doi: 10.1111/padm.

12228

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IN INTERNATIONAL

ORGANIZATIONS: EVIDENCE FROM TWO UNITED
NATIONS HUMANITARIAN AGENCIES

VALENTINA MELE, SIMON ANDERFUHREN-BIGET AND FRÉDÉRIC VARONE

The independence of international civil servants (ICSs) from their country of origin is often pre-
sumed but rarely accounted for empirically. In order to address this gap, we investigate whether
ICSs face conflicts between national and international interests and which conditions are more con-
ducive to the manifestation of this conflict in international organizations. We adopt a mixed-methods
design, including a survey with 1,400 respondents working in two United Nations humanitarian
organizations, followed by semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of respondents. The
findings show that such conflicts matter for ICSs, hierarchical grade has stronger explanatory power
than the other factors, and the higher the level in the international organization, the less frequently
ICSs face conflict. The qualitative analysis explains these results by pointing to the effects of social-
ization among ICSs but also by shedding light on a related effect: dilution of national identity, as
well as on the implications of locally recruiting lower-level staff.

INTRODUCTION
International organizations (IOs) can be defined as membership organizations (McLaren
2005) where member states not only express their eminently political representation
through delegates or diplomats operating at the plenary legislative level, but also pro-
vide, more or less indirectly, nationals who are hired by the IO to keep the machine
running. Such arrangements have raised systematic concerns among both practitioners
and scholars about the ability of IOs to remain neutral playing fields with a homogenous
administrative body – the International Civil Service (ICS).
Unsurprisingly then, explicit provisions regulating the independence of international
civil servants (ICSs) from their country of origin are incorporated in the founding doc-
uments of IOs. In 1945, the UN Charter stated that, ‘In the performance of their duties
the Secretary-General and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any govern-
ment or from any other authority external to the Organization. They shall refrain from any
action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the
Organization’ (UN Charter, Article 100 Par.1). These principles are echoed by the Treaty on
European Union, vigorously asserting the ‘complete independence’ of ICSs from member
countries and the ruling that members of the Commission should ‘neither seek nor take
instructions from any Government’ (Article 17).
In parallel to the attention granted to this issue by policy measures, scholarly works
have also widely addressed IOs’ independence from member countries. Some have done
so under the analytical compass of principal–agent theory, by focusing exclusively, or, on
the contrary, by underplaying, the role of member countries in influencing the decisions of
the IO. These two opposite stances have animated one of the most heated and prolonged
debates in the field of IOs; the one between rational choice intergovernmental theory and
functionalism, respectively (Mathiason 2007, pp. 6–15).

Valentina Mele is at the Department of Policy Analysis and Public Management, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy. Simon
Anderfuhren-Biget and Frédéric Varone are at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University
of Geneva, Switzerland.

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 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IN IOS 491

Rooted in the functionalist perspective, some works have shifted their attention away
from this state-centric ontology and have begun to explicitly analyse IOs as organizations
(Ness and Brechin 1988; Baccaro and Mele 2011, 2012). In so doing, they have provided
fine-grained accounts of the way in which their bureaucratic nature and normative power
may ultimately grant IOs autonomy from member countries (Barnett and Finnemore
2004).
Within this scholarship, a stream of research has focused on the interplay between IOs
and member countries, maintaining the ICS as the unit of analysis. More specifically, these
studies have investigated the implications of such interplay for the allegiances perceived
by ICSs towards their national and their supra-national interlocutors.
While the findings of this scholarship are often inconclusive (Egeberg 1999; Beyers and
Trondal 2004; Beyers 2005; Checkel 2005), we can distil three interrelated elements as their
common denominator. First, they recognize the intrinsic tensions between the national and
international dimensions faced by this peculiar type of professional service. Some studies
cast the tensions as loyalty dilemmas that ICSs face when ‘serving two masters’ (Gron 2007;
Johns 2007). Others introduce a milder notion of ‘representational ambiguity’ (Trondal and
Veggeland 2003, p. 73; Beyers and Trondal 2004) that leaves room for multiple loyalties to
coexist and complement each other (Egeberg 1999, 2006).
Second, they share a focus on role conception – i.e. on the perception of ICSs of their
own professional identities (Egeberg 1999, 2006; Drulák et al. 2003; Beyers and Trondal
2004; Beyers 2005). While constructs such as role, organizational identity and loyalty may
assume different connotations in specific academic debates on ICSs (for an extensive ana-
lysis see De Graaf 2011), in this specific context they are largely used interchangeably to
define ‘expectations (norms or rules) that more or less specify the behavior of the role
incumbent’ (Egeberg 1999, p. 458) or allegiances towards a certain set of values and inter-
ests. When allegiances are driven by multiple obligations, as is often the case in the ICS,
role conflict or ‘conflict of interests’ (Davala 2012; Malonga 2012; Peters 2012) is assumed
to be an intrinsic element of representativeness (Trondal and Veggeland 2003).
The third common element of these studies is indeed the investigation of the contextual
factors or scope conditions under which different roles are evoked and could lead to
the emergence of a supranational identity among ICSs or else may increase the impact
of nationality on decision-making in an IO (Egeberg 1999, 2006; Trondal 2002, 2010,
2011; Drulák et al. 2003; Trondal and Veggeland 2003; Beyers and Trondal 2004; Beyers
2005; Checkel 2005; Yi-Chong and Weller 2008; Weller and Yi-Chong 2010). Conditions
include institutional configurations, such as the representation of a specific nationality or
whether or not the country of origin of ICSs is a member of the IO. Meso-level conditions
include organizational features such as age distribution, organizational structure (e.g.
strength of hierarchy) as well as the characteristics of the policy process and policy
domain. Micro-level conditions include the length and intensity of ICSs’ experience in
the IO. Sustained participation in the activities of the IO, in turn, results in ‘international
socialization’, a classic argument of the studies on ICSs in European institutions.
We build on these analytical and empirical premises to explore, specifically, how differ-
ent staff member categories of ICSs experience conflicts of interest caused by the tensions
between the IO they belong to and their country of origin. In so doing, the article aims
to complement the findings of previous studies, typically focused on groups of hierar-
chically homogeneous ICSs, such as European Commissioners (Egeberg 2006), officials in
medium-rank positions who attend Commission expert committees (Trondal and Vegge-
land 2003), or country directors at the World Bank (Weller and Yi-Chong 2010). The conflict

