Thomas Stubbs was awarded an ESRC grant of £299,563 for a project titled "The Global Governance of Ideas: International Organisations as Agents of Policy Diffusion".

The grant will run for two years and includes a postdoc and research assistant who will be based in the department.

The project is titled: The Global Governance of Ideas: International Organisations as Agents of Policy Diffusion. 

Intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) influence policymaking across the globe by spreading ideas about what is-or should be-appropriate policy; for example, in devising rules about economic policy, or in setting health or environmental regulations. However, the ways in which ideas travel from IGOs to domestic policymakers are insufficiently understood. Given ongoing debates on how to construct an effective global governance system, this project seeks to better understand how domestic policymaking is shaped by the activities of IGOs and to contribute to discussions over their reform. The key research focus of the project will be on the routine technical assistance missions of IGOs. Specifically, Thomas will analyse activities of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the central institution in global economic governance, which will serve as a 'strategic research site' for developing theoretical and empirical contributions that can be applied to other IGOs.