Who is pulling the strings? Staff perceptions on the autonomy of International Organisations (IO)

Scholars increasingly consider International organisations (IOs) as autonomous global governance actors in their own right. But is this view reflected by the employees of these very organizations? Does IO staff see their organizations as autonomous global governance actors? To answer this question, this paper draws on findings from a large novel survey, capturing the perceptions of 1,004 staff members from 30 IOs. It sheds light on the levels of autonomy for a variety of typical IO tasks and identifies the structural and IO-specific factors that explain variation across IOs. Consistent with expectations, higher authority of an IO -- as measured by the International Authority Database (Zürn, 2021) – leads to higher levels of perceived autonomy amongst its staff. Surprisingly, though, this relationship does not hold for the set of United Nations (UN) organisations included in our sample. Moreover, there are significant differences when contrasting IOs pertaining to the UN system or the European Union (EU), with the latter expressing especially high levels of autonomy. These findings feed right into the wider academic and political debate on EU actorness. The survey provides insights into questions around the relationship between IO autonomy and IO effectiveness. Finally, implications for the global governance system in which these IOs engage are discussed. The survey results and discussion thereof provide an important empirical contribution to the literature on IO agency.