Transnational Actors in Global Governance: Patterns, Explanations and Implications (Democracy Beyond the Nation State? Transnational Actors and Global Governance)

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Transnational Actors in Global Governance

Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg 9780230_239050_01_preiv.indd i

6/11/2010 10:27:12 AM

Democracy Beyond the Nation State? Transnational Actors and Global Governance Series Editors: Jonas Tallberg and Christer Jönsson Advisory Board: Yale Ferguson, Jean Grugel, Richard Higgott, Margaret Keck, Robert Keohane, Morten Ougaard, Nicola Piper, Thomas Risse, and Jan Aart Scholte Other titles in this series are: DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE (edited by Magdalena Bexell and Ulrika Mörth) LEGITIMACY BEYOND THE STATE?: Re-examining the Democratic Credentials of Transnational Actors (edited by Eva Erman and Anders Uhlin)

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Transnational Actors in Global Governance Patterns, Explanations, and Implications Edited by

Christer Jönsson Lund University, Sweden

Jonas Tallberg Stockholm University, Sweden

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Introduction, selection and editorial matter © Christer Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg 2010 Foreword © Christer Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg 2010 Individual chapters © contributors 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–23905–0 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

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Contents List of Tables and Figures

vii

Foreword

viii

Notes on the Contributors

x

List of Abbreviations 1

xiii

Transnational Actor Participation in International Institutions: Where, Why, and with What Consequences? Jonas Tallberg and Christer Jönsson

1

2

Capturing the Transnational: A Conceptual History Christer Jönsson

3

Transnational Access to International Institutions: Three Approaches Jonas Tallberg

45

Explaining Patterns of Transnational Participation: The Role of Policy Fields Jens Steffek

67

Explaining Varying Degrees of Openness in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Andrea Liese

88

WTO and the Environmental Movement: On the Path to Participatory Governance? Åsa Casula Vifell

110

Limits to Transnational Participation: The Global Governance of Migration Sara Kalm

134

Private Authority on the Rise: A Century of Delegation in Multilateral Environmental Agreements Jessica F. Green

155

Does Global Democracy Matter? Hypotheses on Famine and War Hans Agné

177

4

5

6

7

8

9

22

v

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vi

10

Contents

Democracy Counts: Problems of Equality in Transnational Democracy Sofia Näsström

197

11 Beyond Democratic Legitimacy: Global Governance and the Promotion of Liberty Jens Bartelson

218

12

237

Transnational Access: Findings and Future Research Christer Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg

Index

253

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Tables and Figures Tables 3.1 Transnational access to international institutions: theories and hypotheses 4.1 Policy fields and presumed resource needs of IOs 5.1 Determinants of organizational openness 6.1 NGO participation at WTO ministerial meetings 8.1 Distribution of policy functions, treaty level 8.2 Total number of policy functions delegated to other actor 8.3 Transnational actors as sole agents, treaty level 8.4 Distribution of policy functions, sub-treaty level 8.5 Total number of policy functions delegated to each actor, sub-treaty level 8.6 Specific activities delegated to transnational actors, percentage of all TNA functions

61 73 96 118 164 165 167 169 170 171

Figures 8.1

Treaty-level delegation to private agents, 1902–2002 (no. of policy functions) 8.2 Rates of delegation by policy function, treaty level 8.3 Policy functions delegated to private agents, sub-treaty level

163 164 168

vii

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Foreword This is one in a series of three edited volumes, published simultaneously. The other two are Democracy and Public-Private Partnerships in Global Governance, edited by Magdalena Bexell and Ulrika Mörth; and Legitimacy Beyond the State? Re-examining the Democratic Credentials of Transnational Actors, edited by Eva Erman and Anders Uhlin. All three owe their origin to two partly overlapping research undertakings that go under the labels of Transdemos and Transaccess. The full title of the Transdemos program, which engages political scientists from Lund and Stockholm University, is “Democracy Beyond the Nation State? Transnational Actors and Global Governance” (see www.transdemos.se). The program receives generous long-term funding from the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ). Transaccess stands for “The Institutional Design of International Institutions: Legitimacy, Effectiveness, and Distribution in Global Governance” (see www.statsvet.su.se/English/Research/ transaccess.html). Located at Stockholm University, this project benefits from a substantial grant from the European Research Council (ERC). The financial contributions by RJ and ERC are gratefully acknowledged. Both research initiatives commenced in 2008. Early on, the participants agreed to draw on their extensive international contacts in a joint effort to summarize extant research on transnational actors and their role in democratizing global governance. We asked potential contributors to characterize, and identify gaps in, our present knowledge, theoretically as well as empirically. Thus, we aimed at volumes that would not only outline the state of the art but also suggest new research problems and directions. The fact that, in a relatively short time, we were able to collect these three volumes testifies to the enthusiastic and obliging response to our proposal among those who were asked to participate. In April 2009, we arranged a workshop in Lund around the themes of the three volumes. In addition to most of the contributing authors, several members of the international advisory board of Transdemos participated. We are all grateful for constructive comments on draft chapters by Yale Ferguson, Robert Keohane, Morten Ougaard, Nicola Piper, and Jan Aart Scholte. The themes of the three volumes reflect the broad research questions of the Transdemos program. The first set of questions, which is also central to the Transaccess project, concerns the increasing participation by transnational actors in intergovernmental organizations and global viii

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Foreword ix

forums. Why, in what ways, and with what consequences are transnational actors allowed into traditional global governance institutions? These questions are addressed, and expanded on, in the present volume. A second set of questions concerns the mushrooming in recent decades of so-called public–private partnerships as alternatives or complements to traditional international organizations in tackling global problem areas. Why have these hybrid organizational entities emerged at this time? What different forms can “partnerships” assume? Are they really the win–win solutions they are often depicted as? The volume edited by Bexell and Mörth speaks to these and other questions concerning public–private partnerships. A final set of questions concerns the character of transnational actors themselves. How is their expanding role in global governance legitimized? As transnational actors frequently claim to contribute to the democratization of global governance, it is natural to raise questions concerning their own democratic credentials. Their claims to speak on behalf of deprived and voiceless groups in the world give rise to questions concerning whom they represent and to whom they are accountable. This problematique is treated in the volume edited by Erman and Uhlin. “Democracy” is a key concept in all three volumes, as in the Transdemos program. The common notion that transnational actors may provide a remedy for the alleged “democratic deficit” of global governance, in general, and international organizations, in particular, is an important focus of our inquiries. To critically examine this notion, we have solicited contributions, not only from International Relations (IR) specialists, but also from political theorists. In addition to illuminating our three themes from different angles, this raises crucial questions concerning research design. How can insights from empirical IR studies be combined with normative political theory, and how can future collaborative research involving both subdisciplines be organized? These questions constitute challenges that are tentatively addressed in this series of volumes. It is our hope that the three volumes, either individually or in combination, will contribute to our knowledge of an increasingly important aspect of international relations and inspire new research efforts. The multifaceted role of transnational actors in global governance remains an insufficiently charted territory. Christer Jönsson, Lund Director Transdemos

Jonas Tallberg, Stockholm Director Transaccess

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Hans Agné is researcher and lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University, and associate research fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. His latest publications include the chapter “Irrevocable Powers and Democratic Accountability,” in Sverker Gustavsson, Christer Karlsson and Thomas Persson (eds) The Illusion of Accountability in the European Union (2009); “European Union Conditionality: Coercion or Voluntary adaptation,” in Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations (2009); and “We the People and the Others: The Co-founding of Democratic States,” ConWEB, Webpapers on Constitutionalism & Governance beyond the State (2008). Jens Bartelson is Professor of Political Science at Lund University. He received his doctorate from Stockholm University in 1993. His fields of interest include international political theory, the history of political thought, political philosophy, and social theory. Jens Bartelson has written mainly about the concept of the sovereign state and the philosophy of world community. He is the author of Visions of World Community (2009), The Critique of the State (2001), and A Genealogy of Sovereignty (1995), as well as of articles in journals such as International Studies Quarterly, Political Theory, Review of International Studies, European Journal of International Relations, European Journal of International Law, and International Sociology. Åsa Casula Vifell holds a PhD in political science and works as a researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History at Södertörn University and at the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University. Her research is focused on issues relating to the internationalization of public administrations, with a particular interest in effects on national structures for democratic accountability. Publications include the article “Speaking with Forked Tongues: Swedish Public Administration and the European Employment Strategy,” European Integration Online Papers (2009), and the chapter “Soft Governance, Employment Policy and Committee Deliberation,” in Erik O. Eriksen (ed.) Making the European Polity: Reflexive Integration in the EU (2005). Jessica F. Green is a doctoral candidate at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Her research focuses on private x

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Notes on the Contributors xi

authority and international environmental law and politics. She is the co-editor of Reforming International Environmental Governance (2005) and The Politics of Participation in Sustainable Development Governance (2006). Christer Jönsson is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Lund University, Sweden. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of ACUNS (the Academic Council on the United Nations System). His research interests include international negotiation, diplomacy, transnational networks, and international organization. He has published numerous books, articles, and book chapters and is the co-author of International Cooperation in Response to AIDS (1995), Organizing European Space (2000), and Essence of Diplomacy (2005). At present he is directing the Transdemos research program. Sara Kalm is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Political Science at Lund University. Her main areas of study include migration governance and international relations theory. Her PhD dissertation was entitled Governing Global Migration (Lund University, 2008), and explored the global regulatory function of migration politics. Andrea Liese is Professor of International Organizations and Public Policy at the University of Potsdam. Together with Marianne Beisheim she is principal investigator in a project on transnational public– private partnerships for development, which is part of the Special Research Program “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood” (www. sfb-governance.de/ppp) funded by the German Research Council. She has previously held research and teaching positions at the University of Bremen, the Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. She has published on international organizations, global governance, and international human rights politics. Sofia Näsström is assistant professor of Political Science at Stockholm University. Her research focuses on legitimacy in a global context, and more particularly the democratic and normative underpinnings involved in constituting the boundaries of the people. She has published articles on globalization, representation, and legitimacy in journals such as Political Theory, Political Studies, and European Journal of Political Theory and is also co-founder and associate editor of Ethics & Global Politics, a new international journal focusing on global politics.

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Jens Steffek is Professor of Transnational Governance at Technische Universität Darmstadt and Principal Investigator in the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders,” hosted by the University of Frankfurt/Main. Before coming to Darmstadt he held appointments at the University of Bremen, Jacobs University Bremen, and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in Florence. He has published widely on transnational governance, international organizations, and the theory of international relations. He is co-editor of Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: a Cure for the Democratic Deficit? (2007) and Evaluating Transnational NGOs: Legitimacy, Accountability, Representation (2010). Jonas Tallberg is Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University. His primary research interests are international institutions, multilateral negotiations, and European governance. He is the author of Leadership and Negotiation in the European Union (2006) and European Governance and Supranational Institutions: Making States Comply (2003), as well as articles in journals such as International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, Global Governance, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, and West European Politics. He currently leads and conducts research on transnational actor participation in global governance within the Transdemos program and the Transaccess project.

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Abbreviations AU BIS CAT CIEL CoE COP CSCE CSO CSR CTE DPF DPT ECHO ECOSOC EMU ENGO EU FAO FFHC FOE GATT GCIM GCSF GEF GFMD GMEF HLD HRC ICP ICTSD IEA IGC IGO

African Union Bank for International Settlements Coding Analysis Toolkit (software) Centre for International Environmental Law Council of Europe Conferences of the Parties (to the UNFCCC) Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe civil society organization corporate social responsibility Committee on Trade and Environment (of WTO) democracy-protects-against-famine argument democratic peace theory European Community Humanitarian Aid Office Economic and Social Council (of the United Nations) European Monetary Union Environmental NGO European Union Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Freedom from Hunger Campaign (of FAO) Friends of the Earth General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Global Commission on International Migration Global Civil Society Forum (of UNEP) Global Environmental Facility Global Forum on Migration and Development Global Ministerial Environmental Forum (of UNEP) High-Level Dialogue (on Migration and Development) Human Rights Council (of the United Nations) Industry Cooperative Programme (of FAO) International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development International Environmental Agreements (database) Intergovernmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugee and Migration Policies intergovernmental organization xiii

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xiv Abbreviations

ILO IMF IO IOM IR ITUC IUCN LDC MEA MEI MNC NAAEC NAFTA NATO NGO OECD OSCE PACE RCP SCAR TNA TP UN UNASUR UNDP UNEP UNF UNFCCC UNICEF WFP WTO WTUC WWF

International Labour Organization International Monetary Fund international organization International Organization for Migration International Relations International Trade Union Confederation International Union for Conservation of Nature less developed country multilateral environmental agreement multilateral economic institution multinational corporation North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Treaty Organization non-governmental organization Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Regional Consultative Process (on migration) Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research transnational actor third party United Nations Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (Union of South American Nations) United Nations Development Programme United Nations Environmental Programme United Nations Foundation United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change United Nations Children’s Fund World Food Program World Trade Organization World Trade Union Conference Worldwide Fund for Nature

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1 Transnational Actor Participation in International Institutions: Where, Why, and with What Consequences? Jonas Tallberg and Christer Jönsson

The nature of global governance is changing, as are the standards by which we judge its legitimacy. While international institutions were long the exclusive preserve of national governments, the past decades have witnessed a gradual and partial shift from interstate cooperation to more complex forms of governance, involving participation by transnational actors, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), advocacy networks, party associations, and multinational corporations. Increasingly, states and international institutions are engaging transnational actors as policy experts, service providers, compliance watchdogs and stakeholder representatives. The World Bank, for instance, draws on the expertise of NGOs in the formulation of country reports, engages in operational collaboration with civil society actors in the field, and conducts policy dialogue through the NGO–World Bank Committee. Whereas only 21 percent of all World Bank funded projects involved civil society participation in 1990, this figure had risen to 72 percent in 2006 (World Bank, 2009). The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) provides another example, engaging transnational actors by offering NGOs accreditation to its meetings, operating a Global Civil Society Forum, and drawing on civil society in the implementation of its programs. At the 2008 Global Civil Society Forum, about 190 representatives of civil society organizations from 42 countries participated (UNEP, 2009: 23). A final illustration is the World Trade Organization (WTO), which traditionally has been hesitant to consult or collaborate with non-state actors, but 1

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Jonas Tallberg and Christer Jönsson

which nowadays invites NGOs as observers to ministerial meetings and grants private actors the right to submit legal briefs on trade disputes. At the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference in 2005, more than 700 NGOs eventually attended, among them faith-based organizations; business, labor and farmer associations; and human rights, environmental and development groups (WTO, 2009). The rationale of international institutions, and their primary source of legitimacy, has traditionally been their capacity to address joint problems and generate benefits for states and societies. In recent years, however, international institutions increasingly have been challenged on normative grounds. Critics portray international institutions as suffering from “democratic deficits,” when measured against traditional standards of democracy, such as participation, accountability, and transparency. This debate first arose in relation to the European Union (EU) in the early 1990s, but has since spread to other international institutions, notably the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and central United Nations (UN) bodies. Criticism of the intergovernmental mode of decision-making in these institutions has been an integral part of popular protests at summits. According to the critics, effectiveness and problem-solving capacity are no longer a sufficient source of legitimacy for international institutions, but must be supplemented with more democratic procedures of decision-making. Greater involvement of transnational actors, as representatives of global civil society, is frequently presented as reform that would help democratize global governance. These are not developments that have escaped students of global governance. Over the past decade, international relations scholars have paid increasing attention to the growing involvement of transnational actors in international cooperation, and normative political theorists have engaged in a lively debate about democracy and legitimacy in global governance. While we appreciate these efforts as a useful first stage in research on the topic, we find the existing state of the field unsatisfactory. Empirical research is still heavily dominated by singlecase studies of international institutions with extensive transnational participation, while comparative contributions are in short supply. Most studies remain engaged in the exercise of mapping and describing the involvement of transnational actors, but few attempts have been made to systematically explain variation in the openness of international institutions. The implications of empirical findings for normative concerns are seldom spelled out, and the debate on democracy in global governance largely leads a life of its own.


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Transnational Actor Participation

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Growing out of this dissatisfaction with the present status of the field, this volume proposes a systematic exploration of where, why, and with what consequences transnational actors are granted a role in global policy-making. Where do transnational actors become involved as policy experts, service providers, monitors of state compliance, and stakeholder representatives? We know from previous research that there are high and growing levels of transnational actor participation in fields such as environmental policy and development policy. Yet to what extent has this policy focus biased the general perception of the degree of transnational actor involvement in global governance? If we expand the scope, what are the predominant patterns of variation in transnational access over time, between institutions, and across policy functions? This volume offers empirical contributions that map transnational actor participation in underexplored policy areas, summarize comparative evidence on participatory arrangements in multiple issue domains, and report the results of the first ever large-N study of transnational actor involvement in global environmental regulation. Why do international institutions open up to transnational actor involvement? Taking the step beyond descriptive mapping, this volume introduces and assesses novel theories and hypotheses about the factors that shape variation in transnational participation within and across international institutions and issue-areas, as well as over time. Do these patterns reflect the emergence and spread of a new norm of what constitutes legitimate governance at the global level, or the ability of transnational actors to fulfill functions that states and international institutions are unable or less well positioned to perform themselves? Are these patterns the product of deliberate decisions by states, or the unintended consequences of processes beyond the control of governments? What are the consequences of transnational actor participation for problem-solving effectiveness and democratic legitimacy in global governance? Shifting from patterns and causes to effects, this volume explores in a third step the positive and normative implications of transnational actor participation. Does the involvement of transnational actors improve the capacity of international institutions to combat the problems they were established to address, or make decision-making more cumbersome and less responsive? Does greater participation by transnational actors in global policy-making enhance the democratic legitimacy of international institutions, or rather give rise to new legitimacy problems, related to the representative qualities of transnational actors?


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In this volume, we use the term transnational actors to denote the broad range of private actors that organize and operate across state borders. Transnational actors include both non-profit actors, such as NGOs, advocacy networks, social movements, party associations, philanthropic foundations, and labor unions (sometimes referred to as civil society actors), and profit-oriented actors, such as multinational corporations and business associations. Substantively, we focus on both formal mechanisms of transnational access to international institutions, as specified in charters and treaties, and more informal means of cooperation between transnational actors and international institutions, as developed through customs and practices. This introductory chapter proceeds in three steps. In the next section, we briefly describe the transnational turn in global governance and outline some basic modes of non-state participation in international institutions. In the subsequent section, we review the state of the art and identify the general rationale of this volume. In the final section, we situate the chapter contributions in terms of how they expand the research agenda on where, why, and with what consequences transnational actors partake in global governance.

The transnational turn in global governance The past quarter of a century has witnessed a gradual transformation in the dominant mode of political organization at the international level, from interstate cooperation, negotiated and managed by national governments, to more complex forms of cooperation, involving transnational as well as supranational actors. The state-dominated international institutions of the postwar period have developed into more multifaceted arrangements, and new forms of governance have emerged that involve both public and private actors. For instance, Article 71 of the UN Charter empowers the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to grant consultative status to NGOs on issues in which they have competence. While the UN was initially restrictive in allowing NGOs into the organization, some 2,870 NGOs now have consultative status with ECOSOC, as compared with 41 in 1948 (cf. Wapner, 2007: 258; Weiss et al., 2009: 130). In addition, more than 5,000 businesses participate in the UN Global Compact, a UN initiative launched in 2000 to establish a partnership with the transnational business sector around a number of universally accepted principles. Whereas the term “multilateralism” is traditionally associated with interstate relations, today it involves more actors than states. Different


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labels have been suggested to capture these new realities: “multiple multilateralisms” (Weiss et al., 2009: 204), “new multilateralism” (Schechter, 1999), “complex multilateralism” (O’Brien et al., 2000), “polylateralism” (Wiseman, 1999), and “plurilateralism” (Czerny, 1993). In the end, the concept of global governance has become the favored umbrella term of both social scientists and policy-makers for denoting these complex patterns of authority in world politics, involving a variety of actors and networks along with states and international institutions (Held and McGrew, 2002; Rosenau and Czempiel, 1992). The formal and informal opportunities for non-state actors to participate in international policy-making processes are frequently identified both as a factor driving the growth in transnational activity and as a vital source of transnational influence in world politics. Whereas fewer than 1,000 international NGOs existed in 1956, their number had climbed to 14,000 in 1985, and 21,000 in 2003 (Yearbook of International Organizations). Part of this growth may be attributed to the opportunity structures provided by states and institutions (Reimann, 2006). Much as the emergence of the nation-state stimulated the growth of new forms of citizen activism, the creation of international institutions in the postwar period provided new political opportunities and incentives to organize. While cooperation in some instances began as early as the 1950s and 1960s, it is from the 1980s onwards that international institutions have seriously expanded both access and resources for transnational actors. These political opportunities have not been opened without effects. Access to international institutions has been instrumental in the emergence of transnational actors as influential players in world politics. Through advocacy work, information dissemination, service provision, monitoring of commitments, and other activities, transnational actors contribute to norm development, agenda-setting, policy implementation, and rule enforcement. While scholars dispute whether these transnational activities undermine or reinforce state authority in world politics, few question their importance in global governance. As Thomas Risse (2002: 255) concludes in a recent review of existing research on transnational actors: “[W]e cannot even start theorizing about the contemporary world system without taking their influence into account.” The mechanisms by which transnational actors participate in global governance come in multiple shapes and forms. To simplify slightly, they may be placed on a continuum, ranging from representation to collaboration, consultation, information sharing, and no access (for a more specified categorization, see Steffek and Nanz, 2008).


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Provisions for formal representation of transnational actors on the decision-making bodies of international institutions remain rare. The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the EU offer exceptional arrangements in this regard. The ILO operates a unique tripartite institutional arrangement, with representatives of governments, employers, and workers working together both on its Governing Council and in the yearly International Labour Conference. In the EU, transnational parties compete for power in the directly elected European Parliament, whose formal influence nowadays equals that of the member states in the Council of Ministers on most policy issues. Furthermore, business, labor, and consumer groups enjoy a formal platform in EU policy-making through the Economic and Social Committee, with a consultative role in the EU decision-making process. Formal mechanisms for collaboration between international institutions and transnational actors have become increasingly common since the 1980s. Two prominent forms are contracts for NGOs to perform services on the part of international institutions, and access for private actors to international courts and tribunals. Reliance on service NGOs is particularly common for international institutions operating in the fields of development, humanitarian relief, and conflict management, such as the UN and the World Bank (Reimann, 2006; Risse, 2002: 260). In the UN, for instance, support to NGOs working as subcontractors to UN projects has grown remarkably, with official funding of NGOs tripling in the 1980s, and then doubling again in the 1990s (Reimann, 2005: 38). Private access to international courts and tribunals is an equally distinct trend, with nearly all new courts created since 1990 offering direct mechanisms for individuals, NGOs, or firms (Alter, 2006). Examples include courts in the area of trade, such as the European Court of Justice, the Andean Court of Justice, and NAFTA arbitration panels, as well as courts in the area of human rights, such as the European Court of Human Rights and the international criminal tribunals for Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 is regarded as a breakthrough, embodying for the first time in a treaty a role for NGOs in providing “expert advice on the implementation of the Convention” (Willetts, 2000: 204). Consultation arrangements probably constitute the most common form of participation for transnational actors in international institutions. They include arrangements for NGO accreditation to international conferences, civil society advisory bodies, and complaints procedures for private parties. Institutions that previously did not permit transnational


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actors in decision-making bodies, such as the WTO, have introduced accreditation procedures, and institutions that already offered such provisions, such as the UN, have expanded them. These arrangements allow NGOs to follow negotiations, circulate papers, and sometimes even address the parties, but never to take part in formal decision-making. An alternative and increasingly popular way of consulting with transnational actors is through specific civil society advisory bodies, such as the NGO–World Bank Committee, the OECD Forum, and the civil society forums of major UN conferences. Furthermore, most international institutions have established civil society liaison officers and departments. Finally, international secretariats frequently operate complaints procedures that allow private parties and organizations to bring to their attention potential infringements of regime rules. Two examples are the complaints procedures managed by the European Commission and the Secretariat of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) (Raustiala, 2004; Tallberg, 2002a). Information-sharing arrangements are the most restrictive, as they only consist of the international institution presenting information to transnational actors and do not involve participation or interaction in the proper sense. Since the early 1990s, a large number of international institutions have adopted public information policies (Florini, 2003; Grigorescu, 2007). In several cases, such as the EU and the World Bank, these policies have supplemented other and more ambitious forms of interaction with transnational actors. In other cases, such as the IMF and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), they have constituted the primary strategy for opening up to civil society actors. Typically, these public information policies enhance transparency by providing access to policy documents, minutes from meetings, budgets, external audits, and institutional policies. An absolute absence of access for transnational actors to international institutions is today an exceedingly rare phenomenon. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has been mentioned as an example in this regard (Scholte, 2005: 92), but not even this institution qualifies for this category anymore, as information on its activities is increasingly made available to civil society through its homepage. This pattern, if anything, testifies to the depth of the transnational turn in global governance. Legitimizing the expanding participation of transnational actors in international institutions in terms of democracy is common among practitioners. For instance, UN Secretary-General Boutros BoutrosGhali characterized NGOs as “a basic form of popular representation


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in the present-day world,” arguing that “their participation in international organizations is, in a way, a guarantee of the political legitimacy of those international organizations” (quoted in Götz, 2008: 244). And the Cardoso report, the most recent UN document outlining the relationship between civil society and the United Nations, stated categorically that “the growing participation and influence of nonstate actors is enhancing democracy and reshaping multilateralism” (quoted in Wapner, 2007: 257). Similarly, Kofi Annan (2002) has described the Global Compact as “a chance for the UN to renew itself from within, and to gain greater relevance in the 21st century by showing that it can work with non-state actors, as well as States, to achieve the broad goals on which its Member States have agreed.” Of course, not all practitioners see the role of transnational actors in global governance in the same positive light. One veteran Australian diplomat laments the fact that “the only organisations which are likely to be excluded are the lunatic and criminal fringe and those which challenge governments too directly” (Walker, 2004: 114–15), claiming that NGOs participating in multilateral conferences “lobby the government delegates assiduously, sometimes harassing them ... It is not unusual for news stories to be run at home or in conference newsletters misrepresenting or denigrating the activities of the national delegation, in the hope of influencing it directly, provoking a statement that might not otherwise be made, or influencing opinion and thus, perhaps, the government at home” (Walker, 2004: 112–13). A former head of the UN information services characterizes NGOs as a “gushing brigade, represented at its caricatural level by droves of ladies equipped with flowery hats and a grim determination to love the United Nations and to be ‘internationally minded’ ” (quoted in Götz, 2008: 244). And the NGO CorpWatch is critical of the Global Compact: “New partnerships are leading down a slippery slope toward the partial privatization and commercialization of the UN system itself” (quoted in Malena, 2004). At the end of the day, what drives the expansion of transnational actor participation, and whether or not this strengthens the legitimacy of international institutions, are empirical and normative questions best settled through scientific inquiry.

The state of the art – and beyond The topic of this volume relates to three bodies of literature in international relations. In none of these strands of research does transnational actor participation in international institutions constitute the central


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analytical concern, but in all three we can nowadays find contributions that speak to this topic. The first literature centers on institutional design in international cooperation. Whereas the early work on international institutions debated the preconditions for stable international cooperation, researchers have recently turned their attention to issues of institutional design (e.g., Abbott and Snidal, 2000; Hawkins et al., 2006; Koremenos et al., 2001; Pollack, 2003; Tallberg, 2002b). Theoretically, most of this research is informed by a rationalist perspective, which suggests that states create and design international institutions in order to solve contracting dilemmas that impede cooperation. There is also a limited body of research that explores the organization of international institutions from a constructivist perspective rooted in sociological institutionalism (Acharya and Johnston, 2007; Barnett and Finnemore, 2004). Empirically, this literature pays special attention to the delegation of political and judicial authority to international institutions, and to the effects of variation in institutional design. So far, however, research in this area has largely refrained from addressing transnational actor participation as a dimension of institutional design. Hence, as David Lake and Mathew McCubbins (2006: 341) conclude in a recent volume on delegation to international institutions: “Incorporating the role of third parties (TPs), including the many NGOs that now make up global civil society, is the research frontier.” An exception to the absence of empirical studies is Alter (2006), which describes how access for private actors constitutes a defining feature of a new generation of international courts, and explains this trend with the functional benefits to states and courts of having non-state actors enforce private rights. The second literature addresses the role of transnational actors in world politics. The end of the Cold War led to a renewed focus on NGOs, advocacy coalitions, and social movements, promoting and diffusing ideas and norms (e.g., Betsill and Corell, 2008; Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Haas, 1992; Josselin and Wallace, 2001; Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Princen and Finger, 1994; Risse-Kappen, 1995; Willetts, 1996). Theoretically, contributions to this literature are predominantly influenced by sociological institutionalism and constructivism, highlighting the role of transnational actors as norm entrepreneurs. However, much of this literature remains engaged in the exercise of proving against a statecentered picture of world politics that transnational actors matter, and the literature is still weak in its analysis of how states and international institutions enable or constrain transnational participation (Risse, 2002: 259).


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Important exceptions to this pattern are contributions by Weiss and Gordenker (1996), Charnovitz (1997, 2000), and Willetts (2000, 2006), which offer detailed empirical accounts of the evolution of IO–NGO relations within the UN and the WTO; Raustiala (1997), which advances a rationalist explanation of transnational access to international environmental institutions; O’Brien et al. (2000), which provides a rich analysis of responses to social movement pressure in multilateral economic institutions; and Steffek et al. (2008), which reports findings from a large-scale inventory of civil society participation in global and European governance. The third literature focuses on the normative topic of democracy beyond the nation-state. The question of whether international institutions suffer from democratic deficits, and, if so, what might be done about it, has generated extensive interest over the past decade. The scholarly debate today features three main positions. According to the first position, democracy at the global level will be impossible to achieve, because of the absence of a transnational demos (Dahl, 1999; Scharpf, 1999). While states may engage in processes of institutional reform, there is little they can do to create a truly transnational demos – a sense of common identity that permits citizens of different national communities to engage in the kind of political discourse that is essential to democratic governance. Proponents of a second position in the debate question the diagnosis of a democratic deficit in global governance, and thus claim that there are few reasons to engage in democratizing reforms (Kahler, 2005; Keohane and Nye, 2003; Majone, 1998; Moravcsik, 2005). If international institutions are compared with how established democracies actually work, rather than with ideal models of democracy, the verdict will be more positive and the need for democratizing reforms less imperative. Advocates of a final position recognize the presence of a democratic deficit, and consider it both desirable and possible to democratize international institutions (e.g., Held, 1995; Lord, 2004; Patomäki and Teivainen, 2004; Scholte, 2002; Steffek et al., 2008; Zürn, 2000). This perspective spans a rich variety of views concerning the specific mechanisms through which international institutions can become more democratic. However, expanding the involvement of transnational actors features prominently in most of the proposals. In this view, transnational actors constitute an emerging civil society, whose organized participation in policy-making holds the promise of a democratization of global governance. In recent contributions, the optimism of early


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accounts has been replaced by a more balanced assessment of possibilities and problems (Bexell et al., 2010; Steffek et al., 2008). In sum, we can identify important contributions to research within a set of separate literatures. Yet, taken together, these contributions are too few and too disparate to qualify as more than a first stage in research on transnational actors in global governance. The next stage, we suggest, may be fruitfully organized as a systematic inquiry into where, why, and with what consequences transnational actors partake in the policy-making of international institutions. This volume takes a first step in that direction, offering contributions that expand the boundaries of research on transnational actor participation in global governance – theoretically as well as methodologically. Theoretically, this volume serves to develop both positive and normative theory. While the positive study of transnational participation has progressed in recent years, it is still mainly engaged in the exercise of mapping patterns of involvement within and across international institutions. In this volume, we move beyond the stage of description to develop theories and hypotheses about the factors that shape observed patterns of transnational actor participation in international institutions. In this exercise, we draw inspiration from general theories of institutional design and development in the study of politics. Our ambition in the field of normative theory is to problematize some of the starting points and basic assumptions that underlie the notion of transnational actor participation as a source of global democracy, without dismissing this idea per se. Rather than reiterating well-known positions in the debate on democracy beyond the nation-state, or presenting concrete proposals on how transnational actors may democratize international institutions, we proceed to explore classic political philosophical questions that must be addressed in the context of global democracy as well: Democracy by what means? Democracy based on what people? What are the alternatives to democracy as a source of legitimacy? The combination of positive and normative ambitions sets this volume apart from existing research, which tends to fall into either of two categories. On the one hand, there is an extensive literature in the field of normative democratic theory that suffers from a shortage of empirical observations on actual processes of transnational involvement in global governance. On the other hand, there is a growing empirical literature on mechanisms of transnational participation and accountability that typically refrains from tackling the broader philosophical


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questions associated with the notion of civil society actors as a source of democracy in global governance. Methodologically, this volume reflects a strong comparative ambition. As opposed to existing research, which is heavily dominated by singlecase studies of transnational activism and international institutions in individual areas of global governance, we offer comparisons in multiple dimensions. At a general level, we address issue-areas with variation in the degree of transnational actor participation, ranging from the environment and food security to trade and migration. These comparative case studies allow us to engage in in-depth empirical analysis, while simultaneously permitting us to isolate the influence of specific factors across a sample of international institutions with variation in the level of openness vis-à-vis transnational actors. At a more specific level, the volume offers contributions that engage in within-case analysis of transnational participation in particular international institutions, structured focused comparison across multiple issue-areas, and large-N assessment of delegation to transnational actors. The combination of qualitative and quantitative components generates important complementarities. While case studies focus on the micro-dynamics of specific processes of transnational actor participation, and are particularly well suited for identifying causal mechanisms, the quantitative analysis covers long-term dynamics in a wide population of institutions, and helps to provide an understanding of broad trends in the institutionalization of transnational participation. Moreover, whereas the quantitative analysis is limited to formal institutional design, case studies capture informal venues of access as well.

Themes of the volume If the participation by transnational actors in international institutions is controversial and raises a number of questions, as we have seen, this applies as well to the concepts used to describe and discuss the transnational turn. While the very term “transnational” may be of relatively recent origin, the phenomena it attempts to capture are by no means new. Transborder dynamics have existed throughout history. As a prelude to the problematizations in the following contributions, Christer Jönsson’s chapter (Chapter 2) sets the terminological underpinnings of this volume, charting the history of a set of interconnected concepts used to capture the transnational. In addition to the adjective “transnational,” these include “transnational actors,” “global civil society,” and “networks.”


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Transnational Actor Participation 13

The other chapters in this volume contribute to addressing the questions of where, why, and with what consequences, by mapping empirical patterns of transnational actor participation in global governance, formulating theoretical explanations of variation in transnational access to international institutions, and analyzing positive and normative implications of transnational actor involvement. Instead of introducing the chapters in the order they appear in the volume, we outline how they speak to the three main themes. Where do transnational actors become involved in global governance? Over the past couple of decades, states and international organizational bodies have increasingly engaged transnational actors as providers of ideas, services, and information in global governance. Several contributions to this volume help to map this transnational shift in the operation of international institutions. While existing research frequently focuses on environmental policy and development policy, where transnational participation tends to be extensive, we seek to avoid such biases through a broader scope of policy fields, including trade and migration. Moreover, in addition to comparisons across issue-areas and institutions, we engage in the mapping of variation in transnational participation within organizations, over time, and across policy functions. Jens Steffek’s chapter (Chapter 4) offers an overview of patterns in transnational access across issue-areas, drawing on a large-scale qualitative project on participatory arrangements in global and European governance. For each of the 32 international institutions in the sample, Steffek and his colleagues collected information on a set of ten indicators of formal and informal access to policy-making. The chapter compares, and attempts to explain, the unequal levels of transnational actor participation in environmental policy (high), human rights protection (high), security policy (medium/low), and finance (low). Adding to this comparison across policy areas, the chapters by Andrea Liese, Åsa Casula Vifell, and Sara Kalm map transnational actor participation in development, trade, and migration, respectively. Liese’s chapter (Chapter 5) is a within-case comparison of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which has a long history of extensive collaboration with transnational actors as policy experts and stakeholder representatives. While there are several formal access opportunities, most of this collaboration takes the shape of cooperation in advocacy work, policy advice, and issue-specific initiatives for regulatory frameworks and programs. Opening up the black box


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of the FAO, Liese also delineates patterns of cross-temporal variation, intra-organizational variation, and variation across types of transnational actors. Casula Vifell’s chapter (Chapter 6) describes the participation of environmental NGOs within the WTO, which emerges as less open than organizations such as the UNEP and the World Bank, but more accessible than, for instance, the IMF. While the GATT/WTO was long known for its opaque decision-making, the organization has in recent years, especially following the “Battle of Seattle” in 1999, created or reinforced mechanisms of engagement with civil society actors. Casula Vifell maps the formal and informal procedures put in place over the past decade, and explores the extent to which these mechanisms also are used and sustained over time. Kalm’s chapter (Chapter 7) examines the global governance of migration, which is an area of less institutionalized cooperation between states, and limited means of participation for transnational actors. This low level of transnational participation places migration at the same end of the comparative policy spectrum as international security and finance. Focusing on the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), Kalm explores why this cooperation initiative was designed without access for non-state actors, given the specifics of this issue-area. Supplementing these case studies and cross-policy comparisons, Jessica Green in her chapter (Chapter 8) reports the results of the first large-N study of transnational access to international institutions. Focusing exclusively on the environmental domain, Green examines instances of formal delegation to transnational actors in treaties and the subsequent legal decisions taken to implement them over the past century. Summarizing data from 152 environmental treaties, the chapter maps the extent to which states delegate policy functions to private actors, assesses whether transnational participation actually has increased over time, and explores potential differences between transnational actor engagement at the treaty and sub-treaty levels. Why do international institutions open up to transnational actors? Moving beyond empirical mapping of transnational actor participation in global governance, multiple contributions to this volume introduce and test potential explanations of these patterns. While existing literature so far has been rich in descriptive accounts of institutional mechanisms for transnational involvement, generalizable and testable explanations have been in short supply. Drawing mainly on variants of


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institutional theory in political science, several chapters in the volume take important steps to close this gap. Jonas Tallberg, in his chapter (Chapter 3), suggests exploring transnational access to international institutions through three distinct analytical approaches, and specifies hypotheses for each approach as regards variation in access across time, institutions, policy phases, and transnational actors. The first approach, informed by rational choice institutionalism, privileges concerns about functional efficiency, highlighting the benefits to states and international institutions of engaging TNAs. The second approach, informed by sociological institutionalism, privileges norm diffusion and the effects on international institutions of new participatory ideas, norms, and models in global governance. The third approach, informed by power-oriented institutionalism, stresses concerns about power distribution, conceiving of transnational actors as instruments in state competition. Tallberg concludes by discussing the extent to which these approaches are best conceived of as competing or complementary. Several chapters in the volume explicitly draw on and extend these theoretical explanations of patterns in transnational access to international institutions. Steffek, Green, and Kalm, in their chapters, develop and test the rational institutionalist claims in varying empirical contexts. Steffek (Chapter 4) explores the extent to which the variation he observes between policy fields reflects incentives for cooperation between international institutions and civil society actors. Depending on the characteristics of an issue-area, he suggests, international institutions and states will demand varying levels and kinds of resources from transnational actors, which in return will be offered access to policy-making. Focusing specifically on global environmental policy, Green (Chapter 8) assesses the extent to which the pattern of delegated functions to private actors matches the expectations of rationalist theories. In particular, she explores how states are delegating functions to transnational actors to enhance credible commitments and lower transaction costs in cooperation, but also tailor delegation to limit sovereignty costs. Investigating an issue-area with an altogether different record of transnational participation, Kalm (Chapter 7) focuses particularly on the importance of sovereignty costs for the level of private actor involvement. Expanding the range of factors that limit state interest in transnational access, she also discusses the extent to which heterogeneity in the group of cooperating states impacts on institutional design. Liese (Chapter 5) broadens the range of explanations considered in her chapter on transnational participation in the FAO,


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contrasting rationalist and sociological theories of organizational change. More specifically, she derives and tests hypotheses drawn from resource-dependency theory and studies of strategic change, as well as from sociological institutionalism and theories of organizational culture. A central claim in the chapter is the need to consider both the functional and normative pressures of the external environment in which an international institution operates, as well as its internal structures in terms of resources and organizational culture, when explaining its willingness and capacity to engage with transnational actors. Dissatisfied with existing rationalist and sociological accounts, Casula Vifell, in her chapter (Chapter 6), turns to historical institutionalism when explaining how environmental NGOs became involved in WTO decision-making, and how this engagement has developed over time. In particular, she explores the extent to which initial moves to open up the WTO to NGOs were subsequently supported or undermined by positive and negative feedback mechanisms. More generally, the historical institutionalist perspective points to the limits of purposive institutional design, and suggests that patterns of transnational participation in international institutions constitute the accumulated product of evolving practices over time. What are the consequences of transnational actor participation in global governance? Transnational actors are commonly assumed to contribute to (a) the democratization and (b) better outcomes of global governance processes. These are also the cornerstones of their legitimacy – following Fritz Scharpf (1999), one may speak of input and output legitimacy. The two are intertwined, as developed by Hans Agné in his chapter (Chapter 9). Addressing the question of whether global democracy really matters, he explores the applicability to international institutions of the two arguments that democracy protects people from interstate war and intrastate famine. Transnational participation in international institutions can be seen to provide political mechanisms similar to those that are used to explain why national democracy is correlated with the absence of famine and war. Hence it makes sense to investigate empirically whether transnational access to international institutions in fact contributes to alleviating these human hardships. Increasingly, transnational actors are conceptualized as an emerging global civil society, whose participation in international policymaking holds the promise of a democratization of global governance.


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Transnational actors often portray themselves as speaking on behalf of those affected by political decisions with global consequences, who otherwise would not have a voice. Most modern theories of political institutions assume that their legitimacy ought to derive from the consent of those subjected to their authority. In the absence of anything resembling a global demos, transnational actors are then sometimes seen as a substitute source of democratic legitimacy. The premises of these conceptions, which imply translating models of democracy originally developed for the national context to the global level, are questioned in the chapters by Sofia Näsström and Jens Bartelson. Näsström (Chapter 10) examines two recent theoretical suggestions for how to democratize global institutions through transnational actor involvement, without having recourse to a global “people”: the all-affected principle and discursive representation. Drawing on the importance of counting in democracy, she shows that unless one distinguishes more carefully between the need to democratize global institutions, on the one hand, and the construction of an ideal model of democracy based on this need, on the other, these propositions run the risk of depriving the globally excluded and silenced of their most effective source of appeal: that each should count as equal. She demonstrates that instead of revitalizing democracy under global political conditions these propositions may in fact undercut its radical force. Taken as democratic models, they either present us with a system of graded votes according to interests or stakes, which in effect means that some count more than others (all-affected principle), or suggest a democratic ideal that urges us to stop counting altogether (discursive representation). Bartelson (Chapter 11) argues that, since none of the requirements of democratic legitimacy are present in contemporary global society, it is not yet meaningful to apply democratic standards to global institutions and transnational actors. Rather, we should demand that global institutions and transnational actors help deliver the preconditions for building an inclusive global political community, within which human beings would be safe and free enough to enjoy the rights of participation and redress necessary for democratic standards of legitimacy to become applicable at some point in the future. Pursuing this argument, Bartelson emphasizes the value of liberty understood as the absence of domination and freedom from arbitrary exercises of power. In the concluding chapter (Chapter 12), we return to the three themes outlined in this introduction. In addition to summarizing the main findings of the contributions to this volume, we identify lessons


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18 Jonas Tallberg and Christer Jönsson

learned concerning (a) pertinent new research questions, (b) methodological approaches, and (c) the integration of empirical studies and normative theory.

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2 Capturing the Transnational: A Conceptual History Christer Jönsson

The term “transnational” may be of recent origin, but the phenomena it attempts to capture are by no means new.1 Transborder dynamics have existed throughout history, as observed by several students of transnationality. These ostensibly novel transnational phenomena have clear historical analogues. One need only think of colonialism and imperialism, missionary campaigns, anti-slavery and workers’ movements, pirating networks, and jazz. (Khagram and Levitt, 2008: 21) Rulers have always operated in a transnational environment; autarky has rarely been an option, regulation and monitoring of transborder flows have always been problematic. (Krasner, 1999: 223) It is therefore necessary to distinguish between transnationality as social matters of fact and scientific reflections on these phenomena. The very term transnational is time-bound, insofar as it presumes that national borders are those to be transcended. Yet historical phenomena we associate with the term transnational involved the crossing of other types of political borders. In Ancient Greece, for example, ritualized friendship ties, called xenia, linked elites across political boundaries, and these horizontal ties were sometimes stronger than the vertical ties with their inferiors within their own polis (Herman, 1987). Medieval universities in Europe were linked together through extensive intellectual traffic, with migrating students and professors contributing to a borderless academic community (cf. Jönsson et al., 2000: 104–5). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, before the birth of nationalism, diplomats, as members of European aristocracies linked by ties of friendship, blood and marriage, belonged to a single “cosmopolitan 22


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fraternity” or “aristocratic international” (Jönsson and Hall, 2005: 41). Renaissance families such as the Medicis, trading companies such as the British East India Company, and the international suffrage movement are other examples of transnational activities in European history (Risse, 2002: 256). The term transnational may be a misnomer even when applied to present-day phenomena. There is arguably “a certain irony in the tendency of the term ‘transnational’ to draw attention to what it negates – that is, to the continued significance of the national” (Hannerz, 1996: 6). Moreover, it shares with the term “international” the unfortunate conflation of state and nation. “Interstate” and “trans-state” – or, to be historically neutral, “inter-polity” and “trans-polity” (cf. Ferguson and Mansbach, 1996) – would be more accurate appellations. This chapter will focus on the interplay between social reality and the terminology used to capture it. Proceeding from the assumption that “concepts are never held or used in isolation, but in constellations which make up entire schemes or belief systems” (Farr, 1989: 33), I shall trace the origin and development of a set of interconnected concepts used to capture the transnational. In addition to the adjective “transnational,” these include “non-governmental organizations,” “global civil society” and “networks.” These words appear in different combinations in the titles of works dealing with the subject matter of this volume.

Transnational When political scientists trace the history of the concept “transnational,” they usually start with the 1971 special issue of International Organization entitled “Transnational Relations and World Politics,” which also appeared as a book edited by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye (1971). Yet the editors themselves reject any claim to having “discovered” transnational relations, pointing to Raymond Aron’s conception of “transnational society” as their chief source of inspiration. Both Keohane and Nye were students of Stanley Hoffman who, in turn, was influenced by Aron (Keohane and Nye, 1971: vii). Raymond Aron’s monumental Paix and guerre entre les nations (1962), later translated into English as Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (1967), was hailed by Stanley Hoffman as “the most intellectually ambitious work that has ever been written about international relations” (Aron, 1967: back cover). In this book, Aron made a distinction between international systems and transnational society. Whereas international systems are “the inter-state aspects of the society to which


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the populations, subject to distinct sovereignties, belong,” a transnational society “reveals itself by commercial exchange, migration of persons, common beliefs, organizations that cross frontiers and, lastly, ceremonies or competitions open to the members of all these units” (Aron, 1967: 105). To flourish, transnational society needs freedom of exchange, movement and communication; the heterogeneity of the interstate system, on the other hand, tends to divide transnational society. In the early 1960s Arnold Wolfers, another political scientist of European (Swiss) origin, pointed to the potential significance of intersocietal interactions and “transnational actors” in international affairs. His cautious conclusion was that no theoretical discussion could determine the relative strengths of states and transnational actors, but that “only an empirical analysis ... can throw light on the role of non-state corporate actors and thus supplement a possibly oversimplified and unrealistic concentration on the nation-states as sole corporate actors” (Wolfers, 1962: 24). Karl Deutsch might also be mentioned among the predecessors (cf. Risse, 2002: 257). Already in the 1950s he and his colleagues pointed to transnational transactions as background variables accounting for the building of “security communities” with shared values and a sense of mutual identity. Measures of transnational flows were compared to intrastate transactions to determine the degree of international community-building (Deutsch et al., 1957). Whereas Aron, Wolfers, Deutsch and others opened up for adjustments of prevalent state-centric approaches in the 1960s, the German scholar Karl Kaiser is generally considered a pioneer in bringing transnational relations to the forefront. In 1969 he published a seminal article, outlining an ideal-type theory of transnational politics, which he contrasted with the ideal types of international (or interstate) politics and multinational politics (allowing for penetrated and integrated states). Drawing on Aron’s understanding of transnational society, Kaiser defined transnational politics as those political processes between governments of nation-states and/or between transnational society and governments that are initiated by interactions in transnational society. Important preconditions for the development and intensification of transnational politics are, in his view, horizontal (between societies) and vertical (state–society) communications (Kaiser, 1969). To be sure, one may find uses of the adjective “transnational” in scholarly works already in the 1950s. For instance, the Journal of Educational Sociology in 1952 contained a plea for overseas workshops for educators


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under the rubric of “education at transnational level” (Pickett, 1952). And a 1953 article in the Western Political Quarterly used the adjective frequently to describe the character of modern political ideologies. The author referred to the transnational scale of ideologies, and to transnational mobility, contacts, and agencies as instrumental in the dissemination of ideologies (Loewenstein, 1953). But these early instances made no effort at conceptual clarification. The earliest elaboration of the term “transnational” in twentiethcentury scholarship does not emanate from political science, but from law. In 1956 Philip Jessup published his book Transnational Law, based on lectures delivered at the Yale Law School in early 1956. Jessup argued that the term “international” is inadequate to describe the problems of the “complex interrelated world community” which transcend national boundaries (Jessup, 1956: 1). Moreover, he argued that the standard dichotomy between domestic and international problems is too absolute, suggesting that all problems of human relations fall along a continuum. He used the term “transnational” to refer to situations that are not confined by national boundaries and that may involve (in varying combinations) individuals, corporations, states, international organizations, or other groups. Transnational law is thus taken “to include all law which regulates actions or events that transcend national boundaries” (Jessup, 1956: 2). Jessup made a distinction between “personal” and “territorial” conceptions of law. The personal principle is based on personal sovereignty, the territorial principle on state sovereignty. Historically an entirely personal conception of law is primeval. The principle of territoriality developed, but was never consistently applied, in the Middle Ages. In the modern state system it has become predominant (Jessup, 1956: 39–42). According to Jessup, transnational situations necessitate less emphasis on the territorial conception of law. “Unquestionably much remains to be done in arousing an interest and creating an understanding of the nature and importance of transnational problems,” Jessup (1956: 109) concluded, but he pointed to helpful precedents in maritime law, which he characterized as predominantly transnational since the days of the Phoenicians in the fourteenth century BC. Jessup’s book attracted much attention beyond legal scholarship, not least among political scientists. In his appreciative review of the book in the prestigious American Political Science Review, Inis Claude (1957: 1,118) wrote that “Jessup throws off the fetters of old concepts and provides powerful stimulus to fresh thinking.” In the British International Affairs,


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published by the venerable Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), a reviewer remarked that “many ghosts will have to be laid before Professor Jessup’s ideas on ... preconceived notions are likely to secure general acceptance, but meanwhile much can be learnt from this book” (Honig, 1958: 79). The impact of the book in legal circles is reflected in the renaming of the journal of the Columbia Society of International Law in 1964 to the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. Its first issue contained an introductory note by Jessup, who had by then been appointed to the International Court of Justice. Jessup’s contribution is acknowledged briefly in the 1971 Keohane and Nye volume, which was triggered by a sense of dissatisfaction with the contemporary study of international organization but ended up with a broader approach to world politics. In their introduction, the co-editors define transnational relations as “contacts, coalitions, and interactions across state boundaries that are not controlled by the central foreign policy organs of governments,” including among transnational interactions “the movement of tangible or intangible items across state boundaries when at least one actor is not an agent of a government” (Nye and Keohane, 1971a: xi, xii). Contributors to the volume focus on the interaction between governments and transnational society, reciprocal effects between transnational relations and the interstate system, as well as “transgovernmental” interactions across state boundaries between subunits of governments. The broad term transnational relations was thus seen to include both transnational and transgovernmental interactions, that is, all of world politics not taken into account by the state-centric paradigm (Nye and Keohane, 1971b: 383). Samuel Huntington, in a largely forgotten 1973 article, dissociated himself from the Keohane and Nye understanding of transnationalism in terms of the public or private character of participating actors and defined “transnational” as referring to the cross-border scope of operations by any “relatively centralized, functionally specific, bureaucratic organizations,” whether governments, corporations, churches or NGOs (Huntington, 1973: 335). At the same time, he pointed to American society and the global US expansion – characterized not by the acquisition of new territories but by their penetration (Huntington, 1973: 344) – as the principal sources of transnationalism after World War II. Even if several of these early uses of the term “transnational” aimed at breaking out of Cold War paradigms of interstate conflict, the shadow of the Cold War remains discernible insofar as multinational corporations and US-dominated NGOs, on the one hand, and Communist


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ideology and movements, on the other, figured prominently among adduced examples of transnational phenomena. Why did transnational relations gain prominence among political scientists in the early 1970s? The withdrawal of the United States from Vietnam entailed diminished security threats and a period of détente; economic issues seemed more prominent than security ones, as epitomized by the 1971 breakdown of the Bretton Woods monetary system and the 1973 oil crisis; and the transnational student protest of 1968 had spawned countercultural trends, including human rights and environmental movements (cf. DeMars, 2005: 35; Peterson, 1992: 371). While breaking new ground, the transnationalism of the 1970s failed to generate a sustained agenda of theoretically informed empirical research. The term “transnational relations” was used variously to cover direct cross-border contacts among individuals and groups, the diffusion of ideas through increased communications and media circulation, and the effects stemming from continued existence of stable networks of crossborder transactions. However, the empirical work seldom went beyond proving the existence of such activity. The arguments for its significance were seldom cogent enough to persuade the sceptics; thus, few scholars seriously questioned the adequacy of the traditional analytical separation between domestic and international politics. (Peterson, 1992: 373) In the 1980s Kenneth Waltz’s (1979) influential neorealist treatise, in combination with the reintensification of the Cold War and escalating local conflicts around the world, shifted attention back to statecentric approaches and security issues. At the same time, the 1980s saw the flowering of institutional theory in the burgeoning subfield International Political Economy (IPE). Yet another change in the scholarly agenda occurred as a result of the end of the Cold War. Globalization became the buzzword, as the disappearance of a bifurcated world opened up transnational spaces of global extension. Whereas the term “global” had been largely absent from the titles of publications dealing with world affairs until then (Scholte, 1996: 44), now “globalization” appeared virtually everywhere. Globalization could be understood as a “new transnational political economy” and a “new transnational political geography” (Sassen, 1998: xxi), as “deterritorialization” (Scholte, 2000: 3), or as “placeless and disembedded ... flows and networks” (Kofman and Youngs, 1996: 7), to mention but a few of myriad conceptualizations. The globalization literature drew attention to the role of the revolution in information technology in facilitating transnational organization, and zeroed in


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on economic transnational actors in particular. Moreover, the study of globalization fostered increased transdisciplinary efforts at understanding transnational phenomena. In the preface to the 1995 volume aiming at “bringing transnational relations back in,” the editor, Thomas Risse-Kappen, stated that “the end of the Cold War and the dissatisfaction with prevailing approaches to international relations have opened new spaces for theorizing about world politics” (Risse-Kappen, 1995a: xi). Like the Keohane and Nye predecessor, Risse-Kappen’s volume focuses on governments and transnational society, but the guiding question is more specific: “under what domestic and international circumstances do transnational coalitions and actors who attempt to change policy outcomes in a specific issue-area succeed or fail to achieve their goals?” (Risse-Kappen, 1995b: 5). The different chapters illustrate how the impact of transnational political activity varies according to (a) differences in domestic structures of targeted states, and (b) degrees of international institutionalization in terms of regimes and organizations regulating the issue-area. The transformation process in Russia and Eastern Europe, and issues of concern to developing countries, are key empirical foci. More generally, the 1990s saw a surge of research on transnational phenomena in different social science disciplines, such as anthropology, geography, sociology, and economics. A variety of transnational social phenomena became objects of study, including migration, identities, citizenship, and diasporas. After 9/11 security issues were added to the transnational agenda, as the realization took hold that terrorism and organized crime need to be added to the list of transnational social phenomena. Earlier research had had a tendency to associate the term transnational with benign cross-border actors and activities. The increasing use of the term in various disciplines has not contributed to conceptual convergence or clarity. One can, for instance, note a difference between top-down and bottom-up understandings of transnationalism (Calliess and Steffek, 2009: 10). Top-down conceptions, proceeding from the state system and viewing transnational phenomena as reflections of the changing role and power of the state, are common among political scientists. Bottom-up conceptions, on the other hand, proceeding from world society and viewing transnational phenomena as reflections of changing identities and increasing global consciousness, resonate with sociologists and anthropologists.


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To some scholars, the term “transnational” has come to be seen as a preferable substitute for “globalization.” For instance, social anthropologist Ulf Hannerz (1996: 6) has declared himself somewhat uncomfortable with the rather prodigious use of the term globalization to describe just about any process or relationship that somehow crosses state boundaries. In themselves, many such processes and relationships obviously do not at all extend across the world. The term “transnational” is in a way more humble, and often a more adequate label for phenomena which can be of quite variable scale and distribution, even when they do share the characteristic of not being contained within a state. On the other hand, others warn that “sometimes the terms transnational and transnationalism are used so vaguely and indistinctly that they are likely to become ‘catch-all and say nothing’ terms, as was the case with the globalization concept” (Pries, 2008: 1). The terms, in short, have “achieved popularity at the price of precision” (Huntington, 1973: 334). The development and broadening scope of contemporary transnationalist research can be followed, for example, in a Routledge Research in Transnationalism book series, which to date encompasses more than 20 volumes, and the specialized journal Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs, launched in 2001. The editor of the first volume in the Routledge series, Ludger Pries, edits its 21st volume, Rethinking Transnationalism, as well. He notes that “whereas a fair amount of volumes concentrate on empirical research in specific themes, only a few volumes focus on conceptual, theoretical and methodological issues of transnationalism as a research programme” (Pries, 2008: 1). The principal task today, he claims, is “no longer to show that transnational social phenomena exist, but rather, as most researchers in this field agree, to demonstrate that the successful establishment of transnationalism as a valuable concept has led to new theoretical and empirical challenges” (Pries, 2008: 1). In a critical review of conceptualizations of transnationalism in political science and law, Gralf-Peter Calliess and Jens Steffek (2009: 17–18) argue that, in order to be of interest to these disciplines, the concept needs to be delimited to processes that have some kind of authoritative, regulatory implications. Then, they identify three possible “definitional strategies”: either (1) to see transnationalism as an umbrella concept, covering all cross-border regulatory arrangements, or (2) to limit it to


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denote arrangement in the private sector, or (3) to denote public–private regulatory arrangements. They prefer the third strategy, which resonates well with the approach of this volume. In sum, the study of transnational phenomena has had a relatively short and checkered history and today represents a lively and variegated research field. This brief review suggests a few general observations. First, changing developments, events, and circumstances in world politics have entailed subtle shifts in the understanding of the concept. While basically referring to all activity and processes across state boundaries that are not entirely government-controlled, the term transnational has carried different connotations at different times. During the Cold War transnationalism was easily associated with Communism, either as ideology or as agency. The oil crises of the 1970s directed attention to the transnational flows of vital goods and money and patterns of complex interdependence. With the end of the Cold War, transnationalism came to be associated with regime change in the former Soviet empire. And, while 9/11 brought security aspects of transnational dynamics to the fore, today transnational flows of information, news, migrants, money, cultural expressions, fashions, ideas etc. have entered the research agenda. In short, political change and conceptual change are interrelated – one may speak of “the political constitution of language and the linguistic constitution of politics” (Farr, 1989: 32). Second, a common feature among different political-science approaches is the focus on relations between transnational and state phenomena. Aron juxtaposed transnational society and the interstate system. Wolfers pointed to transnational actors as complements to state actors. Kaiser understood transnational politics as involving governmental as well as non-governmental actors and processes. Keohane and Nye emphasized reciprocal effects between transnational relations and the interstate system. Along with Kaiser and Huntington, they expanded the transnational concept to include transgovernmental as well as “transverse” (DeMars, 2005: 52) relations between the government of one country and the society of another. Risse-Kappen zeroed in on the effects of transnational activity in individual states. And contemporary scholars associate transnationalism with diminishing state control in the wake of globalization. The transnational, in short, is consistently defined in relation to the international. Third, to the extent that theorists relate transnationalism to democracy, the link is most commonly to domestic political systems. In Aron’s view, transnational society thrives under conditions of freedom of exchange, movement, and communication. Similarly, Kaiser saw


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unrestricted vertical (state–society) communication as a precondition of transnational politics, and Risse-Kappen (1995c: 284–5) noted the difference between Western European democracies, where transnational movements “had their own organizations, offices, regular meetings and the like,” and Eastern European state-controlled societies, where they “relied on personal contacts, irregular meetings, underground literature, and other ways of communication in an environment where public opposition was illegal.”

Transnational actors Several chapters in the 1971 Keohane and Nye volume describe transnational organizations as autonomous or quasi-autonomous actors in world politics. They cover such diverse organizations as NGOs, multinational firms, the Ford Foundation, the Roman Catholic Church, revolutionary organizations, and trade unions. No author has come up with a definitive typology of transnational actors (cf. Erman and Uhlin, 2010). A distinction is commonly made between for-profit and non-profit organizations, between firms and so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs). If firms are private actors pursuing private profits, NGOs are private actors pursuing public purposes. Rather than striving for the private profit of their owners or shareholders, NGOs claim to serve a broad, public purpose based on universal rights and needs (DeMars, 2005: 41). Within the category of non-profit transnational actors, one may distinguish between NGOs and social movements, which have spawned two distinct, only partly overlapping academic literatures. Students of social movements deal with forms of collective action that aim at transforming existing social and political structures and practices. Not completely institutionalized and lacking formal representation, social movements are typically engaged in contentious interaction with opponents of various kinds. Examples of transnational social movements are the anti-globalization or global justice movement as well as environmental, anti-war, and women’s rights movements. The study of social movements was set in motion by the turbulence of the 1960s (McAdam et al., 1996: 2). Focusing on the civil rights movement, US scholars, such as Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, developed approaches emphasizing resource mobilization and political process in a context marked by weak political parties and the increasing importance of identity politics (McDonald, 2002: 109–10). Focusing on May 1968, Alain Touraine, a pioneer among European scholars, conceived


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of social movements in opposition to traditional concepts of class conflict and economic determinism (Touraine, 2002: 89). The “new social movements approach,” associated primarily with European and Latin American scholars, explored structural causes and the development of collective identities (Sökefeld, 2006: 269). Mary Kaldor (2003: 589) has characterized NGOs as “tamed social movements.” Social movements always rise and fall. And as they fall, they are either “tamed” – institutionalized and professionalized – or they become marginal and disappear or turn to violence. Becoming “tamed” means that you become the respectable opposition − the partner in negotiations. Transnational actors gaining access to international institutions must be considered “tamed,” in Kaldor’s terms. Hence conceptualizations and typologies of NGOs are more relevant to our purposes than the vast literature on social movements. NGOs The “discontinuous genealogy” (DeMars, 2005: 64) of transnational organizing arguably dates back to the Middle Ages and the Catholic Church’s efforts to preserve its autonomy from domination by political power, which encouraged the eventual development of different extrapolitical movements (Ghils, 1992). But the most obvious ancestors of contemporary NGOs were single-issue movements from the late eighteenth century onwards. The British Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, founded in 1787, and its successor, the British AntiSlavery Society, must rank among the most successful NGOs ever, insofar as Britain and the United States discontinued slave trade in 1807 and Britain abolished slavery in all its colonies in 1838 (DeMars, 2005: 66–7). If Britain was the base of transnational organizing throughout the nineteenth century, the United States gradually took over that role in the twentieth century. When British military and political power peaked in the nineteenth century, the transnational influence of British society also surged. Indeed, the first achievement of the antislavery movement – banning the international slave trade – relied on the British Navy for enforcement. But the other secret of British transnational influence was the particular character of its society – its relative prosperity, its relative freedom of association and communication, and the cultural


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and religious confidence that enabled some of its citizens to challenge sovereigns. The same pair of factors – state power and societal character – also explain the Americanization of transnational relations in the twentieth century (DeMars, 2005: 83). While there are real-life forebears of NGOs dating back centuries, the term non-governmental organization did not gain currency until after World War II. To be sure, occasional uses of the term in legal commentaries can be found as early as 1919–20. But it was not used in the League of Nations. The preferred labels of that era were unofficial, nonpublic, voluntary, or private organizations (Charnovitz, 2006: 351). The appearance of the term non-governmental organizations in Article 71 of the UN Charter, granting NGOs consultative status in the Economic and Social Council, was the result of a compromise at the San Francisco conference in 1945 in a dispute concerning the accreditation of the World Trade Union Conference (WTUC) to the conference, supported by the Soviet Union and resisted by the United States. On the one hand, the introduction of the term non-governmental organization marked the difference between WTUC and the “intergovernmental organizations” admitted to the conference, thereby contributing to the denial of WTUC accreditation. On the other hand, Article 71 opened up for consultative status in the new world organization. At the San Francisco conference, after initial opposition, the delegation of the United States supported the provision on non-governmental organizations according to Article 71. Not only had 1,200 such organizations sent representatives to San Francisco, tasked with monitoring and lobbying for their clients, but the inclusion of “organization representatives” also corresponded to the government’s attempt to create a national consensus on the United Nations in order to avoid a disaster in line with the failed attempt to gain domestic approval for the League of Nations membership in 1920 (Götz, 2008: 241). It is a common observation that the number of NGOs has risen dramatically since World War II. In addition to multiplying, NGOs are also growing in size, performing ever new functions and becoming truly global. With growing numbers and significance in world politics, NGOs have become prominent objects of study in International Relations (IR). Yet “the growing attention to NGOs has been uneven – there have been many case studies and less theory building” (Dijkzeul, 2008: 84). Pointing to the apologetic nature of much scholarship on NGOs, several commentators lament “the lack of studies addressing NGOs with thought-provoking scholarly distance” (Götz, 2008: 236). One critical observer, William DeMars (2005), characterizes NGOs in terms of their


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normative claims and their relational nature. NGOs, he argues, typically claim to (a) possess a global moral compass, providing direction to their strategy, (b) master a modular technique, easily replicable in diverse settings, (c) enjoy secular sanction by virtue of norms “above” governments, and (d) have a representative mandate to speak for the people from “below” governments (DeMars, 2005: 8–33). NGOs are seen as well-connected actors. DeMars even claims that NGOs are constituted by their partners, which may include governments, societal groups, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and multinational corporations. “Without crucial partners a particular NGO would cease to exist or become something else” (DeMars, 2005: 44). Partners are seen to constitute NGOs by attaching their hidden agendas to NGO operations, which means that “each NGO is an institutional site of dynamic cooperation and conflict among its partners” (DeMars, 2005: 45). Hence, NGOs operate in networks, which facilitate the transnational movement of norms, resources, political responsibility, and information (DeMars, 2005: 50). Others have pointed to the relational and conditional character of NGOs. Norbert Götz (2008: 250), for example, defines an NGO as “a private body in its capacity of being excluded, marginalized, graded, contained, or used by a government, an intergovernmental organization, or an observer.” The governmental world thus becomes the point of departure, as reflected in the very term “non-governmental.” There have been several efforts to get away from this negative denomination, setting NGOs apart from governmental actors but saying nothing about other characteristics. Alternative labels tend to focus on the positive attributes of these organizations. “Pressure groups” is one such alternative, as “it is the act of applying pressure that brings them into politics” (Willetts, 1982: 1). In recent years, most UN agencies, led by UNEP, have changed their terminology in favor of “civil society organizations” (Götz, 2008: 246). There have even been more or less serious attempts at reinterpreting the acronym NGO in more positive terms, such as “Necessary-to-Governance Organization” (Götz, 2008: 245). In a more critical vein, the question has been raised of how non-governmental NGOs are in reality. They may be both “watchdogs” and “working dogs” of governmental actors (Ahmed and Potter, 2006: 57). Many NGOs are dependent on government funding to varying degrees (cf. Gordenker and Weiss, 1995: 360–1). More specifically, the development of NGOs can be associated with one particular government. NGOs are often portrayed as US inventions. Reference is often made to Alexis de Tocqueville, who already in the


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1830s saw the existence of “private associations” as one of the principal characteristics of American democracy. Historian Akira Iriye (1999), for example, associates the global growth of NGOs with the “American Century.” As it did not join the League of Nations after World War I, the United States actively promoted NGOs (Iriye, 1999: 425). After World War II NGOs focusing on humanitarian relief to war victims came to reorient themselves to help developing countries, at the same time as protests against the arms race and nuclear weapons spawned new NGOs (Iriye, 1999: 429–30). Foundations represent a special type of transnational organizations that might be subsumed under the NGO heading. These private, nonprofit organizations that make grants for public purposes have increased in significance in world affairs in recent years. A chapter on the Ford Foundation was included in the 1971 Keohane and Nye volume. Its author characterized foundations as “principally an invention of twentieth-century industrial society in the United States” (Bell, 1971: 115). Still today the most important foundations on the global scene remain American. Old ones, such as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundation, have been joined by newer ones, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition to foundations named after successful entrepreneurs, individual celebrities, such as Bono and Bob Geldof or Princess Diana and Jimmy Carter, have become transnational actors, capitalizing on their fame to promote global issues (cf. Cooper, 2008). Firms Firms operating in many countries have existed for quite a while. By 1900 several US companies had major investments abroad (Wells, 1971: 99). In the 1970s works began to appear portraying multinational companies as a threat to state sovereignty (see, e.g., Vernon, 1971). Since the turn of the Millennium corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a new keyword, situating global business in a more constructive role. CSR can be seen as a “soft” regulatory framework placing new demands on corporations; as a mobilization of corporate actors to assist in the development aid of states; or as a management trend, a means to appear legitimate, modern, and attractive to employees, collaborators, and customers (Sahlin-Andersson, 2006). The UN Global Compact, launched in 2000, is at the center of this development. It is a voluntary, network-based initiative with a small Global Compact Office and six UN agencies at its core. Membership implies commitment to ten principles in the domains of human rights,


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labor, environment and anti-corruption, formulated in general terms. Meetings bringing together business leaders, UN agencies, NGOs, academics, and other groups are arranged regularly. By 2009 over 5,200 businesses in 130 countries had joined the Global Compact (www. unglobalcompact.org). The portrayal of corporate actors in cooperative rather than conflictual terms is reflected in the proliferation in recent decades of the term “global public-private partnership,” which stands for a variety of organizational forms (see Bexell and Mörth, 2010). Partnerships can be understood as voluntary cooperative arrangements between actors from two or more societal spheres (state, market, civil society) with nonhierarchical decision-making procedures (Glasbergen, 2007: 2). Global partnerships, operating in a wide array of issue-areas, differ in degrees of formal institutionalization, geographical scope, and functional tasks (advocacy, service delivery, standard-setting, etc.). While the distinction between NGOs and firms is the conventional one, other dimensions have been suggested in classifying transnational actors. For instance, one may distinguish between organizations that have individual membership and meta-organizations whose members are other organizations (Ahrne and Brunson, 2008), between formal and informal organizations, and between those motivated by instrumental goals and those promoting a perceived “common good” (Risse, 2002). Transnational actors may also be categorized in terms of the different roles they perform in relation to states or intergovernmental bodies. One may, for instance, distinguish between lobbyists, acting as interest groups; partners, providing expertise or participate in common projects; adversaries, blaming and shaming governmental authorities; and functional substitutes for states, performing regulatory functions (Calliess and Steffek, 2009: 6–11). In short, the concept of transnational actors, as used in this volume, is an inclusive one. It renders the borderline between public and private, and between formal and informal, more diffuse; and it encompasses organizational as well as individual actors.

Global civil society The concept of civil society has been critical to the history of Western political thought. It concerns the problematic relation between the private and the public, between the individual and the social (Seligman, 1995: 5). Some trace it back to Ancient Rome and the notion of a community of citizens whose lives are regulated by a system of law (cf. Wapner,


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2007: 255). Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theorists of the French, Scottish and German Enlightenments developed the concept of civil society to refer to a realm in which citizens could relate to each other independent of, and sometimes in opposition to, the state. When the concept was “rediscovered” in the 1970s and 1980s and became a prominent analytical key to democratization after the fall of the Berlin Wall, these thinkers were a major source of inspiration. Given these very different resonances, it is no wonder that contemporary uses of the terms tend to be broad and often lack analytic rigor. The works of writers as diverse as Ferguson and Marx, Hegel and Adam Smith, Tocqueville and Gramsci are all invoked in the contemporary “rediscovery” of civil society (Seligman, 1995: 3). Ambiguities follow from the fact that civil society is used both normatively and descriptively. In its normative use, civil society refers to an ideal-type “civilized,” “just,” or “good” society. Descriptively, the language of civil society usually associates to various kinds of civicminded voluntary organizations and networks, opposing as well as complementing the state and the market. In any case, the term has been applied primarily to domestic societies. “Global civil society” is a neologism of the 1990s (Keane, 2003: 1). Its emergence is associated with globalization and its discontents and with new notions of “global governance.” The ambiguities of the original concept are, if anything, amplified when transferred to the global level. There is today much chatter about global civil society, but too little thinking about it. That is why the phrase “global civil society” must be used with caution. Like all other vocabularies with a political edge, its meaning is neither self-evident nor automatically free of prejudice. (Keane, 2003: 2) In fact, each of the three words – global, civil, society – can be, and has been, questioned. Is there a global civil society? Critics contend that the concept is a child of “the West” and reflects liberal, market-based rather than universal values (cf. Keane, 2003: 182–6). And the associations that allegedly embody “global civil society” are disproportionately located in the OECD area. Can we really speak of one global society? Skeptics may ask: “is global civil society a real ‘society’ or is it rather a ‘togetherness’, which brings to the same spaces of globality movements and organizations that in essence share very little?” (Ezzat, 2005: 46). One constructive suggestion is to speak of “a plurality of transnational publics rather than the singularity of a global civil society” (Olesen, 2005: 420). Another problematic


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aspect concerns the autonomy of global civil society from the state. Civil society presumes states that allow it to flourish and to occupy spaces not controlled by the state. If domestic civil society can never be completely insulated from the state, how can we imagine a global civil society in the absence of a global authority equivalent to the state? “Given the prehistory of this concept, it seems hard to make coherent sense of global civil society without invoking some kind of centralized governmental authority from which it supposedly is distinct” (Bartelson, 2006: 372). How civil is global civil society? John Keane (1998: 135) argues that “all known forms of civil society are plagued by endogenous sources of incivility” and speaks of “uncivil society.” While global civil society has traditionally been associated with “good” causes, it is increasingly obvious that the transnational sphere between states and markets includes “uncivil” criminal or terrorist organizations as well. Thus, in the words of one critical observer, “civil society everywhere is a bewildering array of the good, the bad, and the outright bizarre” (Carothers, 1999: 20). The link between civil society and democracy has been highlighted in domestic settings by Robert Putnam (1993) and others. This link recurs in discussion of global civil society. Whereas many emphasize its potentials to democratize global governance, critics point out that civil society organizations may provide a foundation of democratic states, but they are not the representative or electoral institutions of democracy. Yet the term global civil society is often used by social movements and NGOs to inflate and legitimize their roles in terms of “representativeness” and “intermediation.” Their claims to represent and speak on behalf of the people of the world in global governance go far beyond the more modest role of civil society organizations in domestic democratic societies (Anderson and Rieff, 2005: 30).

Networks The literature on transnational actors typically describes them as operating in networks, “loosely linked collectives of organizations and individuals that hold common values, exchange information about shared interests, and engage in a common discourse about critical issues” (Batliwala and Brown, 2006: 7). Networks represent a mode of organization that is characterized as informal, non-hierarchical, and non-territorial. As such, networks have been discussed by organization theorists focusing on interorganizational relations since the 1960s (cf. Aldrich and Whetten, 1981). More recently, Manuel Castells (1996) has characterized the contemporary


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reconfiguration of social and political space on the macro level as “the rise of the network society.” Network structures are then seen as the chief alternative to territorial units. The diverse uses of the network concept have only one thing in common: they describe a pattern of nodes and links between nodes (graphically represented as discrete points bound together by lines). In social networks the nodes are human beings, either individuals or collectives. Networks constitute informal constellations without official status. The nodes are typically individual representatives of organizations, and a crucial feature of these networks is that interorganizational relations are strengthened by interpersonal links. As informal coordination structures, networks are seen to be adaptable, provide for unhampered information, avoid representation problems, and generate trust (Chisholm, 1989). Informal networks often emerge in the shadow of, and tend to be useful complements to, formal structures. For example, students of the European Union claim that informal EU networks allow wide and flexible participation, reduce frictions and produce results that the formal system would not be able to achieve (Middlemas, 1995: xvi). Whereas most formal organizations are based on vertical, hierarchical authority, networks represent a more horizontal, “flat,” non-hierarchical mode of organization. To be sure, the degree of hierarchy or non-hierarchy may vary in networks, but basically they rest on links between interdependent actors. Networks are non-territorial in the sense that distance and proximity as well as the distinction between inside and outside are not understood in geographical terms, but are determined by whether one is hooked up to the network or not. One way to capture this reconfiguration is Castells’ (1996: 378) notion that the historically rooted spatial organization, “space of places,” is being superseded by “space of flows:” it is the flows and transactions within networks, rather than physical territory and places, that shape significant spatial patterns. In sum, organization in networks combines structure with flexibility. Networks represent more than fleeting encounters, but less than permanent institutions. For transnational actors, which lack the recognized status of states in different international forums, networking – either among themselves or with other types of actors – is a typical strategy.

Conclusion The prefix “trans” is of Latin origin, meaning “across,” “beyond” or “on the opposite side.” These connotations are reflected in the way the term


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“transnational” is used. It refers to actors, interactions, and flows that cross conventional borders, go beyond established patterns, and can be seen as an alternative to state-centric perspectives. In short, transnational phenomena are always understood in opposition to something else that implies some kind of orthodoxy: transnational vs. international, civil society vs. the state, network vs. hierarchy, etc. The binary spheres differentiated by the prefix “trans” are co-constituted, interpenetrating and “essentially embedded within a wider community of all mankind” (Bartelson, 2009: 11). The study of transnational phenomena challenges, yet builds on, academic disciplines that have long been premised on the existence and primacy of states. While not portending the demise of the state, conceptualizations of the transnational point to the changing role of governmental and intergovernmental actors in the contemporary world. Becoming current only in the second half of the twentieth century, the concepts treated in this chapter and the rest of the volume tend to emphasize the “newness” of the phenomena they purport to describe. However, this can be seen as another manifestation of the predominance of state-centric perspectives in the social sciences, which has tended to obscure the normality and perennial nature of transborder phenomena: While “new” transnationalism has been in focus during a relatively short period, the associated concepts have undergone significant change. Specifically, such terms as transnational, civil society and networks have been broadened to capture an ever widening range of agents, activities and interactions. This has not contributed to conceptual clarity but corroborates the postulate that “constant change appears to be the only truly constant thing about our political concepts.” (Farr, 1989: 24)

Notes 1. I am grateful to Jens Bartelson, Sara Kalm, Robert Keohane, Jan Aart Scholte, and Jonas Tallberg for constructive comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

References Ahmed, S. and D.M. Potter (2006) NGOs in International Politics (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press). Ahrne, G. and N. Brunsson (2008) Meta-organizations (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).


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Aldrich, H. and D.A. Whetten (1981) “Organization-Sets, Action-Sets, and Networks: Making the Most of Simplicity,” in P.C. Nystrom and W.H. Starbuck (eds) Handbook of Organizational Design, Volume 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Anderson, K. and D. Rieff (2005) “ ‘Global Civil Society’: A Sceptical View,” in H. Anheier, M. Glasius and M. Kaldor (eds) Global Civil Society 2004/5 (London: Sage). Aron, R. (1967) Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (New York: Praeger). Bartelson, J. (2006) “Making Sense of Global Civil Society,” European Journal of International Relations, 12: 371–95. Bartelson, J. (2009) Visions of World Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Batliwala, S. and L.D. Brown (2006) “Introduction: Why Transnational Civil Society Matters,” in S. Batliwara and L.D. Brown (eds) Transnational Civil Society: An Introduction (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press). Bell, P.D. (1971) “The Ford Foundation as a Transnational Actor,” in R.O. Keohane and J.S. Nye, Jr. (eds) Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Bexell, M. and U. Mörth (eds) (2010) Democracy and Public-Private Partnerships in Global Governance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Calliess, G.-P. and J. Steffek (2009) “Transnationalismus in Politik und Recht: Versuch such einer interdisziplinären Begriffsklärung,” unpublished paper, Sonderforschungsbereich ‘Staatlichkeit im Wandel,’ Universität Bremen. Carothers, T. (1999) “Civil Society,” Foreign Policy, 117: 18–29. Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society (Oxford: Blackwell). Charnovitz, S. (2006) “Nongovernmental Organizations and International Law,” American Journal of International Law, 100: 348–72. Chisholm, D. (1989) Coordination Without Hierarchy: Informal Structures in Multiorganizational Systems (Berkeley: University of California Press). Claude, I.L. (1957) “Review of Transnational Law by Philip C. Jessup and Morals, Law, and Power in International Relations by Percy E. Corbett,” American Political Science Review, 51: 1117–19. Cooper, A.F. (2008) Celebrity Diplomacy (Boulder, CO and London: Paradigm Publishers). DeMars, W. (2005) NGOs and Transnational Networks (London and Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press). Deutsch, K.W. et al. (1957) Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Dijkzeul, D. (2008) “Transnational Humanitarian NGOs? A Progress Report,” in L. Pries (ed.) Rethinking Transnationalism (London and New York: Routledge). Erman, E. and A. Uhlin (2010) “Conclusion: Transnational Actors and Global Democracy,” in E. Erman and A. Uhlin (eds) Legitimacy Beyond the State? Re-examining the Democratic Credentials of Transnational Actors (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Ezzat, H.R. (2005) “Beyond Methodological Modernism: Towards a Multicultural Paradigm Shift in the Social Sciences,” in H. Anheier, M. Glasius and M. Kaldor (eds) Global Civil Society 2004/5 (London: Sage).


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Farr, J. (1989) “Understanding Conceptual Change Politically,” in T. Ball, J. Farr and R.L. Hanson (eds) Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Ferguson, Y.H. and R.W. Mansbach (1996) Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press). Ghils, P. (1992) “International Civil Society: International Non-Governmental Organizations in the International System,” International Social Science Journal, 44: 417–29. Glasbergen, P. (2007) “Setting the Scene: The Partnership Paradigm in the Making,” in P. Glasbergen, F. Biermann and A.P.J. Mol (eds) Partnerships, Governance and Sustainable Development (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar). Gordenker, L. and T.G. Weiss (1995) “Pluralising Global Governance: Analytical Approaches and Dimensions,” Third World Quarterly, 16: 357–87. Götz, N. (2008) “Reframing NGOs: The Identity of an International Relations Non-Starter,” European Journal of international Relations, 14: 231–58. Hannerz, U. (1996) Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places (London and New York: Routledge). Herman, G. (1987) Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Honig, F. (1958) “Review of Transnational Law by Philip C. Jessup,” International Affairs, 34: 78–9. Huntington, S.P. (1973) “Transnational Organizations in World Politics,” World Politics, 25: 333–68. Iriye, A. (1999) “A Century of NGOs,” Diplomatic History, 23: 421–35. Jessup, P.C. (1956) Transnational Law (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). Jönsson, C. and M. Hall (2005) Essence of Diplomacy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Jönsson, C., S. Tägil and G. Törnqvist (2000) Organizing European Space (London: Sage). Kaiser, K. (1969) “Transnationale Politik,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 10, Sonderheft 1: 80–109. Kaldor, M. (2003) “The Idea of Global Civil Society,” International Affairs, 79: 583–93. Keane, J. (1998) Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions (Cambridge: Polity Press). Keane, J. (2003) Global Civil Society? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Keohane, R.O. and J.S. Nye, Jr. (eds) (1971) Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Khagram, S. and P. Levitt (2008) “Constructing Transnational Studies,” in L. Pries (ed.) Rethinking Transnationalism (London and New York: Routledge). Kofman, E. and G. Youngs (1996) “Introduction: Globalization – the Second Wave,” in E. Kofman and G. Youngs (eds) Globalization: Theory and Practice (London: Pinter). Krasner, S.D. (1999) Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Loewenstein, K. (1953) “Political Systems, Ideologies, and Institutions: The Problem of Their Circulation,” Western Political Quarterly, 6: 689–706. McAdam, D., J.D. McCarthy and M.N. Zald (1996) “Introduction: Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Framing Processes – Toward a Synthetic, Comparative Perspective on Social Movements,” in D. McAdam, J.D. McCarthy


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and M.N. Zald (eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). McDonald, K. (2002) “From Solidarity to Fluidarity: Social Movements beyond ‘Collective Identity’ – the Case of Globalization Conflicts,” Social Movement Studies, 1: 109–28. Middlemas, K. (1995) Orchestrating Europe: The Informal Politics of European Union 1973–1995 (London: Fontana Press). Nye, J.S., Jr. and R.O. Keohane (1971a) “Transnational Relations and World Politics: An Introduction,” in R.O. Keohane and J.S. Nye, Jr. (eds) Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Nye, J.S., Jr. and R.O. Keohane (1971b) “Transnational Relations and World Politics: A Conclusion,” in R.O. Keohane and J.S. Nye, Jr. (eds) Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Olesen, T. (2005) “Transnational Publics: New Spaces of Social Movement Activism and the Problem of Global Long-Sightedness,” Current Sociology, 53: 419–40. Peterson, M.J. (1992) “Transnational Activity, International Society and World Politics,” Millennium, 21: 371–88. Pickett, R.E. (1952) “Education at Transnational Level,” Journal of Educational Sociology, 26(4): 146–8. Pries, L. (2008) “Transnational Societal Spaces: Which Units of Analysis, Reference and Measurement?” in L. Pries (ed.) Rethinking Transnationalism (London and New York: Routledge). Putnam, R.D. (1993) Making Democracy Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Risse, T. (2002) “Transnational Actors and World Politics,” in W. Carlsnaes, T. Risse and B.A. Simmons (eds) Handbook of International Relations (London: Sage). Risse-Kappen, T. (1995a) “Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Introduction,” in T. Risse-Kappen (ed.) Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Risse-Kappen, T. (1995b) “Structures of Governance and Transnational Relations: What Have We Learned?” in T. Risse-Kappen (ed.) Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Risse-Kappen, T. (1995c) “Structures of Governance and Transnational Relations: What Have We Learned?” in T. Risse-Kappen (ed.) Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Sahlin-Andersson, K. (2006) “Corporate Social Responsibility: A Trend and a Movement, but of What and for What?” Corporate Governance, 6: 595–608. Sassen, S. (1998) Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: The New Press). Scholte, J.A. (1996) “Beyond the Buzzword: Towards a Critical Theory of Globalization,” in E. Kofman and G. Youngs (eds) Globalization: Theory and Practice (London: Pinter). Scholte, J.A. (2000) Globalization: A Critical Introduction (New York: St. Martin’s Press). Seligman, A.B. (1995) The Idea of Civil Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press).


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Sökefeld, M. (2006) “Mobilizing in Transnational Space: A Social Movement Approach to the Formation of Diaspora,” Global Networks, 6: 265–84. Touraine, A. (2002) “The Importance of Social Movements,” Social Movement Studies, 1: 89–95. Vernon, R. (1971) Sovereignty at Bay: The Multinational Spread of U.S. Enterprises (New York: Basic Books). Waltz, K.N. (1979) Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: AddisonWesley). Wapner, P. (2007) “Civil Society,” in T.G. Weiss and S. Daws (eds) The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press). Wells, L.T., Jr. (1971) “The Multinational Business Enterprise: What Kind of International Organization?” in R.O. Keohane and J.S. Nye, Jr. (eds) Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Willetts, P. (1982) “Pressure Groups as Transnational Actors,” in P. Willetts (ed.) Pressure Groups in the Global System (London: Frances Pinter). Wolfers, A. (1962) Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press).


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3 Transnational Access to International Institutions: Three Approaches Jonas Tallberg

When, why, and how do transnational actors (TNAs) gain access to international institutions?1 While a prominent trend in global governance in recent years is an increasing tendency for states and international institutions to involve TNAs as policy experts, service providers, and compliance watchdogs, the understanding of the factors that shape such participation is still weak.2 The purpose of this chapter is to lay the ground for systematic research on transnational access, by proposing three analytical approaches, informed by rational choice institutionalism, sociological institutionalism, and power-oriented institutionalism.3 For each approach, I explain the general theoretical logic and identify testable hypotheses, paying specific attention to expected patterns of variation across time, institutions, policy phases, and actors.4 The first approach privileges concerns about functional efficiency. It highlights the benefits to states and international institutions of engaging TNAs in order to fulfill functions they are unable or less well positioned to conduct themselves. This approach expects transnational access to vary systematically with functional demands for technical expertise, policy implementation, and monitoring in international cooperation. The second approach privileges concerns about democratic legitimacy. It suggests that we have witnessed the emergence and spread of a new norm of legitimate governance at the global level, requiring international institutions to involve representatives of global civil society to be regarded as democratically legitimate. This approach expects practices of transnational access to become increasingly homogeneous, as this norm is diffused and consolidated. The third approach privileges concerns about power implications. It suggests that states exploit TNAs as 45


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instruments for gaining additional leverage within international institutions, supporting access for like-minded actors and opposing access for adversarial actors. This approach expects the pattern of transnational access to reflect the preferences of the most powerful states. I conclude the chapter by addressing the question of whether these approaches are best considered competing or complementary, once we move from theoretical specification to empirical research. I argue in favor of an agenda of theoretical dialogue, and outline three alternative models for such dialogue: competitive testing of hypotheses, additive explanatory power, and complementary domains of application.

The functional efficiency of transnational access The first analytical approach to transnational access emphasizes the expected functional benefits to states and international institutions of engaging TNAs. This approach is informed by rational choice institutionalism, which perceives institutional design in functionalist terms, explaining the creation and form of a particular institution with the benefits it is expected to produce. In this view, the decision to offer TNAs access to international policy-making is a deliberate design choice, motivated by the expectation of distinct functional gains. TNAs are seen as capable of fulfilling a set of tasks in international cooperation that states and institutions are unable or less well positioned to conduct themselves. Notably, TNAs may contribute technical expertise, policy implementation, and monitoring of commitments, thus helping states to address information asymmetries, efficiency problems, and crediblecommitment dilemmas. This approach predicts that transnational access will vary systematically with the pattern of demand for these functions in global governance. Theoretical logic The analytical bedrock of this approach is the proposition that institutions are created and designed to address shortcomings in the market or the political system as a means of producing collectively desirable outcomes (Weingast and Marshall, 1988; Williamson, 1975). In the study of international cooperation, this explanation has been deployed to account for the demand for international institutions (Keohane, 1984; Martin, 1992), the delegation of power to international institutions (Hawkins et al., 2006; Tallberg, 2002), and the design of international institutions (Abbott and Snidal, 2000; Koremenos et al., 2001). Typically, the establishment, form, and survival of international institutions have


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been explained with reference to their capacity to help states overcome collective-action dilemmas, related to high transaction costs, information asymmetries, and enforcement problems. Recognizing that not all areas of governance are subject to the same dilemmas, or dilemmas of identical intensity, rational choice institutionalists have introduced the nature of cooperation problems as a factor explaining variation in international institutions (Rittberger and Zürn, 1990; Stein, 1983). When applied to the context of transnational actor participation in global governance, rational choice institutionalism generates a distinct interpretation of the relationship between states, international institutions, and TNAs. Most fundamentally, it perceives states as rational actors that collectively make deliberate choices about the degree and form of transnational access to international institutions, based on assessments of the functional benefits that TNAs may bring in any given context. Transnational access, in this sense, is not different from other dimensions of institutional design, which rational choice institutionalists expect to vary with functional demands. Kal Raustiala offers the most explicitly formulated rational functionalist account to date, submitting that states gain rather than lose in authority as a product of NGO participation: “Rather than undermining state sovereignty, active NGO participation enhances the abilities of states to regulate globally. The empirical pattern of NGO participation has been structured across time and functional areas to reap these gains” (Raustiala, 1997: 719). Others offer more implicit functionalist observations. Miles Kahler (2005: 31) notes that “[t]he pattern of delegation, accountability and participation in [global economic multilaterals] is not primarily the result of inadvertence or agency deviation; it is the result of design by member governments.” Similarly, Robert O’Brien and colleagues (2000: 18) find in a comprehensive volume that multilateral economic institutions engage global social movements, not primarily because of a commitment to openness and democratization, but because “social movements have something the MEIs need.” This interpretation has distinct affinities with rationalist resource-dependency theory, as developed in organizational sociology and exemplified in the contributions of Jens Steffek and Andrea Liese to this volume. What, then, are the functions that TNAs may perform to the benefit of states and international institutions? Rational choice institutionalism directs our attention to the advantages of TNAs in addressing problems related to information asymmetry, efficiency, and credible commitments. First, the issues to be governed are frequently sufficiently complex to give rise to information deficits in international cooperation. The


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complexity pertains both to the policy options available and the effects of alternative policy choices, often brought together under the rubric of uncertainty about the state of the world. Unless such deficits in information are alleviated, it will be more difficult for states to coordinate efficient regulatory responses. TNAs, specializing in gathering, analyzing, and offering policy expertise, constitute valuable partners for states in this context. Moreover, this information is generally provided for free, allowing states to move research costs off-budget, and offered by a plurality of independent actors, granting a check on bias and exaggeration (Raustiala, 1997: 727). Second, engaging TNAs may help improve policy efficiency. While states are intent on setting the parameters of cooperation, putting policies into effect frequently requires programmatic activities in the field that neither states nor institutions are optimally adapted for. As Kim Reimann (2006: 64) notes: “Lacking a strong infrastructure for international governance, both states and IGOs have increasingly had to rely on NGOs to fill in institutional gaps and help them achieve their stated goals.” A prominent example is found in the area of foreign and humanitarian aid, where states and international organizations frequently subcontract operations to NGOs, in view of their flexibility, cost efficiency, and capacity to reach the target population. Third, TNAs may help states to secure the credibility of their commitments. Since states will be reluctant to sign on to agreements that require costly domestic adjustments, unless they have some form of guarantee that others will do their part as well, they have an interest in designing arrangements for monitoring and enforcement. Relying on TNAs as “fire-alarms,” offering indirect and decentralized monitoring of state compliance, constitutes a cost-efficient and sovereignty-friendly alternative to direct and centralized “police-patrol” oversight through international institutions (McCubbins and Schwartz, 1984; Raustiala, 2004). As concerned advocates and defenders of international regimes, NGOs both devote considerable resources to the monitoring of state commitments and have an interest in supplying this information (Mitchell, 1998). Likewise, individuals, firms, and organizations negatively affected by state non-compliance have strong incentives to report violations and challenge states in national and international courts (Alter, 2006). Hypotheses and expectations This approach to transnational access translates into the general hypothesis that states collectively will structure the participation of


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TNAs in global governance to match identifiable functional needs, typically, policy-relevant information, efficient implementation and monitoring of commitments. Transnational access is thus expected to vary across time, institutions, policy phases, and actors, reflecting the relative intensity of these problems and the benefits that TNAs may bring. The effect would be a systematic, rather than random, pattern of TNA access to international institutions. This approach expects variation over time in transnational access as a product of differences in the nature and intensity of the problems to be governed. A move toward cooperation in areas that involve a higher level of uncertainty, more programmatic activities, and greater incentives for non-compliance would thus translate into increasing demand for TNAs as providers of expertise, implementation, and monitoring. In this vein, Michael Zürn and collaborators (2007) suggest that the dual trends of supranationalization and transnationalization in world politics are the product of a shift in cooperation toward behind-the-border issues, imposing greater adjustment requirements and new governance challenges. In a similar fashion, Matthias Staisch (2004: 16) hypothesizes that states increasingly enlist TNAs in order to meet continuing demands for effective problem-solving, while constrained by globalization. Raustiala (1997: 732), finally, explains the growing involvement of TNAs in global environmental governance with a move toward more demanding problems: The major regimes of the 1980s and 1990s – ozone depletion, transboundary air pollution, hazardous wastes, climate change, and biodiversity – are more complex and more demanding than most of the earlier resource regimes. They require greater levels of implementation and adjustment, and address important, often central, economic activities. They are also the regimes that have the greatest NGO participation and the most inclusive rules governing participation. Following the same logic, we would expect variation across international institutions in the openness toward TNAs depending on the issues they govern. As Steffek suggests in this volume, international institutions operate in policy fields that vary in the extent to which they generate demands for the resources that TNAs may bring (see also Steffek et al., 2008). TNAs would be more likely to be enlisted in issue-areas characterized by high rather than low complexity. In this vein, the extensive involvement of NGOs in the area of environmental governance is frequently explained with reference to the high level of uncertainty and great demand for policy information in this field (e.g., Betsill


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and Corell, 2008; Raustiala, 1997). Likewise, international institutions would be more likely to involve TNAs if they operate in an issue-area requiring implementation through programmatic activities in the field. This is the favored explanation for the great reliance on NGOs as service providers in the fields of foreign and humanitarian aid (Reimann, 2006). Finally, TNAs would be more likely to enjoy access to enforcement mechanisms when international institutions operate in issue-areas that regulate the behavior of governments vis-à-vis their citizens, or present strong incentives for defection in combination with an absence of alternative forms of oversight. The growing expansion of private access to international courts, especially in the area of human rights, is an institutional pattern attributed to this logic (Alter, 2006). This approach also generates expectations of variation across the phases of the policy cycle. Whereas policy information is attractive at the agendasetting stage, programmatic services at the implementation stage, and monitoring at the enforcement stage, there is no corresponding functional advantage of TNAs at the decision-making stage (see also Steffek, 2008). On the contrary, there may be a disadvantage in involving TNAs. As Raustiala (1997: 733) notes: “When governments desire secrecy to air possible compromises, or are at the stage of logrolling once positions have solidified, they may find NGO participation undesirable or not useful.” This may help explain the pattern that governments are relatively reluctant to grant TNAs access to decision-making bodies, and that they frequently develop new, informal mechanisms of negotiation, in those cases where NGOs gain access to formal arenas (Albin, 1999). Finally, if this approach correctly captures the motives driving access, we would expect states and international institutions to discriminate among the TNAs invited to participate, giving rise to variation across TNAs. Much as principals design ex ante mechanisms for selecting among potential agents, international institutions are likely to introduce procedures to screen and select among TNAs. In this process, we would expect them to give low priority to issues of representativeness and distribution, and high priority to the functional contribution of these actors. The procedure of accreditation, requiring TNAs to apply for access to international conferences and bodies, and be assessed on the basis of their functional contribution, may be understood in these terms (Willetts, 2006: 312–13).

The democratic legitimacy of transnational access The second theoretical approach to transnational access privileges norm dynamics in global governance. This approach is informed by


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sociological institutionalism and constructivism in IR, which direct our attention to processes of norm diffusion and institutional mimicking as the sources of institutional design. According to this interpretation, we have witnessed the spread and consolidation of a new norm of what constitutes legitimate governance at the global level. This norm conceives of NGOs as representatives of an emerging global civil society, whose organized participation can address the democratic deficits of traditional international institutions. States and institutions have either come to adopt this norm through socialization, or adapted strategically to it for purposes of legitimizing existing governance structures. The norm originates from multiple sources: international law, development ideology, normative democratic theory, and domestic political structures. This approach predicts that practices of transnational access will become increasingly homogeneous, with extant differences explained by variation in the spread and consolidation of the norm of global participatory democracy. Theoretical logic The analytical foundation of this approach is the notion that institutions reflect broadly shared ideas and norms of what constitutes appropriate and legitimate modes of governance (March and Olsen, 1989; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Scott, Mayer and associates, 1994). In this view, institutional design is a process in which low priority is given to concerns of efficiency, relative to concerns of legitimacy. Actors adopt certain procedures and practices, not because they necessarily are the most efficient, but because they constitute collectively legitimated institutional models. The emergence and spread of new norms typically gives rise to the phenomenon of isomorphism – the diffusion and homogenization of institutional models across functional domains. In the study of international relations, broadly conceived, this explanation has been used to account for, as an example, the liberal economic order of the post-war period (Ruggie, 1983), the growth in international NGOs (Boli and Thomas, 1999), the diffusion of central bank independence as an institutional model (McNamara, 2002), and the dysfunctionality of international institutions (Barnett and Finnemore, 2004). When taken as a theoretical starting point for analyzing transnational access in global governance, sociological institutionalism generates an interpretation that differs considerably from that of rational choice institutionalism. More specifically, it suggests that the tendency of international institutions to create mechanisms of participation for TNAs reflects the spread and consolidation of a new norm of legitimate global governance. According to this norm, international institutions,


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because of the domestic impact of their decisions, must involve representatives of civil society in the policy-making process. Indirect representation through national governments is no longer a sufficient source of democratic legitimacy, but must be supplemented with mechanisms of direct societal participation. In the “thick” constructivist version, states have reformed the practices and procedures of international institutions, because they have become socialized into believing in the superior democratic legitimacy of this model. In the “thin” constructivist version, states have strategically introduced and strengthened access for TNAs because they recognize the social legitimacy that this confers on the institution (O’Brien et al., 2000). What, then, explains the emergence, spread, and consolidation of this particular norm? While only rarely adopting sociological institutionalism as the explicit theoretical framework, empirical work points to four parallel paths of norm development: international law, development ideology, normative democratic theory, and domestic political structures. First, international law is interpreted by some analysts as establishing the principle that NGOs have a right to participate in global governance. More specifically, Article 71 of the UN Charter states that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) “may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence.” In a set of contributions, this article is presented as the source of the broad expansion of NGO participation within and beyond the UN system (Charnovitz, 1997; Reimann, 2006; Weiss and Gordenker, 1996; Willetts, 2000). Steve Charnovitz (1997: 253) submits that “Article 71 set a benchmark for other U.N. agencies,” whereas Peter Willetts (2000: 205), having reviewed the changing status of NGOs in the UN, concludes: The rock on which all this activity has been built is Article 71 of the UN Charter and the arrangements made in the late 1940s to bring it into effect. With more than fifty years of practice reaffirmed by consensus in each of the three major reviews, in 1950, 1968, and 1996, and gradually extended to all UN conferences, the provisions of the NGO statute can now be regarded as part of customary international law. Second, the area of development aid in the 1980s underwent an ideational paradigm shift away from state-led development and toward participatory development, relying on civil society organizations as promoters of bottom-up development. This brought about a new proNGO norm, which first emerged among bilateral aid agencies and


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private foundations, and subsequently was adopted by the UN, the World Bank, and other international development agencies. “According to the new pro-NGO norm, in order to be a properly functioning free market and democratic nation in the 1990s and 2000s, it was now necessary to have a flourishing ‘civil society’ sector that included NGOs and other citizen-organized groups” (Reimann, 2006: 59). As part of this process, the international donor community actively promoted the use, participation, and growth of NGOs worldwide, persuading, pressuring, and teaching developing and transitional countries to accept and encourage NGOs. Third, the early 1990s witnessed the emergence of a new discourse on global democracy, with activists and academics increasingly portraying international institutions as suffering from “democratic deficits” when measured against traditional standards of democracy, such as participation, accountability, and transparency. In this context, TNAs were typically conceptualized as representatives of global civil society, whose participation in international policy-making held the promise of a democratization of global governance. This discourse first arose in relation to the EU, but later spread to other international institutions, notably the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, the G7, and central UN bodies. Activists voiced criticism against the intergovernmental mode of decision-making in these institutions and staged popular protests in association with summits. Academics, for their part, offered diagnoses of democratic deficits and suggested potential remedies, drawing on alternative models of democracy (e.g., Held, 1995; Schmitter, 2000; Scholte, 2002). Reflecting the strength of this discourse, there is near-agreement today among scholars that international institutions suffer from democratic deficits (Moravcsik, 2005: 212; Zürn, 2005: 136). Fourth and finally, scholars have related the development of a norm of global participatory democracy to the influence of democratic states within international institutions, deriving standards of appropriate behavior from domestic political structures (Grigorescu, 2007: 632–3; Staisch, 2004: 18–19). According to this argument, states export domestic procedural norms to international institutions. The trend toward growing participation of TNAs thus reflects the normative consensus on pluralist democracy in many dominating states in global governance, as well as in an increasing number of newly established democracies. Applying a consistent set of procedural standards to all levels of political organizations, democracies generate processes of normative spillover from the national to the international level.


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Hypotheses and expectations This approach to transnational access generates the broad hypothesis that states will open up international institutions to civil society actors, as a product of the emergence, spread, and consolidation of a new norm of global participatory democracy, originating from international law, development ideology, normative democratic theory, and domestic political standards. The general prediction is one of increasing homogenization in the level and form of transnational access, as this norm and the organizational model it privileges diffuse across time and space. Extant differences in institutional procedures would be explained by unevenness in the spread and consolidation of this norm. The most distinct expectation of this approach pertains to variation over time, where it predicts growing transnational access, as the norm of global participatory democracy emerges, spreads, and becomes consolidated, following a life cycle pattern (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998). In fact, most contributions to this approach were formulated to explain the continuous expansion of transnational participation. Accounts emphasizing the progression of international law take the UN Charter as their starting point and trace how the principle of NGO participation over the next half decade diffused within the UN system. Studies highlighting the paradigm shift in development ideology center on the emergence of a pro-NGO norm in the 1980s, and its subsequent institutionalization during the 1990s within international institutions. The emergence of a new discourse on global democracy, cultivated by activists and academics, is also perceived as a development unfolding over time, with an increasing number of international institutions being diagnosed as suffering from democratic deficits, culminating in states responding to the criticism through institutional reforms. Finally, the idea that states export domestic procedural standards to international institutions can help explain growing transnational access, if we recognize that the number of democracies in the international system has increased over time. Variation across institutions is typically interpreted in this approach as a reflection of the pattern of norm diffusion. While structural isomorphism in transnational access is the hypothesized end result, homogenization must be viewed as a process, in which some international institutions adapt earlier than others, as the norm of global participatory democracy spreads throughout the population. This is the story often implicitly told in cross-temporal accounts of transnational access, where the spread of this norm is evidenced through its pattern of contagion. It will be expected that the norm spreads most easily among


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bodies operating within the same broad institutional framework, just as the rules on NGO participation in ECOSOC served as a template for other bodies in the UN system, and the civil society forum of the UN conference in Rio in 1992 served as a model at subsequent UN megasummits (Bäckstrand, 2006: 470). Moreover, it would be expected that this norm would spread easily among international institutions operating in the same geographical region, featuring identical or overlapping memberships. Finally, we would expect international institutions with democratic members to be more open to transnational participation than those whose members are not democratic. However, this approach faces challenges in accounting for variation across the phases of the policy cycle. There is no a priori reason why state representatives and international officials, socialized into believing in a specific norm or adopting it for strategic reasons, would systematically favor transnational participation in one phase, but not another. Neither is the norm of global participatory democracy specific to one or several phases of the policy cycle. With regard to variation across TNAs, this approach generates the expectation that states and international institutions pay special attention to the democratic qualities of the TNAs invited to participate. If TNAs are to serve as representatives of global civil society, whose participation confers legitimacy on international institutions, then care must be taken to ensure that the included TNAs collectively are representative of the broader population, and individually are democratic in both decision-making procedures and working methods. We would thus expect screening mechanisms to privilege the democratic credentials of TNAs, rather than to select participants on the basis of functional contribution or state distribution. The emergence of more generous accreditation rules in the UN in the 1990s, permitting greater participation of NGOs from the developing world, has been interpreted in these terms (Reimann, 2006: 58).

The power implications of transnational access The third approach to transnational access emphasizes the expected power implications of involving TNAs. This approach is informed by power-oriented institutionalism and realism in IR, which conceive of actors as driven by distributional considerations and of institutions as the product of negotiations among actors with asymmetric power resources. It suggests that TNAs constitute instruments of state power, and that the interaction between states, institutions, and TNAs is


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structured in favor of the great powers. States individually exploit TNAs to gain additional leverage within international institutions, backing participation by TNAs that support their interests, and opposing participation by TNAs that challenge their interests. This approach predicts that the pattern of transnational access will reflect the distribution of state power within international institutions, and vary systematically with the preferences of the most powerful states. Theoretical logic The central theoretical premise of this approach is the notion that institutions constitute reflections of the distribution of power among the negotiating actors (Knight, 1992; Moe, 2005). Asymmetries in resources shape the bargaining power of actors in a social relationship which, in turn, explains the distributional terms of negotiated institutions. In its IR variant, this approach suggests that international institutions typically are created at the initiative of the most powerful states in the international system, and designed to disproportionately serve their interests (Mearsheimer, 1994/5). International institutions are thus epiphenomenal to state interests, and constitute arenas for acting out power relations, rather than independent constraints on state behavior. States are perceived as motivated by relative gains, and therefore reluctant to participate in institutions and negotiations that risk producing distributional outcomes to their relative disadvantage. In the study of international cooperation, this approach has been advanced to explain, for instance, the limits to international trade liberalization (Grieco, 1990), the distributional terms of global communications regimes (Krasner, 1991), the capacity of the founding states of NAFTA and the EMU to dictate the terms of cooperation (Gruber, 2000), and the dominance of the United States and the European Union in international regulatory regimes (Drezner, 2007). When applied to the context of transnational access in global governance, this approach produces a distinct interpretation of the relationship between states, international institutions, and TNAs. Instead of privileging efficiency or legitimacy, it emphasizes power as the driving concern of states in shaping the terms of transnational participation. The very rise of TNAs on the international stage in the post-war period is explained with reference to the interests of the most powerful states, in particular the United States (Gilpin, 1975). Rather than actors in their own right, transnational organizations are regarded as an extended arm of the state, serving the national interest (Krasner, 1978). This argument is best developed with regard to multinational corporations, but may


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be extended to non-profit-oriented actors as well. In this view, states enlist TNAs in international policy-making where this helps to advance national power, and resist their participation where this poses a challenge to their interests. Just like the functionalist perspective on transnational access, this approach recognizes that TNAs perform tasks that benefit states, such as offering policy expertise, providing services, and monitoring commitments. Yet, unlike the functionalist perspective, this approach emphasizes that these are not neutral functions, but activities that benefit some states more than others, depending on the preferences and the distribution of TNAs. Moreover, it suggests that the most powerful states have a disproportionate capacity to structure the terms of transnational access, by using their superior resources to coax and cajole weaker states into accepting institutional arrangements in their favor. More specifically, this approach generates expectations of three forms of dynamics with regard to transnational participation, based on concerns over relative power: support for like-minded actors, opposition to antagonistic actors, and reinforcement of existing power structures. First, states will advocate establishing and expanding means of transnational access to international institutions where the dominant TNAs are like-minded. Involving these actors as biased participants may generate additional leverage within an institution and help swing distributional outcomes. Environmental governance is one domain where this dynamic has been observed: “Developing countries appear to have supported wide-scale NGO participation as part of the broader North-South environmental bargain, because they often are most in need of NGO expertise, and because NGOs frequently support developing country requests for resource transfers” (Raustiala, 1997: 731). Another illustration is the support of developing countries for an extension throughout the UN system of the right for NGOs to participate: “The developing countries wanted to recruit NGOs as allies in the international financial institutions – the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – because almost all development NGOs share the critique of the Group of 77 (G-77) of structural adjustment programs and the free market philosophy” (Willetts, 2000: 199). Second, and conversely, states will oppose transnational access when the dominant TNAs pursue competing interests. Just as states are reluctant to agree to institutional innovations that reduce their formal weight within international institutions, they will combat reforms strengthening the transnational allies of their competitors. A pertinent example is the opposition of developing countries to transnational participation


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in the WTO, because of the bias of the NGO community in favor of labor rights and environmental protection. As Miles Kahler (2005: 29) explains: The centre of support for NGOs backing environmental, labour and consumer protection lay overwhelmingly in the industrialized countries. ... For the developing countries, then, incorporating the NGOs into WTO decision-making would represent an additional tilt in organizational power towards the industrialized countries. By circumventing the chain of delegation from national politics, the NGOs would permit the industrialized world a form of double counting in its representation at the WTO. Third, where states agree on institutional arrangements for transnational participation, these are likely to be structured in favor of the most powerful states, thus manifesting the existing distribution of power. Whereas the adoption of new institutional rules generally requires the consent of all parties, great powers have privileged access to instruments of coercion and inducement that allow them to manage opposition and advance their preferred institutional outcomes. Moreover, once TNAs have been enlisted to perform valuable functions, the dominant states continue to dictate the terms of engagement. As Daniel Drezner (2007: 73) suggests: “Great power governments can act like a board of directors: states devolve regime management to an NGO, while still ensuring that they can influence any renegotiation of the rules of the game.” Weak states, for their part, will be compensated for their acquiescence and ultimately agree to institutional reforms, as long as these do not further aggravate their relative standing. In this sense, provisions for transnational participation may be seen as a logrolling arrangement, biased in favor of the most powerful states. Hypotheses and expectations This approach generates the broad hypothesis that institutional arrangements for transnational access will reflect the power and preferences of states, with generous terms for participation where TNAs predominantly promote the interests of the most powerful states, and restrictive terms where TNAs broadly challenge the interests of the great powers. Variation in transnational access is expected to be the product of differences across time and institutional contexts, in the preferences of the most powerful states and the predominant orientation of TNAs.


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This approach would expect patterns of variation over time to reflect the interests of the dominant states in such a development. Much as the growth of multinational corporations in the post–World War period was a product of US economic hegemony, the growth of NGO participation in past decades would reflect the preferences of the great powers in global governance. In this vein, Drezner (2007) argues that the United States and the European Union jointly have dominated central international regulatory regimes negotiated in recent decades, and structured the participation of NGOs to their advantage. NGOs perform valuable functions that help states to manage interdependence in a globalized world, but the terms of their access are determined by the great powers, and they do not impact on distributive outcomes. The pattern in recent years of some categories of NGOs being extensively financed by resourceful and sympathetic states could be cited as an additional expression of this development. Following the same logic, this approach would expect variation across international institutions in transnational access to reflect differences in the configuration of preferences of the most powerful states. Where international institutions are dominated by different sets of great powers, varying approaches to transnational access is a probable and unsurprising pattern. Yet, even with the same set of powerful states, international institutions display variation, because of shifting great power preferences as regards NGO participation. In the UN context, for instance, the United States has favored NGO involvement in environmental, economic, and social questions, but blocked NGOs from participating in bodies addressing issues of arms control, disarmament, and international conflict (Willetts, 2000: 198–9). This approach encounters greater challenges in explaining variation across the phases of the policy cycle. While it remains hypothetically possible that the great powers adopt different positions toward NGO involvement in different policy phases, there is no theoretical reason to expect such a pattern. Finally, it is a central expectation of this approach that there will be systematic variation across TNAs in their opportunities to participate in international policy-making. More specifically, TNAs whose agendas favor the interests of the most powerful states are more likely to be offered access, whereas TNAs that challenge the interests of the great powers face poorer prospects. This may be the result of powerful states setting the overall level of transnational access, or of powerful states shaping the instruments for screening TNAs, such as the principles governing accreditation procedures. While the early realist analysis of


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transnational relations assumed that states favored actors (multinational companies) with a home base in the country (Krasner, 1978), this is an unnecessarily restrictive assumption for a modern realist analysis of NGO participation in global governance. Northern NGOs, for instance, are sometimes pursuing agendas that are biased in favor of developing rather than developed countries. We should therefore expect the policy orientations of NGOs, rather than the geographic location of headquarters, to shape the terms of access to international institutions.

Conclusion: competing or complementary approaches? The opening up of international institutions to TNAs is one of the most profound changes in global governance over the past quarter of a century. Yet, so far, theory-informed analyses of the sources of transnational access and its variation across dimensions of political organization have been in short supply. While devoting extensive and rewarding attention to the influence of TNAs, the design of international institutions, and the democratic qualities of global governance, IR scholars have been slow to address transnational access, mainly offering single-case studies that are rich in description, but poor in linking empirical findings to general theories. The purpose of this chapter has been to take a first step toward addressing this gap. Drawing on rational choice institutionalism, sociological institutionalism, and power-oriented institutionalism, I have outlined three distinct theoretical approaches, privileging alternative explanatory factors. Table 3.1 summarizes the expectations they generate regarding variation in transnational access across time, institutions, policy phases, and actors. Yet how, exactly, may these approaches be used to structure the empirical study of transnational access to international institutions? I conclude this chapter by outlining three alternative models of theoretical dialogue, building on other recent efforts (Jupille et al., 2003; March and Olsen, 2006). This agenda rests on a number of important assumptions. To start with, it recognizes that there is more than one plausible way of explaining patterns of transnational access, and that the only way forward, therefore, is through theoretical dialogue, by way of either comparison or synthesis. Moreover, it assumes that the ontological differences that exist between the three approaches do not prevent dialogue at the level of empirical testing. While departing from different meta-theoretical assumptions about the nature of actors and politics, these approaches are not necessarily incommensurable at an


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Transnational Access: Three Approaches 61 Table 3.1 Transnational access to international institutions: theories and hypotheses Functional efficiency

Democratic legitimacy

Power implications

Variation over time

Access more likely as cooperation moves into areas subject to greater collective-action problems.

Access more likely as the norm of global participatory democracy spreads and becomes consolidated.

Access more likely as the great powers find this to be in their strategic interest.

Variation across international institutions

Access more likely in institutions in areas characterized by great uncertainty, efficiency problems, and noncompliance incentives.

Access patterns likely to be similar in institutions within the same organizational frame or with the same members.

Access more likely in institutions where TNAs predominantly favor great power interests.

Variation across policy phases

Access more likely in agenda-setting, implementation, and enforcement than in decisionmaking.

Access not expected to vary by stage in the policy cycle.

Access not expected to vary by stage in the policy cycle.

Variation across TNAs

Access more likely for actors that offer functional contribution.

Access more likely for actors with democratic qualities.

Access more likely for actors promoting great power interests.

Dimensions

operational, problem-oriented level, where they point to alternative causes of the same empirical phenomenon. The first model of theoretical dialogue is competitive testing of the hypotheses generated by the three approaches to transnational access. The purpose is not to engage in the illusory exercise of “falsifying” theoretical approaches, but to compare the explanatory power of specific hypotheses in given empirical domains. Where theories predict the same empirical outcome (observational equivalence), the challenge is to disentangle their relative explanatory power, for instance, by specifying the kind of empirical process trails that alternative causes would give rise to. Where theories, by contrast, predict alternative empirical outcomes, observation of the dependent variable may in itself be sufficient


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to adjudicate between rival hypotheses. The subject of transnational access offers examples of both situations. All three approaches would, for instance, predict a high level of transnational access in UN environmental cooperation, characterized by uncertainty and non-compliance incentives, strong norms of civil society engagement, and an NGO community that often shares the agenda of dominant industrialized countries. Conversely, the three approaches give rise to two competing predictions as regards variation across the policy cycle, where only rational functionalism expects the level of transnational access to vary with the stages of the policy process. The second model of theoretical dialogue explores the scope for additive explanatory power. Much as in multivariate models in quantitative research, the purpose is to arrive at the greatest possible combined explanatory power in relation to a given variation in the dependent variable. As opposed to competitive testing, this model is driven not by the ambition to identify the single most important explanation, but by the ambition to provide the most comprehensive account. While there is an obvious risk for outcomes to become overdetermined when this strategy is employed in qualitative research, the notion that the explanatory power of approaches in some sense may add up, and theories jointly explain more than each by itself, has a natural attraction. In the case of transnational access, it is easy to imagine that states’ pursuit of functional benefits, legitimate governance structures, and power advantages may combine to explain variation along a certain dimension, such as the opening up of international institutions over time. The third model of theoretical dialogue is the domain-of-application approach. This strategy, too, recognizes that theories may be complementary as opposed to competing, but emphasizes comparative strengths rather than simple additions of explanatory power. Departing from the assumption that all theories have scope conditions, this approach seeks to specify the respective “home domains” of theories, and to identify ways in which they may subsequently complement each other in explaining a larger empirical picture. Theories are complementary in substantive terms, when they best explain different parts of a broader political phenomenon, for instance, major constitutional bargains vs. everyday decision-making in the process of European integration. But theories may also be complementary in a temporal sense, when they best explain different phases in a sequential process, for instance, preference formation and strategic bargaining as two stages in the process of international cooperation. In the case of transnational access to international institutions, it is conceivable that the three approaches outlined in this


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chapter have comparative advantages in accounting for variation across different dimensions. It may be the case, for instance, that changing norms of legitimate global governance best explain why international institutions over time have opened up to civil society actors, while differences in the functional benefits that TNAs could bring best account for patterns of variation across international institutions.

Notes 1. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the annual convention of the International Studies Association, March 26–29, 2008, San Francisco; at a seminar at Trinity College Dublin; and at two workshops of the Transdemos research program at Lund University and Stockholm University. I am particularly grateful to Hans Agné, Martha Finnemore, Christer Jönsson, Robert Keohane, Andrea Liese, Lisa Martin, Jens Steffek, and Will Phelan for constructive comments on the paper. I would also like to acknowledge the research funding provided by the European Research Council, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, and Formas. 2. See the introduction to this volume for an overview of empirical developments, as well as a review of existing literature. 3. In principle, we might also identify a fourth general approach, explaining TNA access as the product of autonomous international institutions, working to advance their interests and agendas through cooperation with transnational constituencies. However, this chapter gives analytical priority to approaches that privilege states as actors, since the rules governing formal access to international institutions generally are set and changed through interstate agreement. Moreover, this fourth approach is partly folded into the first and second approaches, since the concerns that would drive international institutions to engage transnational actors typically are efficiency and legitimacy. 4. This should not be read as an attempt to cover the full range of potential explanations and patterns of variation; as illustrated in the chapters by Andrea Liese, Jens Steffek, and Åsa Casula Vifell, it is possible to identify both additional explanations (such as organizational culture) and additional dimensions of variation (such as intra-organizational patterns).

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Barnett, M.N. and M. Finnemore (2004) Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Betsill, M.M. and E. Corell (2008) NGO Diplomacy: The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Boli, J. and G.M. Thomas (eds) (1999) Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). Charnovitz, S. (1997) “Two Centuries of Participation: NGOs and International Governance,” Michigan Journal of International Law, 18: 183–286. Drezner, D.W. (2007) All Politics Is Global: Explaining International Regulatory Regimes (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Finnemore, M. and K. Sikkink (1998) “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization, 52: 887–917. Gilpin, R. (1975) US Power and the Multinational Corporation: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment (New York: Basic Books). Grieco, J.M. (1990) Cooperation among Nations: Europe, America, and Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Grigorescu, A. (2007) “Transparency of Intergovernmental Organizations: The Roles of Member States, International Bureaucracies and Nongovernmental Organizations,” International Studies Quarterly, 51: 625–48. Gruber, L. (2000) Ruling the World: Power Politics and the Rise of Supranational Institutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Hawkins, D.G., D.A. Lake, D.L. Nielson and M.J. Tierney (eds) (2006) Delegation and Agency in International Organizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Held, D. (1995) Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press). Jupille, J., J.A. Caporaso and J.T. Checkel (2003) “Integrating Institutions: Rationalism, Constructivism, and the Study of the European Union,” Comparative Political Studies, 36: 7–40. Kahler, M. (2005) “Defining Accountability Up: The Global Economic Multilaterals,” in D. Held and M. Koenig-Archibugi (eds) Global Governance and Public Accountability (London: Blackwell). Keohane, R.O. (1984) After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Knight, J. (1992) Institutions and Social Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Koremenos, B., C. Lipson and D. Snidal (2001) “The Rational Design of International Institutions,” International Organization, 55: 761–99. Krasner, S.D. (1978) Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Krasner, S.D. (1991) “Global Communications and National Power: Life on the Pareto Frontier,” World Politics, 43: 336–56. McCubbins, M.D. and T. Schwartz (1984) “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms,” American Journal of Political Science, 28: 165–79. McNamara, K.R. (2002) “Rational Fictions: Central Bank Independence and the Social Logic of Delegation,” West European Politics, 25: 47–76.


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Transnational Access: Three Approaches 65 March, J.G. and J.P. Olsen (1989) Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics (New York: Free Press). March, J.G. and J.P. Olsen (2006) “The Logic of Appropriateness,” in M. Moran, M. Rein and R.E. Goodin (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Martin, L.L. (1992) “Interests, Power, and Multilateralism,” International Organization, 46: 765–92. Mearsheimer, J.J. (1994/5) “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security, 19: 5–49. Mitchell, R.B. (1998) “Sources of Transparency: Information Systems in International Regimes,” International Studies Quarterly, 42: 109–30. Moe, T.M. (2005) “Power and Political Institutions,” Perspectives on Politics, 3: 215–33. Moravcsik, A. (2005) “Is There a ‘Democratic Deficit’ in World Politics? A Framework for Analysis,” in D. Held and M. Koenig-Achibugi (eds) Global Governance and Public Accountability (London: Blackwell). O’Brien, R., A.M. Goetz, J.A. Scholte and M. Williams (2000) Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Powell, W.W. and P.J. DiMaggio (eds) (1991) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Raustiala, K. (1997) “States, NGOs, and International Environmental Institutions,” International Studies Quarterly, 41: 719–40. Raustiala, K. (2004) “Police Patrols & Fire Alarms in the NAAEC,” Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review, 26: 389–413. Reimann, K.D. (2006) “A View from the Top: International Politics, Norms, and the Worldwide Growth of NGOs,” International Studies Quarterly, 50: 45–67. Rittberger, V. and M. Zürn (1990) “Towards Regulated Anarchy in East-West Relations: Causes and Consequences of East-West Regimes,” in V. Rittberger (ed.) International Regimes in East-West Politics (London: Pinter). Ruggie, J. G. (1983) “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order,” in S.D. Krasner (ed.) International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Schmitter, P. (2000) How to Democratize the European Union ... and Why Bother? (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield). Scholte, J.A. (2002) “Civil Society and Democracy in Global Governance,” Global Governance, 8: 281–304. Scott, W.R., J. Meyer and associates (1994) Institutional Environments and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism (London: Sage). Staisch, M. (2004) “Reaching Out, or Not: Accounting for the Relative Openness of International Governmental Organizations Towards NGOs,” paper presented at the 5th Pan-European Conference of the ECPR Standing Group on International Relations, The Hague, 9–11 September. Steffek, J. (2008) “Explaining Cooperation between IGOs and NGOs: Push Factors, Pull Factors, and the Policy Cycle,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, San Francisco, 26–29 March. Steffek, J., C. Kissling and P. Nanz (eds) (2008) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).


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Stein, A.A. (1983) “Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World,” in S. Krasner (ed.) International Regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Tallberg, J. (2002) “Delegation to Supranational Institutions: Why, How, and with What Consequences?” West European Politics, 25: 23–46. Weingast, B.R. and W.J. Marshall (1988) “The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets,” Journal of Political Economy, 96: 132–63. Weiss, T.G. and L. Gordenker (eds) (1996) NGOs, the UN, and Global Governance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner). Willetts, P. (2000) “From ‘Consultative Arrangements’ to ‘Partnership’: The Changing Status of NGOs in Diplomacy at the UN,” Global Governance, 6: 191–212. Willetts, P. (2006) “The Cardoso Report on the UN and Civil Society: Functionalism, Global Corporatism, or Global Democracy?” Global Governance, 12: 305–24. Williamson, O.E. (1975) Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications (New York: Free Press). Zürn, M. (2005) “Global Governance and Legitimacy Problems,” in D. Held and M. Koenig-Achibugi (eds) Global Governance and Public Accountability (London: Blackwell). Zürn, M., M. Binder, M. Ecker-Ehrhardt and K. Radke (2007) “The Unintended Formation of Political Order Beyond the Nation State,” unpublished paper.


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4 Explaining Patterns of Transnational Participation: The Role of Policy Fields Jens Steffek

Within the range of concrete proposals for democratizing international governance, enhanced civil society participation has attracted a remarkable amount of scholarly interest.1 The literature that deals with this democratizing potential has grown exponentially over the last ten years (for recent overviews, see Greenwood, 2007; Kohler-Koch and Finke, 2007; Omelicheva, 2009; Scholte, 2004). Much of it is concerned with governance in the European Union (EU), but also global organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are studied extensively. Some scholars have sought to put the numerous pieces of the puzzle together and to provide an overview of participatory trends in a more comparative fashion (Steffek et al., 2008). The set of volumes in which this text appears is certainly the most ambitious attempt so far to take stock of these developments. While scholars have dedicated much energy to describing, analyzing and, at times, criticizing this avenue to democratization, the empirical question of why participatory arrangements have emerged has receded somewhat into the background. This is puzzling, since logically prior to assessing the (potentially democratizing) effects of civil society participation in international organizations (IOs) comes the question of why this form of interorganizational cooperation exists in the first place. Most certainly, we cannot simply assume that participatory institutions and procedures have been created because they may provide a remedy to the democratic deficit. Participation of non-state actors in international organizations is much older than concerns over the democratic credentials of global and European governance (Charnovitz, 1997; White, 67


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1968). In this contribution I wish to draw on data collected in the framework of my own comparative research on civil society participation in IOs to shed some new light on this question. The starting point of my discussion will be the hypothesis, quite frequently found in the literature on international governance, that the institutionalization of cooperation between IOs and non-state actors is determined by the benefits that both sides, but in particular IOs, expect to reap from it. Among the possible causal explanations of civil society access to IOs outlined by Tallberg in his contribution to this volume, this seems to be the one that enjoys most support in the field. My aim in this short essay is to test the plausibility of this very generic hypothesis in a somewhat refined form. I argue that cooperation is particularly likely to occur in policy fields where the IOs’ needs for external resources are particularly urgent. External assistance in agenda-setting and research, for instance, is much more needed by IOs that deal with technically complex issue-areas of governance. In a similar vein, the need for help in implementing projects varies enormously across policy fields. If tangible benefits for IOs are the main determinant of cooperation, it is highly likely that the policy field in which the respective activities of governance take place will have a certain influence. This contribution is structured as follows. Section 1 briefly takes stock of the literature on cooperation between IOs and non-state actors and the underlying assumption that cooperation patterns follow from concrete, discernible incentives, and are not the result of some fashion, path dependency, or pure chance. I then proceed to illustrate the incentive structures that we should expect to be present in several policy fields. In the extensive second section I compare the empirical evidence from four international policy fields with these theory-guided expectations. I contrast findings from two fields in which one should expect a lot of incentives (environmental politics and human rights protection) to two fields in which one should, prima facie, expect very few (security and finance). In the third section I summarize the discussion and compare the empirical results with the initial theoretical predictions. Since the editors of this volume have defined our task as discussing the relations between IOs and transnational private actors (TNAs), one clarification is in order. In this chapter I focus exclusively on the relations between IOs and civil society organizations (CSOs), understood as organized societal actors that are non-governmental, non-profit-making, and pursue a political agenda by non-violent means. Their explicit political agenda and their (often) altruistic goals distinguish CSOs from other types of TNAs, in particular from multinational corporations (MNCs).


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Interestingly, most IOs offer consultative status and formal accreditation only to CSOs but not to MNCs. At least as far as the formulation of their policies is concerned, they seem to be more reluctant to openly establish close ties with profit-making corporations than with CSOs, as this might raise thorny questions of legitimacy. Likewise, lobbying MNCs might not even want to formalize their relationship with the IO. Therefore, it is plausible to expect that patterns of cooperation among IOs and MNCs will not match patterns of cooperation among IOs and CSOs. All I say below about determinants of cooperation only refers to the IO–CSO relationship and not to all TNAs, even if the general theoretical perspective on resource exchange that I adopt is perfectly applicable to all types of organizations.

Determinants of cooperation: what should we expect? Why do IOs collaborate with non-state actors? A first hint at possible explanations can be found in the extensive literature on the role of CSOs in international affairs. At the most fundamental level, CSO involvement is explained by referring to the opportunity structures that IOs provide (Martens, 2006: 373; Reimann, 2006: 46–7). As political decisions are increasingly taken in settings beyond the state, due to the internationalization of policy-making, CSOs have gone international as well. In addition, it has been suggested that CSOs at times engage directly with IOs in order to bypass a nation-state that might be repressive, or unresponsive to their demands (Keck and Sikkink, 1998). These approaches tend to focus on one side of the relationship, the CSO side or the activist side. However, IO–CSO cooperation seems to be the result of a more complex dynamic. Opportunity structures do not just emerge at some point in time. Rather, they are consciously created by IOs, and we should assume that they do this for some reason. Why is it, for instance, that the UN and the EU have developed an elaborate culture of consultation and cooperation, while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have not? There is some literature that tackles this question, asking why IOs – despite pressure put on them by CSOs – are reluctant to collaborate with them (Alger, 2002: 98–100; UN, 2003: 18–19); why certain IOs are more susceptible to pressure by CSOs than others (Riggirozzi and Tussie, 2001; Willetts, 2000: 193); or why interaction is particularly dense in some policy fields, such as development (Ottaway, 2001). All these authors point explicitly or implicitly to the incentives that IOs do or do not face for opening their gates to non-state actors. Emanating from this assumption


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I shall now scrutinize the “demand side” of CSO involvement in some more detail and seek to develop more explicit explanations of why and under what conditions IOs will interact with CSOs. In more general theoretical terms, a sound starting point for such an account can be found in exchange theories of cooperation from organizational sociology, in particular the research on interorganizational relations. “Organizational exchange is any voluntary activity between two organizations which has consequences, actual or anticipated, for the realization of their respective goals or objective” (Levine and White, 1961: 588). The idea here is that organizations trade some resources to their mutual benefit. The resources exchanged may be of a material nature, such as money and staff, or of an immaterial nature, most notably information. The dynamics of exchange are captured by the “resource-dependence model,” which states that organizations are not able to internally generate all the resources that they need but that they attain them through transactions with other organizations (Aldrich and Pfeffer, 1976: 83). This sociological view of organizations as generally deficient and far from autonomous can be easily applied also to IOs. A pioneering work that explicitly adopted such an exchange perspective on IO–CSO relations is Kal Raustiala’s (1997) research on international environmental governance. Raustiala argues that the increasing interaction of CSO and IOs in the sphere of environmental politics can only be explained by benefits resulting from cooperation. Similar exchange models have been used by others to study the conditions under which non-state actors are admitted to public political settings (Bouwen, 2002, 2003; Brühl, 2003; Dingwerth, 2007). According to Pieter Bouwen’s model, non-state actors seek access to the IO (in his case the EU) in order to influence its political choices. The IO, in turn, obtains different kinds of information and trades access for it. Another lesson to be learned especially from Bouwen’s work on the EU is that, even within one single IO, access is provided selectively. A CSO usually does not have access to every body, working group, or negotiation process within an IO, but only to some. This selective access may be determined by the divergent, specific resource needs of the various bodies. In order to develop a more fine-grained approach to the incentives for cooperation I have suggested adopting a heuristic model of the policy cycle that can help us structure the different kinds of incentives that IOs face (Steffek, 2008; Kissling and Steffek, 2006). The hypothesis is that IOs will grant access to non-state actors whenever they perceive a need for resources that CSOs can provide. A precondition is, of course, that CSOs are willing and able to offer the requested resources. With the


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help of the heuristic model of the policy cycle it appears easier to disaggregate the general hypothesis into several distinct dimensions. We can identify four possible situations in which an IO might be particularly interested in cooperation with non-state actors. First, IOs might seek CSO assistance to pinpoint new political issues or technical problems to be dealt with (Albin, 1999: 372). A prominent real-world example of cooperation in agenda-setting is the consultative relationship between CSOs and the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC). In a study of the UN, Willetts (1996: 47) asserts that there are “wideranging policy domains where the main issues have only been considered because of the work of NGOs.” Second, an IO might seek CSO cooperation to acquire additional expertise for the formulation of its policies (Charnovitz, 1997: 183). This seems particularly useful when there is uncertainty about the problem that international governance is designed to resolve. The expert function of non-state actors in international environmental governance has been highlighted, inter alia, in the literature on epistemic communities of concerned scientists (Haas, 1992). The UN conferences organized since the early 1970s are examples of the incentives to solicit the advice of CSO experts (Archer, 1983). Third, and most importantly, an IO might seek CSO cooperation in the implementation of its policies. Many IOs do not have sufficient staff to implement directly all the projects they are funding (Alger, 2002; Donini, 1996: 88–97). They therefore seek to outsource these tasks wherever possible. Fourth, an IO might seek CSO cooperation to evaluate success of its policies and/or monitor member state compliance with the treaties that it administers. Again, some IOs do not have enough personnel and resources to monitor compliance with their own policies effectively. Hence they make use of information provided by non-state actors about the situation “on the ground.” Having identified four major types of resources that IOs may need, the challenge is now to specify, starting from theoretical considerations on the nature of certain policies, our expectations of what resources IOs may need in different policy fields. The expectation that policy fields matter and that conditions of political success vary systematically among them can be derived by analogy from the literature on intergovernmental cooperation. Within this literature there is a prominent interest-based account of cooperation among states (also known as the “neoliberal” theory of international regimes). This theoretical approach is inspired by rational choice theory (Stein, 1990), but it also has remarkable functionalist connotations (Hasenclever et al., 1997: 36–9). In this view, international cooperation is a rational


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response to the functional interdependence among states that creates a demand for international regimes (Keohane, 1984). As states cannot tackle interdependence problems on their own in an age of economic, communicative, and ecological globalization, joint efforts are required. The probability that rational decision-makers can agree on such joint action depends on the policy field at hand (Czempiel, 1981; Rittberger and Zürn, 1991). In such a view, environmental problems, for instance, due to their very nature create different conditions of cooperation than the regulation of international trade, or cooperation in security matters. The problem type thus influences the prospects for collective action (Snidal, 1985). To be sure, cooperation among states is in one major respect different from interaction of IOs and CSOs. Intergovernmental cooperation takes place among formally and functionally equal units. States cooperate because territorial fragmentation stands in the way of tackling transboundary problems. IOs and CSOs, by contrast, are formally and functionally different actors. They cooperate precisely because of the different but complementary resources that they have at their disposal. Yet even in this constellation the problem type will determine the likelihood that there are complementary resources, and hence rational incentives for cooperation. In the following, the expectations will be discussed briefly for the four policy fields under scrutiny here: environmental politics and human rights protection, in which the incentives for collaboration can be expected to be high; and security and finance, in which incentives for cooperation prima facie appear to be particularly weak. The selection of these four policy fields follows the logic of selecting most different cases. I omit development as the existing literature convincingly shows that the need for project implementation was indeed the crucial motivation for the evolution of cooperation on the part of the IOs (Ottaway, 2001). Environmental politics tackles a number of pressing problems with a truly global dimension, such as climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion. Its agenda is transformed quite frequently as new scientific discoveries occur. These discoveries are often made in scientific communities outside the IO bureaucracy and the governmental apparatus of member states. Therefore, we can assume that there is a generally high need for resources from the non-state realm in this policy field. With regard to implementation of projects, the need for assistance does not appear to be too pronounced in environmental politics, as it is a regulatory policy field. Therefore, the expectation of project-related needs of IOs and regimes should not be overstated.


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IOs engaged in human rights protection presumably have a high need for outside assistance in setting their agenda. Human rights violations are dispersed phenomena that take place in local contexts all over the world. Given the limited numbers of staff that human rights IOs have, these violations are extremely difficult to uncover in all areas of the globe simultaneously. What is more, member states might have reasons to be reluctant to transmit such sensitive data to the IO, making independent information from CSOs all the more valuable. By contrast, the relevance of technical expertise in the narrow sense is generally low in the field of human rights, although legal experts have a certain role to play. As a policy task, human rights protection has a clear regulatory focus and few projects to implement.2 In the monitoring dimension the same rationale for outside assistance as in agenda-setting seems to apply. The opposite situation seems to prevail in those policy areas in which states have particularly high stakes and also domestically remain central players: security and finance. One need not adopt a realist view on international affairs to come to the assumption that security and finance are so vital for the existence of states that they have a prominent place at the core of the government’s agenda. These policy fields are areas of “high politics” where states maintain sizeable and well-funded public organizations, such as the military and central banks. As states struggle for autonomy and control in these fields, there seem to be, prima facie at least, very few incentives for policy-makers to open such policy fields to the insight and influence of CSOs. International cooperation in these two fields is subject to tight control by member states and, traditionally at least, an air of secrecy has been maintained around IOs active in international security and finance. IOs and their member states have the capacity and the will to monopolize

Table 4.1 Policy fields and presumed resource needs of IOs

Resource policy field

Identification of problems

Policyrelevant expertise

Implementation capacity

Monitoring of success

Environmental politics

High

High

Low

High

Human rights protection

High

Low

Low

High

Security

Low

Low

Low

Low

Finance

Low

High

Low

Low


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agenda-setting, research and policy formulation, implementation and monitoring of success. The only area where a clear-cut need for external resources may plausibly exist is macroeconomic policy-making in the field of finance. As steering the economy is a very complex and demanding task we may reasonably assume that there is an incentive to mobilize expertise beyond the intergovernmental apparatus. Table 4.1 displays in a nutshell the expected openness of IOs toward CSOs in the four policy fields.

Empirical findings: the patterns of access The previous section has provided a rough illustration of empirical patterns of access that one might expect to find when starting from a resource-exchange perspective, highlighting the IOs’ need for external resources according to policy fields. Let us now turn to the empirical record. In what follows I discuss evidence from a larger, cooperative research project on civil society participation in international governance (Steffek et al., 2008). The aim of that project was to measure the democratic quality of new forms of participation, using a set of criteria derived from democratic theory (Nanz and Steffek, 2005). Empirically, we analyzed the evolution of participatory arrangements in 32 international organizations and EU institutions, based on documentary evidence and semi-structured interviews with IO officials. The sample was divided into six policy fields (security, economic cooperation, finance, environment, human rights, and development) in order to control for the influence of the issue-area on prospects for interorganizational cooperation. Generally speaking, our data show a trend toward more intense and more formalized participation of CSOs in international policy-making (Steffek and Nanz, 2008). This does not, however, lead to an automatic increase in the democratic quality of governance. We caution that responsiveness to arguments brought forward by civil society actors continues to be low and that there are persistent asymmetries in the representation of societal interests and regions of the world by CSOs (Kissling and Steffek, 2008: 214–16). From an empirical point of view, one of our most interesting findings is that there is persistent variation of participation across policy fields. The purpose of this essay is to inquire into the causes of variance. For reasons of space I shall limit my analysis to four out of the six policy fields that we studied and will present the results of our empirical work in a condensed fashion. I concentrate on data regarding the conditions of access that CSOs have to the policy-making process of international


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organizations. Access comprises two major elements, recognition and consultation. With regard to the recognition of CSOs as legitimate interlocutors, we looked first of all at procedures of CSO accreditation, a practice that might also be called registration and so on. An indicator of the increasing importance ascribed to CSOs by IOs is the creation of a specialized division or contact point in the IO that deals exclusively with CSO affairs. A most advanced form of recognizing CSOs as legitimate interlocutors is to grant them regular access to IO premises, of course subject to certain security regulations. With regard to the consultation of CSOs, the first step is often to introduce special institutional arrangements for CSO consultation, such as joint workshops, seminars or public symposia. There CSOs can make their arguments, their (counter-)expertise and their data heard in an intergovernmental context. Some IOs go further and also open their regular intergovernmental political meetings to the scrutiny of CSO observers. An even more advanced opportunity for CSOs to make their arguments heard is the opportunity to speak in intergovernmental meetings and to submit their own documentation to an IO. The most far-reaching right to influence ongoing policy debates would be the opportunity to put topics for future deliberation on the IO’s agenda. As for cases, I selected two important intergovernmental organizations from each policy field. With regard to environmental politics I scrutinize the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the regime established by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the field of human rights protection I look at the UN Human Rights Council and the Council of Europe (CoE). The security field is covered by NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). In the field of international financial cooperation I analyze the IMF and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel. Environmental politics In the field of global environmental politics, there is a long record of interaction between IOs and non-governmental actors (Morphet, 1996). The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) was founded after the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, at which a considerable number of CSOs were already present (Feraru, 1974). The global climate regime has a quite similar history. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, where five CSOs were already allowed to sit among the working parties of the preparatory sessions (Conca, 1996: 111). Technically speaking, the UNFCCC


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regime is a series of events rather than an IO, but it has a sizeable secretariat based in Bonn and meetings of its subsidiary bodies take place almost all year round. Given the paramount importance of the topic, it should nevertheless be included in this investigation. With regard to the indicators of CSO participation, the profiles of UNEP and UNFCCC are strikingly similar. In UNEP and UNFCCC, non-state actors have particularly good access to official meetings, including speaking rights. In UNEP, CSOs may designate representatives to sit as observers at public meetings of the Governing Council and its subsidiary bodies and, upon invitation by the chair, may make oral statements.3 Accredited CSOs may also circulate written statements and documentation to governmental delegations through the UNEP Secretariat.4 The only formal participatory right they do not enjoy is the possibility of agenda-setting. Beyond this, UNEP also features a series of specialized meetings for CSO consultation. Since 2000, a Global Civil Society Forum (GCSF) is organized prior to the annual Global Ministerial Environmental Forum (GMEF), which is considered to be the main entry point for civil society participation at the governance level. At the end of the GCSF, CSOs prepare statements and recommendations directly for the GMEF. It was also found that some cooperation in policy implementation takes place, as UNEP is one of the implementing agencies of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), which has the task of enabling sustainable development. The participatory practice during the official meetings of the various intergovernmental bodies of UNFCCC is essentially similar, also leaving some considerable discretion to the meeting chair. However, there is to date no specialized consultative structure similar to UNEP’s Global Civil Society Forum. The response to the participatory opportunities offered has been overwhelming, as can be seen, for instance, from the accreditation figures of the regular Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the UNFCCC. While 178 CSOs were admitted to COP 1 in Berlin (1995), 985 CSOs were admitted to attend COP 14 in Poznan (2008). It is not surprising, therefore, that in the climate change case the interaction between state and non-state actors is dense, concentrating on the research and policy-development phase (Yamin and Depledge, 2004: 50–3). This is fully in line with the dominant explanation that environmental politics is, in fact, a case in which the expert advice of CSOs was sought in order to understand the issues at stake and to formulate political responses to them (Brühl, 2007). In this policy field our findings seem to fully confirm the theoretical expectations that we outlined above. The crucial resources sought after


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by IOs that paved the way for CSOs into the intergovernmental setting were quite clearly expertise and ideas for political responses. The officially stated rationale for CSO participation in the UNFCCC process is the following: “It is recognized that this involvement allows vital experience, expertise, information and perspectives from civil society to be brought into the process to generate new insights and approaches.”5 In a similar vein, also UNEP puts much emphasis on expertise.6 A word of caution is nevertheless in order. First, it needs to be stressed that the United Nations context provided a very favorable institutional environment for CSO participation to emerge. The UN has provided some space for CSOs since the very first days of their activity in the 1940s and extended it since then (Alger, 2002). Second, we should acknowledge that both organizations stress that political change requires wide participation and that therefore joint efforts are needed. Beyond discernable resources gained by the IOs from cooperation there seems to be a general notion that “encouraging partnership,” as UNEP has it, as such is a good thing.7 Human rights protection In the field of human rights protection I will compare two of the most central organizations: the Human Rights Council of the UN (formerly Human Rights Commission), and the Council of Europe (CoE), which does not deal exclusively but mainly with human rights issues in the wider Europe. Both organizations have a long pedigree. The UN Human Rights Council is an intergovernmental body made up of 47 states, replacing in 2006 the Human Rights Commission, which had been founded in 1946. The CoE was established in 1949 as a platform for cooperation in the fields of human rights, social and cultural affairs, and democratization. By 2009, 47 countries have joined the CoE, whose membership now covers almost the whole continent of Europe. If we compare the participatory profile of the two organizations, we can generally find very good formal conditions of access for CSOs. The UN Council basically follows the established consultative practices of its predecessor, the Human Rights Commission. CSOs wishing to attend the meetings need to be in consultative status with ECOSOC. At the meeting they can take the floor and deliver oral statements on the substantial points of the agenda. Formal regulation is extraordinarily detailed, stating where the CSO speaker will be seated when addressing the delegates, how many copies of the oral statement are to be provided, and where exactly supporting documentation may be displayed.8 Accredited CSOs may also organize side events of relevance to the work


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of the HRC on the UN premises in Geneva. This testifies to the strongly institutionalized nature of participation, which is used quite extensively by CSOs. The 10th session of the Human Rights Council in March 2009 received 121 written CSO statements.9 The CoE has a long tradition of working with CSOs, which can attain formal consultative status since 1952. It is not surprising, therefore, that the consultative infrastructure of the CoE is even more sophisticated. CSOs wishing to participate need to apply for what is called “participatory status.” At the moment, some 400 organizations have received this kind of accreditation, which is subject to periodic review. CSOs in participatory status with CoE have their own body called “Conference of International Non-Governmental Organisations” and a Liaison Committee to bring together the governmental and CSO sides. In addition, ten thematic groupings of CSOs serve as platforms for dialogue with the governmental bodies. However, the link between tangible benefits for the IO and consultative practice is not that clear in the CoE. The official documents of the CoE stress time and again that CSOs are an essential element of (national) democracy. Consequently, the CoE demands from its member states that their “governmental and quasigovernmental mechanisms at all levels should ensure the effective participation of NGOs without discrimination in dialogue and consultation on public policy objectives and decisions.”10 Human rights protection in the United Nations is an excellent example of IO incentives in the phases of agenda-setting and also monitoring of success: the global system of surveillance would simply not work without CSO input (Dupuy, 1986: 259; Gaer, 1996: 55). What CSOs can provide in the human rights area is not so much technical or scientific expertise, but primarily data about what is happening in certain countries “on the ground.” This theme of linking IOs to what is happening on the ground is also prominent in statements of the CoE, emanating from the assumption that CSOs “reflect the concerns of ordinary people in Europe.”11 In such a view, however, the mere existence of a civil society sphere attains an intrinsic, non-instrumental value. Security As explained above, security has been associated with a need for secrecy like no other topic in international relations. In the realm of international security one would therefore not expect a great deal of openness toward non-state actors. Let us first look at NATO, founded in 1949 as an alliance of North American and West European states against a communist threat from the East. At first glance, NATO seems to thoroughly


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confirm our expectation that security organizations are reluctant to interact with CSOs. There is no permanent participatory infrastructure in the policy-making process, either at the headquarters or at summit events, which remain strictly intergovernmental. In recent years, however, things have begun to change at the margins. First, as NATO increasingly engages in peace-building operations, such as the Afghanistan mission, the necessity to work with CSOs in the implementation of policies has become obvious. “What we realize is that we are not the only actor,” NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was cited at a 2004 conference on cooperation with NGOs in the field, “stabilization needs both military and civilian instruments”.12 Thus, the shift in NATO activities toward stabilization and reconstruction on the ground that took place after the end of the Cold War has created an unprecedented functional need to cooperate with non-state actors at the operational level (Borgomano-Loup, 2007). This was officially acknowledged in the Riga Summit Declaration of 2006.13 Despite the officially allotted role that CSOs have to play as NATO’s partners on the ground, very few initiatives have been developed to tie CSOs closer to the organizational structure of the alliance. CSO representatives occasionally visit NATO headquarters and attend seminars organized by NATO’s public diplomacy division. But they are definitely not involved in the policy process and strategic planning. In this regard, a second development is noteworthy, for which the initiative does not seem to come from NATO. Rather, civil society organizations are organizing high-profile events that NATO officials also attend. For instance, in spring 2009 a “Shadow NATO Summit” took place in Brussels to coincide with the official summit celebrating the 60th anniversary of the alliance in Strasbourg and Kehl.14 At the moment of writing there are enhanced activities by civil society to engage in the construction of permanent transnational networks that “surround” the activities of NATO, epitomized by the “NATO Watch” project.15 The evidence shows that the critical momentum here does not come from the intergovernmental side, but is due to pressure by civil society to push into the closed intergovernmental setting. Similar tendencies of “pushing in” can be observed in other IOs that have traditionally been closed to external scrutiny and where there were rather few incentives for the IO to draw on non-state actors. The gradual opening of WTO at the margins is a case in point (Steffek and Ehling, 2008). It might follow at some point in the future for NATO as well. However, there is another limiting factor on the CSO side. Many CSOs operating in crisis regions do not want to be seen as official partners of a military alliance,


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as this might compromise their independence (Jakobsen, 2008: 35–6). There are also ideological tensions between NATO, which emphasizes military action, and CSOs committed to non-violent means of conflict resolution. The OSCE is a regional security organization, founded in 1995, with 56 participating states from Europe, Central Asia, and North America. In terms of membership it is the biggest security organization worldwide, and it is active in early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict rehabilitation. For historical reasons, the relationship between OSCE and organized civil society is somewhat different from the one found in NATO. Its predecessor, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, founded in the course of détente in 1973, helped to legitimize civil society activity in Eastern Europe (Tudyka, 2002). On the other hand, CSOs were not involved at all in the intergovernmental machinery of CSCE. After the fall of the Eastern bloc, the peaceful transition to democracy became one of the key tasks of CSCE. This process of reorientation also led, in 1992, to the adoption of a new framework for cooperation with CSOs (Brett, 1994).16 A range of meetings were opened to CSO observers, information flows facilitated, formal and informal consultations encouraged, and contact points for liaison with CSOs established. The organizational structure of OSCE and the interaction of its various bodies are too complex to be spelled out in detail here. In summary, it can be said that OSCE is keen to involve CSOs in the field, while exclusionary tendencies recur in the policy process proper (Bloed, 2007). Interestingly, formal accreditation mechanisms for CSOs have not been established in OSCE. This open approach of not formally privileging any CSO partners contrasts with long-standing practice in the UN system but resembles the strategy of the EU, which is equally reluctant to regulate access through accreditation mechanisms. As Mayer has argued convincingly (2008: 133), the interaction of security organizations with CSOs can be explained reasonably well with a rationalist resource-exchange model. The OSCE is a prime example of an organization that focuses on the human dimension of security, stabilization, and peace-building. Opportunities for civil society participation result from the evolving needs of the organization to work with people in the countries where it is active. Quite clearly, the theoretical predictions made above about (non)cooperation in security organizations, derived from a classic image of national security and IOs as military alliances, do not really hold. Even if it remains true that guaranteeing national security is a core task of the state, the way of achieving security


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has changed. As states and IOs engage in missions to stabilize crisis regions and to prevent armed conflict, there is an enhanced need for external assistance “on the ground.” Finance International cooperation in the field of finance and currency relations has been a pronouncedly intergovernmental affair. From this perspective it is not really surprising that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has very reluctantly opened up to civil society. The IMF was founded in 1944 to facilitate exchange of national currencies and to prevent financial crises in its member states. It is a truly global organization with 185 member countries. Its constitutional document, the Articles of Agreement, does not contain any legal basis for liaising with non-state actors. Consequently, “IMF engagement of civil society continues to unfold in a largely improvised fashion” (Scholte, 2002: 21). The IMF has established particularly close ties with non-governmental research institutions and think tanks in order to tap into their macroeconomic expertise, but dialogue with advocacy CSOs has intensified in recent years.17 In addition to regular discussions with CSO representatives at its Washington headquarters, the IMF also supports dialogue with CSOs in member countries. Together with the World Bank it organizes a special outreach event, the Civil Society Policy Forum, which takes place alongside the annual intergovernmental meetings in spring. However, it should be stressed that much of this interaction involves IMF staff and CSO representatives only, while the intergovernmental meetings continue to remain closed. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), based in Basel, is a true dinosaur among international organizations. It is not only relatively old (established in 1930) but also remarkably old-fashioned in its technocratic opaqueness and inaccessibility. The BIS provides services to national central banks, helping them to manage their foreign currency reserves. It also serves as a forum for policy discussion among central bankers and the international financial community, and it hosts the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which issues recommendations on the regulation of commercial banks. The story of civil society participation at BIS is quickly told. The only non-governmental actors that the Bank consults are market participants and academics. The reluctance to engage with the rest of the outside world might be due not only to the self-sufficiency of the institution, but also to the fact that very few CSOs might have the necessary skills and an interest in getting involved in its work.


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Conclusion The purpose of this chapter was to probe into the plausibility of the assumption that the policy field in which an IO is active may allow us to predict the intensity of IO–CSO cooperation. With regard to the analytical importance of policy fields, we can state in conclusion that none of the empirical results completely contradicted the theory-driven expectations. There is evidence that IOs are cooperating with CSOs in order to attain various types of information, especially about the situation “on the ground.” There also is ample evidence in the literature on development issues (which were not discussed here) that IOs rely on CSO capacities to implement projects. However, it also became clear that some of the initial predictions that followed from assumptions about the “enduring nature” of policy fields were a bit too schematic. Tasks of international organizations are evolving over time, and traditional boundaries between international policy fields are blurring. For instance, the paradigmatic shift from regulatory approaches to sustainable development in environmental politics brought the need for project implementation into the environmental field. Environmental and development concerns are not as far apart now as they may have appeared two decades ago. The turn toward peace-keeping and peace-building operations as tasks of security IOs has affected the rationale for collaboration with CSOs active in the field of reconstruction and humanitarian assistance, undermining the traditional conceptualization of security as a high politics issue. Sweeping generalizations about policy fields might, therefore, not be the most promising way of formulating general hypotheses or predictions based on the resource-exchange model. That model itself seems to be quite robust. Much of the evidence confirmed that, at the level of individual IOs, the resource needs of the organizations can indeed provide a useful “rationalist first cut” (Mayer 2008: 133) for explaining patterns of cooperation. I would, therefore, suggest restating the initial hypothesis in a somewhat different and more general form: it seems that the more an IO is forced to act in a local context, the more it seeks to influence human behavior in that context; and the more information it needs about a local context, the more likely it is that it interacts with organized civil society. IO–CSO collaboration is essentially about bridging the gap between the global and the local level. It should be noted, finally, that this essay has also provided evidence to show that an IO-centric resource-exchange model can only be a rough “first cut” and has some limitations. I will point to three


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caveats. First, we should be careful not to see organizational resource needs behind each and every instance of participation. The Council of Europe is a case in point. For that organization, engaging civil society in governance is more than a strategy to incorporate external resources – it is part of its political mission and raison d’être. Second, we should acknowledge that in some organizational contexts there are “participatory norms” that systematically bias IOs toward cooperation with CSOs (Dingwerth, 2007; Reimann, 2006). In the UN system, the stacks are generally in favor of CSOs, and it might be almost impossible for governments to exclude them from new political projects. The power of precedent and path dependency needs to be taken seriously here. Third, we should not disregard the supply side of CSO participation. As became evident in the case of NATO missions, there may be good reasons for CSOs not to become entangled with an IO. In a similar vein, consistent pressure by CSOs to be admitted might lead IOs to create opportunities for participation, even if it remains unclear what concrete resource they might gain. Among the organizations discussed here, the IMF would be a good example of such an opening at the margins, but other global IOs, such as WTO, would probably fall into the same category.

Notes 1. The empirical data presented in this contribution were gathered in the framework of a research project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in the framework of the research centre “Transformations of the State” based in Bremen, Germany. The financial support of the DFG and the participating universities is gratefully acknowledged. I would also like to thank Christer Jönsson, Robert O. Keohane, Andrea Liese, and Jonas Tallberg for comments on an earlier version of this text. 2. This holds true only for protecting the first generation of human rights, that is, political and civil rights. Implementing social and economic rights, by contrast, may require more extensive project activities, for instance in the field of development. I am grateful to Andrea Liese for alerting me to this important qualification. 3. Source: e-mail correspondence with UNEP official, 19 November 2004. 4. Governing Council Decision SSVII.5 of 15 February 2002 and Rule 69 (II) of the Rules of Procedure of the Governing Council. 5. UNFCCC Secretariat, “Guidelines for the participation of representatives of non-governmental organizations at meetings of the bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” March 2003, p. 3. These guidelines apply equally to meetings under the Kyoto Protocol. 6. See http://www.unep.org/civil_society/ (accessed April 3, 2009). 7. See UNEP’s mission statement at http://www.unep.org/Documents. Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=43 (accessed April 3, 2009).


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84 Jens Steffek 8. See “General information note for NGOs on the Human Rights Council (as of July 2008),” available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/ngo.htm (accessed April 21, 2010). 9. Source: own calculation on the basis of official UN data provided at http:// www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/10session/documentation.htm (accessed April 3, 2009). 10. Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)14 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the legal status of non-governmental organisations in Europe, paragraph 76. 11. Source: http://www.coe.ro/nog.html (accessed April 21, 2010). 12. Source: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-D1E3B1E0-A38F56D6/natolive/ news_20677.htm?selectedLocale=en (accessed April 7, 2009). 13. See Riga Summit Declaration, November 29, 2006, para. 10, available at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2006/p06–150e.htm (accessed April 7, 2009). 14. For the agenda see http://www.isis-europe.org/pdf/2009_conf_24_natowatch_shadow_summit_2009__agenda1.pdf (accessed April 7, 2009). 15. For the project see http://www.isis-europe.org/natowatch/ (accessed April 7, 2009). 16. See CSCE Helsinki Document, “The Challenges of Change,” Chapter IV, paragraph 15; available at http://www.osce.org/documents/mcs/1992/07/4048_ en.pdf (accessed April 21, 2010). 17. For an overview of activities see http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/cs/ eng/index.htm (accessed April 8, 2009).

References Albin, C. (1999) “Can NGOs Enhance the Effectiveness of International Negotiation?” International Negotiation, 4: 371–87. Aldrich, H.E. and J. Pfeffer (1976) “Environments of Organizations,” Annual Review of Sociology, 2: 79–105. Alger, C. (2002) “The Emerging Roles of NGOs in the UN System: From Article 71 to a People’s Millennium Assembly,” Global Governance, 8: 93–117. Archer, A. (1983) “Methods of Multilateral Management: The Interrelationship of International Organizations and NGOs,” in T.T. Gati (ed.) The US, the UN and the Management of Global Change (New York: New York University Press). Bloed, A. (2007) “The OSCE’s Exclusion of NGOs: Back to the Old Days?” Helsinki Monitor 4/2007: 315–18. Borgomano-Loup, L. (2007) Improving NATO-NGO Relations in Crisis Response Operations (Rome: NATO Defense College). Bouwen, P. (2002) “Corporate Lobbying: The Logic of Access,” Journal of European Public Policy, 9: 365–90. Bouwen, P. (2003) “A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Corporate Lobbying in the European Parliament,” European Integration Online Papers, 7: 11. Brett, R. (1994) “A New Role for NGOs in the CSCE,” in A. Bloed (ed.) The Challenges of Change: The Helsinki Summit of the CSCE and Its Aftermath (Dordrecht: M. Nijhoff).


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Brühl, T. (2003) Nichtregierungsorganisationen als Akteure internationaler Umweltverhandlungen: Ein Erklärungsmodell auf der Basis der situationsspezifischen Ressourcennachfrage (Frankfurt/Main: Campus). Brühl, T. (2007) “Public-private Partnerships: Unlike Partners? Assessing New Forms of Regulation,” in S.A. Schirm (ed.) Globalization: State of the Art and Perspectives (London: Routledge). Charnovitz, S. (1997) “Two Centuries of Participation: NGOs and International Governance,” Michigan Journal of International Law, 18: 183–286. Conca, K. (1996) “Greening the UN: Environmental Organisations and the UN System,” in L. Gordenker and T.G. Weiss (eds) NGOs, the UN, and Global Governance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner). Czempiel, E.-O. (1981) Internationale Politik: Ein Konfliktmodell (Paderborn: Schöningh). Dingwerth, K. (2007) “Nichtstaatliche Akteure und der Wandel der GovernanceNorm,” paper presented at the workshop “Macht, Ohnmacht, Gegenmacht – Nichtstaatliche Akteure im globalen Regieren,” Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Delmenhorst, 15–16 June. Donini, A. (1996) “The Bureaucracy and the Free Spirits: Stagnation and Innovation in the Relationship between the UN and NGOs,” in T.G. Weiss and L. Gordenker (eds) NGOs, the UN, and Global Governance (Boulder: Lynne Rienner). Dupuy, P.-M. (1986) “Conclusions générales du colloqui,” in M. Bettati and P.-M. Dupuy (eds) Les O.N.G. et le droit international (Paris: Economia). Feraru, A.T. (1974) “Transnational Political Interests and the Global Environment,” International Organization, 28: 31–60. Gaer, F.D. (1996) “Reality Check: Human Rights NGOs Confront Governments at the UN,” in T.G. Weiss and L. Gordenker (eds) NGOs, the UN, and Global Governance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner). Greenwood, J. (2007) “Review Article: Organised Civil Society and Democratic Legitimacy in the EU,” British Journal of Political Science, 37: 333–57. Haas, P.M. (1992) “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization, 46: 1–35. Hasenclever, A., P. Mayer and V. Rittberger (1997) Theories of International Regimes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Jakobsen, P.V. (2008) NATO’s Comprehensive Approach to Crisis Response Operations: A Work in Slow Progress (Copenhagen: Danish Institute for International Studies). Keck, M.E. and K. Sikkink (1998) Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Keohane, R.O. (1984) After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Kissling, C. and J. Steffek (2006) “Civil Society Participation in International Governance: The UN and the WTO Compared,” University of Bremen, TranState Working Paper No. 42/2006. Kissling, C. and J. Steffek (2008) “CSOs and the Democratization of International Governance: Prospects and Problems,” in J. Steffek, C. Kissling and P. Nanz (eds) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).


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Kohler-Koch, B. and B. Finke (2007) “The Institutional Shaping of EU-Society Relations: A Contribution to Democracy via Participation?” Journal of Civil Society, 3: 205–21. Levine, S., and P. White (1961) “Exchange as a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Interorganizational Relationships,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 5: 583–601. Martens, K. (2006) “Institutionalizing Societal Activism into Structures of Global Governance – Amnesty International and the United Nations System,” Journal of International Relations and Development, 9: 371–95. Mayer, P. (2008) “Civil Society Participation in International Security Organizations: The Cases of NATO and OSCE,” in J. Steffek, C. Kissling and P. Nanz (eds) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Morphet, S. (1996) “NGOs and the Environment,” in P. Willetts (ed.) The Conscience of the World: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organizations in the UN System (London: Hurst & Co.). Nanz, P. and J. Steffek (2005) “Assessing the Democratic Quality of Deliberation in International Governance: Criteria and Research Strategies,” Acta Politica, 40: 368–83. Omelicheva, M.Y. (2009) “Global Civil Society and Democratization of World Politics: A Bona Fide Relationship or Illusory Liaison?” International Studies Review, 11: 109–32. Ottaway, M.S. (2001) “Corporatism Goes Global,” Global Governance, 7: 265–93. Raustiala, K. (1997) “States, NGOs, and International Environmental Institutions,” International Studies Quarterly, 41: 719–40. Reimann, K.D. (2006) “A View from the Top: International Politics, Norms and the Worldwide Growth of NGOs,” International Studies Quarterly, 50: 45–67. Riggirozzi, M.P. and D. Tussie (2001) “Pressing Ahead with New Procedures for Old Machinery: Global Governance and Civil Society,” in V. Rittberger (ed.) Global Governance and the United Nations System (Tokyo: United Nations University Press). Rittberger, V. and M. Zürn (1991) “Regime Theory: Findings from the Study of East-West Regimes,” Cooperation and Conflict, 26: 165–83. Scholte, J.A. (2002) Civil Society Voices and the International Monetary Fund (Ottawa: North-South Institute). Scholte, J.A. (2004) Democratizing the Global Economy: The Role of Civil Society (Coventry: University of Warwick, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation). Snidal, D. (1985) “Coordination vs. Prisoners’ Dilemma: Implications for International Cooperation and Regimes,” American Political Science Review, 79: 923–42. Steffek, J. (2008) “Explaining Cooperation between IGOs and NGOs: Push Factors, Pull Factors, and the Policy Cycle,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA), San Francisco, 26–29 March. Steffek, J. and U. Ehling (2008) “Civil Society Participation at the Margins: The Case of WTO,” in J. Steffek, C. Kissling and P. Nanz (eds) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).


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Steffek, J. and P. Nanz (2008) “Emergent Patterns of Civil Society Participation in Global and European Governance,” in J. Steffek, C. Kissling and P. Nanz (eds) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Steffek, J., C. Kissling and P. Nanz (eds) (2008) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance. A Cure for the Democratic Deficit? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Stein, A.A. (1990) Why Nations Cooperate: Circumstance and Choice in International Relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Tudyka, K.P. (2002) “Non-Governmental Organizations and the OSCE,” in Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (ed.) OSCE Yearbook 2001 (Baden-Baden: Nomos). UN (2003) “UN System and Civil Society: An Inventory and Analysis of Practices,” Secretary General, Panel of Eminent Persons on Civil Society and UN Relationships, May 2003. Available at http://www.ngocongo.org/ files/un-civil_society-background_paper1.doc (accessed July 4, 2009). White, L.C. (1968) International Non-Governmental Organizations: Their Purposes, Methods and Accomplishments (New York: Greenwood Press). Willetts, P. (1996) “Consultative Status for NGOs at the United Nations,” in P. Willetts (ed.) The Conscience of the World: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organizations in the UN System (London: Hurst & Co.). Willetts, P. (2000) “From ‘Consultative Arrangements’ to ‘Partnership’: The Changing Status of NGOs in Diplomacy at the UN,” Global Governance, 6: 191–212. Yamin, F. and J. Depledge (2004) The International Climate Change Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).


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5 Explaining Varying Degrees of Openness in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Andrea Liese

Introduction1 One of the most widely held assumptions in the literature on global governance is that international organizations are increasingly turning to transnational actors (TNAs),2 that is, civil society organizations, business associations and multinational corporations, in standard-setting and implementation.3 Yet how can we explain varying degrees of openness toward these actors over time, with regard to specific TNAs and within organizations? This chapter opens with the puzzle of varying degrees of openness within one UN organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This is an interesting case, because it does not neatly fit into the trend described above. Instead, FAO had already been working with TNAs in the 1960s and 1970s, but loosened these ties in the 1980s. At a time when global calls for partnerships with TNAs were absent, back in 1957, B.R. Sen, Secretary-General of FAO, sketched out his idea of a “Freedom from Hunger Campaign” (FFHC), which was launched in 1960. FFHC was a promotional partnership, which attempted to bring worldwide attention to the problem of world hunger through the support and inclusion of TNAs, in particular civil society organizations (cf. Shaw, 2007: 212). In another pioneering way, FAO hosted the “Industry Cooperative Programme” (ICP) from 1966 until 1978, in which more than 100 (mostly transnational) companies participated (FAO, 2007: 213). But the “ambiguity on the role of the private 88


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sector, the rise of environmental movements opposed to industrial agriculture and general distrust of multinationals led to the termination of the IPC in 1978” (FAO, 2006b: 28). Eighteen years later, after the World Food Summit in 1996, FAO made a new effort to move toward collaboration with TNAs (cf. FAO, 2006b: 11) and other organizations, but it has hardly been successful in attracting the interest of (transnational) companies. Apart from variation over time, which is at odds with the general trend of an increase in openness, access to FAO varies with regard to types of TNAs and with regard to the different levels of FAO’s work: FAO’s independent external evaluation (IEE) observes a “virtually complete divorce of FAO from the private sector” (FAO, 2007: 213) and also finds that “the number of truly joint activities” with civil society organizations at the country level is “quite small” (cf. FAO, 2007: 211). This chapter identifies several rationalist and cultural explanations for the observed variation, and takes both the bureaucratic and the intergovernmental dimension of international organizations into account. In particular, hypotheses are drawn from resource-dependency theory, sociological institutionalism, and management studies. The case study of FAO probes the explanatory power of these hypotheses in a congruence analysis. Data are drawn from documents and evaluations, academic studies and interviews with officials in FAO and the wider UN system. The following section will describe FAO’s openness toward TNAs. How can the different degrees of openness be explained? Subsequent sections introduce several hypotheses on organizational openness and illustrate their explanatory power.

Mapping cooperation with TNAs: how open is FAO? While the assumption of a continuously increasing cooperation between international organizations and TNAs predominates in the literature, there are signs of significant differences between the susceptibility and readiness of FAO to cooperate with TNAs. In the following, I will describe the degree of organizational openness at different levels of FAO’s work and with regard to different types of TNAs, notably civil society organizations, on the one hand, and private sector organizations, on the other. As outlined in Tallberg and Jönsson’s introduction to this volume, formal representation and formal mechanisms for collaborations with TNAs are rare and mainly apply to consultation in international forums. To measure this form of access we can count the number of NGOs in official relations (consultative status).4 These include rural and urban


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people’s organizations, such as farmers’ organizations and consumer organizations, development NGOs, humanitarian NGOs, NGO networks, professional associations and academic or research institutions, agricultural trade unions, and private sector associations. These numbers can be further qualified by measuring the de facto participation of NGOs at summits and conferences. In order to get a full picture of organizational openness, I also map alternative entry points for TNAs, which have been portrayed in FAO evaluations (cf. FAO, 2007: 212). TNAs with and without formal status are involved in promotional, policy-making and policy-implementing work, that is, in advocacy, regulatory frameworks and programmes. In addition, I briefly take partnerships at the country level into account. Participation of TNAs in policy forums In FAO relations with TNAs and other non-state actors are specified in the constitution of the organization. Granting access to TNAs is by no means a new development for FAO, as several TNAs have held consultative status for decades. While a total of 196 NGOs enjoy formal relations with FAO (cf. NGOCONGO, 2006: x), their privileges vary: among these, only the 16 NGOs in full consultative status may participate in the meetings of the governing body (FAO Council) and the general assembly (FAO Conference) without further approval or invitation. They include the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the World Federation of United Nations Associations, the International Chamber of Commerce, Caritas Internationalis, and the International Federation of Agricultural Producers, which represents almost all agricultural producers in developed countries as well as some 500 million farmers in developing countries, and has been represented at FAO since 1949.5 Upon invitation by the Director-General, delegates of the 16 NGOs – mostly transnational associations and federations – may also observe certain expert meetings, technical conferences, and seminars.6 A further group of around 60 NGOs holding “special consultative status” may, subject to approval by the Conference or the Council, send an observer to FAO meetings.7 Among them we find further transnational associations, such as the International Fertilizer Industry Association, the International Association of Agricultural Students, the European Association of Agricultural Economists, and Greenpeace International (cf. FAO, 2008). A third group of regional associations holding “liaison status” may send an observer to sessions of the conference and council and to special meetings upon invitation by the Director-General. While many TNAs represent civil society, nearly a third (about 70) of the 196


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NGOs in formal relations are business or industry associations (FAO, 2006b: 18). Although formal access to the policy-making bodies remains rather restrictive, de facto participation in FAO’s international policy forums is considerably higher. Again, it is by no means a recent development. Already in 1963, more than 1,300 persons attended the World Food Congress, among them farmers and members of church groups and universities (FAO, 1985: 128). The second World Food Congress again had the character of a “non-governmental meeting” (FAO, 1985: 130). This time, the Congress called for a cooperative effort to free the world from hunger jointly with governments, intergovernmental organizations, and NGOs (Shaw, 2007: 83). Every following summit usually involved TNAs, yet one cannot observe a linear increase in numbers. At the request of the Industry Cooperative Programme (ICP; see below), transnational companies participated at the 1974 World Food Conference. The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) invited NGOs in consultative status with FAO or ECOSOC to send observers. In addition, 161 NGOs arranged a parallel meeting and submitted a declaration to the Secretary-General of the conference (Shaw, 2007: 129, 142). The International Conference on Nutrition (ICN), jointly organized by FAO and WHO in 1992, was attended by representatives from 144 NGOs (Shaw, 2007: 304). According to Shaw (2007: 304), the Director-General of WHO, Hiroshi Nakajima, envisioned the participation of NGOs as “equal partners” in a “planetary pact.” More than 500 organizations participated in the 1996 World Food Summit, 1,300 participants of 80 countries attended the parallel forum, and 2,000 organizations corresponded with FAO’s secretariat during the preparatory process. At the follow-up summit in 2002, numbers had halved: delegates from 250 accredited NGOs/CSOs attended the summit, while 1,000 delegates of non-accredited NGOs/CSOs attended the parallel NGO forum. At the same summit 70 companies held a parallel private sector forum (FAO, 2006b: 23, 29). Overall, FAO has a long history of consulting with TNAs, even if the “1996 and 2002 World Food Summits marked an important point in FAO relations with the civil society community with the active participation by CSOs/NGOs” (FAO, 2007: 211). Advocacy, regulatory frameworks, programs, and country-level partnerships The majority of projects and links with TNAs exist outside the established system of consultative status and opportunities to participate in FAO policy forums. In advocacy, standard-setting and programs, FAO


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cooperates with TNAs and other non-state actors with and without formal status, among them “organizations directly representing producers and consumers; Southern development NGOs that provide services to rural people; Northern development NGOs that support programmes in developing countries and undertake public information at home.”8 Here, we find no steady increase over time, but a process of ups and downs, intensified and halted cooperation. As regards programs and advocacy, two peaks of openness can be identified: one from the 1960s to the aftermath of the World Food Conference (1974) and the second from the mid-1990s onward. Joint efforts to promote FAO policies and raise awareness have a long history. FAO had first established strong ties with civil society during the Freedom from Hunger Campaign (FFHC) in 1960–70. In 1959, the FAO Conference “broke new ground” by inviting non-state actors, among them religious groups and private organizations, to participate in promotional activities during the campaign (cf. FAO, 1985: 127). With technical support from FAO and financial means from the member states, the FFHC formulated and implemented several grassroots projects, regional and international conferences. Further examples are the events on the annual World Food Day, established by the FAO in 1979, where NGOs arrange seminars and fund-raising activities (FAO, 1985: 132). In a number of cases, transnational civil society organizations and multinationals have also gained access to special regulatory frameworks, engaged in FAO’s normative work and participated in a number of FAO programs. For example, 156 TNAs have observer status in the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which FAO and WHO established in 1963. Among them 70 percent are private sector interest groups (FAO, 2006b: 29). FAO also states that participation by “economic groupings” in the subsidiary codex committees is “intense” (FAO, 1985: 77). Civil society organizations have been involved in the preparation and negotiation of regulatory and voluntary frameworks. “Pioneering experiences date back to the early 1980s,” when “professionally competent NGOs” provided information and served as advocates during the 17-year-long process leading to the Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides (FAO, 2006b: 23). A more recent example of collaboration led to the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in 2004. As a novelty, the Intergovernmental Working Group for Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food, established in 2002, granted NGOs/CSOs equal participation rights by allowing them to speak before governmental statements had ended (FAO, 2006b: 24).


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Recently, both civil society and private sector organizations have been active in other voluntary frameworks, such as on Responsible Fisheries (FAO, 2006b: 24, 29; cf. FAO, 2007: 212, 214). They are also interacting with FAO in its advisory work. For example, FAO’s Fisheries Industries Division works with the International Coalition of Fishery Associations on fish industry development (FAO, 2004: 15), and individuals with a background in the wood and paper industry are members of one of FAO’s advisory bodies, the Advisory Committee on Paper and Wood Products (FAO, 2007: 214). In particular, two programs provide evidence of FAO’s early openness and intense collaboration with transnational companies. The organization had worked with companies long before the current DirectorGeneral, Jacques Diouf, launched a strategy for partnerships with the private sector. Already during the FFHC, FAO came in contact with the fertilizer industry, and in 1961 established a program to improve crop production through the use of fertilizers, the FAO Fertilizer Program. The industry contributed policy advice. FAO’s Fertilizer Industry Advisory Committee was composed of representatives from government, NGOs, and the industry (FAO, 1985: 37). In a similar vein, the Industry Cooperative Programme (ICP), operating from 1965 to 1978, had established relations between FAO and representatives from the agro-industry. ICP was financed through a trust fund, administered by a Secretariat staffed with FAO personnel and hosted at FAO’s headquarters in Rome. Working groups of the ICP interacted directly with FAO’s technical divisions and other sectors of the UN system (Friedrich and Gale, 2004: 71–2). Originally composed of 16 representatives of multinational corporations such as Shell, Hoechst, Nestlé, Unilever, Tetra Pak, and H.J. Heinz, industry membership rose to 106 companies in 1975 and the program broadened from FAO to include other UN organizations. The program consulted with FAO on several issues such as protein food development, farm mechanization, and pesticides (ICP, 1973: 8) and provided material for several conferences, for example, the UN Environmental Conference in Stockholm in 1972. FAO incorporated its views in reports to governments (Friedrich and Gale, 2004: 75). It is noteworthy that the ICP made a contribution at the World Food Conference, organized by the UN and FAO in 1974, which amounted to the industries’ first formal participation at a UN Conference (Friedrich and Gale, 2004: 71, 46). The former Executive Secretary of the ICP recalls that “[t]his participation of ICP was openly criticized by some non-governmental organizations” (Friedrich and Gale, 2004: 77). Especially the trade unions, “who were confined to


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individual NGO status with FAO” and “had been unable to achieve any formal recognition as a group” (Friedrich and Gale, 2004: 81) were critical of the special treatment of industry. Following heavy criticism from civil society, the emergence of widespread opposition to transnational companies within the UN system, suspicion from the newly independent countries in the South, and a change in organizational leadership at FAO and UNDP, the partnership with FAO ended in 1979 (Friedrich and Gale, 2004: 83–5). Consequently, from 1979 to 1994, “FAO had no official policy for working cooperatively with the private sector. Nevertheless, individual divisions in FAO continued relations with a variety of private sector actors, for their attendance at official meetings, technical contributions to projects and other activities” (FAO, 2006b: 28). In 1994 (and 2000) the organization eventually initiated a new policy to intensify cooperation with the private sector; yet transnational companies have never become as closely involved as during the ICP (cf. FAO, 2007: 214). FAO has been less susceptible to the recent UN-wide trend to establish trisectoral partnerships (cf. Bexell and Mörth, 2010). The International Alliance against Hunger, an outcome of the summit in 2002, is reminiscent of the FFHC (cf. Shaw, 2007: 360). It involves civil society and governmental actors, yet the private sector is absent except in a few national alliances. While other agencies, such as the WHO, are quite active in many trisectoral partnerships, FAO’s internal evaluation of partnerships argues that there are “very few examples of FAO, larger companies and farmer’s organizations working together for the direct benefit of the rural poor” (FAO, 2006b: 8). Likewise, country-level partnerships with civil society actors in particular are based on “sporadic contact,” and “the number of truly joint activities appears quite small” (FAO, 2007: 212). Overall “there has been and remains very little, if any, engagement with small- and medium size firms at the national level” and there are also only a “quite small” number of joint activities with non-profit organizations, in particular local NGOs (FAO, 2007: 214, 212). Summary of empirical results: variation on the dependent variable As the mapping has shown, there is considerable variation with regard to the involvement of TNAs in the work of FAO, both over time and with regard to certain types of non-state actors. There are even indications of variation in the policy cycle, with a puzzlingly low degree of involvement in project implementation at the national level.


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A diachronic comparison reveals that the legal status of non-state actors has hardly changed, but that formal access to policy forums has been granted to an increasing number of TNAs, at least since the World Food Conference in 1974. Here we can find a parallel development in the Economic and Social Council of the UN, which has continuously accredited more NGOs throughout the past 40 years.9 Also, since 1995–6, when FAO set up a new Unit for Cooperation with the Private Sector and NGOs and held the World Food Summit, FAO has visibly interacted with TNAs in standard-setting, policy advice, and programs. Nevertheless, the assumption of an abruptly increasing engagement of TNAs and the FAO in the 1990s is not fully supported. First, the Agency has a very long history of interacting with different types of TNAs in its programs and in promotional activities. Second, the intense collaboration with transnational companies dates back to 1966 and was abandoned at the end of the 1970s, when FAO came under criticism for bowing to business interests. Moreover, there are some indications of intra-organizational variation and variation with regard to the type of TNAs involved. While civil society actors are involved “at various stages of the policy cycle” (FAO, 2006b: 24), “the limited association FAO has with the private sector is with multinationals linked to FAO’s normative activities” (FAO, 2007: 214) and rather absent at the national level. In general, the direct involvement of the private sector is less frequent than the involvement of research institutions and civil society organizations: “The number of partnerships [...] with the private sector is low, mostly found in expert consultation and data exchange activities and, to a lesser extent, policy dialogue and regulatory framework processes” (FAO, 2006b: 32). There is even some variation with regard to types of private actors: “The evaluation’s findings confirm that most of FAO’s work has involved multinational corporations, while much more limited evidence was found of collaboration with national private companies and associations of developing countries” (FAO, 2006b: 33).

Theoretical approaches to organizations and organizational behavior Why did the FAO choose to engage with TNAs, and what explains the varying degree of existing access opportunities? I argue that, in order to understand the varying degree of openness to TNAs, we cannot solely rely on approaches prominent in international relations theory (cf. Tallberg, this volume). Following several strands of institutional and


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Andrea Liese Table 5.1 Determinants of organizational openness Costs and benefits

Culture

Theory

Resource-Dependence Theory

Sociological Institutionalism

Factor

Demand for and supply of external resources, in combination with avoidance of autonomy loss

Cognitive scripts

Theory

Strategic Change Perspective

Cultural Approach

Factor

Available resources for reform

Tacit assumptions within bureaucracy

External

Internal

organizational theory, I treat changes in the relation between international organizations and TNAs as the result of the interplay of internal and external dynamics (cf. Finger and Margarinos-Ruchat, 2003: 143). Changes in the organizational environment and external pressures may be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for organizational change (cf. Kapur, 2002) and must be combined with the causal effects of organizations’ internal structures. Consequently, one may group the literature in a 2 × 2 matrix, along a spatial dimension (external and internal) and two essential forces for organizational change and inertia10: costs and benefits, and culture. The theories to be reviewed are summarized in Table 5.1. Rationalist institutionalism and resource dependency: the effect of material incentives and expertise A rationalist account would assume that international organizations seek to engage with other actors, if they can benefit from their resources.11 According to this line of reasoning, states and intergovernmental organizations make strategic choices about the involvement of TNAs. These choices are based on the expected benefits of inclusion, which stem from the functional advantages of TNAs, such as policy expertise, funding, and the capacity to reach out to the target population (cf. Brühl, 2003). By including TNAs, international organizations expect to gain further legitimacy, to increase efficiency, and to get access to new financial resources. Thus, one would expect that the degree of organizational openness increases with the demand for and the availability of funding


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and expertise. This hypothesis figures most prominently in studies of the UN and mirrors the finer assumptions of resource-dependency theory, developed in the mid-1970s (see also Steffek, this volume). It views organizations as rational actors, who calculate the benefits and costs of giving in to external demands (and power) as a consequence of resource dependencies. While all organizations strive for autonomy, which enables them to control their work and reduces insecurity, organizations are not necessarily autonomous actors (cf. Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003). Instead, organizations are dependent on their environment and, as a consequence, respond to demands made by actors upon whose resources they depend. Resource-dependency theory posits that organizations depend on particular resources (material, economic, political), which they may acquire from actors in their environment. Therefore, interaction with others becomes a necessity. While the resource-dependency perspective holds that organizations require resources, the assumption is not that resource acquisition follows a supply logic. The very moment organizations transact with others for necessary resources, they provide them with “social control” over the organization (Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003: 258ff). Especially when resources are scarce and the number of possible sources to acquire resources is limited, a resource-supplying actor may exert substantial influence. The organization then faces a dilemma: the pursuit of stability and certainty encourages resource acquisition, while the pursuit of independent action requires the avoidance of dependencies (Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003: 256ff, 271ff). Thus, organizations are involved “in a constant struggle for autonomy and discretion, confronted with constraints and external control” (Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003: 257). As a consequence, organizations simultaneously try to avoid external control and to acquire a maximum of resources. The following hypotheses can be derived from this theory: (1) the greater the demand for external resources and the smaller the fear of autonomy loss, the higher is the propensity to engage in partnerships with external actors; (2) the greater the demand for external resources, the fewer alternative resources, and the higher the fear of autonomy loss, the higher is the propensity to control external actors and resource supplies. Sociological institutionalism: the effect of cognitive scripts Neo-institutionalist theory – in IR most often referred to as sociological institutionalism – does not see the determinants of organizational structures and behavior at the level of the individual organization


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but at the level of the world polity or world culture, where rules have become institutionalized. The “birth” of this school of thought dates back to 1977, when Meyer and Rowan published their seminal article on “institutional organizations: formalized structure as myth and ceremony” (cf. McKinley and Mone, 2005: 361; Miebach, 2007: 131). They argued that norms, understood as templates of action or cognitive scripts, define appropriate ways of behavior and appropriate structures for organizations (Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Because they are rewarded with legitimacy, organizations conform to institutionalized rules, even if they have to decouple formal structure and behavior. Organizational change is caused by changes in the normative environment, by new “templates for action,” that is, the habitual organization of themes and modes of action according to a logic of appropriateness (March and Olsen, 2004). Hence, this approach would expect a rise and fall of cooperative projects over time, depending on scripts in the environment. In general, sociological institutionalism is used to explain isomorphism – homogeneity of organizational forms and practices. There are three causes and mechanisms for isomorphism (Di Maggio and Powell, 1983), of which two are highlighted here. 1) The so-called “coercive isomorphism” results from the impact of external pressures from other organizations or states. Furthermore, the organizational environment raises expectations as to the behavior of a particular organization: the higher the coercive pressures for partnerships with TNAs, the greater the propensity to open up and engage with TNAs. 2) The so-called “mimetic isomorphism” results from the diffusion of models and “best practices” by consultants and advisors. Also, staff members within one organization imitate units and programs of more successful organizations: the greater the openness of reference organizations or the stronger the calls for partnerships by advisors, the greater the propensity of an organization to engage with new partners. Strategic change and organizational learning: the role of internal resource distribution Changes in organizational behavior are not only the result of external pressures but may be seen as triggered by underlying theories in use, that is, the beliefs that members of an organization share, and the capabilities it has to change. Organizational learning is seen as more likely if the organization has resources at hand to reflect its situation and to change its routines (cf. Cyert and March, 1963; Siebenhüner, 2002: 22). Especially studies of strategic change focus on such resources as time, financial means, research capability, and management capability. In


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general, this perspective offers relevant (but sometimes contradictory) insights into how and why resources shape strategic adaptation and organizational learning (Kraatz and Zajac, 2001: 632). On the one hand, resource endowments are seen as barriers to learning; they make organizations more passive and less flexible. One would expect that “organizations with greater resource endowments will have a lower propensity to change strategies in response to environmental change” (Kraatz and Zajac, 2001: 634). On the other hand, resource endowments are seen as facilitators. It is expected that “organizations with greater resource endowments will have a greater propensity to change strategies in response to environmental change” (Kraatz and Zajac, 2001: 637). The propensity for alliance formation, as a particular form of strategic change, is seen as highly dependent on resources (for an overview, see Gulati, 1999): “For firms to build alliances that effectively address their needs while minimizing the risks posed by moral hazard concerns, they must be aware of the existence of potential partners and have an idea of their needs and requirements and second, have information about the reliability of those partners” (Gulati, 1999: 399–400). Alliance formation capabilities stem from network resources of prior alliances, but may also be generated by “separate organizational units to assist with the creation and management of their strategic alliances” and the development of “standardized procedures to facilitate the creation of new alliances” (Gulati, 1999: 403). Thus, we would expect that organizational openness depends upon the resources available for choosing partners, for overseeing cooperation and for simplifying the process: the greater the alliance formation capabilities of an organization, the greater the propensity to enter a new alliance. Perspectives on organizational culture: the role of tacit assumptions Since the mid-1980s, organizational culture is one of the major domains of organizational research (cf. Weik and Lang, 2001: 208). Following the popular definition by Edgar Schein (1996), organizational culture can be understood as the pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has developed in learning to cope with the dilemma of external adaptation and internal integration. While organizational culture also consists of artefacts (attributes that can be seen or heard) and espoused values (the professed culture which is often expressed), it is the tacit, basic assumptions that are seen to be located at the deepest level and are therefore regarded as highly important (cf. Schein, 2004).


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Organizational culture serves the function of maintaining the integrity and autonomy of groups within organizations, securing their identity, and delineating the boundaries of the organization. Past experiences are reflected in the organizational culture, that is, they shape the attitudes of the secretariat to TNAs (cf. Williams, 1987: 267). Also, organizational culture locks in the authority claims of organizations. Many international bureaucracies premise their authority on the belief that they are impartial and value-neutral and avoid being seen as political (Barnett and Coleman, 2005: 598; Barnett and Finnemore, 2004: 21). Organizational culture is seen not only as the most difficult organizational attribute to change, but also as a barrier to organizational change in general (cf. Argyris and Schön, 1978; Schein, 2004).12 If a change perspective threatens or contradicts tacit assumptions, change is likely to be slow, incremental, and hardly adaptive to external demands and new environmental challenges. The stronger the organizational culture, that is, the more people who share a consistent set of basic assumptions, the smaller the propensity to change (cf. Miebach, 2007: 71). Organizational culture may be more or less favorable to cooperation with others in general, and with TNAs in particular. As a consequence, the more the organizational culture objects to partnerships with TNAs, the smaller the propensity to engage in alliances with TNAs. Recently, the notion of organizational culture has been transferred to the study of international organizations. Organizational culture is believed to shape an organization’s responses to external stimuli (Nielson et al., 2006: 109). Consequently, misfits between its culture and the scripts of the environment (outside expectations, standards of appropriateness propagated by external advisors) may result in an incapacity to pursue coherent courses of action (Barnett and Coleman, 2005: 599–600; Evans and Finnemore, 2001; Nielson et al., 2006: 113).

Explaining varying degrees of openness in FAO In the light of the theoretical approaches outlined above, how can we explain FAO’s pattern of openness towards TNAs? And which of the hypotheses discussed above can be confirmed? The empirical evidence presented here points to a complementary rather than competing relation of the different approaches. An internal evaluation of FAO’s collaboration explains the recent turn to TNAs as a combination of assumptions of rationalist institutionalism, resource dependency, and sociological institutionalism. FAO’s increased collaboration with TNAs is said to be driven by FAO’s “need to address


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increasingly complex problems that the organization cannot address by itself,” by “pressure on the organization” to “produce more with increasingly limited resources,” by “the recognition of the crucial and complementary roles of civil society and the private sector in the development process,” and by “the issue of open governance, with greater responsibility and accountability to all elements of society” (FAO, 2006b: 11). However, the evaluation also points to severe obstacles rooted in the organizational culture, which reduce the effect of the driving forces mentioned above. “There is resistance among some staff to partnership with non-state actors, in particular the private sector. Among the most significant reasons is a belief, among many, that the private sector does not sufficiently represent public interest, and working with it, while dealing with other constituencies, will make it difficult to balance objectives of efficiency, effectiveness and accountability” (FAO, 2006b: 58). Furthermore, the investigations carried out for the External Evaluation on the FAO revealed that “FAO is currently not well-equipped, especially at the country level, to [...] develop new relationships that will enhance its effectiveness” (FAO, 2007: 198). Overall, only “relatively little of FAO’s staff time and resources are spent in developing ongoing and active partnerships with civil society” (FAO, 2007: 211). In sum, while FAO’s general willingness to open up to TNAs is driven by a need to access the resources of TNAs, on the one hand, and supported by cognitive shifts, on the other, the rather hesitant and limited association with business actors (variation with regard to the type of TNAs) and the intra-organizational variation mainly confirm perspectives on organizational culture and on capabilities of alliance formation, including the availability of resources. As there are no signs that one theoretical approach is superior to another in explaining change, the question is how to combine them. The evaluation cited above has already implicitly distinguished driving and enabling driving forces, on the one hand, and obstacles to access, on the other. Driving and enabling forces Formal structures, such as the Unit for Cooperation with the Private Sector and NGOs (1995), were established at around the same time as the UN Secretary-General’s initiative to engage more actively with the private sector (cf. FAO, 2007: 28). Here we find support for sociological institutionalism and its hypotheses of mimetic and coercive isomorphism: collaboration with TNAs is the thing to do, and other organizations, such as UNDP, serve as models.13 In particular, the


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recommendations and strategies developed within the UN system in the 1990s give ample evidence of cognitive pressures that explain the organization’s willingness to embrace the partnership principle, even when partnerships hardly multiply. The independent external evaluation of FAO makes a particularly strong and explicit recommendation: “FAO is expected to seek out and function effectively in partnership with governments, decentralized authorities, the private sector, bilateral and other multilateral agencies and NGOs, and to do so at grassroots, national and international levels” (FAO, 2007: 70). However, the wish to access resources must be seen as the principal motive for cooperation with TNAs. For example, the ICP had the clear objective to stimulate agro-allied industrial expansion in the developing countries by linking “industry’s managerial, technical, marketing, research and capital resources with multinational, national and other resources in cooperative activities” (ICP, 1973: 4). Still today, particular knowledge, for example of “commodity markets or technologies – is sometimes proprietary and usually in the private sector” (FAO, 2007: 214), while civil society organizations add expertise in areas such as “human rights approaches to food security and food sovereignty” (FAO, 2006b: 25). At first sight, however, resource-based arguments seem to have difficulties in explaining the ups and downs of openness toward TNAs in the case of FAO. After all, the diachronic comparison revealed that FAO was already engaging actively with TNAs in the 1960s and the 1970s, while lately encountering difficulties in implementing its partnership strategies and attracting new partners. Yet, like most UN agencies, FAO’s demand for resources is increasing, at the same time as the supply of resources from member states is decreasing. FAO is not only in need of financial resources. It needs to find support for its activities among other organizations, to draw on the expertise of TNAs and local organizations, and to take advantage of the latter’s access to the rural poor. Following the rationalist expectation, one would expect the organization to open up to TNAs in order to access resources. Yet, although it is in need of resources from agribusiness firms – such as high-value seeds, technology, market strategies, and access points for farmers to regional and world markets (FAO, 2007: 63) – FAO still has weak linkages with these private sector actors. Similarly, the organization has hardly been successful in mobilizing funds from TNAs. Although FAO faced a financial crisis by the mid-1980s (Beigbeder, 1997: 154; Burci and Vignes, 2004: 203), it has hardly managed to attract private funds. According to an internal evaluation, FAO has, generally, mobilized only very limited


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resources from the private sector. Private sector contributions to trust funds amounted to 7.6 million USD over three biennia – a total of only 0.22 percent of trust fund contributions (FAO, 2006b: 32). Why has the organization not opened up further to access desperately needed resources? First, there are only few opportunities for FAO to utilize partnerships as an alternative means of resource mobilization or, in other words, to trade funds for access. Notably the United Nations Foundation (UNF) supports public–private partnerships in five program areas: children’s health, environment, peace/security/human rights, technology, and women/population. Due to its thematic focus, the FAO was not a beneficiary of the first funding rounds of the UNF (UN, 1998) and only received a small grant under the women and population portfolio that was approved in 2005 (UN, 2007) and a grant of 260,000 USD for community-based forest enterprise development at two World Heritage Sites in Uganda and China. Second, a fear of autonomy loss has led FAO to control its external partners. In doing so, the organization further limits the availability of resources (see below). Third, as one FAO evaluation rightly points out: “Other reasons may lie in the relatively poor capacity of the organization to develop such initiatives” (FAO, 2006b: 32). Obstacles The main obstacles to informal access are the tacit assumptions within the bureaucracy, which nurture fears of autonomy loss. For instance, staff members view civil society organizations as a threat to autonomy as they can “on occasion be equally scrupulous in their lobbying” (FAO, 2007: 172). There are several signs of efforts by FAO to control partnerships and to engage only in those PPPs that it can dominate. Several evaluations have “reported FAO as territorial and as exercising an excessively dominating role in the partnership.” Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS), the International Alliance against Hunger (IAAH) and the UN Network on Rural Development and Food Security were all “launched by FAO, based in FAO, led by FAO and funded, essentially, with funds channelled through the Organization” (FAO, 2007: 202). Furthermore, like most UN agencies, FAO has developed guidelines for cooperation, which control for autonomy loss. Its different guidelines on the use of the FAO emblem, on voluntary contributions from private enterprises, and on co-sponsorship, published in 2000, limit access of several types of companies and NGOs.


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As shown, there are obvious efforts to control TNAs and to regulate this relation. Cultural approaches help to explain why control is stronger at times and why particular types of TNAs face stronger controls than others. The influence of industry was seen as a particularly sensitive issue when the ICP ended. Thus, we find support for the expectation of resource-dependency theory, according to which collaborations between the FAO and TNAs come about only if FAO succeeds in controlling for a loss of autonomy. In the end, due to its fear of autonomy loss, FAO limits opportunities for collaboration and thus minimizes the availability of resource supplies (see above). Another major obstacle is the lack of internal resources needed for strategic change. The collaboration with the private sector and with NGOs/CSOs is described as resource-intensive, as it requires the screening of potential partners, new communication channels, training, and so forth. FAO’s independent external evaluation (IEE) came to the overall conclusion that FAO is not currently well-equipped, especially at the country-level, to garner the full benefit of many existing partnerships or to develop new relationships that will enhance its effectiveness. [...] The organization lacks at both the corporate and the country levels the strategic tools required to determine the purposes, modalities and thematic areas in which partnerships are desirable. In addition, although budgetary constraints impose undeniable limitations, other factors [...] are at least equally constraining. These include: FAO’s heavy, slow and burdensome bureaucracy, centralization of authority, risk-averse culture and inflexible means of securing technical expertise. (FAO, 2007: 198–9, cf. 41) In particular, members of the FAO secretariat and Regional Officers have stressed that they work under “huge resource constraints and without tangible support from the leadership”14 and “simply do not have the resources to be taken seriously in any discussion of potential partnerships” (FAO, 2007: 203). There is lack of guidance or support for partnerships such as the International Alliance against Hunger, which operates at the transnational level. Similarly, collaborations with civil society organizations at the country level are hampered by “the virtual absence of resources to work with NGOs” (FAO, 2007: 211ff). Human resources devoted to partnership activities are particularly scarce. In 2004, FAO’s unit to promote collaborations with NGOs/CSOs and the private sector had three full-time and one part-time professionals responsible (FAO,


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2006b: 51), and in 2006 only one full-time professional was left in charge of relations with NGOs/CSOs (FAO, 2006a: 4). Hence the unit can “not take on a proactive role. The amount of funding and personnel wasn’t there.”15 The majority of other units in the secretariat dedicate less than 5 percent of their resources to major partnerships; according to nearly half of the staff, the allocation is smaller than 2 percent (FAO, 2007: 198). In particular, the establishment of partnerships with the private sector requires resources, which the relevant units at the headquarters lack16: in order to avoid the loss of autonomy and reputation, FAO needs to screen multinational corporations and to monitor projects. At the same time, technical officers in the different departments have insufficient time for building partnerships and handling the multitude of actors (FAO, 2006b). Finally, limited resources constrain increased collaboration with non-state actors at the country level, where small country offices already perform a multiplicity of duties (FAO, 1999). As shown, the alliance-building capability of FAO is weak, due to resource scarcity and resource distribution. The availability of resources within an organization seems unable to explain a general trend towards access or exclusion, but may illuminate why partnership experiments are not being institutionalized or why an organization does not succeed in mobilizing external resources.

Conclusion This chapter has introduced four approaches from organizational theory, which shed light on the involvement of TNAs in international organizations. While one could treat the approaches as competing, the evidence on FAO’s openness suggests that they complement each other. FAO’s interest in opening up to TNAs stems from (1) FAO’s demand for resources from TNAs, which increased after FAO had lost its status as the pre-eminent agricultural institution and faced a financial crisis; and (2) a global script of engaging TNAs, which the UN and policy advisors promote. Yet, while FAO’s environment considers partnering with TNAs as appropriate, (3) members of FAO’s secretariat fear an autonomy loss, most likely due to negative experiences in the past. At the same time, (4) FAO’s leadership does not provide the organization with the resources it would need in order to implement its partnership strategy. As a result, FAO is less open than its partnership strategy would suggest. Decisions to open up are based on a calculation of material and reputational risks and benefits: the organization seeks to control TNAs, even if it risks losing single organizations as partners.


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106

Andrea Liese

We can confirm the hypothesis of resource dependency, according to which a high demand for external resources in combination with a low fear of autonomy loss leads to a high propensity to open up for TNAs. Fears of autonomy loss are an important obstacle to TNA inclusion. Such fears are nurtured by a mixture of organizational culture (within the international organization, its bureaucracy) and standards of appropriateness (outside the international organization). Furthermore, there is strong evidence for a need of resources for alliance formation: the ability of different organizational units to engage in partnerships with TNAs depends on the availability of these resources. Thus, in order to acquire external resources from TNAs, an international organization needs to invest internal resources first. The experience of FAO has shown that a lack of internal resources in combination with a risk-averse organizational culture constitutes a strong hurdle for collaborations with TNAs. Even the strongest calls for partnerships from the wider UN system and from consultants will thus not lead to more openness, but merely achieve the adoption of partnership strategies, which do not lead to an increase in TNA involvement. What do we learn from this case study for the wider debate on transnational access? We may expect international organizations to open up, if they can access resources from those types of TNAs that are compatible with their standards of appropriate behavior, on the one hand, and the prescription of organizational culture, on the other hand. Yet, even when these conditions are fulfilled, international organizations are still in need of resources to control for autonomy loss, on the one hand, and to reach out to TNAs, on the other hand. As these conditions vary with regard to the types of TNAs and with regard to the policy issues involved – not only in FAO – we have to expect considerable variation within international institutions and organizations. Furthermore, the overall assumption in the global governance literature, according to which we can witness an overall trend toward more access for TNAs, needs to be qualified with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Notes 1. I thank Christer Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg as well as Jessica Green, Christopher Kaan, Robert Keohane, Maren Sass, Philip Schleifer, and Jens Steffek for comments on an earlier version of this chapter and the interviewees for sharing their views. My research on the FAO was partly funded by the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University and the German Research Council.


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Varying Degrees of Openness in FAO 107 2. In order to draw a more detailed picture, the chapter will further distinguish different types of TNAs: “private sector actors” for TNAs from the for-profit sector, “NGO/CSO” for non-profit TNAs, and business foundations, which are a mix of both categories. Furthermore, the chapter will also refer to local actors. 3. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), with which FAO interacts intensely, is not considered as a TNA, because FAO is a co-sponsor of the group and a member of its Executive Committee and hosts one of its Governing Bodies, the Science Council. 4. The UN uses the term NGO instead of TNA. Although most NGOs in official relations are transnational, I follow the UN terminology where necessary. 5. FAO Website at http://www.fao.org/tc/NGO/formalstatus_en.asp (accessed November 13, 2009). 6. http://www.fao.org/tc/NGO/status1_en.asp (accessed November 13, 2009). 7. NGLS Handbook / FAO, available at http://www.un-ngls.org/documents/ publications.en/ngls.handbook/4fao.htm (accessed November 13, 2009). 8. NGLS Handbook / FAO, available at http://www.un-ngls.org/documents/ publications.en/ngls.handbook/4fao.htm (accessed November 13, 2009). 9. Data available at http://www.un.org/esa/coordination/ngo/ (accessed April 28, 2010). 10. I amend the 2 × 2 matrix introduced by Barnett and Finnemore by adding different strands of literature, cf. Barnett and Finnemore (2004: 42). 11. Here is an overlap with the resource-dependency theory, discussed below. 12. Note that organizational culture can be changed through learning processes (Haas, 1990) and that management studies argue that change agents are more successful if they understand tacit assumptions in an organization. 13. Interview with FAO staff member, January 2007. 14. UN System and Civil Society – An Inventory and Analysis of Practices. Background Paper for the Secretary-General’s Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations Relations with Civil Society, May 2003, available at: http:// www.un.org/reform/civilsociety/practices8.shtml (accessed April 28, 2010). 15. Interview with former FAO staff member, May 2007. 16. Interview with FAO staff member, January 2007.

References Argyris, C. and D.A. Schön (1978) Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley). Barnett, M. and L. Coleman (2005) “Designing Police: Interpol and the Study of Change in International Organizations,” International Studies Quarterly, 49: 593–619. Barnett, M. and M. Finnemore (2004) “Expertise and Power at the International Monetary Fund,” in M. Barnett and M. Finnemore (eds) Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Beigbeder, Y. (1997) The Internal Management of United Nations Organizations: The Long Quest for Reform (New York: St Martin’s Press). Bexell, M. and U. Mörth (eds) (2010) Democracy and Public-Private Partnerships in Global Governance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).


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108 Andrea Liese Brühl, T. (2003) Nichtregierungsorganisationen als Akteure internationaler Umweltverhandlungen: Ein Erklärungsmodell auf der Basis der situationsspezifischen Ressourcennachfrage (Frankfurt and New York: Campus). Burci, G.L. and C.-H. Vignes (2004) World Health Organization (The Hague: Kluwer Law International). Cyert, R.M. and J.G. March (1963) A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall). Di Maggio, P.J. and W.W. Powell (1983) “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields,” American Sociological Review, 48: 147–60. Evans, P. and M. Finnemore (2001) Organizational Reform and the Expansion of the South’s Voice at the Fund (New York and Geneva: United Nations). FAO (1985) FAO: The First 40 Years (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). FAO (1999) FAO Policy and Strategy for Cooperation with Non-Governmental and Civil Society Organizations (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). FAO (2004) Evaluation of FAO Activities in Fisheries Exploitation and Utilization Programme 2.3.3. (PC 91/5) (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). FAO (2006a) Evaluation of Partnerships and Alliances – Management Response (PC 95/4 b, Sup. 1) (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). FAO (2006b) Evaluation of Partnerships and Alliances (Programme Committee 95th session, PC 95/4b) (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). FAO (2007) FAO: The Challenge of Renewal: Report of the Independent External Evaluation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). FAO (2008) Conference, Thirty-fifth (Special) Session: Admission to the Session of Representatives and Observers of International Organizations (C 2008/6) (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). Finger, M. and B. Margarinos-Ruchat (2003) “The Transformation of International Public Organizations: The Case of UNCTAD,” in D. Dijkzeul and Y. Beigbeder (eds) Rethinking International Organizations: Pathology and Compromise (New York and Oxford: Berghahn). Friedrich, A.G. and V.E. Gale (2004) Public-Private Partnership within the United Nations System: Now and Then (Bielefeld: Bertelsmann). Gulati, R. (1999) “Network Location and Learning: The Influence of Network Resources and Firm Capabilities on Alliance Formation,” Strategic Management Journal, 20: 397–420. Haas, E.B. (1990) When Knowledge Is Power. Three Models of Change in International Organizations (Berkeley: University of California Press). ICP (1973) Multinational Enterprise and the Developing World: The Role of the Industry Cooperative Programme (Rome and Geneva: Industry Cooperative Programme). Kapur, D. (2002) “Processes of Change in International Organizations,” in D. Nayyar (ed.) New Roles and Functions of the UN and the Bretton Woods Institutions (Oxford: Oxford University Press).


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Kraatz, M.S. and E.J. Zajac (2001) “How Organizational Resources Affect Strategic Change and Performance in Turbulent Environments: Theory and Evidence,” Organization Science, 12: 632–57. McKinley, W. and M.A. Mone (2005) “Micro and Macro Perspectives in Organization Theory: A Tale of Incommensurability,” in H. Tsoukas and C. Knudsen (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Organization Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press). March, J.G. and J.P. Olsen (2004) “The Logic of Appropriateness,” Arena Working Papers (Oslo: Arena, Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo). Meyer, J.W. and B. Rowan (1977) “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony,” American Journal of Sociology, 83: 340–63. Miebach, B. (2007) Organisationstheorie: Problemstellung – Modelle – Entwicklung (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag). NGOCONGO (2006) NGO Participation Arrangements at the UN and in Other Agencies of the UN System (Geneva: Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relations with the United Nations). Nielson, D.L., M.J. Tierney and C.E. Weaver (2006) “Bridging the RationalistConstructivist Divide: Re-engineering the Culture of the World Bank,” Journal of International Relations and Development, 9: 107–39. Pfeffer, J. and G.G. Salancik (2003) The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependency Perspective (Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books). Schein, E. (1996) “Culture: The Missing Concept in Organization Studies,” Administrative Studies Quarterly, 41: 229–40. Schein, E. (2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd edn (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass). Shaw, J.D. (2007) World Food Security. A History since 1945 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Siebenhüner, B. (2002) “How Do Scientific Assessments Learn? Part 1: Conceptual Framework and Case Study of the IPCC,” Environmental Science & Policy, 2002: 411–20. UN (2007) United Nations Fund for International Partnerships: Report by the Secretary-General (New York: United Nations General Assembly). UN (1998) United Nations Fund for International Partnerships: Report of the Secretary-General (New York: United Nations General Assembly). Weik, E. and R. Lang (2001) Moderne Organisationstheorien: Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Einführung (Wiesbaden: Gabler). Williams, D. (1987) The Specialized Agencies and the United Nations: The System in Crisis (London: C. Hurst and Company).


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6 WTO and the Environmental Movement: On the Path to Participatory Governance? Åsa Casula Vifell

Introduction This chapter aims at exploring the emerging forms of participation of NGOs in the World Trade Organization (WTO), based on the example of the relations between the environmental movement and the WTO. Although most suggestions concerning how to democratize global governance have not yet seen the light of day in practice, numerous reforms and attempts have been undertaken. Therefore, it is important to explore the response by practitioners to the articulated criticism of lacking accountability, transparency, and representation directed at international organizations in general, and the WTO in particular. In the environmental debate, international trade flows are often described as increasing the strain on ecosystems in several ways (Damian and Graz, 2001). This arguably happens through increasing transport, excessive use of sometimes scarce natural resources, or through national environmental regulation being considered a trade barrier. Another distinguishing feature of the relationship is that the two policy areas to a great extent have developed in parallel rather than in cooperation, meaning that they are most often dealt with in different settings and arenas, and hence also by different actors. The policy fields of environmental and trade policy may furthermore be described as undeniably different in several aspects when it comes to the modes of decision-making. All in all this makes the WTO and the environmental movement a noteworthy case for anyone interested in the development of interactive global governance where new forms of participation and new relations between actors from different fields might appear. 110


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The issue of democratizing international organizations, and the WTO in particular, is treated in an ever growing literature (see. e.g., Bullen and Van Dyke, 1996; Howse and Nicolaïdis, 2003; Kahler, 2004; Petersmann, 2005; Williams, 1999). An important stream of thought has lately focused on the role of transnational actors, in particular NGOs, in strengthening global democracy. The roles of NGOs as transmission belts for public opinion, as contributors to transparency of opaque international decision-making, and as organizations enhancing representation of weaker societal groups or important issues not raised by powerful states certainly raise many hopes for positive effects of increased NGO participation (Florini, 2000; Scholte, 2002, 2007; Smith et al., 1997). Recent studies, drawing attention to the WTO’s emerging structures for participation, indicate incipient change in an organization often portrayed as a closed club for negotiations with no transparency or participation beyond member-state delegations (Ripinsky and Van den Bossche, 2007; Steffek and Nanz, 2007). Whether or not the WTO arrangements for increased participation fulfill any democratic expectations deserves closer scrutiny, especially in light of the more critical voices urging us to be cautious of treating increased NGO participation as inherently benevolent (Kopecký and Mudde, 2003; Uhlin, 2009). Environmental NGOs (ENGOs), with their strong tradition of participating in international governance in other international organizations, could be expected to have well-developed strategies for organizing their participation, increasing the likelihood of finding stable and successful patterns of participation. Also, many of the ENGOs have chosen a less antagonistic and more interactive approach toward the WTO as a whole (Scholte, 2004; Williams, 1999). In particular, international ENGOs – such as Environmental Grantmakers Association and the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth (FOE), and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) – have been active over the years in placing environmental issues on the WTO agenda, as well as demanding better dialogue between the organization and civil society. In a 2001 symposium, the WWF, for instance, stated that the WTO must “rest on processes that are fully participatory, balanced, and transparent” and that the WTO needed to respond to the criticism raised during and after the Seattle summit (Charnowitz, 2000; WTO, 2001). This chapter will trace the inception and development of different modes of ENGO participation in the WTO, proceeding from a theoretical perspective built on historical institutionalism. This approach is chosen


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because it allows a discussion of the prospects for current patterns of interaction to develop and persist (Pierson, 2004: 2). Moreover, placing a particular phenomenon in a temporal dimension, paying attention to how processes of inclusion/exclusion develop over time, is important in order to enhance our understanding of the facilitation or obstruction of social organization leading to a more democratic governance.

A historical institutionalist approach to stability and change There are many theoretical frameworks that may provide us with important insights when exploring ENGO participation within the WTO, but if one is particularly interested in accounting for its development and possible future direction a historical institutionalist approach seems to be the most rewarding. Such an approach is most commonly applied to political institutions at a middle-range level (Thelen and Steinmo et al., 1992).1 Institutional approaches generally emphasize stability in terms of patterns of interaction, and informal rules of appropriate behavior and actions (Mahoney, 2000). One central notion of the historical perspective is path dependence, which stresses stabilizing forces that keep the institution in place over time, as increasing returns make it less attractive to change lanes, and alternative paths are subsequently shut off (Stinchcomb, 1968). This type of historical analysis allows for predictions and understandings of how institutions prevail. On the other hand, the approach has been criticized for not being able to explain change. It points to critical junctures, where the prevailing logic of action drastically changes due to external shocks, but these only account for some kinds of changes. As a consequence, scholars within the field have lately developed tools for systematically exploring gradual transformative changes (Thelen, 2003). Such an understanding of change means that a shift may come without drastic events, and that the difference between institutional stasis and change may be less dramatic. Streeck and Thelen (2005: 31) introduce a number of categories through which change may come about: displacement, layering, drift, conversion, and exhaustion, where the mechanisms of defection, differential growth, deliberate neglect, redirection/reinterpretation, and depletion are the explaining mechanisms contributing to the gradual transformation of an institution. Displacement focuses on the breakdown, rather than changing content, of the institution. Layering comes about when new elements are added to an institution rather than replacing it, which might still alter the functioning of the original institution.


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Drift implies deliberate neglect, where changes in the environment are not taken into account by the structures, thus causing the scope and function of the institution to change (Streeck and Thelen, 2005: 29). Exhaustion happens through a mechanism named depletion where the “normal working of an institution undermines its external preconditions” (Streeck and Thelen, 2005: 31). This means that the way the institution functions creates consequences leading to its own destruction. Feedback mechanisms, comprising factors supporting the institutions, are equally relevant when exploring institutional change. A study of a specific institution (in this case the WTO and its interaction with ENGOs) must consequently look at what feedback mechanisms are keeping it in place, rather than at the intentions behind creating a certain arrangement in the first place (Pierson, 2004). Feedback mechanisms may, for example, include actors making use of provisions supplied by the institution, or organizational arrangements that work in tandem with the institution and hence support its existence. Strong isomorphic pressure and the diffusion of popular models in a policy field are other examples (Meyer et al., 1997). This approach opens up for more agency of actors between times of radical change, and, similarly to Oliver’s combined resource dependence perspective (Oliver, 1991), it is an approach that allows for more strategic responses to pressures from the organizational environment than just conformity. For instance, if the adjustment to external pressures is done through concealment tactics, that is, through the establishment of procedures and strategies for participation that have no bearing on decision-making in the organization, it should rather be considered as an avoidance strategy, although it may appear as an adjustment at first glance (Oliver, 1991). The analysis of ENGOs and the WTO proceeds from a number of empirical questions concerning feedback mechanisms. What actors are supporting and what structures are reinforcing the new provisions? What environmental changes may work in tandem with the developments? If few or no such mechanisms are at work, we may expect the institution to be rather unstable and the arrangements prone to change. Since we are dealing with a short time frame, it is only possible to identify a direction, rather than a final stage in the study of the life cycle of this particular institution of participatory governance. The chosen approach is closely linked to certain types of methods. Thick descriptions allow small changes to be captured that may turn into decisive steps toward a new path. Process tracing also avoids viewing the current justifications for an institution as functional or natural, taking into


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consideration that these may have been ascribed to the institution long after its inception (Pierson, 2004). This chapter will rely on thick description, based on secondary data. The rich material of research publications on ENGO participation in the WTO provides solid grounds for such an analysis. In addition, primary sources in the form of official documents, statements as well as interviews, have been used. Interviews were conducted with national delegations, international and national ENGOs, and the WTO secretariat. Participant observations were made during WTO symposia and public forums during 2005 and 2009. Through interviews and participant observations it is possible to find interactive patterns that may not be apparent from formal documents. This is of particular relevance if there are reasons to believe that the institution does not function according to the formal description – meaning that there is stability on the surface, while changes have occurred behind the scenes, as is predicted by the notion of drift. Let us then look into the current developments of NGO participation, with particular focus on the way ENGOs have made use of, and pushed for, the existing provisions.

The modes of participation The WTO is one of the organizations most often associated with global NGO resistance to opaque international decision-making. It is commonly depicted as an organization closed to outsiders, and even to some of the insiders; and it has been claimed that the WTO lags behind other international organizations more prone to institutionalize NGO participation (Jackson, 2001: 77). The ministerial meeting in Seattle in 1999 displayed images of fierce opposition; violent riots in the streets became the backdrop to already strenuous negotiations. The WTO was under heavy criticism from the NGO society and from developing countries alike, all expressing beliefs that the possibilities for developing countries and other marginalized groups to shape the content of the trade agreements were minimal. The claim of the agreements that developing countries could benefit from increased trade flows was also questioned, but the main criticism concerned the methods of decisionmaking, which were accused of opaqueness and favoritism (Desmarais, 2003; Greenpeace, 2002; SUNS, 1998). Going back in history, already the GATT secretariat (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) spoke of the importance of contacts with civil society, but no structures for participation were ever established. However,


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since the Seattle ministerial, the WTO has gradually allowed more formal entrance points for NGOs. Guidelines for consultations with non-state actors were adopted (WTO, 1996) and several forms for participation have been established, although none includes direct participation in the actual negotiations. Furthermore, the guidelines provide for a low level of participation compared with organizations such as the UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program); but compared with organizations working within a similar policy field, such as the World Bank or the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the formal provisions are not weaker. On the other hand, both the World Bank and the IMF are known to have developed wider interaction with NGOs than provided for in the formal mandates (Buira, 2005; Ripinsky and Van Den Bossche, 2007; Woods and Narlikar, 2001). The openness and access to documents have also been increased, with enhanced possibilities for NGOs to gain insight into the WTO proceedings. To mention one example concerning environmental issues, summaries and proceedings from the CTE (Committee on Trade and Environment) are made available, and full trade policy reviews are published. ENGO participation NGOs from the environmental movement have traditionally played an important role in international environmental negotiations, dating back to events such as the UN Stockholm conference in 1972 (Eckerberg and Lafferty, 1998; Esty, 1997; Feichtinger and Pregernig, 2005). This stands in stark contrast to the trade policy field, where the role of NGOs has been limited (Van den Bossche, 2008). However, the links between the policy areas are numerous and, as the mandate of the WTO has continuously developed, the environment has become part of the WTO agenda. The environmental movement, with its many ENGOs, has been involved in the process of placing the environment on the WTO agenda as well as in the debate on the need for more openness toward non-state actors in trade policy. An important event for developing ENGO participation was the creation of a special committee, temporarily installed already under the GATT, which in 1994 became the permanent CTE. The overarching target is to promote sustainable development in line with the UN Rio Declaration. The importance of the CTE has been debated, as its predecessor was inactive for over 20 years, and the outcome of the committee has not been very impressive (Williams, 2001). Until the Doha agenda, the committee did not negotiate any items, and the negotiating mandate from 2001was limited and only included relations between


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trade agreements and multilateral agreements, and tariffs and nontariff barriers to environmental goods and services. There were hence very few issues that could lead to any substantial negotiations, indicating that the committee would still be more of a discussion forum (Neumayer, 2004). Although the WTO has arguably opened up during the last decade, the overall access for NGOs has been low in the CTE committee itself, as they have not been allowed as observers. Neither were intergovernmental organizations such as the UNEP in the beginning (Steffek and Nanz, 2007). Nowadays the situation has loosened up a bit, and organizations may gain temporary access to some meetings in one of the two constellations in which the CTE meets. However, this is normally not where the real negotiations take place. The ENGOs have tried to achieve observer status in the CTE, arguing that this would imply a democratization of procedures as well as better outcomes (Enders, 1996; Williams, 1999). According to the ENGOs themselves, they have expertise that would contribute to better sustainability policies (Enders, 1996). For a number of reasons, the aspiration to place environmental issues on the trade agenda has encountered difficulties. Developing countries have been reluctant, and suspicious of the motivations, to include the topic, at least in the way it has been formulated in the current mandate (Biermann, 2001; Jah, 2002). Fear of green protectionism, lack of perceived benefits and limited capacity for negotiating trade and environment topics are some of the explanations recognized in the literature (Jah, 2002; McCormick, 2006; SUNS, 1990; Williams, 1999). As the Doha round lost speed and the agriculture issues once again proved difficult to resolve, the issue of environment and trade also became less salient. Some argue that, since the negotiations were so arduous anyway, it would not be wise to include more issues (Blustein, 2009; Neumayer, 2004). One comprehensive interview study showed that the most prevalent opinion among NGO representatives, business representatives, and academic experts as well as the WTO and UNEP secretariats was that the WTO should not try to impose authority in the area of environmental governance, but instead only focus on the issues already within its mandate (McCormick, 2006). Hence, there have been no articulate demands for expanding the mandate of the CTE. While emphasizing the role of the WTO in environmental policy-making somewhat more strongly than others, ENGOS have also expressed concern that, since member states tend to send trade experts and not environmental experts, the WTO might be badly equipped to deal with such issues (McCormick, 2006; see also Greenpeace et al., 2004). The issue of environment and


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trade has thus generated very few substantial results in terms of policy outcomes. How has this lack of progress affected WTO relations with NGOs? First, it should be noted that the ENGOs participating in the WTO follow the general pattern of NGO participation, with a majority of the organizations from industrialized countries in the North. In addition to those already mentioned, important ENGOs interacting with the WTO include ICTSD (International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development), CIEL (Centre for International Environmental Law), Greenpeace, and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). There is also a difference in the constitution of northern and southern ENGOs, insofar as the southern ones tend to be more grassroots-oriented with a focus on local activities, while the northern ones concentrate their work on transnational and global issues (Alcock, 2008). Among the few southern ENGOs, the Third World Network should be mentioned. Most southern NGOs tend not to focus exclusively on environmental issues. Yet the links between NGOs are increasing (Dalton et al., 2003; Rohrschreider and Dalton, 2002), and the network of organizations formed around the Montreal Protocol is referred to as an important configuration where contacts established early on remain a foundation for the interaction between these organizations (Betsill and Corell, 2008). Given the fact that formal participation in negotiations is closed, there are mainly five ways for ENGOs to take part in the proceedings: participation during ministerial meetings, hearings, symposia or public forums, amicus curiae briefs, and participation in national delegations. The ministerial meetings During the biennial ministerial meetings NGOs are allowed to register for participation, and the number of organizations doing so has increased steadily. Still, the participation is restricted to the general council meetings, and there are also limitations as to where NGOs are allowed at the venue, giving rise to parallel activities. According to some authors, the ministerial conferences can be regarded as arenas for networking between NGOs and member-state delegations as well as among different NGOs. These are the occasions when NGO participation and interaction become most visible – and at times spectacular – but the everyday work in Geneva may be more important in terms of possibilities for agenda-shaping and long-term changes. ENGOs permanently based in Geneva may function as nodal points for internal NGO interaction (Williams and Ford, 1999: 277). Table 6.1 illustrates the large increase in NGO participation during ministerial meetings over the years.2 It


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Table 6.1 NGO participation at WTO ministerial meetings

Singapore 1996 Geneva 1998 Seattle 1999 Doha 2001 Cancún 2003 Hong Kong 2005

Eligible NGOs

NGOs attending

Individuals

159 153 776 651 961 1,065

108 128 686 370 795 836

235 362 1,500 (about) 370 1,578 2,000 (about)

Source: www.wto.org or http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/ngo_e.htm (accessed March 12, 2010).

should be noted that around 65 percent of the NGOs taking part at the ministerial meeting in Singapore were business organizations, the second largest category being environmental and social movement organizations (Scholte et al., 1999). Hearings and informal meetings One route to access to the WTO system as a whole has been the increased use of hearings, where NGOs are allowed to take part in discussions with the secretariat and national delegates, and at times to present their views on particular issues. The hearings have no formal role in the decision-making but may still influence the contents if feeding into the negotiations. Whereas the use of hearings varies between the different trade committees, the committee on trade and the environment has made frequent use of this consultative provision. A more structured way of consulting with NGOs was introduced through the Informal NGO Advisory Body set up by the Director-General in 2003. Taking part in meetings with NGO representatives selected to balance interests and regions in the world, the Director-General then acted as an intermediary and reported back to the member states (Ripinsky and Van den Bossche, 2007: 193). However, several NGOs, in particular some ENGOs, refused to take part in the group as that would send a signal to their members that they had become “insiders” to the WTO. Other NGOs, while accepting membership, urged that the information on the existence and meetings of the group should not be visible on the WTO website and that it should remain an informal organization (Ripinsky and Van den Bossche, 2007: 193). It then met once a year until its dissolution (Van den Bossche, 2008). There have also been pilot project under way, where some NGOs with trade focus have been granted access badges to the Centre William Rappard headquarters of


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the WTO in Geneva, in order to facilitate interactions between them and the secretariat and the member-state delegations (Van den Bossche, 2008). However, there is scant information as to how the project has worked out and how the NGOs taking part assess it. Symposia The symposia, now called public forums, where NGOs are invited to take part in discussions concerning different topics in relation to the WTO, are indicative of a changing attitude to NGO inclusion as well. The public forums and other types of workshops have no decisionmaking authority, and there are no clear links with or input into the negotiations. However, they provide opportunities for networking with delegates and other NGOs, and for gaining a better understanding of the system as such. The first symposium, held in 1994, was afterwards characterized as a “dialogue of the deaf,” as the subject of trade, environment, and development meant the inclusion of groups with deeply founded animosities (Williams and Ford, 1999: 278). The symposia held in 1997 and 2005, the latter dedicated to trade and sustainable development, have been described as more successful events where ENGOs have been at the forefront, pushing for more participatory modes of governance within the WTO (Williams, 1999). In 2009, at the ninth public symposium, the discussions centered around the deadlocked Doha round and the role of the WTO during the financial crisis. The role of various groups of member states, rather than relations with civil society, was in focus. Furthermore, the number of panels with topics relating to environmental issues has been decreasing over the years, as well as the number of ENGOs organizing panels (WTO, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009a). In 2009 only 9 percent of all panels were organized or co-organized by ENGOs, as compared with 19 percent in 2008 and 18 percent in 2007(WTO, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009a). Amicus curiae briefs One of the most important instruments of the WTO is the dispute settlement mechanism, which is used to enforce the rules decided by the membership. The possibility of filing contributions here is one instance in which the ENGOs have also been active. Several cases have generated substantial debate about the appropriate role of NGOs themselves in the negotiations in general terms. In the dispute settlement mechanism, NGOs are allowed to provide amicus curiae briefs that may be forwarded to the panels by the secretariat or the parties. The shrimp case, in which the United States restricted import of shrimps from India, Pakistan,


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Malaysia, and Thailand on the grounds that it violated multilateral environmental agreements on endangered species, is one such example in which amicus curiae briefs were submitted. The outcome of the decisions and their role in securing the good governance of ecosystems have been disputed, and there is still disagreement concerning the implications of the rulings (Apleton, 1999: Marceau and Stillewell, 2001; Williams, 2001). The use of amicus curiae briefs has also been criticized by member states, who believe that it violates the intergovernmental character of the WTO. The members have been informed that amicus curiae briefs by non-parties in the disputes would be allowed, but not be taken into consideration. However, several experienced practitioners stated during the public forum in 2009 that they are nevertheless read and, while not formally debated, may still have an impact on the rulings. Participation in national delegations Although NGOs are not granted any formal participation in, or even access to, the actual negotiations between the member states, there are still instances when NGO representatives take part. National delegations usually consist of ministry-level or embassy-employed civil servants, but at times other actors may be included as well. These might be lower-level civil servants, such as statisticians or experts on a certain issue under consideration, but they may also be NGO representatives (interviews, Jawara and Kwa, 2003). Few member states have appointed representatives from environmental ministries or experts from the environmental field. On the other hand, the representatives in this committee usually follow not only mandates established within the environmental ministry, but rather coordinated standpoints where several ministries have been involved (interviews, national delegations; McCormick, 2006; Shaffer, 2002). Many ENGOs have also pushed for the inclusion of representatives from environmental ministries in the national delegations (Williams and Ford, 1999). The dispute settlement mechanism also offers other routes to informal participation. Although the number of member states making use of the mechanism is increasing, it is clear that developing countries are a minority and their abilities to effectively take part and be successful in legal cases is questioned (Shaffer, 2003). One way that private actors make their way into the WTO system is then through the counseling of member states during this legal process. It is normally private law firms that are active here, but there are several examples of NGOs supporting developing countries in these processes. These NGOs have been European consumer organizations as well as ENGOs.


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Stagnating NGO participation The WTO has undoubtedly opened up to outsiders with decreased restrictions on documents, various access points, and the possibility for others than member-state representatives to file information to the dispute settlement body. But the story of ENGOs and the WTO does not seem to be a real success story for participatory governance. It has not become taken for granted that NGOs are part of the policy-making process. They are not allowed to be present during negotiations, and there are still obvious conflicts between those who are against, and those who are working for, such a development. At the same time, some indications were found of weakening interest among the ENGOs themselves. At a closer look, several other factors point in the same direction. For instance, in the press releases of some leading ENGOs3 we find a peak in the messages concerning WTO issues around 2001–4, while during the last couple of years the WTO has generated none or just a few items. Instead, climate change and the UN system have been the incomparably most frequent topics. Also, ENGO submissions, made to the WTO secretariat and subsequently circulated to all the members, are decreasing in numbers. During 2008–9 not a single submission was made. With an all-time high of 15 submissions in 2002, the ENGO community seems to have lost interest in this form of trying to shape the outcome of the WTO negotiations, as only two submissions per year, at the most, were filed after that year (WTO, 2009b). The WTO itself seems to devote less attention to this topic as well. At the WTO website dedicated to NGO information, there have been no updates since February 2007, and the so-called new measures for interaction with NGOs date back to 1998. These measures included regular briefings, an NGO section on the WTO website, and the circulation to the members of NGO submissions to the secretariat. With the exception of the informal advisory body and some pilot projects, no more avenues for influence or participation have been opened up since then. The Sutherland report of 2004, which was commissioned by the General-Directors in order to “clarify institutional challenges” to the WTO, re-emphasized the national level as the primary site of NGO consultations on trade issues (Sutherland et al., 2004). Thus, one conclusion seems to be that the participatory institution is weakening and has not become an integrated part of the trade regime. What are the reasons for this? Let us turn to investigating feedback mechanisms and see whether these can help us explain the development and suggest whether or not we can expect participation to increase in the future.


