Structure, Membership, & Governance in International Environmental Organizations

• In Event: Bureaucracy and Staff of International Organizations

Abstract

The last few decades have seen a surge in environmentally focused organizations aiming to address the ongoing challenges of climate change. Accompanying this trend are continued increases in environmentally focused foreign aid. For example, the OECD found that donor countries provided an average of $34.8 billion of foreign aid focused on the environment from 2016-2017. While important research has begun examining the effectiveness of aid for the environment, scholars have yet to examine how institutional and political dynamics within these aid agencies effects their behavior. As other scholars of foreign aid have noted the importance of elements such as donor preferences, voting rules, and funding conditions on other foreign aid outcomes, I demonstrate how these same dynamics are at play within environmental organizations. Specifically, I examine how the structure, membership, and governance of four of the largest environmental IGOs impacts their aid allocations. My main research question centers on how the preferences of donors impact the ultimate behavior of the organization. Furthermore, these four environmental IGOS--the UNEP, the Adaptation Fund, the GEF, and the IUCN—represent both traditional and newer forms of IGOs, as each allows for varying influences of non-state actors in their governance. Therefore, this paper also examines majors shifts in international governance. The paper concludes by evaluating potential avenues for future research in environmental foreign aid, and the changing nature of IGOs more broadly.

Author

• Katherine Vera Bryant, Westmont College