Why International Organizations Don’t Learn: Dissent Suppression as a Source of IO Dysfunction

Abstract

International organizations (IOs) need to learn from their mistakes in order to improve their performance. Over the past decades, IOs have therefore invested significantly in building a professional learning infrastructure. However, as recent studies show, many IOs still struggle to learn from their mistakes. Why do IOs not learn despite all these formal learning processes and tools? I argue that the internal “criticism culture”—the way IOs deal with criticism from their own employees—is an overlooked but crucial variable that can help us explain the lack of learning in IOs. To illustrate this argument, I draw on an in-depth case study of the UN Secretariat and more than 50 interviews with UN staff members. First, I show that the internal criticism culture in the UN Secretariat’s Peace and Security Pillar is repressive and self-restrained. Second, I demonstrate that this criticism culture leads to a double blockade that prevents the organization’s formal learning infrastructure from performing as intended: UN employees do not dare to voice criticism in official formats, and “learning products” are glossed over as they move up the ranks. As a consequence, the IO lacks a necessary stimulus for learning, which results in performance problems.

Las organizaciones internacionales (OOII) deben aprender de sus errores con el fin de poder mejorar su rendimiento. En consecuencia, durante las últimas décadas, muchas OOII han invertido significativamente en la construcción de una infraestructura de aprendizaje profesional. Sin embargo, como muestran algunos estudios recientes, algunas OOII todavía presentan déficits considerables a nivel de aprendizaje. ¿Por qué razones a las OOII les cuesta aprender a pesar de todos los procesos y herramientas formales de aprendizaje con los que cuentan? Argumentamos que la «cultura de la crítica» interna, es decir, la forma en que las OOII gestionan las críticas de sus propios empleados, es una variable crucial, aunque pasada por alto, que puede ayudarnos a explicar esta falta de aprendizaje. Con el fin de ilustrar nuestras hipótesis, nos centramos en un estudio de caso en profundidad de la Secretaría de la ONU y en más de 50 entrevistas con miembros del personal de la ONU. En primer lugar, demostramos que la cultura de crítica interna existente en el pilar de Paz y Seguridad de la Secretaría de la ONU es represiva y está autocontrolada. En segundo lugar, demostramos que esta cultura de la crítica conduce a un doble bloqueo que impide que la infraestructura de aprendizaje de la organización funcione como debería: Los empleados de la ONU no se atreven a expresar sus críticas en formatos oficiales (aportaciones selectivas), y tienden a pasar por alto los «productos de aprendizaje» a medida que ascienden en el escalafón (capacidades selectivas). Como consecuencia, las OOII carecen de un estímulo necesario para el aprendizaje, lo que provoca problemas a nivel de rendimiento.

Les organisations internationales (OI) doivent apprendre de leurs échecs afin d’améliorer leurs performances. Ces dernières décennies, nombre d’OI ont donc investi massivement dans la constitution d’une infrastructure d’apprentissage professionnel. Néanmoins, comme de récentes études le montrent, certaines OI présentent encore d’importants déficits d’apprentissage. Pourquoi éprouvent-elles des difficultés à apprendre malgré tous les processus et les outils d’apprentissage formels ? J’affirme que l’on omet la « culture de la critique » interne, la façon dont les OI réagissent aux critiques de leurs propres employés, une variable pourtant cruciale lorsqu’il s’agit d’expliquer l’absence d’apprentissage. Pour illustrer mon argument, je me fonde sur une étude de cas approfondie du Secrétariat des Nations Unies et sur plus de 50 entretiens avec des membres du personnel de l’ONU. D’abord, je montre que la culture de la critique interne du pilier paix et sécurité du Secrétariat des Nations unies est répressive et entravante en elle-même. Ensuite, je démontre que cette culture de la critique conduit à un double barrage qui empêche le bon fonctionnement de l’infrastructure d’apprentissage de l’organisation : les employés onusiens n’osent pas émettre des critiques sous des formats officiels (entrées sélectives) et l’on ne s’attarde pas sur les « produits d’apprentissage » au fur et à mesure qu’ils montent les échelons (sorties sélectives). Par conséquent, le stimulus nécessaire à l’apprentissage est absent de l’OI, ce qui nuit aux performances.

Introduction

“Certain mistakes are made over and over again.”

“Of course, you can develop all these fancy learning tools […]. But if the underlying culture is not in line with that, then nobody will use these tools.”

UN Secretariat staff members

United Nations (UN) Peacekeepers abandoning Rwanda to genocide (Barnett 2002), the World Health Organization (WHO) responding inadequately to the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak (Kamradt-Scott 2018), or the World Bank helping bulldoze part of the Brazilian rainforest for a highway (Wade 1997)—examples like these show that the actions of international organizations (IOs) can negatively “affect the lives of millions” (Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011, 52). IO performance thus matters as failures have severe consequences given the high stakes involved. Yet, IOs do make mistakes. IO scholars have repeatedly observed dysfunctions and pathologies (Barnett and Finnemore 1999), poor performance (Lall 2017), fatal errors (Jones and Hameiri 2022), and even outright misconduct (Beber et al. 2017; Comstock 2024). Without question, it would be too easy to blame IO administrations alone for this and to absolve member states of their responsibility (Meyer, van Osch, and Reykers 2024, 186). Looking at the case of Rwanda, for instance, it is evident that factors that could hardly be influenced by the UN Secretariat, such as the political unwillingness of the major powers or the unavailability of troops, were central to the failure. At the same time, however, as Barnett (2002) has demonstrated, the UN Secretariat was also partly to blame, for example, because it did not pass on key information from the then Force Commander Roméo Dallaire to the Security Council. The Rwanda case, like many others, shows that while IO bureaucracies are not omnipotent, they have considerable room for maneuvering: their actions—and failures—make a difference.

Building on this insight and the fact that it usually seems more promising to fix flawed IO bureaucracies than to change the political will of powerful states, IO researchers have dealt intensively with the question of how IOs can improve their performance (Gutner and Thompson 2010). In this context, IO research has long argued that IOs must improve their organizational learning capabilities to correct dysfunctionalities and achieve better outcomes (Haas 1990; Haas and Haas 1995; Howard 2008; Siebenhüner 2008; Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011; Hirschmann 2012). And indeed, a general trend can be observed that many IOs have invested, albeit to varying degrees, in building a professional “learning infrastructure” (Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011, 59) over the past years. Today, almost all IOs run dedicated learning units, conduct lessons-learned studies, and commission internal evaluations on a regular basis (Grigorescu 2010; Jankauskas and Eckhard 2023). But as recent studies show, the problem persists: some IOs still exhibit considerable learning deficits (Junk et al. 2017; Campbell 2018; Hardt 2018; Goetze 2019; Jennings 2019; Meyer, van Osch, and Reykers 2024). So why do they struggle to learn despite all these formal learning processes and tools?

