Mainstreaming International Governance: The Environment, Gender, and IO Performance in the European Union
Review of International Organizations, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 285-313
29 Pages Posted: 11 Jul 2010 Last revised: 8 Sep 2010
Date Written: June 10, 2010
Abstract
International organizations (IOs) have moved increasingly in recent years to adopt cross-cutting mandates that require the “mainstreaming” of particular issues, such as gender equality or environmental protection, across all IO policies. Successful IO performance with respect to such mandates, we hypothesize, is determined in large part by the use of hard or soft institutional measures to shape the incentives of sectoral officials whose cooperation is required for successful implementation. We test this hypothesis with respect to two such mandates – gender mainstreaming and environmental policy integration – in a single international organization, the European Union, demonstrating a strong causal link between the use of hard incentives and IO performance in these and related mandates.
Keywords: International Organizations, Cross-Cutting Mandates, European Union, Gender Mainstreaming, Environmental Policy, European Commission
JEL Classification: K33
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation