'Who has a Say?' Variations in the expert authority of international organizations

Scholars in International Relations increasingly observe that international organizations (IOs) enjoy expert authority. This observation raises the questions (i) to what extent IO bureaucracies, which are embedded in IOs as a distinct entity, enjoy expert authority, and (ii) under which conditions they enjoy which extent of expert authority. The paper presents the findings of an ongong research project on the expert authority of eight international organizations (i.e. organizations with a global membership) and four regional organizations in the policy areas of agriculture and of finance. The paper starts with a brief discussion of the theoretical and conceptual debate on expert authority, from which we derive our conception of expert authorit as a relational construct. Then, we elaborate on our methodological approach to measure expert authority via a survey. Finally, we present first empirical findings on the variation of expert authority.