Making International Organizations Accountable

• In Event: Effectiveness of Global Governance Institutions

Abstract

International organizations (IOs) have come under increasing pressure to become more accountable for their performance in recent decades, yet only some have been willing to embrace meaningful reform. Equally puzzling, while demands for greater accountability are almost always triggered by evidence of ineffective performance – such as crises, scandals, disasters, and failures – there is considerable variation in the strength of accountability mechanisms among IOs that have experienced high levels of negative performance information. This paper proposes an explanation for these related puzzles and subjects it to empirical tests based on the first collection of systematic panel data on IO accountability. I argue that the likelihood that negative performance disclosures lead to reform depends on the functional tasks IOs are designed to perform, in particular whether they engage in the provision of financial resources, the primary task of what I call financiers; the delivery of on-the-ground logistical support, the primary task of logisticians; or the harmonization of rules, standards, and practices, the primary task of harmonizers. Due to differences in (1) the number and characteristics of their operational partners and (2) the degree of institutional competition they face, financiers experience intense political pressures to strengthen accountability mechanisms following the release of negative performance information; logisticians experience moderate pressures; and harmonizers experience weak pressures. I evaluate the argument using a new dataset covering five distinct dimensions of accountability in 54 IOs over the period 1945-2016. The findings are robust to a wide variety of specifications and identification strategies, including the use of instrumental variables for negative performance information.

Author

• Ranjit Lall, London School of Economics