Global Policymakers for Hire? The Politics of Contracting in International Organizations

This project seeks to capture the politics of global governance in the 21st century through the angle of its shifting work organization. My basic contention is that global policymaking increasingly rests on contracting, which takes the occupational forms, when it comes to international organizations (IOs), of limited term appointments (LTAs) and consultancy. Global policymakers, in a nutshell, are increasingly "for hire" (as opposed to employees). LTA describes the increasingly precarious work structure of IO staff, from hypermobile transnational elites to local fixers and logisticians through freelance independent experts; while consultancy refers to the growing expenses on external consultants, especially the small set of large transnational firms such as McKinsey. The presence of these hired guns at different levels and in various sites is transforming the field of global policymaking. Needless to say, the bureaucratic structure continues to loom large in contemporary global governance–but it is not as triumphant as it used to be. Ongoing changes in the work structure of global policymaking are part of an evolution, not a revolution. I typologize three layers or "classes" of global policymakers. At the "bottom" of the pyramid is a global proletariat of local fixers, procurement specialists and logisticians who generally operate on the ground of global governance, toward implementation. In the middle tier, a variety of relatively precarious workers, including clerks and professionals, enter in limited-term appointments with IOs, NGOs and other global agencies. Finally, at the top stands a transnational elite part of diverse networks, such as multistakeholders partnerships, and endowed with multiple affiliations that often straddle public and private bodies. I empirically document the shifting balance of contracting at the United Nations, looking at consultancy spending and fixed-term appointments. Overall, the political effects of this ongoing transformation are far-reaching, introducing new market logics in global governance with significant implications for accountability, the public interest and everyday administration. The growing global consultocracy produces a whole new set of pathologies that throws a different light on Barnett and Finnemore’s bureaucratic account of IOs.