TY - JOUR
A1 - Busch, Per-Olof
T1 - The autonomy of international bureaucracies as agents of non-hierarchical policy transfers
JF - Politische Vierteljahresschrift : Zeitschrift der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft
N2 - International public administrations are increasingly perceived as autonomous actors prompting states to adopt policies without resorting to coercion or legal obligations. Starting from these observations, I determine abilities and characteristics of international public administrations that contribute to their autonomy as agents of non-hierarchical policy transfers. To this end, I draw on theoretical considerations and empirical results from policy transfer research. I find that the various abilities that contribute to this autonomy of international public administrations are essentially rooted in two structural characteristics: in as many states as possible their staff should (a) be present and (b) analyze the state, development and reform need of national policies on a regular basis.
KW - international organizations
KW - international bureaucracies
KW - autonomy
KW - policy transfer
Y1 - 2014
SN - 0032-3470
SN - 1862-2860
SP - 105
EP - +
PB - Nomos
CY - Hannover
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Fleischer, Julia
A1 - Reiners, Nina
T1 - Connecting international relations and public administration
BT - toward a joint research agenda for the study of international bureaucracy
JF - International studies review
N2 - The recent debate on administrative bodies in international organizations has brought forward multiple theoretical perspectives, analytical frameworks, and methodological approaches. Despite these efforts to advance knowledge on these actors, the research program on international public administrations (IPAs) has missed out on two important opportunities: reflection on scholarship in international relations (IR) and public administration and synergies between these disciplinary perspectives. Against this backdrop, the essay is a discussion of the literature on IPAs in IR and public administration. We found influence, authority, and autonomy of international bureaucracies have been widely addressed and helped to better understand the agency of such non-state actors in global policy-making. Less attention has been given to the crucial macro-level context of politics for administrative bodies, despite the importance in IR and public administration scholarship. We propose a focus on agency and politics as future avenues for a comprehensive, joint research agenda for international bureaucracies.
N2 - El reciente debate sobre los organismos administrativos en las organizaciones internacionales ha generado diversas perspectivas teóricas, marcos analíticos y enfoques metodológicos. A pesar de estos esfuerzos por mejorar el conocimiento sobre estos actores, el programa de investigación sobre las administraciones públicas internacionales (International Public Administration, IPA) ha perdido dos oportunidades importantes: la reflexión sobre la erudición en las relaciones internacionales y la administración pública y las sinergias entre estas perspectivas disciplinarias. Con este trasfondo, en el ensayo se analiza la literatura sobre las administraciones públicas internacionales en las relaciones internacionales y la administración pública. Descubrimos que la influencia, la autoridad y la autonomía de las burocracias internacionales se han abordado ampliamente y ayudaron a comprender mejor la función de dichos agentes no estatales en la formulación de políticas a nivel mundial. Se ha prestado menos atención al contexto clave a nivel macro de la política de los organismos administrativos, a pesar de su importancia en las relaciones internacionales y la erudición en la administración pública. Proponemos enfocarnos en la agencia y la política como futuras vías para implementar un programa de investigación conjunta y exhaustiva para las burocracias internacionales.
N2 - Le récent débat sur les organes administratifs des organisations internationales a mis en avant plusieurs perspectives théoriques, cadres analytiques et approches méthodologiques. Malgré ces efforts pour faire progresser la connaissance de ces acteurs, le Programme de recherche sur les administrations publiques internationales a manqué deux opportunités majeures : une réflexion sur les recherches en relations internationales et administration publique ainsi que sur les synergies entre ces perspectives des disciplines. Cet essai s'appuie sur cette toile de fond pour établir une discussion au sujet de la littérature abordant les administrations publiques internationales dans les domaines des relations internationales et de l'administration publique. Nous avons constaté que l'influence, l'autorité et l'autonomie des bureaucraties internationales avaient été largement abordées, ce qui permettait de mieux comprendre le pouvoir de tels acteurs non-étatiques dans l’établissement des politiques internationales. Toutefois, malgré son importance dans les recherches en relations internationales et administration publique, une moins grande attention a été accordée au contexte macro des politiques des organes administratifs alors qu'il est crucial. Nous proposons de mettre l'accent sur le pouvoir et les politiques comme pistes futures pour un programme de recherche conjoint complet sur les bureaucraties internationales.
KW - international bureaucracies
KW - international organizations
KW - public
KW - administration
KW - nonstate actors
KW - palabras clave
KW - burocracias internacionales
KW - organizaciones internacionales
KW - administración pública
KW - agentes no estatales
KW - mots clés
KW - bureaucraties internationales
KW - organisations internationales
KW - administration publique
KW - acteurs non-étatiques
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa097
SN - 1521-9488
SN - 1468-2486
VL - 23
IS - 4
SP - 1230
EP - 1247
PB - Oxford Univ. Press
CY - Oxford
ER -
TY - THES
A1 - Herold, Jana
T1 - International Bureaucracies as Governance Actors
BT - an assessment of national stakeholders' perspectives
N2 - This study assesses and explains international bureaucracies’ performance and role as policy advisors and as expert authorities from the perspective of domestic stakeholders. International bureaucracies are the secretariats of international organizations that carry out their work including generating knowledge, providing policy advice and implementing policy programs and projects. Scholars increasingly regard them as governance actors that are able to influence global and domestic policy making. In order to explain this influence, research has mainly focused on international bureaucracies’ formal features and/or staff characteristics. The way in which they are actually perceived by their domestic stakeholders, in particular by national bureaucrats, has not been systematically studied. Yet, this is equally important, given that they represent international bureaucracies’ addressees and are actors that (potentially) make use of international bureaucracies’ policy advice, which can be seen as an indicator for international bureaucracies’ influence. Accordingly, I argue that domestic stakeholders’ assessments can likewise contribute to explaining international bureaucracies’ influence.
