Global bureaucracies have become significant actors within the governance of development cooperation. Understood as autonomous political and legal subjects, global administrations are increasingly able to exercise public authority and influence policy output. But what are the sources of their power? Drawing on insights of international relations and international legal scholarship this contribution wants to take a closer look at the relationship between the institutional design of global administrations and its potential influence on bureaucratic power. From an interdisciplinary perspective we argue that specific institutional designs potentially affect organizational autonomy which in turn may effectuate their bureaucratic power. In this paper we discuss whether or not the institutional design of global bureaucracies may be considered as one essential resource of their power. International development cooperation seems to be an ideal research object for illustrating our argument. This policy field has recently been re-shaped in new institutional forms due to the 1990s debate on aid effectiveness. Institutional design has been considered as one asset for creating effective and thus influential bureaucracies. Our empirical analysis centers on the institutional design of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM). Founded in 2002, the GFATM has become the most important financing instrument for AIDS governance. Therefore, exploring its power resources is potentially relevant for our argument.. Our paper is structured as follows: In a first step we would like to sketch and possibly merge the underlying debates of bureaucratic authority within the disciplines of International Relations and International Law. Secondly, we would like to analyze the institutional preconditions that render the GFATM such a powerful donor. The innovative institutional structure seems to be a clue in understanding its role as a global bureaucracy. Thirdly, we would like to reflect our empirical findings against the background of our theoretical concept. We hope that the dialogue between political science and international law in our paper broadens the view on the politics of development cooperation. Debates of both disciplines can then be fruitfully interlinked and applied within different contexts.