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of interest we refer to is the one faced by ICSs between national versus international inter-
ests, which ‘has always been identified as one of the main risks to avoid for International
Civil Servants’ (Malonga 2012, p. 70). It is an ‘intrapersonal conflict’ for ICSs related to
situations of decision-making with practical relevance (Peters 2012, p. 5). Our empirical
setting is represented by two humanitarian organizations belonging to the UN family: one
performing mainly advocacy-related tasks and the other specialized in field intervention.

REPRESENTATIONAL AMBIGUITY IN THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM

By accepting a position within the UN, employees formally agree not to solicit or receive
directives from any state and must act in the sole interest of the IO. The principle of inde-
pendence is one of the primary determinants of the quality of internal relationships among
different categories of staff members, while also creating the basis for the credibility and
legitimacy of the system vis-a-vis the public (Lemoine 1995; Udom 2003), since ‘States trust
ICSs more than they trust each other in negotiations’ (Yi-Chong and Weller 2008, p. 42,
emphasis added).
This view, however, is confronted with the reality of the United Nations where staffing
has always been politicized and often subject to the influence of member states (Bulkeley
1990; Salomons 2004; Sharma and Banerjee 2009). This is due to the fact that ICSs, partic-
ularly top-level ones (Sullivan 2011), are engaged in informal and formal diplomatic tasks
(Kemp-Spies 2013) and their roles as neutral administrators and diplomatic facilitators are
often intertwined (Mathiason 2011). Top-level officials may in fact be considered necessary
channels of communication with their nations (Johns 2007) and this may result in recruit-
ment based on a system where member states promote the appointment of one of their
nationals in a top position in the attempt to increase or maintain their influence in the
organization (McLaren 2005; Broome and Seabrooke 2015). For instance, several govern-
ments have, as part of the department of foreign affairs, a special service dedicated to the
placement of nationals (Jordan 1991; David 2008). Other countries choose more informal
types of influence to maximize the chances that nationals be appointed as top ICSs, given
‘the importance attached to the structure of the top-echelons’ (Lemoine 1995).
Against this background, our study investigates whether and why there are categories
of UN staff that, while embedded in the same workplace, report facing higher conflicts
between the interests of their native country and those of the IO for which they work.
Let us now sketch our research journey. Consistent with the literature review and our
analysis of UN policy documents, we posited that conflicts of interest are more likely to
occur for individual staff members who occupy a high position within the organizational
hierarchy. We tested this hypothesis empirically with a quantitative survey. However,
our findings hardly confirmed the initial hypothesis. Puzzled by the results, we further
explored this issue through semi-structured interviews with a sub-set of the survey
respondents. We structured the article to truthfully reflect a research process of inductive
iteration (Yom 2015) based on a sequential mixed-method approach (see figure 1). In so
doing, we acknowledge that we used ‘inductive recalibrations in which … we refined
our causal arguments after discovering the unexpected’ (Yom 2015, p. 2).
In the next section, we clarify our main hypothesis. We then account for our method-
ological choice to adopt a mixed-methods strategy (i.e. quantitative survey and inter-
views) in section three. In section four, we present our empirical findings, which are then
discussed in a broader theoretical perspective and which may indicate a future research
path.

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RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
The previous literature review indicates that top-level posts in UN organizations are
highly political in nature. Furthermore, the modes of appointment of the professional
and higher categories of staff are strongly influenced by member states. Thus, we expect
that ICSs occupying a higher position in the IO’s hierarchy face conflicts between the
interests of their native country and those of the IO for which they work, more frequently
than ICSs employed at a lower level. Our hypothesis, derived from the analysis of the
literature on the UN ICSs, is consistent with a mainstream line of inquiry of public admin-
istration scholarship, i.e. the one investigating the proximity and interrelations between
top civil servants and their elected interlocutors (Aberbach and Rockman 1994; Rouban
2003; Peters and Pierre 2004; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). Albeit with different nuances,
this scholarship has theorized the intrinsic political dimension of top-level bureaucratic
appointments. Conventionally, higher-level civil servants are taught to be ‘more favorably
inclined towards political aspects of the grey zone between politics and administration’
(Christensen 1991, p. 308). Similar conclusions are drawn in the case of the EU, where
scholars have recognized a ‘divided loyalty at the top of the Commission’ (Egeberg 1996,
p. 726).
To define a more concrete research hypothesis, we focus on the UN categorization of
ICSs working in IOs. Besides the geographical distribution principle according to which all
member states have the right to have nationals working for the UN organization, another
very important specificity of the UN as a workplace relates to the different staff categories
and their respective recruitment procedures. The General Service staff (G category) who
compose roughly 70 per cent of the UN system workforce (Secretary-General 2013) are
typically recruited locally to perform administrative support tasks. In this sense, the work
carried out supports the functioning of the organization and is typically procedural, tech-
nical or operational in nature (e.g. administrative, secretarial and clerical support as well
as specialized technical support such as printing, security and buildings maintenance).
As such, it is not considered of high political salience for member states (David 2008).
Professionals (P category) and higher category staff such as Directors (D category) have
ICS status (e.g. they benefit from several privileges and immunities), and are internation-
als recruited on a competitive basis. Unlike the G category, these professionals are often
expected to serve at different duty stations throughout their career. Looking further at how
member states have the capacity to influence the recruitment and placement of the UN sys-
tem workforce, additional differentiation can be made among these categories depending
on the level of hierarchy, and their subjection to the geographical distribution principle
(see table 1).
The senior management composed of strategic posts at the P5 level and above is mostly
appointed on political consideration upon the desiderata of the most powerful countries
(Lemoine 1995, p. 80; Sharma and Banerjee 2009), and the P2 and P3 are entry-level posts
which are mostly filled with workers subsidized by their states through the Junior Pro-
fessional Officer (JPO), the Associate Professional Officer (APO) or the Associate Expert
(AE) programmes, as well as all the elements described above. Therefore, we hypothesize
that higher categories of international civil servants (i.e. P and D in the UN system) are
more likely to face conflicts between the interests of their native country and those of the
IO they work for, than lower categories of international civil servants (i.e. G in the UN
system).

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TABLE 1 Overview of the UN system workforce

Hierarchy level/ Number of staff Type of recruitment States’ influences /

Strategic importance

Professionals and higher D1–D2: 689 Internal promotions, P5 and above: Strategic
P4–P5: 5,306 lateral transfers, external importance of
hiring policy-making, work
programmes
preparation, staff
supervision, networks
with governments,
budget, information,
research.
P1–P3: 5,564 P1: Competitive process JPO/AE/APO: These
P2–P3: National recruitment and
competitive recruitment sponsorship
examination programmes were
created to provide
additional resources to
the system, to develop a
pool of experts and
officers, as well as to
provide on-the-job
training and learning for
young high-potential
professionals for the
United Nations.
Nationals of
unrepresented or
underrepresented
countries are favoured.
General service G5–G7: 8,730 Decentralized to operating Initially trusted by Great
G1–G4: 13,659 departments/offices Britain and United
Generally not subject to States. Only recently
geographical considered more and
distribution principle more strategic by other
member states (David
2008).

Sources: ‘Report of the Secretary-General: Composition of the Secretariat: Staff Demographics’, A/68/365
(Secretary-General 2013).

DATA AND METHODS

The empirical setting is based on research within two key IOs belonging to the UN system
and dealing with humanitarian issues. Their premises and operations are located both
in the headquarters and in the field all around the world. Historically the humanitarian
field, composed of humanitarian interventions and human rights advocacy, is based on
values of impartiality, neutrality, and independence. These values define the mandate
of the IOs, while serving as an ethical compass for their workers (Harrell-Bond 2002;
Fresia 2009). However, over time, the field has undergone two profound transformations:
professionalization of its workforce, and politicization of its mandate, due in particular
to the increase in earmarked government funding. In addition, humanitarian crises and
human rights controversies receive extensive media coverage and are under greater

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scrutiny of public opinion (Barnett 2011). In sum, political salience for IOs and national
government characterizes this policy domain, while the requisite of clear independence
from state interference defines the organizational and professional mandate of the actors.
This combination makes the humanitarian organizations of the United Nations a context
that fits with our research endeavour.

Mixed-methods strategy
In addition to desk research on the current policy developments (i.e. codes and ethical
regulations documents) that were used to substantiate our claim about the policy relevance
of conflicts of interest and independence of ICSs, our findings are mainly based on the ana-
lysis of a unique quantitative dataset (approximately 1,400 individuals) and 17 in-depth
qualitative interviews with staff members that had been previously surveyed (see figure 1).
This study adopts a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design based on a process
of inductive iteration (Yom 2015) consisting of two distinct phases (Creswell and Clark
2007). The quantitative data and their subsequent examination provided a general under-
standing of the research problem while the qualitative data and their analysis refined and
explained those statistical results by addressing emerging contradictions and by exploring
participants’ views in greater depth (Teddlie and Yu 2007).
‘Integration’ of quantitative and qualitative methods (Creswell and Clark 2007) occurred
in the intermediate stage when the results of the data analysis of the first phase informed
the data collection of the second. We sought integration through two points of connection.
First, we selected the interviewees among those who responded to the survey and agreed
to possibly be contacted for a follow-up (n = 163). This ‘gradual sampling’ (Teddlie and Yu
2007) requires a sequential selection of interviewees based on their potential contribution
to the research questions instead of their representativeness. Second, the protocol for the
semi-structured interviews was grounded in the results of the first phase, i.e. the research
questions were aimed explicitly at illuminating those results.