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Explaining stability and change in ENGO participation In line with recent developments of the historical institutionalist perspective, it is not possible to identify a critical juncture when perceptions, preferences, and behavior changed overnight due to some external chock, such as the Seattle incidents. Instead, we see a gradual transformation with more entrance points for ENGOs through the formal inclusion of environmental issues in the negotiating mandate. Furthermore, no formal decisions were taken that undisputedly changed the behavior and beliefs of actors. Rather, the decisions taken were ambiguous, leaving room for interpretation, disagreement, and contestation (Apleton, 1999; Williams, 2001). For an institution to produce increasing returns or positive feedback, in the words of Pierson (2000, 2004), the moment of creation needs to be followed by a period of gradual habitualization reinforcing the patterns of action. Only then can we expect a reorientation or new modes of behavior. Feedback mechanisms consist of supporting structures that enforce the existence of an institution. In the case of the WTO and the environmental movement, a number of such feedback mechanisms could be anticipated, according to this theoretical idea. First, since ENGOs are well organized and used to participating in global negotiations within other international organizations, notably within the UN system, they may be expected to make use of any new provisions for increased participation. Second, member states supporting a stronger focus on the environment within the WTO may be expected to ensure the development of such provisions and to legitimize them. Third, more legitimizing mechanisms could be expected, as institutionalized interaction with NGOs becomes taken for granted in most other international organizations, such as the UN family. In other words, NGO interaction is part of a “pre-existing political culture” (Williams and Ford, 1999: 273; Scholte, 2004). Actors supporting increased participation Initially, the provisions for ENGO participation were welcomed by those actors who had been advocating such measures, notably the European Union, the United States, and the ENGOs themselves. As for the inception of more access points for NGOs, some members have been more positive and pushed for increased possibilities to include non-state actors, while others, notably among the least developed countries, have displayed a more negative attitude. As for the arguments in favor of increasing participation, the EU, for example, has in its strategy to


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strengthen the issue of trade and environment in general emphasized the importance of making use of the expertise found in other international organizations and NGOs, which is also believed to increase the transparency in the WTO’s work on trade and environment (EU, 1996a; 1996b; European Commission, 2004a; 2004b; Sbragia, 2002). The actors supporting an institution do not need either to be the same over time, or to have the same reasons for supporting it. For instance, some NGOs argued that the reason for the United States to bring up NGO participation on the agenda in the late 1990s was to bury or limit the opposition expressed by many organizations to the neoliberal agenda (SUNS, 1998). Letting NGOs participate would then be a way of calming the opposition. Although no actors have campaigned against NGO participation, the issue seems to have lost momentum in recent years. Fewer statements are made, and the transparency efforts made within the WTO seem to have calmed the internal opposition. To a larger extent, the actors previously dedicated to including NGOs might still believe this to be important, but, as the trade negotiations have stalled, there are also growing beliefs that it might be better to avoid including more issues in the agenda, as this would slow down the negotiations even more (Neumayer, 2004). ENGOs also express disappointment with the modes of participation available, as neither the hearings nor the symposia or accreditation during ministerial meetings ensure that the information and opinions brought forward reach the negotiators and are made use of. The same goes for the dispute settlement mechanism (Greenpeace et al., 2004). Hence, the gains for the ENGOs seem to be few, and the path taken does not provide positive feedback or self-reinforcement opening up WTO negotiations to external influence and ideas. This means that alternative measures appear more attractive. The stagnation of the Doha negotiations and the intensification of climate change negotiations under UN auspices have turned the attention of ENGOs away from the WTO. Several interviewees point out that they believe it futile to devote extensive resources to an arena where the access is still too limited, and where the “real action” is not taking place (interviews, September 2009). While more skeptical about the formalization of relations and increased participation, the developing countries have still turned out to be positive to the entrance point of making use of ENGOs in their national delegations to the negotiations. Since resources and competencies for trade and environment negotiations tend to be limited, this is one way for the developing countries to enhance their leverage in such negotiations (Biermann, 2001). The developing countries have thus in time become more supportive of the inclusion of NGOs in some


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aspects, but certainly not all. It should still be noted that, when the developed countries make use of ENGO representatives in their delegations, power relations between those representatives and the government representatives are asymmetrical. A Swedish ENGO, often asked to participate in national delegations, emphasized the risk of being coopted to legitimize the national standpoint (interview, January 2006). Even if an organization does not agree to the full package brought forward by the delegation, it is not able to be critical of the national position. This means that it might behave less radically than it might have if it had not been part of the delegation, entailing potential risks of losing its legitimacy among its members (interview, January 2006). Hence, the ENGOs themselves may have reasons to be both positive and negative about inclusion in national delegations. All in all, several of the actors seem to describe a situation where the self-reinforcement of the institution is decreasing, as it has failed to live up to the initial hopes. The notion of exhaustion – invoking the mechanism of depletion – can help to explain this development. The reasons for this depletion seem partly to lie in the fact that the formal provisions for participation in a sense are merely window dressing, as they do not allow access to such important forums as the actual negotiations. The changes made after Seattle were thus never followed up with an active maintenance of the institution. The formal rules for participation remain unchanged, while less used and maintained by those promoting them initially. Finally, one way in which institutional change may become permanent and well established is if a professional community becomes structured around the reformed institution. If this community, in turn, incorporates and connects a diverse group of actors around the issue, this might enhance the possibilities of achieving stability (Djelic and Quack, 2003: 256). In this case we did not see any such development, although in the beginning a number of ENGOs, used to working together, were able join forces and pushed for symposia and participation in the CTE meetings. As this group did not consist of a professional community, its leverage must be assumed to be much weaker. Since the delegations from the member states largely consist of trade experts and not representatives of environmental ministries, such linkages may also have been more difficult to establish between the different types of actors. Socialization into participatory governance As for other types of feedback mechanisms, one reasonable assumption is that the WTO would follow the path taken by other international


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organizations and that this, in turn, might socialize the organization into a different logic of action in which NGO relations would be perceived with less suspicion. The UN can be considered as a leading organization with great importance, which other organizations imitate. This can be assumed to be particularly true for environmental policies, in which interactive governance and high involvement of non-state actors are well recognized. The Aarhus convention,4 with its explicit focus on participation, and the UN conferences are important components of the institutionalized broad participatory approach to environmental issues at the international level. Such outcomes as Agenda 21 have also supported more inclusive policy processes at all levels (Eckerberg and Lafferty, 1998; Feichtinger and Pregernig, 2005). Regulatory innovations, such as multi-stakeholder dialogue, informational governance, and joint environmental policy-making, flourish, and can be seen as attempts to remedy the crisis of legitimacy of traditional top-down strategies (Boström and Klintman, 2008; Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003). In line with this assumption, organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF have adopted measures to interact with NGOs, both formally and informally. For the WTO to stand out and keep relations minimized would have required considerable effort and justification, while increasing the interaction might be conceived as more legitimate and uncontroversial and, hence, the appropriate route. Still, the taken-for-granted patterns of environmental policy-making at the international level do not seem to have materialized within the WTO. NGOs have not gained observer status in the CTE, and symposia and hearings are rare. Seen as strategic behavior under environmental pressure (in this case toward conformity with the conduct of other international organizations), the response could be characterized as avoidance. If so, non-conformity with these pressures is disguised by accepting some changes in the formal relations – but only changes that lead to a low level of actual access. One contributing factor to this might be the fact that the national delegations are mostly populated by trade experts unfamiliar with NGO relations even in the national settings, which means that compliance with the pressure was not seen as essential. Other supporting structures: internal and external drivers Finally, important changes in the organizational environment, such as the deadlocked Doha round, seem to have provided obstacles to several of the potential feedback mechanisms. Actors become less prone to include new issues on the agenda. The fact that the climate change


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negotiations within the UN have become the most important environmental issue is another important factor. However, this could possibly have spillover effects for the WTO, if members push toward such a development. During the fall of 2009 several ENGOs upgraded their surveillance of WTO issues (interviews, 2009). But participatory measures take time to develop and, since these issues have not been on the top of the agenda for a while, a restructuring of the limited formal and informal measures for participation is unlikely, at least in the short run. As for the internal features of the institution, one could speculate that WTO’s opening up may in itself have contributed to the weakened importance of the organization and those branches where the NGOs are allowed. Hence important issues and discussions might move elsewhere, possibly into more informal forums. This conforms to the historical institutionalist assumption that institutions might contain the seed of their own destruction. On the one hand, it was perhaps easier for ENGOs to become included in the first place, as the environmental issues are not the most controversial topic in trade negotiations. On the other hand, this means that the possibility of actually exercising any influence on the trade regime as a whole is quite limited, when other topics are politically salient. Even though NGO participation is not confined to ENGOs, these have been particularly important in pushing for more stakeholder involvement within the WTO. The fact that much of the technical expertise concerning environmental consequences is found within NGOs lent credence to the argument that they should be allowed to submit amicus curiae briefs. This structural feature seems to have been a feedback mechanism legitimating and supporting suggestions for such measures. If the ENGOs believe that this type of participation contributes to a stronger focus on sustainable development and sound ecosystem governance, the use of this entrance point will probably increase. Otherwise it is difficult to see that ENGOs would be inclined to devote substantial resources to such participation. The use of NGOs in national delegations might also become more frequent, if developing countries take advantage of this possibility. The dispute settlement mechanism may therefore warrant further study.

Conclusions The problem of reconciling trade and the environment within the WTO has not been solved, but several authors point to improvements in the dialogue between representatives of the two groups. When it


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comes to understanding the development of ENGO participation in the WTO, recent developments in historical institutionalism seem valid, in particular its assumptions concerning the importance of looking not only at critical junctures and punctuated equilibria, but also at gradual transformations as institutional change. The inclusion of ENGOs in the WTO did not happen overnight, and the establishment of formal structures for participation and their importance have been open to interpretation. Transformative change was brought about by pressures from the organizational environment for enhancing WTO legitimacy, at the same time as the organization was tasked with balancing the demands from internal forces opposed to such a development. One could argue that the organizational response to the pressures can be described as avoidance, in the sense that the formal structures established do not allow for any real participation. A second conclusion is that the institution of ENGO participation in the WTO at the moment runs the risk of drift toward a situation where no real participation is attained. The explanation for this is that there has been a lack of active maintenance devoted to the institution, and that the feedback mechanisms that would have ensured such a development have been partly lacking. Instead, the ENGOs taking part in WTO activities in various ways seem to be experiencing decreasing benefits from the resources invested. The conclusion of several ENGOs seems to be that this is not where the action is when it comes to developing environmental policy. The entrance points in the WTO, while multiple, do not allow for participation or observation during negotiations. The members who were initially supportive of increased NGO participation have turned to promoting other issues and have failed to contribute to active maintenance of the institution. A reinforcing factor is that the response to the pressures to establish participatory structures for NGOs might have been strategic, paying lip service to, rather than embracing, reform. In addition, the fact that the national delegations to a large extent still consist of trade experts and not representatives from environmental ministries may have functioned as a gate-keeping feature. Since the ENGOs are veterans in the NGO arena when it comes to participation in international organizations and therefore can be considered a most likely case, the prospects for any other type of NGO gaining more substantial access to the WTO seem bleak. But had the ENGOs themselves been able or keen to devote more resources to existing forums, and had the WTO negotiations themselves moved forward, participation could have been more extensive. Therefore it seems unfair to dismiss the measures undertaken merely as a way of avoiding real


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participation. In addition, the system itself and the external environment seem to have contributed to undermining the importance of the mechanisms for participation. To what extent have the emergent patterns of ENGO participation in the WTO, within their limitations, contributed to democratization? The following discussion will focus on transparency and representation as two important indicators of democratic global governance. Participation in ministerial meetings may be said to increase the transparency of such events, but, to the extent that NGOs are not allowed to watch the real negotiations, this effect appears to be minor. Observer status in the CTE would have contributed far more to transparency. Member-state representatives might be more inclined to think and speak in terms of good governance of ecosystems, if organizations representing such causes are in the room. This, in turn, may influence the decisions taken. Since environmental interests were previously underrepresented, this might be regarded as a democratic improvement. However, such interaction between ENGOs and the WTO has not materialized, nor does it seem likely in the near future. The hearings and symposia provide a more limited contribution to openness and transparency, as the link between such events and the negotiations is presumably weak. Still, a certain improvement in deliberative qualities can be hoped for. Several authors also point to increased understanding between the ENGOs and the WTO delegates. With a better understanding of different viewpoints concerning trade and the environment, the two camps can engage in more constructive dialogue. The amicus curiae briefs may provide better and more balanced information on which to base decisions. Since all types of organizations are able to take part, this opens the door to better representation. Still, the more problematic dimension concerns the lack of resources in the south, and the fact that expert briefs demand considerable resources. Since the well-financed ENGO society is still mainly located in the North, and the developing countries have limited capacities to participate in the disputes, the issue of green protectionism threatens the legitimacy of amicus curiae briefs. Finally, the inclusion of ENGO representatives in the national delegations should be considered. First, it does not contribute to increased transparency, as government delegations operate behind closed doors. Second, the selection of ENGO representatives is usually an ad hoc, non-transparent process; it is thus unclear whether the expressed views represent a widely held position in the ENGO society. In northern


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delegations, there is also the risk of co-optation. In southern delegations, the co-optation might work the other way around: the national delegation may be heavily dependent on the expertise of the ENGO representative. Increased representation, whereby underrepresented interests are brought into the negotiations, is still the obvious benefit. A related theme, worth exploring in further research, concerns the effects on national constituencies of NGO inclusion at the international level. Allowing NGOs to participate in international organizations may spur new dynamics in member states. If ENGOs become regarded as important players in trade policy, this might lead to better and more inclusive procedures when negotiating the national standpoints. However, this is hard to envisage without the WTO urging the members to consult with such organizations in a more systematic way. Future studies might be able to tell us whether or not this will become an important alternative route to democratizing global decision-making within the still very state-centered international regime of trade negotiations.

Notes 1. Party systems, industrial relations, or national administrative reforms are examples of common types of studies within this perspective (see, e.g., Jackson, 2005; Sundström, 2006). 2. We can also note a decrease in the growth rate at the Hong Kong ministerial. This might be attributed to the increased screening of applicants due to the large number of expected participants (Ripinksy and Van den Bossche, 2007). 3. Greenpeace, FOE, and the WWF were included, as these are ENGOs not only focused on trade issues. 4. The Aarhus convention or the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters was adopted in 1998 and establishes a number of rights of the public concerning environmental policy. These include access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision-making, and access to justice through the right to review decisions being made that do not respect these established rights.

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132 Åsa Casula Vifell Sbragia, A. (2002) “Institution-Building from Below and Above: The European Community in Global Environmental Politics,” in J. Andrew (ed.) Environmental Policy in the European Union: Actors, Institutions and Processes (London: Earthscan). Scholte, J.A. (2002) “Civil Society and Democracy in Global Governance,” Global Governance, 8: 281–304. Scholte, J.A. (2004) “The WTO and Civil Society,” in S. McGuire and B. Hocking (eds) Trade Politics (London: Routledge). Scholte, J.A. (2007) “Civil Society and the Legitimation of Global Governance,” Journal of Civil Society, 3(3): 305–326. Scholte, J.A., R. O’Brien and M. Williams (1999) “The WTO and Civil Society,” Journal of World Trade, 33(1): 107–123. Shaffer, G. (2002) “The Nexus of Law and Politics: The WTO’s Committee of Trade and Environment,” in R. Steinberg (ed.) The Greening of Trade Law: International Trade Organizations, Trade and the Environment, and Environmental Issues (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield). Shaffer, G. (2003) “How to Make the WTO Dispute Settlement System Work for Developing Countries: Some Proactive Developing Country Strategies,” in ICTSD, Towards a Development-Supportive Dispute Settlement System in the WTO, Resource Paper No. 5 (Geneva; ICTSD). Smith, J., C. Chatfield and R. Pagnucco (eds) (1997) Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics: Solidarity Beyond the State (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press). Steffek, J. and P. Nanz (2007) “Emergent Patterns of Civil Society Participation in Global and European Governance,” in J. Steffek, C. Kissling and P. Nanz (eds) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Steffek, J., C. Kissling and P. Nanz (2007) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Steinmo, S., K. Thelen and F. Longstreth (eds) (1992) Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press). Stinchcomb, A. (1968) Constructing Social Theories (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World). Streeck, W. and K. Thelen (eds) (2005) Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sundström, G. (2006) “Management by Results: Its Origin and Development in the Swedish State,” International Public Management Journal, 9: 399–427. SUNS (1998) Transparency of WTO Decision Making Ducked, Report July 20, http:// www.sunsonline.org (accessed November 3, 2009: Third World Network) SUNS – South-North Monitor (1990) Environment and Sustainable Development, http://www.sunsonline.org/trade/areas/environm/10200090.htm (accessed November 3, 2009: Third World Network). Sutherland, P., J. Bhagwati, K. Botchwey, N. FitzGerald, K. Hamada, J.H. Jackson, C. Lafer and T. de Montbrial (2004) The Future of the WTO: Addressing Institutional Challenges in the New Millennium (Geneva: World Trade Organization).


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Thelen, K. (2003) “How Institutions Evolve: Insights from Comparative Historical Research,” in J. Mahoney and D. Rueschemeyer (eds) Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Uhlin, A. (2009) “Which Characteristics of Civil Society Organizations Support What Aspects of Democracy? Evidence from Post-Communist Latvia,” International Political Science Review, 30: 271–95. Van den Bossche, P. (2008) “NGO Involvement in the WTO: A Comparative Perspective,” Journal of International Economic Law, 11 (4): 717–49. Williams, M. (1999) “The World Trade Organization, Social Movements and ‘Democracy’,” in A. Taylor and G. Thomas (eds) Global Trade and Social Issues (New York: Routledge). Williams, M. (2001) “Trade and the Environment: A Decade of Stalemate,” Global Environmental Politics, 1 (4): 1–9. Williams, M. and L. Ford (1999) “The World Trade Organization, Social Movements and Global Environmental Management,” Environmental Politics, 8 (1): 268–89. Woods, N. and A. Narlikar (2001) “Governance and the Limits of Accountability: The WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank,” International Social Science Journal, 53 (107): 569–83. WTO (1996) Guidelines for Arrangements on Relations with Non-Governmental Organizations (Geneva: WTO, WT/L/162, 23 July). WTO (2001) Symposium report 2001 (Geneva: WTO). WTO (2006) Public Forum, Program and Report, http://www.wto.org/english/ forums_e/public_forum_e/forum06_e.htm (accessed November 3, 2009). WTO (2007) Public Forum, Program and Report, http://www.wto.org/english/ forums_e/public_forum2007_e/public_forum07_e.htm (accessed November 3, 2009). WTO (2008) Public Forum, Program and Report, http://www.wto.org/english/ forums_e/public_forum08_e/public_forum08_e.htm (accessed November 3, 2009). WTO (2009a) Public Forum, Program, http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/public_forum09_e/programme_e.htm (accessed December 18, 2009). WTO (2009b) NGO Position Papers Received by the WTO Secretariat, http://www. wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/pospap_e.htm (accessed July 7, 2009).


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7 Limits to Transnational Participation: The Global Governance of Migration Sara Kalm

International migration is a conspicuous manifestation of contemporary globalization.1 As a result of improved and strengthened transborder interconnections, the numbers of migrants are growing at an accelerated pace and now comprise around 200 million people. Migratory movements have also expanded geographically so that all states and regions in the world are now affected at some point of the migratory chain – as destination, sending, or transit regions. In other issue-areas that involve movement across borders – such as trade, climate change, or contagious diseases – states have developed institutionalized forms for cooperation in order to meet these challenges more efficiently. But this has not been the case for international migration, which is usually characterized by the absence of multilateral institutional frameworks (Bhagwati, 2003; Ghosh, 2007).2 However, the past few years have seen the evolvement of bottom-up structures for global migration governance (Betts, 2008: 1). A wide array of organizations and forums for consultation and dialogue are now handling various aspects of migration. The complex system of institutions that are emerging at the bilateral, regional, and global levels are distinguished by the continual central role of the state, while other actors enjoy very limited access. In fact, as the term “global” in the context of governance is usually meant to signify the increased influence of transnational actors (Lipschutz, 1996: 1; Pattberg, 2006: 4), it has been suggested that the governance of migration should more appropriately be described as “international” – given that states are still unquestionably the paramount actors (Channac, 2007). In contrast to most other chapters of this volume, this one therefore engages with a case which has so 134


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far not been marked by significant levels of participation by transnational actors (TNAs). The general aim of this chapter is to contribute to the study of global migration governance, an area that has so far not been much studied within international relations. More specifically, it develops an analytical framework derived from rational choice institutionalism in order to explicate two interrelated features of the global governance of migration. First, it wants to explain the general traits of the institutions that we see emerging in the migration field. Second, it wants to explain the level of transnational access to these institutions. In the case of migration, it is not possible to understand the low level of transnational access, unless one also understands the nature of the institutions that states have created in this area. The specific character of global migration governance therefore necessitates a certain broadening of the focus for this volume. Empirically, this chapter pays specific attention to the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD). The GFMD first convened in 2007, notably the first recurrent forum for migration cooperation at the global level. The major patterns of global migration governance are briefly introduced in order to contextualize the GFMD. The empirical material used consists of secondary sources as well as material produced by the relevant institutions. The chapter is structured around the two different aims. The first section summarizes the expectations of rational choice institutionalism as regards institutional variation. This is followed by a section testing these expectations in the case of migration governance. The third section turns to the subject of transnational access, by outlining the expectations of rational choice institutionalism. The fourth section assesses the strength of these expectations in the case of migration governance. In the final section, the findings are summarized and the strengths and weaknesses of the analytical framework are discussed.

Explaining variation in institutional design Rational choice institutionalism differs significantly from other institutional theory perspectives, which are as a rule distinguished by their focus on how institutions shape and constrain the behavior of actors. The rational choice variant, in contrast, turns causality the other way around – conceiving of institutions as intentionally shaped by agents (Peters and Pierre, 1998: 569). In international relations, the main agents are states, which are assumed to act strategically and in accordance with


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their self-interest. International institutions are thus seen as the outcomes of strategic choices made by states in response to cooperation problems linked to transaction costs and problems of monitoring and enforcement (Deitelhoff, 2009: 40). While its state-centrism and assumptions of intentional behavior may limit this perspective’s explanatory power in other contexts, these same features make it seem particularly suitable to account for the moment of formation of international institutions. Therefore, it seems appropriate for explaining the institutional features of the Global Forum on Migration and Development, which has recently been set up and which can reasonably be understood as intentionally shaped by states. In recent years, research has become increasingly concerned with explaining institutional differences. The starting point for the “rational design” school, for instance, is the empirical observation that existing international institutions are arranged very differently: while some are open to all states, others restrict membership regionally; while some give each state an equal vote, others use weighed voting; and while some have strong central authority and large operating powers, others are no more than forums for consultation. Rather than regarding these differences as the outcome of chance or evolution, this school understands them as the product of purposive actions by states (for rival perspectives on institutional development, see Onuf, 2002 and Wendt, 2001). To Koremorenos et al. (2001: 762, italics removed), “states use international institutions to further their own goals, and they design institutions accordingly.” Differences in institutional design are thus not random; instead “design variations are largely the result of rational, purposive interactions” (Koremorenos, 2008: 152). In an important article, Abbott et al. (2000) categorize international institutional arrangements according to their level of legalization. Legalization is understood as “a particular set of characteristics that institutions may or may not possess” (Abbott et al., 2000: 401). These characteristics can be specified along three different dimensions. Obligation refers to the extent to which states are legally bound by rules and commitments. Precision denotes the extent to which these rules and commitments unambiguously define required conduct. Delegation, finally, refers to whether or not third parties are granted the authority to interpret the rules and resolve disputes. As a particular institution can rank high or low on all or each of these, legalization is understood as a “multidimensional continuum” (Abbott et al., 2000: 401).


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Highly legalized institutions are those that rank high on all three dimensions – where rules are binding and precise, and where authority to interpret and implement them has been delegated to third parties. Soft law arrangements are those in which one or more of the dimensions are weakened (Abbott and Snidal, 2000: 422). When designing institutions, states are assumed to choose among levels of legalization based on expectations of their respective advantages. Highly legalized arrangements are likely in situations in which the expected benefits of cooperation are high, but in which monitoring and enforcement problems can be foreseen (Abbott and Snidal, 2000: 429–31). However, such arrangements are associated with high sovereignty costs, as a high level of obligation along with the delegation of authority may imply a significant loss of national control (Cooper et al., 2008: 506). While entering such arrangements is itself an act of sovereignty (Bradley and Kelley, 2008: 28; Hathaway, 2008), these arrangements can at the same time “limit the ability of states to govern whole classes of issues – such as social subsidies or industrial policy – or require states to change domestic laws or governance structures” (Abbott and Snidal, 2000: 437). When sovereignty costs are high, states are expected to opt for softer or less legalized forms of institutionalized arrangements. The magnitude of sovereignty costs varies across different issue-areas. For technical matters, such as food standards or international transportation, sovereignty costs are generally low. The reverse is true for the issue-areas that states perceive to be most closely related to the core of state sovereignty: those that concern territory or the relation between a state and its citizens. Since they concern the preservation of the state, national security matters are connected with a particularly high level of sovereignty costs (Abbott and Snidal, 2000: 437–41). It is also important to note that different states may face different sovereignty costs within a given issue-area. For example, in agricultural agreements the magnitude of sovereignty costs is greater for LDCs, where the agricultural sector is large and politically significant, and less so for OECD countries, in which the importance of agriculture has gradually decreased (Abbott and Snidal, 2000: 441). Softer arrangements can also be more practical when participating states are heterogeneous and power differentials are significant. In such situations, the process of negotiating binding agreements can be particularly costly and slow, and delegation appears less likely (Abbott and Snidal, 2000: 447; cf. Hawkins et al., 2003). Arrangements that are nonbinding, imprecise and/or avoid delegating extensive powers can thus facilitate compromise between weak and powerful states.


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Global migration governance and institutional design Rational choice institutionalism holds that states, as a rule, will refrain from highly legalized international arrangements when the issue-area in question lies close to the core of state sovereignty and/or when the heterogeneity and power differentials between participating states are substantial. As we will see below, international migration fulfills both of these characteristics. First, migration touches on central aspects of state sovereignty, such as the right to control its borders, self-determination, and protection from interference in internal affairs. It has therefore been described as “an issue that almost defines sovereignty” (Martin et al., 2007: 8). Historical sociologist John Torpey (2000) has argued that the control over movement is as central an attribute of modern statehood as the monopoly on legitimate violence. Similarly, legal scholar Catherine Dauvergne (2003: 2) holds that the regulation of entry is seen as “somehow intrinsic to what it is to be a nation, to ‘stateness’ and to the core of membership and national identity.” Migration, therefore, appears as an issue-area with high sovereignty costs, which would lead us to expect that states would be particularly averse to highly legalized arrangements. One should, however, note that sovereignty costs are experienced differently for different states. While the right to regulate entry is an unquestioned element of state sovereignty, the regulation of exit is prohibited by various human rights instruments. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights reads: “Everyone should be free to leave any country, including his own” (Article 12: 2). Destination states are hence entitled to control and regulate immigration as they see fit, while sending states are not allowed to restrict emigration but must resort to softer measures in order to influence it. From this it would seem to follow that destination states face higher sovereignty costs from migration than sending states, and will be thus be more likely to resist highly legalized institutions. Second, the prospect for highly legalized arrangements in the migration area is hampered by marked differentials between the weak and the strong. There are important differences in interests between destination states – generally located in the global North – and sending states – which tend to be located in the South.3 Destination states want to be able to tailor immigration policy to suit their labor market needs, and they also tend to be concerned with the security aspect of international migration. Moreover, many destination states experience increased hostility toward immigrants among the native population, as is clear from


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the popularity of anti-immigration parties in Europe and elsewhere. Sending states, for their part, are eager to gain from migration through remittances, the money that migrants send home to their families. The world net inflow of remittances to developing countries in 2005 was estimated at around 167 billion US dollars: about twice the world total overseas development assistance (World Bank, 2006). Sending states are also concerned about “brain drain” – the loss of skilled labor, which may have serious repercussions for developing countries.4 The discussion above leads us to expect that international institutions in the area of migration will be characterized by a relatively low level of legalization. Sovereignty costs in this area are high, and the heterogeneity among states is significant. In such a situation, states are likely to choose “softer” forms of cooperation. We will now turn to existing institutions in the field. General patterns in the governance of migration In comparison to other areas of international concern, cooperation in migration lags behind significantly. Commentators often refer to migration as a “missing regime” (Ghosh, 2007; Tamas and Palme, 2006), a “lacuna” in the international institutional framework (Bhagwati, 2003). As a consequence of the lack of global regulative frameworks, this policy area is often described as dominated by unilateral action of powerful states (Commission on Global Governance, 1995). In the words of Alexander Betts (2008: 2), powerful destination states in the global North “are able to accept migrants they regard to be a net benefit and to reject those they regard to be a net cost.” Sending states, on their part, “are ‘takers’ of the implicit regulatory framework created by dominant receiving states’ migration policies” (Betts, 2008: 16). This does not mean that there is nothing in the way of global migration governance, but what exists can aptly be described as “at best, uncalculated in its organization, with many outstanding governance issues, including a clear cut role for the United Nations (UN), needing to be addressed” (Green and Thouez, 2005: 2). States have so far largely avoided binding agreements that may infringe on their sovereign authority in this sphere, and international legal instruments generally suffer from low ratification rates. For instance, the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families has so far only been ratified by around 40 states – not including any of the major destination countries.5 However, the past few years have seen the adoption of several nonbinding documents. The most notable example


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is the ILO Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration, which outlines a set of nonbinding principles and guidelines to direct the formulation and implementation of labor migration policies. Another example is the state-led and independent Berne Initiative, which brought together states from all world regions with the aim of developing a “common orientation to migration management” (Gnesa, 2004: 9). Its final document, International Agenda for Migration Management, is explicitly nonbinding, and it consists of a number of “common understandings” as well as “effective practices.” Such documents can be thought of as ranking fairly high on the precision dimension of legalization, but very low on obligation. The prospects for state delegation to an international organization are lower when preference heterogeneity is substantial (Hawkins et al., 2003).6 In the case of migration, there is no central UN organization. Instead, a large number of organizations handle aspects of migration related to their respective area of responsibility; for instance, labor migration (International Labour Organization) or the migration of health workers (World Health Organization). The only one that handles a broad spectrum of migration issues is the International Organization for Migration (IOM), but it stands outside the UN system and lacks the clear mandate and normative authority that UN organizations enjoy (Betts, 2008: 6). IOM mainly works as a service provider for states, carrying out state-funded projects (Newland, 2005: 8). Recently, however, there have been attempts at harmonizing the agencies through the Global Migration Group, which meets at regular intervals at the level of heads of agencies.7 A complex network of institutions is emerging at bilateral, regional and interregional levels, allowing states to choose between different forms of temporary cooperation. States have established a large number of bilateral agreements, relating to, for instance, readmission, visa agreements, and access to temporary labor migration, and they often link migration to market access or development assistance. Several regional organizations have developed cooperation on migration. EU cooperative structures are the most developed, as they provide both for free movement internally and for cooperation on external border control (Betts, 2008: 13). An increasingly important form of regional migration cooperation is through the so-called Regional Consultative Processes (RCPs). The first RCP, the Intergovernmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugee and Migration Policies (IGC), was initiated in 1985. During the 1990s, there was a significant spread of RCPs, and they now exist in all major world regions. Some RCPs also work interregionally,


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facilitating cooperation between sending and destination states. For instance, the Puebla Process joins North and Central American states in dialogue, and the “5 plus 5” process develops cooperation between Northern and Southern Mediterranean states. RCPs are not organizations but arenas for discussions. Access to these discussions is usually restricted to government representatives only, and the discussions themselves are informal in character, fostering a high degree of confidentiality. Governments participate on a voluntary basis and adopt consensus recommendations that are nonbinding (Thouez and Channac, 2006; von Koppenfels, 2001). The existence of several different cooperative structures has been understood to reinforce relationships of power between the South and the North, as it allows Northern states to include and exclude cooperative partners on their own terms (Betts, 2008: 14). The Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) The first Global Forum on Migration and Development was convened in 2007, as the result of a long and difficult process of instigating global-level dialogue on migration. In the 1990s, repeated calls for the organization of a UN conference on migration and development were blocked by the major destination countries (Ghosh, 2005: 128; Newland, 2005: 1). In 2002, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan mentioned in his proposals to reform the United Nations the need to “take a more comprehensive look at the various dimensions of the migration issue” (UN, 2002: 10). The independent Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) was launched in 2003 on the Secretary-General’s initiative by a number of governments.8 Its mandate was to place international migration on the global agenda, to analyze gaps in current policy-making and examine linkages between migration and other issue-areas, and, lastly, to present recommendations on how the governance of migration should be strengthened (GCIM, 2005). About the same time that the GCIM was established, the General Assembly decided to arrange a High-Level Dialogue (HLD) on Migration and Development in September 2006. The purpose of the HLD was to provide member states with an opportunity to discuss at “ministerial or highest level possible” the “multidimensional aspects of international migration and development in order to identify appropriate ways and means to maximize its development benefits and minimize its negative impacts” (UN, 2006a). The main outcome of the HLD was that participating states decided to establish the Global Forum on Migration and Development.


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Given the high sovereignty costs related to migration, it seems quite remarkable that states decided to establish an international institution in this field. A possible explanation is that the linkage between migration and development (cf. Grugel and Piper, 2007: 41–2) has been an enabling factor. As Steffek notes in his contribution to this volume, the characteristics of a certain policy field are not permanent. One of the ways in which a policy field can be modified is through issue-linkage with other areas. When states experience different sovereignty costs in a given issue-area, such issue-linkage can provide a “solution” if it changes the distributional effects (cf. Koremorenos et al., 2001: 786). In global-level discussions, states have refrained from linking migration to the touchier area of security. Instead, discussions revolve around co-development, that is, the potential of migration to contribute to development and growth in both sending and destination states, thus reaching “win-win” outcomes. Ronald Skeldon (2008: 4) describes it in the following way: If migration was to be considered at the multilateral level ... it had to be linked with development. Developed countries saw immigration ... as a matter for state policy alone, with no interference from any outside power. Nevertheless, if the management of migration could be shown to promote development in some way, then a role for multilateral involvement could be justified. Migration itself was off the agenda, but migration linked to development was the backdoor way of discussing the issue of migration in the international arena. In their overview of the discussions at the HLD, Martin et al. (2007) found that there were significant disagreements concerning the status and organizational details of the Forum. The Secretary-General noted in his concluding address of the HLD that Clearly, there is no consensus on making international migration the subject of formal, norm-setting negotiations ... But, as I understand the thinking of the countries that back it, the Forum would be the opposite of that. It would be informal, voluntary, consultative. Above all, it would not make binding decisions. (UN, 2006b) An important area of contention concerned the relation between the GFMD and the UN. The Group of 77 along with China tended to want to keep it within the UN system, but were ultimately not successful (Martin et al., 2007). Currently, it is formally outside the UN system,


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although links are maintained through the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on International Migration and Development, and the presence of the Secretary-General at its meetings. The GFMD has been described as a “strange creature” (Rother, 2009: 100). Its precise organization was not decided at the outset, but was developed throughout the preparatory process for its first meeting (Matsas, 2008: 5). It is not a formal international organization, and it does not have a permanent secretariat; its first meeting took place in Brussels in 2007, the second in Manila in 2008, and the third in Athens in 2009. The US refusal to participate is believed to be a main reason for the low degree of formalization (Betts, 2008: 10). As indicated by the SecretaryGeneral’s address quoted above, the GFMD is explicitly not designed to take binding decisions. According to its webpage, it “is not a decisionmaking process but rather provides a platform for policymakers to share information on ideas, good practices and policies regarding migration and development.” Furthermore, the meetings are informal and held under Chatham House rules, to allow a high level of trust and openness between delegates. Summing up, the institutional features of the GFMD seem to confirm the predictions of rational choice institutionalism. From this theoretical perspective, we would expect international institutions in the area of migration to display a low level of legalization. The GFMD is merely a forum for discussion, which makes it rank extremely low on the delegation dimension. It does not negotiate any agreements, so the dimension of precision does not apply in this case. The GFMD also explicitly negates any intent to be legally binding, which locates it at the bottom of the obligation dimension (cf. Abbott et al., 2000: 408–18). Since meetings are informal, transnational actors are not granted access to actual governmental discussions. But, as explained in the introduction of this volume, there are many other ways in which transnational actors could participate in international institutions. Below, I will first look at the rational choice institutionalism expectations regarding transnational access, and then turn to the level of access in global migration governance in general and the GFMD in particular.

Explaining the level and type of transnational access This section will focus more directly on the forms and extent of access for transnational actors to international institutions. In international relations, it is an often heard argument that transnational actors play an increasingly important part in international affairs (for fuller accounts,


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see the introduction and Jönsson’s contribution to this volume). The observation that multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations and activist networks are now increasingly important actors in global governance has often led to the conclusion that the state is losing in power and authority. For some, the increasing prominence of civil society organizations holds great promise for the development of more peaceful international relations (Kaldor, 2003), whereas for others these developments raise new concerns when it comes to democratic accountability (Held and Koenig-Archibugi, 2005). Both exemplify the common conceptualization of the relationship as “a zero-sum game: as nonstate actors have become more powerful, states have by definition become less so” (Sending and Neumann, 2006: 654). From a rational choice institutionalist perspective, such conclusions are all too premature (see also Tallberg, this volume). To Kal Raustiala (1997), the inclusion of transnational actors in international institutions does not challenge the centrality of the state but rather works to its advantage. The pattern of inclusion is “neither unpredictable nor random” (Raustiala, 1997: 720); instead, states will grant access to transnational actors to the extent that there are benefits from so doing. And the potential benefits are manifold: transnational actors can, for instance, contribute by providing policy advice, monitoring treaty commitments, and facilitating ratification (Raustiala, 1997: 726–31). Hence, an increase in transnational access does not indicate a reduction in state power (cf. Koremorenos, 2008: 155). This theoretical perspective focuses on the conditions under which states are likely to design channels for transnational participation. This “top-down” approach to global governance therefore disregards the important dimensions of the state–transnational actor relationship that are not immediately under state control. For instance, one may point to the important role that NGOs often play as agenda-setters or as “framers” of particular issues, roles that are not necessarily related to access to international institutions (Brysk, 2005). As for migration, a wide range of human rights and development NGOs, advocacy groups, and migrants’ associations are active at national and regional as well as global levels. Thus, formal access is a limited focus, although important insofar as it shapes the political opportunity structures and the level of influence of transnational actors. An increasing overall level of access to international institutions over the past decades has stimulated the formation of new NGOs (Reimann, 2006). Where rules of access are restrictive, however, they are unlikely to exercise high levels of influence (Betsill and Corell, 2008: 49).


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The notion of sovereignty costs leads us to expect that the level of access will vary with the activities that the transnational actors carry out (see Green, this volume). States can be expected to allow them to take on functions that have low sovereignty costs – such as providing policy advice, carrying out field implementation and monitoring. In contrast, functions that directly affect state behavior (such as rule-making) are connected with high sovereignty costs and are therefore less likely to be delegated to transnational actors. Raustiala (1997: 733) explains that transnational participation will therefore be least desired during actual negotiations. But this reluctance may vary with the level of obligation of the agreement being negotiated. When the level of obligation is low, states are likely to be more positive to transnational participation. This is the case in soft law negotiations – such as general agreements and nonbinding principles – which require few behavioral changes for states (Betsill and Corell, 2008: 40). Transnational access is also expected to vary with the nature of the issue being handled. State demand for transnational participation is greater for complex issues, for which the need for transnational actors’ expertise is more intense (Raustiala, 1997: 732); for issue-areas in which commitments rely on national self-reporting, when NGOs’ monitoring function is desirable; and for issue-areas requiring implementation through field activities, as is often the case with foreign aid. Moreover, state demand for transnational participation is likely to be greater for issue-areas in which there are no major cleavages between states, for instance between the North and the South (Betsill and Corell, 2008: 40). We can also expect variation across the type of transnational actors that are granted access. States will select transnational actors on the basis of their resources and potential contribution (rather than, say, democratic considerations of representativeness), and they will try to clearly determine their activities (Raustiala, 1997: 735). The selected actors are likely to be those that do not promote directly conflicting agendas, and/or those that do not frame the issue under discussion in very different terms from the governmental discussions – otherwise state delegates will tend not to take them seriously (Betsill and Corell, 2008: 41).

Global migration governance and transnational access Rational choice institutionalism assumes that states will grant access to transnational actors to the extent that there are benefits of doing so. It follows that states, if they do choose to involve transnational actors,


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will tend to favor those who do not pursue radically different goals. We will also expect that states will favor involvement of transnational actors in the early and late stages of the policy process – providing policy advice and carrying out projects – rather than during actual negotiations and governmental discussions. The nature of the issue-area also entails certain expectations: for migration, high sovereignty costs along with marked cleavages between the North and the South would seem to decrease states’ demand for transnational participation. However, migration is also often described as a “complex” area, which, according to the theory, would make transnational participation more likely. The complexity of migration derives from its many interlinkages with other policy areas (development, labor markets, integration, trade, etc.), and the insufficient data on these linkages and the causes and consequences of migration more generally. This lack of knowledge is often acknowledged by migration governance initiatives. The Berne Initiative, for instance, stresses the need to systematize the collection of data and to conduct more research in order to improve policy-making in this area (IAMM, 2004). The complexity and the lack of knowledge about migration could increase the demand for transnational participation, at least in the function of providing information and policy advice. I will now explore to what extent these expectations are met in migration governance. Transnational actors in migration governance At the national level, organized interest groups and courts are known to have a strong influence on policy in some countries (Freeman, 1995; Joppke, 1998). Several states have also delegated certain control functions to private actors, such as airline companies (Guiraudon and Lahav, 2000). However, overall transnational access to international institutions is known to be fairly limited. Writes Colleen Thouez (2004: 11): “NGOs and INGOs are often awarded limited access by States and IGOs to formal fora for dialogue in this field.” As explained in the previous section, a large number of international organizations are concerned with international migration. The level and forms of inclusion of transnational actors are different for each one of them (see Grugel and Piper, 2007: 41–64). Here, I will merely discuss the Regional Consultative Processes (RCPs), since they are institutionally similar to GFMD. The Regional Consultative Processes aim to foster confidence by way of informality, and are therefore, as a rule, restricted to governmental officials only. In a few cases, RCPs have invited transnational actors to present their views, observe meetings, and partake in follow-up


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activities. These types of activities have occurred in an ad hoc manner, in the absence of institutionalized mechanisms for participation (Klein Solomon et al., 2008: 2–6). Hence, RCPs have been widely criticized for not involving transnational actors sufficiently. The Global Commission on International Migration states that “very few [RCPs] involve representatives of civil society, and even fewer have actively engaged with the private sector” (GCIM, 2005: 70), and recommends that this should be rectified (GCIM, 2005: 82). This seems to corroborate the theoretical assumption that states are hesitant to involve transnational actors during actual negotiations. But it may also strengthen the hypothesis that states do not involve actors whom they perceive to be pursuing conflicting agendas. Klein Solomon et al. (2008: 6) comment in this context: “States and civil society organizations tend to emphasize different aspects of migration. For example, whereas the concerns of States generally tend to focus on policy dimensions regarding who may enter, for what purposes and under what conditions, civil society organizations tend to be preoccupied with the rights and entitlements of migrants.” According to these authors, the NGO prioritization of migrants’ rights constitutes a major “obstacle” for their inclusion in RCPs (Klein Solomon et al., 2008: 7). GFMD and transnational access As we have seen in the previous section, GFMD is not a formal international organization, and it does not take binding decisions. It does not carry out any projects or field activities, which could be delegated to transnational actors. Instead, it is similar to the RCPs in that it provides an arena for informal discussion between governmental officials, thus honoring a high degree of confidentiality. NGOs have reacted strongly against being excluded from governmental discussions on migration and development. In its contribution to the first GFMD in 2007, Amnesty International wrote: Migrants themselves, non-governmental organizations and other civil society actors such as trade unions are and should be a vital part of this debate. Excluding them results in decisions and conclusions that are at best partial and distorted and at worst, discredited and ineffective or even abusive. Yet, bilateral and regional fora on migration issues routinely exclude civil society from participation. Unfortunately, we see this trend continuing in the Global Forum, where civil society has been effectively excluded from the governmental discussion. (Amnesty International, 2007)


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Within the UN system, NGO participation is encouraged by an article in the UN Charter. Since GFMD is formally outside the UN system, this article does not apply. This is one of the main reasons why civil society actors tend to favor the inclusion of GFMD in the UN system. At the time of the first GFMD meeting in 2007, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Migrants’ Rights International and December 189 wrote an open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, in which they pressed for the incorporation of global discussions on migration and development into the UN framework. One of their reasons was precisely that the UN would provide for arrangements for consultations with civil society and migrants’ organizations that are now not available (MRI et al., 2007). Another reason why NGOs insist on incorporating GFMD into the UN system is that this would ensure that UN human rights instruments would be integrated into evolving global migration governance (cf. Amnesty International, 2007; MRI et al., 2007). NGOs often argue for a reformulation of the GFMD agenda, which they sense focuses too little on the human rights of migrants, and too much on potential economic gains. At the 2008 Forum, some organizations rejected GFMD altogether and organized protests and parallel events (Rother, 2009). Just as in the case of the RCPs, the exclusion of transnational actors from governmental discussions may partly be explained by NGOs’ conflicting agenda, which stresses migrants’ human rights more than state representatives do. However, it would not be correct to suggest that transnational actors are completely excluded by GFMD. At the first Forum meeting, a “civil society day” was organized as a parallel event, and in 2008 it was expanded to two days. While the government of the host state is in charge of organizing the government discussion, the organization of the civil society days is the responsibility of private foundations: in the Manila case, for instance, it was the Ayala Foundation. The Manila civil society days also included an “interface” session and a session in which a small delegation of NGOs was allowed 30 minutes to present a report to government representatives (Rother, 2009: 102). Rational choice institutionalism expects states to encourage participation by those transnational actors they deem useful. The relation between GFMD and transnational actors is not settled once and for all: in his conclusions to the government meeting, the Filipino special envoy to GFMD, Esteban Conejos, said that “the GFMD remains a ‘work in progress’,” and he also stressed that government representatives need to continue working on their relationship with civil society (GFMD,


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2008a). A separate session on the “Future of the Forum” discussed the relationship with civil society. The background paper expressed concern that the civil society days were dominated by NGOs and labor organizations, while “private sector representatives are less enthusiastic to gather under a civil society banner” (GFMD, 2008b). The ensuing discussions confirmed this concern, emphasizing that “the relationship could evolve in several ways, including ... an expansion of the range of stakeholders, with special emphasis on private sector” (GFMD, 2008c).

Concluding remarks Global migration governance appears to confirm the expectations of rational choice institutionalism. First, this theoretical perspective leads us to expect that international institutions in the area of migration would display a low level of legalization. As we have seen, GFMD ranks extremely low on each of the dimensions of legalization. Second, the theoretical perspective would expect that migration institutions grant limited access to transnational actors, select or encourage the participation of some actors over others, and only involve them in activities that are associated with low sovereignty costs. GFMD does not grant transnational actors access to governmental discussions, but arranges for consultations in relation to civil society days, which seems to indicate that it values their knowledge and input. The concern expressed over the low level of private actors in the civil society days during the 2008 Forum shows a concern with the composition of transnational actors. Moreover, the institutions of migration governance overall seem to display a low involvement of transnational actors. The RCPs in particular display the same pattern of limited access as GFMD. While the analytical framework therefore seems quite robust, it also has some limitations (Wendt, 2001). One of them is the understanding of transnational actors that follows from this perspective’s top-down approach to governance. In this chapter, the term has been used to denote relatively organized collective actors that have the capacity to act in the international arena, such as private firms and NGOs (see also Tallberg and Jönsson, this volume). But, if migrants and their networks were to be considered relevant transnational actors, the assessment of their influence would possibly be very different. As has been noted by numerous commentators, the inventiveness of migrants and the brokers, smugglers, recruiters, and networks that operate on their behalf is such that it seems to defy most control attempts on the part of state governments: migratory routes continually transform and adapt, as


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migrants and their brokers discover new modes of entry when others are shut down (Castles, 2004). To Néstor Rodriguez (1996: 27), therefore, migration has an important transformative capacity, as it challenges the state as regulator of transborder movement and the nation-state way of ordering social relations. In this sense, migrants appear as “historical actors, restructuring sociospatial contours across global regions.” The relation between migrants and those agencies that seek to govern or control their movements is therefore one in which the latter are always merely following in the footsteps of the former (Walters, 2006: 200). Hence, if migrants and the migrant industry were not only approached as the object of governance but included within the category of transnational actors, these would not appear as excluded but as central – perhaps even dominating – actors in migration governance.

Notes 1. The author wishes to thank Hans Agné, Christer Jönsson, Robert O. Keohane, and Jonas Tallberg for comments on earlier versions of this chapter. 2. Importantly, it is economic (voluntary) migration that is the subject of this chapter. In the area of forced movements, international cooperation in the refugee regime is well established. The refugee regime centers on the definitions and obligations set out in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. The central international organization operating in this area is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 3. This is, of course, a very simplified description. Many states are simultaneously senders and receivers of migrants. 4. As an example, almost 40 percent of medical doctors from South Africa are currently working in OECD countries (WHO, 2006: 100). 5. For a good overview of possible reasons for the low ratification rates, see Pécoud and de Guchteneire (2004). 6. For an opposing view, see Koremorenos (2008: 170). 7. It was established by the UN Secretary-General in early 2006, and its membership consists of IOM, ILO, OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs), UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development), UNDP (UN Development Programme), UNODC (UN Office on Drugs and Crime), and the World Bank (UN DESA, 2006). 8. Switzerland and Sweden took the lead, and developed a draft of the Commission’s mandate together with Brazil, Morocco, and the Philippines. Later, the “core group of states” was expanded to include 34 governments. 9. December 18 is an umbrella organization for NGOs working to protect the rights of labor migrants. It takes its name from the date in 1990 when the UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. This date is today also known as International Migrants Day.


