Specialized Committees of International Organizations an Important Source of Organizational Autonomy

Abstract

Assigning the preparation of decisions to specialized committees composed of member state representatives is a widespread response to the ‘governor's dilemma’, that is, the tension between competence and control, in international organizations (IOs). We theorize a causal mechanism referring to self‐selection and agenda‐setting effects and show how the resulting division of labor among IO bodies produces organizational influence beyond current accounts of committee governance. We demonstrate why specialized committees develop a distinct rationale of accommodating expertise with member state preferences, even if composed of member state representatives, and why agreed committee proposals are difficult to overcome by final decision‐making bodies. We argue that the organization of IO decision processes constitutes an important source of IO autonomy beyond the activities of IO administrations and independent from socialization or predispositions of individual committee members. Empirically, we show that IO committees meet the theoretically derived prerequisites for activating the causal mechanism and trace how committee influence according to the mechanism has shaped an important IO decision.