Sooahn Meier, doctoral researcher in the team of the B12 "Crisis Management in the COVID-19 Pandemic by International Organisations" wrote a cumulative dissertation titled "Institutional Changes in International Organizations: The Case of the OECD as a Global Health Actor". Sooahn obtained her PhD ("Dr. rer. pol") from the Faculty of Social Science (FB08) with a "summa cum laude".

 

Sooahn's dissertation engages with the question why and how international organizations (IOs) undertake institutional changes. Specifically, the study asks what motivates IOs to initiate changes and to what extent they are able to move away from their existing institutional settings. She answers these questions with three within-cases of institutional changes in the OECD's mandate, policy discourse, and contingency role as a global health actor. The study applies mixed-methods, combining quantitative and qualitative text analysis with expert interviews. The analyse reveals numerous exogenous and endogenous forces that shaped the OECD's institutional development to become a significant actor in global health actor, suggesting the OECD as a highly agile actor who strategically responds to different sources of change and endures transformation processes at varying scopes. The dissertation contributes to the research stream of International Relations and International Organizations, suggesting patterns and contexts of institutional changes of IOs. 

 

The dissertation research was cunducted during the second phase of the CRC 1342, from May 2022 to March 2025. As part of her research, she had a research stay at the Health Division of the OECD in Paris, France. Sooahn was co-supervised by Prof. Dr. Kerstin Martens and Prof. Dr. Alexandra Kaasch (University of Bielefeld).