Issue congruence in international organizations: A study of World Bank spending
| Published date | 01 November 2024 |
| Author | Mirko Heinzel,Bernhard Reinsberg,Giuseppe Zaccaria |
| Date | 01 November 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13413 |
Global Policy. 2024;15:855–868.
|
855
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gpol
1 | STAKEHOLDER PREFERENCES
AND RESPONSIVENESS OF
MULTILATERAL INSTITUTIONS
The authority of international organizations (IOs) has
steadily increased since the Second World War. This
trend has contributed to IO politicization as eli tes and
citizens increasingly question the legitimacy of decisions
taken in IOs (Zürn etal.,2012). One of the main criticisms
has been that the centralization of authority beyond the
nation- state has led to decision- making procedures i n-
sulated from the preferences of the people who are di-
rectly affected by them (Vaubel, 2006). This insulation
is relevant as one of the essential components of the
performance of a polity is th e congruence of decision
outputs to the preferences of affected people (Arnold &
Franklin,2012; Grimes & Esaiasso n,2014; Lall,2 017).
Within the context of IOs, we understand con -
gruence as the alignment of IO decisi ons with the
preferences of key stakeholders—be they elites or
citizens—in the countrie s that are affected by those
decisions. Existing approac hes to IOs have been skep-
tical towards IOs' willingness and abilit y to incorporate
the priorities of stakeholders. Both princ ipal–agent
and bureaucratic approaches to IOs have ques-
tioned whether IO decision- making is congruent with
stakeholder preferences, either because of long dele-
gation chains or bureaucratic universalism that leads to
uniform solutions applied in diverse context s (Barnett &
Finnemore,2004; Vaubel,2006).
Despite strong theoretical expectations and the
societal relevance of the subject, the co ngruence
between IO decisions and stakehold er preferences
has rarely been scrutinized empirically. Extant stud-
ies on IOs tend to focus on explaining differenc es in
the opinions of citizens and elites towards IOs rather
than the alignment of IO decisions and pu blic opin-
ion (Anderson etal.,2019; Bernauer & Gampfer,2013 ;
Chow & Han,2022; Dellmuth etal.,2 021; Dellmuth &
Tallberg,2020; Ghas sim etal.,2022; Nielson etal.,2 019;
Panke etal.,2022; Verhaegen etal.,2021). The lack of
empirical studies on the congru ence between IO deci-
sions and stakeholder preferences is surprising w hen
considering that other branches of polit ical science
have extensively focused on the matter. For instance,
the literature on domestic politics has broadly s tudied
the extent to which policy preferences of citizens match
policy outcomes of (democratic) governments (Arnold
& Franklin,2012; Grimes & Esai asson,2014; Hobolt &
Klemmensen,2008; Klüver & Pickup,2019 ). Similarly,
scholars of the European Union have long discussed
congruence and responsiveness at the regional
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Issue congruence in international organizations: A study
of World Bank spending
MirkoHeinzel1 | BernhardReinsberg2 | GiuseppeZaccaria2
Received: 15 Februar y 2024
|
Revised: 4 July 2024
|
Accepted: 6 July 2 024
DO I: 10 .1111/17 58- 589 9.13 413
1Maastricht University, Maastricht,
Netherlands
2University of G lasgow, Glasgow, UK
Correspondence
Bernhard Rein sberg, University of
Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
Email: Bernhard.Reinsberg@glasgow.
ac.uk
Funding information
UK Research and I nnovation,
Grant/Award Number: MR/V022148/1
Abstract
International organizations (IOs) are often criticized for insulated decision -mak-
ing processes that do not react to the preferences of key stakeholders that are di -
rectly affected by them. However, empirical studies probing the degree to whi ch
IOs’ policies are aligned with the preferences of su ch key constituencies are
scarce. This paper tackles the gap by studyi ng the case of the World Bank. We
argue that congruence with stakeholder preferenc es increases when recipients
have institutional means of participation and d ecreases when donors restrict the
purposes of their funds. We utilize survey data from 269 stakeholder sur veys
conducted in 114 countries between 2012 and 2022 for our empirical analysis.
Our findings carry impor tant implications for the responsiveness of IOs to stake-
holders in low- and middle-i ncome countries.
This is an open ac cess article under t he terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2024 The Author(s). Global Policy published by D urham University and Jo hn Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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