Performance Of International Organizations Research Articles

Evaluating crisis response speed of international organisations: why it matters and how to achieve it

ABSTRACT Armed conflicts, pandemics or natural disasters often necessitate rapid, coordinated responses by international organisations (IOs) to avoid escalation or loss of life. However, effective analytical tools to assess and compare the speed of these responses are lacking. This paper introduces a framework for evaluating IO crisis response speed, with the aim of better understanding which IOs are best equipped to offer rapid crisis responses and which are not. I propose a three-stage model that measures the time for IOs to (a) recognise a crisis, (b) decide on measures and (c) implement these measures, while also accounting for variations in levels of precision and obligation. Using empirical insights from the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, I demonstrate how this model can generate data that can improve our understanding of the performance of IOs as crisis managers and foster discussions on enhancing the speed and efficiency of multilateral responses during crises.

Core funding and the performance of international organizations: Evidence from UNDP projects

AbstractScholarship on the administration of international organizations (IOs) has extensively discussed how autonomy influences their performance. While some argue that autonomy increases performance through greater adaptability, others warn that it may increase the risk of agency slack. Authors typically distinguish between three types of performance: output, outcome, and impact performance. We focus on core funding as a key source of IO autonomy and argue that projects with more core funding show decreased output performance but an increased outcome and impact performance. Our empirical analysis relies on results from data on up to 3590 development projects run by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 128 recipient countries between 2004 and 2020. Subsequently, we test the impact of more core funding on project volumes (output performance), objectives achieved in individual projects (outcome performance), and their effects on sub‐national human development in project regions (impact performance). Our findings suggest that, although reliance on core resources is associated with lower output performance (less funding), it may result in stronger outcome and impact performance, as reflected by more objectives achieved and a higher sub‐national HDI where UNDP projects are implemented. Our findings have important implications for debates on the effectiveness of global governance.

Earmarked Funding and the Performance of International Organizations: Evidence from Food and Agricultural Development Agencies

Abstract How do funding structures affect the performance of international organizations (IOs)? Considering the rapid growth of earmarked funding over the past decade, the need to address this question has become a matter of urgency. To answer this question, I divide IO performance into outcome performance (i.e., achieving results that are relevant and sustainable) and process performance (i.e., having systems, rules, and practices that enable IOs to achieve self-defined goals effectively, efficiently, and responsively). Drawing on the principal−agent framework and studies of organizational behavior, I derive expectations about how earmarked funding can affect those performance dimensions. To empirically examine these expectations, I rely on qualitative case studies of three major IOs in food and agricultural development—Food and Agricultural Organization, International Fund for Agricultural Development, and World Food Program—using semi-structured interviews with IO staff and evaluation reports from multiple sources. I find that earmarked funding undermines performance, albeit not uniformly across performance areas and organizational contexts. I highlight the need for future research that considers how funding structures, institutional structures, and organizational behavior interact to affect organizational performance.

When are International Organizations Responsive to Policy Problems?

Abstract When are international organizations (IOs) responsive to the policy problems that motivated their establishment? While it is a conventional assumption that IOs exist to address transnational challenges, the question of whether and when IO policy-making is responsive to shifts in underlying problems has not been systematically explored. This study investigates the responsiveness of IOs from a large-n, comparative approach. Theoretically, we develop three alternative models of IO responsiveness, emphasizing severeness, dependence, and power differentials. Empirically, we focus on the domain of security, examining the responsiveness of eight multi-issue IOs to armed conflict between 1980 and 2015, using a novel and expansive dataset on IO policy decisions. Our findings suggest, first, that IOs are responsive to security problems and, second, that responsiveness is not primarily driven by dependence or power differentials but by problem severity. An in-depth study of the responsiveness of the UN Security Council using more granular data confirms these findings. As the first comparative study of whether and when IO policy adapts to problem severity, the article has implications for debates about IO responsiveness, performance, and legitimacy.

Introducing the Intergovernmental Policy Output Dataset (IPOD)

There is a growing recognition that international organizations (IOs) formulate and adopt policy in a wide range of areas. IOs have emerged as key venues for states seeking joint solutions to contemporary challenges such as climate change or COVID-19, and to establish frameworks to bolster trade, development, security, and more. In this capacity, IOs produce both extraordinary and routine policy output with a multitude of purposes, ranging from policies of historic significance like admitting new members to the more mundane tasks of administering IO staff. This article introduces the Intergovernmental Policy Output Dataset (IPOD), which covers close to 37,000 individual policy acts of 13 multi-issue IOs in the 1980–2015 period. The dataset fills a gap in the growing body of literature on the comparative study of IOs, providing researchers with a fine-grained perspective on the structure of IO policy output and data for comparisons across time, policy areas, and organizations. This article describes the construction and coverage of the dataset and identifies key temporal and cross-sectional patterns revealed by the data. In a concise illustration of the dataset’s utility, we apply models of punctuated equilibria in a comparative study of the relationship between institutional features and broad policy agenda dynamics. Overall, the Intergovernmental Policy Output Dataset offers a unique resource for researchers to analyze IO policy output in a granular manner and to explore questions of responsiveness, performance, and legitimacy of IOs.

