Identifying the Hidden Influence of International Treaty Secretariats on Environmental Policy-Making

Based on principal-agent theory, sociological institutionalism, and organizational theories, researchers have identified a range of tasks carried out by International Public Administrations (IPA) in the past years, leading us to believe that they exert autonomous influence on international policy outputs. The aim of our paper is to discuss the role of leadership provided by executive secretaries as an explanation for their autonomous influence. Leadership relates to the ways in which secretariat’s top manager actively seek to influence negotiations by stressing “the agency’s unique capacity to deal with the problems at hand, and actively (engaging) in networking with political actors” (Groenleer 2009: 79f). Executive secretaries may provide leadership, using their diplomatic skills to get convention parties to comprise by delivering information or guidelines regarding technical aspects helpful to the negotiation process. By pointing out indispensable factors and needs for action within a certain policy field, information provided by the secretariat are more likely to be considered, enabling them to become agenda-setters in their own right. Drawing on techniques of social network analysis (SNA) enables us to reveal, among others, the communication patterns as well as the frequency and type of information exchange that scholars have consistently described as invisible. Applying measures employed by SNA to the communication networks that have evolved around the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) allows us to determine the actual interaction patterns of the actors’ involved without having to rely on biased statements. Analyzing data derived from Twitter permits us to detect, for example, the relative network position of administrative actors. As an empirical case study, we aim to uncover the exerted influence of the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres, and her agenda-setting capacity during the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP).