Policy-making by international public administrations: concepts, causes and consequences

As the demand and necessity for greater international and transnational co-operation increase, the bureaucratic bodies of international organizations are receiving ever more scholarly attention. Yet, the relevance of international public administrations (IPAs) for global policy-making remains neither empirically nor theoretically well understood. A heuristic that links considerations of policy scope and policy type is provided to differentiate between the various aims and levels of potential IPA influence. Combining such a distinction with a taxonomy of administrative resources – namely, nodality, authority, treasure and organization – facilitates the development of concepts to systematically study patterns, constellations and conditions of IPA influence.