The performance of international organizations: a new measure and dataset based on computational text analysis of evaluation reports

International organizations (IOs) of the United Nations (UN) system publish around 750 evaluation reports per year, offering insights on their performance across project, program, institutional, and thematic activities. So far, it was not feasible to extract quantitative performance measures from these text-based reports. Using deep learning, this article presents a novel text-based performance metric: We classify individual sentences as containing a negative, positive, or neutral assessment of the evaluated IO activity and then compute the share of positive sentences per report. Content validation yields that the measure adequately reflects the underlying concept of performance; convergent validation finds high correlation with human-provided performance scores by the World Bank; and construct validation shows that our measure has theoretically expected results. Based on this, we present a novel dataset with performance measures for 1,082 evaluated activities implemented by nine UN system IOs and discuss avenues for further research.

Porous organizational boundaries and associated states: introducing memberness in international organizations.

The current binary understanding of membership in international organizations (IOs), especially regional organizations (ROs), creates blind spots and biases in our understanding of who matters in IOs, as well as why and how they matter. Existing scholarship primarily looks at full member-states or non-state actors to capture who influences such organizations. Associated states are often portrayed as passive receivers of IO rules instead of active contributors. We address this blind spot and resulting analytical bias by exploring what types of association relationships exist and how they impact IOs. We propose a novel conceptualization of membership that we call memberness. On the level of IOs, memberness is based on the relative openness of organizational boundaries and stratified access via material and ideational contributions. On the level of states, memberness captures associated states' individual choices to contribute materially and/or ideationally to an IO. Memberness moves away from a purely rights-based understanding of membership (or who you are in an IO) to include a capacity-based understanding (or what you do in an IO). This shift in focus uncovers new channels of influence on IOs. Associated states' material and ideational contributions to IOs constitute three memberness types: payroller, sponsor, and advisor. We argue that these memberness types impact IOs' vitality, design, and performance in previously unrecognized ways. We illustrate these types with empirical examples from ROs across the globe and discuss the implications of memberness for IO research programs.

International Organizations and Global Problem‐Solving: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of the Impact of Autonomy, Experience, and Financial Resources on Achieving Objectives

AbstractWe examine the role of autonomy in the achievement (or non‐achievement) of the objectives of international organizations (IOs). Using a configurational approach, we theorize four scenarios related to autonomy, with regards to the experience and financial resources available to IOs. Our results, based on a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) applied to 20 IOs in the United Nations (UN) system, demonstrate that autonomy can be a condition for both the success or the failure of an IO. Our study calls for the development of a systems theory of IO performance that takes into account the interdependence of conditions and the equifinality of solutions that explain the success (or failure) of these organizations in the pursuit of their mission.

Les organisations internationales et la résolution des problèmes mondiaux: Une analyse qualitative quantitative comparée de l'impact de l'autonomie, de l'expérience et des ressources financières sur leur capacité à atteindre leurs objectifs

AbstractWe examine the role autonomy plays for International Organisations (IO) in achieving their objectives. Using a configurational approach, we theorize four scenarios of the impact of autonomy in relation to their experience and the financial resources at their disposal. Our results, based on a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) applied to 20 IOs of the United Nations (UN) system, demonstrate that autonomy can be a condition for both the success or the failure of an IO. Our research calls for the development of a systems theory of the performance of IOs that considers the interdependence of conditions and the equifinality of solutions that explain the success (the failure) of organizations in the pursuit of their mission.

Making global public policy work: A survey of international organization effectiveness

AbstractDo international organizations (IOs) actually help address global problems? This question is of major concern for global governance scholars and policy makers, yet few existing studies review issues of effectiveness across a range of different issue areas. This paper generates comparative insights on IO performance across seven policy domains, namely climate change, development, finance, investment, migration, security, and trade. Based on a detailed expert survey, we consider how key IOs in these issue areas perform across three different measures of effectiveness: constitutive effectiveness, compliance, and goal achievement. We also investigate causal claims on effectiveness, exploring how IO institutional design – and in particular measures of authority – influence their ability to shape policy outcomes. Taking stock of the distribution of authority across issue areas and policy functions, we ask whether highly formalized, deeply constraining institutional arrangements have a consistently stronger impact on state behaviour or whether less formalized institutions with fewer discretionary powers can also contribute to the effective implementation of internationally coordinated policies. Finally, we identify key cross‐cutting challenges for global governance effectiveness, including political conflict and politicization, concerns related to legitimacy and representation, and growing problem complexity.