In this article, I argue that the internal “criticism culture”—the way IOs deal with criticism from their employees—is an overlooked but crucial variable that can help us explain this lack of learning in IOs. As we know from organization theory, an open criticism culture, i.e., a permissive handling of internal dissent, is an essential resource for organizational learning and improvement (Levitt and March 1988; Edmondson 2019). However, we also know that, in practice, IOs are a difficult place to voice criticism (Christian 2022). Weaver, for instance, observes a “pervasive intolerance of open dissent” (Weaver 2008, 81–82) in the World Bank. Similarly, Anderl (2022, 179) reports of a civil society activist who claims she knows people in the World Bank “who do not dare to raise their voice internally, and therefore hide that something is going wrong”. Such anecdotes are not only to be found in the World Bank. Autesserre (2014, 57), for example, describes how difficult it is for staff in peacekeeping missions to express divergent opinions openly. Here, internal dissent is not welcomed either: “Several interviewees in fact emphasized how their organizations (notably the UN and the European Union) […] condemned dissent” (Autesserre 2014, 57; see also Barnett , 175; Hardt 2018, 57). Given this recurring discrepancy between the theoretical ideal and the empirical reality, it seems necessary to take a closer look at the link between internal criticism and organizational learning. While previous research has identified various reasons why some IOs and their staff engage in dissent suppression and self-censorship (Christian 2022), much less is known about the actual consequences of this specific handling of internal criticism in IOs.

To better understand these consequences, this article unpacks the relationship between criticism and learning in IOs, using insights from organization theory and an in-depth case study of the UN Secretariat. Drawing on 52 interviews with staff members and senior leaders in the UN Secretariat’s Peace and Security Pillar, I first describe how internal criticism is dealt with in the organization. I show that the internal criticism culture is repressive and self-restrained. I then demonstrate that this way of handling internal criticism hinders organizational learning by limiting the effectiveness of the official learning infrastructure. I observe a double learning blockade: On the one hand, the repressive-discouraging criticism culture prevents UN staff from feeding dissenting opinions and ideas into the official learning infrastructure (selective input). On the other hand, it also leads to critical insights gained in learning processes not being carried to higher levels or glossed over along the way (selective output). As a result, the UN Secretariat is missing an essential driver for learning and change. This, in turn, is a problem for organizational performance, as organizational dysfunctions continue and mistakes are repeated.

In terms of generalizability, the article does not claim that all IOs have a similarly repressive-discouraging criticism culture as the UN Secretariat. There is variation across IOs—both in terms of the learning infrastructure and criticism culture. Accordingly, I do not want to suggest that all IOs silence internal criticism and that all IOs fail to learn, but I argue that all those IOs that silence internal criticism produce learning deficits. The aim of this article is thus not to explain the different causes of the internal criticism culture in IOs and its variation across cases. Instead, my focus is on the general relationship between the criticism culture and organizational learning. Here, I argue, the existing variation across IOs (e.g., regarding the learning infrastructure) does not matter: The link between (a lack of) internal criticism and (a lack of) learning holds true for all (international) organizations. If the criticism culture does not allow for internal criticism to be brought into the official channels, this impedes organizational learning: it prevents the learning infrastructure from realizing its full potential, regardless of how great that potential may be for individual IOs.¹

Overall, the article makes four contributions. First, by examining the internal criticism culture, it develops an innovative theoretical perspective for studying processes of organizational learning and reform in IOs that goes beyond questions of institutional design (Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011; Hardt 2018; Meyer, van Osch, and Reykers 2024). Second, by investigating the dysfunctional consequences of IOs’ dealing with internal criticism, it offers new empirical insights into the formation of bureaucratic pathologies and their effects (Barnett and Finnemore 1999; Anthes 2020; Kranke 2022). Third, by taking seriously the practices and perceptions of IO staff members, it analyzes IOs “from below” and thus adds to the growing scholarly interest in the role and agency of individual bureaucrats (Oksamytna 2023; Clark and Zucker 2024; Forster 2024; Heinzel, Weaver, and Jorgensen 2024; Kortendiek 2024; Wille 2024). Fourth and finally, by discussing how to better deal with criticism from within, it also provides relevant insights for practitioners seeking to make use of the existing critical potential within IOs. The analysis demonstrates that establishing a formal learning infrastructure is not enough for organizational learning to occur: IOs need to build a culture that allows criticism to be expressed and strive for the right balance in regulating dissent.

The remainder of this article is organized as follows. In the next section, I give an overview of existing research on organizational learning in IOs and identify a need for empirical analyses that extend the current focus on learning infrastructures and leadership. I then explore the link between internal criticism and organizational learning and explain why the latter depends on the former. After discussing the case selection and methods, I analyze the internal criticism culture in the UN Secretariat and examine its impact on organizational learning. In the last section, I summarize the main findings, highlight the broader conceptual contributions of the study, and discuss its policy implications.

Organizational Learning in IOs

In the wake of growing interest in the performance of IOs (Gutner and Thompson 2010; Tallberg et al. 2016; Lall 2017; Honig 2019; Heinzel, Cormier, and Reinsberg 2023), IO research has increasingly engaged with questions of institutional reform and organizational learning over the past decade. This endeavor has aimed to better understand the “process performance” of IOs, defined as their “ability […] to make internal operations more efficient” (Gutner and Thompson 2010, 231). Starting from the premise that organizational learning can improve IO performance (Haas 1990; Ellerman 1999) and help overcome certain pathologies (Barnett and Finnemore 1999), scholars have examined learning processes in various IOs, such as the UN, European Union (EU), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the World Bank. A prominent example that illustrates the close link between organizational learning and performance is Howard's study UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars (2008), which concludes that “UN peacekeeping tends to be more successful when the peacekeepers are actively learning from the environment in which they are deployed” (Howard 2008, 2; see also Campbell 2018, 7).

Given this positive relationship between learning and performance, the question arises as to which factors promote or inhibit organizational learning in IOs. Following Meyer, van Osch, and Reykers (2024), one can distinguish here between “scope conditions,” which lie outside the direct control of IOs (e.g., the intractability of the problem; the political context), and “organizational factors,” which can be shaped, at least potentially, by the IO. Concerning the latter, (Meyer, van Osch, and Reykers (2024, 189) identify four factors that may help or hinder organizational learning: (1) resources and expertise, (2) processes and structures of learning, (3) leadership, and (4) organizational culture .

Most IO studies focus on the first two factors, highlighting the role of structural conditions and institutional design. IO researchers have found, for instance, that preference heterogeneity of member states and a high number of veto points are significant obstacles to institutional reform (Dijkstra 2015; Dijkstra, Petrov, and Mahr 2019), that more general institutional assets allow for better adaptation to changing environments (Wallander 2000), and that stakeholder control affects the recommendations drawn from IO evaluations (Jankauskas and Eckhard 2023). Other scholars have analyzed the learning infrastructure in IOs (Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011). They have shown, for example, that formalized lessons-learned processes provide an important means to introduce new ideas to the organization (Bossong 2013; Dyson 2019), that certain standard operating procedures foster quick adjustment to new demands (Hardt and Hlatky 2020), and that high staff turnover and short-term contracts impede organizational learning (Goetze 2019). The abovementioned study by Howard (2008) on first-level learning in UN peacekeeping also emphasizes the importance of resources (e.g., “a wide distribution of UN personnel in the field”—p. 18) and institutionalized tools (e.g., “mechanisms for gathering information”—p. 16) for successful learning.

