Unboxing international public administrations
- Recent debates in international relations increasingly focus on bureaucratic apparatuses of international organizations and highlight their role, influence, and autonomy in global public policy. In this contribution we follow the recent call made by Moloney and Rosenbloom in this journal to make use of “public administrative theory and empirically based knowledge in analyzing the behavior of international and regional organizations” and offer a systematic analysis of the inner structures of these administrative bodies. Changes in these structures can reflect both the (re-)assignment of responsibilities, competencies, and expertise, but also the (re)allocation of resources, staff, and corresponding signalling of priorities. Based on organizational charts, we study structural changes within 46 international bureaucracies in the UN system. Tracing formal changes to all internal units over two decades, this contribution provides the first longitudinal assessment of structural change at the international level. We demonstrate that theRecent debates in international relations increasingly focus on bureaucratic apparatuses of international organizations and highlight their role, influence, and autonomy in global public policy. In this contribution we follow the recent call made by Moloney and Rosenbloom in this journal to make use of “public administrative theory and empirically based knowledge in analyzing the behavior of international and regional organizations” and offer a systematic analysis of the inner structures of these administrative bodies. Changes in these structures can reflect both the (re-)assignment of responsibilities, competencies, and expertise, but also the (re)allocation of resources, staff, and corresponding signalling of priorities. Based on organizational charts, we study structural changes within 46 international bureaucracies in the UN system. Tracing formal changes to all internal units over two decades, this contribution provides the first longitudinal assessment of structural change at the international level. We demonstrate that the inner structures of international bureaucracies in the UN system became more fragmented over time but also experienced considerable volatility with periods of structural growth and retrenchment. The analysis also suggests that IO's political features yield stronger explanatory power for explaining these structural changes than bureaucratic determinants. We conclude that the politics of structural change in international bureaucracies is a missing piece in the current debate on international public administrations that complements existing research perspectives by reiterating the importance of the political context of international bureaucracies as actors in global governance.…
Author details: | Julia FleischerORCiDGND, Aron BuzogányORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221136488 |
ISSN: | 0275-0740 |
ISSN: | 1552-3357 |
Title of parent work (English): | The American review of public administration |
Subtitle (English): | the politics of structural change in the UN system (1998–2019) |
Publisher: | Sage |
Place of publishing: | Thousand Oaks, Calif. |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2023 |
Publication year: | 2023 |
Release date: | 2024/01/16 |
Tag: | global public policy; international public administration; structural change |
Volume: | 53 |
Issue: | 1 |
Number of pages: | 13 |
First page: | 23 |
Last Page: | 35 |
Organizational units: | Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften |
Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Sozialwissenschaften / Fachgruppe Politik- & Verwaltungswissenschaft | |
DDC classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 32 Politikwissenschaft / 320 Politikwissenschaft |
3 Sozialwissenschaften / 34 Recht / 340 Recht | |
Peer review: | Referiert |