Survey: data collection and characteristics of the sample

The quantitative data were gathered in the context of a large research project. For this
study, we retained a subsample of two IOs who preferred to remain anonymous. The
data were collected by means of an anonymous online questionnaire designed by the
researchers and distributed by the Human Resources Department to all staff members
who possessed a professional email address. The collection was carried out in two phases
(November 2011–January 2012 for Organization A; July–September 2011 for Organization
B). Response rates were quite different for the two organizations. For Organization A, 393
(out of 1,168) valid questionnaires were gathered (33.65 per cent response rate). Most of
them work in headquarters (in Geneva, Switzerland) with short periods in the field. On the
other hand, Organization B has more employees working in the field in remote and dan-
gerous locations performing emergency work. This may be the explanatory factor for the
low response rate of 13.6 per cent for this second organization (1,050 valid questionnaires
from 7,700 invitations).
Regarding the representativeness of the dataset: for Organization A, the survey’s par-
ticipants are fairly representative of the base population in terms of sex, age, types of
employment as well as employment category distributions. The sample of employees of
Organization B is slightly biased in terms of sex (women are overrepresented in our sam-
ple as they compose 38 per cent of the base population) and category of employment,
with an overrepresentation of the professionals and higher category of employees (in the

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TABLE 2 Description of the quantitative dataset

Int. Org. A Int. Org. B

Sex Women 138 (35.1%) 317 (30.2%)

Men 89 (22.6%) 305 (29%)
No response 166 (42.2%) 428 (40.8%)
Grades D1–D2 and Above 4 (1%) 26 (2.6%)
P4–P5 34 (8.7%) 176 (17.7%)
P1– P3 216 (55%) 294 (29.5%)
G5–G7 75 (19.1%) 389 (39%)
G1–G4 20 (5.1%) 112 (11.2%)
No response 44 (11.2%) 53 (5%)
Age categories <30 21 (5.3%) 46 (4.4%)
30–39 79 (20.1%) 195 (18.5%)
40–49 80 (20.4%) 188 (17.9%)
50–59 40 (10.2%) 137 (13%)
>59 – 9 (0.9%)
No response 173 (44%) 475 (45.2%)
Work location Headquarters 174 (44.3%) 157 (15%)
Field 75 (19.1%) 416 (39.6%)
Frequent moves between both 24 (6.1%) 91 (8.7%)
No response 120 (30.5%) 386 (36.8%)
Region of origin Africa 29 (7.4%) 114 (10.9%)
Asia 42 (10.7%) 144 (13.7%)
East Europe 24 (6.1%) 55 (5.2%)
Carib. and Latin America 22 (5.6%) 33 (3.1%)
West Europe and Anglo-Saxons 87 (22.1%) 242 (23%)
No response 189 (48.1%) 462 (44%)
Organizational tenure in average years (std. dev.) 6.47 (5.42) 10.16 (7.42)
Number of cases 393 1,050

base population, 77 per cent of the staff are employed in the General Service category).
Conversely, for both organizations, the diversity of the respondents in terms of country
of origin is comparable to the base population. Table 2 (Description of the quantitative
dataset) sets out the main characteristics of our respondents.

Measures
The purpose of this study is to explain which categories of ICSs working for two IOs in
the humanitarian domain face conflicts between the interests of their country of origin
and those of the organization they work for. Therefore, they were asked: ‘Please indicate
how often you face conflicts among the interests of your native country and those of the
international organization you work for.’ They answered on a 5-point Likert frequency
scale ranging from 1 = never to 5 = always.
The two-step multivariate model of regression contains organizational tenure, ‘Work
location’ and ‘Values dilemmas’ as control variables as they appeared to be linked to sig-
nificant mean differences in conflict of interest. To grasp the specific work context of ICSs,
‘Work location’ was recoded into two categories (Headquarters = 1 and Field missions
and frequent moves = 2) for parsimony and conceptual reasons. Accordingly, the politi-
cal nature of the decisions taken by higher-level ICSs working in headquarters increases
the likelihood of being scrutinized by member states. Furthermore, it should also be easier

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for member states to avoid agency costs linked to moral hazard problems, by controlling
them.
Finally, those civil servants are more likely to be sanctioned by their country of ori-
gin, which may refuse to support them for their next appointment. According to this
principal–agent approach, we thus expect ICSs working in headquarters to face conflicts of
interest of a political nature more often than those working in the field. Hence, we expect to
observe that those employees who face conflicts between the interests of their native coun-
try and the IO they work for are also likely to face more general contradictions between
values (i.e. those of their organization and those of human rights or their own personal
values). This second control variable, labelled ‘Values dilemma’, was computed with two
items created to reflect the values conflict (details of their wording and measurement prop-
erties are in appendix 1). Finally, in order to statistically analyse how individuals working
in different categories of employment have varying probability of facing conflicts of inter-
est, we have recoded the different grade groups in a dichotomous variable (G = 1; P and
D = 2).