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8 Private Authority on the Rise: A Century of Delegation in Multilateral Environmental Agreements Jessica F. Green

Introduction1 The notion of “governance without government” depicted an emerging trend in international cooperation, in which states were no longer solely responsible for the management of global policy challenges (Rosenau and Czempiel, 1992). Tallberg and Jönsson (this volume) describe a similar “transnational turn in global governance” involving an increasingly complex web of actors and institutions in world politics. This chapter aims to describe this transnational turn, by examining 100 years of delegation to transnational actors (TNAs) in environmental politics. Many recent studies begin from the assumption that the role of TNAs in world politics is growing; indeed, the first major question posed by this volume is “why have international institutions increasingly opened up to transnational actor involvement?” I begin my inquiry one step earlier, first showing through a careful historical analysis that states are, in fact, increasingly delegating policy functions to TNAs. I look closely at one governance role assumed by TNAs: the extent to which they are selected as agents by states. This study thus contributes to the study of TNAs – and, therefore, debates on private authority and the role of the state – by understanding when and how they are selected to act on behalf of states. I focus exclusively on formal mechanisms for collaboration, as described by Tallberg and Jönsson. I refer to situations in which states choose to delegate to private actors as delegated private authority, or 155


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more simply, private authority. I define transnational actors as private actors that organize and operate across state borders, and use the two terms interchangeably. Other authors in this volume, such as Liese and Kalm, examine informal mechanisms for TNA participation. Certainly, both types of participation are needed to provide a complete map of the variation of TNA participation in global governance. However, I limit my own investigation to formal delegated private authority, with the hope that it will provide a sound foundation from which to explore other less institutionalized forms of TNA participation. The chapter has three main goals. The primary goal is to provide longitudinal data to contextualize other studies of private authority. Thus, the chapter asks two basic questions: how often do states delegate to TNAs, and for what tasks? Although there is a sizeable body of literature on the impact of global civil society in environmental politics (see, e.g., Betsill and Corell, 2008; Fisher, 1997; Green and Chambers, 2006; Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Lipschutz, 1992; Wapner, 1996) and the existence of private authority (Cutler et al., 1999; Hall and Biersteker, 2002; Haufler, 2001), few of these works attempt to measure the breadth of private authority. In other words, many suffer from selection bias, focusing only on cases where private authority exists. The major contribution of this chapter is to provide a large-N analysis to contextualize other work. Second, by analyzing patterns of delegation at both the level of the treaty and the “sub-treaty” level – legal decisions taken by parties once the treaty has been signed – I provide additional data on whether and how delegation patterns differ by legal instrument. The literature on NGOs often asserts that international organizations “subcontract” out work to NGOs (Donini, 1996; Edwards and Hulme, 1996). My dataset provides additional evidence that this is in fact the case, and that there are several common delegated activities that occur at the sub-treaty level. Third and finally, by conceptualizing delegation to TNAs as a type of private authority, I aim to bridge the gap between the delegation and private authority literatures. These two literatures have been treated separately, yet delegation can and should be considered a type of authority. When states delegate to private actors, they grant agents authority to act on their behalf. Part of the reason that much of the scholarship on private authority suffers from selection bias is because of the difficulty of defining the universe of cases. The advantage of including delegation to TNAs as a type of private authority is that it lends itself more easily to delineating a universe of cases – the set of decisions that states take collectively in intergovernmental agreements.


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To achieve these goals I conduct an in-depth analysis of multilateral environmental agreements as well as the legal decisions stemming from those agreements for their acts of delegation to international organizations (IOs) and private actors. The treaty-level data span from 1902 through 2002. The analysis of legal decisions taken in furtherance of treaty goals – what I refer to as “sub-treaty” data – spans from 1949 through 2008. In the treaty level of the analysis, I employed newly-developed software for coding qualitative data, called the Coding Analysis Toolkit (CAT), to analyze 152 multilateral environmental treaties from 1902 through 2002. The second portion of the study analyzes sub-treaty documents from these 152 treaties, using the same coding rules and instrument.2 To preview the main findings: the rates of delegation have increased markedly in the past 25 years, though, overall, states infrequently delegate to TNAs. On both the treaty and sub-treaty levels, the percentage of policy functions delegated to TNAs came in well under 10 percent. On the treaty level, 3.6 percent of policy functions are delegated to TNAs. On the sub-treaty level, the equivalent statistic was higher – 8.4 percent – but hardly evidence for any “retreat of the state” (Strange, 1996). Despite overall low levels of delegation to TNAs, the recent growth in delegation requires some explanation. At the very least, this finding suggests that we should not be too quick to dismiss their role in international environmental politics. This mixed picture reaffirms the need to shift the scholarly debate about TNAs from one about “if” to a more nuanced exploration of “how.” The chapter proceeds as follows. First, I situate my investigation within the relevant literatures. Second, I discuss data collection and methods. Third, I present basic descriptive statistics for each dataset. Fourth, I disaggregate the data and discuss patterns of delegation at both levels. I look carefully at the subject of the treaties that contain delegation to TNAs, and the functions as well as the specific activities delegated. In the conclusion, I discuss how my findings might relate to formal access mechanisms for TNAs in other policy fields.

Literature review and stakes of the investigation The data presented here contribute to two different literatures in distinct ways. The international delegation literature examines when and why states, acting collectively, choose to delegate at the international level, but has yet to focus on TNAs as agents. The literature on private authority has long theorized that the “retreat of the state” can


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be attributed to the growing role of TNAs in world politics (Strange, 1996; see also Cerny, 1995; Mathews, 1997; Ohmae, 1995). However, this body of work is generally comprised of individual case studies, and lacks large-N data to describe variation in private authority over time. I discuss each in turn. There is a rich and growing literature in international relations on delegation. IR scholars have built on the work of economics, which seeks to explain when firms choose to “make or buy” different goods and services (e.g. Alchian and Demsetz, 1972). This line of inquiry has since been exported to world politics, in an attempt to explain why states, acting collectively, choose to delegate certain tasks to international organizations. These studies have made useful contributions, mostly in the rational institutionalist tradition, which account for states’ decisions to delegate at the international level. Dominant explanations focus on the need to enhance credibility of commitments (Majone, 2001), reduce information asymmetries (Tallberg, 2006), resolve disputes (Alter, 2008; Koremenos, 2008), lock-in policy bias (Milner, 2006), and prevent the endless “cycling” of policies through careful shaping of the agenda (Pollack, 2003). Bradley and Kelley’s (2008) typology of international delegation further parses the dependent variable by examining the types of authority delegated, the legal effect of the delegation, and the independence of the agent. They note the lack of systematic study on international delegation, lamenting that “debates in international relations and law about how much delegation there is and how much it matters, are, therefore, largely anecdotal” (Bradley and Kelley, 2008: 32). The primary aim of this chapter is fill this gap. Although my analysis focuses on private actors, I have also compiled data on international delegation to IOs. To my knowledge, only one other author has gathered similar data on patterns of delegation across issues and over time (Koremenos, 2007, 2008). In addition to a lack of large-N data, very few works on international delegation explicitly take up the issue of TNAs as agents (but see Mattli and Büthe, 2005). Indeed, the literature on international delegation tends to focus on the types of cooperation problems and the costs and benefits of delegation, rather than the agents involved. As a result, delegation theory in international relations takes agents to be relatively unitary. As Lake and McCubbins (2006: 341–68) note, understanding the role of TNAs is the “next frontier” in delegation theory. Interestingly, the authors focus on their capacity to monitor IOs in their exercise of delegated authority, rather than considering them as agents themselves.


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Though the delegation literature is in the early phases of investigating the role of TNAs, scholars of private authority have long investigated the role of TNAs in world politics. Private authority, which Cutler et al. (1999: 5) define as “power to make decisions in a given issue-area that is recognized as legitimate, and that is not associated with governments,” is the subject of a large and varied literature. The boundaries of the literature on private authority depend largely on how authority is defined. Some works, such as Haas’s (1990) study of epistemic communities, focus on the impact of TNAs on interests and beliefs. Others, such as Finnemore’s (1996) study of the Red Cross or Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) work on transnational advocacy networks, instead see their authority derived from their moral claims. In some cases, the result is measurable changes in policy outcomes (for an excellent approach, see Betsill and Corell, 2008). In others, the authority of TNAs is more diffuse, shaping the agenda or framing particular issues (Epstein, 2008; Litfin, 1994; Newman, 2008). Another part of the literature on private authority focuses on the role of TNAs as standard-setters. There are a number of works that examine how private firms have set standards in the area of commercial law (Cutler, 2003), telecommunications and IT (Salter, 1999), trade (Loya and Boli, 1999), and accounting (Mattli and Büthe, 2005). In the realm of environment, numerous labeling and certification schemes illustrate how NGOs in particular are projecting authority in the global market for goods and services. Cashore and his colleagues (2004) argue that NGOs have successfully persuaded large timber producers and vendors to submit to rigorous monitoring because they have selected key points in the supply chain where pressure will produce leverage. Similarly, Garcia-Johnson (2000: 1) argues that the chemical industry submits to certification because certification institutions can perform functions that individual firms are unable to perform on their own: they provide “a set of collective goods: rules and conformance reports that help firms protect their reputations.” Other studies show how non-state actors have exercised influence through certification in areas such as production processes (Prakash and Potoski, 2006)and labor standards (Abbott and Snidal, 2009). In general, these studies assert that private authority is on the rise. However, many of these works study those cases where private authority is present rather than hypothesizing about the instances in which we should or should not see its emergence. As Drezner (2007: 20) recently put it: “most of the empirical work on global civil society [which, for Drezner, includes all TNAs] consists of efforts to demonstrate existence


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rather than pervasiveness.” Strange (1996: xvi) herself concedes that her cases “may have been chosen somewhat at random, out of personal interest. But they are supposed to illustrate the theoretical propositions laid out in earlier chapters.” While this approach may be a useful first step in theory-building, it also underscores the great need for large-N analyses to help contextualize such arguments.

Methods and data Since this study examines delegation, it is appropriate to begin with some definitions. In this study, delegation is “a conditional grant of authority from a principal to an agent that empowers the latter to act on behalf of the former” (Hawkins et al., 2006: 7, emphasis original). The authors also point out that the authority conferred through delegation is “limited in time or scope and must be revocable by the principal” (Hawkins et al., 2006: 7). Since I am interested in acts of delegation at the international level, the principal is always a collective one, comprised of a group of states that jointly assign tasks to a given agent. For example, if all the parties to a treaty agree to designate an IO as the monitoring body, then this is considered an act of delegation. By contrast, if each party designates a national agency to monitor the treaty’s implementation at the domestic level, this is not considered an act of delegation in this analysis. The same decision rule is applied to the sub-treaty documents (which are discussed in greater detail below). Delegation by the executive body of the treaty must designate an actor other than the individual national governments as an agent; otherwise, it is not considered an act of delegation. For the purposes of this study, private authority is the authority conferred on TNAs through the act of delegation by a collective principal. I rely on Tallberg and Jönsson’s (this volume) definition of TNAs, which includes NGOs, private firms, transnational networks, foundations, associations, and multinational corporations. This definition does not include international organizations. As noted above, I use the terms “private actor” and “transnational actor” actor interchangeably. The important point here is that, in this chapter, private authority occurs when states delegate to TNAs. The analysis is based on data compiled by Ronald Mitchell through the International Environmental Agreements (IEA) Database Project. His IEA Database Project has coded a random sample of 152 IEAs signed between 1902 and 2002.3 I coded all of the treaties in his sample, as well as a sub-sample of legal decisions taken once the treaties entered


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into force. Using the new CAT software, I coded each of the treaties by paragraph.4 In addition to coding treaties for acts of delegation, I also coded 518 decisions taken by the parties once the treaty had entered into force. I refer to these as “sub-treaty level” decisions. These can be understood as binding decisions taken by parties to the agreement about how to further the goals of the treaty. In many MEAs, states meet on a regular basis to review progress and compliance and to take decisions about how to move forward. The sub-treaty decisions are drawn from these regular meetings. There are two dependent variables: the actor(s) responsible for carrying out the policy function, and the policy functions delegated (or not delegated). The unit of analysis at both the treaty and sub-treaty levels is the policy function. Because of the nature of the data, coding procedures vary for the treaty and sub-treaty levels, though the coding instrument is identical. There are five policy functions: rule-making, implementation, monitoring, adjudication, and enforcement. There are four possible actors responsible for implementing these functions: states themselves (i.e., no delegation), a subset of states, an international organization, or a non-state actor. If states are responsible for the policy function, then it is coded as no delegation. I include a category called “state agent,” which occurs when states delegate to one state or a subset of states. For example, France could be responsible for collecting and disseminating all monitoring data for a given treaty. Ambiguous agent denotes delegation to a body whose composition either has yet to be determined or is unclear. For a given policy function, I allow for multiple actor codes, to reflect the complexity of governance arrangements. Before delving further into the analysis, a few words on the sample are in order. First, a skeptic would rightly point out that, of all of the areas of international relations, TNAs are arguably the most active and numerous in environmental politics. Choosing to examine patterns of delegation in environmental treaties could therefore overestimate the amount of delegation to TNAs in other issue-areas. I do not argue with this objection. However, as stated earlier, delegation to TNAs is a relatively underexplored phenomenon. Therefore, I thought it prudent to begin with a “most likely” case. If indeed there is an increasing amount of delegation to TNAs over time, it should be evident in the area of environment. Conversely, were I to find no evidence of private authority, this study would become a crucial case (Eckstein, 1975). Second, one might reasonably argue that there is little reason for states to codify acts of delegation at the level of the treaty, and thus we are more likely to find evidence of delegation once treaties are in force and being


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implemented. I acknowledge that this in fact may be the case, and, for this reason, include an extensive analysis of delegation patterns at the sub-treaty level. Finally, I should flag some concerns about bias in the sample of subtreaty decisions. The task of selecting a random sample of sub-treaty documents was complex. I used the 152 MEAs from the treaty level as the point of departure. Unfortunately, of the 152 agreements, only 44 had sub-treaty documents available electronically. It is therefore important to note that the following analysis represents a random sample of those treaties that did have sub-treaty documents available electronically. I recognize that using only those treaties with sub-treaty documents introduces the possibility of bias. I counteract this problem by being explicit about this potential bias as well its likely direction (King et al., 1994: 133). If anything, this selection issue should have an upward bias on delegation rates. Treaties that meet regularly, create sub-treaty bodies, and take frequent decisions are more likely to be complex, require greater management, and involve a larger number of actors. Thus, delegation is more likely in these treaties than in those without these characteristics (in general, though not specifically to TNAs). These selection problems suggest that, if anything, we are likely to see rates of delegation overestimated at the sub-treaty level. However, there is no reason to believe that one specific policy function or another was systematically excluded; thus the distribution of policy functions is likely to be an accurate estimate of the sampling frame.

Descriptive statistics I begin with a discussion of the treaty-level data, and then turn to the sub-treaty level. Both show two similar patterns. First, the proportion of policy functions delegated to private actors has grown remarkably in the last 25 years. On the treaty level, 62 percent of all instances of delegation to private actors occurred in the last 12 years of the sample. On the sub-treaty level, the equivalent statistic is 70 percent. These two statistics alone suggest that the nature of the relationship between states and TNAs is indeed changing. However, these findings are tempered by the fact that, overall, the proportion of policy functions delegated to private actors is quite low. Treaty data At the treaty level, 3.8 percent of all policy functions were delegated to private actors; at the sub-treaty level, the proportion was higher at 8.4


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12

10

8

6

4

2

19

0 19 2 0 19 6 1 19 0 1 19 4 18 19 2 19 2 2 19 6 3 19 0 34 19 3 19 8 42 19 4 19 6 50 19 5 19 4 5 19 8 62 19 66 19 7 19 0 74 19 7 19 8 8 19 2 8 19 6 9 19 0 9 19 4 98 20 02

0

Figure 8.1 Treaty-level delegation to private agents, 1902–2002 (no. of policy functions)

percent. Figure 8.1 shows the growth in delegation to private actors at the treaty level over time. Figure 8.1 shows that there is no consistent pattern across the entire sample. States do not delegate to TNAs until 1954 in the International Whaling Convention, and for the subsequent three decades the number of policy functions delegated fluctuates somewhat randomly. The spike in 1968 is explained by one agreement, the Agreement on Administrative Arrangements for the Prek Thnot Power and Irrigation Development Project. This agreement covers a large-scale development project paid for by Western governments, but implemented largely by a Cambodian corporation, which relies heavily on private engineering for implementation. The steady increase in delegation to TNAs begins in the 1990s and continues at a high rate in the first three years of the 2000s. Those who espouse the view that TNAs are becoming more prominent in world politics would most certainly point to these last 12 years of the sample. The data are consistent with Liese’s (this volume) finding that formal access to the FAO has been growing steadily since the 1970s. Moreover, it is noteworthy that almost half of the functions delegated in these dozen years, or 49 percent of all the policy functions, are “agent only” instances of delegation – that is, functions where there is no state involvement at all (recall that each function can have more than one actor responsible for its execution).


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Table 8.1 shows the distribution of policy functions at the treaty level, irrespective of whether or not they were delegated or to whom. The vast majority of the policy functions named in the 152 treaties deal with matters of implementation. The second most prevalent activity is rule-making, which includes creating administrative rules, as well as matters of procedure and voting. The least common policy function is enforcement. Figure 8.2 shows how often each function is delegated in MEAs. In general, states prefer not to delegate. This is unsurprising for two reasons. First, each act of delegation involves a loss of autonomy; states wish to avoid this reduction in sovereignty if they are able to do so (Bradley and Kelley, 2008: 1). Second, treaties are highly legalized, and therefore difficult to revise (Abbott et al., 2000). Thus, on average, we should expect states to prefer not to write delegation provisions into a

N

%

Rule-making Adjudication Implementation Monitoring Enforcement

400 118 1,011 218 100

22 6 55 12 5

TOTAL

1,847

100

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

18%

82%

27%

23%

71%

73%

77%

em

en t

rin g

rc En fo

M

on

ito

ta m en pl e Im

Ad

ju

m

di ca t

io n

tio n

56%

ul e R

29% 44%

ak in g

(%)

Table 8.1 Distribution of policy functions, treaty level

Delegated

Not delegated

Figure 8.2 Rates of delegation by policy function, treaty level


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treaty. Indeed, if we look at the distribution of “agent only” functions – where states have no role and agents are solely responsible for carrying out the task – the rate of delegation drops even more. Only 12.3 percent of all policy functions are “agent only.” In other words, states maintain some responsibility and control for 88 percent of all policy functions at the treaty level. Table 8.2 shows the frequencies for delegation to each type of agent. (Recall that a “state agent” is when one or more states are selected to act on behalf of all parties.) The table yields several interesting findings. First, when states do choose to delegate, they greatly prefer IOs as agents. Since states have already invested in IOs, and can directly control their work as well as their budget, this preference appears to be one way to reduce sovereignty costs. Sovereignty costs can be understood as “the reduction in state autonomy associated with ceding authority to international institutions” (Bradley and Kelley, 2008: 1). Second, when they do delegate, states overwhelmingly prefer to delegate implementation activities. These include conducting specific projects, training, capacity-building activities, and technology transfer. All discussion of budget, finances, and financial mechanisms is also considered implementation. It should be noted that implementation is the most expansively defined function, and includes the broadest range of activities. Thus, the high frequency of implementation is likely due in part to its operationalization. Nonetheless, it is clear that implementation activities impinge less on state autonomy than some of the other policy functions, such as rule-making or enforcement, and thus are more likely to be delegated than those functions with higher sovereignty costs. A brief assessment of the five policy functions named in this dataset suggests that three of the functions – rule-making, adjudication, and enforcement – have relatively high sovereignty costs, since they have Table 8.2 Total number of policy functions delegated to other actor State agent

State (%)

IO agent

IO agent (%)

Private agent

Private agent (%)


18 11 45 8 5

21 13 52 9 6

41 39 259 50 15

10 10 64 12 4

6 23 25 11 5

9 33 36 15 7

TOTAL (per actor)

87

100

404

100

70

100


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the potential to substantially change states’ behavior. Implementation and monitoring, by contrast, are less intrusive and therefore have lower sovereignty costs. Table 8.2 shows that states generally prefer to delegate those policy functions with lower sovereignty costs. Looking more carefully at the functions delegated to private agents, we observe several trends. First, the overall rate of delegation to private agents is very low: only 70 policy functions, or 3.8 percent, name TNAs. Second, when states do delegate to private actors, they select those functions with low sovereignty costs. For this reason, two of the three high sovereignty cost functions – rule-making and enforcement – are seldom delegated to private agents. The prevalence with which states delegated to TNAs to adjudicate is the notable exception, since ceding control over this policy function could potentially impose considerable sovereignty costs. Further disaggregation of the data helps clarify this inconsistency. Although TNAs are frequently tasked with adjudication, Table 8.3 shows that they are rarely left to adjudicate on their own. More frequently, delegation to private agents co-occurs with “no delegation.” This suggests that states often prefer to be the first line of action to resolve disputes; if possible, they wish to find solutions through negotiation. At the same time, these treaties contain provisions for third-party arbitration if an agreement cannot be reached by the disputants. Most often, there is a reference to states’ rights to bring a dispute before the International Court of Justice; in other cases, there is a provision for the creation of an independent arbitration panel. The comparatively large number of adjudication functions delegated to private actors can be explained by this two-tiered approach. In other words, one key way in which states control TNA agents is by assigning multiple actors the same policy function. More generally, Table 8.3 shows that, overall, TNA agents rarely serve as the sole agents at the treaty level. Over the 1,847 policy functions in the sample (which represent both delegated and nondelegated functions), only 19, or one-tenth of 1 percent, are delegated solely to TNAs. They are indeed a very small part of the story. The majority of these “private agent only” functions are adjudication and implementation. In the former, states are likely looking for an impartial arbiter of last resort. In the latter function, states are looking for actors who possess the necessary specialized knowledge. For example, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research is one of the few TNAs referred to by name in the sample. It is charged with implementation, largely because it is one of the few bodies with the necessary knowledge to evaluate scientific information that states provide.


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Table 8.3 Transnational actors as sole agents, treaty level No. of policy functions delegated

No. co-occurring with another actor

% private actor as sole agent


6 23 25 11 5

6 16 17 7 5

0 30 32 22 0

TOTAL

70

51

27

The data presented above show that the overall role for TNAs in multilateral environmental treaties is growing considerably, though it still remains small. States rarely delegate to private agents, and, when they do, it is most frequently in tandem with other actors. Sub-treaty data I now turn to delegation patterns at the sub-treaty level. The sample consisted of 518 decisions, which, because of the intricacies of the sampling techniques, comprised 298 documents. As with the treaty-level data, there is a significant increase in delegation to private agents in the last 12 years, which contain 67 percent of all functions delegated to them over the sample. Figure 8.3 illustrates this. Though the majority of delegation occurs in the last dozen years of the sample, there are three spikes – in 1954, 1968, and 1981 – that merit further examination. Interestingly, one treaty represents most of the delegation in these three years: the Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission (formerly the Indo-Pacific Fishery Commission). The Asia-Pacific Commission was created by the FAO in 1948. In 1954, member states nominated workers in the fishery industry to serve on an Ad Hoc Panel to advise the Technical Committee. Clearly, this is a case of drawing on the expertise of practitioners. They also asked that biologists be selected to draft requirements for protection of fish populations in dammed rivers. In 1968, the Council planned for the creation of a working party of experts to assess fish stocks – again, expertise is clearly the motivation for delegation. Finally, in 1982, the Commission requested that the FAO provide fishery experts to help members implement appropriate policies, and to conduct country visits in order to prepare draft management policies. In sum, the early instances of delegation to TNAs are all driven by the need for fishery experts. As we will see in the following


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5

4

3

2

1

0 1949 1953 1957 1961 1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005

Figure 8.3 Policy functions delegated to private agents, sub-treaty level

section, the need for expertise is driving much of the delegation at the sub-treaty level. Table 8.4 shows the general distribution of policy functions. Note that adjudication is entirely absent from the sample; not a single subtreaty decision performs an adjudicatory function. This is in contrast to the treaty-level data, where adjudication constituted 6.4 percent of all policy functions named. It seems logical that states would decide who would resolve conflicts at the outset, so that future disputes would not require resolution on an ad hoc basis. Similarly, there are very few instances of enforcement in the sub-treaty sample; they constitute a mere 2.3 percent of all policy functions. Again, this suggests that states prefer to decide on compliance issues before entering an agreement. Of the ten instances of enforcement in the sample, nine are not delegated (one is delegated to a state agent). This finding suggests that functions with high sovereignty costs are decided at the point of drafting the treaty, and are almost always undertaken by states. Over the sample of sub-treaty decisions, 8.4 percent of all policy functions are delegated to TNAs; this compares with just 3.6 percent at the treaty level. Although there are reasons to believe that the rates of delegation are upwardly biased at the sub-treaty level, we can still safely conclude that there is more delegation to private actors than at the


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Table 8.4 Distribution of policy functions, sub-treaty level N

%


135 0 222 71 10

30.8 0.0 50.7 16.2 2.3

TOTAL

438

100.0

treaty level. If the rates were identical, the upward bias would be more than 230 percent, which is highly unlikely. Table 8.5 shows the rates of delegation to each type of agent. As with the treaty-level data, states prefer to delegate to IOs. When TNAs are named as agents, they are overwhelmingly selected for implementation tasks, as well as rule-making tasks. This latter finding is interesting, and appears inconsistent with the treaty-level data, in which states delegate rule-making much less frequently. Moreover, given that rule-making has relatively high sovereignty costs, we would not expect there to be much delegation of this function. However, if we look more closely at these, we see that in all seven instances there are also values of no delegation and delegation to IOs. Thus, TNAs never serve as the sole agent in instances of rule-making. There was a similar trend at the treaty level, where private agents were often named as “adjudicators of last resort”; here, they serve as “rule-makers of last resort.” Although TNAs never serve as the sole agents in rule-making functions, they are selected as the sole agent for other tasks. Indeed, 13 percent of all functions delegated to private agents are “agent only” (though note that this amounts to only four functions). Three of the functions delegated only to TNAs are focused on implementation; one is focused on monitoring. Again, this confirms that, when states choose TNAs as agents, they prefer to delegate those functions with low sovereignty costs. In sum, states are more likely to delegate to TNAs at the sub-treaty level than at the treaty level. Given that these decisions are more easily reversed, and are narrower in scope, this finding is unsurprising: as sovereignty costs fall, the rate of delegation increases. Thus, in general we would not expect states to delegate rule-making to TNAs; however, since the loss of autonomy is less than at the treaty level, states delegate this function relatively frequently.


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Table 8.5

Total number of policy functions delegated to each actor, sub-treaty level % of total % of total functions functions State delegated to IO delegated agent state agents agent to IOs

Rule-making Adjudication Implementation Monitoring Enforcement TOTAL

Private agent

% of total functions delegated to private actors

39 0 72 29 4

27 0 50 20 3

56 0 139 45 5

23 0 57 18 2

7 0 20 4 0

22.6 0.0 64.5 12.9 0.0

144

100

245

100

31

100.0

Examining the positive cases: specific activities delegated to TNAs Now that we have a sense of the data, I turn to the positive cases in each dataset, and ask: what is the substantive content of those functions delegated to TNAs? Four trends stand out. First, as discussed above, states tend to delegate functions with relatively low sovereignty costs. Second, a majority of the treaties that delegate to private actors focus on species management. Third, functions delegated can be further categorized into general “types,” many of which draw on TNAs’ expertise. These types build on the policy functions described in the previous sections, but go further to specify particular activities that fall within each function. Fourth and finally, delegation to private agents tends to occur either at the treaty level or at the sub-treaty level, suggesting that the two are substitutes, not complements. Since I have already discussed the sovereignty costs associated with different policy functions, I turn to the final three trends. First, states tend to delegate for certain kinds of treaties. Fully 60 percent of all treaties with delegation to TNAs contain provisions about species management. These types of treaties are highly technical, involving complex scientific information as well a significant number of rules and reporting requirements. In short, these are just the type of multilateral agreements that could reduce transaction costs considerably by relying on experts to gather and analyze information. I explored this trend further by examining the text corresponding to each act of delegation to TNAs. I found a second pattern in the data: there are some specific activities that tend to be delegated to TNAs. At the treaty level, the majority of delegation to private agents can be


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grouped into three specific tasks – serving as a third-party arbitrator, auditing budgets, and providing expert input. The first two activities suggest that states are in need of an impartial third party to evaluate states’ behavior: delegation functions to enhance credible commitments. It is true that rule-making and enforcement also serve the same function, but these have significantly higher sovereignty costs. Thus, it appears that delegating to TNAs for these two activities is a relatively low-cost way to enhance the credibility of the commitment among states. The third activity, eliciting expert input from TNAs, supports rationalist theories that delegation can reduce transaction costs by “buying” knowledge instead of investing resources to create it. Examining specific activities delegated at the sub-treaty level also provides greater insight into the logic of delegation to TNAs. At the sub-treaty level, states overwhelmingly delegate to private actors for their expertise – again as a way to reduce transaction costs. This can be divided into two categories, as indicated by Table 8.6: expert input, and fieldwork and/or implementation by experts. For instance, there are three separate instances in which the Parties to the Antarctic Treaty request that SCAR (the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research), an NGO, undertake studies or review proposed rules and guidelines. In other agreements, such as the International Tropical Timber Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, states create expert groups to develop options papers or review state-proposed guidelines. To a lesser extent, states also rely on private agents to conduct specific activities in the field. For example, in one meeting of the parties of the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species, states ask an environmental NGO, IUCN, to conduct field studies of various species. The large reliance on TNAs to provide expert input at both the treaty and sub-treaty levels provides evidence for Steffek’s (this volume) Table 8.6 Specific activities delegated to transnational actors, percentage of all TNA functions

Expert input Third-party arbitration Expert fieldwork / implementation Budget audit Other TOTAL

Treaty

Sub-treaty

31 43 0 11 15

70 0 25 0 5

100

100


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hypothesis: the environmental policy field will be particularly open to TNAs because of the demand for expert knowledge. Examining the positive cases of delegation to TNAs demonstrates a third important trend: delegation to private actors generally occurs either at the treaty level or at the sub-treaty level. Of the 42 MEAs that contain delegation to TNAs, there are only two that do so at both the treaty and the sub-treaty level. This suggests that, in general, private actors at each level are substitutes rather than complements. When states delegate to private actors for their impartiality or expertise on the treaty level, they tend not to delegate for their expertise at the subtreaty level, and vice versa.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have presented findings from an original dataset on patterns of delegation over the last century of international environmental agreements. The main findings are two. First, there has been a marked increase in the past two decades. At the treaty level, 58.6 percent of all delegation to private actors occurred between 1990 and 2002. Moreover, 70 percent of delegation at the sub-treaty level occurred between 1990 and 2008. Although the role of private actors is small, it is growing. Second, TNAs are most frequently enlisted as “helpers,” contributing to the implementation of treaties largely through their expertise, and, to a lesser extent, through serving as third-party adjudicators. In other words, private agents are not substitutes, but rather complements, to state authority. Although I have confined my analysis to environmental politics, the data allows us to make some informed conjectures about delegation to private actors in other policy areas. First, we should expect to see higher levels of delegation to TNAs in areas that require specialized knowledge that is not available elsewhere. That is, when private actors possess knowledge that IOs or states do not, then the data suggest that delegated authority is more likely. Of course, this is a testable hypothesis that should be subjected to more rigorous analysis, but anecdotal evidence provides preliminary support. In highly technical areas, such as management of the Internet or carbon markets, states have chosen to delegate to private agents (on the Internet, see Weinberg, 2000; on carbon markets, see Green, 2008). Second, we have observed in the sub-treaty data that there is a general tendency for more delegation to TNAs: as treaties (and, likely, any other type of international institution) become more complex, the need for more and different types of actors also


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increases. Again, anecdotal evidence appears to support this claim. As Steffek (this volume) notes, security activities have expanded to include stabilization and reconstruction; at the same time, demand for knowledge and know-how from TNAs “on the ground” has become more common. These two hypotheses are derived from data on environmental politics, and should be tested in other issue-areas. Nonetheless, these informed conjectures suggest that the functional explanation for TNA access put forth by Tallberg (this volume) merits closer investigation. In sum, the analysis presented here suggests that a more fine-grained discussion about the role of TNAs in world politics is needed. Just as the debate on international institutions shifted from whether they mattered (for realists protested that they were epiphenomenal) to how they mattered, so has the tenor of the conversation about TNAs. The growth in delegated private authority in the environmental arena shows that governance arrangements are becoming more complex, with more actors involved. This finding raises yet unanswered questions about why these changes are occurring, and what their effects will be.

Notes 1. I would like to extend special thanks to Ron Mitchell for sharing and formatting his data, as well as to Stuart Shulman for extensive technical support with the Coding Analysis Toolkit. Thanks also to Liliana Andonova, Christina Davis, Emilie Hafner-Burton, Kosuke Imai, Bob Keohane, Duncan Snidal, and the participants in the Transdemos workshop in Lund, 22–24 April 2009, for helpful comments and guidance. This chapter has benefited greatly from conversations with Jeff Colgan about various methodological issues. 2. For additional details on the coding instrument and sampling methods, please contact the author directly. 3. For a full discussion of the project, the coding instrument and the treaties, see http://iea.uoregon.edu/ (accessed April 25, 2010). 4. More information on CAT can be found at: http://www.qdap.pitt.edu/ cat.htm (accessed April 25, 2010).

References Abbott, Kenneth, Robert O. Keohane, Andrew Moravscik, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Duncan Snidal (2000) “The Concept of Legalization.” International Organization 54(3): 401-419. Abbott, K. and D. Snidal (2009) “The Governance Triangle: Regulatory Standards Institutions and the Shadow of the State,” in W. Mattli and N. Woods (eds) The Politics of Regulation (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Alchian, A.A. and H. Demsetz (1972) “Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization,” American Economic Review, 62: 777–95.


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Alter, K. (2008) “Delegation to International Courts: Self-Binding vs. OtherBinding Delegation,” Law and Contemporary Problems, 71: 37–76. Betsill, M.M. and E. Corell (eds) (2008) NGO Diplomacy: The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Bradley, C.A. and J.G. Kelley (2008) “The Concept of International Delegation,” Law and Contemporary Problems, 71: 1–36. Cashore, B., G. Auld and D. Newsom (2004) Governing through Markets: Forest Certification and the Emergence of Non-State Authority (New Haven: Yale University Press). Cerny, P.G. (1995) “Globalization and the Changing Logic of Collective Action,” International Organization, 49: 595–625. Cutler, A.C. (2003) Private Power and Global Authority: Transnational Merchant Law in the Global Political Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Cutler, A.C., V. Haufler and T. Porter (eds) (1999) Private Authority and International Affairs (Albany, NY: SUNY Press). Donini, A. (1996) “The Bureaucracy and the Free Spirits: Stagnation and Innovation in the Relationship between the UN and NGOs,” in T. Weiss and L. Gordenker (eds) NGOs, the UN, and Global Governance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner). Drezner, D.W. (2007) All Politics Is Global: Explaining International Regulatory Regimes (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Eckstein, H. (1975) “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in F.I. Greenstein and N.W. Polsby (eds) Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 1, Political Science: Scope and Theory (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley). Edwards, M. and D. Hulme (1996) Beyond the Magic Bullet: NGO Performance and Accountability in the Post-Cold War World (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press). Epstein, C. (2008) The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an AntiWhaling Discourse (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Finnemore, M. (1996) National Interests in International Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Fisher, J. (1997) Nongovernments: NGOs and the political development of the Third World (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press). Garcia-Johnson, R. (2000) Exporting Environmentalism: US Multinational Chemical Corporations in Brazil and Mexico (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Green, J. (2008) “Delegation and Accountability in the Clean Development Mechanism: The New Authority of Non-State Actors,” Journal of International Law and International Relations, 4: 21–55. Green, J.F. and W.B. Chambers (eds) (2006) The Politics of Participation in Sustainable Development Governance (Tokyo: UNU Press). Haas, P. (1990) Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press). Hall, R.B. and T.J. Biersteker (2002) The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press). Haufler, V. (2001) A Public Role for the Private Sector (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). Hawkins, D.G., D.A. Lake, D.L. Nielson and M.J. Tierney (2006) “Delegation under Anarchy: States, International Organizations and Principal-Agent Theory,” in D.G. Hawkins, D.A. Lake, D.L. Nielson and M.J. Tierney (eds)


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Delegation and Agency in International Organizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Keck, M.E. and K. Sikkink (1998) Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). King, G., R.O. Keohane and S. Verba (1994) Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Koremenos, B. (2007) “If Only Half of International Agreements Have Dispute Resolution Provisions, Which Half Needs Explaining?” Journal of Legal Studies, 36: 189–212. Koremenos, B. (2008) When, What and Why Do States Choose to Delegate? Law and Contemporary Problems, 71: 151–84. Lake, D.A. and M. McCubbins (2006) “The Logic of Delegation to International Organizations,” in D.G. Hawkins, D.A. Lake, D.L. Nielson and M.J. Tierney (eds) Delegation and Agency in International Organizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Lipschutz, R.D. with J. Mayer (1996) Global Civil Society and Global Environmental Governance: The Politics of Nature from Place to Planet (Albany: State University of New York Press). Litfin, K. (1994) Ozone Discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press). Loya, T. and J. Boli (1999) “Standardization in the World Polity,” in J. Boli and G. Thomas (eds) Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875 (Stanford: Stanford University Press). Majone, G. (2001) “Two Logics of Delegation: Agency and Fiduciary Relations in EU Governance,” European Union Politics, 2: 103–22. Mathews, J.T. (1997) “Power Shift,” Foreign Affairs, 76: 50–66. Mattli, W. and T. Büthe (2005) “Global Private Governance: Lessons from a National Model of Setting Standards in Accounting,” Law and Contemporary Problems, 68: 225–62. Milner, H. (2006) “Why Multilateralism? Foreign Aid and Domestic PrincipalAgent Problems,” in D.G. Hawkins, D.A. Lake, D.L. Nielson and M.J. Tierney (eds) Delegation and Agency in International Organizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Newman, A. (2008) “Building Transnational Civil Liberties: Transgovernmental Entrepreneurs and the European Privacy Directive,” International Organization, 62: 103–30. Ohmae, K. (1995) The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies (New York: Free Press). Pollack, M. (2003) The Engines of European Integration (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Prakash, A. and M. Potoski (2006) The Voluntary Environmentalists: Green Clubs, ISO 14001, and Voluntary Environmental Regulations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Rosenau, James N. and Ernst Otto Czempiel (1992) Governance without government: order and change in world politics. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Salter, L. (1999) “The Standards Regimes for Communication and Information Technologies,” in A. C. Cutler, V. Haufler and T. Porter (eds) Private Authority and International Affairs (Albany, NY: SUNY Press).


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Strange, S. (1996) The Retreat of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Tallberg, J. (2006) Leadership and Negotiation in the European Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Wapner, P. (1996) Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics (Albany, NY: SUNY Press). Weinberg, J. (2000) “ICANN and the Problem of Legitimacy,” Duke Law Journal, 50: 187–259.


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9 Does Global Democracy Matter? Hypotheses on Famine and War Hans Agné

Would an extension of democracy to global politics have a restraining effect on famine and war just as democracy within states is commonly thought to have? This chapter will develop theoretical arguments that suggest an affirmative answer to this question and encourage the building of a research agenda which submits those arguments to empirical testing. For this purpose I will conceive of global democracy as fostered in part by transnational participation in international institutions. This premise is common in the literature to which this volume seeks to contribute, but it also serves to facilitate an empirical grounding of the theory that I seek to develop: observed variation in transnational participation in international institutions can on the basis of this premise be treated as variation also in a necessary but insufficient condition of a particular model of global democracy. Whether democracy can and should be established beyond the level of states is one of the great controversies of our time (for recent booklength readings of this literature, see Archibugi, 2008 or Karlsson, 2008). Activists target the absence of democracy in globalization with intense and sometimes violent protests. Political leaders engage in a double movement of reforming international institutions and defending the legitimacy of those institutions as they stand today. Academic discussions range from social prerequisites to theoretical models and normative principles of global democracy. But, despite all attention paid to the topic, does global democracy really matter? Those who think of democracy as intrinsically valuable in global politics (e.g., Bohman, 2007; for critical perspectives, see Bartelson, this volume) need not ask this question. The very establishment of global democracy may then be seen as a sufficiently important action in itself. By contrast, if the value of democracy is thought to depend primarily on whether it actually 177


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produces some good (e.g., Arneson, 2004; Tännsjö, 2008), the critical question becomes whether global democracy, once established, would in fact have any significant effects, that is, consequences beyond the phenomenon itself. Inquiries into effects have not yet attracted much attention in research on global democracy. This may seem to have a natural explanation. There is no world government that is accountable to a global public or a global parliament. Transfers of sovereignty from national to global institutions remain extremely controversial. Since such observations are often thought to imply that global democracy neither exists nor is likely to emerge even in a distant future, speculations about the effects of global democracy become of marginal interest. However, abandoning national sovereignty in favor of liberal democracy writ large is not the only way to conceive of global democracy. From a different perspective, democratization of global politics is neither driven nor constituted by governments but by voluntary associations of individuals who act within and beyond their national boundaries and with a significant degree of independence from governments: “democracy, therefore, is to be found in the juxtaposition of a multiplicity of self-governing and self-organizing collectives constituted on diverse spatial scales – from the local to the global” (McGrew, 2002: 274; see also, e.g., Kaldor, 2007: 136, 148–9 and Scholte, 2008: 335–40). Let me refer to this idea as a transnational model of global democracy. Exactly what actors should be regarded as fulfilling the criteria of voluntary association is a matter of debate which need not be settled for my present purposes. All observers include NGOs and social movements. Some also include private companies, labor unions, and philanthropic foundations. Still others include military liberation movements, terrorist groups, and organized criminality. In normative terms the transnational model of global democracy has close affinities to the liberal model of national democracy. The constituting of political agency by voluntary associations of individuals, which is the central element in the transnational model, has the same source of legitimacy as liberal democracy justified by reference to a social contract (e.g., Locke, 2003: 142; for alternative conceptions of the creation of legitimate political agents, see Näsström, this volume). In both cases, the ultimate purpose of political organization is to sustain personal freedom when human beings live or inhabit a place together. The fundamental difference between the contractualist theory of liberal states, on the one hand, and that of transnational actors, on the other, is that the voluntary association which makes up a state is thought of as being


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established in the hypothetical absence of any other political authority, that is, in a state of nature or in an original position. By contrast, the voluntary associations that make up transnational actors are even in theory conceived of as being established in a world that is already structured by complex patterns of authority. This has the following important implication: the means through which transnational actors can further global democracy are limited to particular ways of supplementing, and interacting with, government institutions that already exist; their purpose is not to supply a whole new political structure. Interaction between transnational actors and international institutions can take different forms and be realized to different degrees. A recent empirical study of such interactions distinguishes between four dimensions – transparency and openness; access to deliberation; responsiveness to interests; inclusion of all voices – and it finds, usefully, that there is significant variation among international institutions with regard to how, and how much, they interact with transnational actors (Steffek et al., 2008: 24–8). Of course, whether some forms and levels of interaction between transnational actors and international institutions will in fact contribute to democracy, in a broad and normatively relevant sense, depends also on a range of other factors, such as how representative the interacting transnational actors are of some wider public, and how their activities affect vital qualities of democracy within existing states, such as civic engagement in political parties or local issues. Since, due to space limitations, this chapter will not pay attention to those important matters, the contribution of transnational actors to global democracy discussed here holds only under a strict ceteris paribus clause. This is nonetheless significant. Transnational participation in international institutions constitutes nothing less than a necessary but insufficient condition for a transnational model of global democracy, as defined above. Against the background of empirical variation in such participation there is every possibility of theorizing and investigating the effects of one important component – though not the whole – of transnational global democracy. But what potential effects of transnational global democracy can there be to analyze? Since the question has rarely been asked in the study of global democracy, we may turn to the literature on national democracy for inspiration. Here there are two theories which stand out in their explanatory power as well as their moral significance: democracy is commonly believed to protect people against interstate war and intrastate famine. According to democratic peace theory, democratic states do not fight other democracies and, according to “Sen’s law,” famines do not occur within democratic states. Investigating the applicability of


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these arguments to interactions between transnational actors and international institutions – as I propose to do in this chapter – is important for two reasons. First, as hinted at already, whether global governance should be democratized further will, for at least some people, depend on whether it can be expected to produce any good. Hence understanding the linkage between a critical institutional condition for the transnational model of global democracy and the occurrence of famine and war is fundamentally important for decisions on how to design international institutions. Secondly, the arguments that national democracy protects people from famine and war are not only among the most famous and significant contributions to the study of democracy, they are also increasingly obsolete theories. In a time of globalization, we cannot know whether national democracy will produce the same effects as it did in the past. The notions of new and old wars (Kaldor, 2007) and new and old famines (Devereux, 2007) are illustrations of this. Allegedly, because of globalization, wars will be waged within and beyond states. Accordingly, a theory purporting to explain interstate peace will be of limited use for eliminating these wars. Moreover, because the violence of allegedly new wars takes place on the inside of existing societies and transcends the division between the military and the civil, the public and the private, infliction of famine on the enemy people becomes an increasingly practicable instrument of war (Kaldor, 2007). In view of these changes in the characters of famine and war, there is no time for rest in research on democracy’s capacity to provide basic human security. The first part of this chapter is concerned with protection against famine and the second part with protection against war. Both sections begin with a presentation of the arguments in their original contexts and proceed with their applications to international institutions. I will conclude that transnational participation in international institutions provides political mechanisms similar to those used to explain why national democracy is correlated with absence of famine and war and, accordingly, that there are now strong reasons for designing empirical inquiries so as to actually examine whether transnational access to international institutions in fact contributes to alleviating those human hardships.

Democracy as protection against famine The argument that democracy protects people against famine is based foremost on an empirical observation by Amartya Sen. There is no historical evidence, he says, that a famine, defined as a “particularly


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virulent manifestation of starvation causing widespread death” (Sen 1981: 40), has ever taken place in a democratic state (Sen, 1999a: 13). The conclusion is reached, not by a systematic study of all democratic states or all famines in world history, but by examining a handful of critical cases (Sen, 1981). Perhaps most cited is the observation that India had famines for as long as it remained under British rule, while no famines have occurred in India since its independence and establishment of general elections, freedom of press, and a multiparty system in 1947. According to Sen, the main reason for the absence of famines in independent India is not simply that the availability of food started to increase. India’s economic performance after 1947 remained inferior to that of authoritarian China, where nearly 30 million people died by famine in 1958–61 (Sen, 1999b: 8). Moreover, the last Indian famine, which killed approximately three million people in Bengal in 1943–44, was not preceded by any drastic drop in the availability of food in the region at large. In fact, the production of crops in Bengal in 1943 was higher than in 1941, when there was no famine (Sen, 1981: 56). The reason why famines are not linked only to economic development, or even to the supply of food, is that their cause lies in inadequate distribution as well as inadequate production. According to Sen, it is questionable whether any famine in history has ever affected all groups in society (Sen, 1981: 43), which would suggest that distribution is even more important than production for addressing the problem. Consequently, effective measures need not rely on economic developments such as growing output and efficiency in private markets, while it must necessarily involve the establishment of adequate political institutions. According to Sen: Famines have occurred in ancient kingdoms and contemporary authoritarian societies, in primitive tribal communities and in modern technocratic dictatorships, in colonial economies run by imperialists from the north and in newly independent countries of the south run by despotic national leaders or by intolerant single parties. But they have never materialized in any country that is independent, that goes to elections regularly, that has opposition parties to voice criticisms and that permits newspapers to report freely and question the wisdom of government policies without extensive censorship. (Sen, 1999a: 151–3) This argument does not imply denial that authoritarian states can be effective in combating famines. Experiences in Nigeria in 1974, in Kenya in 1984, and in Zimbabwe in 1982–4 have been cited to demonstrate


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that authoritarian regimes have successfully prevented the escalation of acute food crises into famines (e.g., Banik, 2007: 296). The point made by Sen is rather that democracy guarantees this outcome while autocracy does not. Explaining why this is the case, Sen points to the importance of public debate and general elections. While these institutions typically exist together, his explanation identifies two separate mechanisms. The importance of general elections is explained by invoking a traditional rational choice theory of democratic government: “famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort” (Sen, 1999b: 8). The primary aim of governments, according to this argument, is to remain in office, and under the institutional constraints of liberal democracy this preference will force them to protect citizens against famine. Members of democratic governments are hence no more interested in preventing famines than are members of other kinds of governments. The difference in outcome is explained by the procedures of liberal democracy alone. The notion of strictly self-interested actors cannot be the only theory of political agency in this explanation, however. If applied to the political behavior of citizens, similar assumptions would imply that only those who are threatened by famine would be ready to force their representatives to act against it. Because Sen also believes that the condition of famine is shared only by a small fraction of a country’s population (Sen, 1981: 43), this implication would not help him to explain why the general public actually force their representatives to prevent famines. While Sen is not completely clear on the basis for citizen action, one should notice that he does not add any assumptions of a nationally bounded collective identity, which could in principle have been used to explain why individuals make their political choices depending on the potential suffering of others within their collective. There is probably a good reason for this. With more than 200 languages spoken, and boundaries drawn up by colonial powers around a population which is twice that of the European Union, India is a country of considerable heterogeneity. Instead he emphasizes that democracy is a universally recognized value (e.g., Sen, 1999a: 151) and that part of this value consists in its superior protection of basic needs or rights. This turn of his argument is important to note: explaining why people react against famine by reference to a universal commitment to human rights, rather than some social or cultural characteristics shared by the citizens of the state, facilitates transposition of the argument to international institutions, which are generally not supported by a strong collective identity.


