The Communicated IO: Public Relations, Civil Society Inclusion and Global Politicization of International Organizations

国际组织(IO)公共沟通的增加是否助长了其政策和程序的政治化？内部监督办公室受到不同程度的公开辩论和争议--也就是政治化。与此同时，由于加强了公共关系活动以及将民间社会组织纳入IO--内部讨论、决定和执行IO--政策，它们为社会沟通进程打开了大门。在这方面，人们普遍认为，IO公众可获得性水平的提高助长了政治化，因为外部行为者更容易获得关于故障的信息。然而，相反的情况可能也是正确的：一个IO可以避免或操纵公开辩论--通过使他们的公共关系专业化，或通过有选择地将民间社会组织纳入自己的活动而使批评者边缘化。在此背景下，该项目询问IO公关和CSO包容对政治化的影响。该项目的第一部分是对大约50个IO的公开声明进行编码和多元分析，这些声明可以在2004至2012年间每个IO的三次部长级会议期间的两家跨国新闻机构的新闻中找到。项目的第二部分使用IO和CSO的新闻稿增加了四个深入的案例研究。案例的选择采用了“最相似的制度设计”。该项目的两个部分都可以就公众可获得性提高对政治化的因果影响得出互补的结论。这两部分都对全球政治化中存在的不平等现象提出了重要的见解--这是对内部监督办公室的体制安排和传播战略进行经验性评估的重要证据。

Does an increase in the public communication of international organizations (IO) foster the politicization of their policies and procedures? IOs are publicly debated and contested--that is, politicized--to varying degrees. At the same time, they have opened for societal processes of communication, by virtue of intensified public relations activities as well as the inclusion of civil society organizations (CSO) into IO-internal deliberations, decisions and the implementation of IO-policies. In this context, it is widely held that such increases in the level of IO public accessibility fosters politicization because information about failures become more readily available to external actors. However, the opposite might be true as well: an IO might avoid or manipulate public contestation--by way of professionalizing their public relations or marginalizing critics by selectively including CSOs into own activities. Against this backdrop, the project asks about the impact of IO public relations and CSO-inclusion on politicization. It pursues an explanatory approach with a strong focus on what makes politicization a critical variable for democracy: the emergence of a lively and inclusive public sphere that allows civil society actors to hold IO authority accountable.The project, in its first part, entails the coding and multivariate analysis of public statements of about 50 IOs that can be found in the newsfeeds of two transnational news agencies during three ministerial conferences per IO between 2004 and 2012. The second part of project adds four in-depth case studies using press releases of IO and CSO. The selection of cases draws upon a 'most similar system design'. Both parts of the project allow for complementary conclusions on the causal effects of increasing levels of public accessibility on politicization. Both parts promise important insights about existing inequalities in global politicization--important evidence for an empirically grounded evaluation of institutional arrangements and communication strategies of IOs.