International organizations, such as UNESCO or the EU, which were founded by nation states, rely on the proper planning of their budgets to maintain their infrastructure. KLAUS GOETZ has examined how these organizations put together their budgets. As he explains in this video, he and his co-researchers established two main results after evaluating standing orders, public documents as well as internal documents, and after conducting interviews. First, contrary to common assumptions the bureaucratic approach to budgeting works well. The second finding, however, points to a change in the financial sources for many of the organizations. Their core budget is allocated by the founding nation states. This, however, has become less important as these organizations increasingly rely on funding they receive for special purposes and on money from private donors. Such donations tend to come with certain expectations and thus the character of these organizations is likely to change.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10474

Researcher

Klaus Goetz holds the Chair in Political Systems and European Integration at the Department of Political Science, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich. Previous positions include that of Chair in German and European Politics and Government at the University of Potsdam and that of Senior Lecturer and Reader in Government at the London School of Economics. The University of Bordeaux and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, are among his various visiting appointments. He is co-editor of West European Politics and until 2014 he used to be a Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Public Policy. Occasionally he acts as a consultant for the World Bank and other institutions.

Institution

Original publication

Resourcing International Organizations: Resource Diversification, Organizational Differentiation, and Administrative Governance

Goetz Klaus H. and Patz Ronny
Global Policy
Published in 2017

Reading recommendations

Pressured Budgets and the European Commission: Towards a More Centralized EU Budget Administration?

Patz Ronny and Goetz Klaus H
Journal of European Public Policy
Published in 2016

The Institutional Design of Funding Rules at International Organizations: Explaining the Transformation in Financing the United Nations

Graham Erin R
European Journal of International Relations
Published in 2017

Coping With the Sellout: Bureaucratic Governance and the UNESCO Budget Crisis

Patz Ronny, Eckhard Steffen and Schmidt Sylvia
IPSA 24th World Congress of Political Science
Published in 2016

Beyond