Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Confronting the Challenges of Political Leadership in International Organizations

  • Chapter
Comparative Political Leadership

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership series ((PSPL))

Abstract

Comparing a variety of international organization heads over an extended period of time evidences the unusual challenges they have to overcome to expand the tasks of their organizations, to be agenda setters, to serve as major change agents, and to be norm entrepreneurs. These challenges are legal, institutional, ethical, moral, systemic, and connected to questions of legitimacy. Increasingly, they also involve the investigatory media. The strategies pursued to meet these challenges by various leaders of different organizations and the same organizations under different systemic conditions are also highly variable. It will also be shown that the most successful leaders need to be visionary, but not Utopian; able and willing to take the opportunities afforded to them by their organizations’ constitutive documents, oftentimes by creatively interpreting them; to understand the constraints of the bureaucratic and systemic contexts in which they are operating; to articulate an appropriate organizational ideology for those contexts; and be true to one’s morals and ethics.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Alderman, Liz (2011) ‘I.M.F. Chief to Face French Investigation’. New York Times, 5 August, B5.

    Google Scholar 

  • Altman, Lawrence K. (2002) ‘United Nations: Health Agency Chief to Step Down’. New York Times, 27 August, 27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boughton, James M. (2001) Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund, 1979–1989 (Washington, DC: The International Monetary Fund).

    Google Scholar 

  • Boutros-Ghali, Boutros (1999) Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga (New York: Random House).

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyle, Kevin (2006) ‘Introduction’. In Boyle, Kevin (ed.), A Voice for Human Rights: Mary Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), ix–xix.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brundtland, Gro H. (2002) Madame Prime Minister: A Life in Power and Politics (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

    Google Scholar 

  • Chesterman, Simon (ed.) (2007) Secretary or General? The UN Secretary-General in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cockayne, James and Malone, David M. (2007) ‘Relations with the Security Council’. In Chesterman, Simon (ed.), Secretary or General? The UN Secretary-General in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 69–85.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Comras, Victor D. (2010) Flawed Diplomacy: The United Nations and the War on Terrorism (Washington, DC: Potomac Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Corell, Hans (2010) ‘The Need for the Rule of Law in International Affairs: Reflections on Dag Hammarskjöld’s Address at Oxford University on 30 May 1961, “The International Civil Service in Law and in Fact”’. In Melber, Henning (ed.), The Ethics of Dag Hammarskjöld (Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation), 6–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cox, Robert W. (1969) ‘The Executive Head: An Essay on Leadership in International Organization’. International Organization 23(2): 205–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Drake, Helen (2000) Jacques Delors: Perspectives on a European Leader (New York: Routledge).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ElBaradei, Mohamed (2011) The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times (New York: Metropolitan Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Endo, Ken (1999) The Presidency of the European Commission under Jacques Delors: The Politics of Shared Leadership (New York: St. Martin’s Press).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Franck, Thomas M. (1988) ‘The Good Offices Function of the UN Secretary-General’. In Roberts, Adam and Kingsbury, Benedict (eds), United Nations, Divided World: The UN’s Roles in International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 143–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodrich, Leland M. (1947) ‘From League of Nations to United Nations’. International Organization 1(1): 3–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gordenker, Leon (2005) The UN Secretary-General and Secretariat (New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Haas, Ernst B. (1964) Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hendrickson, Ryan C. (2006) Diplomacy and War at NATO: The Secretary General and Military Action after the Cold War (Columbia: University of Missouri Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hendrickson, Ryan C. (2010) ‘NATO’s Secretaries-General: Organizational Leadership in Shaping Alliance Strategy’. In Albet, Gulnur and Moore, Rebecca R. (eds), NATO: In Search of a Vision (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press), 51–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hendrickson, Ryan C. (2004) ‘NATO’s Secretary General and the Use of Force: Willy Claes and the Air Strikes in Bosnia’. Armed Forces & Society 31(1): 95–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnstone, Ian (2007) ‘The Secretary-General as Norm Entrepreneur’. In Chesterman, Simon (ed.), Secretary or General? The UN Secretary-General in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 123–38.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Jolly, Richard, Emmerij, Louis and Weiss, Thomas G. (2009) UN Ideas that Changed the World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, Dorothy V. (2006) ‘International Leadership and Charisma’. In Ask, Sten and Mark-Jungkvist, Anna (eds), The Adventure of Peace: Dag Hammarsjold and the Future of the UN (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).