The overarching research questions the study addresses are what are national stakeholders’ perspectives on international bureaucracies and under which conditions do they consider international bureaucracies’ policy advice? In answering these questions, I focus on three specific organizational features that the literature has considered important for international bureaucracies’ independent influence, namely international bureaucracies’ performance and their role as policy advisors and as expert authorities. These three features are studied separately in three independent articles, which are presented in Part II of this article-based dissertation.
To answer the research questions, I draw on novel data from a global survey among ministry officials of 121 countries. The survey captures ministry officials’ assessments of international bureaucracies’ features and their behavior with respect to international bureaucracies’ policy advice. The overall sample comprises the bureaucracies of nine global and nine regional international organizations in eight thematic areas in the policy fields of agriculture and finance.
The overall finding of this study is that international bureaucracies’ performance and their role as policy advisors and expert authorities as perceived by ministry officials are highly context-specific and relational. These features vary not only across international bureaucracies but much more intra-organizationally across the different thematic areas that an international bureaucracy addresses, i.e. across different thematic contexts. As far as to the relational nature of international bureaucracies’ features, the study generally finds strong variation across the assessments by ministry officials from different countries and across thematic areas. Hence, the findings highlight that it is likewise important to study international bureaucracies via the perspective of their stakeholders and to take account of the different thematic areas and contexts in which international bureaucracies operate.
The study contributes to current research on international bureaucracies in various ways. First, it directly surveys one important type of domestic stakeholders, namely national ministry officials, as to how they evaluate certain aspects of international bureaucracies instead of deriving them from their structural features, policy documents or assessments by their staff. Furthermore, the study empirically tests a range of theoretical hypotheses derived from the literature on international bureaucracies’ influence, as well as related literature. Second, the study advances methods of assessing international bureaucracies through a large-N, cross-national expert survey among ministry officials. A survey of this type of stakeholder and of this scope is – to my knowledge – unprecedented. Yet, as argued above, their perspectives are equally important for assessing and explaining international bureaucracies’ influence. Third, the study adapts common theories of international bureaucracies’ policy influence and expert authority to the assessments by ministry officials. In so doing, it tests hypotheses that are rooted in both rationalist and constructivist accounts and combines perspectives on international bureaucracies from both International Relations and Public Administration. Empirically supporting and challenging these hypotheses further complements the theoretical understanding of the determinants of international bureaucracies’ influence among national bureaucracies from both rationalist and constructivist perspectives.
Overall, this study advances our understanding of international bureaucracies by systematically taking into account ministry officials’ perspectives in order to determine under which conditions international bureaucracies are perceived to perform well and are able to have an effect as policy advisors and expert authorities among national bureaucracies. Thereby, the study helps to specify to what extent international bureaucracies – as global governance actors – are able to permeate domestic governance via ministry officials and, thus, contribute to the question of why some international bureaucracies play a greater role and are ultimately able to have more influence than others.
KW - international bureaucracies
KW - international organizations
KW - governance
KW - expert authority
KW - policy advice
KW - national ministries
KW - internationale Verwaltungen
KW - internationale Organisationen
KW - Governance
KW - Expertenautorität
KW - Politikempfehlungen
KW - nationale Ministerien
Y1 - 2019
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Hickmann, Thomas
A1 - Widerberg, Oscar
A1 - Lederer, Markus
A1 - Pattberg, Philipp H.
T1 - The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat as an orchestrator in global climate policymaking
JF - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration
N2 - Scholars have recently devoted increasing attention to the role and function of international bureaucracies in global policymaking. Some of them contend that international public officials have gained significant political influence in various policy fields. Compared to other international bureaucracies, the political leeway of the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has been considered rather limited. Due to the specific problem structure of the policy domain of climate change, national governments endowed this intergovernmental treaty secretariat with a relatively narrow mandate. However, this article argues that in the past few years, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat has gradually loosened its straitjacket and expanded its original spectrum of activity by engaging different sub-national and non-state actors into a policy dialogue using facilitative orchestration as a mode of governance. The present article explores the recent evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat and investigates the way in which it initiates, guides, broadens and strengthens sub-national and non-state climate actions to achieve progress in the international climate negotiations.
Points for practitioners
The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has lately adopted new roles and functions in global climate policymaking. While previously seen as a rather technocratic body that, first and foremost, serves national governments, the Climate Secretariat increasingly interacts with sub-national governments, civil society organizations and private companies to push the global response to climate change forward. We contend that the Climate Secretariat can contribute to global climate policymaking by coordinating and steering the initiatives of non-nation-state actors towards coherence and good practice.
KW - climate change
KW - environmental policymaking
KW - intergovernmental relations
KW - international bureaucracies
KW - sub-national and non-state actors
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852319840425
SN - 0020-8523
SN - 1461-7226
VL - 87
IS - 1
SP - 21
EP - 38
PB - Sage
CY - Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.]
ER -