Organizational Autonomy Beyond the Secretariat: Lessons from the Green Climate Fund

Can international organizations (IOs) like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) gain significant organizational autonomy, even if member states dominate the decision process? We identify policy-guiding organizational rules as a major source of organizational autonomy that is missed by both intergovernmental and bureaucracy-focused approaches to IOs. Theoretically, we develop a mechanism that demonstrates how organizational autonomy arises from intergovernmental institutional settings, if organizational rules provide clear policy guidance, a decision procedure generates strong incentives for actors to honor these policies, and member states are generally committed to the overall IO policy. Empirically, we show that the institutional setup of the GCF meets these prerequisites remarkably well. The analysis of two highly contentious funding applications demonstrates that the GCF actually produces organizationally preferred decisions, even if important board members advocate different solutions. We conclude that policy-guiding rules may be better predictors for funding decisions in IOs than member state preferences or bureaucratic self-interest.