What international bureaucrats (really) want

The secretariats of international organizations (international public administrations [IPAs]) constitute the institutional grid of global governance. While recent research has provided valuable insights into the independent capacities of international organizations (IOs) and the influence of IPAs, we lack systematic knowledge of how scholars conceptualize the preferences of IO staff. This is lamentable because understanding the (unifying) motivations of “international civil servants” helps us to make sense of their behavior and influence during the adoption and application of IO policies. To review how IPA studies conceptualize the preferences of international bureaucrats, this article suggests a fourfold typology of ideal-typical bureaucratic behavior. It distinguishes between the underlying behavioral logic and dominant bureaucratic goal orientation. Applying the typology to thirty-nine journal articles allows us to map IPA preferences and behavior, and shows that the literature predominantly views IPAs as behaving responsibly and less self-centeredly than could be expected from economic accounts of bureaucracy