TY - JOUR
A1 - Herold, Jana
A1 - Liese, Andrea
A1 - Busch, Per-Olof
A1 - Feil, Hauke
T1 - Why national ministries consider the policy advice of international bureaucracies
BT - survey evidence from 106 countries
JF - International studies quarterly : the journal of the International Studies Association
N2 - Scholars of international relations and public administration widely assume that international bureaucracies, in their role as policy advisors, directly influence countries' domestic policies. Yet, this is not true across the board. Why do some countries closely consider the advice of international bureaucracies while others do not? This article argues that international bureaucracies' standing as sources of expertise is crucial. We tested this argument using data from a unique survey that measured prevalent practices of advice utilization in thematically specialized policy units of national ministries in a representative sample of more than a hundred countries. Our findings show that ministries' perceptions of international bureaucracies' expertise, that is, specialized and reliable knowledge, are the key factor. International bureaucracies influence national ministries directly and without the support of other actors that may also have an interest in the international bureaucracies' policy advice. Our analysis also demonstrates that the effects of alternative means of influence, such as third-party pressure and coercion, are themselves partly dependent on international bureaucracies' reputation as experts. The findings presented in this article reinforce the emphasis on expertise as a source of international bureaucracies' influence, and provide a crucial test of its importance.
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqab044
SN - 0020-8833
SN - 1468-2478
VL - 65
IS - 3
SP - 669
EP - 682
PB - Oxford Univ. Press
CY - Oxford
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - The Power of Global Performance Indicators. Edited by Judith G. Kelley and Beth A. Simmons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 450p. $120.00 cloth.
JF - Perspectives on politics / American Political Science Association
Y1 - 2022
SN - 978-1-108-48720-7
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592721003716
SN - 1537-5927
SN - 1541-0986
VL - 20
IS - 1
SP - 380
EP - 382
PB - Cambridge Univ. Press
CY - Cambridge
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Liese, Andrea
A1 - Herold, Jana
A1 - Feil, Hauke
A1 - Busch, Per-Olof
T1 - The heart of bureaucratic power
BT - Explaining international bureaucracies’ expert authority
JF - Review of international studies : RIS
N2 - Expert authority is regarded as the heart of international bureaucracies' power. To measure whether international bureaucracies' expert authority is indeed recognised and deferred to, we draw on novel data from a survey of a key audience: officials in the policy units of national ministries in 121 countries. Respondents were asked to what extent they recognised the expert authority of nine international bureaucracies in various thematic areas of agricultural and financial policy. The results show wide variance. To explain this variation, we test well-established assumptions on the sources of de facto expert authority. Specifically, we look at ministry officials' perceptions of these sources and, thus, focus on a less-studied aspect of the authority relationship. We examine the role of international bureaucracies' perceived impartiality, objectivity, global impact, and the role of knowledge asymmetries. Contrary to common assumptions, we find that de facto expert authority does not rest on impartiality perceptions, and that perceived objectivity plays the smallest role of all factors considered. We find some indications that knowledge asymmetries are associated with more expert authority. Still, and robust to various alternative specifications, the perception that international bureaucracies are effectively addressing global challenges is the most important factor.
KW - Expert Authority
KW - International Bureaucracies
KW - International
KW - Organisations
KW - Neutrality
KW - Performance
KW - Survey
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S026021052100005X
SN - 0260-2105
SN - 1469-9044
VL - 47
IS - 3
SP - 353
EP - 376
PB - Cambridge Univ. Press
CY - Cambridge
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Busch, Per-Olof
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - The authority of international public administrations
JF - International Bureaucracy: Challenges and Lessons for Public Administration Research
N2 - This chapter takes stock with the research on the authority of international organizations (IOs) and international public administrations (IPAs) in the fields of International Relations (IR) and Public Administration (PA). It combines arguments from conceptual and theoretical debates with empirical findings to explore under which conditions IPAs are likely to enjoy authority. Based on a review of the literature and on conceptual clarifications, we define authority as a social relationship between holders and granters of authority. We distinguish two types of authority, namely, political and expert authority, and two forms of recognition, namely, in practice (de facto) and by formal delegation (de jure). Given that the de facto expert authority of IPAs has received least attention in the literature, while the PA literature reminds us that knowledge lies at the heart of bureaucratic power, we develop propositions on how de facto expert authority could be measured and how the anticipated variation of expert authority among IPAs could be explained. We illustrate our argument with reference to empirical findings in the IR and PA literature. We conclude by highlighting the implications of our discussion for future research on the authority of national and IPAs.
