International Organisations and Policy-Making: Playing with Repertoires as Political Resource

International relations and public policy analysis are both used for studying the transnationalization and/or globalization of public action and the specific role of international institutions in global governance. However, the epistemological assumptions, theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that both literatures articulate are rarely discussed together. This workshop aims to allow for such a critical discussion and to shed interdisciplinary light on the central roles, resources and practices of international organizations (IOs) as policy-makers. The goal here is to open new forays in ongoing debates about IOs and policy-making, by asking different research questions and developing new research angles at the interface of the sociology of international relations and public policy. Initially IOs were mainly addressed by international relations literature through (inter-)state rivalries. Yet, academic debates on their emergence, their functions, the nature of their authority and their impact upon global politics have now aroused considerable controversy. For instance, some scholars have insisted on their organizational dimension and considered international institutions as full-fledged bureaucracies that extend the sum of their (state) components. Along these lines, Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore emphasized that the authority of international bureaucracies is based on their capacity to present themselves as neutral and impersonal (Barnett, Finnemore, 2004: 21). A recent body of literature has also produced a sociology of international elites in IOs, focusing on the biographies, professional trajectories and everyday (working) practices of international bureaucrats (Nair, 2015; David-Ismayil, Dugonjic, Lecler, 2015). Other researchers rather tend to grasp IOs from below, studying the outcomes of everyday encounter between external interveners and their targets (Ferguson, 1990; Autesserre, 2014). These developments have significantly renewed the literature on international institutions. Yet, they have tended to overlook the productive dimension of IOs and their specific contribution to policy-making. In this regard, Andy Smith regretted that “the tools of sociological approaches to politics have […] far rarely been applied to answering the question: how the WTO matters?” (Smith, 2009: 176). In the light of this questioning whilst extending its scope, the purpose of the workshop is to make use of the conceptual and methodological tools of both public policy analysis and international relations to interrogate the specific contribution and position of IOs to policy-making. By breaking down the walls between the analysis of public policy and of international organizations, such an approach enables for a more sophisticated and fine-grained analytics of the various degrees of leverage and embeddedness of IOs and therefore of the types of political resources at their disposal. The underlying hypothesis of the workshop consists in making sense of the contribution of IOs to policy-making in relation to their ability to operate as ‘arbitrators’ between a series of discursive, institutional, normative and technological repertoires of public policy. Originally forged as a means to grasp the forms of collective action (Tilly, 1979), “repertoire” will be understood in the workshop as a relatively coherent set of both political representations, policy instruments and professional practices mobilized to frame the issue and shape policy action. In this regard, the specific location of IOs at the interface between different thematic and geographic areas as well as institutional and transnational fields can be regarded as a political opportunity to assert their own authority through the selection of the normative strength and the types of policy instruments to be implemented. For instance, Conzelmann (2008) and Schäffer (2006) have underlined the various uses of multilateral surveillance in economic and trade policies by several IO (WTO, IMF, OECD, EU). They suggest that policy tools have to be embedded in the internal manieres de faire of each IO, as regards the role of the states and the expected degree of consensus to shape decisions. In the case of the UN, the increasing use of targeted sanctions provides the Security Council with the ability to play between the politico-administrative nature of the sanctions and the judicial appearance of the (de)listing process (Sullivan, de Goede, 2013). Other authors have also underlined the how and why of the involvement of “international rule makers” into the construction of global public policy problems such as money laundering, especially “to construct the issue as a global problem that requires global rules in order to be solved” (Hülsse, 2007). The aims of the workshop are then twofold: - Crossing results of IO and public policy literature to strengthen the understanding of transnational public policy action. Epistemologically, this requires “normalizing” IOs as another -yet particular- site of public policy. Methodologically, it allows for the use of the toolbox of public policy analysis (process-tracing, public and social problem approach, public policy instrumentation and so on) and sources (institutional data, grey literature, ethnography and so on). One might yet argue that the particular dimensions of multilateral action (multi-level, degree of publicity, consensus, and neutrality) call for some amendments to the standard public policy approaches. - Unpacking IOs as policy-makers as a way to have a better understanding of IO in itself. In particular, we