As an area of research, specifying crucial conditions under which international public administration (IPA) may enjoy independence from member-state governments has become an increasingly vibrant research area. This special issue responds to three yet unresolved research tasks: (i) Systematically comparing IPAs by offering large-N data across cases; (ii) Taking organization seriously by identifying how the organisational architectures of IPAs affect decision-making processes and subsequently the pursuit of public policy making; (iii) Examining the varied consequences of the autonomization of IPAs, notably for member-state public sector governance and for the integration of transnational regulatory regimes.
This paper is a commentary article of a special issue on international public administration.