Lessons from public administration for global governance: Conclusions of the special issue on “International Bureaucracy and the United Nations System.”
| Author | Martha Finnemore |
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208523211038825 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
Lessons from public
administration for global
governance
Conclusions of the special issue on
“International Bureaucracy and
the United Nations System.”
Martha Finnemore
George Washington University
Keywords
international administration, international organizations (IGOs)
The role of international bureaucracies in providing governance in the 21st century is
expanding. Not only is the United Nations (UN) bureaucracy large and growing (see intro-
duction to this volume by Thorvaldsdottir et al., 2021), but international organizations of
diverse kinds beyond the UN are actively crafting policies, practices, and rules that govern
international life in almost every sphere of activity (Weiss and Wilkinson, 2014).
Understanding the power, procedures, and effects of these international public administra-
tions (IPAs) will be essential and, as the papers here demonstrate, a public administration
(PA) perspective can shine light on crucial issues that both policymakers and scholars in
other fields (political science, economics, sociology) might miss. In what follows I do two
things. First, I highlight findings from these papers that may surprise and intrigue scholars
in other fields, particularly my own (international relations (IR)), and I highlight what PA
scholars are bringing to the broader interdisciplinary conversation. Second, I draw out
implications of these findings for broader issues under discussion among global govern-
ance scholars elsewhere that PA might fruitfully consider.
Public administration scholars bring both a conceptual sensibility and a diverse meth-
odological toolkit to the study of IPAs that are welcome. Other disciplines often
Corresponding author:
Martha Finnemore, George Washington University, 2115 G Street NW, Washington 20052-0086, USA.
Email: finnemor@gwu.edu
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2021, Vol. 87(4) 831–835
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523211038825
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
To continue reading
Request your trial