In this talk postdoc Marine Pierre (UCPH) and tenure track assistant professor Haakon A. Ikonomou (UCPH) will show how they use prosopography and biography to open up the black box of international public administrations, spanning from the League of Nations and the UN, via NATO and the OECD, to the European Parliament. The aim is to display how prosopographical databases and digital prosopography provide a “meso-level” of analysis, that allow us to connect the political and institutional layer of international organizations (macro) to the professional agency and worldview of individual officials (micro). This, in turn, recasts our understanding of how policies are conceived, institutionalized, and practiced in IOs. The talk will feature several concrete examples from recent and ongoing research, reflecting also on the challenges and limitations of such an approach.
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Marine Pierre is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Saxo Institute (University of Copenhagen), working on the project « Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s », led by Prof. Haakon A. Ikonomou. She holds a PhD in Modern History, jointly awarded by the University of Geneva and the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, with a thesis focusing on the relations between the European Parliament and Turkey (1979–2009) and the political uses of religion. Her current research examines the socio-administrative history of the OEEC/OECD and its interactions with other international organizations. Her broader areas of expertise include European history, European integration, diplomacy, international relations, international organizations, and international bureaucracies.
Haakon A. Ikonomou is a tenure track assistant professor at the Saxo-Institute at the University of Copenhagen. A historian of international organizations, internationalism, global governance, international bureaucracy and diplomacy, he takes inspiration from digital, global, prosopographical, biographical, institutional, social and oral history approaches. From 2023 to 2025 he is PI on the project Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s (Independent Research Fund Denmark), from 2025 to 2030 he will be heading the project INNER_LEAGUE A social-bureaucratic history of the League of Nations Secretariat (ERC Consolidator Grant).
Wednesday, 22 January 2025
14.00 - 15.00
