International Bureaucracies Research Articles

The Austrian hunger crisis and the genesis of international organization after the First World War

From its foundation in 1918, the new Austrian republic was gripped by famine and a crisis of confidence in its currency that threatened to tip the new state into hyperinflation and revolution. This article shows how western efforts to aid Austria combat famine and its financial crisis were linked, and how they had a profound impact on the new League of Nations, the world's first multi-purpose intergovernmental organization. It also demonstrates the importance of the incipient wartime international bureaucracy for League agency. Contrary to the expectations of its architects, member governments, international financiers, businessmen and economists began to see the League as a useful tool to meet common needs that today would be called the search for human security. The article demonstrates how the Austrian food and financial crisis was the founding moment in the institutionalization of international economic and financial coordination, cooperation and oversight. It established the Economic and Financial Organization of the League of Nations, whose work would later inform its successors, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Union. The study speaks to the ways in which the notion of security has broadened in the past two decades to embrace economic, social, political and environmental concerns. But the notion of ‘human security’ is not new; it was written into the body of the League.

International Bureaucrats and the Formation of Intergovernmental Organizations: Institutional Design Discretion Sweetens the Pot

AbstractBureaucrats working in international intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) regularly help states design new IGOs. Sometimes international bureaucrats possess limited discretion in institutional design; sometimes, they enjoy broad discretion. In fact, they gain discretion even when they openly oppose state preferences. This contravenes conventional thinking about delegation: discretion should decrease as preference divergence between states and international bureaucrats increases. We develop a principal-agent theory of how much discretion states grant to international bureaucrats in the design of new IGOs. This is novel: while principal-agent theories of international delegation are common, scholars have not analyzed principal-agent relationships in the creation of new IGOs. We argue that even an international bureaucracy that disagrees with states' design preferences may enjoy substantial design leeway, because of states' need for bureaucratic expertise. In developing this argument, we employ a formal principal-agent model, case studies, and an original data set.

Why bureaucracies matter in the global age: A post-Weberian explanation with the case study of preparing and implementing the United Nations’ An Agenda for Peace

This article will challenge the conventional wisdom according to which international bureaucracies are unviable and undesirable in the age of globalisation. The relevance and powers of today’s international bureaucracies can best be understood by reference to the model of the ‘network logic of globalisation’ rather than Max Weber’s classic theory alone. Bureaucracies are undergoing a transformation from the rigid and hierarchical institutions of Weber’s time to more network-oriented and delayered post-Weberian entities. On occasion, these post-Weberian structures allow middle-level officials in international organisations to wield considerable new bureaucratic powers. The case study of this article draws upon empirical evidence on the drafting and implementation of An Agenda for Peace (1992) by UN Secretariat officials and its contributions to the United Nations early warning and conflict prevention mechanism. The network-oriented structures and approaches have started to permeate the UN Organisation in two ways: First, the United Nations operates more and more through interdepartmental and interagency teams. This trend was evident already in the drafting and implementation processes of the Agenda. Second, the United Nations is reaching out to academic and civil society networks. The start of these two transformations of the UN bureaucracy is related to globalisation and can be seen already in action in the early 1990s when the Agenda was drafted.

Restructuring neoliberalism at the World Health Organization

ABSTRACT Most descriptions of the spread of neoliberal economic policies since the 1980s overlook the significant contribution of international organizations not only to the dissemination of these policies, but also to their making. The scholarship often regards international organizations as passive transmission belts that merely comply with the demands of their member-states. Scholars who do identify the constitutive role of international organizations consider them to be enthusiastic supporters of the neoliberal project. There were cases, however, when international organizations were opposed to neoliberal reforms imposed from above. This paper draws on the experience of the World Health Organization (WHO) to show that in the process of adapting to the emerging neoliberal regime, international bureaucracies actively restructured this regime in accordance with their own institutional cultures. Some neoliberal prescriptions were successfully transmitted, but others were transformed, with the result that the global regime was hardly monolithic and included elements that were introduced by the international bureaucracies themselves. In developing this argument, the paper identifies the adaptive strategies that allow international bureaucracies, in spite of their vulnerability to external forces, to incorporate their own organizational agendas into what has consequently become a more heterogeneous global neoliberal regime.

The Politics of Peacekeeping: UN Security Council Oversight Across Peacekeeping Missions

Why are some peacekeeping mandates broad and expansive while others are narrow and well defined? Does variation in mandate flexibility reflect the needs inherent in resolving the conflict or the political interests of powerful states? The modern thread of debate surrounding UN action focuses on whether the political interests of the Permanent Five (P5) members in the Security Council or the stated goals of the institution as a whole drive UN behavior. While most analyses focus on where the UN intervenes to assess the political “pull” that member states exert on the institution, we examine variation in operational latitude across UN peacekeeping in war-torn states. Our analysis offers three main results. Powerful states do constrain international bureaucracies; however, bureaucratic independence varies with the intrinsic interests of the P5. Further, heterogeneity across powerful state preferences systematically affects bureaucratic flexibility in peacekeeping.

Looking beyond States: Openings for international bureaucrats to enter the institutional design process

Surprisingly little research investigates a stark reality: the vast majority of today’s international intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) were crafted not by states alone, but with participation by international bureaucrats working in pre-existing IGOs. What explains this phenomenon? Drawing on international relations scholarship, this article develops predictions involving the capabilities of states, or a matter’s salience to states. The predictions are tested with a new and original dataset that captures, for the first time, variation in the roles that international bureaucrats play in the institutional design arena. Statistical analyses find that states’ need for expertise, as well as the design negotiations’ distance from high-politics, leave openings for international bureaucrats to enter institutional design processes. The findings enhance our understanding of institutional design, principal-agent relationships, non-state actors, and divisions of labor in contemporary global governance.

Institutional Design and Bureaucrats’ Impact on Political Control

Why do governmental institutions look as they do, and who controls them? International relations scholars often point to states. However, two-thirds of today’s intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) were created not by states alone, but with participation by international bureaucrats working in preexisting IGOs. International bureaucrats’ design activities can be modest or proactive. Meanwhile, their interests differ from states’ interests: insulating their organizational family from state intervention facilitates international bureaucrats’ pursuit of material security, legitimacy, and policy advancement. The more proactive the design activities of international bureaucrats, I argue, the more insulated the resulting institution will be from mechanisms of state control (e.g., financial monopolization or veto power). Statistical analyses of an original dataset support the prediction and are robust to alternative specifications as well as approaches to control for endogeneity. The implications—concerning institutional design, principal-agent relationships, bureaucratic autonomy, and democratic deficits—go far beyond international relations.

The European Commission and bureaucratic autonomy: Europe's custodians

This book examines the struggle of the European Union bureaucracy to maintain its autonomy in an increasingly complex institutional setting and adverse political environment. Using an original survey of nearly two hundred top European Commission officials, it shows that the Commission is a coherent organization that shares a common culture of supranationalism. The European Union's multicephalous structure of political authority limits the capacity of European politicians to curb the autonomy of the Commission but tends to undermine the legitimacy of the organization, which finds itself under persistent political attacks. These attacks inadvertently help the organization bolster its defenses against the external threats and trigger internal legitimation processes that reinforce the devotion of its employees to its institutional mission. The rich survey data show how Commission bureaucrats establish themselves as the 'custodians of Europe'. The book helps disentangle the complexity of the Commission and makes a contribution to the study of international bureaucracies, a topic that has received little attention.