Interviews and content analysis

In the second phase of the research, we conducted semi-structured interviews. The nature
of the puzzle emerging from the quantitative findings represented the basis on which we
selected interviewees. As we discuss in the next section, the puzzle lies in the mismatch
between the hierarchical level of ICSs and how frequently they face conflicts of interest.
Consequently, we identified four profiles. Two profiles reflect the findings we would have
expected: low hierarchical level and low level of conflict, high hierarchical level and high
level of conflict. The other two profiles, instead, reflect the more surprising set of results we
found: low hierarchical level and high level of conflict, high hierarchical level and low level
of conflict. We grouped our respondents accordingly. Next, we divided the 163 respon-
dents to the questionnaire who had expressed their availability to possibly be contacted
for a follow-up by profile (45 for Organization A, and 118 for Organization B) and we
selected 32 of them.
Our sampling for this qualitative phase is a ‘purposive sampling’, and is thus not a rep-
resentative one (Teddlie and Yu 2007). The respondents have been selected for the relevant
information they can provide and that could not be gained by other means (Maxwell 2012).
Our final interviewees (17) included the two critical profiles, low hierarchical level and
high level of conflict (six), high hierarchical level and low level of conflict (seven), but we
also included the two less surprising profiles to corroborate our findings: low hierarchical
level and low level of conflict (two), high hierarchical level and high level of conflict (two).
Between September 2013 and February 2014 we conducted the semi-structured interviews
mostly on Skype and in a few cases (three) on the mobile of respondents working in conflict
zones or in rural areas. Interviews lasted between 30 and 40 minutes and were organized
around ten open questions. Our interviewees were reassured that results would be com-
pletely anonymous and would be used solely for the purposes of an academic project.
Interviews were recorded and transcribed. The transcripts’ analysis combined deduc-
tive a priori broad themes emerging from the quantitative phase with data-driven induc-
tive coding, thus allowing for original themes to emerge directly from the transcripts
(Fereday and Muir-Cochrane 2008). Coding was performed with the support of the soft-
ware program ATLAS.ti. The final data structure is provided in figure 2, while detailed
illustrative quotations are provided in appendix 2.

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TABLE 3 Multivariate linear regression on conflict of interests

Step 1 Step 2
Standardized beta (Std. Error) Standardized beta (Std. Error)

Tenure −.118 *** −.080 *

(.006) (.057)
Work location .182 *** .184 ***
(.083) (.080)
Values dilemmas .340*** .343 ***
(.037) (.036)
Grades −.253 ***
(.078)
Adjusted R2 .156 .218
R2 .159 .222
R2 variation NA .063
F variation 47.226 60.429
Sig. F variation *** ***

Sig. ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05.

FINDINGS
Quantitative analysis: puzzling findings
This study is a primary empirical and systematic inquiry with a certain exploratory char-
acter that has led us to adopt a prudent approach. First, we have performed several means
comparison tests (one-way ANOVA) and related Tukey post-hoc tests to identify whether
mean levels are significantly different for all the variables displayed in table 2. This enabled
us to select the most relevant variables to insert into the regression model, as well as to
show which categories of employees are the most likely to face these types of conflict of
interest. In a second procedure, we performed a two-step model of multivariate linear
regressions (presented in table 3) to verify whether the observed results about differences
still hold when the study variables are jointly taken into account.
The comparison of mean levels between the General Service (2.33) and the Professional
and higher categories of employees (1.70) is statistically significant (F(1,801) = 58.299,
p = 0.001). According to a Tukey post-hoc test on the detailed categories (that compares
each possible pair), mean differences remain statistically different (F(4,798) = 16.309,
p = 0.01), but only between the two broad categories (Professionals and above versus
General Services), and this can be seen in the graphical representation (see figure 2).
The same procedure was carried out to analyse whether the level of conflict of interest
faced by employees depends on the location where they work. As a result, mean levels of
faced conflicts of interest are statistically significantly different depending on work loca-
tion (F(2,843) = 13.371; p = 0.001): those who work mainly in the field report facing certain
conflicts of interest more frequently (2.12) than those who work principally in headquar-
ters (1.67).
Conversely, there are no statistically significant average differences of conflicts of inter-
est between Organization A and Organization B, men and women, age groups, or among
ICSs coming from different regions of the world. These variables will not be inserted in
the multivariate model.
Table 3 presents the results of the multivariate linear regression. The selected indepen-
dent variables analysed explain more than 22 per cent of the variation of the frequency

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QUANTITATIVE Survey n=1,413

data collection (IOa + IOb)

QUANTITATIVE Multivariate regression

data analysis

CONNECTING POINT 1) Purposeful selection of interviewees (n=17)

among the available survey respondents by
Integration of category
quantitative &
qualitative 2) Developing interview questions to explore the
phases unexpected results of the quantitative analysis

QUALITATIVE In-depth semi-structured

data collection interviews (n=17)

Thematic content analysis

QUALITATIVE (assisted by Atlas.ti)
data analysis
CONNECTING POINT

Interpretation and explanation of the

Integration of quantitative and qualitative results
the results

FIGURE 1 Mixed-methods sequential explanatory design

of facing conflicts between the interests of the employees’ country and those of the
organization they work for. However, the results also confirm that ICSs working in
General Service posts and those who work mainly in field missions more frequently face
contradictory interests between those of their national government and those of their
organization. Also, organizational tenure appears to attenuate the appearance of conflicts

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FIGURE 2 Mean levels of conflict of interest per Grade groups

of interest as the longer an employee stays in the organization, the less they report facing
this issue. Finally, those employees who report facing frequent conflicts of interest are
also those who report facing more general value dilemmas. In other words, this group
of respondents may be more likely to feel a misalignment between different types of
interests or values.
To summarize, our quantitative analysis leads to the invalidation of our initial theo-
retical expectation (high-ranking ICSs working in the professional or top-management
posts category would face higher conflicts of interest with those of their country of ori-
gin). According to the inductive iteration research design adopted, we have employed
semi-structured interviews to further investigate these findings.

