From bureaucracy to management: The International Criminal Court's internal progress narrative
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Authors
Publication Date
2019-03Journal Title
Leiden Journal of International Law
ISSN
1478-9698
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Volume
32
Issue
1
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
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Clements, R. (2019). From bureaucracy to management: The International Criminal Court's internal progress narrative. Leiden Journal of International Law, 32 (1) https://doi.org/10.1017/S092215651800064X
Abstract
Within international institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), lawyers increasingly encounter managerial practices which are designed to improve organisational efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Charting this trend, scholars have analysed these practices with a view to making them more legitimate. However, this scholarly focus overlooks the role of managerial practices in legitimising and thus sustaining the institutions in which they are embedded. In this article, I ask how managerial practices operate to boost the ICC’s reputation among its global audience. I find the answer in the Court’s use of the juxtaposed images of bureaucracy and management, with all their negative and positive associations. The Court uses these images to narrate a story of its own internal evolution from inefficient bureaucracy to efficient and well-managed organisation. This hidden narrative of institutional progress functions rhetorically to frame, focus and distract the attention of the Court’s global constituencies.
Sponsorship
AHRC (1802795)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S092215651800064X
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/288183
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http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
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