    Google Scholar 

  • Jordan, Robert S. (1979) Political Leadership in NATO: A Study in Multinational Diplomacy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Junne, Gerd (2001) ‘International Organizations in a Period of Globalization: New (Problems of) Legitimacy’. In Coicaud, Jean-Marc and Heiskanen, Veijo A. (eds), The Legitimacy of International Organizations (New York: United Nations University Press), 189–220.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamarck, Andrew M. (1995) ‘Foreword’. In Oliver, Robert W. (ed.), George Woods and the World Bank (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner), xi–xiv.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kapur, Devesh, Lewis, John P. and Webb, Richard C. (eds) (1997) The World Bank: Its First Half Century, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kille, Kent J. (ed.) (2007) The UN Secretary-General and Moral Authority: Ethics & Religion in International Leadership (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kille, Kent J. and Scully, Roger M. (2003) ‘Executive Heads and the Role of Intergovernmental Organizations: Expansionist Leadership in the United Nations and the European Union’. Political Psychology 24(1): 175–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knowlton, Brian (2002) ‘UN Rights Chief Cites U.S. Role in Departure’. New York Times, 1 August.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kraske, Jochen, Becker, William H., Diamond, William and Galambos, Louis (1996) Bankers with a Mission: The Presidents of the World Bank, 1946–91 (New York: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Kelley (2009) The World Health Organizations (WHO) (New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • MacKenzie, David C. (2010) A World Beyond Borders: An Introduction to the History of International Organizations (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddux, John L. (1981) The Development Philosophy of Robert S. McNamara (Washington, DC: The World Bank).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mearsheimer, John J. (1994/1995) ‘The False Promise of International Institutions’. International Security 19(3): 5–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neunlist, Christian (2007) ‘Into the 1960s: NATO’s Role in East-West Relations, 1958–1963’. In Wenger, Andreas, Nuenlist, Christian and Locher, Anna (eds), Transforming NATO in the Cold War: Challenges beyond Deterrence in the 1960s (New York: Routledge), 67–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newman, Edward (1998) The UN Secretary-General from the Cold War to the New Era: A Global Peace and Security Mandate? (New York: St. Martin’s Press).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ogata, Sadako N. (2005) The Turbulent Decade: Confronting the Refugee Crises of the 1990s (New York: W. W. Norton).

    Google Scholar 

  • Oliver, Robert W. (1995) George Woods and the World Bank (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner).

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauly, Louis W. (1997) Who Elected the Bankers? Surveillance and Control in the World Economy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rostow, Walt W. (1960) The Process of Economic Growth (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rushton, Simon (2008) ‘The UN Secretary-General and Norm Entrepreneurship: Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Democracy Promotion’. Global Governance 14(1): 95–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schechter, Michael G. (1987) ‘Leadership in International Organizations: Systemic, Organizational and Personality Factors’. Review of International Studies 13(3): 197–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schechter, Michael G. (1988) ‘The Political Roles of Recent World Bank Presidents’. In Finkelstein, Lawrence S. (ed.), Politics in the United Nations System (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Schechter, Michael G. (2005) United Nations Global Conferences (New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmemann, Serge (2001) ‘U.S. Walkout: Was it Repudiated or Justified by the Conference’s Accord?’ New York Times, 9 September, 16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schulz, William F. (2002) ‘The Fate of Qaeda Prisoners’. New York Times, 19 January, A19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapley, Deborah (1993) Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara (Boston: Little, Brown).

    Google Scholar 

  • Slaughter, Anne-Marie (2003) ‘An American Vision of International Law?’ American Society of International Law Proceedings 97: 125–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solheim, Bruce O. (2000) On Top of the World: Women’s Political Leadership in Scandinavia and Beyond (Westport: Greenwood Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Urquhart, Brian (1987) A Life in Peace and War (New York: Harper & Row).

    Google Scholar 

  • Urquhart, Brian E. (2007) ‘The Evolution of the Secretary-General’. In Chesterman, Simon (ed.), Secretary or General? The UN Secretary-General in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 15–32.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Weiss, Thomas G. (2008) What’s Wrong with the United Nations (and How to Fix It) (Cambridge: Polity Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organization (2008) Tobacco Industry Interference with Tobacco Control (Geneva: WHO Press).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Michael G. Schechter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Innsbruck, Austria

    Ludger Helms (Professor of Political Science and Chair of Comparative Politics) (Professor of Political Science and Chair of Comparative Politics)

Copyright information

© 2012 Michael G. Schechter

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Schechter, M.G. (2012). Confronting the Challenges of Political Leadership in International Organizations. In: Helms, L. (eds) Comparative Political Leadership. Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137264916_12

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation