Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper focuses on institutions as both material and ideational phenomena and demonstrates how a combination of rationalist and constructivist insights can provide a more complete understanding of the member state-IO relationship. In this regard, the paper shows that an IO's institutional design enables independent IO actions not simply by delineating procedures or delegating resources to the IO, but also by shaping IO officials and member states' understanding of the IO's role and expertise. These outcomes reflect two central features of the IO's institutional design. First, the IO's organizational capacity captures the discretion its officials enjoy to fulfill the tasks delegated to it, and by consequence, the extent to which IO officials learn how to fulfill the IO's mandate and the legitimacy member states accord to IO officials' recommendations. Second, the IO's hiring procedures affect member states' capacity to sanction IO officials and IO officials' understanding of their roles and members' recognition of IO officials' expertise and neutrality. The argument is applied to the World Trade Organization and World Health Organization.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The role and authority of international organizations (IOs) continues to remain a fiercely debated issue in contemporary international relations. Indeed even when IOs are widely perceived to have acted appropriately and in accordance with their delegation contract, such as the World Health Organization’s (WHO) actions in relation to the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) pandemic, they still attract criticism. Three academic commentators – David Fidler, Andrew Cortell and Susan Peterson – have suggested, for example, that in eradicating the first new disease of the 21st century the WHO exercised “independent power” or “agency slack”. In making this argument, the authors contend that the WHO exceeded its authority by unilaterally engaging in unauthorised, unprecedented, and undesired actions. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate these claims. Specifically, it will be shown that while the WHO’s administrative element did act unilaterally in the context of the global emergency, the actions it executed were both entirely consistent with the preferences of its member states, and based on the Organization’s delegated authority and established IO practice.
Key words:International Organization (IO); World Health Organization (WHO); International Law; SARS; Communicable Disease; Responsible Scholarship.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the wake of media attention and the mobilization of local and transnational activists, a range of measures have been undertaken by the UN in recent years to improve state and non-state responsiveness to the problem of sexual violence in war torn societies. These developments, including the Security Council’s adoption of a zero tolerance policy for sexual misconduct in UN peacekeeping operations, may be interpreted as signaling a cultural shift away from the construction of sexual violence against females in situations of warfare as inevitable and acceptable. In my paper, however, I trace the evolution of UN gender-related security policies, the inconsistencies between its policies and practices, and the effects of these policies on the ability of women and girls to enjoy their human rights, concluding that IO efforts to promulgate and consolidate gender norms that require fundamental adaptations to military cultures and systems have been thwarted in the interest of domestic security, with gender norms succeeding only on the margins in influencing the actions of international and domestic military systems. Building on an analysis of the response of the UN and its member states to the sexual misconduct of UN peacekeepers during mission operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Sudan, I argue that studying the relationship between gender and normative change raises unique, but not insurmountable challenges, for constructivist scholars attempting to confirm the autonomous role of international organizations in diffusing norms that shape state identities, interests, and behaviors in the security arena.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper we analyze the results of a survey experiment conducted on July 11th and12th 2008 in the United Kingdom. We make three contributions to the extant literature. First, we develop a research design that improves upon and compliments Thompson’s initial case study of the 1991 buildup to the Gulf war. Second, the analysis of our survey results provides empirical support for Thompson’s hypothesis: formal IOs with larger memberships (representative of the international community) tend to increase
support for coercive action by foreign publics. Finally, contrary to Tomz (2008), we provide indirect evidence that the “legalization” of the action through UNSC approval does not have a significant effect on support for military action, suggesting that the major
benefit of UN approval may have less to do with its status as “legal” under international law, but that it signals broad support from a diverse set of states.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper investigates the bases on which peacekeeping performance is currently evaluated. I argue that evaluation of peace operations performance within the UN are heavily influenced by concepts and practices drawn from private sector business management and the “New Public Management” reform movement in public administration. These practices have become institutionalized within the public bureaucracy organizational field of which the United Nations secretariat and DPKO are a part, and their adoption is driven by institutional isomorphism. I argue that the focus of academic research on outcome performance and the process-focused practice of peacekeeping performance measurement within the UN are largely disconnected, inhibiting better understanding of IOP performance. The paper calls for integrating analysis of process-level and outcome-level performance by better specification of causal mechanisms through which bureaucratic processes are expected to produce desired outcomes.