Y1 - 2016
SN - 978-1-349-94977-9
SN - 978-1-349-94976-2
SN - 978-1-349-95692-0
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94977-9_5
SP - 97
EP - 122
PB - Palgrave Macmillan, London
CY - Basingstoke
ER -
TY - CHAP
A1 - Liese, Andrea
A1 - Heinzel, Mirko Noa
ED - Knill, Christoph
ED - Steinebach, Yves
T1 - Reputation and influence
T2 - International public administrations in global public policy
N2 - International public administrations (IPAs) are collective bodies within international organizations (IOs) made up of international civil servants that support the intergovernmental bodies and member states. Over the last decade, research on these bodies has “gained substantial momentum”. Comparative assessments of IPAs reputation among stakeholders are rare. The literature on the sociological legitimacy of IOs is most advanced in this respect. A comparative agenda on IPAs reputation for expertise or neutrality is still in its infancy. Research has shown that different stakeholders view the same IPA quite differently. Reputation is a crucial concept in political science and IR research and has been widely used to predict states’ future behavior, notably regarding cooperation and conflict. IPAs seem to vary substantially in their reputation for expertise among critical interlocutors. In financial policy, several prominent IPAs are seen as experts, including the European Central Bank and the IMF.
Y1 - 2022
SN - 978-1-032-34673-1
SN - 978-1-032-34672-4
SN - 978-1-003-32329-7
U6 - https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003323297-5
SP - 52
EP - 81
PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY - London
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Busch, Per-Olof
A1 - Feil, Hauke
A1 - Heinzel, Mirko Noa
A1 - Herold, Jana
A1 - Kempken, Mathies
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - Policy recommendations of international bureaucracies
BT - the importance of country-specificity
JF - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration
N2 - Many international bureaucracies give policy advice to national administrative units. Why is the advice given by some international bureaucracies more influential than the recommendations of others? We argue that targeting advice to member states through national embeddedness and country-tailored research increases the influence of policy advice. Subsequently, we test how these characteristics shape the relative influence of 15 international bureaucracies' advice in four financial policy areas through a global survey of national administrations from more than 80 countries. Our findings support arguments that global blueprints need to be adapted and translated to become meaningful for country-level work.
Points for practitioners
National administrations are advised by an increasing number of international bureaucracies, and they cannot listen to all of this advice. Whereas some international bureaucracies give 'one-size-fits-all' recommendations to rather diverse countries, others cater their recommendations to the national audience. Investigating financial policy recommendations, we find that national embeddedness and country-tailored advice render international bureaucracies more influential.
KW - financial policy
KW - international administration
KW - international
KW - organizations
KW - multi-level government
KW - regime complexity
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523211013385
SN - 0020-8523
SN - 1461-7226
VL - 87
IS - 4
SP - 775
EP - 793
PB - Sage Publ.
CY - Los Angeles, Calif.
ER -
TY - CHAP
A1 - Liese, Andrea
ED - Orchard, Phil
ED - Wiener, Antje
T1 - Norm research on conflictive norm relations how norms collide in times of complexity, contestation, and crisis
T2 - Contesting the world
Y1 - 2024
SN - 978-1-00-947917-2
SN - 978-1-009-47916-5
SN - 978-1-009-47914-1
SP - 64
EP - 84
PB - Cambridge University Press
CY - Cambridge
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Busch, Per-Olof
A1 - Heinzel, Mirko Noa
A1 - Kempken, Mathies
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - Mind the gap?
