Know where you stand: Exploring inter-organizational relations in global food security governance
Abstract
In global food security governance, international organizations are confronted with increasing complexity, fragmentation and overlap. Food security is described as a complex and multi-dimensional issue, with global food security governance being highly fragmented in practice and only little coordination taking place, and as an issue area fraught by the overlap of mandates, operational activities, and rules/ policies. Against this background, the question arises as to what follows out of this, i.e. what are the effects and consequences: How do international organizations react, and how do organizational dynamics develop within the field?
Drawing on sociological institutionalism, and the concept of organizational fields in particular, the goal of the presentation is to introduce an argument about the role of positionality, meaning an international organization’s position within the organizational field of global food security governance. Therein, I posit that depending on how international organizations perceive and make sense of changes in and features of the organizational field, international organizations’ responses and their inter-organizational relations differ. Thus, I argue that both positions and perceptions matter. To do so, I compare how core and peripheral international organizations perceive the organizational field and their position within it, and in which types of inter-organizational relations they engage. The emphasis, therein, is on processes of convergence among international organizations as well as on individual and joint attempts at delineating spheres of responsibility/ drawing boundaries.
About Angela
Angela is a research associate at the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 700) “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood” at Free University Berlin, Germany. As a member of the D8 research project, she examines the role of international organizations (IOs) as external governance actors and has conducted interviews with ECHO, FAO, the NEPAD Agency, WFP and the World Bank, both at headquarter and at country office level (Côte d'Ivoire, Niger and Sierra Leone). The project is interested in how different IOs see their role and how they perceive the opportunities and challenges regarding their operations in the field of food security in areas of limited statehood.
Furthermore, Angela is a PhD candidate at University of Potsdam and a research affiliate at the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies. In her dissertation, she explores inter-organizational relations and organizational dynamics in global food security governance. She takes an actor-centric perspective and concentrates on international organizations, their cooperative and competitive relations, as well as their perceptions of and reactions to overlap, complexity and fragmentation of the organizational field.