Control, soft information, and the politics of international organizations staffing

Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11230%2F17%3A10323533" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11230/17:10323533 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11558-016-9252-1" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11558-016-9252-1</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11558-016-9252-1" target="_blank" >10.1007/s11558-016-9252-1</a>

Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Control, soft information, and the politics of international organizations staffing
Original language description
This article offers insights into the aggregate patterns of the geographical distribution of professional staff in some of the major international organizations (IOs). Building on the principal-agent framework, I argue that powerful member states seek dominant positions in IOs' secretariats, in an effort to increase their ability to control them. At the same time, it is often the weakest low-income countries that are the IOs' primary clients. Over-representation of the most powerful states is likely to lead to functional and legitimation problems for the IOs, in particular with regard to the IOs' lack of access to 'soft' information about the countries in which they operate. Using a newly created dataset covering 19 major bodies of the United Nations family, I identify two aggregate patterns in the geographical distribution of their professional staff. First, the most powerful states dominate IOs' secretariats. Second, however, many IOs systematically deviate in their staffing practices from this overall pattern, as well as from the existing rules that formalize it, and relatively over-represent also low-income countries. What results is a curvilinear (U-shaped) pattern where both powerful and very poor states are over-represented in many IOs' professional staff.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
—
OECD FORD branch
50601 - Political science

Project
<a href="/en/project/GA15-12533S" target="_blank" >GA15-12533S: Member states in the WTO: preferences, compliance, and monitoring</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year
2017
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

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