argue that considering IOs as policy-makers invite to reconsider how actors shape public policy as regards institutional, normative, discursive and technological repertoires. Far from eroding their normative power, the blurred boundaries between the scientific, economic, political, judicial and/or administrative spheres of/within many IOs paradoxically provide them with significant political resources to assert their own authority. As an interdisciplinary forum, this workshop will thus open up an original opportunity for the community of political scientists and social scientists at large to debate on these new developments and the possible convergences between paradigms. Relation to existing literature: While international relations and public policy analysis are often depicted as two autonomous academic sub-fields of political science, recent developments in literature are visible and closer linkage appears between IR and PPA scholars. In the early 1990s, Soroos (1990) invited to consider global policy as regards public policy toolbox. Since then, some programmatic articles have underlined this research direction (Petiteville, Smith, 2006; Stone, 2008) and researchers initially interested in public policy analysis have paid more considerable attention to political issues and policy practices that extend national borders (Haas, 1992; Kenis, Schneider 1991). Focusing on the definition and modalities of public policy, policy transfer studies have highlighted the exogenous dimension of public action and the importance of IO into phenomena such as external imposition, influence, inspiration or imitation (Evans, 2004; Stone, 2004). The field of public policy analysis also increasingly embraced topics and objects considered as typical for international studies, including international institutions or specific thematic issues such as global health or education policies (Kaul, 2016; Knill and Bauer, 2016; Stone and Moloney, 2019). Conversely, many IR scholars have borrowed the conceptual tools, research questions and methodologies that were forged within the field of public policy analysis to (re)consider “classical” IR questions and empirical fields, such as security, warfare or peacebuilding (Hülsse, 2007; Scherrer, 2016; Aradau, Huysmans, 2014; Cavelty, Balzacq, 2016). The typical concepts and “moments” of policy analysis -including construction of social problems, decision-making process, policy instrumentation and evaluation- have also been (re)investigated through the recent “turns” (e.g. linguistic turn, practice turn, material turn) in international and european studies (Neumann 2002; Adler, 2008; Adler and Pouliot, 2011; Pouliot 2008, 2010, 2016; Berling 2015; Adler-Nissen 2016). In this regard, one may argue that Waever’s “securitization” concept (Buzan, B., Wæver, O., & De Wilde, J., 1998) contributed to (critical) security studies (C. A. S. E. 2006) as much as the argumentative turn did to policy analysis (Hajer, M. A., Hoppe, R., & Jennings, B. 1993). In relation to public policy instrumentation and tools of government (Hood, 1983; Lascoumes, Le Gales, 2007), recent works have focused on the proliferation of what it is commonly referred as ‘high-tech’ and ‘low-tech’ devices – computers, databases, big data analytics and infrastructures of various kinds -– to examine the configuration and reconfiguration of transnational policies and practices by attending to the equipment or instrumentation that make them possible and temporally stabilize them (Bennet, Raab, 2003; Amicelle, Aradau, Jeandesboz, 2015; Valkenburg, van der Ploeg, 2015). In this regard, some authors have underlined the critical involvement of various IOs into technology policy making processes such as the role of the International Civil Aviation Organization in relation to the development and deployment of biometric passports (Stanton, 2008). They often rely on the political sociology of public policy instruments that has itself conjugated Foucauldian governmentality and actor-network theory. As governmentality presupposes ‘rational forms, technical procedures, instrumentations through which to operate’ (Foucault, 1997: 203), instrumentation is addressed as a central activity in the art of (international) government. The sociology of public policy instrumentation also retains from science and technology studies the argument that instruments are less inert intermediaries than partly autonomous actants that contribute to orientating actors’ behaviours (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2004). Socio-technical devices provide grids of analysis to describe and categorize social problems in order to make them actionable. From this perspective, thinking of and analysing IOs’ practices through devices may constitute one of the possible analytical avenues that both echoes public policy analysis and IR. The aim of the workshop is not to arbitrate between a series of analytical avenues at the interface between IR and public policy analysis. It rather consists of providing a sound basis for a continued dialogue between them to understand if and to what extent their articulation may contribute to a better understanding of the policy making force of IOs as ‘arbitrators’ between a series of discursive, institutional, normative and technological repertoires of public policy. References: ADLER-NISSEN, R. (2016), “Towards a practice turn in EU studies: the everyday of European integration”, JCMS: journal of common market studies, 54(1), 87-103. ADLER, E. (2008), “The Spread of Security Communities: Communities of Practice, Self-Restraint, and NATO's Post—Cold War Transformation”, European journal of international relations, 14 (2), p. 