Managing Public Services

Seminar 7:
Impact of International Organizations on
Domestic Public Management

School of Business & Management

 Recap: How International
Policy Diffusion works?

Overview Activity: Readings

Q & A Session

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 International & Transnational Policy Actors
• Types
 International organizations such as EU, IMF, UNICEF, UNESCO, ILO etc.
 Transnational advocacy networks (research and advocacy NGOs (local, national
and international), activists, local social movements, foundations, the media,
churches, trade unions, consumer organizations, and intellectuals)
 Transnational epistemic communities (knowledge experts e.g., OECD, WB)

• Why do countries join international organisations?

• Help to solve coordination problems
• Help to deal with rapidly changing global demands / expectations in
important policy areas such as technology, the economy, and the natural
environment
• Help transmit international norms and standards
• Help provide resources that improve the state capacity of their members

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 Diffusion of International Policy
• 4 processes: Competition, Coercion, Socialization/Learning and
Emulation. (Simmons et al., 2008)

• Competition
 Governments may adopt similar policy ideas as an instrumentally rational
means to compete with other countries economically. (e.g., entry into EU,
UN and other INGOs circulate metrics of compliance)
• Coercion
 Governments may experience coercion from leading or powerful countries
which can encourage or even impose policy harmonization.
 IOs or leading states can use economic and other sanctions to encourage
cooperation and punish norm violators.
 Conditionality, which requires states to alter domestic policy in exchange for
funding, e.g., IMF and World Bank

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 Diffusion of International Policy
• Socialization / Learning / Persuasion
 Governments may be persuaded to adopt a particular policy because they
come to believe it is the “right” thing to do, for example, in order to be seen
as “modern”. (soft power e.g., EU sets norms & standards, UN facilitates
treaties)
 Alternatively, states may “actively assess the content of a particular
message – a norm, practice, or belief – and ‘change their minds’” in a
process of learning.
• Emulation
 States may simply “follow the leader” and emulate, that is, imitate the most
powerful or successful actors or bearers of expert knowledge. (e.g., OECD)
 It may be deliberate, as a means to increase one’s standing in the world
without significant costs, or a process of more “blindly” adopting the
“beliefs and behavioral patterns of the surrounding culture, without actively
assessing the merits of those beliefs and behaviors or the material costs
and benefits of conforming to them”

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 Source of Legitimacy for International
Organizations
• The traditional role of IOs are to facilitate inter-state interactions,
promote collective interests, and provide services such as data
collection on behalf of states, not to be domestic lawmakers.

• Sources of authority
1. Conditionality
2. Facilitating the negotiation of treaties and conventions
3. Perceived expertise
4. Peer-review & surveillance
Barnett and Finnemore (2004)

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 Activity
How International Organizations affect domestic public
management?

Task:
Choose an international organisation and discuss its impact upon a specific
policy of a targeted country (e.g., economic policy. immigration policy, climate
change). Discuss possible implications for the public management processes of
the particular policy in the country of your choice.

Suggested articles:

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 Domestic Challenges to Transfer & Uptake of
International Policy
• Mediating factors: Inertia, Absoprtion or Transformation
• Members among coalitions may act veto powers
• Government elites in different department may act veto powers
• Recalcitrant bureaucracies
• Opposition interest groups and fear of electoral loss
• Example: Findings from Kickert & Ongaro (2019)
 First, incumbent governments that planned hard cutbacks nearly always
tended to lose the next general elections.
 Secondly, coalition governments that planned hard cutbacks often broke up,
resulting in minority coalitions.
 Thirdly, coalition governments that made hard cutbacks and broke up nearly
always tended to call early elections.

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 Does being member of more IOs improve
governance?
• Negative side/externalities: Loss of accountability to citizens
 Increased activities of IOs unintentionally make it more difficult for citizens to
control political incumbents, which is likely to contribute to a decline in the
quality of government
 Results from Abouharb et al., (2019) analysis of 129 countries for the period
1985-2005: “Too many cooks spoil the broth”

Overall Public
Control of Government Political
quality of Sector
corruption effectiveness corruption
government Corruption

Total number
Negative & Negative & Negative & Positive & Positive &
of IGOs
significant significant significant significant significant
membership

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Any Questions?

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Thank you ….

Office hours : Friday, 12 – 1 pm

Any queries or schedule meeting: m.afzal@qmul.ac.uk

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