IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/117917.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The political economy of consulting firms in reform processes: the case of the World Health Organization

Author

Listed:
  • Eckl, Julian
  • Hanrieder, Tine

Abstract

Existing research interprets the rise of consulting firms in intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) primarily as evidence of the global spread of managerialism. We highlight that consultants are not merely carriers of business-like world cultural norms, but also part of contentious IGO politics and governance. We unpack the consulting black box and reconstruct how consulting firms are hired and active in IGOs. Analyzing the experiences of the World Health Organization (WHO), we show how IGOs have been informally ‘opened up’ to consulting firms (and to their funders) and we investigate what the consequences of their privileged access are in practice. Consultants curate voices and input (including their own) into reform packages, promote certain contents, and engage in self-effacement practices that undermine accountability to stakeholders. The pivotal position of the consultants can have a disempowering effect on actors excluded from the consulting agreement or marginalized through consulting practices. We illustrate our general discussion by zooming in on the consultant-mediated reform of WHO’s Roll Back Malaria partnership in 2015. Our analysis is based on primary documents, key informant interviews, informal conversations, and participant observation.

Suggested Citation

  • Eckl, Julian & Hanrieder, Tine, 2023. "The political economy of consulting firms in reform processes: the case of the World Health Organization," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117917, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:117917
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/117917/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Strange,Susan, 1996. "The Retreat of the State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521564298, September.
    2. Strange,Susan, 1996. "The Retreat of the State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521564403, September.
    3. Matthew Wargent & Gavin Parker & Emma Street, 2020. "Public-private entanglements: consultant use by local planning authorities in England," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 192-210, January.
    4. Leonard Seabrooke & Ole Jacob Sending, 2020. "Contracting development: managerialism and consultants in intergovernmental organizations," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 802-827, July.
    5. Nitsan Chorev, 2013. "Restructuring neoliberalism at the World Health Organization," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 627-666, August.
    6. Jupe, Robert & Funnell, Warwick, 2015. "Neoliberalism, consultants and the privatisation of public policy formulation: The case of Britain's rail industry," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 65-85.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arts, Bas, 2014. "Assessing forest governance from a ‘Triple G’ perspective: Government, governance, governmentality⁎⁎This article belongs to the Special Issue: Assessing Forest Governance," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 17-22.
    2. Keyan Lai, 2021. "National security and FDI policy ambiguity: A commentary," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(4), pages 496-505, December.
    3. Michele-Lee Moore & Frances R. Westley & Tim Brodhead, 2012. "Social Finance Intermediaries and Social Innovation," Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 184-205, October.
    4. Assen Slim, 2015. "L’aide européenne (1989-2020) aux PECO sous le prisme de l’économie politique internationale (EPI)," Post-Print hal-01271881, HAL.
    5. Simplice A, Asongu, 2011. "Government quality determinants of stock market performance in developing countries," MPRA Paper 35508, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Mark Hallerberg, 2002. "Introduction," European Union Politics, , vol. 3(2), pages 139-150, June.
    7. Zoltan Adam, 2004. "Autonomy and capacity: a state-centred approach to post-communist transition in Central Europe," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 40, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    8. Lena Partzsch, 2011. "The legitimacy of biofuel certification," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(3), pages 413-425, September.
    9. David B. Audretsch, 2018. "Industrial Organization and the Organization of Industries: Linking Industry Structure to Economic Performance," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(4), pages 603-620, June.
    10. Sami Zemni & Koenraad Bogaert, 2011. "Urban renewal and social development in Morocco in an age of neoliberal government," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(129), pages 403-417, September.
    11. Anne Roemer-Mahler, 2013. "Business conflict and global politics: The pharmaceutical industry and the global protection of intellectual property rights," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 121-152, February.
    12. Egni Malo, 2014. "What should Marxism materialism propose to International Relations?," Academicus International Scientific Journal, Entrepreneurship Training Center Albania, issue 10, pages 131-169, July.
    13. Elizabeth C Dunn, 2003. "Trojan Pig: Paradoxes of Food Safety Regulation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(8), pages 1493-1511, August.
    14. Theo de Bruijn & Peter Groenewegen & Jesper Grolin, 1997. "Global restructuring—a place for ecology?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(4), pages 173-184, September.
    15. Sylvie Daviet, 2015. "An introduction: Trans-Mediterranean entrepreneurship and the internationalization of the Maghreb at the turn of the 2010s [Introduction L’entrepreneuriat transméditerranéen et l’internationalisati," Post-Print hal-03171941, HAL.
    16. Suddaby, Roy & Cooper, David J. & Greenwood, Royston, 2007. "Transnational regulation of professional services: Governance dynamics of field level organizational change," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(4-5), pages 333-362.
    17. Lingyu Lu & Cameron G. Thies, 2010. "Trade Interdependence and the Issues at Stake in the Onset of Militarized Conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 27(4), pages 347-368, September.
    18. Bennett, Elizabeth A., 2017. "Who Governs Socially-Oriented Voluntary Sustainability Standards? Not the Producers of Certified Products," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 53-69.
    19. Slavo Radosevic, 2003. "The emerging industrial architecture of the wider Europe: The co-evolution of industrial and political structures," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 29, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    20. Graham, David & Woods, Ngaire, 2006. "Making corporate self-regulation effective in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 868-883, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    global governance; consulting firms; informal governance; private authority; institutional reform; World Health Organization; Gates Foundation; McKinsey;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L20 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:117917. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.