Qualitative interviews: solving the puzzle

Based on our interviews, we offer explanations of how G staff more frequently face ten-
sions between national and international interests than the high-level staff (Ps and Ds). In
figure 3, we provide the data structure of our codes.
Our interviews highlight the fact that G staff members are typically selected through
local hiring processes. In the words of our informants, this has three significant implica-
tions. The first and most obvious one is that they have stronger linkages with the local
communities and therefore are more susceptible to pressure from specific requests. This
effect is exacerbated when the staff member works for a UN mission in the field as opposed
to working in headquarters, mostly located in truly international settings where ICSs face
less direct pressure from their communities.

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FIGURE 3 First-order and second-order codes emerging from the interviews

The second implication of hiring local staff may lie in their limited identification with
the organization compared to international staff:
G staff are in the same place, it’s different. They’re mostly in their own country. So … their life would not be
very different from someone who works in a bank.

The third implication concerns the conflict of interest between the international identity
and the political conception of the national one. This tension arises when ICSs may feel a
strong need to participate in visible political activities, such as electoral campaigns or even
protests, but they are expected to maintain a neutral profile.
The results of the survey also indicate that tenure attenuates how frequently ICSs face
conflicts of interest. With regard to this point, our interviews offer two interrelated expla-
nations. On the one hand, more time in the organization is thought to lead to higher levels
of identification with the UN political agenda, as well as with acquiring ‘self-respect for
your career in the organization’ and, consequently, more distance from the country of ori-
gin. On the other hand, more time means higher career advancement and therefore relative
independence.
Another explanation lies in the specific type of challenges that G staff may face – in
terms of governments’ potential pressure to disclose sensitive information. This request,
which may be brought forward by the country mission at the UN, seems less related to the
staff’s direct responsibility and more to their access to specific procedures of the IO they
work for.
We now turn to the second portion of our explanation focusing on higher-level ICSs
and why they face relatively less frequent conflicts of interest. Unlike G staff, especially in
the humanitarian organizations we have studied, higher-level staff are subject to mobility,
which may be linked either to the IO’s mandate (i.e. operating where the need for humani-
tarian assistance arises) or to mandatory staff rotation. This mobility tends to be conducive
to a stronger sense of belonging and to attenuate the national identity.

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In the same vein, some of our respondents explained that the lack of conflict of interests
is rooted in the fact that they no longer identify themselves with their nationality. This may
be due to the emergence of their cosmopolitan identity, so that they do not even ‘register
with their national embassy when they are abroad because they don’t identify themselves
with their government’. It could also be the result of an explicit decision to give up their
national identity to embrace the UN identity: ‘I guess I’ve removed myself as a citizen of
the country of my nationality, since whatever my country does is not reflective of me as a
person.’
Staff with more than one nationality may also decide to pick the least ‘problematic’ one
in order to avoid conflicts of interest. Over time, the identification with the IO’s mission
may lead to a very different notion of national interest. Several of our respondents, indeed,
have pointed to a substantial difference between the national interest of a ruling govern-
ment and the national interest of its people. Consequently, the activities of international
humanitarian organizations may be perceived as a threat from national political leaders
but could hardly be thought to challenge the interests of the citizens.
Another set of reasons that explain why higher-level staff face lower levels of tensions
between national and international identities is a direct consequence of ad hoc institu-
tional arrangements. Our interviews reveal three types of such arrangements put in place
to protect the staff from conflicts of interest. First, these IOs aim not to deploy interna-
tional staff in their own country or in countries where they would face potential tensions
due to turbulent bilateral relations between the country of origin and that of deployment.
Second, ICSs may make an official report if they feel a threat to their independence and
integrity, seek expert advice within the organization and, if needed, ultimately opt out of
a mission. Reporting can be officially channelled through an Ethics Office or similar struc-
tural set-ups, or more informal mechanisms. Third, in specific circumstances the IOs have
decided to remove a potential source of tensions, namely government requests to ICSs to
access sensitive information, by adopting a full-disclosure policy.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

We have investigated, in the context of two UN agencies, whether and why different staff
categories embedded in the same workplace may face higher conflicts between the inter-
ests of their native country and those promoted by the IO they work for. Conflicting values
and inconsistent demands are inherent elements of public governance and service (De
Graaf 2011; Steenhuisen and Van Eeten 2012) and they ought to be studied by delving into
the empirical details of daily practices (de Graaf et al. 2014). Our study confirms that a spe-
cific type of such conflict, the one between national and supranational interests, represents
a substantive issue for IOs (Egeberg 1999, 2006; Trondal and Veggeland 2003; Beyers and
Trondal 2004). Specifically, our findings indicate that conflicts of interest faced by UN staff
are higher for members of the General Service than for the Professional and higher cate-
gories of employment, thus invalidating our expectations based on previous knowledge of
state interference in the UN staffing processes, as well as on classical public administration
research on top civil servants.
Our interviews confirm that ‘socialization’ within international elite networks matters
(Johnston 2001). Our findings, however, enabled us to provide a more fine-grained account
of the dynamics of socialization.
First, consistent with a classic, albeit not unanimous (Hooghe 2005), argument in
the literature on EU integration (Egeberg 1999, 2006; Trondal 2002, 2011; Trondal and