The Industrial Organization of International Bureaucracies: National Chiefdoms within International Organizations

This paper presents a transaction cost-based theory of informal spheres of national influence. It is based on the assumption that sometimes diversity of interests among states, instead of impeding control, creates gains from exchange in terms of controlling different aspects of the international organization’s output. Drawing on distributive models of Congress, which show that rather than trading votes in an explicit market, legislators exchange property rights over their most preferred policy jurisdictions, it is argued that states sustain complex political exchanges by granting one another agenda control over their most preferred subdivisions within the international organization. As a result, these organizations exhibit informal spheres of national influence. The theory has two implications that the paper evaluates. First, member states grant one another agenda control over their most preferred subdivisions. Therefore, we would expect national chiefdoms to be controlled by preference outliers with strong interests in the subdivision’s policy. Second, since the existence of multiple dimensions and issues is a precondition for states to reap gains from political exchange, single-dimensional international organization provide fewer opportunities for these deals. Therefore, single-dimensional international organizations should be less likely to develop national chiefdoms than organizations that comprise multiple policy areas. The findings have important implications for the literature on international organization and Principal-Agent models in particular.

Reconstructing the Critically Damaged Health Service System of the Country

India's ruling class, in association with international agencies, bureaucrats, and business interests, has formed a powerful syndicate that has been imposing its will on the country to the detriment of public health. After gaining independence, India developed a body of knowledge suited to its social, cultural, economic, and epidemiological conditions. This led to an alternative approach to public health education, practice, and research that foreshadowed the Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care of 1978. In the early 1980s, global power shifts undermined national and international commitment to the Declaration. Wealthy countries' response to the declaration of self-reliance by economically disadvantaged countries was swift: an effort to suppress the Declaration's ideals in favor of an unscientific, market-driven agenda. As a result, public health practice in India virtually disappeared. Responding to growing restiveness among a population in need, political leaders have launched the foredoomed National Rural Health Mission and pursued an American brand of public health through the Public Health Foundation of India. Reconstructing the damaged public health system will require pressure on the syndicate to ensure India's public health heritage will be used to effectively transfer "People's health in people's hands" according to the guidelines set down at Alma Ata.

Unilateral Influence on International Bureaucrats

The conventional wisdom emphasizes agency slack or bias as the central problem of international delegation. I show that the possibility of a unilateral influence contest is equally problematic. States can exert unilateral influence on autonomous international bureaucrats, either through rewards or through punishments, to pursue their particular interests. A costly contest results, so some states could refuse to delegate because they expect others to be too influential. The analysis has four counterintuitive empirical implications. First, international agreements often favor institutionally weak states that are disadvantaged in the unilateral influence contest. Second, states could limit the autonomy of an international organization even if this prompts bad policies. Third, a state can sometimes profitably exchange distributional concessions for autonomy. Finally, constraints on unilateral influence are possible only if a disadvantaged state can credibly commit to compensating an advantaged state for it. A central broader contribution of the analysis is to show how power politics influences the rational design of international institutions.

The Soft Touch of IO Bureaucrats: A Public Choice View of International Regulation

The crafting of new international regulatory directives is often done within international organizations (IOs). This paper shows how a public choice framework can explain this trend. Models of bureaucracy are presented against which the conditions and incentives of international bureaucrats are contrasted. Politicians can benefit from cooperation with international bureaucrats to promote their political agenda while the latter has the incentives to pursue new projects to further personal goals. By issuing regulations, international bureaucracy and politicians alike can advance their career. The increase of soft law regulations has a high potential of success in this regard, which is why the spread of international norms, codes and principles is likely to continue.

Soft Law and Other Forms of International Public Authority – The View from Discourse Theory: A Reply to Jaye Ellis

When the editors of this journal asked me to write a comment on Jaye Ellis's paper, I was immediately fascinated by the prospect of engaging in a rigorous debate, perhaps one as controversial as that between Hans Kelsen and Eugen Ehrlich on legal scholarship and legal sociology about 100 years ago – although I am unable to reach the brilliance of those thinkers, and probably also their level of polemics.1 Now that I have read Jaye's paper, my expectations have somewhat changed. I realize that Jaye and I agree on many important points – points that would have brought large parts of the ‘invisible college’ up in arms a few decades ago. In particular, we agree that legal scholarship should find ways of dealing with the multiplicity of soft-law instruments that look like law because they consist of sometimes quite precise rules; that function like law because they effectively guide the behaviour of states, international organizations, and private entities; and that are therefore not adequately described as ethical, political, or moral rules. We also agree that the traditional concept of international law, which considers state consent as the one and only source of legitimacy, has come under stress since the advent of global governance, particularly because other actors like international bureaucracies or non-state entities play increasingly important, indispensable roles.

