Open or closed international organizations: Conditions for policy change by contestation

当假定的政策受益者对其政策提出异议时，国际组织在什么条件下改变其政策？一个普遍的假设是，国际组织是官僚主义的容器。外部影响被等级文化和严格的组织结构过滤掉。民间社会的抗议经常导致国际组织的修辞和程序变化，但很少导致实质性的政策变化- -国际组织是“封闭的组织”。这个假设在多大程度上仍然是正确的？目前的研究将国际组织描述为“开放组织”。组织文化和结构日益流动，正式的组织边界发挥较少的作用，主要是由于新的公共管理改革。我们观察到跨国专业网络在某些问题领域争夺控制权。这些网络塑造了国际组织的行为。在这个框架下，民间社会抗议不会因为僵化的国际劳工组织文化和病态而失败。相反，竞争团体可以利用被认为对创新更开放的专业网络来影响IO政策。该项目在一个研究设计中结合了建构主义国际组织研究的这两种截然不同的变化：开放的组织文化和结构应该促进国际组织的政策变化，作为对假定受益者的争论的反应；封闭的组织文化和结构会阻碍变革。该项目还分析了其他条件的影响：强大的国家和不同的抗议策略。我们比较了劳工组织、儿童基金会、毒品和犯罪问题办公室和卫生组织对不同问题领域（吸毒和贩运、童工、贩运人口和切割女性生殖器官）假定受益者提出的争议的反应。该项目结合了假设测试用例比较和过程跟踪。采用专家访谈法、定性内容分析法和网络分析法。

Under what conditions do international organizations change their policies when these are contested by the assumed beneficiaries of those policies?One widespread assumption is that international organizations are bureaucratic containers. External influences are filtered by a hierarchical culture and a rigid organizational structure. Civil society protest often leads to rhetorical and procedural changes in international organizations but seldom to substantial policy change – international organizations are "closed organizations".To what extent does this assumption still hold true? Current research describes international organizations as "open organizations". Organizational cultures and structures are increasingly fluid and formal organizational boundaries play less of a role, largely due to New Public Management reforms. We observe transnational professional networks which fight over control over certain issue areas. These networks shape the behavior of international organizations. In this framework, civil society protest does not fail because of rigid IO cultures and pathologies. Instead, contesting groups can use access to professional networks, which are assumed to be more open to innovation, to affect IO policies.The project combines these two contrasting variations of constructivist IO studies in one research design: an open organizational culture and structure should promote policy change in IOs as reaction to contestation by assumed beneficiaries; a closed organizational culture and structure should hinder change. The project also analyzes the effects of alternative conditions: of powerful states and of different protest strategies. We compare reactions of ILO, UNICEF, UNODC and WHO to contestation by assumed beneficiaries in different issue areas: drug use and trafficking, child labor, human trafficking and female genital mutilation. The project combines a hypothesis-testing case comparison with process tracing. It uses expert interview, qualitative content analysis as well as network analysis.