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The article investigates how international public administrations, as corporate actors, influence policymaking within international organizations. Starting from a conception of international organizations as political-administrative systems, we theorize the strategies international bureaucrats may use to affect international organizations' policies and the conditions under which these strategies vary. Building on a most-likely case design, we use process tracing to study two cases of bureaucratic influence: the influence of the secretariat of the World Health Organization on the "Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases"; and the influence of the International Labour Office on the "Resolution concerning decent work in global supply chains". We use interview material gathered from international public administration staff and stakeholders to illustrate varying influence strategies and the conditions under which these strategies are used. The study shows how and when international public administrations exert policy influence, and offers new opportunities to extend the generalizability of public administration theories. Points for practitioners International bureaucrats influence the outcomes of multilateral negotiations by means of their technical expertise and strategic involvement in the decision-making process. Their influence is primarily geared toward achieving organizational goals. However, the perception of too much influence can threaten the implementation of a decision. Political leadership needs to find the right balance between encouraging entrepreneurial behavior and providing sufficient political steering. Civil servants themselves need a well-functioning political radar to sense how far they can push with their ambitions.

Although cabinets in the European Commission have attracted considerable interest, scholarly attention has mainly focused on their composition and influence. How the status of cabinets or the relations between them have changed over time, and how cabinets have been affected by changes to the wider institutional environment, has gone largely unexamined. This article takes a step towards filling that gap. It argues that, despite apparent stability in the functions that cabinets perform, the cabinet system has undergone a quiet transformation. A new differentiation has created hierarchical relations within the cabinet system, with implications for policy coordination and output. Using historical institutionalist theory, the article shows that Commission cabinets have been affected less by reforms addressed directly at them and more by internal rule change aimed at other parts of their institutional environment.

First published online: 16 March 2021 ; The article investigates how international public administrations, as corporate actors, influence policymaking within international organizations. Starting from a conception of international organizations as political-administrative systems, we theorize the strategies international bureaucrats may use to affect international organizations' policies and the conditions under which these strategies vary. Building on a most-likely case design, we use process tracing to study two cases of bureaucratic influence: the influence of the secretariat of the World Health Organization on the "Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases"; and the influence of the International Labour Office on the "Resolution concerning decent work in global supply chains". We use interview material gathered from international public administration staff and stakeholders to illustrate varying influence strategies and the conditions under which these strategies are used. The study shows how and when international public administrations exert policy influence, and offers new opportunities to extend the generalizability of public administration theories.

First published online : 21 June 2019 ; An impressive amount of evidence has been collected underpinning the importance of international public administrations (i.e., the secretariats of international governmental organizations) in a variety of policy areas, actor configurations, and multilevel political contexts. However, the problem of how to systematically observe and explain bureaucratic influence still lies at the core of the research puzzles that scholars presently attempt to solve. While acknowledging the achievements of recent research efforts, we argue that it is no coincidence that the results remain rather scattered and disconnected—as no consensus has been reached about how bureaucratic influence beyond nation states might be reasonably defined or reliably observed and how the individual insights gained could feed into the construction of a more general theory of bureaucratic influence in transnational governance. Based on a review of the literature, the essay describes what we see as the characteristic pitfalls of current research and presents two modest proposals on how the underlying challenges can be addressed. We first suggest defining the target of influence in terms of a particular policy and second advocate the inclusion of bureaucratic policy preferences into the influence concept. In order to help researchers to observe and compare policy influence across IPAs, we present a simple heuristic measurement scheme, which, if systematically applied, may help overcome the central ailment of recent influence studies. We demonstrate the applicability of the scheme by means of two empirical illustrations. The argument is that in the absence of a comprehensive descriptive, let alone analytical, theory of bureaucratic influence in transnational policymaking, our proposal may help to boost the accumulative potential of current research in the area.

AbstractAn impressive amount of evidence has been collected underpinning the importance of international public administrations (i.e., the secretariats of international governmental organizations) in a variety of policy areas, actor configurations, and multilevel political contexts. However, the problem of how to systematically observe and explain bureaucratic influence still lies at the core of the research puzzles that scholars presently attempt to solve. While acknowledging the achievements of recent research efforts, we argue that it is no coincidence that the results remain rather scattered and disconnected—as no consensus has been reached about how bureaucratic influence beyond nation states might be reasonably defined or reliably observed and how the individual insights gained could feed into the construction of a more general theory of bureaucratic influence in transnational governance. Based on a review of the literature, the essay describes what we see as the characteristic pitfalls of current research and presents two modest proposals on how the underlying challenges can be addressed. We first suggest defining the target of influence in terms of a particular policy and second advocate the inclusion of bureaucratic policy preferences into the influence concept. In order to help researchers to observe and compare policy influence across IPAs, we present a simple heuristic measurement scheme, which, if systematically applied, may help overcome the central ailment of recent influence studies. We demonstrate the applicability of the scheme by means of two empirical illustrations. The argument is that in the absence of a comprehensive descriptive, let alone analytical, theory of bureaucratic influence in transnational policymaking, our proposal may help to boost the accumulative potential of current research in the area.

