WHO, When, and Why: Reputational Decision-Making in the World Health Organization's Emergency Response

The behavior of International Organizations (IOs) has been the subject of much inquiry, with investigations often focusing on inherent organizational qualities or external political influences on decision-making processes that lead to otherwise unexpected outcomes. The World Health Organization (WHO) exhibits often-criticized behaviors in crisis situations that appear inexplicable when evaluating on these grounds, suggesting that there may be another factor at play. This study tracks the influence of reputation on the WHO’s global health crisis management, in particular through the lens of the influence of this perceived reputation on the last two Director-Generals of the Organization, Margaret Chan and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. By examining data and sources from the past 20 years of the WHO’s Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) system, I find that an institutional focus on reputation maximization helps to explain why and when the WHO has declared public health emergencies, and how the process has been shaped by leaders to fit their goals.