How Organisational Structure Affects Agency Slack: A Fuzzy-Set Ideal-Type Analysis of International Bureaucracies

Over the past decades states have delegated extensive decision-making authority to the administrative bodies of international organizations. But this gradual process of empowerment has also been accompanied by incidents of agency slack – understood as an overstepping of mandates and actions contrary to member states’ intentions. Prior studies suggest that international organizations’ propensity for agency slack is rooted in their organizational characteristics. Yet, this has not been explored empirically, much less from a comparative perspective. This paper makes a two-fold contribution in (1) developing a conceptual framework for the study of organizational characteristics and (2) conducting a fuzzy-set ideal-type analysis to assess the empirical resonance of the conceptualized types of organizations. Empirically, the paper draws on original data gathered on 19 member organizations, agencies, and programs of the United Nations Joint Inspection Unit. The results of the ideal-type analysis show that the observed UN bureaucracies can be grouped into distinct clusters that resonate with the organizations' propensity for agency slack.