Consideration of Expert Knowledge. International Public Administrations as Policy Experts
Prof. Dr. Andrea Liese within the DFG-Research Unit "International Public Administrations. The Emergence and Development of Administrative Patterns and their Effects on International Policy-Making" - Duration 2014-2016
The Research Unit, to which this research project contributes, is concerned with the question how different patterns in administrative structures of international public administrations (IPAs), in their roles in political decision-making and in their relations to other actors in politics and society may be explained. The different research projects in the Research Unit analyze administrative styles, autonomy, expert authority, time rules and time horizons, multi-level structures and influence. In doing so, different theoretical perspectives from Public Administration and International Relations are applied. This sub-project starts from the observation of an increasing number of studies in International Relations (IR) that intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) enjoy expert authority and thus command a form of power. This observation raises the question to what extent IPAs, which are embedded in IGOs as distinct organizational entity and fulfil important functions, enjoy expert authority, too, and as result are able to orient the preferences, strategies, and policies of actors in international politics. Starting from this basic question, we direct the attention to the expert authority of IPAs, which is the authority that they are most likely to enjoy.