The ombudsman institution has had a remarkable global history. This early nineteenth-century Swedish institution of government control has, at least in name, spread to almost all corners of the world. The ombudsman was initially an institution of administrative law, a legal overseer, but has increasingly been framed as a human rights institution and institution of good governance. These ideational shifts have influenced the global spread of the office of ombudsman, but also the way in which the institution functions in the countries where it has been in place over a longer period. The institution has also spread to a supranational level in the European Union.
The ombudsman has had many variations and there are a number of classifications that try to specify its different types (Abedin 2011; Ayeni 2014; Carl 2012; Bousta 2007; Reif 2004). The institution is often understood as a legal overseer, a typical perception in the Nordic countries (Hidén 1973), as a mediator (Klein 1976), an institution of conflict resolution (Abedin 2006) and guardian of human rights and good governance (Ayeni 2014; Reif 2000). Existing scholarship on the ombudsman has looked it as an institution of (global) administrative law and accountability (Hertogh and Kirkham 2018; Vogiatzis 2017; Kucsko-Stadlmayer 2008; Remac 2014; Hofmann and Ziller 2017). There are also comparative analyses of the institution and its historical evolution in different contexts (Reif 2004; Remac 2013). The ombudsman has been studied as a global “policy innovation” (Bennett 1997), and the literature on the global diffusion of the ombudsman highlights the UN’s coordination on National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) since the early 1990s (Koo and Ramirez 2009; Cardenas 2003, 2014; Goodman and Pegram 2011; Reif 2004), related to the global adoption of human rights norms (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Risse and Sikkink 1999; Sikkink 2011; Risse et al. 2013).
This book explores the institutional development of ombudsman, highlighting the importance of transnational ideas, discourses and “models” linked to this global institution, the context of ombudsman’s institutional evolution and transformation, the inter-institutional setting of the ombudsman, including its institutional peers and rivals, and the role of actors in establishing, institutionalizing and changing the ombudsman institution over time. In addition, the book highlights the ombudsman’s role as an institution of public accountability and its relationship with the “public” in different modalities of the concept. Finally, the book also explores politicization of the ombudsman, particularly in attempts to revise and reinterpret the mandate of the institution as well as due to potential political disputes related to cases pursued by the ombudsman.
This book examines the ombudsman as a global institution in two respects. First, the institution has spread globally, covering all regions and most of independent states. Building on the existing literature on the ombudsman institution and scholarship on human rights, I outline the institution’s different phases and patterns over time. Second, the book further argues that along the spreading of the institution also its institutional development has become global, meaning that its national instances are increasingly involved in transnational processes, where the institution is being shaped.
Indeed, it has become commonplace to discuss it as an ombudsman “model” (Carl 2018). The ombudsman has become a prominent global model for a NHRI, as defined in 1993 by the so-called Paris principles of the UN. In many ways it provides a global blueprint or policy prescription that countries have duly adopted. These ideational influences also concern the nation states that adopted the ombudsman institution already before it started to become a global norm and attribute of the modern state.
Transnational governance concerning the ombudsman institution involves actors and ideas on a global and local level and the interaction between them, and facilitating institutions and venues such as international networks, conferences, professional organizations and news media. This can also involve a bottom-up process of learning and sharing ideas horizontally among similar entities. It is also important to note that citizens increasingly share the global perspective on these institutions, being able to bring their cases to various actors at the European and even UN level.
Research Design
This book explores the transnational governance and diffusion of ombudsman as well as its institutional development and conceptual changes in Finland and the European Union (the European Ombudsman). I explore the evolution of transnational policy model of ombudsman and its ideational shifts, corresponding with different phases in the global spreading of ombudsman. I also discuss the role of international actors—such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the Council of Europe, the European Union as well as global and regional ombudsman associations—that facilitate the diffusion of ombudsman institutions and craft global “models” for them. I emphasize the role of actors in translating and editing the transnational policy ideas on local level shaping the institution (Sahlin and Wedlin 2008).
The first case covers the institutional history of ombudsman in Finland, the first country to adopt the institution from Sweden, already in 1919. Initially a legal overseer, the Finnish Parliamentary Ombudsman has since then become the guardian of human rights and, more recently, an institution of good governance. These conceptual shifts have greatly influenced its institutional development. The transnational policy ideas related to it have helped local actors promote the ombudsman on a national level, making it an influential institution of government control that is also embraced by citizens who actively exercise their right to complain about the lawfulness of public governance. The long institutional history and availability of historical data (annual reports and time series) on the Finnish Parliamentary Ombudsman makes this an interesting case for analysing some 100 years of institutional history after its adoption. The Finnish Parliamentary Ombudsman also has a rival institution—the Chancellor of Justice—making Finland an interesting case in terms of the adoption and co-existence of institutions of public accountability.
The second institutional case focuses on the European Ombudsman. As most independent states have adopted the ombudsman institution, it has now also reached the level of supranational governance. Adopted in 1995, the European Ombudsman has profiled itself as an institution of good governance. This is a deliberate strategy to promote the institution in the EU’s inter-institutional setting. The global policy script of good governance coincided with the establishment of the European Ombudsman and resonated with the crises facing EU governance at the time. But while the European Ombudsman has been influential in promoting good governance on its own initiative, it has had rather less of an impact concerning the complaints of EU citizens, which mostly fall outside the competencies of the institution. However, the conceptual shift towards individual “rights” has nevertheless influenced the institutionalization of Ombudsman, as the E...