The Permanent Commission Bureaucrat

Abstract

Although international organizations command considerable scholarly interest, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the people who work for them. Studies typically describe the functions that these organizations perform (for example, Barnett and Finnemore, 2004; Cox et al., 1973). They summarise the internal structures and procedures of international institutions, assess how effectively they carry out their responsibilities, and (sometimes) attempt to measure their influence. Commentary on personnel matters, such as recruitment, promotion, pay, and working conditions, sometimes also feature (for example, Davies, 2002), but the literature rarely has much to say about the backgrounds of employees, and — the socialization literature aside (for example, Checkel, 2007) — still less about their beliefs.1 Only recently have scholars begun systematically to investigate the motivation and values of international civil servants (Anderfuhren-Biget et al., 2013; Fresia, 2009; Häfliger and Hug, 2012).