The UN Secretariat: a representative bureaucracy?

This article applies the theory of representative bureaucracy to international organisations. By doing so, this paper contributes to the growing literature on international bureaucracies, while also aiming at filling the gap... [ view full abstract ]

This article applies the theory of representative bureaucracy to international organisations. By doing so, this paper contributes to the growing literature on international bureaucracies, while also aiming at filling the gap between public administration theory and the empirical study of international organisations. In particular, it is argued that the composition of the international civil service does matter since it can affect organisational outcomes. Drawing on this questioning, this paper constitutes a first step by offering an empirical mapping of the demographic profile in the main United Nations organisation: the UN Secretariat. Following the representative bureaucracy theory in which this study is integrated, we ask: to what extent are the personnel of the UN Secretariat passively representative of the member countries? Through descriptive statistics and several measures of representation, this paper offers the first large N-study of representativeness among staff and “non staff” members in the United Nations setting. The findings show that there are significative differences in the representativeness of staff and non-staff personnel. Developing countries are over-represented in the staff whereas there are almost absent in non-staff. Furthermore, developing countries are under-represented in upper-level posts. We also find that the conclusions are not the same whether one uses population or budgetary contributions as baselines. Our study demonstrates that a composite picture with multiple measures of representation offers a more shaded analysis of the degree to which the personnel of the UN Secretariat mirror member states.