TY - JOUR A1 - Sommerer, Thomas A1 - Squatrito, Theresa A1 - Tallberg, Jonas A1 - Lundgren, Magnus T1 - Decision-making in international organizations BT - institutional design and performance JF - The review of international organizations N2 - 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. KW - international organizations KW - institutional design KW - decision-making KW - global governance KW - performance Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-021-09445-x SN - 1559-7431 SN - 1559-744X VL - 17 IS - 4 SP - 815 EP - 845 PB - Springer CY - Boston ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heinzel, Mirko Noa T1 - Mediating power? BT - Delegation, pooling and leadership selection at international organisations JF - The British journal of politics & international relations : BJPIR N2 - 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. KW - decision-making KW - delegation KW - executive head KW - institutional design KW - international organisations KW - pooling KW - selection Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148121992761 SN - 1467-856X SN - 1369-1481 VL - 24 IS - 1 SP - 153 EP - 170 PB - Sage CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ganghof, Steffen T1 - Equality-based comparison how to justify democratic institutions in the Real World JF - Politics N2 - Political scientists regularly justify particular democratic institutions. This article explores two desiderata for such justifications. The first is a formal equality baseline which puts the burden of justification on those who favour more unequal institutions. This baseline is seen as an implication of the rule of law. The second desideratum, the comparison requirement, builds on the first: adequate justifications of particular institutions must compare them to the best alternative, and this comparison must consider the costs for political equality. The two desiderata are applied to political science debates about the proportionality of the electoral system and bicameral systems of legislative decision-making. KW - electoral systems KW - second chambers KW - political equality KW - institutional design KW - public justification Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9256.12002 SN - 0263-3957 VL - 33 IS - 2 SP - 101 EP - 111 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ganghof, Steffen T1 - Is the "Constitution of Equality' Parliamentary, Presidential or Hybrid? JF - Political studies : the journal of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom N2 - What does the value of political equality imply for the institutional design of democracies? The existing normative literature highlights the importance of proportional representation and legislative majority rule, but neglects the choice of an executive format. This paper explores two potential egalitarian trade-offs in this choice. First, while presidential systems tend to achieve too little bundling of separable decision-making issues (within political parties), parliamentary systems often tend towards too much bundling (between political parties), thus establishing informal veto positions in the democratic process. This is a trade-off between the adversarial' and deliberative' aspects of equality. Second, there is a trade-off between horizontal' and vertical' equality. Neither pure presidentialism nor pure parliamentarism may be able to maximise both dimensions of equality simultaneously. The paper argues that certain hybrids between parliamentarism and presidentialism have the potential to mitigate both trade-offs. These hybrids establish power separation between the executive and legislature without allowing for popular executive elections. The argument also has potential implications for the democratisation of the European Union. KW - equality KW - democratic theory KW - forms of government KW - institutional design KW - majority rule Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.12124 SN - 0032-3217 SN - 1467-9248 VL - 63 IS - 4 SP - 814 EP - 829 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ganghof, Steffen T1 - Justifying types of representative democracy BT - a response JF - Critical review of international social and political philosophy N2 - This article responds to critical reflections on my Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism by Sarah Birch, Kevin J. Elliott, Claudia Landwehr and James L. Wilson. It discusses how different types of representative democracy, especially different forms of government (presidential, parliamentary or hybrid), can be justified. It clarifies, among other things, the distinction between procedural and process equality, the strengths of semi-parliamentary government, the potential instability of constitutional designs, and the difference that theories can make in actual processes of constitutional reform. KW - political equality KW - semi-parliamentarism KW - presidentialism KW - institutional design KW - executive personalism Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2022.2159665 SN - 1369-8230 SN - 1743-8772 SP - 1 EP - 12 PB - Routledge CY - London ER -