Collaboration, cooperation, coordination: a history of the Bretton Woods twins’ efforts to work together

Why and how international organizations (IOs) collaborate, cooperate and coordinate (the 3Cs) are important but understudied issues in international political economy today. The three terms are rarely defined in the IR literature or by the IOs themselves and are often used interchangeably. However, the differences matter in terms of when, how and why staff of different IOs are expected to work together, and whether and how such efforts contribute to IO performance. This article develops the concepts of the 3Cs, drawing from work in the public administration, management and organizational design fields. It illustrates ways in which the differences matter by examining the history of efforts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to work together. The two Bretton Woods siblings were explicitly designed to be complementary partners at the apex of the post-World War II global economic order. I argue that formal collaboration efforts between the Fund and the Bank took place through at least 25 attempts by the two institutions to define how to work together, and may be categorized into four different, sometimes overlapping approaches, from basic information sharing to fully engaged joint initiatives. What they have called ‘collaboration’ is in fact a range of engagement. Efforts by the Fund and Bank to work more closely together have been an ongoing struggle, driven by unavoidable institutional overlap, which intensified at times of systemic change and external shock. This case is important to the study of how IOs work together, given these institutions have a unique relationship and may be seen as a most-likely case of successful collaboration.

Time and space in the study of international organizations: An introduction

AbstractIn the study of international organizations (IOs), time and space have mostly been approached as contextual, even implicit and unrelated, factors. Instead this special issue considers them as co‐constitutive of multilateralism and investigates three main questions: (i) How are IOs influenced by time and space? (ii) How are time and space experienced within IOs? (iii) How do IOs influence time and space around them? This introductory article compiles the contributions’ findings and points to a cyclical process: IOs are influenced by the spatiotemporal conditions of their enactment, leading to a diversity of practices and experiences within these organizations which in turn impact time and space, both in the way they are conceptualized and in their concrete embodiment. The special issue has proven the merit of taking time and space seriously in the study of IOs. This article concludes with a series of (non‐exhaustive) research avenues to continue this promising analytical and empirical endeavor, including discussions on the relationship between IO performance and time and space, and the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Decision-making in international organizations: institutional design and performance

International organizations (IOs) experience significant variation in their decision-making performance, or the extent to which they produce policy output. While some IOs are efficient decision-making machineries, others are plagued by deadlock. How can such variation be explained? Examining this question, the article makes three central contributions. First, we approach performance by looking at IO decision-making in terms of policy output and introduce an original measure of decision-making performance that captures annual growth rates in IO output. Second, we offer a novel theoretical explanation for decision-making performance. This account highlights the role of institutional design, pointing to how majoritarian decision rules, delegation of authority to supranational institutions, and access for transnational actors (TNAs) interact to affect decision-making. Third, we offer the first comparative assessment of the decision-making performance of IOs. While previous literature addresses single IOs, we explore decision-making across a broad spectrum of 30 IOs from 1980 to 2011. Our analysis indicates that IO decision-making performance varies across and within IOs. We find broad support for our theoretical account, showing the combined effect of institutional design features in shaping decision-making performance. Notably, TNA access has a positive effect on decision-making performance when pooling is greater, and delegation has a positive effect when TNA access is higher. We also find that pooling has an independent, positive effect on decision-making performance. All-in-all, these findings suggest that the institutional design of IOs matters for their decision-making performance, primarily in more complex ways than expected in earlier research.

Delegation and stewardship in international organizations

ABSTRACT International organizations (IOs) are driven by political-administrative interactions between member states and IO administrations. To model these interactions and understand their outcomes, scholars have predominantly, and almost exclusively, relied on agency theory. Yet, as this paper argues, delegation can also take a form of stewardship, where goal conflict and information asymmetries are low. In stewardship relationships, member states trust the IO administration, which enables softer, more informal exercise of control. Both agency and stewardship relationships are illustrated in a comparative case study of FAO and WFP. As interview data and document analysis show, while FAO exhibits agency, WFP provides an example for stewardship. The findings imply that conventional Principal-Agent assumptions should not be taken as given. Not all IO administrations are self-serving agents. The findings also provide implications on IO control and performance and call for scholarship to redirect its focus on de facto rather than de jure IO characteristics.

