TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weaver, Catherine
A1  - Heinzel, Mirko
A1  - Jorgensen, Samantha
A1  - Flores, Joseph
T1  - Bureaucratic representation in the IMF and the World Bank
JF  - Global perspectives
N2  - The legitimacy and effectiveness of international organizations are often linked directly to issues of representation—not only on their high-level governing boards and in top leadership but also within their staff. This article explores two key questions of bureaucratic representation in the critical cases of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. First, we seek to unpack three essential dimensions of staff representation—nationality, education, and gender—to explain how representation may matter for international organizations. Second, we aim to describe the multiple dimensions of representation in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank over the past twenty years by deploying a novel dataset on staff demographics, focusing on ranks with decision-making authority within the institutions. Our descriptive analysis reveals that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have made considerable efforts to diversify their bureaucracies. Nonetheless, representation remains uneven; for example, nationals from middle- and low-income countries, women, and staff without economics degrees from prominent US- or UK-based universities are less present in key leadership positions. These results may be well explained by the particular needs of the institutions’ technical mandates and limits in the supply of qualified staff and, as such, need not be seen as suboptimal. Nonetheless, perceived imbalances in representation may continue to pose external legitimation and operational challenges to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in a complex political environment where such multidimensional representation is important to sustaining the buy-in of donor and borrower countries alike. To this end, we recommend that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank enhance their diversity and inclusion efforts by increasing transparency via reporting disaggregated data on workforce composition and introducing annual requirements to publish progress reports with management feedback to strengthen internal and external accountability.
KW  - representation
KW  - international bureaucracy
KW  - multilateralism
KW  - World Bank
KW  - IMF
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2022.39684
SN  - 2575-7350
VL  - 3
IS  - 1
PB  - University of California Press
CY  - Oakland, CA
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Feil, Hauke
T1  - The cancer of corruption and World Bank project performance
BT  - Is there a connection?
JF  - Development policy review / publ. for the Overseas Development Institute
N2  - Motivation: Corruption is often cited as a central reason why development projects fail. The article tests this claim by assessing whether World Bank projects perform worse in implementation environments with a higher corruption level. The article focuses specifically on bribery between public officials and firms during the procurement of needed goods and services. Approach and Methods: I use data from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys to avoid the often-criticized corruption perception indices and to allow for an assessment of effects at the subnational level. The analysis builds on an assessment of the performance ratings of 1,228 World Bank projects and covers 87 different countries. Finding: Overall, the article finds a small but statistically significant correlation between the corruption level and project performance. This result indicates that the corruption level of recipient countries should be considered during the design and implementation of projects. Policy Implications: Nonetheless, the relatively small correlation and the low pseudo R-squareds advise not overestimating the relevance of corruption for project performance. At least for the project level, the article finds no indication that corruption is a primary obstacle to aid effectiveness.
KW  - Aid effectiveness
KW  - corruption
KW  - Enterprise Survey
KW  - project performance
KW  - World Bank
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12503
SN  - 1467-7679
SN  - 0950-6764
VL  - 39
IS  - 3
SP  - 381
EP  - 397
PB  - Blackwell Publ.
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hecke, Steven van
A1  - Fuhr, Harald
A1  - Wolfs, Wouter
T1  - The politics of crisis management by regional and international organizations in fighting against a global pandemic
BT  - the member states at a crossroads
JF  - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration
N2  - Despite new challenges like climate change and digitalization, global and regional organizations recently went through turbulent times due to a lack of support from several of their member states. Next to this crisis of multilateralism, the COVID-19 pandemic now seems to question the added value of international organizations for addressing global governance issues more specifically. This article analyses this double challenge that several organizations are facing and compares their ways of managing the crisis by looking at their institutional and political context, their governance structure, and their behaviour during the pandemic until June 2020. More specifically, it will explain the different and fragmented responses of the World Health Organization, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. With the aim of understanding the old and new problems that these international organizations are trying to solve, this article argues that the level of autonomy vis-a-vis the member states is crucial for understanding the politics of crisis management. <br /> Points for practitioners <br /> As intergovernmental bodies, international organizations require authorization by their member states. Since they also need funding for their operations, different degrees of autonomy also matter for reacting to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for international organizations is limited, though through proactive and bold initiatives, they can seize the opportunity of the crisis and partly overcome institutional and political constraints.
KW  - autonomy
KW  - COVID-19
KW  - crisis management
KW  - European Union
KW  - International
KW  - Monetary Fund
KW  - international organizations
KW  - multilateralism
KW  - World Bank
KW  - World Health Organization
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852320984516
SN  - 0020-8523
SN  - 1461-7226
VL  - 87
IS  - 3
SP  - 672
EP  - 690
PB  - Sage
CY  - Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.]
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
N1  - Publisher correction verfügbar über DOI 10.1007/s11558-022-09465-1
SP  - 625
EP  - 653
PB  - Springer
CY  - Boston
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heldt, Eugenia C.
A1  - Dörfler, Thomas
T1  - Orchestrating private investors for development
BT  - how the World Bank revitalizes
JF  - Regulation & governance
N2  - Confronted with a new wave of criticism on the in effectiveness of its development programs, the World Bank embarked on a revitalization process, turning to private investors to finance International Development Association projects and widening its mandate. To explain these adaptation strategies of the World Bank to regain relevance, this piece draws on organizational ecology and orchestration scholarship. We contend that international organizations rely on two adaptation mechanisms, orchestration and scope expansion, when they lose their role as focal actors in an issue area. We find that the World Bank has indeed lost market share and has relied on these two mechanisms to revitalize itself. We show that the World Bank responded to changes in the environment by orchestrating a private sector-oriented capital increase, prioritizing private funding for development through a “cascade approach,” and expanding the scope of its mandate into adjacent domains of transnational governance, including climate change and global health.
KW  - development
KW  - orchestration
KW  - organizational ecology
KW  - private investors
KW  - World Bank
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12432
SN  - 1748-5983
VL  - 16
IS  - 4
SP  - 1382
EP  - 1398
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken, NJ
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  - GEN
A1  - Heinzel, Mirko Noa
A1  - Richter, Jonas
A1  - Busch, Per-Olof
A1  - Feil, Hauke
A1  - Herold, Jana
A1  - Liese, Andrea Margit
T1  - Birds of a feather?
BT  - the determinants of impartiality perceptions of the IMF and the World Bank
T2  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe
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.
T3  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe - 186 
KW  - impartiality
KW  - bias
KW  - International Financial Institutions
KW  - International Monetary Fund
KW  - World Bank
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-521690
SN  - 1867-5808
IS  - 5
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Feil, Hauke
T1  - The cancer of corruption and World Bank project performance: Is there a connection?
T2  - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe
N2  - Motivation: Corruption is often cited as a central reason why development projects fail. The article tests this claim by assessing whether World Bank projects perform worse in implementation environments with a higher corruption level. The article focuses specifically on bribery between public officials and firms during the procurement of needed goods and services. Approach and Methods: I use data from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys to avoid the often-criticized corruption perception indices and to allow for an assessment of effects at the subnational level. The analysis builds on an assessment of the performance ratings of 1,228 World Bank projects and covers 87 different countries. Finding: Overall, the article finds a small but statistically significant correlation between the corruption level and project performance. This result indicates that the corruption level of recipient countries should be considered during the design and implementation of projects. Policy Implications: Nonetheless, the relatively small correlation and the low pseudo R-squareds advise not overestimating the relevance of corruption for project performance. At least for the project level, the article finds no indication that corruption is a primary obstacle to aid effectiveness.
T3  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe - 143 
KW  - aid effectiveness
KW  - corruption
KW  - Enterprise Survey
KW  - project  performance
KW  - World Bank
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-524687
SN  - 1867-5808
IS  - 3
ER  - 
TY  - THES
A1  - Feil, Hauke
T1  - God, bad, or ugly: Does it really matter?
BT  - Unterstanding the linkage between the performance of development projects and the recipient country's policy and institutional environment
N2  - Each year, donor countries spend billions of Euros on development cooperation. Not surprisingly, a large strand of research has emerged which examines the impact of development cooperation. A sub-discipline within this strand of the literature deals with the question of whether the impact or effectiveness of development cooperation depends on the quality of the recipient country's policy and institutional environment. Over hundreds of studies have assessed this question at the macro level. In so doing, most of these studies test whether a potential effect of aid on the growth of a recipient country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is conditional on the country's policy and institutional environment. However, even after decades of research and hundreds of studies, no conclusive result has been found. One of the main reasons for the inconclusive state of the literature is that most macro-level studies have to deal with a high risk of endogeneity, treat aid as nothing but a pure income transfer, and rely on low-quality GDP data. To solve these three methodical issues, some authors have started to change the analytical focus from the macro to the micro level. Thus, these authors assess the determinants for the performance of individual development projects instead of the determinants for an effect of aid on GDP. Yet, even though the number of studies focusing on the micro level has increased steadily over the last few years, the state of the literature on the determinants for the performance of development projects still contains multiple highly relevant research gaps. The present thesis seeks to address three of these research gaps. The first research gap addressed by this thesis is related to the specific type of development cooperation. So far, nearly all existing studies focus on projects by Multilateral Development Banks. Research on the determinants for the performance of bilateral development projects is still rare. Thus, even though donors pledge to implement effective development projects, there are hardly any micro-level studies on bilateral projects. So far, only three studies use a sample which includes bilateral projects. Yet, none of the three studies assess the determinants for the performance of bilateral technical development projects. The first paper in the present thesis (GIZ paper) seeks to address this research gap by assessing the determinants for the performance of projects by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), a bilateral state-owned aid agency active in the area of technical cooperation. The results of the paper indicate that some but not all of the existing theoretical arguments can be extended to bilateral technical projects as well.. For example, the level of market interventions in the recipient county only affects the performance of financial development projects, while the recipient country’s government capacity affects both technical and financial development projects. The paper also indicates that effects of determinants may vary among project sectors. The paper also highlights a dilemma of technical development cooperation. The countries with low government capacity are usually the ones most in need of technical cooperation projects. But, at the same time, they are also the countries in which these projects have the poorest performance The second research gap addressed by this thesis is related to one specific factor in the policy and institutional environment of recipient countries, namely corruption. This determinant is often cited as essential for project performance but has gained surprisingly little coverage in empirical studies. The few existing studies on the effect of corruption on project performance are inconclusive. Some find a statistically significant correlation, while others do not. Furthermore, so far, all existing studies use corruption perception indices as a measurement for corruption, despite the fact that these indices have well-known deficits when it comes to this research topic. One of these deficits is that such indices do not distinguish between different forms of corruption, even though it is likely that the effect of corruption will vary depending on the type of development project and form of corruption. The second paper in this thesis (Corruption paper) seeks to address this inconclusive state of the research while focusing on one specific form of corruption, namely bribery between private firms and public officials. The paper finds a small but statistically significant correlation between the corruption level and the performance of World Bank projects. The systematic effect of corruption on project performance confirms the need to consider the risk of corruption in the design and during the implementation of projects. Nonetheless, the relatively small effect of corruption and the low pseudo R-squareds advise not to overestimate the relevance of corruption for project performance. At least for the project level, the paper finds no indication that corruption is a primary obstacle to aid effectiveness. The third research gap addressed by this thesis is related to one specific sample, namely recipient countries of the International Development Association (IDA). The question of whether the policy and institutional environment affects project performance is of particular relevance for these countries, given that the World Bank's ratings on a country's policy and institutional environment decide how much IDA resources it receives. One core justification of such an allocation system is that it helps to steer more resources to places where they are most effective. However, so far, there is no conclusive empirical evidence for this statement. The only study specifically focusing on this topic, a study by the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank from 2010, has essential methodological limitations. The third paper of this thesis (CPR paper) seeks to address this research gap by testing whether a more refined analysis confirms the assumption of previous studies that the policy and institutional environment of IDA-recipient countries, measured by the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment ratings, has an effect on the performance of World Bank projects. Overall, neither the main regression models nor any of the robustness tests indicate a substantial correlation between the policy and institutional environment and project performance. Only for Investments Loans is the coefficient large enough to assume some effect. The overall results not only contradict the results of previous studies, but also raise strong doubts around one of the core justifications for the allocation system of the IDA. All three papers rely on a statistical large-N analysis of the performance ratings of individual development projects. These ratings are usually assigned based on the final evaluation of a project and indicate the merit or worth of an activity. The merit or worth of an activity itself is measured by criteria like relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency. In the case of the two papers on World Bank projects, the needed data stem from different databases of the World Bank. The relevant data for the GIZ paper are gathered from internal evaluation reports of the GIZ. Logistic regressions are applied as the main analytical tool. Overall, the three papers show that the policy and institutional environment of recipient countries matters for project performance, but only to a small degree and under certain circumstances. This result highlights that many researchers and practitioners tend to overestimate the role that the policy and institutional environment of recipient countries plays in project performance. Furthermore, the thesis shows that authors of future studies should consider possible interactions between project- and country-level determinants whenever possible, both in their theoretical arguments and statistical models. Otherwise, the debate on the determinants for project performance is at risk of degenerating into a statistics tournament without any connection to reality.
KW  - Development cooperation
KW  - development projects
KW  - aid effectiveness
KW  - GIZ
KW  - World Bank
KW  - corruption
KW  - aid allocation
Y1  - 2019
CY  - Potsdam
ER  -