BT - comparing de facto and de jure expert authority of international public administrations in financial and agricultural policy
JF - Journal of comparative policy analysis : research and practice
N2 - Many authors have argued that International Public Administration can influence policy-making through their expert authority. The article compares de jure and de facto expert authority of IPAs to evaluate their conformity. It comparatively assesses the two kinds of authority for five important IPAs (BIS, FAO, IMF, OECD and World Bank) active in agriculture or financial policy. It shows that, on average, de jure and de facto authority seem to conform. At the same time, it demonstrates that gaps between de jure and de facto authority exist at the level of the IPAs, the policy areas and the IPAs’ addressees
KW - international public administration
KW - comparative
KW - expert authority
KW - de jure authority
KW - de facto authority
KW - international organisations
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2020.1820866
SN - 1387-6988
SN - 1572-5448
VL - 24
IS - 3
SP - 230
EP - 253
PB - Taylor & Francis
CY - London
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Heinzel, Mirko Noa
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - Managing performance and winning trust
BT - how World Bank staff shape recipient performance
JF - The review of international organizations
N2 - World Bank evaluations show that recipient performance varies substantially between different projects. Extant research has focused on country-level variables when explaining these variations. This article goes beyond country-level explanations and highlights the role of World Bank staff. We extend established arguments in the literature on compliance with the demands of International Organizations (IOs) and hypothesize that IO staff can shape recipient performance in three ways. First, recipient performance may be influenced by the quality of IO staff monitoring and supervision. Second, the leniency and stringency with which IO staff apply the aid agreement could improve recipient performance. Third, recipient performance may depend on whether IO staff can identify and mobilize supportive interlocutors through their networks in the recipient country. We test these arguments by linking a novel database on the tenure of World Bank task team leaders to projects evaluated between 1986 and 2020. The findings are consistent with the expectation that World Bank staff play an important role, but only in investment projects. There is substantial evidence that World Bank staff supervisory ability and country experience are linked to recipient performance in those projects. Less consistent evidence indicates that leniency could matter. These findings imply that World Bank staff play an important role in facilitating implementation of investment projects.
KW - World Bank
KW - International bureaucrats
KW - Recipient performance
KW - Enforcement
KW - Supervision
KW - Country experience
KW - Compliance
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-021-09414-4
SN - 1559-744X
SN - 1559-7431
SP - 625
EP - 653
PB - Springer
CY - Boston
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Heinzel, Mirko Noa
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - Expert authority and support for COVID-19 measures in Germany and the UK
BT - a survey experiment
JF - West European politics
N2 - During COVID-19, various public institutions tried to shape citizens’ behaviour to slow the spread of the pandemic. How did their authority affect citizens’ support of public measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19? The article makes two contributions. First, it presents a novel conceptualisation of authority as a source heuristic. Second, it analyses the authority of four types of public institutions (health ministries, universities, public health agencies, the WHO) in two countries (Germany and the UK), drawing on novel data from a survey experiment conducted in May 2020. On average, institutional endorsements seem to have mattered little. However, there is an observable polarisation effect where citizens who ascribe much expertise to public institutions support COVID-19 measures more than the control group. Furthermore, those who ascribe little expertise support them less than the control group. Finally, neither perception of biases nor exposure to institutions in public debates seems consistently to affect their authority.
KW - COVID-19
KW - expertise
KW - authority
KW - survey experiment
KW - institutions
KW - crises
KW - governance
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2021.1873630
SN - 0140-2382
SN - 1743-9655
SP - 1258
EP - 1282
PB - Taylor & Francis
CY - Abingdon
ER -
TY - CHAP
A1 - Krieger, Heike
A1 - Liese, Andrea
ED - Krieger, Heike
ED - Liese, Andrea
T1 - Conclusion
BT - turbulence, robustness, and value change
T2 - Tracing value change in the international legal order
N2 - Based on the previous findings in this book, Chapter 18 by Heike Krieger and Andrea Liese discusses the general dynamics of change or metamorphosis in the international legal order. They discern a mixed picture of an international order between metamorphosis—that is, a more fundamental transformation—of international law, norm change, turbulences, and robustness. They explain drivers of change and highlight factors such as national interests during the war on terror, changing long-term foreign policy beliefs, and the rise in populism and autocracy, before discussing the most common strategies the actors involved use. Other relevant factors include changes in the political environment, such as shocks and power shifts or the ambiguous role of fragmentation. Moreover, they identify factors that make legal norms robust, including the vital role of norm defenders and legal and institutional structures as stabilizing elements. Krieger and Liese conclude by cautioning that if the attacks on the international order continue at the current frequency and magnitude, a metamorphosis of international law will likely be unstoppable.
KW - value change
KW - legal change
KW - norm robustness
KW - norm dynamics
KW - drivers for change
KW - metamorphosis of international law
Y1 - 2023
SN - 978-0-19-285583-1
SN - 978-0-19-266836-3
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192855831.003.0018
SP - 319
EP - C18N113
PB - Oxford University Press
CY - Oxford
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Heinzel, Mirko Noa
A1 - Richter, Jonas
A1 - Busch, Per-Olof
A1 - Feil, Hauke
A1 - Herold, Jana
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - Birds of a feather?
BT - the determinants of impartiality perceptions of the IMF and the World Bank
JF - Review of international political economy
N2 - The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank ascribe to impartiality in their mandates. At the same time, scholarship indicates that their decisions are disproportionately influenced by powerful member states. Impartiality is seen as crucial in determining International Organizations' (IOs) effectiveness and legitimacy in the literature. However, we know little about whether key interlocutors in national governments perceive the International Financial Institutions as biased actors who do the bidding for powerful member states or as impartial executors of policy. In order to better understand these perceptions, we surveyed high-level civil servants who are chiefly responsible for four policy areas from more than 100 countries. We found substantial variations in impartiality perceptions. What explains these variations? By developing an argument of selective awareness, we extend rationalist and ideational perspectives on IO impartiality to explain domestic perceptions. Using novel survey data, we test whether staffing underrepresentation, voting underrepresentation, alignment to the major shareholders and overlapping economic policy paradigms are associated with impartiality perceptions. We find substantial evidence that shared economic policy paradigms influence impartiality perceptions. The findings imply that by diversifying their ideational culture, IOs can increase the likelihood that domestic stakeholders view them as impartial.
KW - Impartiality
KW - bias
KW - International Financial Institutions
KW - International
KW - Monetary Fund
KW - World Bank
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1749711
SN - 0969-2290
SN - 1466-4526
VL - 28
IS - 5
SP - 1249
EP - 1273
PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY - Abingdon
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - Autorität in den internationalen Beziehungen
JF - Zeitschrift für internationale Beziehungen
N2 - Der Beitrag setzt sich würdigend und kritisch mit Michael Zürns Arbeiten zur internationalen Autorität auseinander. Dessen potenziell autoritatives Autoritätskonzept weist mehrere Vorzüge auf: Erstens bietet es eine Erklärung für ein Paradox. Warum sollten souveräne Staaten die Kompetenz Externer anerkennen, ihnen Ratschläge zu geben bzw. Forderungen an sie zu richten, und zudem noch bereit sein, diesen zu folgen? Zweitens konkretisiert es die u.a. bei Hannah Arendt angelegte Idee der fraglosen Anerkennung, indem es Autoritätsadressaten zugesteht, bestimmte Qualitäten der Autorität zu prüfen. Drittens entkoppelt es Legitimität und Autorität, ohne die Legitimationsbedürftigkeit von Autorität zu opfern. Dies anerkennend plädiert der Beitrag aber dafür, die Legitimationsbedürftigkeit internationaler Autorität nicht auf formal institutionalisierte Beziehungen zu reduzieren, sondern diese auch weiterhin auf informellere, d.h. der Praxis entstammende, Anerkennung und Folgebereitschaft innerhalb von Autoritätsbeziehungen zu beziehen. Die überzeugende begründungstheoretische Fundierung von Autorität sollte zudem nicht dazu verführen, Sozialisationsprozesse in Autoritätsbeziehungen zu übersehen, zumal deren Legitimität kritisch hinterfragbar ist.