Cartelizing Taxes: Understanding the OECD’s Campaign against “Harmful Tax Competition”

Formed in 1961 to promote global economic and social well-being, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has become the collective voice of rich countries on international tax issues. After an initial focus on improving commerce through addressing double taxation issues, the organization shifted to a focus on restricting tax competition and increasing automatic exchanges of tax information. In this paper we analyze the reasons for this shift in policy focus. After describing the history of the OECD’s work on taxation, we examine the OECD’s project against “harmful tax competition” as it has played out since its launch in the 1990s. We analyze the mechanisms behind the project from a public choice perspective. While typical economic models portray tax competition as a prisoner’s dilemma between governments, a more powerful perspective is of the incentives of politicians and bureaucrats. We conclude that the project against tax competition is an example of the interplay between the interests of politicians and international bureaucrats. The OECD project illustrates the role that international organizations play in competition among interest groups. D. Paul Jones, Jr. & Charlene A. Jones Chairholder in Law and Professor of Business, University of Alabama; Research Scholar, Regulatory Studies Center, George Washington University; Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and Senior Fellow, Property & Environment Research Center, Bozeman, Montana. A.B. Princeton University; J.D., M.Pub.Aff., University of Texas; Ph.D. (Economics) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We thank James Bryce, Charlotte Ku, Richard Rahn, and Timothy Ridley for helpful comments. B.A. (Economics), Lund University; Ph.D. student (Economics), George Mason University. 2 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TAX LAW [Vol.4:1

Cartelizing Taxes: Understanding the OECD’s Campaign against “Harmful Tax Competition”

Formed in 1961 to promote global economic and social well-being, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has become the collective voice of rich countries on international tax issues. After an initial focus on improving commerce through addressing double taxation issues, the organization shifted to a focus on restricting tax competition and increasing automatic exchanges of tax information. In this paper we analyze the reasons for this shift in policy focus. After describing the history of the OECD’s work on taxation, we examine the OECD’s project against “harmful tax competition” as it has played out since its launch in the 1990s. We analyze the mechanisms behind the project from a public choice perspective. While typical economic models portray tax competition as a prisoner’s dilemma between governments, a more powerful perspective is of the incentives of politicians and bureaucrats. We conclude that the project against tax competition is an example of the interplay between the interests of politicians and international bureaucrats. The OECD project illustrates the role that international organizations play in competition among interest groups.

The OECD civil servant: Caught between Scylla and Charybdis1

ABSTRACT Civil servants in international secretariats are exposed to numerous, cross-cutting and, at times, conflicting pressures and expectations. The secretariat of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is no different. This study reveals a fundamental ‘misfit’ between external demands and internal dynamics in the OECD Secretariat. On one hand, the OECD analysts are employed on the basis of merit. Compared to the employees in the central administrations in many OECD member states, the OECD personnel are very competitive in terms of experience and academic skills. Thus, the OECD Secretariat can be seen as a veritable powerhouse of idea generation, data collection and analysis. On the other hand, the OECD member states seem to be reluctant to let the OECD do what it does best: produce bright, challenging and provocative ideas. In many regards, the OECD personnel are, in practice, being reduced to undertaking basic secretariat functions such as organizing meetings, writing summaries and arbitrating between conflicting national interests. Despite having a vast role repertoire of roles at their disposal, this article reveals the paradox when OECD officials play out only two roles: the epistemic role, in which creative thinking and innovation are rewarded, and the bureaucratic role, in which rule following and regularity are rewarded. This paradox is characterized as a role dilemma that is compatible with the idea of the OECD as an international compound bureaucracy. The article concludes by suggesting three scenarios of how the observed dissonance between the internal and external dimensions of the OECD identity can be accommodated.

