Self-legitimation in the face of politicization: Why international organizations centralized public communication

Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt ()
Additional contact information
Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt: Freie Universität Berlin

The Review of International Organizations, 2018, vol. 13, issue 4, No 2, 519-546

Abstract: Abstract International organizations (I0) have centralized their public communication to a large extent over recent decades by undertaking a broader codification of communication tasks as well as a departmentalization of these tasks within units of IO bureaucracies. The paper provides the first systematic analysis of this important development in institutional design using a novel data set on the organization of public communication in 48 IOs between 1950 and 2015. It identifies self-legitimation as a key driver of centralization in the face of increased levels of politicization, that is, public awareness and activism directed at IOs. Empirically, the study suggests that the centralization of public communication significantly increases as transnational civil society organizes and gains access to IO decision-making. Further, politicization in terms of contentious activism and public scandals substantially accounts for varying levels of centralization across IOs.

Keywords: International organization; Institutional design; Communication; Politicization; Legitimation; Transnational civil society; Non-state access; Political protest; Political scandal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D73 D83 F53 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11558-017-9287-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:revint:v:13:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s11558-017-9287-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... iology/journal/11558

DOI: 10.1007/s11558-017-9287-y

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of International Organizations is currently edited by A. Dreher

More articles in The Review of International Organizations from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().