Representative Institutions in International Organisations

Our research tackles the issue of authority in international organisations (IOs) by studying parliamentarisation at the international level. We map and explain the existence of representative institutions in IOs (“IO Parliaments”) and the strength and types of their authority. This allows us to: first, test hypotheses on the relationship between authority and the creation of representative institutions; second, connect recent studies on international parliaments with research focusing on internal dynamics of IOs; third, complement ongoing large scale research on IO authority, notably Hooghe and Marks’ new database on the topic. In order to do this, we will build and analyse an original dataset measuring IO parliaments’ institutional authority and internal institutionalisation. We cover a cross-section of all IO parliaments and a time dimension for as many as possible. Our analysis contributes to questions as to what extent, and under what conditions, the deepening of IO authority triggers reforms to strengthen representative institutions.