195-230. ADLER, E., POULIOT, V. (2011), “International practices”, International theory, 3(1), 1-36. AMICELLE, A., ARADAU, C., JEANDESBOZ, J. (2015), “Questioning security devices: Performativity, resistance, politics”, Security Dialogue, 46(4), 293-306 ARADAU, C., HUYSMANS, J. (2014), “Critical methods in International Relations: The politics of tools, devices and acts”, European Journal of International Relations, 20 (3), 596-619. AUTESSERRE, S. (2014), Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. BARNETT, M., FINNEMORE, M. (2004), Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. BENNETT, C., RAAB, C. (2003), The Governance of Privacy, London: Routledge. BERLING, T. V. (2015), The International Political Sociology of Security: Rethinking Theory and Practice, Routledge. BUZAN, B., WAEVER, O., DE WILDE, J. (1998), Security: a new framework for analysis, Lynne Rienner Publishers Collective C.A.S.E. (2006), “Critical approaches to security in Europe: A networked manifesto”, Security Dialogue, 37(4), 443-487 CAVELTY, M. D., BALZACQ, T. (Eds.), (2016), Routledge handbook of security studies. Routledge. CONZELMANN, T. (2008), “Beyond the Carrot and the Stick: State Reporting Procedures in the WTO and the OECD”, in J. Joachim; B. Reinalda; B. Verbeek (dir.), International Organizations and Implementation, London, Routledge, pp.35-47. DAVID-ISMAYIL, M., DUGONJIC, L., LECLER, R., (2015) « Analyser les politiques de mondialisation », in Siméant, J., ed., Guide de l'enquête globale en sciences sociales, Paris, CNRS Éditions, pp. 47-68. EVANS, M. (2004), « Understanding Policy Transfer », in EVANS, M. (ed.), Policy Transfer in Global Perspective, Aldershot, Ashgate, p. 10-43 FERGUSON, J. (1990, The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development”, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, New York, Cambridge University Press; FOUCAULT, M. (1997), “Il faut défendre la société”. Cours au Collège de France, 1976. HAAS, P. M. (1992). “Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination”, International organization, 46(1), 1-35. HAJER, M. A., HOPPE, R., JENNINGS, B. (1993), The argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning, Duke University Press HOOD, C. et al., The tools of Government, London, Macmillan, 1983. HULSSE, R. (2007), “Creating Demand for Global Governance: The Making of a Global Money-laundering Problem”, Global Society, 21:2, 155-178 KAUL, I. (2016), Global Public Goods, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2016. KENIS, P., SCHNEIDER, V. (1991), “Policy networks and policy analysis: scrutinizing a new analytical toolbox”, in Marin, B. and Mayntz, R., Eds., Policy networks: Empirical evidence and theoretical considerations, Campus Verlag, pp. 25-59 KNILL, C., BAUER, M. W. (2016), "Policy-making by international public administrations: concepts, causes and consequences", Journal of European Public Policy, 23 (7), pp. 949-959. LASCOUMES, P., LE GALES, P. (2007), “Introduction: understanding public policy through its instruments—from the nature of instruments to the sociology of public policy instrumentation”, Governance, 20(1), pp. 1-21. LASCOUMES, P., LE GALES, P. (2003), Gouverner par les instruments, Paris, Presses de Sciences po. NAIR, D. (2015) Saving the states’ face: an ethnography of the ASEAN secretariat and diplomatic field in Jakarta. PhD thesis, The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) NEUMANN, I. B. (2002), ‘Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy”, Millennium, 31(3), 627–651 PETITEVILLE, F., SMITH, A. (2006), « Analyser les politiques publiques internationales », Revue française de science politique, 56 (3), pp. 357-366 POULIOT, V. (2008), "The logic of practicality: A theory of practice of security communities", International organization, 62(2), pp. 257-288. POULIOT, V. (2010). International security in practice: the politics of NATO-Russia diplomacy, Cambridge University Press. POULIOT, V. (2016), International Pecking Orders: The Politics and Practice of Multilateral Diplomacy, York, Cambridge University Press. SCHAFFER, A. (2006), “A new form of governance? Comparing the OMC to the multilateral surveillance by the IMF and the OECD”, Journal of European Public Policy, 1, pp.70-88 SCHERRER, A. (2016), G8 against transnational organized crime, Routledge. SMITH, A. (2009), “How the WTO Matters to Industry: The Case of Scotch Whisky”, International Political Sociology, 3 (2), pp. 176–193 SOROOS, M. (1990), “A Theoretical Framework for Global Policy Studies“, International Political Science Review, 3, pp. 309-322 STANTON, J. (2008), “ICAO and the biometric RFID passport: History and analysis”, Playing the identity card: Surveillance, security and identification in global perspective, pp. 253-67. STONE, D. (2008), “Global Public Policy, Transnational Policy Communities, and Their Networks“, Policy Studies Journal, 1, pp.19-38. STONE, D. (2004), “Transfer agents and global networks in the ‘transnationalization’of policy”, Journal of European public policy, 11(3), pp. 545-566. STONE, D., MOLONEY, K. (Eds.) (2019). The Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration, Oxford University Press. SULLIVAN, G., DE GOEDE, M. (2013), “Between Law and the Exception: The UN 1267 Ombudsperson as a Hybrid Model of Legal Expertise”, Leiden Journal of International Law, 26(4), pp. 833-854 TILLY (C.), 1979, « Repertoires of Contention in America and Britain », in Zald (M. N.), McCarthy (J.), eds, The Dynamics of Social Movements, Cambridge, Mss, Winthrop. VALKENBURG, G., VAN DER PLOEG, I. (2015), “Materialities between security and privacy: A constructivist account of airport security scanners”, Security dialogue, 46(4), 326-344.