Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s

This project investigates how the administrations of key international organizations (IOs) gained their powers between the 1940s and the 1970s.

Image from Marshall Plan poster: E. Spreckmeester, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marshall_Plan_poster.JPG

The project investigates the administrations of three IOs that were central to the postwar creation of a Western-led global order: the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC)/The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Community (EC); and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Adopting a methodology that explores autonomy and expertise as co-constitutive elements in creating administrative powers, the project has three focus areas:

  1. A comparison of how and to what extent the three administrations gained autonomy from state power.
  2. Mapping of expertise cultivated by the administrations.
  3. An identification of how autonomy and expertise combined across IOs to create distinct bureaucratic roles enabling specific administrative powers.
     

 

The project’s fundamental research question is:

How and to what extent did historically accumulated autonomy and expertise empower international administrations to influence global governance?

We hypothesize that specific blends of autonomy and expertise helped produce enduring bureaucratic roles within key IOs. And, that these roles enabled distinct types of policy influence that are emblematic for the kinds of administrative power that emerged across IOs in the first three decades following the Second World War.

 

WORK PACKAGE 1

WP 1 will compare three elements across the three IOs:

  1. the formal institutional set-up and division of labour of the administration
  2. the ability of the administrative leadership to compose its staff, define its formal regulations, and determine the priorities in its budget
  3. the external pressures typically from governments that constrained and altered the administrations. This to determine their formal capacity to act autonomously.

WORK PACKAGE 2

WP2 will build a database of higher personnel to trace patterns in education, professional trajectories and links to external institutions or networks, in order to find particular nodes of influence. This to locate prevalent kinds of expertise that effected the IOs’ ability to influence policy.

WORK PACKAGE 3

WP3 will create a typology of professionals to determine how distinctive and pervasive bureaucratic roles reflected specific kinds of administrative power, distinct to or running across IOs.

 

Advisory board

Prof. Laurent Warlouzet (Paris Sorbonne)

Prof. Glenda Sluga (EUI, Florence)

Prof. Bob Reinalda (Radboud University)

Partners

SIRICE (Sorbonne, Identités, relations internationals et civilisations de l’Europe), Paris Sorbonne.

New Diplomatic History Network

Centre for Modern European Studies, University of Copenhagen

 

 

 

International Conference: "NATO, Atlantic Security and Northern Europe Way Back When, Then & Now"
Dates: 9 - 10 December 2024
Organizers: CEMES, CHIOS, HUM:Global, DFF-project “Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s”
Location: Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen (UCPH)

Annual Graduate Conference on the History of the European Integration
Dates: 5 - 6 September 2024
Organizer: Prof. Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol (EUI)
Location: European University Institute, Italy
Paper: "Birth and Rebirth: Exploring the Transition from the OEEC to the OECD from the Secretariat’s Perspective (1958-1960)" (Marine Pierre)

Summer School: GloBio Summer Institute
Dates: 27 July - 3 August 2024
Organizers: The International Border Studies Center (IBSC), University of Gdańsk, DFF-project “Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s”
Location: Bieszkowice, Poland

Symposium on “A World More Equal. An Internationalist Perspective on the Cold War” w/ Sandrine Kott (University of Geneva), Jenny Andersson (Uppsala University), Bob Reinalda (Radboud University), Steven Jensen (the Danish Institute for Human Rights)
Date: 29 May 2024
Organizers: DFF-project “Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s”, Global Cluster, HUM:Global
Location: Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen

International Conference: "1974-2023. L’histoire des relations internationales contemporaines. Une discipline en transition"
Dates: 23 - 25 May 2024
Organizers: Pr. Laurence Badel, Pr. Matthias Schulz
Location: University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France
Paper: “Knowledge Production in International Organisations: Agency, Autonomy and Ordering from Within” (Haakon A. Ikonomou, Marine Pierre, Myriam Piguet, and Johanna Gautier)

International Seminar - The Digital Turn in Global History: “Digital History and International Organizations”
Date: 19 April, 2024
Organizer: Exeter University
Location: Exeter University
Presentation: Haakon A. Ikonomou

