‘To Be, but Not to Be Seen’: Exploring the Impact of International Civil Servants

Abstract

International civil servants (ICS) are largely excluded from the analysis of International Organizations (IOs) because states are assumed to be the determining force in shaping their behaviour. Even principal-agent and constructivist analyses often treat an IO ' s staff as a unit and are concerned primarily with states ' capacities to control IOs. Examining the opportunities of ICS, rather than the choices of states, provides a better means of understanding the capacities of ICS to contribute to the operation of IOs, and especially when they participate in multilateral negotiations. We suggest that structure, competence, legitimacy and culture provide a framework for analysing ICS variable capacity. We use the Secretariat of the WTO, known as a ' member-driven organization ' , to illustrate how ICS can play a critical role in achieving the IO ' s objectives. A word on our title. It comes from Esse , non videri in the original, as quoted by a director at the WTO in an interview in

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

“…Finally, this study has answered three open calls. First, the call to bring people back in to the research on IOs (Mathiason ; Yi‐Chong and Weller ), considering that ICSs have remained invisible; almost a ‘taboo’ in studies on IOs for several decades (Yi‐Chong and Weller , p. 36). In particular, we provide fresh empirical ammunition to the scholarship investigating the scope conditions that may be more or less conducive to the emergence of a supranational identity in ICSs, therefore exacerbating or attenuating conflicts of interest.…”

“…By accepting a position within the UN, employees formally agree not to solicit or receive directives from any state and must act in the sole interest of the IO. The principle of independence is one of the primary determinants of the quality of internal relationships among different categories of staff members, while also creating the basis for the credibility and legitimacy of the system vis‐a‐vis the public (Lemoine ; Udom ), since ‘States trust ICSs more than they trust each other in negotiations’ (Yi‐Chong and Weller , p. 42, emphasis added).…”

Introduction: Organizational change, management reform and EU policy-making

“…As a consequence, there have been virtually no attempts to systematically put such international organizational changes into analytical contexts in order to explain policy outputs. The emergence of the study of the organizational impact of international bureaucracies as an interest of empirical social science research is a very recent trend (Barnett and Finnemore 2004;Liese and Weinlich 2006;Bauer and Knill 2007;Benner et al 2007;Yi-Chong and Weller 2008;Geri 2001;Dijkzeul and Beigbeder 2003). It thus seems fair to emphasize that it is by no means clear whether these isolated scholarly endeavours will eventually add to the consolidation of a veritable research agenda, able to connect the pertinent questions from various approaches and to rally the various sub-disciplines behind a set of mature and salient research questions.…”

“…However, there seem to be more similarities than differences and certainly enough features to conduct meaningful comparisons between the Commission and its organizational peers Balint et al 2008). Much could thus be gained if organizational change within the Commission were put into the context of the emerging research agenda on international bureaucracies (Bauer and Knill 2007;Barnett and Finnemore 2004;Benner et al 2007;Geri 2001;Liese and Weinlich 2006;Yi-Chong and Weller 2008).…”

Tolerant, If Personal Goals Remain Unharmed: Explaining Supranational Bureaucrats' Attitudes to Organizational Change

“…A second reason for focusing on international civil servants has to do with our concern for the elites that govern or help to govern us (Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman 1981; Aberbach and Rockman 2006; Putnam 1976). With respect to international civil servants, it is often argued that they are highly competitive as well as creative individuals and that they are “critical players in multilateral decision‐making” (Yi‐Chong and Weller 2008, 50). Thus, if it is true that a growing multinational bureaucratic elite is involved in an ever broader range of governance tasks, an understanding of the conditions under which these international civil servants are able to influence policymaking and of what drives their bureaucratic behavior both become highly relevant research questions 2…”