FOR 1745:  International Public Administration. The Emergence and Development of Administrative Patterns and their Effects on International Policy-Making (IPA)

• Subject Area: Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2014 to 2022
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 198360606

Resolving climate change, combating transnational terrorism, fostering democratic practices and human rights, fighting contagious diseases, providing stability for financial markets, establishing fair rules for international trade, channeling migration¿few decisions significant for the future of our societies are made without the involvement of international organizations (IOs). The more these organizations are needed to design and sustain policy solutions for providing global governance, the more attention needs to be paid to their organizational foundations, in particular to their permanent administrative bodies. As with any organization, once political organizations are given a legal mandate and provided with financial and personnel resources, they tend to become actors in their own right. Although bureaucracy may not be the defining feature of global politics in the twenty-first century, there is no doubt that since the end of the Cold War, IOs have been delegated continuously more tasks. How international administrations handle these tasks consequential to how modern global governance works. During the first phase of the agenda of Research Unit 1745, it became clear that International Public Administrations (IPAs) are among the key factors affecting policy-making beyond the nation-state. While the number of research outputs focusing on IPAs is growing, several major challenges remain. Empirically, there are gaps in the way the literature has examined IPA policy-making influence. Theoretically, the state of the art is disparate with respect to the mechanisms and scope conditions of administrative influence. In particular, there has been little effort to link research on IPA influence with stocktaking of IPA administrative patterns. This gap will be addressed in the second phase. Addressing IPAs¿ policy-making impact from the perspective of particular organizational entities would be misleading. Instead, the Research Unit applies an administrative governance perspective. Conceptualizing policy-making as a specialized process that is shaped by the dynamics of multiple stakeholder interaction, Research Unit projects address IPAs from the perspective of the policy domain. Policy-making then is a result of strategic interactions among various actors that vary substantially in terms of their policy-making constraints and resources. Originating from this common focus, Research Unit projects (1) examine administrative resources (i.e., the administrative toolkit for policy-related action available to IPAs in a policy domain), and (2) analyze administrative strategies (i.e., how IPAs employ their administrative toolkit to affect international policy-making).

• DFG Programme: Research Units

Projects

• A tool for many purposes: The design and policy-making impact of evaluation in international organizations (Applicant Eckhard, Steffen )
• Behind the Scenes: Understanding the Hidden Influence of Treaty Secretariats on International Environmental Policy-making (Applicants Jörgens, Helge ;  Kolleck, Nina )
• CONNECT: Connections and Levels of Influence of Treaty Secretariats in International Environmental and Disability Policy over Time (Applicant Kolleck, Nina )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Knill, Christoph )
• From expert authority to policy transfer. How and under which conditions does IPA policy advice matter? (Applicant Liese, Andrea )
• Linking national and international administrations - the impact of multilevel coordination (Applicant Benz, Arthur )
• Resource Mobilisation in International Public Administrations: Strategies for the Financing of International Public Policy (Applicant Goetz, Klaus H. )
• The Consequences of Bureaucratic Autonomy for International Administrative Influence (Applicants Bauer, Michael W. ;  Ege, Jörn )
• The Performance of International Organizations: The Impact of Administrative Styles (Applicants Grohs, Stephan ;  Knill, Christoph )
• Who has a say? Extent, Variation and Determinants of Expert Authority of International Public Administrations (Applicant Liese, Andrea )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Christoph Knill