Valentina Carraro and Hortense Jongen received confirmation that the prestigious journal ‘Global Governance’ will publish a research article by Valentina and Hortense in one of its upcoming issues. The full title of the article is ‘Leaving the Doors Open or Keeping them Closed? The Impact of Transparency on the Authority of Peer Reviews in International Organizations’. The article will appear in Global Governance 24:4 (October 2018).
This is the abstract of the article:
Though transparency is frequently employed to enhance the legitimacy of public organizations, several scholars point to its potentially negative implications. This study analyzes the impact of transparency on the authority of peer reviews in international organizations. Authority, here conceived as rooted in legitimacy beliefs, is crucial for peer reviews to produce effects. This research is based on results from an online survey and forty-three interviews with actors involved in two United Nations peer reviews: the Universal Periodic Review in human rights and the Implementation Review Mechanism in the fight against corruption. The article shows that transparency positively affects the perceived development of pressure, yet negatively influences mutual learning and appears to be unable to ensure equal treatment of states.