@article{GehringDorschDoerfler2019,
  author    = {Gehring, Thomas and Dorsch, Christian and D{\"o}rfler, Thomas},
  title     = {Precedent and doctrine in organisational decision-making},
  series = {Journal of international relations and development},
  volume    = {22},
  journal   = {Journal of international relations and development},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan},
  address   = {Basingstoke},
  issn      = {1581-1980},
  doi       = {10.1057/s41268-017-0101-5},
  pages     = {107 -- 135},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {We examine how and under what conditions informal institutional constraints, such as precedent and doctrine, are likely to affect collective choice within international organisations even in the absence of powerful bureaucratic agents. With a particular focus on the United Nations Security Council, we first develop a theoretical account of why such informal constraints might affect collective decisions even of powerful and strategically behaving actors. We show that precedents provide focal points that allow adopting collective decisions in coordination situations despite diverging preferences. Reliance on previous cases creates tacitly evolving doctrine that may develop incrementally. Council decision-making is also likely to be facilitated by an institutional logic of escalation driven by institutional constraints following from the typically staged response to crisis situations. We explore the usefulness of our theoretical argument with evidence from the Council doctrine on terrorism that has evolved since 1985. The key decisions studied include the 1992 sanctions resolution against Libya and the 2001 Council response to the 9/11 attacks. We conclude that, even within intergovernmentally structured international organisations, member states do not operate on a clean slate, but in a highly institutionalised environment that shapes their opportunities for action.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{SommererSquatritoTallbergetal.2021,
  author    = {Sommerer, Thomas and Squatrito, Theresa and Tallberg, Jonas and Lundgren, Magnus},
  title     = {Decision-making in international organizations},
  series = {The review of international organizations},
  volume    = {17},
  journal   = {The review of international organizations},
  number    = {4},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {Boston},
  issn      = {1559-7431},
  doi       = {10.1007/s11558-021-09445-x},
  pages     = {815 -- 845},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {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.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Heinzel2022,
  author    = {Heinzel, Mirko Noa},
  title     = {Mediating power?},
  series = {The British journal of politics \& international relations : BJPIR},
  volume    = {24},
  journal   = {The British journal of politics \& international relations : BJPIR},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Sage},
  address   = {London},
  issn      = {1467-856X},
  doi       = {10.1177/1369148121992761},
  pages     = {153 -- 170},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {The selection of the executive heads of international organisations represents a key decision in the politics of international organisations. However, we know little about what dynamics influence this selection. The article focuses on the nationality of selected executive heads. It argues that institutional design impacts the factors that influence leadership selection by shaping the costs and benefits of attaining the position for member states' nationals. The argument is tested with novel data on the nationality of individuals in charge of 69 international organisation bureaucracies between 1970 and 2017. Two findings stand out: first, powerful countries are more able to secure positions in international organisations in which executive heads are voted in by majority voting. Second, less consistent evidence implies that powerful countries secure more positions when bureaucracies are authoritative. The findings have implications for debates on international cooperation by illustrating how power and institutions interact in the selection of international organisation executive heads.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Doerfler2022,
  author    = {D{\"o}rfler, Thomas},
  title     = {The effect of expert recommendations on intergovernmental decision-making},
  series = {International relations : the journal of the David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies},
  volume    = {36},
  journal   = {International relations : the journal of the David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies},
  number    = {2},
  publisher = {Sage},
  address   = {London},
  issn      = {0047-1178},
  doi       = {10.1177/00471178211033941},
  pages     = {237 -- 261},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {The article explores whether and to what extent expert recommendations affect decision-making within the Security Council and its North Korea and Iran sanctions regimes. The article first develops a rationalist theoretical argument to show why making many second-stage decisions, such as determining lists of items under export restrictions, subjects Security Council members to repeating coordination situations. Expert recommendations may provide focal point solutions to coordination problems, even when interests diverge and preferences remain stable. Empirically, the article first explores whether expert recommendations affected decision-making on commodity sanctions imposed on North Korea. Council members heavily relied on recommended export trigger lists as focal points, solving a divisive conflict among great powers. Second, the article explores whether expert recommendations affected the designation of sanctions violators in the Iran sanctions regime. Council members designated individuals and entities following expert recommendations as focal points, despite conflicting interests among great powers. The article concludes that expert recommendations are an additional means of influence in Security Council decision-making and seem relevant for second-stage decision-making among great powers in other international organisations.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{LundgrenSquatritoSommereretal.2023,
  author    = {Lundgren, Magnus and Squatrito, Theresa and Sommerer, Thomas and Tallberg, Jonas},
  title     = {Introducing the Intergovernmental Policy Output Dataset (IPOD)},
  series = {The review of international organizations},
  volume    = {19},
  journal   = {The review of international organizations},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {Boston},
  issn      = {1559-7431},
  doi       = {10.1007/s11558-023-09492-6},
  pages     = {117 -- 146},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {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.},
  language  = {en}
}