Next PhD defence:
3 July 2024

The overarching objective of the thesis is to examine the practice and meaning of dispute resolution as an accountability instrument in international development finance. Alongside compliance investigations, dispute resolution is today recognized as an important component of the accountability regimes of development finance institutions (DFIs), but its role in this context remains underexplored. Based on extensive document analysis and in-depth interviews, the research provides a comprehensive analysis of the collaborative accountability practices of the complaints offices of multilateral DFIs. The introduction of complaints offices as a form of direct accountability of international organizations to citizens has been heralded as a watershed innovation in global governance and public international law. Extensive research, primarily by international relations and legal scholars, has analyzed their emergence. Neither stream of literature pays sufficient attention to the practice and meaning of dispute resolution as an accountability instrument. The study fills this gap. Unlike most existing public administration scholarship on collaborative and deliberative practices, the study focuses not on policy design and implementation, but on the accountability dimension of administrative action.