Cartelizing Taxes: Understanding the OECD’s Campaign Against 'Harmful Tax Competition'

Formed in 1961 to promote global economic and social well-being, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has become the collective voice of rich countries on international tax issues. After an initial focus on improving commerce through addressing double taxation issues, the organization shifted to a focus on restricting tax competition and increasing automatic exchanges of tax information. In this paper we analyze the reasons for this shift in policy focus. After describing the history of the OECD’s work on taxation, we examine the OECD's project against “harmful tax competition” as it has played out since its launch in the 1990s. We analyze the mechanisms behind the project from a public choice perspective. While typical economic models portray tax competition as a prisoner’s dilemma between governments, a more powerful perspective is of the incentives of politicians and bureaucrats. We conclude that the project against tax competition is an example of the interplay between the interests of politicians and international bureaucrats, which illustrates the role international organizations play in competition among interest groups.

European administrative centre formation. Lessons from international bureaucracies

The strengthening of administrative powers is comprehensively documented within national governments. This article asks to what extent centre formation also happens within international bureaucracies. Based on a large body of data (N=121) within three international bureaucracies, this study adds two new observations: First, administrative centre formation is primarily observed inside the European Commission and only marginally within other international bureaucracies – such as the OECD and WTO Secretariats. Moreover, within the Commission, centre formation is primarily observed at the administrative centre (the General Secretariat) and only marginally within bureaucratic sub-units. Concomitantly, administrative centre formation, when observed, does not seem to profoundly penetrate and transform international bureaucracies writ large. Second, variation in centre formation both across and within international bureaucracies is associated with two often neglected variables in comparative government literature: (i) first, the accumulation of relevant organisational capacities at the executive centre, and second, the vertical and horizontal specialisation of international bureaucracies.

Searching for an Executive Head? Leadership and UNAIDS

Abstract Leadership is one of the central explanatory factors for change within international organizations yet is often sidelined as a part of wider social processes or understood in the context of domestic and managerial political agency. This article adopts one of the few understandings of leadership within international organization—Robert Cox's 1969 essay on the executive head—as an analytical model for understanding leadership within global HIV/AIDS governance. It does so by applying Cox's framework of analyzing the role of the executive head in relation to the international bureaucracy, member states, and the international system to the position of the former executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Peter Piot. The article argues that the role of leadership transcends the agency of simply opening up the black box of international organizations and is a realm of political knowledge and agenda-setting that is integral to the formation and subsequent longevity of ...

Marketing Linkages: Secretariat Governance of the Climate-Biodiversity Interface

In this article I argue that, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), led by its autonomously entrepreneurial Executive Secretary, influences overlap management by strategically linking biodiversity and climate change issues. Specifically, the Secretariat marketed (filtered, framed, and reiterated) strategic frames of the biodiversity-climate change interface that reframed biodiversity from a passive victim of climate impacts, to an active player in climate response measures (i.e. adaptation). This reframing is significant in that a major hurdle to selling the benefits of biodiversity conservation to countries with more pressing development concerns has been the perceived limited relevance of conservation to human well-being. In emphasizing biodiversity's role in human adaptation and security, the Secretariat has begun to shape member state discourse surrounding the biodiversity-climate change linkage. Ultimately aimed at enriching our emerging theoretical understanding of the role of international bureaucracies in global governance, this article illuminates: (1) how the Secretariat understands and manages biodiversity-climate linkages; (2) the origins of the Secretariat's understanding and activities surrounding this issue; and (3) how Secretariat participation in overlap management is beginning to influence CBD political processes and outcomes.