Ideology and Donations in the UN System

• In Event: International Organizations: Bureaucracy and Behavior

Abstract

Why, despite persistent complaints from member states about bureaucratic bloat and operational inefficiency, has the United Nations failed to reform in any meaningful way? I argue that this is driven by member states cultivating ties with particular UN agencies through ideologically-driven donations to these agencies, which leads the agencies to be responsive to the donors' preferences. Consequently, states ultimately prefer the inefficiencies than risking issues being handled by agencies to which they have weaker ties. I investigate this claim empirically by showing that countries' ideological orientations influence their donation behavior in the UN. Not only do countries that are ideologically close to the US contribute more, their donation preferences differ even among agencies that are thematically similar. The results extend our understanding of states' informal influence on IOs, and highlight that continued inefficiency in the operation of UN agencies may be a pernicious problem to solve.

Author

• Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir, Hertie School