Agents as Brokers: Leadership in Multilateral Organizations
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
| Author | Angel Saz‐Carranza |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12248 |
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
Agents as Brokers: Leadership in Multilateral
Organizations
Angel Saz-Carranza
ESADE, Ramon Llull University
Abstract
In exploring the leadership practices of chief executives of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), this article finds that
IGO leaders recognize themselves as agents and as brokers. This article produces findings from a multiple-case study
of the executive leadership of NATO from 1995 to 1999 and of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy from 1999
to 2009. The relationship between member states and the IGO leader can be conceived as a principal–agent relation-
ship where the agent plays a central role in framing a common vision and strategies, facilitating member states’
involvement in the strategizing process, and mobilizing external and internal support. I depart from a restrictive princi-
pal–agent conceptualization of the relationship because I do not envision it as conflictive, but rather as collaborative.
This study explores executive leadership in multilateral
organizations. Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) are
central pieces of the system of global governance.
Understanding how these are best led is of crucial impor-
tance if the system is to function adequately. An IGO’s
functioning depends on, among other things, how its
chief executive behaves –particularly vis-
a-vis member
states –and what practices he or she executes. Few
studies exist of how such leadership figures behave.
(Some related exceptions are historical biographical
works of a few former chief executives of the most
renowned UN and Bretton Woods institutions; see
Boughton, 2001; Kille, 2013; Kraske et al., 1996.) This is
the gap that I want to help fill by addressing the follow-
ing question: what specific leadership practices do IGO
chief executives adopt?
Principal–agent theory (PAT) has been used frequently
in conceptualizing the relationship between an IGO chief
executive and the member states (Hawkins and Lake,
2006). PAT assumes that principals have clear and ranked
preferences, and that agents are strategic as they try to
substitute the principal’s preference with their own.
Simultaneously, principals must balance the trade-off
between the costs of monitoring and aligning agents
and the costs of strategic gaming by agents. PAT con-
ceptualizes the principal–agent relationship as conflictive.
Nevertheless, bounded rationality common to all orga-
nizational actors –combined with the IGO’s principal
being collective in nature, comprising multiple sovereign
member states engaged in politics –calls for a relaxation
of the premise that the principal’s preferences are clear
and ordered. This, together with the idea that agents do
not necessarily nor solely behave strategically and nar-
rowly in their self-interest, demands better conceptualiz-
ing and understanding of executive leadership.
The research design uses the case-study approach to
explore how IGO chief executives lead. I study two histor-
ically relevant cases: the leadership practices of: (1) the
NATO secretary general –together with his personal
team –during the organization’sfirst post-Cold-War
enlargement process to the East; and (2) the EU High
Representative leadership during the institutional crea-
tion of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy
(EU-CFSP). The two cases imply clearly distinct contexts
but both are considered as successful. To analyze the
interview transcripts and documentation, I used content
analysis.
Ifind that chief executives of IGOs recognize the mem-
ber states as their collective principal and themselves as
agents, but that the executive leaders are nevertheless
very proactive in framing vision, strategizing and facilitat-
ing interaction among member states. Beyond the IGO
mission and general goals, principals do not have expli-
cit, detailed, ordered and shared preferences. Similarly,
while the chief executive has personal preferences, he or
she does not solely nor primarily seek to substitute the
principal’s preferences with his or hers. My results show
how the agent brokers the network of equal-standing
sovereign member states, trying to clarify and define
shared goals and strategies, in such a way that the mem-
ber states act as a collective principal. Findings comple-
ment the principal–agent approach in that I show how
IGO leaders actually fill the void between formal
mandates and missions specified by the IGO collective
Global Policy (2015) 6:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12248 ©2015 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 6 . Issue 3 . September 2015 277
Special Section Article
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