The Geneva Global History Seminar
Date: 18 April, 2024
Organizer: University of Geneva
Location: University of Geneva
Paper: “The autonomy and expertise of the NATO International Staff - the early years” (Haakon A. Ikonomou)

Digital Approaches to the History of European & International Cooperation. An Online Symposium. w/ Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol (EUI), Benjamin Martin (Uppsala University), Julia Eichengberg (University of Bayreuth), Colin Wells (United Nations Library and Archives, Geneva)
Date: 16 February 2024
Organizer: Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s, Centre for Modern European Studies.
Location: Online (Zoom)
Presentation: Haakon A. Ikonomou

Virtual roundtable on “Digital Global History” w/ Cassandra Mark-Thiesen (University of Bayreuth), Haakon A. Ikonomou (University of Copenhagen), Robert Lee (University of Cambridge), Jessica Parr (Northeastern University)
Date: 7 February, 2024
Organizers: The Royal Historical Society, Richard Toye (Exeter University) and Astrid Swenson (University of Bayreuth).
Location: Online (Zoom)
Presentation: Haakon A. Ikonomou

Hans Blix Center – Digital History Seminar
Date: 31 January, 2024
Organizer: Hans Blix Center, University of Stockholm.
Location: Hans Blix Center, University of Stockholm.
Paper: “Inside the NATO Secretariat: A Social- Bureaucratic Enquiry of its Inception, Role and Influence in the 1950s” (Haakon A. Ikonomou)

International Workshop: “A LONSEA database for European cooperation(s) and integration? A reflection note”
Date: 6 December 2023
Organizer: Prof. Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol
Location: European University Institute, Italy
Presentations: “Prosopography as a tool to understand MEPs strategies on Turkey (1979-2009) and as an approach to construct international organizations histories (NATO/OEEC)” (Marine Pierre) “Digital prosopography. The case of VisuaLeague and prospects for the NATO (and OEEC) administrations” (Haakon A. Ikonomou)

Seminar: “Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s”
Date: 14 September 2023
Organizer: Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen.
Location: Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen
Presentation: Haakon A. Ikonomou & Marine Pierre

Brown Bag Presentation: “Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s”'
Date: 13 September 2023
Organizer: Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen.
Location: Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen
Presentation: Haakon A. Ikonomou & Marine Pierre

 

 

  • November 2023: NATO Archives, NATO HQ, Brussels, Belgium
  • December 2023: Historical Archives of the European Union, Fiesole, Italy
  • March 2024: OECD Archives, Château de la Muette, Paris, France
  • March 2024: Centre des Archives diplomatiques de la Courneuve, Paris, France
  • November 2024:
    • Library of Congress, Washington, DC, US
    • Harry S. Truman Library, Missouri, US
    • National Archives at College Park, Maryland, US
  • January 2025: NATO Archives, NATO HQ, Brussels, Belgium

*Grant: Truman Library Institute, Research Grant (Marine Pierre)

 

 

Johanna Gautier Morin, Haakon A. Ikonomou, Marine Pierre, Myriam Piguet, “Production de savoirs et organisations internationales : agentivité, autonomie et gouvernance interne”, Relations Internationales (Accepted - in production)

Marine Pierre, “Mapping an International Organization. In the Footsteps of the Directors of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (1948-60)”, International History Review (Accepted w/ minor revisions)

Marine Pierre, “Birth and Rebirth: Exploring the Transition from the OEEC to the OECD from the Secretariat-General’s Perspective (1958-1960)”, Cold War History (In review)

Haakon A. Ikonomou & Marine Pierre, “The OEEC and NATO Secretariats in the early 1950s. Convergence and Divergence around Economic Cooperation and Rearmament”, Administory (Submitted)

 

Funding

DFF–Research project 1 (thematic) 

Project period: 1 January 2022 - 30 June 2025

PI: Haakon A. Ikonomou

Researchers

Name Title Phone E-mail
Ikonomou, Haakon Andreas Assistant Professor - Tenure Track +4535335625 E-mail
Pierre, Marine Julie Postdoc +4535324763 E-mail