Significantly less attention has been paid to the third and fourth factor, leadership and organizational culture. Regarding the former, reference can again be made to the work of Howard (2008, 18), who addresses the decisive role of leadership in facilitating learning and adapting to new developments or crises in UN peacekeeping missions (see also Schuette 2021; Oksamytna et al. 2023). Organizational culture, on the other hand, while often the subject of IO studies (e.g., Weaver 2008; Billerbeck 2023), is rarely directly associated with organizational learning (Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011; Junk et al. 2017; Smith 2018). A particularly insightful exception in this respect is Hardt’s (2018) study on institutional memory and the internal learning culture in NATO. By focusing on informal learning processes, her analysis goes beyond the official learning structures and looks at the lived practices inside the organization. Hardt argues that NATO’s official learning infrastructure often inadvertently disincentives senior leaders from using it to share knowledge about strategic errors, as reporting is seen as too risky. Instead, they prefer contributing to institutional memory by using informal processes such as interpersonal networks, private documentation, and conversations. Similarly, in their study on the reform of EU battlegroups, Meyer, van Osch, and Reykers (2024, 199) observe a strong “consensus and “face-saving” culture” in the European External Action Service, with “career disincentives” for senior EU officials to “identify and communicate inconvenient lessons” (ibid.). The present article builds on the insight that formal learning structures alone are insufficient to ensure that learning occurs, but widens the focus of the analysis. While existing research predominantly concentrates on the activities of senior leaders, this article also explores the role and agency of “ordinary” staff members to better understand bottom-up learning in IOs.

As I will show below, my analysis thus expands upon the existing IO literature on organizational learning by making a two-fold contribution that goes beyond (1) structures and (2) leadership. First, by examining how internal criticism is (not) brought into official channels and formats, the article offers a new perspective for studying lived learning practices “on the ground” rather than learning infrastructures “on paper.” Second, by focusing not only on senior leaders but also illuminating the crucial role of rank-and-file staff as critics of their own organization, the article provides a more comprehensive picture of the different sources of organizational learning in IOs.

The Blind Spot: Internal Criticism Culture and Organizational Learning

While existing contributions implicitly rely in one way or another on the idea that IOs should nurture and leverage the ideas and opinions of their staff, they do not systematically engage with the conditions for ordinary employees to contribute dissenting views. In the following, I develop an explicit perspective on “criticism from within” in IOs and its relationship to organizational learning. As a first step, I present a working definition of the central concepts—internal criticism and criticism culture—and contrast two ideal types of the latter. In a second step, drawing on insights from organization theory and critical management studies, I explain how internal criticism is linked to organizational learning and why a criticism culture that discourages dissent is a potential source of IO dysfunction. Whereas previous research has already suggested a general link between internal criticism and learning in IOs (Christian 2022), this section adds to the existing literature by conceptualizing the impact of the criticism culture in terms of both the when (“Which learning phases are affected?”) and the how (“How does the criticism culture affect the learning infrastructure?”).

Definitions: Internal Criticism and Criticism Culture

Internal criticism is understood here as a negative judgment about work-related issues and its expression by employees or managers within an organization. In contrast to external criticism and contestation from the outside (e.g., journalists, activists, or state officials; cf. Zimmermann et al. 2023), criticism from within is voiced by the IO staff—it comes from within the organization itself. My study, however, is not primarily concerned with the substantive criticism of individual IO employees, but rather with the organizational patterns and practices of expressing and dealing with internal criticism—in other words, the internal “criticism culture.” I consider this criticism culture to be a part of the general organizational culture (Schein 2012). Accordingly, it also consists of collective, learned, and unconscious beliefs that shape the perception as well as the thinking, acting, and feeling of the actors in the organization, but it includes only those basic assumptions that are related to internal criticism. Much like organizational culture in general, criticism culture gives employees orientation: It conveys the “rules of the game” by communicating specific expectations about how exactly criticism should be voiced or dealt with internally. In a nutshell, the criticism culture thus encompasses the “shared understandings of “how things are done”” (Weaver 2008, 36) with regard to internal criticism. It thereby reflects the general attitude of the organization and its members toward criticism from within: Is internal criticism seen as a resource or threat? Is it good or bad when criticism is voiced internally? The criticism culture provides answers to these questions for the members of the organization. Depending on these specific answers, the criticism culture of a particular IO can be located on a continuum between two opposing poles: one end represents the ideal type of a permissive criticism culture that encourages internal criticism, while the other end represents the ideal type of a repressive criticism culture that discourages internal criticism. Table 1 offers an overview of the various characteristics of each type.

Table 1.

Contrasting two ideal-typical criticism cultures.

	Permissive-encouraging criticism culture	Repressive-discouraging criticism culture
Voicing criticism	• Criticism is voiced openly • Criticism is expressed in all organizational settings • Criticism addresses all topics • Self-criticism is voiced	• Criticism is voiced in secret, if at all • Criticism is only expressed in small circles, if at all • Certain topics are excluded from internal debates • Self-criticism is avoided
Handling criticism	• Criticism is actively asked for • Criticism is appreciated by leadership/colleagues • Criticized problems are taken seriously	• Criticism is suppressed • Criticism is punished by leadership/colleagues • Criticized problems are downplayed

Criticism Culture and Organizational Learning

Criticism is necessary for learning. While in our everyday understanding criticism and conflicts are often seen as something negative—as a problem or a threat—criticism can also be understood positively, “as a reason-based push for the transformation of a (social) structure” with which “a change for the better is aimed at” (Jaeggi 2014, 134; my translation). Criticism can bring latent conflicts to light, and thus be an impetus for necessary change; without criticism, problematic “learning blockades” arise (Jaeggi 2014, 309f; see also Sunstein 2005). Large parts of modern organization theory share this understanding. Organizations, as the tenor goes, depend on criticism: they need internal criticism to learn and adapt to constantly changing environments (Edmondson 2019). Organization theorists emphasize the importance of “constructive conflicts” (Follet, Metcalf, and Urwick 2003) and internal dissent for organizational development and “forward-looking self-renewal” (Wimmer 2001, 254). According to this literature, internal criticism is an “indispensable resource” (Wimmer 2003, 50) for complex organizations.

But why exactly is internal criticism so “indispensable”? First, it is important to note that organizational learning follows a different logic than individual learning. As Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann (2011) point out, organizational learning is a “knowledge-based process of questioning and changing organizational rules to change organizational practice” (2011, 55). Accordingly, organizational learning is not only about gathering new knowledge but can be conceptualized as a three-step process of “collective knowledge acquisition, knowledge interpretation, and knowledge institutionalization” (Hirschmann 2012, 371). Unlike individuals, organizations only learn when their rules, structures, processes, and rituals are changed and new approaches are institutionalized. It is, therefore, not enough if only individual employees learn because organizational learning is more than the sum of individual learning in the organization. Nonetheless, internal criticism by individual employees is of great importance for organizational learning—especially as a starting point and trigger for learning processes. Organizations improve the quality of their work by learning from their own mistakes (Levitt and March 1988, 325). To learn from mistakes, however, they must first be recognized as such: “An IO’s ability to learn depends on a critical first step: the organization’s acknowledgment that an error happened” (Hardt 2018b, 458). Internal criticism can point out such mistakes, identify dysfunctional processes, and challenge the status quo. Criticism from within is thus no guarantee for organizational learning, but it can be an essential motor for setting learning processes in motion by questioning deeply held assumptions (Schein 2002). In this way, internal criticism is a central resource for organizations to learn from past failures and a crucial element in challenging—and changing—dysfunctional practices.