This chapter investigates actions for annulment. Annulment actions constitute a central yet by-and-large neglected device of judicial review in the European Union. We focus on cases in which member states take the European Commission to the Court of Justice of the European Union in order to fend off interferences with domestic policy application. Specifically, we ask when and why member states initiate such actions for annulment. To assess the validity of different answers to this question, we use data on the frequency of annulment litigation and evaluate the impact of four potential explanatory factors: the creative agency of the supervising Commission, the inept application of EU law by a shirking agent government, the heterogeneity of preferences held by the collective principal (i.e., the Council), and the interruption of the relationship between the commission and member state governments. ; Gegenstand der Analyse in diesem Kapitel sind Nichtigkeitsklagen vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof. Nichtigkeitsklagen sind eine zentrale, aber bisher weitgehend unerforschte Kategorie der Normenkontrolle im EU System. Wir untersuchen solche Klagefälle, in denen Mitgliedstaaten, um Eingriffe in nationale Politikgestaltung abzuwehren, die Europäische Kommission vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof verklagen. Wann und warum entscheiden sich nationale Regierungen für eine solche Nichtigkeitsklage? Um diese Frage zu beantworten werden vier potentielle Erklärungsfaktoren mit Hilfe von quantitativen Daten zur Häufigkeit der Klageerhebung in der EU-15 getestet: kreatives Handeln der Kommission als Agentin, unangemessene Anwendung durch eine pflichtverletzende nationale Regierung, heterogene Präferenzen im Rat als kollektivem Prinzipal und die Unterbrechung der Beziehung zwischen Kommission und mitgliedstaatlicher Regierung, z.B. durch Wahlen oder die Benennung eines neuen Kommissars

Der Beitrag präsentiert zentrale Ergebnisse der DFG Forschergruppe "International Public Administration" (IPA). Zentrale These ist, dass es sich bei internationalen Verwaltungen um einen eigenen Verwaltungstypus handelt. Dies gilt weniger im Hinblick auf Besonderheiten formeller Strukturen, sondern vielmehr in Bezug auf organisationsspezifische Verhaltensmuster, in denen sich internationale von nationalen Verwaltungen unterscheiden. Die in diesem Schwerpunktheft versammelten Beiträge fokussieren diese Unterschiedlichkeit und beschäftigen sich insbesondere mit der Frage, was die beobachtbaren Verhaltensmuster internationaler Bürokratien für den politikgestaltenden Einfluss von Verwaltungen jenseits des Nationalstaates bedeuten. Anschließend wird diskutiert, welche Implikationen sich aus der Beschäftigung mit internationalen Verwaltungen für die disziplinäre Verwaltungswissenschaft ergeben. Dabei vertreten wir die These, dass sich nationale Verwaltungen den hier untersuchten internationalen Bürokratiemustern umso stärker annähern, je mehr diese in einem Kontext transnationaler Einflüsse operieren. Daran knüpfen wir abschließend ein Plädoyer für die systematische Integration internationaler Bürokratieanalysen in eine Wissenschaft der Verwaltung als Teilbereich der Erforschung der Transformation von Staatlichkeit.

Wird eine verwaltungswissenschaftliche Perspektive für die Analyse von internationalen Organisationen fruchtbar gemacht, kann als Ausgangspunkt die Annahme dienen, dass die Leistungsfähigkeit internationaler Organisationen mit der Qualität ihrer internen Organisationsstrukturen sowie personellen und sachlichen Ressourcen zusammenhängt. Bisher gibt es aber kaum verwaltungswissenschaftliche Studien, die sich systematisch-vergleichend mit internationalen Organisationen und ihren Verwaltungsstäben auseinandersetzen. Dabei gilt, dass je mehr internationale Organisationen mit Policy-Gestaltungsaufgaben betraut werden, sich desto drängender Fragen nach deren politisch-administrativer Führung, demokratischer Legitimation und nach der Verselbständigung ihrer Verwaltungsstäbe stellen. Hier setzt der vorliegende Beitrag an. Es wird ausgelotet, ob und mit welchem analytischen Gewinn das klassische Konzept der Verwaltungsautonomie auf die Verwaltungsstäbe internationaler Organisationen übertragen werden kann. In einem ersten Schritt werden dazu die theoretischen Grundlagen der Autonomie von Verwaltungen diskutiert und, darauf aufbauend, ein Vorschlag entwickelt, wie die Autonomie internationaler Verwaltungsstäbe angemessen konzeptualisiert werden kann. In einem zweiten Schritt wird dann die Verwaltungsautonomie für 20 internationalen Organisationen operationalisiert und präsentiert, sowie anhand der Autonomiewerte zweier Verwaltungen illustriert, inwieweit die Ergebnisse geeignet sind, um Aussagen über die konkreten administrativen Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten internationaler Verwaltungen zu machen.

Why do EU Member State governments have such varying degrees of success when they initiate annulment actions against the European Commission? Usually litigant success is associated with arguments about judicial constraint or litigants' capacity. This article sheds light on domestic politics as an additional factor that can affect governments' success record in court. It is argued that governmental annulment actions are often part of a two-level game in which the value of the legal conflict for a national government can be independent of, or even negatively related to, legal success in court as governments may reap immediate benefits from communicating the initiation of annulment actions to voters. In addition, negative rulings can be used as normative levers in domestic reform processes. The statistical analysis indicates that the latter argument systematically affects governments' success records. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractWhy do EU Member State governments have such varying degrees of success when they initiate annulment actions against the European Commission? Usually litigant success is associated with arguments about judicial constraint or litigants' capacity. This article sheds light on domestic politics as an additional factor that can affect governments' success record in court. It is argued that governmental annulment actions are often part of a two‐level game in which the value of the legal conflict for a national government can be independent of, or even negatively related to, legal success in court as governments may reap immediate benefits from communicating the initiation of annulment actions to voters. In addition, negative rulings can be used as normative levers in domestic reform processes. The statistical analysis indicates that the latter argument systematically affects governments' success records.