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Veggeland 2003; Checkel 2005), we have found that socialization relies on an intense and
sustained exposure to the activities of the IO, resulting in ICSs more often evoking their
supra-national identity. Socialization also leads to a reframing of the notion of national
interests in a way that does not conflict with international interests, consistent with
the attitude of ICSs to rework intergovernmental conceptions to limit their role conflict
(Beyers and Trondal 2004).
Second, we have found that socialization is reinforced by an effect we have labelled
‘national identity dilution’, which tends to blur national identities and perspectives. These
dynamics are certainly more marked in international than in local staff. Unlike foreign
officers (i.e. civil servants pursuing a diplomatic career), UN staff are not cyclically reas-
signed to their national base after their duty as expatriated staff. Therefore, they are more
likely to lose their national perspective through a mechanism of alienation and to acquire a
new international identity through assimilation (Reymond and Mailick 1985). These find-
ings resonate with the mechanisms of ‘dépaysement’ and then enmeshing or ‘engrenage’ that
Shore (2000) observed in his ethnographic study of the politics of European integration.
In addition, our findings also reveal that dilution of national identity is activated both by
institutional and intentional mechanisms. Institutional mechanisms include the rotation
requirement – i.e. the mandate for international staff to change post after a certain amount
of time (e.g. two years) – as we have observed in one of the two UN agencies under ana-
lysis. Rotation and duty station assignment prevent the ICSs putting down roots in a new
country and maintain the truly cosmopolitan nature of the international workforce. Inten-
tional mechanisms of ‘national identity dilution’ entail a careful selection of the identity
to be evoked, i.e. choosing between two national identities or considering the UN blue
passport a sort of new identity, up to the point of dismissing the national identity if it
systematically conflicts with the supranational set of values internalized by ICSs.
Third, the study has also shed light on the implications of what we may call the ‘prox-
imity to the local environment’ faced by the UN staff. Not only are local employees less
affected by affirmative socialization and national identity dilution mechanisms but, per-
haps more importantly, they remain an easier hostage to local patronage, political pres-
sures and expectations from the local community. Our interviews revealed an overlooked
source of role conflict for local clerical staff. While often removed from sensitive deci-
sions with implications for their country of origin, they may still be requested by their
government officials to ensure access to procedural information or to intervene in pol-
icy implementation. The interviews allow us to also isolate the political component of the
national allegiances felt by ICSs. The national political identity may take its toll in terms of
role conflict: while expected to keep a politically neutral posture, it may be harder for UN
staff embedded in their own country setting to drop their prerogatives as cives of the polity
they belong to, such as in the case of abstention from seeking an electoral mandate. The
interviews thus suggest a distinctive component of national identity that had previously
escaped scholarly attention, namely its political dimension.
Fourth, a repertoire of institutional arrangements devised to limit the tensions between
those dual identities emerges from our analysis. While the study was not designed to
assess their effectiveness, several arrangements were spontaneously mentioned by our
informants: these institutional instruments enable international staff to decrease the pres-
sure coming from the context. This UN policy differs markedly from the EU staffing policy
as well as from the ‘one bank, one staff’ policy of the World Bank, according to which local
staff and internationally recruited staff receive the same treatment in ranking and perfor-
mance assessment (Weller and Yi-Chong 2010). The UN humanitarian organizations we

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have analysed do not deploy international staff in their country of origin, thus removing
potential sources of role conflict, albeit at the price of losing local expertise and political
sensitivity (Dijkzeul 2004). In the same vein, if a conflict of interests escalates, international
staff may exert the right to opt out from a mission. Therefore, the design of institutional
arrangements may help to explain the puzzle of our quantitative findings.
Finally, this study has answered three open calls. First, the call to bring people back in
to the research on IOs (Mathiason 2007; Yi-Chong and Weller 2008), considering that ICSs
have remained invisible; almost a ‘taboo’ in studies on IOs for several decades (Yi-Chong
and Weller 2008, p. 36). In particular, we provide fresh empirical ammunition to the schol-
arship investigating the scope conditions that may be more or less conducive to the emer-
gence of a supranational identity in ICSs, therefore exacerbating or attenuating conflicts
of interest.
The second, interrelated, call we have addressed is the one to further unpack the dynam-
ics of socialization among ICSs, a phenomenon that, from an empirical point of view,
has remained ‘curiously understudied and misunderstood’ (Shore 2000, p. 148). On the
one hand, we have identified the dynamics of national identity dilution, discriminating
between institutional and intentional mechanisms. On the other hand, we have pointed to
the effects of proximity to the local context.
Third, we have addressed the call to combine qualitative and quantitative methods,
therefore providing more nuanced accounts of the dynamics within IOs (Pollack 1997)
and, in so doing, we have addressed a broader call to report a process of ‘inductive itera-
tion’ when it occurs, instead of mimicking the steps of a deductive template (Yom 2015). In
other words, we have reported the process through which unexpected results not in line
with our initial hypothesis led us to further exploration.
Both the findings and the limitations of this study call for an ambitious research
agenda. Our dependent variable was measured with one item – a critical case for statisti-
cal robustness – and according to our interviewees, conflict of interests is a multifaceted
phenomenon. Therefore, there is a need for a more accurate conceptualization and mea-
surement of the notion of conflict between national and international interests. One way
to address this call might entail developing a sound scale aimed at enhancing conceptual
validity. Furthermore, since the impacts of role, identity and multiple loyalties have
emerged from the interviews as potential explanations of conflicts of interest, we propose
scrutinizing new hypotheses about the impact of explanatory variables. In addition,
our statistical analyses have revealed the ‘values dilemma’ to be the most significant
explanatory variable of the model. We posit that this specific result requires a more
fine-tuned analysis in order to discern whether staff members who declared frequently
facing conflicts of interest with the government of their country of origin are not prone,
for unknown reasons, to distrust the integrity of their organization. Finally, the external
validity of the findings could be enhanced by comparing our results to those of other
policy domains, such as the environment, economic development or trade.
We believe the study may also offer fruitful insights into current policy debates on the
strategies that IOs should devise to ensure their independence from member countries
(Davala 2012; Malonga 2012; Peters 2012). In particular, it confirms the importance of
the role played by socialization among international civil servants, and even more so if
they are subject to rotation requirements at work. However, the findings also point to the
need for closer consideration of the effects of institutional arrangements and specifically
the effects of proximity on how frequently conflicts of interests are faced by (local) staff
of IOs.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study received funding from the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS). One
of the authors, Simon Anderfuhren-Biget, received funding from the Swiss National Sci-
ence Foundation (project P2GEP1_148571). Earlier versions of the article were presented at
IRSPM XVIII (Ottawa, 9–11 April 2014) and at the PMRA Conference (Minneapolis, 11–13
June 2015).

