Mazie Bernard

Committee: Drs. Tyler Girard (Chair), Swati Srivastava (University of Maryland, College Park), Mirium Barnum, and Shan Zhou

 

Summary: 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 gender ideas and gender expertise as it relates to global economic governance by IOs.

 

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 gender economic ideas in a 'new era' of governance; the development financing field (WB) shows the adaptation of longstanding gender 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 institutional documents and archives, elite interviews of international bureaucrats, and direct observation at flagship institutional 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 constructivist scholarship on the role of experts in global governance.

 

I have completed fieldwork for this project in Washington D.C., Geneva, and Paris. 

Outstanding Independent Instructor Award (2025-2026)

 

POL429: Trade, Tariffs, and International Tensions (Summer 2026)*

POL430: Global Trade Governance (Study Abroad, Spring Break 2026; Scheduled Spring Break 2027)

POL235: Introduction to International Political Economy (Summer 2025)

POL 223: Introduction of Environmental Policy (Summer 2022) (Independent Instructor)

POL 223: Introduction of Environmental Policy (S2022, F2022, F2023) (TA)

POL 120: Introduction to Public Policy (F2021, S2023) (TA)

 

Graduate Quantitative Methods Workshop: Introduction to R (F2022, F2024) 

Graduate Quantitative Methods Workshop: Introduction to R Markdown (F2022, F2023)

 

*Indicates independently designed and taught