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5771/0946-7165-2020-1-97
SN - 0946-7165
SN - 2942-1233
VL - 27
IS - 1
SP - 97
EP - 109
PB - Nomos
CY - Baden-Baden
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Holzscheiter, Anna
A1 - Gholiagha, Sassan
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - Advocacy coalition constellations and norm collisions
BT - Insights from international drug control, human trafficking, and child labour
JF - Global society : journal of interdisciplinary international relations
N2 - To date, there has been little research on how advocacy coalitions influence the dynamic relationships between norms. Addressing norm collisions as a particular type of norm dynamics, we ask if and how advocacy coalitions and the constellations between them bring such norm collisions to the fore. Norm collisions surface in situations in which actors claim that two or more norms are incompatible with each other, promoting different, even opposing, behavioural choices. We examine the effect of advocacy coalition constellations (ACC) on the activation and varying evolution of norm collisions in three issue areas: international drug control, human trafficking, and child labour. These areas have a legally codified prohibitive regime in common. At the same time, they differ with regard to the specific ACC present. Exploiting this variation, we generate insights into how power asymmetries and other characteristics of ACC affect norm collisions across our three issue areas.
KW - Norm collisions
KW - advocacy coalitions
KW - drug control
KW - human trafficking
KW - child labour
KW - norms
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2021.1885352
SN - 1360-0826
SN - 1469-798X
VL - 36
IS - 1
SP - 25
EP - 48
PB - Taylor & Francis
CY - London
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Gholiagha, Sassan
A1 - Holzscheiter, Anna
A1 - Liese, Andrea
T1 - Activating norm collisions
BT - interface conflicts in international drug control
JF - Global constitutionalism
N2 - This article puts forward a constructivist-interpretivist approach to interface conflicts that emphasises how international actors articulate and problematise norm collisions in discursive and social interactions. Our approach is decidedly agency-oriented and follows the Special Issue’s interest in how interface conflicts play out at the micro-level. The article advances several theoretical and methodological propositions on how to identify norm collisions and the conditions under which they become the subject of international debate. Our argument on norm collisions, understood as situations in which actors perceive two norms as incompatible with each other, is threefold. First, we claim that agency matters to the analysis of the emergence, dynamics, management, and effects of norm collisions in international politics. Second, we propose to differentiate between dormant (subjectively perceived) and open norm collisions (intersubjectively shared). Third, we contend that the transition from dormant to open – which we term activation – depends on the existence of certain scope conditions concerning norm quality as well as changes in power structures and actor constellations. Empirically, we study norm collisions in the area of international drug control, presenting the field as one that contains several cases of dormant and open norm collisions, including those that constitute interface conflicts. For our in-depth analysis we have chosen the international discourse on coca leaf chewing. With this case, we not only seek to demonstrate the usefulness of our constructivist-interpretivist approach but also aim to explain under which conditions dormant norm collisions evolve into open collisions and even into interface conflicts.
KW - norm collisions
KW - contestation
KW - discourse
KW - agency
KW - international
KW - drug control
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045381719000388
SN - 2045-3817
SN - 2045-3825
VL - 9
IS - 2
SP - 290
EP - 317
PB - Cambridge University Press
CY - Cambridge
ER -