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APPENDIX 1: ITEMS IN THE QUANTITATIVE SURVEY

Description of the variables

Variable Items used Measurement

Conflicts of interest * Please indicate how often you face …

Mean: 1.95 … Conflicts between the interests of the Likert frequency scale
Standard Deviation: 1.18 country you belong to and those of ranging from:
the IO you work for 1 = Never to 5 = Always
Values dilemmas * … Conflicts among the values of the IO
α = .830 you work for and Human Rights
Mean: 2.03 values
Standard Deviation: 1.06 … Conflicts among the values of the IO
you work for and your personal
values/convictions

Source: *Self-developed items.

APPENDIX 2: EXEMPLARY SENTENCES OF FIRST- AND SECOND-ORDER

CODES

ICSs with lower hierarchical level/ higher perception of conflict

Second-order First-order Illustrative quotes
themes codes

Proximity of Stronger ‘Lower-level staff are affected more. Yes, because they are in the
local staff community country of origin; I’m now in country X, before I was in
linkages country Y and in both there’s a very strong local host
community which is demanding sometimes, like the hiring of
people.’
Limited ‘I think to some extent that happens to staff when you move
identification around, over time you assume a different identity and I think
with the IO the staff have a very different cultural experience. The G staff
who do not rotate and stay in the same place, and the P staff
who do rotate and are subject to a completely different life
experience.’
National ‘Our national staff in some of the countries involved in the XY
‘political’ conflict they felt this conflict strongly, and they wanted to go
identity out in the streets and protest, because they felt strongly about
the various dictators in power and whatever. But they could
not.’

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Appendix 2: Continued

ICSs with lower hierarchical level/ higher perception of conflict

Second-order First-order Illustrative quotes
themes codes

National Procedural ‘They can find out the report hasn’t been submitted to
government access translation yet so I can still go back to the professionals and
pressures tell them they can still make some changes or you can still
give it to us to look at because you still have this much time.
I’ve had a couple of experiences like that, where I could tell
that a particular mission knew more than I knew about the
status of the document; so people in certain positions, G staff,
can be quite useful for small things, so I have seen that the
missions do cultivate those relationships.’
ICSs with higher hierarchical level/ lower perception of conflict
Mobility of Sense of ‘When we enter an international organization we become a
international belonging to member of that organization and therefore our loyalty is to the
staff the IO organization and the Secretary-General.’
Lack of national ‘You probably know which is our international passport; there is
identification no nationality.’
‘When I decided to work for the United Nations and I work on
an everyday basis I feel that I’ve worked on behalf of
humanity and not on behalf of this population of the XY
country.’
Rejection/selection ‘Well I’ve removed myself as a citizen of the country of my
of national nationality. I can take it objectively that whatever my country
identity does is not reflective of me as a person who works in an
international organization.’
‘I have a double nationality. I entered with the selection of the X
country but I was raised in the Y country. I choose my identity
to be perceived as X because it suits me as an international
civil servant, especially since the other country is at war with
everybody!’
Perception of Difference ‘So if you internalize this very well then protecting national
national between interest is not a matter of protecting government interest.
interests national and Protecting national interest would mean something equal to
government promotion of the international principle that your
interests organization is promoting.’
Organizational Strategic ‘International staff are not deployed in the countries where they
arrangements deployment could have a conflict of interest. UN try not to deploy
managers from the same country in that country. Like Iranians
working in Iran.’
Reporting & ‘There are two lines of reporting here. One is the formal line, but
training if they feel uncomfortable, reporting then they can report to
me for confidential advice and I would give them my opinion
about what I can do. I would ask for details on the nature of
the conflict or nature of the pressure or the issues and then we
would go from there.’
Full disclosure ‘We try to act in a very flexible way and to arrange for staff to
policy take these challenges … especially in some developing
countries that can be a bit more dangerous, such as X. The
most difficult thing is when people are requested by
governments to report what is going on in the office. The
answer of our organization is that you report everything. We
do not have much to hide.’

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