IPA) studies conceptualize the preferences of international bureaucrats, this article suggests a fourfold typology of ideal-typical bureaucratic behavior
The international organizations (IOs) literature remains divided over the questions of what individual international bureaucrats want and what drives their behavior as a social group
Summary
Even though it has been shown that UN agencies are becoming more reluctant to employ staff on permanent contracts,[14] the average number of people working in IOs has grown over time. Barnett and Finnemore identify five well-known bureaucratic pathologies: “the irrationality of rationalization, universalism, normalization of deviance, organizational insulation, and cultural contestation.”[26] while neoinstitutionalist accounts, based on a logic of expected consequences, do not necessarily expect shirking, they acknowledge that autonomous secretariats can reduce the negative external effects of self-interested preferences among individual member states. This requires mechanisms of control, to realign the individual interests and organizational mandates, and enable IPAs to foster solutions in the common interest. I discuss different conceptualizations of bureaucratic goal orientation from the perspective of domestic public administration research to adapt them to international bureaucracies
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