Research & Projects
Research & Projects
Ranjan, P., Johnson, M., Bernard, M., Schmitz, H., Harden, S., & Prokopy, L. (2024). “Exploring the role of ‘intermediaries’ between non-operating landowners and tenant farmers in promoting conservation on rented farmland.” Environmental Management. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-024-01936-y.
Popovici, R., Ranjan, P., Bernard, M., Usher, E. M., Johnson, K., & Prokopy, L. S. (2023). “The Social Factors Influencing Cover Crop Adoption in the Midwest: A Controlled Comparison.” Environmental Management. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01823-y
Bernard, Mazie. “The Politics of Gendered Knowledge in Global Economic Governance: The Evolution of Gender Strategies at the World Bank.” (R&R at Review of International Political Economy)
Bernard, Mazie, Jason Berteotti, Tyler Girard, and Pria Wakefield. “Bad Reputation: The Domestic Costs of Bargaining with Unreliable Foreign Leaders.” (Manuscript available upon request)
Bernard, Mazie. “AI, Algorithms, and Aid: Trust in Digital Tools for Development.” (Manuscript available upon request)
Bernard, Mazie, Tyler Girard, and Nicole Mahon. “Descriptive Representation, SOGIE Mainstreaming, and Global Economic Governance.” (Manuscript available upon request)
Bernard, Mazie, Tyler Girard, Erin Hannah, and James Scott. “Agenda-Setting at the World Trade Organization.”
Bernard, Mazie, Tyler Girard, Kaylyn Jackson-Schiff, and Daniel Schiff. “Building Trust in AI Among International Organizations.”
Bernard, Mazie. “Capitalizing on Care: Multilateral Development Banks and Gender-Inclusive Reproductive Projects.”
The central research question addressed in this project is: how are economic ideas created, integrated, and changed in global economic governance? In answering this question, I conceptualize three ideal-types of ideational conflict and change – emergence, adaptation, and rejection – among international organizations (IOs) and the role of expert staff in the transformation of economic ideas. This project focuses specifically on the politics of gendered ideas and gender expertise as it relates to global governance by IOs. Despite recent scholarship on epistemic practices, literature has only recently shifted toward explaining the variation in when, why, and what types of ideas are embedded within global economic governance (Gerard 2023; Scott and Olivius 2023; Weaver 2010).
My theoretical intervention synthesizes insights from research on ideas and expertise in global governance, the epistemic power of IOs, and feminist IPE to explain how different types of ideas about gender and the economy are transformed in global policymaking. I argue that the emergence, adaptation, and rejection of gendered economic ideas among IOs reflects the success or failure of three interrelated practices that enable the ongoing refinement of gender expertise: (1) the shift in weight from a supply of gendered knowledge to a demand for gendered knowledge in governance fields; (2) the elevation of lived experiences as a source of authority in knowledge production; and (3) the refinement of gender 'masking' practices to depoliticize radical or subversive ideas about gender.
Empirically, I use three qualitative case studies of different economic governance fields – artificial intelligence, development finance, and global health – to disentangle each stage of idea transformation in global economic governance. Each field was selected for its alignment with the theoretically-informed ideal-types within ideational transformation in global governance: the artificial intelligence field (UNCTAD, ITU) illustrates the emergence of gendered economic ideas in a 'new era' of IO governance; the development financing field (WB) shows the adaptation of longstanding gendered ideas through recent reforms; and the global health field (WHO) demonstrates backlash and rejection of existing institutional ideas.
I draw on evidence from a comprehensive discourse analysis of public-facing IO documents, relational elite interviews of IO experts, and participation at flagship IO events. My work offers a novel perspective on the role of experts and the creation of knowledge in global governance. It also presents an important theoretical framework on knowledge production, contributing to new constructivist scholarship on the role of experts in global governance.