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International Relations scholars have long neglected the question of leadership in international organizations. The structural turn in International Relations led to an aversion to analysing or theorizing the impact of individuals. Yet, empirical studies suggest that different leaders affect the extent to which international organizations facilitate cooperation among states and/or the capacity of a global agency to deliver public goods. It is difficult to study how and under what conditions leaders have an impact due to the challenges of attributing outcomes to a particular leader and great variation in their powers and operating context. We offer a starting point for overcoming these challenges. We identify three different types of constraints that executive heads face: legal-political, resource and bureaucratic. We argue that leaders can navigate and push back on each of these constraints and provide illustrations of this, drawing on existing literature and interviews with executive heads and senior management of international organizations. Executive heads of international organizations may operate in a constrained environment but this should not stop scholars from studying their impact.

International Relations scholars have long neglected the question of leadership in international organizations. The structural turn in International Relations led to an aversion to analysing or theorizing the impact of individuals. Yet, empirical studies suggest that different leaders affect the extent to which international organizations facilitate cooperation among states and/or the capacity of a global agency to deliver public goods. It is difficult to study how and under what conditions leaders have an impact due to the challenges of attributing outcomes to a particular leader and great variation in their powers and operating context. We offer a starting point for overcoming these challenges. We identify three different types of constraints that executive heads face: legal-political, resource and bureaucratic. We argue that leaders can navigate and push back on each of these constraints and provide illustrations of this, drawing on existing literature and interviews with executive heads and senior management of international organizations. Executive heads of international organizations may operate in a constrained environment but this should not stop scholars from studying their impact.

What explains geographical representation in the professional staff of intergovernmental organizations (IOs)? We address this question from an organizational perspective by considering IO recruitment processes. In the United Nations (UN) system, recruitment processes are designed to ensure bureaucratic merit, with experience and education being the relevant merit criteria. We develop and test a supply-side theory, postulating that differences in countries' supply of well-educated and highly experienced candidates can explain geographical representation. Drawing on staff data from 34 IOs and supply data from 174 member states, and controlling for endogeneity and alternative explanations, we find no such relationship for education. However, countries with a high supply of candidates with relevant working and regional experiences have significantly higher representation values. These findings offer a complementary narrative as to why some countries are more strongly represented in the international professional staff than others. Findings also unveil the nature of bureaucratic merit in the UN, which seems to emphasize local knowledge and working experience over formal (Western) education. Points for practitioners What explains member states' representation in the staff bodies of organizations in the UN system? Previous work has shown that member state power is a good predictor. But what about bureaucratic merit? The paper demonstrates that representation patterns can also be explained when measuring states' supply of candidates with relevant working and regional experience. Supply of educated candidates plays no significant role. Bureaucratic merit in the UN seems to emphasize local knowledge and working experience over formal (Western) education.

The quality of executive leadership may prove to be the most critical single determinant of the growth in scope and authority of international organization. Now sufficiently long and varied to allow a comparative approach, the history of international organization may provide elements for a theory of leadership. This essay is but a preliminary effort in that direction. It is concerned not only with how the executive head protects and develops his position as top man but also with how, by doing so, he may be the creator of a new (if yet slender) world power base.

From the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, the executive department has been the primary vehicle through which the government of the United States has administered its programs. Their organization and effectiveness are therefore matters that demand constant attention.

International organizations' (IOs) power in shaping global governance outcomes is not only determined by the formal delegation of tasks and issue areas but also by the necessary capabilities to fulfill these tasks. Yet, extant research on the delegation of power to IOs gives few insights into the financial and staff capabilities of IOs and focuses mainly on the formal rules that specify IOs' tasks and issue scope. To address these limitations, this paper makes three contributions. First, we propose a more encompassing concept of IO power which incorporates three principal components: tasks, issue scope, and capabilities. Second, we introduce a new concept – IO empowerment (IOE) – which encapsulates formal and informal changes in IO power over time. Third, we introduce a novel dataset on IO capabilities, which measures the formal rules governing IO staff and financial resources as well as the actual capabilities available to six well‐known IOs over 65 years. These original data show that capabilities vary not only across IOs but also over time.