In order to describe the influence of the criticism culture on organizational learning in IOs as precisely as possible, it is worth taking a look at the six learning phases in IOs proposed by Meyer, van Osch, and Reykers (2024, 186). As Figure 1 visualizes, the most significant influence of the criticism culture on the overall learning process can be found in the learning phases 2–4 since the criticism culture affects the translation of recognized mistakes or successes (phase 1) into concrete decisions (phase 5) and change processes (phase 6). During this translation process, a repressive-discouraging criticism culture (see above) can lead to distortions, for example if certain information is not brought in by staff (phase 2: “information collection”), if the collective discussion about the best solution is not conducted openly or in a biased manner (phase 3: “identification of actionable lessons”), or if the results of these discussions are not passed on within the organization and, for instance, do not reach higher management (phase 4: “diffusion of lessons”).

Figure 1.

How a repressive-discouraging criticism culture distorts organizational learning processes.

It thus becomes clear that a criticism culture that suppresses and discourages internal dissent must be seen as a problem from an organizational learning perspective.² If voicing criticism is not possible for employees, the organization lacks a vital resource: “As the airing of problems and critique are prohibited, the capacity to engage in critical reflection is reduced” (Alvesson and Spicer 2012, 1205). Furthermore, without internal criticism, the existing learning infrastructure is severely limited in its effectiveness. If no one dares to address critical issues in the official formats, these learning tools remain disconnected from reality and cannot contribute to the search for solutions. Thus, while IR scholarship on organizational learning often assumes that “creating formal processes alone is sufficient for [ … ] learning” (Hardt 2018, 15), I claim that even the most sophisticated learning infrastructure remains ineffective as long as there is no underlying criticism culture that allows internal dissent to be voiced.

The resulting lack of learning can then, in turn, negatively impact the performance of IOs (Hardt 2018, 8; Howard 2008, 2). Without internal reflection processes—without criticism from within—organizational dysfunctions might be reproduced and mistakes repeated. A criticism culture that “encourages people to avoid asking difficult questions and critiquing established frameworks” (Alvesson and Spicer 2012, 1210–11) can lead to accidents or irrational decisions being made more frequently because no one feels empowered to voice dissenting opinions or contradict the judgments of senior leaders anymore (Barnett and Finnemore 2018, 73). I therefore argue that an internal criticism culture that discourages the expression of dissent is a potential source of IO dysfunction.

Case Selection and Methods

To empirically illustrate this argument and go beyond isolated anecdotes, I systematically examine an IO’s criticism culture and its impact on organizational learning. Given the lack of research on internal criticism in IOs so far, I use a single case study approach in order to provide a “nuanced view of reality” (Flyvbjerg 2006, 223) that is useful for both theory development and practitioners (ibid., see also George and Bennett 2005, 75; Rohlfing 2012, 8). As my single case study, I chose the UN Secretariat, or more precisely, its Peace and Security Pillar, which is responsible for UN peacekeeping missions.

With regard to the puzzling question that motivates this study (i.e., why do some IOs still struggle to learn despite their growing learning infrastructure?), the UN Secretariat can be seen as a “typical case” (Rohlfing 2012, 65–66). It is typical of those IOs that have, albeit to varying degrees, professionalized their learning infrastructure in recent decades, without this having led reports of a lack of learning in these IOs to disappear. On the one hand, the UN Secretariat, similar to other IOs, has invested in the development of a professional learning infrastructure over the past three decades. Following the fatal failures in Rwanda and Srebrenica in the 1990s, the UN Secretariat has established many official structures, processes, and formats designed to promote internal feedback and learning impulses “from within” (for a detailed reconstruction see Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011). On the other hand, there are numerous reports in the literature that the UN Secretariat, again similar to other IOs, still struggles to learn from mistakes despite the existing learning infrastructure (e.g., Junk et al. 2017, 185; Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011, 211). As there is furthermore some anecdotal evidence suggesting that internal criticism has a difficult standing in the UN Secretariat (Guardian 2016; Daugirdas 2019), it appears to be a fruitful case for exploring for the first time the interplay between internal criticism and organizational learning in the context of professional IO learning infrastructures, thus addressing the puzzle outlined above. While this case study does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about how other IOs deal with criticism (see conclusion), it can illustrate and substantiate the central mechanism presented in this article, i.e., how the suppression of criticism leads to learning barriers.

To do so, I carried out fifty-two in-depth, semistructured interviews with staff and senior leaders in the UN Secretariat and field missions around the world.³ I conducted my interviews during six weeks of fieldwork in New York and via online calls (from early 2020 to the end of 2021). Most of my interviewees were entry-level (P1-3) and mid-career (P4-5) staff. However, I also spoke with several senior leaders to incorporate their perspectives. My interviews thus cover many hierarchical levels and positions, including those of a Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SG), an Assistant SG, a Chief of Staff in a peacekeeping mission, several Directors, Senior Officers, Team Leaders, and Junior Officers. The interviews with numerous staff members in different organizational positions enabled me to develop a differentiated perspective on employees’ perceptions of the internal criticism culture in their organization.

I guaranteed anonymity to my interviewees to facilitate open conversations. With only a few exceptions, all interview requests were accepted; self-selection could thus not be observed. During the interviews, I followed a loose interview guideline but tried to be as open as possible to the viewpoints of my interviewees to avoid priming (Bryman 2016, 466). For instance, at the beginning of my interviews, I did not ask directly about “internal criticism.” Instead, I posed very open questions, such as: “When you are sitting at your desk, and you have an idea about how something could be done differently/better in your organization, what exactly do you do? How do you go about it?.” Despite these open questions, patterns emerged and saturation was reached quite early concerning the specific research questions of the study (Guest, Bunce, and Johnson 2006; see also below). The interviews were all transcribed and then analyzed using qualitative content analysis. To complement my analysis and triangulate its findings, I also examined relevant UN policy documents and the results of an internal staff survey.

Case Study: The Criticism Culture in the UN Secretariat and Its Implications For Learning

In this section, I present the empirical findings of my case study of the UN Secretariat’s Peace and Security Pillar. I first show how internal criticism is dealt with in the organization. I then demonstrate how this specific handling of internal criticism impedes the learning infrastructure’s effectiveness.

How Internal Criticism is Dealt With in the UN Secretariat

According to my analysis, the UN Secretariat’s internal criticism culture is both repressive and self-restrained. In what follows, I will explain the choice and use of these two adjectives.

