International Studies Quarterly (2018) 62, 723–736 International Organizations “Going Public”? An Event History Analysis of Public Communication Reforms 1950–2015 M ATTHIAS E CKER -E HRHARDT Leipzig University The last few decades have seen a dramatic increase in the public communication efforts of international organizations (IOs). They target an expanding audience, including journalists, experts, activists, and citizens. Their communication departments have grown to more effectively produce and disseminate messages, evaluate their impact, and develop long-term communica- tion strategies. I examine this trend for forty-eight IOs between 1950 and 2015. Based on an event history analysis of structural reforms, I argue that two causal mechanisms most consistently explain why IOs go public: First, normative change toward greater institutional transparency encourages the democratic membership of IOs to push for reforms in order to improve the provision of public information on IO decisions and policy programs. Second, public protest and scandals substantially increase organizational demands for self-legitimation. As a result, IOs reformed communication in order to more effectively generate public support. However, I find limited evidence that IO mandates to promote social change—by teaching norms and knowledge—can account for observed reforms to their communication structures. Introduction International organizations (IOs) play a critical role in contemporary global governance. They address pressing societal problems such as environmental degradation, fi- nancial crisis, human rights violations, and war (Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Karns and Mingst 2004; Abbott et al. 2015). Thus, it should come as no surprise that IOs are increasingly prominent subjects of public debate (Nullmeier et al. 2010). Extensive research highlights party elites (Hooghe and Marks 2009) and movement activists (O’Brien et al. 2000; della Porta 2007) as the main drivers of “IO politicization” in the public realm (Zürn, Binder, and Ecker-Ehrhardt 2012). Yet, despite scholars’ widespread in- terest in IO agency and its politicization, we know very little about how IOs themselves engage in public communica- tion. Mainstream theories of international institutions es- sentially ignore the role of public communication in IO activity and design (for example, Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal 2001). Studies of IO communication tend to limit themselves to describing and evaluating communication output in the context of specific policy programs (for exam- ple, Lehmann 1999; Aghi and McKee 2000; Coldevin 2001; Defourny 2003; Servaes 2007; Brüggemann 2008) without giving much weight to how and why IOs develop public com- munication capacities in the first place. Against this backdrop, we see a remarkable trend that de- serves systematic investigation: many IOs have significantly strengthened their public communication structures over Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt, Dr. Phil., is a visiting professor of International Re- lations at Leipzig University. Authors’ note: Research for this article was funded by the German Research Foundation (EC 323/1-2). The essential research assistance provided by Manuel Hofmann, Stefan Wiechmann, Florence Wild, Minna ˚ Alander, Roisin Cronin, and Laura Jung is gratefully acknowledged. Earlier versions were presented at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB); at the Center for Transnational Rela- tion, Foreign, and Security Policy (ATASP), Freie Universität of Berlin; at the European Political Science Association 2016, Brussels; and at the International Studies Association 2016, Atlanta. I wish to give special thanks to Alex Tokhi, Vally Koubi, Magdalena Müller, Nanette Levinson, Michael Zürn, Christoph P. Spittler, Martin Binder, Monika Heupel, Diane Granitz, Lora Viola, Jonas Tall- berg, Thomas Sommerer, Alex Voeten, Liesbet Hooghe, Gary Marks, Ada Müller, Autumn Lockwood Payton, Maja Granitz, Thomas Risse, Ingo Peters, and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and recommendations. recent decades. IO secretariats’ tiny press offices have grown into major communication departments with multiple sub- units and offices. Communication departments now tar- get a widening spectrum of people, including journalists, experts, activists, and citizens. They have professionalized their management of these diverse communication chan- nels. IOs often systematically screen audiences and evaluate their communication programs. Relatedly, plenary bodies increasingly establish communication committees, or work- ing groups, to meet the rising demand for coordination and oversight. Finally, IOs have drawn up institution-wide com- munication strategies to identify old and new tasks in a grid of interlocking responsibilities. These observations present a puzzle. IOs face severe bud- get constraints, and ambitious public communication re- quires a remarkable ability to prioritize. IOs must juggle the task of addressing nonstate publics with responsibilities such as facilitating intergovernmental negotiations, monitoring compliance, and settling disputes. What is more, while I provide substantial evidence that the organizational field in- creasingly “goes public,” we face surprising variation over time and cases. Why do so many IOs seek to improve public communica- tion? Why do some IOs, but not others, substantially reform their structures at some point during their organizational history? A possible answer comes from a rational institution- alist approach to IO design. This theory expects that man- dates to deliver norms and knowledge to nonstate audiences motivate IOs to develop public communication capacities. However, empirical evidence does not support this view. In- stead, I provide two alternative explanations that, in tandem, better account for the timing of reforms. First, powerful stakeholders’ changing normative expec- tations drive reforms. Specifically, IOs “go public” because legitimate global governance increasingly requires institu- tional transparency to foster public accountability. In this context, democratic member states push for communica- tion reforms because they seek to reproduce domestic stan- dards of institutional transparency at the international level. Second, I argue that public-communication reforms partly reflect a heightened demand for self-legitimation in a highly politicized context. IOs frequently become targets Ecker-Ehrhardt, Matthias (2018) International Organizations “Going Public”? An Event History Analysis of Public Communication Reforms 1950–2015. International Studies Quarterly, doi: 10.1093/isq/sqy025 © The Author(s) (2018). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/isq/article/62/4/723/5095343 by guest on 05 May 2021