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The performance of international organizations

Jonas Tallberg, Thomas Sommerer, Magnus Lundgren (all Stockholm University) & Theresa Squatrito
Clockwise: Jonas Tallberg, Thomas Sommerer, Magnus Lundgren (all Stockholm University) & Theresa Squatrito (University of Oslo)

Few would dispute that many of the most pressing policy problems — ranging from climate change to the instability of financial markets and institutions — are transnational in character and require a joint response. Consequently, we have increasingly witnessed attempts to solve these issue through cooperation in international organizations. Considering the central role international organizations occupy in addressing societies’ most acute concerns, students of international organizations have surprisingly little tools to compare their performance in achieving these tasks. Jonas Tallberg, Thomas Sommerer, Theresa Squatrito and Magnus Lundgren recognize this shortcoming and propose a conceptualization of performance amenable to comparative, large-N analysis. Read their article “The performance of international organizations: a policy output approach” published in the Journal of European Public Policy and learn how a taxonomy of policy output comprising volume, orientation, type, instrument and target provides a more fine-grained measure of international organisations’ performances.