Repression from above. First, the criticism culture in the UN Secretariat can be described as repressive. This is reflected in the way internal criticism is dealt with in the organization: criticism from within is suppressed rather than appreciated, and internal critics have to fear negative consequences. In the UN Secretariat, according to my interviewees, many employees do not dare to voice criticism and are very reluctant to raise critical issues internally because they are afraid of negative reactions:

• Open criticism … Phew, that’s basically suicide. (U4)⁴

Accordingly, there is a significant discrepancy between the official affirmations on the one hand and the daily experiences of my interviewees on the other. While the UN leadership emphasizes the great importance of organizational learning and (self-) critical analysis (“a rhetorical priority”—U37), many UN employees receive completely different signals in their everyday work (cf. Christian 2024). One of my interviewees describes the culture in the UN Secretariat as downright “hostile to criticism” (U5). Many UN staff members are therefore “extremely scared to speak up” (U20), stresses another. Hence, although criticism is simmering under the surface, it is often not aired to avoid personal sanctions:

There is not that kind of criticism culture here. Criticism is definitely not appreciated; it is not rewarded. […] To build a successful career in the UN, you need to shut up. (U35)

I’ve learned it the hard way not to raise certain things. […] They will harm you if you do it. (U40)

It is important to emphasize that this does not only concern UN staff at lower hierarchical levels. The previous interview statement, for example, comes from a person at the director level (D2). And even at the highest management level, senior officials know that criticism is often not appreciated within the organization. In an interview with a Deputy Special Representative of the SG in one of the major UN peacekeeping missions, I got the following answer to my question about whether the organization welcomes internal criticism from staff:

That’s a very difficult question… [laughs]. I think I do, and I find like-minded people who do as well. But I have also been in positions where criticism really wasn’t tolerated. (U28)

Regarding general differences between the various hierarchical levels, my analysis reveals a complex picture. While some interviewees stated that young employees in particular shy away from criticism because they often have short-term contracts and, therefore, do not want to rattle the cage (U17; U49; see also Goetze 2019, 347), other interviewees indicated that it is colleagues in higher positions who are particularly reticent because the issues at hand are more sensitive (as they are more political, see below) and the consequences of voicing dissent are harsher (U20; U27). I cannot discuss this in detail here, but it is worth noting that the repressive criticism culture permeates all levels of the hierarchy.

In terms of generalizability, it should also be stressed that the interviewees’ assessments of the repressive character of the criticism culture quoted above are not just individual opinions. This is shown by the UN Staff Engagement Survey 2019, which was conducted for internal purposes but later leaked to the public (Lynch 2020). Of the nearly 19,000 UN staff members surveyed, only 31 percent agreed with the statement, “In the UN Secretariat, it is safe to challenge the status quo,” which is well below the average for similar public sector organizations subject to the same survey. The approval rate among middle managers and their young professional colleagues was even lower (only 9 percent agreement by P1 staff, less than 20 percent by P2–P4). In response to these negative survey results, a debate took place within the UN Secretariat as to whether a kind of “dissent channel” (U26) should be established, as has existed for some time in the US State Department. Although the channel was not implemented in the end, this demonstrates that many UN employees and managers share the impression of a repressive criticism culture.

Reluctance from below. As shown above, many (more or less subtle) signals make it clear to employees in the UN Secretariat that internal criticism is not welcome in the organization. However, I argue that the criticism culture is not only repressive but also self-restrained: the lack of openly expressed criticism cannot be attributed solely to repression from above but is also based on a specific reluctance from below. The repressive attitude of many senior managers toward internal dissent can explain a large part of the reticence but not all of the existing restraints among UN employees. There is a widespread reluctance in the UN Secretariat to voice criticism and talk about failure even in situations, where there is no risk of sanctions from leadership. According to my interviewees, critical discussions are often avoided not only out of fear about possible consequences for one’s career given the repressive signals from supervisors but also because many employees simply do not want to have such discussions:

There is a reluctance within the organization to talk about failures… It’s kind of like: “We are perfect human beings. We don’t screw up.” (U17)

In many cases, UN employees are well aware of the existing shortcomings but are unwilling to address them internally (U13). According to several interviewees, some UN staff members “just don’t have that much interest in criticism” (U8). Correspondingly, critical issues are “dialed down” (U18), and critical questions are often rebuffed by colleagues (“Don’t be so philosophical”—U12). Many interviewees emphasize that UN staff generally do not like to talk about mistakes within the organization. One anecdote is emblematic of this: One day, a group of learning experts in the UN Peace and Security Pillar came up with the idea of establishing so-called “Failure Friday” meetings, such as those held in the start-up scene but also at other IOs like UNICEF. These sessions were intended to give UN employees the space to report their own mistakes and share what they had learned from their failures. This initiative quickly fell through, however, because there were simply not enough employees who were actually willing to share their failure stories (U35). In general, self-criticism is rare in the UN Secretariat, as my interviews very clearly show:

There is very much still this sense of “we fix our mistakes, but we don’t acknowledge them”. (U43)

Again, it must be emphasized that this reluctance with regard to internal criticism is not only observed among “ordinary” employees but can also be found at higher hierarchical levels (U4, U29, and U41). The reasons for this widespread restraint can be manifold: It may be a form of coping in the face of fatal failure (“it’s really hard to discuss mistakes because [ … ] they are so serious”—U13; see also Christian 2022), the result of a conflict-avoidant diplomatic habitus (“this diplomatic game [ … ] can also affect the way you communicate internally”—U18; see also Neumann 2012), or the consequence of fear of leaks and damage to the organization’s reputation (“a tug of war between being honest and self-critical and protecting the organization from reputational damage”—U16; see also Daugirdas 2019). The crucial point here is that internal criticism in the UN Secretariat is not only suppressed from above but is also actively avoided from below. This “anticipatory obedience” (U5) and “self-censorship” (U13; U18) is part of the shared understanding of how things are done vis-à-vis internal criticism and extends even to areas where internal criticism would be possible in principle.

The analysis presented here is supported by the vast majority of my interviews. Overall, there is a strong saturation regarding the two main categories “repression from above” and “reluctance from below”: Despite the open, narrative-oriented interviews, both themes came up in almost all interviews (repression: forty-three of fifty-two interviews; reluctance: forty-one of fifty-two interviews; only two interviews in which neither of the two categories were apparent). While other motifs appeared only sporadically in the interview material, and therefore did not find their way into the very condensed analysis of this article, the great majority of interviews thus provide support for my argument that in terms of internal criticism, there is both repression from above and reluctance from below.⁵ Due to this saturation, the two themes can serve as an overarching, albeit condensed, description of the criticism culture in the UN Peace and Security Pillar.

However, the emphasis on the two major analytical categories—suppression from above and reluctance from below—is not meant to imply that there are no individual differences in dealing with criticism in a complex and multilayered organization such as the UN Secretariat. Intercultural differences are a case in point here. The UN Secretariat employs people from almost 150 nations (see United Nations 2020). Such diversity and variety of perspectives is a great opportunity for the IO, not least with regard to the legitimacy of the UN as a “world organization” (cf. Badache 2020). However, this diversity is also a challenge for internal communication. UN employees do not come to New York or the respective missions as blank slates but bring their cultural backgrounds, socialization, and habitus with them (cf. Nair 2020). Even if certain rules, manners, and customs are agreed upon within the organization, UN employees do not entirely leave their personal imprints at the front door. The impact of this intercultural dimension should not be underestimated, as several interviewees emphasized (e.g., U5, U10, U12, and U38). While there is always a risk of merely reproducing certain stereotypes about “the Japanese,” “the Germans,” or “the Americans” when talking about intercultural differences, it is no question that people in different social environments experience and hence inherit different ways of dealing with hierarchy and authority during their primary socialization (Nair 2020). As a result, what is perceived as desirable, direct, open, and constructive criticism in some cultural contexts can be seen as an extreme personal affront in others. In addition to the general (organizational–cultural) dynamics that are the focus of this study, individual (intercultural) differences can thus also affect the handling of internal criticism, as these interview quotes illustrate:

People have different cultures. In some cultures, it’s very hard for you to voice criticism: You do what your boss tells you. You don’t contradict the boss. I had French supervisors in the past, and it’s like: “Do as I say.” It doesn’t matter if you have an opinion. It’s not a two-way street. (U35)

I’m not going to admit I failed if my boss doesn’t come from a culture where I think he or she is going to be okay with it. (U35)

A detailed discussion of these and other individual differences would go beyond this article’s scope, however.⁶ Instead of explaining the various causes and nuances of the UN Secretariat’s criticism culture, my main goal is to examine the general relationship between internal criticism and organizational learning, which I do below.