LA PANDEMIA: LA GLOBALIZACIÓN, EL ROL DEL ESTADO Y DE LOS REGÍMENES INTERNACIONALES

La crisis generada por la pandemia y la crisis económica consecuente evidencia lacentralidad de la acción del Estado en la confrontación de estas amenazas globales asícomo su rol superior en el desempeño de los organismos internacionalescorrespondientes. Ello indica que el multilateralismo depende de estas unidades políticasy no al revés todavía. La crisis también evidencia la necesidad de reformar la mayoría delos regímenes internacionales involucrados en su confrontación para fortalecer susfunciones y ampliarlas sin implicar reformas integrales de ellos. Además, la naturalezaglobal de la pandemia ha evidenciado la importancia de la geografía en su seguimiento.Como consecuencia se requiere replantear la muy ambigua definición de globalizaciónque pretende desvincular los procesos globales de su base territorial

Heterogeneous Partnerships in a Fragile Environment: The Performance of International Organizations

Heterogeneous Partnerships in a Fragile Environment: The Performance of International Organizations

Lost in internal evaluation? Accountability and insulation at the World Bank

ABSTRACTOver past decades, the World Bank has been criticized by scholars, policymakers, and civil society groups for being unaccountable and inefficient. Confronted with this wave of contestation, the Bank established several internal accountability mechanisms, including the Inspection Panel, the Independent Evaluation Group, and the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman. Against this background, this article investigates how the proliferation of accountability mechanisms in a large and complex organization such as the World Bank reduces rather than enhances transparency and lines of accountability. I argue that the establishment of a myriad of accountability mechanisms has paradoxically made the Bank even more encapsulated and less accountable to the outside world. Unpacking the differential effects of external and internal accountability mechanisms makes this contribution of significant interest to scholars working on the accountability and performance of international organizations.

The performance of international organizations: a policy output approach

ABSTRACTMany problems confronting today’s societies are transnational in character, leading states to increasingly rely on international organizations (IOs) for policy solutions. Yet, the performance of IOs varies extensively. This contribution suggests that systematic, comparative research is required to advance our understanding of IO performance, and that a policy output approach offers particular advantages for that purpose. This approach privileges the results IOs produce in terms of policies, and is distinct from the main alternative approaches to IO performance, emphasizing either behavioural change by targets (policy outcome) or problem-solving effectiveness (policy impact). The contribution introduces a typology that captures five generic features of policy – volume, orientation, type, instrument and target – and explains how these dimensions may be used to map the output and assess the performance of IOs. The contribution concludes by discussing what methods and theories may be most useful in explaining policy output, as the research agenda on IO performance advances.

Conflict management capabilities of peace-brokering international organizations, 1945–2010: A new dataset

The expectation that international organizations (IOs) can play a role in the resolution of violent conflict has spawned a process of institutional growth in the post-Second World War period. IOs at all levels have expanded existing instruments of conflict management and have gradually established new ones, such as mediation support units, early warning systems and standby military forces. Empirical research on this process has suffered from a lack of systematic, cross-temporal data. Seeking to rectify this weakness, this article introduces an original dataset on the institutional design of 21 peace-brokering IOs, organizations endowed with standing capabilities for conflict management interventions. The dataset contains yearly observations on 14 institutional variables during the 1945–2010 period, centered around three instruments of IO conflict management: mediation, economic sanctions and peacekeeping. It also includes observations on IO membership characteristics, power polarity and a set of security-related institutional features. This dataset provides scholars with a new source of variables for the study of institutional evolution, institutional heterogeneity and the impact of institutional characteristics on IO performance. A preliminary descriptive analysis shows that IOs display significant variation in terms of mandates, capabilities and rates of change. Using the data, I also perform a re-appraisal of an earlier study on IO dispute resolution, demonstrating the analytic benefits of having disaggregated measures of institutional design.

Accountability in Global Governance: Civil Society Claims for Environmental Performance at the World Bank

International organizations frequently lack accountability to both states and civil society groups. States often face difficulties monitoring the actions of international organizations. Civil society groups do not often enjoy direct influence over decision-making within international organizations. To address these challenges, states have created accountability mechanisms for international organizations. Accountability mechanisms allow civil society groups to submit complaints about the performance of international organizations. They take the form of ombudsmen offices, accountability panels, and complaint procedures. Little is known about when and why these mechanisms constrain behavior by international organizations that runs counter to the mutual interests of states and civil society groups. Using the World Bank Inspection Panel as a test case, I show that monitoring by civil society groups alters lending at the World Bank when it enhances oversight by powerful states. By combining their abilities in sanctioning and monitoring, states and civil society groups can promote accountability at international organizations.