Shaping Policy Curves: Cognitive Authority in Transnational Capacity Building

Abstract

International organizations (IOs) such as the International Monetary Fund and the WorldBank are assumed to rely on 'sympathetic interlocutors' at the national level to drive through economic reforms that conform to global policy norms. In this article we answer the following question: how do sympathetic interlocutors for IOs emerge in the first place? We address this question by examining how IOs engage in teaching norms to national officials via transnational policy training in order to increase the number of domestic reformers who are sympathetic to their prescriptions for policy change. We provide a conceptual framework for understanding how IOs seek to use their own cognitive authority to foster 'diagnostic coordination' across technocratic economic policy communities. This encourages officials to adapt to a common policy language and delimits the policy space within which they identify and propose solutions to economic problems.

The politics of external approval: Explaining the IMF's evaluation of austerity programmes

“…IMF evaluations entail a continuous ‘policy dialogue’ between fund staff and national authorities (Lombardi & Woods ). Much of the existing literature has focused on the commitment of individual ‘sympathetic interlocutors’ – that is, ‘national policymakers who are sympathetic to advice from the IMF’ (Broome & Seabrooke : 6; Chwieroth ).…”

World Bank technical assistance: Locating and cultivating sympathetic interlocutors

“…Third, socialization—the “process of inducting actors into the norms and rules of a given community” (Checkel, , p. 804)—through policy‐related training may build common cognitive understandings of policy problem and solution. Given that “‘knowledge transferred’ is not necessarily ‘knowledge taken’” (Riggirozzi, , p. 211), training does not simply transfer knowledge but delimits the policy sphere for recipients; it is “a social process which involves the teaching of norms to a community of actors that changes how they conceive of their collective identity and their interest” (Broome & Seabrooke, , p. 957). The significance of cultivating sympathetic actors is that international agencies create a common policy language that structures the later actions of domestic reformers.…”

“…TA, delivered as training, delimits policy spaces by cognitively constraining understandings of problems and solutions. While the above are not comprehensive, they further the nascent dialogue on the sympathetic interlocutor concept, particularly given that the “processes through which national officials become sympathetic interlocutors” remain undertheorized (Broome & Seabrooke, , p. 962) and international development agencies can only “successfully deploy [their] power … where they find and work with sympathetic interlocutors who are both willing and able to embrace the priorities preferred by the institutions” (Woods, , p. 10).…”

Conflicts of Interest in International Organizations: Evidence From Two United Nations Humanitarian Agencies

“…This is due to the fact that ICSs, particularly top‐level ones (Sullivan ), are engaged in informal and formal diplomatic tasks (Kemp‐Spies ) and their roles as neutral administrators and diplomatic facilitators are often intertwined (Mathiason ). Top‐level officials may in fact be considered necessary channels of communication with their nations (Johns ) and this may result in recruitment based on a system where member states promote the appointment of one of their nationals in a top position in the attempt to increase or maintain their influence in the organization (McLaren ; Broome and Seabrooke ). For instance, several governments have, as part of the department of foreign affairs, a special service dedicated to the placement of nationals (Jordan ; David ).…”