How the Internal Criticism Culture Impedes the Learning Infrastructure

What are the consequences of the UN Secretariat’s way of handling internal criticism? My analysis shows that the repressive and self-restrained criticism culture hinders organizational learning by limiting the effectiveness of the official learning infrastructure. The internal criticism culture in the UN Secretariat prevents staff from feeding dissenting opinions and ideas into the official learning infrastructure (selective input) and leads to critical information not being carried to higher levels or glossed over along the way (selective output).

Like many major IOs, the UN Secretariat has built a professional learning infrastructure over the past decades to provide a “fertile soil for learning attempts to grow and prosper” (Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011, 59). The Peace and Security Pillar in the UN Secretariat can be seen as a typical case in this regard. After the catastrophic failure of the UN peacekeeping missions in Rwanda in 1994 and Srebrenica in 1995, the question of how to learn from one’s mistakes was intensively debated within the organization (Erskine 2020). As a result, multiple formal learning structures were institutionalized (for a historical reconstruction, see Benner, Mergenthaler, and Rotmann 2011). For example, to facilitate learning, there are now dedicated divisions in the UN headquarters, such as the Division for Policy, Evaluation and Training (DPET) in the Department of Peace Operations, as well as Policy and Best Practices Officers in UN field missions. Frequently used learning tools include After-Action Reviews, Lessons Learned Studies, and End-of-Assignment Reports. On paper, at least, there is no lack of structures and internal channels in which UN employees should, in principle, be able to voice their criticism and bring in new ideas.⁷

However, when asked about this official learning infrastructure, staff members’ responses were very skeptical. According to my interviewees, the existing formats and tools are only of limited use. There were several occasions when my interview partners began to smile ironically when we talked about the formal learning processes. The tenor was often the same: “Yes, we have all these structures, but … .” The following interview quote illustrates this recurring observation:

Of course, you can develop all these fancy learning tools […]. But if the underlying culture is not in line with that, then nobody will use these tools! (U1)

Although numerous formats and processes exist in which self-criticism could be exercised and critical discussions could be held, the repressive and self-restrained criticism culture in the UN Secretariat prevents this from actually happening in practice:

That’s what is really missing: a culture of internal criticism! It is not enough to just say on paper, “Yes, that’s a good idea”. You really have to live it, and you have to take away people’s inhibitions to be an active part of it. (U16)

As many interview partners emphasized, critical discussions hardly occur within formal learning formats. Instead, the official learning infrastructure in the UN Secretariat appears to be impaired. My analysis shows that the existing criticism culture leads to a double learning blockade:

First blockade: selective input into learning infrastructure. In my interviews, it became clear that although there is a significant amount of internal criticism among staff, it is hardly ever brought into the designated channels. As described above, criticism is simmering under the surface but does not come to the fore. Instead, it is suppressed and hidden. If at all, UN employees express criticism only “behind the scenes” (U12) and in very small and protected circles: “An honest discussion about critical issues is only possible in a small circle of trust” (U40). In a sense, my interviews are themselves a visible manifestation of how the criticism culture impedes the existing learning infrastructure. Within the protected setting of an anonymous interview, UN employees express all kinds of criticism, which they—according to their own assessments—cannot feed into their organization. As my interview partners told me, internal criticism and dissent are typically not part of official learning processes, which mainly focus on positive developments and highlight successes (U16; U20). Even with regard to some long-established internal learning formats, such as lessons-learned studies, one can observe a great reluctance to talk critically about mistakes and failure, as a UN employee who used to organize such formats pointed out:

People want to highlight successes, they want to highlight innovations […]. But we get much fewer requests to look at challenges and failures, or just the kind of activities that didn’t go the way people wanted. (U37)

In addition to this general unwillingness to discuss failures in the official formats, input into the learning infrastructure is selective in one crucial aspect, namely in relation to the substantive topics covered. First, internal criticism seems to encounter far greater pushback when it refers to political decisions or issues that have a strong political dimension in one form or another:

One area where it’s very difficult [to voice criticism] is the hardcore political sphere: for example, when […] a staff member of a mission believes that the SRSG in a particular country is far too close to the host government… Such political stories are, of course, very difficult to bring up and can very quickly cause considerable damage to the person who brings them up. (U20)

Similar patterns can be observed with regard to specific country contexts (“files like Western Sahara”—U48) or certain thematic issues (such as “security sector reform” or “counter-terrorism”—U9), which are “politically sensitive” (U41) and discussed controversially by member states or civil society. According to my interviewees, the handling of internal criticism is much more repressive in the context of these “political” issues that directly affect member states than with other, more technical issues that member states do not care about (e.g., optimizing an existing internal process). As an agent of 193 powerful principals (Hawkins et al. 2006) and aware of the constant possibility of leaks (Daugirdas 2019), UN staff are very careful not to bring internal criticism that might offend member states into official learning formats (cf. Oksamytna et al. 2023). However, this significantly limits the scope of criticism that can be discussed within the formal learning infrastructure. In UN peacekeeping, the member states define the mandate and are operationally involved in its implementation: Internal criticism of both the goals and the way they are achieved is therefore very often “political.”

In addition to political issues, there is a second thematic area in which criticism from within is particularly challenging. Whenever it comes to evaluating performance, both at the individual staff level and the collective level, the UN Secretariat’s approach to internal criticism is especially repressive, as several interviewees noted:

It is difficult to criticize individual “non-performance”. The organization is very sensitive to this. (U5; see also OIOS 2021, 10)

There are many cases where underperformance [of certain troop contingents] has been identified but has not been reported in that way. (U12)

Overall, the criticism culture in the UN Secretariat thus leads to criticism rarely being fed into the official learning infrastructure—and if it is, then in a selective and distorted form, excluding political and performance-related issues.

Second blockade: selective output of learning infrastructure. However, even if open discussion and internal criticism occur within the official formats from time to time, this does not automatically lead to impulses for organizational learning, as the results of these (self-) critical discussions seldom leave the protected circle of a small group. The End-of-Assignment reports mentioned above are a case in point:

The more sensitive topics, the actual “learnable” moments, are usually only discussed in oral exit interviews with the USG [Under-Secretary-General]. So that stays at that level. In terms of organizational learning, that doesn’t really get passed on. (U23)

Internal criticism is thus often not shared with other units, and the information does not reach those responsible (and capable) of finding or implementing a solution. Consequently, even the UN SG does not always receive all necessary information, according to several interview statements: “The SG doesn’t know [about certain problems] because they are not telling him” (U29). In general, many employees believe that internal criticism gets lost in the official channels and does not reach those in charge (“the internal channels will go nowhere”—U20).

This dynamic is reinforced by the fact that internal reports are often watered down and critical points are glossed over before the document is forwarded to the next higher level or another department. According to my interviewees, internal reports are increasingly “whitewashed the higher up they get” (U11). They pass through so many desks and “clearing chains” (U42) that in the end, there is not much left of critical comments that may have been in there at the beginning:

When it finally reaches the highest level, the original report will have been reduced from – let’s say – four pages to a quarter of a page. So it’s a little doubtful how many critical notes will still be in it. (U11; very similar U13, U26)

This form of whitewashing sometimes takes on such proportions that the internal documents finally approved by leadership no longer have much to do with the reality experienced by employees, according to my interview partners:

There was an internal report published recently by the Secretary-General on the successes of his reform… Most of my colleagues found it “Orwellian”. (U20)

Criticism is therefore not only passed on selectively but also watered down in substance. Negative experiences and the discussion of failures hardly seem to find a place in the final outputs of official learning processes:

I have to be honest: the learning products we produce are mainly about “good practices” and everything that works well… An open reflection about what is not going well is usually not part of it. (U16)

Overall, my analysis reveals that the existing formal learning infrastructure in the UN Secretariat is impeded in two ways. First, internal criticism is often not openly voiced by employees and brought into the official learning formats. Second, criticism that is raised by staff is frequently not carried to higher levels or glossed over along the way. As Table 2 below illustrates, the repressive and self-restrained criticism culture in the UN Secretariat therefore leads to both selective input into the learning infrastructure and selective output of the learning infrastructure. Coming back to the six learning phases discussed above, this results in a distorted translation of recognized failures (phase 1) into concrete organizational decisions and change processes (phases 5 and 6) because the identification, discussion, and dissemination of potential lessons are significantly impaired (phases 2–4, see also Figure 1). This prevents the learning infrastructure from reaching its full potential and hinders organizational learning in the UN Secretariat.

Table 2.

Consequences of a repressive-discouraging criticism culture.

First blockade: Selective input into learning infrastructure	Second blockade: Selective output of learning infrastructure
• Criticism is not brought into official channels • Tendency to highlight successes • Exclusion of “political” debates/issues	• Expressed criticism is not shared with other organizational units • Internal reports are glossed over • Underlying problems are not addressed

As several interviewees point out, the resulting lack of learning leads to concrete performance problems. Organizational learning, after all, is not an end in itself—at best, it should prevent IOs from repeating mistakes once made. According to my interviewees, though, this is precisely what happens far too often in the UN Secretariat: “We see that certain mistakes are made over and over again” (U37). As there is usually no critical examination of the structural causes of certain problems, there is also no “real change” (U22). This comes at a “high price” (U25) for the organization, as it often “runs into the next crisis with its eyes wide open” (U32). Moreover, given the fact that political debates have no place in the official learning infrastructure, the highly political nature of many questions in UN peacekeeping is ignored or bypassed in internal learning processes:

We’re very much more in the mode of refining the tools rather than questioning whether or not it’s the right tool. […] There is a learning culture in terms of how can we do what we’ve been doing better, but that rarely translates into questioning of the underlying political assumptions […]. I’m not talking about tweaks to standard operating procedures or how we do the same things better from a more technical standpoint in terms of efficiency, inputs, outputs, etc. … But, for example, in terms of: Listen, this whole “rule of law” thing doesn’t really apply in the context in which we’re deployed, we need to think about something else. That doesn’t happen; that clearly doesn’t happen. (U50)

Accordingly, “fundamental debates” (U24) are hardly ever held within the official structures in the UN Secretariat. This is consistent with Coleman, Lundgren, and Oksamytna’s (2021, 456) observation of a problematic focus on a “subset of policy instruments that do not fully address the underlying problem” in many UN peacekeeping reforms. A general questioning of the work of the UN Secretariat is very rare (“The system is the system”—U18), and many employees seem to have accepted this depoliticized approach (“That’s life in the UN”—U20; cf. Christian 2023). Following Argyris and Schön’s (1978) prominent distinction between “single-loop” and “double-loop learning,” the UN Secretariat is mainly concerned with the (technical) question, “Are we doing this right?” and not so much with the (political) question, “Are we doing the right things?.” As a result, many problems inherent to the political nature of peacekeeping are only dealt with superficially (cf. “eliminating politics within IOs”–Louis and Maertens 2021, 3), and the organization misses an essential driver for substantial learning and change. Therefore, the repressive and self-restrained criticism culture can be considered a source of dysfunction in the UN Secretariat.

Conclusion: Implications For Theory and Practice

In this article, I have argued that the internal criticism culture—the way IOs deal with criticism from their employees—is an overlooked but crucial variable in explaining the prevalent lack of learning in some IOs. The in-depth case study of the UN Secretariat has shown that a repressive and self-restrained criticism culture can prevent an IO’s formal learning infrastructure from being effective. If staff members do not dare to voice criticism in official formats and critical information is glossed over as it moves up the ranks, the official learning infrastructure suffers from selective input and output—and IOs lack a necessary stimulus for organizational learning. This can lead to performance problems because mistakes are repeated and underlying political assumptions are not adequately reflected in internal decision-making processes.

As said before, the article does not want to suggest that all IOs have a similarly repressive-discouraging criticism culture as the UN Secretariat. Although we know that IOs are generally a difficult place for internal criticism (Christian 2022), there is variation among IOs. To systematically map and explain these differences is an important task for future research. The findings from my case study of the UN Secretariat suggest that a repressive-discouraging criticism culture might be observed especially in those IOs that are subject to a strong dependency on member states, high politicization, an ambiguous mandate, as well as a rigid bureaucratic structure and hierarchical communication (e.g., from field to HQ). A comparative study that takes these initial findings as a starting point and identifies the factors that influence the way different IOs deal with internal criticism would be a relevant contribution to the literature. My aim in this article, however, was to develop a more general argument about the relationship between the criticism culture and organizational learning in IO—namely that internal criticism is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for learning. A better understanding of how criticism suppression leads to learning blockades is relevant for all IOs, regardless of their differences. Since regulating dissent is a matter of degree, even those IOs who learn better than others can benefit from a dedicated look at their internal criticism culture.

This is not to say that better organizational learning due to a different handling of internal criticism will automatically solve all performance problems of IOs. Although organizational learning is a crucial factor for organizational performance, it is not the only factor. This is particularly true for IOs, which are often highly dependent on the political will and resources of their member states (cf. “scope conditions,” Meyer, van Osch, and Reykers 2024, 186; see also Howard 2008, 16). Thus, there are certain “politically determined limits to [ … ] learning” (cf. Bremberg and Hedling 2024, 5) in IOs: Even perfect learning is no guarantee for successful mandate fulfillment. However, instead of therefore dismissing organizational learning (and the criticism culture) as irrelevant, I would like to make the exact opposite argument here: precisely because some factors are beyond the control of IOs, it is all the more important for these organizations to remedy remediable errors and make the most of the available room for maneuver.

Overall, the article’s findings contribute to at least two strands of the literature. (1) Learning in IOs: first, while previous research has shown that IOs often suppress internal criticism (Weaver 2008; Autesserre 2014; Christian 2022), this article sheds light on the consequences of this handling of dissent. It points out that a repressive-discouraging criticism culture hinders organizational learning because it leads to a distorted translation of perceived problems “on the ground” into decision-making processes at higher levels. As said above, future research could build on the initial findings of this single case study and strive for generalization by examining IOs’ criticism cultures from a comparative perspective: Do internal criticism cultures vary between IOs—and if so, why? Future research could also take a closer look at how specific “limits of criticism” are established in IOs. The insights from my study suggest that the mechanisms might be similar to those observed by Anderl (2022, 91) in the interaction between IOs and their external critics (e.g., professionalization, economization, and regulation). Bringing together IO research on external contestation and internal criticism could therefore be a worthwhile endeavor. Finally, based on the results of this article and given the persistence of learning problems in IOs, it might also be useful to change the overall perspective from time to time: Rather than focusing exclusively on dysfunctions, future research could examine instances of successful learning in IOs to understand how to break the persistent patterns that have been observed for many years. (2) Individual agency: second, the findings also demonstrate that individual agency does not automatically lead to change. While many studies portray IO employees exercising agency as courageous individuals who drive reforms that change how IOs operate in the world (Bode 2015; Oksamytna 2023), my analysis shows that staff members can also play an active role in creating organizational inertia and stagnation. Some IO employees engage in anticipatory obedience and self-censorship, avoid critical discussions, and deliberately do not fully exploit the available room for maneuver. Taking up this insight and developing a more nuanced understanding of the link between individual agency and organizational change could therefore be another fruitful avenue for future studies. This might also be of interest beyond the IO community, for example, to scholars studying change in other political organizations and seeking to understand the role of activists in NGOs, professionals in aid organizations, or diplomats in foreign ministries.

The article also makes an important policy contribution by highlighting the importance of lived practice and cultural change in IOs. After all, it is not sufficient to establish structures and processes in the institutional design through which criticism can be voiced theoretically. If the internal criticism culture stands in the way of this practice, the learning infrastructure will not function as intended. A better understanding of this mechanism guards against the tempting but short-sighted promises to fix perceived learning weaknesses through a few adjustments to the learning infrastructure. Instead of developing just another “learning tool,” discussing how a corresponding cultural change could succeed seems more productive. Since voicing criticism is challenging for staff, IOs need to build a more encouraging culture that allows criticism to be expressed internally. This includes, among other things, taking the vital role of leadership more seriously (Oksamytna, Bove, and Lundgren 2021) and altering the implicit career incentives for employees (Goetze 2019). This insight also has implications for how member states govern IOs. While it might be easier (and more prestigious) to fund a new unit or demand the development of a new organizational structure, those who really want to improve IO performance should pay more attention to the actual use of the existing structures and tools. Rather than focusing only on “visible” change processes, governments should ask what they can do to remove the often invisible barriers that prevent IOs from building an organizational culture that empowers employees to carry out their tasks to the best of their ability. In light of this article, attempting to transform the internal criticism culture seems to be a worthwhile endeavor for IO administrations and their principals in order to make better use of the existing potential within the organization—“the resource we don’t tap enough” (U22).

Author Biography

Ben Christian is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt and an Associate Fellow at Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). His research focuses on international organizations, organizational learning, legitimacy, and the agency and emotions of IO staff.

Notes

Author’s note: I wish to thank all my interview partners for taking time out of their busy schedules to share their experiences and observations with me. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the ISQ editorial team for their excellent comments. I am grateful for the valuable feedback the article received from the participants of the LSE “International Institutions, Law and Ethics” Research Workshop in 2023 and the “RiesiKo” colloquium at Goethe University Frankfurt. My special thanks go to Nicole Deitelhoff, Mirko Heinzel, Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, Nele Kortendiek, Matthias Kranke, Anton Peez, Ulrich Sedelmeier, Theresa Squatrito, Alex Tokhi, Tobias Wille, and Lisbeth Zimmermann. Finally, I want to thank the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) for generously supporting this research project, for allowing this article to be published open access, and for providing me with both an intellectual and collegial home during my PhD.

Footnotes

1

This applies not only to IOs but to organizations in general. I do not claim that IOs are “special” when it comes to organizational learning. Instead, I draw on organization theory and “import” its general insights into this study of IOs. The focus on IOs is justified for two reasons. First, as mentioned at the beginning, IO learning matters because mistakes can have serious consequences for people around the world. Second, the link between internal criticism and organizational learning has been overlooked by IO research to date.

2

This does not mean that suppressing internal criticism is necessarily always dysfunctional from a broader organizational perspective. Criticism from within is not only an indispensable resource but also a threat to IOs: an excess of internal conflict and criticism can make organizational action impossible and threaten both internal stability and external reputation (Christian 2022). In other words, while a repressive handling of criticism is indeed a problem for organizational learning, there are still “good reasons” from the organization’s perspective to suppress internal criticism. A repressive internal criticism culture can, for example, prevent conflicts with member states and preserve autonomy vis-à-vis the organization’s principals (Hawkins et al. 2006). Given the constant possibility of leaks, withholding internal criticism can also avoid negative press coverage and corresponding reputational damage (Daugirdas 2019). Moreover, as IO staff face contradictory demands and constant failures in the field, avoiding painful self-critical discussions can help to maintain staff motivation and organizational stability (Billerbeck 2020; Billerbeck 2022; Christian 2023). Thus, internal criticism in IOs is not a panacea for everything. Only in the realm of organizational learning must internal criticism be considered an essential resource. Being aware of this general ambivalence of criticism, this article adopts an organizational learning perspective that focuses on how internal criticism is (not) used as a resource for learning processes in IOs.

3

Most of my interviewees were employed in the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) and the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA).

4

In order to do justice to the promised anonymity, the interviews are numbered consecutively from U1 to U52.

5

The given numbers also indicate that the analytical distinction between the two categories is not meant to suggest two camps of interviewees, one claiming that the criticism culture is repressive and the other claiming that it is self-restrained. Instead, my analysis is clear that repression from above and reluctance from below belong together; the criticism culture in the UN Secretariat is both repressive and self-restrained. This, in turn, does not mean that the two categories are identical. They present distinct phenomena. In order to distinguish them analytically in the empirical material, I constantly decided whether the respective piece of data rather constitutes a “we must not” (repressive) or a “we don’t want to” (self-restrained) explanation. There was direct and indirect evidence for both types. Repression, for example, was indicated directly through interview statements (“Open criticism is suicide,” U4) and indirectly through anecdotes (e.g., the discussions about the “dissent channel”). Similarly, reluctance was indicated directly through interview statements (“there is a reluctance to talk about failures,” U17) and, again, indirectly through stories people told me (e.g., the failed “Failure Friday” anecdote).

6

Other individual characteristics of UN employees might also influence how they express and deal with criticism, but these individual traits were not the focus of this study on organizational culture. On the impact of individual factors on decision-making in peacekeeping, see Oksamytna et al. (2023); on the influence of race, class, and gender of IO staff in general, see Nair (2020), Oksamytna and Billerbeck (2024), and Heinzel, Weaver, and Jorgensen (2024).

7

For detailed information about the current learning infrastructure see DPO-DPPA’s joint Policy on Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning: https://peacekeepingresourcehub.un.org/en/policy.