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When Sen moves on to explain the famine-preventing effects of the public sphere, rather than general elections, he abandons the idea that members of government are primarily interested in re-election. Instead he applies the idea that people in general, citizens as well as politicians, democrats as well as autocrats, are morally committed to act against famine. He approvingly cites the following passage in a speech held by Chairman Mao one year after the great Chinese famine of 1958–61: Without democracy, you have no understanding of what is happening down below; the situation will be unclear; you will be unable to collect sufficient opinions from all sides; there can be no communication between top and bottom; top-level organs of leadership will depend on one-sided and incorrect material to decide issues, thus you will find it difficult to avoid being subjectivist; it will be impossible to achieve unity of understanding and unity of action, and impossible to achieve true centralism. (Mao, as cited in Sen, 1999a: 182) On this reading, democracy protects people against famine because a less constrained flow of information will permit members of government to take appropriate action. It is worth recognizing that this explanation is more easily applicable to the politics of international institutions than is the first explanation mentioned above. It does not presuppose that generally unwilling politicians are forced by electoral competition to prevent famines, which would of course be a weaker argument internationally than it is nationally, but that generally willing politicians will protect people against famine to the best of their knowledge. Hence there are two causal mechanisms through which democracy may protect people against famine: either because governments are held accountable by their citizens or because freedom of information facilitates the identification of an effective policy response. The two mechanisms may, but need not, operate at the same time. The two interpretations converge insofar as both point to an unambiguously procedural argument, that is, the famine-preventing effect is supposed to be caused by a certain way of making decisions. The argument does not depend for its validity on any specific theory concerning what policies are effective in combating potential famines: it implies only that, as long as at least one or at best both of the explanatory mechanisms exist, citizens and their representatives will identify the requisite measures to combat famine. Hence, even if Sen’s own recommendations for economic policy against famine were wrong (as argued, for instance, by Bowbrick, 1986; cf. Sen, 1986), his argument would


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remain that democratic procedures enable people and their representatives (perhaps in contrast to Sen himself) to identify and pursue adequate policies for protecting the society against famine.

Global democracy and protection against famine The democracy-protects-against-famine argument (henceforth DPF) has clearly been constructed for application to the politics of individual states. The references it makes to general elections and multiparty systems are sufficient indication of this. However, this limitation in its intended application need not derive from any fundamental opposition between DPF and international politics. Indeed, the growing participation of transnational actors in international institutions suggests that the international relevance of DPF is already more than utopian. In more detail, I will argue that both national and international contexts can embrace a causal sequence in which (1) a drop in access to food leads to (2) the perception of the situation as a potential famine by non-state actors, such as NGOs or news media, which in turn creates (3) an awareness of the potential famine in authoritative institutions that undertake (4) preventive actions against famine on the basis either of accountability and public pressures or a moral commitment to protect people against famine. Investigating the applicability of this argument to international politics, I will assess whether its critical premises are contradicted by some fundamentally stable characteristic of international politics. Arguably, the actual existence of mechanisms presupposed in DPF is a matter of degree, and so are the effects that could be produced by those mechanisms. In this case, however, even an establishment of relevant mechanisms on a limited scale, and their consequently limited expected effect, is of enormous normative importance. Should there be strong empirical support that a minimal degree of transnational participation produces a minimal protection against famine, there is a strong reason to raise transnational participation above that minimal level. A necessary economic premise of DPF is that famines can be prevented by an adequate distribution of food. This premise is clearly better supported in global than in national politics. The countries where a more adequate distribution of resources has been thought to overcome famines, according to the original formulation of DPF, have much less surplus of food than has the world as a whole. Recall that, according to the original formulation of DPF, all existing liberal democracies, however poor, are able to protect their population against famine. Theoretically, it should of course be possible to imagine a liberal democracy so poor that


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it must sacrifice some part of its population in a famine. The country would then have to be poorer than all instances cited by Sen in support of DPF, including successful cases like India after 1947 and unsuccessful ones like Bangladesh in 1974 (which, according to DPF, would not have experienced a famine had it been democratically ruled). But, of course, the global political and economic system, taken as a whole, is wealthier than either India or Bangladesh. Indeed, if the validity of DPF holds universally in today’s world, as at least Sen believes it does, the conclusion is even logically necessary: the world as a whole cannot be poorer than the poorest of its constitutive subunits. Hence there should not be much debate over the applicability to international politics of the economic premise of DPF, that famines can be prevented by an adequate distribution of food. A necessary institutional premise of DPF is that political institutions can intervene so as to protect people against potential famines. Institutions with the explicit aim of dealing with global crises of food include UN agencies, such as the World Food Program (WFP) and the Children Fund (UNICEF); regional bodies, such as the European Community Humanitarian aid Office (ECHO); and foreign aid agencies of individual states. The existence of such institutions indicates a global capacity to act against potential famines, but, according to the logic of DPF, they are not the only or even the most important ones. As famines may be caused by unemployment, losses in purchasing power, changes in relative prices, and other economic factors (Sen, 1999b: 165–7), the global capacity to act against famine is based on all those institutions that can make an impact on such factors. On this criterion it is unlikely that any of the major economic institutions should be excluded: global organizations such as WTO, IMF and the World Bank; regional organizations such as the AU, EU and UNASUR; and less formal associations of economic powers (G8, G20 etc.), as well as individual states, may certainly affect not only the availability of food, but also relative prices, general demand, and resources available for public employment programs. Moreover, the actions of many of these institutions are coordinated through a UN High-Level Task Force on Global Food Security Crises. The broadening of the definition of global institutions that have an impact on access to food has important consequences: the capacity of individual states to refuse having their food distribution affected by international decisions will be smaller than if we had recognized as relevant only those institutions that are in part constituted for the explicit purpose of humanitarian aid. To illustrate, consider the humanitarian crises in Burma after a cyclone hit the country in the spring of 2008.


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While the military regime refused to let aid workers enter the country, it did not refuse the economic and material support offered by the international community (BBC, 2008). What this case seems to illustrate is that a capacity to counter potential famines with a broad range of instruments, not only humanitarian aid but economic relief of any kind, will enable global agents to act within less sensitive policy areas where opposition even from authoritarian governments is less likely. Hence there are reasons to believe that international institutions, as we know them today, may satisfy the institutional condition of DPF, namely that political institutions are able to protect people against potential famines. A necessary moral premise of DPF is that people, for one reason or another, are willing to act against famines. As noted in the previous section, there are alternative readings of what political motives are presupposed in DPF, of which the one most readily applicable to international institutions says that political representatives act against famine for reasons of moral commitment (rather than political pressure). A first indication of such commitment can be seen in the content of international law and conventions. The right to food, and of course the more general right to life, was included already in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) and then repeated and specified in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). That these are not just empty words is illustrated in the recent warrant of arrest for Sudan’s President Omar Al Bashir issued by the International Criminal Court. “[F]orcible transfers” of “thousands of civilians,” which was in this case equivalent to inflicting famine, is here defined even as a crime against humanity (ICC, 2009). Moreover, political initiatives such as the World Food Summits, and the Millennium Goals to reduce extreme hunger by half before 2015, suggest that protection of people against famine is to some extent an institutionalized moral commitment in global politics. The moral premise of DPF should, then, be reflected also within global civil society. This is actually the easier point to establish. Campaigns against famines have always been a top priority for transnational actors. The international public opinion against the Biafra famine in 1968 is often seen as a founding moment of the transnational solidarity movement (Chandler, 2001: 680). Furthermore, the fact that the issue of famine receives serious attention from transnational actors is easy to explain: transnational actors tend to organize around issues that involve immediate bodily harm and with clearly visible effects (Keck and Sikkink, 1998) – a proposition which certainly applies to the


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particularly virulent manifestation of starvation causing widespread death, which is the definition of a famine (Sen, 1981: 40). On these grounds, global civil society is well capable of providing something like the “early warning system” that Sen believes is part of the explanation of why democracy within states eliminates famine (Sen, 1999a: 181). The principal difficulty of realizing the moral premise of DPF at the international level concerns its realization within authoritarian states. This is an important issue, even if we are concerned with the effects of democracy: in order for a transnational model of global democracy actually to make a difference, its effect must not be limited to democratically ruled territories where famine in any case does not occur. The application of DPF to international institutions therefore presupposes that global civil society is to some extent present even under authoritarian rule. While this is a difficulty, it is not implausible. The strength of global public opinion does not depend more than marginally on the number of political activists or reporters operating in a certain state. Global public opinion may be formed by a single individual gaining support from people in other places in an attempt to influence global politics. Hence the formation of a global public opinion does not presuppose that people are equally free in all parts of the world. This is simply a conceptual clarification, but it helps to explain why the absence of liberal democracy in Ethiopia in 2002–3 or in North Korea during the 1990s did not prevent the formation of global public opinion against famines in these cases. Complementary explanations of the same phenomenon suggest that modern communication technologies are difficult to control, and that authoritarian states are not in general unwilling to provide for their own populations. A necessary democratic premise of DPF is that political institutions are designed so as to learn from, and act upon, reports on potential famines provided by transnational actors. This condition reflects the interpretation of DPF that democracy protects against famine because it provides sufficient information for adequate action by political representatives. The core question, then, is whether international institutions can approximate that condition while they remain international institutions. This is where skeptics of transnational global democracy might argue that states can never abandon their national interests and will accordingly design their international institutions for purposes other than to learn about political problems from representatives of global civil society (Dahl, 1999). But this is also where critics may have something to learn from recent empirical


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research. The variation in transnational participation among international institutions is an effective rebuttal of the view that international institutions are unable to reform themselves in the direction of more transnational participation. Moreover, the role currently played by transnational actors in international institutions is not limited to receiving information and helping to implement decisions, but is geared also toward agenda-setting, participation in deliberations, and influencing policy outputs (Steffek et al., 2008). Expected as they are, these observations show that a protection of people against famine by means of increasing the flow of information from society to international institutions is not an implausible concept. While interactions between transnational actors and international institutions certainly do not approximate a criterion of significant transnational democracy today, there is also no reason to believe that the nature of international politics altogether rules out a movement in the direction of the democratic premise of DPF.

Democracy and protection against war Democracies do not fight each other. Most famously this regularity of international relations is explained by the democratic peace theory (DPT), which says that democracies do not fight each other because they are democracies. Put in this general way, it is easy to see why peace between democracies is only one among several implications of this theory. Since the explanation refers to a quality of individual states, rather than a quality of pairs or groups of states, it applies to their internal as well as their external actions: the quality which does the explaining, the democracy of democratic states, is no less present in domestic than in foreign policy, and thereby the theory should predict internal as well as external peace. According to this general variant of DPT, democracies are then expected to avoid war against each other, as well as domestic wars. This is not an uncommon interpretation of DPT. According to pioneering democratic peace scholar Rudolph J. Rummel, the democratic peace is not only an international phenomenon: “democracy is a general cure for political or collective violence of any kind – it is a method of nonviolence” (Rummel, 2009). However, since this reading of DPT serves as a preparation for its application to international institutions, which are larger in scope and therefore more exclusively concerned with internal relationships than states are, it is worth showing how the arguably most influential source of contemporary DPT,


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namely Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace, allows a similar interpretation. According to Kant: If ... the consent of the citizens is required to decide whether or not war is to be declared, it is very natural that they will have great hesitation in embarking on so dangerous an enterprise. For this would mean calling down on themselves all the miseries of war, such as doing the fighting themselves, supplying the costs of the war from their own resources, painfully making good the ensuing devastation, and, as the crowning of evil, having to take upon themselves a burden of debt which will embitter peace itself and which can never be paid off on account of the constant threat of new wars. But under a constitution where the subject is not a citizen ... it is the simplest thing in the world to go to war. For the head of state ... will not force him to make the slightest sacrifice so far as his banquets, hunts, pleasure palaces and court festivals are concerned. (Kant, 2007: 100) While Kant certainly wrote this paragraph to explain why the external actions of democracies are more peaceful than those of autocratic states (my terms, not his), the reasons which he invoked in order to explain this difference apply to domestic as well as foreign aggression. The burdens which make people oppose war with other states, such as the need for citizens to do the fighting themselves, and so forth, are no less present or painful in a war fought within the state or the political system more generally. Hence the shift in balance from external to internal action, as we move from a context of states to one of international institutions and organizations, does not affect the applicability of DPT. The theory is concerned with both kinds of action. Kant’s argument is an example of what may in more general terms be referred to as an institutional explanation of the democratic peace. Democratic institutions, like general elections, competition among parties, and public scrutiny of political alternatives, are then thought to impose various constraints on the tendency of democracies to fight each other, for instance because of the slowness of democratic procedures and the consequently small risk of surprise attacks in conflicts between democratic states (Russett, 1993: 40; see also, e.g., Bueno de Mesquita et al., 1999). According to a different strand in DPT, the democratic peace is best explained by the tendency of democratic procedures to socialize their participants into peaceful norms, for instance, that conflicts should be resolved through non-violent deliberation and negotiation (e.g. Russett, 1993: 35). These normative explanations, too,


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apply to internal as well as external actions. If political leaders have been sufficiently socialized into a democratic norm for it to be externalized in their interactions with other states, it will constrain their violence in relation to internal actors as well. DPT rightly counts among the major achievements in political science, but the limitations of the theory should be recalled as well. DPT says little or nothing about peace and war among autocratic states. It is unhelpful in relation to the issue of democratization, as democratizing states have been found more war-prone than stable autocracies. It remains problematic in relation to a range of anomalistic cases, such as covert military actions and exceptional wars among democracies. The remainder of this chapter, however, will be concerned only with the limitations of current DPT to account for what have variously been referred to as “new wars” or “identity wars” (e.g., Kaldor, 2007; cf. Newman, 2004). “New wars,” as the term is being used here, refer to a kind of warfare in which at least one party is a non-state actor and the aim of the violence is not necessarily to defeat an existing state or government, but to kill or terrorize particular people so as to destroy the conditions for their common way of life and to create or reinforce a different sense of political identity. As new wars disconnect from the politics of sovereign states, their nature can be described also as involving a move from public to private warfare. In more specific terms, combatants are less controlled by central authorities; the boundary between civilians and combatants is blurred; friends and enemies share the same territory; soldiers are employed or financed by private actors; conflicts are less visible and smaller in scale. Typical instruments of new wars include ethnic cleansing, displacement of people, recruitment of child soldiers, infliction of famine, slavery, guerrilla fighting, kidnapping, and mass rapes in front of family members. Part of what makes new wars “new” is that they can be seen as an indication as well as an effect of globalization (Kaldor, 2007). On the one hand, they illustrate the transformation of political conflict into a condition less related to the institutions and territories of particular states and, on the other, they occur because political and economic globalization has made governments less important as targets of war, and less capable of controlling internal conflicts and identity conceptions. This is why orthodox DPT may seem increasingly useless in helping to protect people from the wars that exist today. While DPT is concerned with the external, and to some extent the internal, relationships of states, new wars typically occur in the absence of sufficiently strong states. To examine and hopefully to develop democracy’s ability to protect people


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against war, there are good reasons, therefore, to investigate the applicability of DPT to political institutions that are reinforced rather than undermined by globalization, such as international institutions, and to pay specific attention to one of the issues for which orthodox DPT does not account, namely new wars.

Peace and democracy beyond the nation-state? DPT is currently a theory about states. Its empirical implications are almost exclusively investigated in relation to domestic and foreign policy. However, the current absence of DPT in studies of international institutions need not imply that such application is impossible. In fact, the increasing involvement of transnational actors in international politics over the last decades suggests that DPT may cast important light on the effects of international institutions. Illustrating the possibility to grasp such effects through DPT, I will rely on an adapted variant of the Kantian assumption, cited above, that war is preferred to peace only by small minorities of people and that democratic institutions (which by definition reflect the interests of an extended group of people) will for that reason generally be conducive to peace. As with DPF, dealt with in the first part of the chapter, there is a set of conditions which must be met for the Kantian version of DPT to be applicable to international institutions. For instance, the violence of new wars must be exerted by a smaller group of people than those who are affected by it; transnational participation in international institutions must help empower larger groups of people rather than existing elites; and there must be an international capacity to affect the scope and length of new wars. However, since the Kantian version of DPT, in contrast to DPF, has paid scant attention to the role of civil society actors in the promotion of peace, I will now (at the expense of direct attention to the empirical reasonableness of the necessary conditions just mentioned) allocate space to identify mechanisms through which transnational participation in international institutions may indeed have this effect. I will consider the capacity of transnational actors to (1) provide useful information inaccessible to governments; (2) draw attention to security issues other than those privileged by states; and (3) represent and empower interests that are oppressed within particular states or the system of states as a whole. Gaining information Transnational participation in international institutions may work against new wars by yielding information useful for that aim (for this capacity of transnational actors in more general terms, see Tallberg,


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Steffek, this volume). The underlying premise of this argument is that effective action requires correct and comprehensive information. In the context of new wars, the idea can be illustrated by the failure of the UN to stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, which has typically been explained by the absence of adequate early warning systems (cf. Piiparinen, 2006). Speaking more generally, relevant information may under certain conditions be accessible only through transnational actors. The less sensitive an actor is to the government of the territory in which the actor operates, the easier it will be for the actor to access and collect information. This should make it easier for transnational actors working within a limited area of action, say education or medical services, to obtain information in comparison to foreign governments, which must take sides also on issues like international trade, military cooperation, human rights, and environmental protection. While the channels of foreign governments can be limited to diplomatic contacts and official visits, transnational actors may integrate directly with domestic civil society. Of course, the ability of transnational actors to provide necessary information should not be exaggerated. To mention but one problem, any superior access of transnational actors to domestic information may serve to compromise their status as being politically independent. For example, in March 2009 Sudan expelled a number of humanitarian NGOs following an accusation that they had provided information to the International Criminal Court, whose staff were not allowed to enter the country (Fournier, 2009). Even in such a dramatic situation, however, the accused humanitarian NGOs retained important activities in the country (see, e.g., Doctors Without Borders, 2009) and thereby confirmed their continued potential to build up bases of unique information. Gaining attention A second mechanism through which transnational actors may reduce the risks or actions of new war is by drawing attention to security concerns other than those privileged by states themselves. On the premise that states are primarily concerned with their own security (for the realist approach to transnational actors, see Tallberg, this volume), one should expect intergovernmental organizations to pay specific attention to threats issued by governments and directed against constitutive elements of states, such as territorial boundaries and government agencies. In accordance with this expectation, preliminary empirical research has found that the UN is significantly less inclined to protect civilians by force when threatened by the violence of non-government


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actors than it is when civilians are threatened by the violence of governments (this research is limited to one-sided violence; Hultman, 2009). This tendency of the UN is morally alarming because, disregarding the Rwandan genocide in 1994, which is difficult to classify as an action driven exclusively by either government or non-government actors, more civilians were killed by non-governmental actors than by governmental actors in one-sided violence between 1989 and 2006 (Hultman, 2009). Now, by increasing transnational involvement in international institutions, such as the Security Council of the UN, one should expect at least some relocation of attention toward the violence of non-state actors emblematic of new wars. The reason is, simply, that transnational actors have no specific interest in the security of states and will therefore have less incentive to downplay threats against human security in general. Transnational involvement in international institutions can thereby help protect people against new wars by giving a fairer amount of attention to the kinds of violence covered by this concept. Gaining representation The third mechanism through which transnational participation may contribute to protection of people against new wars is by representing interests that are oppressed within individual states or even the state system as a whole. To secure people against violence directed against them by their own governments, inclusion of transnational actors in international institutions may have the positive effect of strengthening the political representation of the threatened groups and thereby increasing the international protection of their interest, so as to avoid escalation of existing conflict into new wars. Ethnic minorities within states may provide one example of this mechanism, as human rights are likely to be protected more effectively by an international institution that provides such political access to potential victims as is denied to them by their own governments. The collaboration between the UN and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (see UNPO, 2009: 7–8) may be one case in which the significance of this effect can be investigated. A contrasting example is the failure of the UN to protect women against systematic raping in war. The scandal of sexual abuse by UN personnel revealed in Congo in 2004 – including pedophilia, prostitution, and rape – reinforced the impression that insufficient female representation in governments and international institutions is an important explanation for their weak capacity to protect women against such violence. Indeed, an increased role for transnational actors has been called upon as a


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means to improve on this situation (Mukwege et al., 2009). It should be noted, however, that this expectation presupposes that politically influential transnational actors represent interests other than those already mediated through state institutions, something that warrants empirical investigation.

Conclusion Why – at a time of historically unprecedented levels of wealth and global communication – is humanity still haunted by famine and war? Social scientists may be proud of their alleged ability to provide a relatively simple and yet informative answer to this question: because of insufficient democratization. Famines are absent in democratic states and democracies do not wage war against each other. However, in a time of globalization this answer is increasingly obsolete. As the nature and functioning of states are being transformed, the effects produced by states in the past need not materialize in the future. Moreover, the appearance of new wars and new famines, which transcend the traditional domain of state politics, is a reminder that the protective functions of democracy must be continually investigated. Further, because globalization is part of what calls for a renewed interest in the protective capacity of democracy, it is not far-fetched to investigate those capacities in the field of global democracy. Existing research on global democracy is extensive with regard to conceptual, normative, and institutional issues, but so far it has paid little attention to effects. This is understandable in view of theoretical models, according to which global democracy does not exist and is unlikely to come into being. But, in the light of recent empirical research on transnational actors in global governance, a more fruitful position is available: necessary though insufficient conditions for a transnational model of global democracy are available to varying degrees in different international institutions. Because of this variation, it is possible and meaningful to engage in the study of what effects could be expected if global governance were democratized to a significantly larger degree than we have yet witnessed. A first step in such research is to consider what effects could in principle be explained by this kind of democracy. And, as argued in this chapter, the international application of the arguments that democracy protects people from war and famine should at least not be ruled out on theoretical grounds alone. So, in response to the question of whether global democracy really matters, one should answer that some theoretical speculation says so and that it is now time for serious empirical research.


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Note For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter I thank all contributors to this volume and also Henrik Berglund, Eva Hansson, Marta Reuter, Theresa Squatrito, and Martin Westergren.

References Archibugi, D. (2008) The Global Commonwealth of Citizens: Toward a Cosmopolitan Democracy (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press). Arneson, R.J. (2004) “Democracy Is Not Intrinsically Just,” in K. Dowding, R.E. Goodin and C. Pateman (eds) Justice and Democracy: Essays for Brian Barry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Banik, D. (2007) “Is Democracy the Answer? Famine Prevention in Two Indian States,” in S. Devereux (ed.) The New Famines (London and New York: Routledge). BBC (2008) “Will Burma Keep Its Word on Aid?” Available at http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7417203.stm (accessed April 2, 2009). Bohman, J. (2007) Democracy across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press). Bowbrick, P. (1986) “The Causes of Famine: A Refutation of Professor Sen’s Theory,” Food Policy, 11: 105–24. Bueno de Mesquita, B., J.D. Morrow, R. Siverson, and A. Smith (1999) “An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace,” American Political Science Review, 93: 791–812. Chandler, D. (2001). “The Road to Military Humanitarianism: How the Human Rights NGOs Shaped a New Humanitarian Agenda,” Human Rights Quarterly, 23: 678–700. Dahl, R. (1999) “Can International Organizations Be Democratic? A Skeptic’s View,” in I. Shapiro and C. Hacker-Cordon (eds) Democracy’s Edges (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press). Devereux, S. (ed.) (2007) The New Famines (London and New York: Routledge). Doctors without Borders (2009) “MSF Continues to Run Projects in Darfur and North Sudan,” Field News, 27 May 2009. Available at http://doctorswithoutborders. org/news/article/cfm?id=3643&cat=field-news (accessed April 22, 2010). Fournier, C. (2009) “Punishment or Aid?” New York Times, 28 March 2009. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/opinion/28iht-edphelan. html (accessed June 24, 2009). Hultman, L. (2009) “Protecting Civilians by Force: Peace Operations in the PostCold War Era,” paper prepared for presentation at the IR seminar, Stockholm, 16 June 2009. ICC (2009) “Warrant of Arrest for Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir, 04.03.2009. International Criminal Court.” Available at http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/ doc/doc639078.pdf (accessed April 1, 2009). Kaldor, M. (2007) Human Security (Cambridge: Polity). Kant, I. ([1795] 2007) “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Karlsson, J. (2008) Democrats without Borders: A Critique of Transnational Democracy (PhD thesis, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg).


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Keck, M.E. and K. Sikkink (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). Locke, J. ([1690] 2003) Two Treatises of Government (New Haven and London: Yale University Press). McGrew, A. (2002) “Transnational Democracy,” in A. Carter and G. Stokes (eds) Democratic Theory Today (Cambridge: Polity). Mukwege, D., L. Ag, B. Ackar, M. Mamula, and M. Vilusic (2009) “EU måste agera mot våldtäkterna,” Svenska Dagbladet, June 18, 2009. Available at http://www. svd.se/ opinion/brannpunkt/artikel_3083581.svd (accessed June 25, 2009). Newman, E. (2004) “The ‘New Wars’ Debate: A Historical Perspective Is Needed,” Security Dialogue, 35: 173–89. Piiparinen, T. (2006) “Beyond the Mystery of the Rwanda ‘Black Box’: Political Will and Early Warning,” International Peacekeeping, 13: 334–49. Rummel, R.J. (2009) “What Is the Democratic Peace?” Available at http://www. hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.IS_WHAT.HTM (accessed June 24, 2009). Russett, B. (1993) Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post Cold War World (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Scholte, J.A. (2008) “Reconstructing Contemporary Democracy,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 15: 1–47. Sen, A. (1981) Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Sen, A. (1986) “The Causes of Famine: A Reply,” Food Policy, 11: 125–32. Sen, A. (1999a) Development as Freedom (Westminster, MD: Alfred A. Knopf), http://site.ebrary.com/lib/sthlmub/Doc?id=2002145&ppg=33 (accessed June 24, 2009). Sen, A. (1999b) “Democracy as a Universal Value,” Journal of Democracy, 10, 3: 3–17. Steffek, J., C. Kissling and P. Nanz (eds) (2008) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit? (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan). Tännsjö, T. (2008) Global Democracy: The Case for a World Government (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). UNPO (2009) UNPO Brochure (The Hague: UNPO Office). Available at http:// www.unpo.org/images/unpo%20brochure%202009.pdf (accessed April 22, 2010).


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10 Democracy Counts: Problems of Equality in Transnational Democracy Sofia Näsström

The danger of numbers is greater than the danger of an intervention by the masses on the political scene; the idea of number as such is opposed to the idea of the substance of society. Number breaks down unity. (Claude Lefort) Democracy counts − contemporary democratic theorists certainly agree on this.1 Democracy has become the key term among those who seek to legitimize global political institutions. At the same time, the term is more indeterminate than ever. Changes in the global political landscape have induced many theorists to rethink the central concepts of democracy. One such concept, perhaps the most basic of all, is “the people.” The problem that many theorists now face is that, while they want to democratize global institutions such as the UN or the WTO, there is not yet a people or demos on the global level to undertake this task. In this chapter I examine two recent attempts to take issue with this question, the all-affected principle and discursive representation. What these proposals have in common, and what makes them novel and provocative, is that they try to democratize global institutions without having recourse to a circumscribed people. They try, in a way, to speak for the people by constructing a theory without the people. The all-affected principle asserts that the people are those affected by the decisions of a certain agency. As such, it need not be defined in advance, but it will shift depending on who are affected or have a stake.2 Discursive representation refers to the idea that representatives should represent discourses rather than peoples, and according to its proponents it is 197


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therefore particularly pertinent in transnational settings lacking a welldefined people (Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008: 481). The question raised in this chapter concerns the status of equality in these accounts. Democracy, whether in its representative or direct form, is generally held to be constituted by a specific constellation between numbers, equality, and majority rule. What characterizes democracy in contrast to other political orders is that it literally counts, heads or votes. It is a system of the many against the few, that is to say, a system that lets numbers count in politics. As each is counted equally, the persons who possess social, economic, and other forms of power have no more say than those who possess nothing. In this respect, democracy is indeed a system in which the people rule. For who are the people if not those who have no power, except the power of their numbers? The power of numbers, in turn, is tied up with majority rule. The idea is that counting heads or votes yields a numerical majority that then becomes sovereign or binding for all. It speaks for the people as a whole. But why count in the first place? As I shall argue, there is a deeper indeterminacy at the bottom of this constellation, without which there would in fact be no need for counting. This indeterminacy has to do with the fact that the people, although presupposed as the only legitimate source of democratic politics, is not really there. There is no unity at the bottom of democracy, only a reference to a people that itself remains divided (Canovan, 2005; Derrida, 2005; Laclau, 2005; Lefort, 1988; Rancière, 1999). This characteristic, which makes critics of democracy like Plato so annoyed and irritated, is ultimately why we need to count. Since democracy carries an absence of unity at its heart we need to discuss and debate before we eventually cast and count our votes. Indeterminacy is also what we experience in global politics. There is no unity at the global level, and this is why we today witness attempts to construct theories of democracy without reference to a people. Still, this is where one needs to pay close attention to the status of the claims being made. We need to distinguish more carefully between the need to democratize global institutions, on the one hand, and the construction of a theory of democracy based on this need, on the other. The allaffected principle and discursive representation should be acclaimed for calling our attention to the voiceless under global political conditions, and so to account for those who do not count, which is a core definition of the people (e.g., Agamben, 2000: 29; Canovan, 2005: 2). However, to present them as theories of democracy in their own right is a different matter. It runs the risk of leading to a situation where one actually undermines the democratic principle that demands us to count each


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equally. One either suggests a system of graded votes according to interests or stakes (all-affected principle), which in effect means that some count more than others, or puts forward a democratic ideal that urges us to stop counting altogether (discursive representation). The argument proceeds in three steps. I begin by delineating the problem associated with new forms of authorization and accountability and the attempt to rectify it by means of the all-affected principle and discursive representation. I then situate these ideas in the literature on democracy, with specific attention given to the concept of the people. In the third part, I critically examine the all-affected principle and discursive representation on the basis of this understanding, arguing that, instead of revitalizing democracy under global political conditions, they end up defending a model which severely undercuts its radical force. The aim is to show that this situation is due to a misreading of the significance of the people, and that once we let go of this misreading there are better ways to make democracy count in global politics.

Accounting for those who do not count That the world is undergoing change is often taken to be an undisputable fact. That the concepts by which we seek to understand and conceptualize the world also may undergo change is more controversial and often a matter of intense dispute. Is there, for example, a core meaning to democracy or does this shift with time and place? Is the concept of democracy amenable to historical change, or is there a threshold beyond which it cannot go without losing its essence? In recent years, one can witness an increased sensitivity to the historicity of democracy among democratic theorists. In the wake of globalization and migration it is often pointed out that what we today conceive of as democratic, indeed what we take to be democracy, in fact is bound up with the history of the nation-state. The past has informed our contemporary thinking on democracy and, if the world now is undergoing change, the concept of democracy must be adjusted accordingly. In the words of John Dryzek (2000: 135), for example, we ought to recognize that “experimenting with what democracy can mean is an essential part of democracy itself.” According to many theorists, this power of democracy to challenge its own foundations is precisely what we see at work in global politics. In order to retain the idea of democracy, it has become necessary to go beyond the confines of the nation-state, and this is why we today witness a flight from state-centered and territorial forms of democracy to


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more global, issue-driven and pluralized forms of political engagement. In a world of global and overlapping power structures, the nation-state is no longer a prerequisite for democracy and inclusion. On the contrary, it “enacts and legitimizes profound exclusions” (Young, 2000: 9). The critique of the nation-state system is therefore not only a theoretical exercise, but part of democracy’s own power to adjust to new political circumstances. The critique of the nation-state also spills over onto the representative model of democracy that it harbors. Modern democracy has gone hand in hand with an electoral system in which citizens choose representatives to stand for them or act on their behalf. If many theorists have criticized the electoral system for its structural exclusion of historically marginalized groups, they have often tried to accommodate their criticism within the confines of the electoral system. The strategy has been to find various mechanisms (e.g., group representation, quotas) by which to enhance inclusion, and so to make the electoral system more accountable to the electorate as a whole. The problem is, though, that under global political conditions there are actors and institutions that stand outside of any such system of authorization and accountability, but whose decision-making capacities nevertheless are strongly felt around the world. This circumstance has not only triggered new models of global accountability (e.g. Grant and Keohane, 2005); it has also led to a more profound critique of the electoral system itself (e.g. Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008; Saward, 2008; Urbinati and Warren, 2008). According to Michael Saward (2008: 2), we ought to recognize that, while an important feature of contemporary democracy, elections can sometimes “act to restrict the nature and range of representative perspectives and voices.” Characteristic of the electoral system is that representatives represent the interests of their own electorates. However, there are also global issues − environmental, economic, political, and cultural − that span different electorates. If representation is limited to election, many of these issues will go unaccounted for. For while “we can choose particular politicians ... we cannot choose to have politicians who will not participate within the compromises and constraints of the electoral game” (Saward, 2008: 5). In order to give voice to the issues and concerns that traverse existing electorates, it is therefore suggested that we revise our inherited understandings of what it means to represent someone. When Bono and Al Gore speak up for Africa and the environment, or when NGOs call our attention to how certain companies exploit natural resources or human beings in the third world, they are not acting on behalf of an electorate.


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Nevertheless, they make important representative claims, claims that most likely would go unheard were one to restrict representation to the electoral system. Non-electoral forms of representation are therefore seen by many theorists as essential in the democratization of global governance. They alert us to new forms of domination and, in this way, they also push democracy in a new direction: how do we account for those voices and perspectives that remain uncounted by the electoral system (Urbinati and Warren, 2008)? To call attention to the limits of the nation-state system and its representative model of democracy is one thing. To formulate an alternative theory of democracy is another, and this is where the question of conceptual change comes in. Democracy means rule by the people. If much thought hitherto has been given to the concept of “rule” − the literature on global governance testifies to this − less attention has been given to the concept of “the people.” It has usually served as a silent presupposition behind theories of global governance. In recent years, however, the significance of the people has moved to the forefront among those who want to democratize global institutions. The argument is that, while there are powerful actors and institutions operating at the global level, there is not yet a people there to hold them to account and so to bestow them with the authorization they need to be democratic. How to deal with this problem has created a divide in the literature on global politics. On the one hand, there are those who argue that the concept of democracy cannot be “stretched” to accommodate the global context. There is a limit to how far it can travel without losing its essence.3 For these theorists, the absence of a people at the global level is the main obstacle to a democratic recuperation of global institutions. They argue that, while global institutions like the UN may be valuable in furthering democracy and humanitarian goals, they are not legitimated by a global people. Nor are they likely to be so in the foreseeable future, which is why we should be careful in our attempt to “democratize” global institutions. The claim is that, while global institutions may in some way be responsive or accountable to the will of the global public, they are not authorized in a democratic way. Rather than clothing these institutions in the mantle of democracy we should therefore call them by their proper name, “bureaucratic bargaining systems.” (Dahl, 1999: 33; see also Miller, 1995). To others, this position is too rigid. It takes the experience of the nation-state as a democratic horizon for the future, and thereby overlooks what is potentially novel about the present situation. In order


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to give excluded individuals and groups a voice, one cannot wait for a people to be formed on the global level. What is called for is conceptual innovation. Rather than presuming that we know what democracy is, and then using it as a blueprint vis-à-vis global institutions, it is argued that we should turn our democratic worries into a positive research question and ask what democracy could mean under contemporary conditions. The contention is that, unlike national institutions, global institutions do not have to be anchored in a people in order to be democratic. They can be authorized in other ways. The most radical argument to this effect is given by those who seek to democratize global institutions by means of the all-affected principle and discursive representation. The all-affected principle is today a popular device among democratic theorists. What makes it popular is that it challenges the assumption that democracy must be anchored in the people. In most theories of democracy one starts out from a given people, only then to discuss the scope of its decision-making: what is the proper domain over which it has a democratic say, and what should, by contrast, be considered a more private concern? Significant for the all-affected principle is that it turns the question around. It determines the scope of the people on the basis of the scope of political decisionmaking. For example, what is the scope of the decision by a particular nation-state to cut down on environmental protection? Or what is the scope of certain trade policies issued by the WTO? The answer is that the people in each case are those affected by the decision in question. By defining the people in this way, the all-affected principle proposes a way of democratizing global institutions without having to fall back upon a pre-given people. The idea is that the democratic organization should “follow the contours of power relations, not those of memberships” (Shapiro, 1999: 38; see also Fraser, 2005; Young, 2000: 9). If the all-affected principle seeks to generate the scope of the people through the scope of political decision-making, discursive representation seeks to dodge the question of the people altogether. The assumption is that what matters in politics is not people per se, but the opinions and views that emanate out of their everyday and subjectless forms of communication. This lends discursive representation a particular salience among those concerned with the global civil society. According to Dryzek and Niemeyer (2008: 491), transnational actors do an important job in picking up and representing politically neglected issues, yet they are not authorized by an electorate to do so. Discursive representation provides them with the “democratic validation” they need vis-à-vis global institutions. Many global institutions are today


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run according to a single hegemonic discourse – like neoliberalism in the WTO – and it is precisely the role of discursive representation to broaden the range of discourses that determine their course. The claim is that, by having representatives speak for a plurality of discourses in a “Chamber of Discourses,” it is possible to make global institutions more in tune with the opinions of the global public sphere. The all-affected principle and discursive representation both seek to account for those who do not count in global politics: the excluded, the silenced, and the poor. The claim is that, in order to speak for the people, we need to construct a theory of democracy without authorization in the people. To think clearly about the significance of this move, it could be fruitful to consider what role the concept of the people hitherto has played in democratic theory. Let us therefore turn to this issue before we return to examining these propositions in greater detail.

Why count? According to Aristotle, there are two forms of equality: numerical and proportional. By the first is meant “equality in number or size; by the second, equality of ratios” (Aristotle, 1996: 1301b, 1317b). The difference is that, while numerical equality treats human beings as identically independent of their specific merits or qualities, proportional equality treats them in relation to their due, or in relation to what they deserve. Democracy, Aristotle (1996: 1302a, 1317b) tells us, refers to the equality of number. It is the power of the numerous, not only in an arithmetical, but in a historical sense as well. In modern democracies, numerical equality is manifested in the principle of one person, one vote. As citizens we may be unequal in virtue, wealth, power, and skills. However, when it comes to determining the principles of our common political life, such statuses are irrelevant. In matters of politics we all have an equal say through the vote. Moreover, this equality of the vote is unconditional. It does not distinguish between citizens. The citizen who carefully chooses representatives that he or she thinks present the most convincing political program has no privilege over the one who carelessly votes for the one who makes the funniest jokes. In a democratic system their votes carry equal weight (Walzer, 1981; Yack, 2010). At the time of election, Bernard Manin (1997: 136) writes, the citizen is therefore as absolute as the king once was with regard to the state: “He could rightly adopt the motto of absolutist rulers and say ... ‘thus I wish, I ordain, my will takes the place of reason’.”


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This feature of democracy is a source of constant discomfort among those who value knowledge over opinion, and the most famous critic of numerical equality is Plato. Why, he repeatedly asks in Republic, should the greatest number carry any weight at all? What matters in politics, as in all spheres of life, is not the greatest number, but the greatest skills. This goes as much for the shoemaker, the doctor, the farmer as for the ruler. Just as the best farmers should do the farming, the best rulers should do the ruling. They should be the guardians of the rest. In a good society each has a specific role to play, and to confuse these roles with one another is to confuse the good with the corrupt, the virtuous with the vicious. The allegory of the captain and the ship neatly illustrates the conflict between numerical and proportional equality. The sailors, Plato writes, “are quarrelling with one another about steering the ship, each of them thinking that he should be the captain, even though he’s never learned the art of navigation, cannot point to anyone who taught it to him, or to a time when he learned it.” The problem is that the sailors, who are numerous, do not recognize excellence when they see it. They take the ship from the true captain and hand it over to charlatans, the result of which is nothing but disaster. According to Plato, this is why we must refute democracy − “the greater number are vicious” (Plato, 1997: 1111–12). Today, however, most of us are democrats, and students of political science have therefore learned how to refute Plato’s vision of the guardian elite. They would point out that there is something qualitatively different between steering a ship and a society; in the latter there is no supreme knowledge, only different opinions.4 Furthermore, they would argue that while experts are important they cannot themselves rule. Even experts disagree among themselves, and the only way to resolve the issue in case of conflict is for them to cast a vote, which means that we are back to equality according to number. Counting heads or votes means that one must wrap up the counting at some point, and equality of numbers is therefore bound up with the idea of majority rule. As Aristotle (1996: 1317b) puts it, democracy “is the application of numerical not proportionate equality; whence it follows that the majority must be supreme, and that whatever the majority approve must be the end and the just.” In a similar vein, for John Locke (1988: § 97), for whom equality is a natural rather than a political virtue − we are all equal before God − the majority speaks for all: “For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body ... and the body should move that way whither the greater


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force carries it, which is the consent of the majority.” Many democratic theorists would stress that majority rule is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for democracy. They would take precautions to protect minorities against the tyranny of the majority (Tocqueville, 2000: 300). Nevertheless, the fundamental principle remains. In a democracy, the greatest number is what matters. The majority makes the people move and act as one. Democracy is a system that counts, something that seems unnecessary in monarchies and meritocracies where authority springs from the king and the wise. What is it, then, with the authority of the people that calls for counting? According to Jacques Derrida, the question of counting belongs to democracy precisely because the authority of the people itself is incalculable and indeterminate. The people is the carrier of a freedom that refuses to become synchronized into a single voice. When we appeal to the people, we appeal to something that is “heterogeneous to calculation and measure” (Derrida, 2005: 48). For although the people is taken to be the only legitimate source of democracy − the appropriate unity of measurement − its unity falls apart the moment we ask for it. It becomes divided, split into different opinions. There is in this respect “an essential historicity of democracy” (Derrida, 2005: 25). To acknowledge the authority of the people is to acknowledge that no natural or divine authority can step in and regulate human affairs. In a democracy we disagree about the guiding principles in the regulation of society, and this is why we need to count. Democracy implies that there is no natural or divine authority in matters of politics, only a history of numerous claims. This essential historicity of democracy can itself take different historical forms. In Athens, it was manifested in a system of direct rule. One counted heads. A theorist who has done much to analyze the significance of the people for modern representative democracy is Claude Lefort. He traces the birth of modern democracy to the shift from the king to the people, and the change in the symbol of power that this move brings about. The king was the unifying center of the monarchical regime. He ruled by divine authority and, at the same time, his body gave to society a specific form, “an understanding both of the ultimate ends of society and of the behaviour of the people it assigned to specific stations and functions” (Lefort, 1988: 34). In the democratic revolution this symbolic power of the king as at once supernatural and grounded in an organic body disappears. Unlike the king, the people does not have a body − we cannot see it or touch it − and, as soon as we ask it to tell us what is true, it disintegrates into numerous opinions. This means that


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democracy engenders a fundamental indeterminacy as to the foundation of society. With democracy the locus of power becomes an “empty place.” It “inaugurates the experience of an ungraspable, uncontrollable society in which the people will be said to be sovereign, of course, but whose identity will constantly be open to question” (Lefort, 1986: 303–4). According to Lefort (1988: 18–19, 226; 1986: 303), this characteristic of the people is institutionalized in the modern idea of universal suffrage: “It is at the very moment when popular sovereignty is assumed to manifest itself, when the people is assumed to actualize itself by expressing its will, that social interdependence breaks down and that the citizen is abstracted from all the networks in which his social life develops and becomes a mere statistic. Number replaces substance.” The apparatus of election is thus the historical incarnation of a yet deeper historicity of democracy, the fact that the source of its authority is absent. Electoral democracy institutionalizes this essential historicity of the people. It makes the exercise of power “subject to the procedures of periodic redistributions” (Lefort, 1988: 17). The constant redistribution of power in modern democracies signals that there is no ultimate authority that can tell the difference between what is legitimate and what is illegitimate. What we have is instead “a debate as to what is legitimate and what is illegitimate − a debate which is necessarily without any guarantor and without any end” (Lefort, 1988: 39). This indeterminacy can be rather hard to live with, and to Lefort this means that modern democracies harbor a constant desire to re-establish unity. Democracy is at once what undermines the power of natural and divine authority and that which nourishes a quest to restore it. It fosters a desire “to banish the indetermination that haunts the democratic experience” (Lefort, 1986: 305). Under modern political conditions, this desire is not only driven by the conviction that the people are ill-advised. This is Plato’s concern: the numerous are ignorant and will jeopardize the virtue and survival of the city as a whole. Today most of us are democrats and the concern is therefore different. It is not to refute democracy, but to save it, that we seek to banish the indeterminacy associated with the authority of the people. Faced with a democracy that, in Dryzek’s terms, makes the experimentation of democracy into an essential part of democracy itself, we are exposed to a risk. Democracy may come to undermine itself, elect itself out of office. To avoid this risk, it may be tempting to protect democracy by suspending it, whether through entrenchment or, quite literally, by declaring an election void. Nowhere is this desire for protection through suspension more tangible, but also more understandable, than in the discussion on global politics.5


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From numerical to proportional equality It was asked above whether the concept of democracy is amenable to historical change, or whether there is a threshold beyond which it cannot go without losing its essence. In the light of the previous discussion it could now be said that, if there is an essence to democracy, this essence consists in its historicity, and this historicity is in turn manifested in the people. The people is not an authority in the common sense of the term, a point of reference we can appeal to in case of conflict or uncertainty. What is significant for the authority of the people is that it disintegrates into numerous opinions and, although this lack of unity is a constant source of frustration, it is at once what guards our equality and what makes us have to count. This characteristic of the people is what defenders of the all-affected principle and discursive representation are prone to overlook. The allaffected principle and discursive representation are indispensable in calling attention to the limits of the nation-state system. They explain why we need to go beyond it in order to give the excluded and silenced a political voice. When conceived of as theories of democracy in their own right, however, they take on a different significance. Rather than working for the numerous and countless, they end up abolishing the very thing that guarantees their power: the incalculable authority of the people. The result is that the democratic principle that demands us to count each equally is replaced by one that says that we need to count each differently, or, indeed, not count anybody at all.6 The all-affected principle comes in many different versions. I shall concentrate on the proposal given by Ian Shapiro, since it is one of the most elaborate attempts to construct a theory of democracy on the basis of the all-affected principle.7 As Shapiro (1999: 37) argues, various governance structures affect people differently, and this needs to be taken into account if one adheres to “the root democratic idea” that the people should rule over themselves. In order to sustain the idea of democracy under contemporary political conditions, one must let the boundaries of the people follow the boundaries of decision-making, rather than the other way around: “everyone affected by the operation of a particular domain of civil society should be presumed to have a say in its governance.” The upshot is that there will be different peoples for different questions, all depending on who are affected or have a stake: Some decisions in far-off places critically affect our most vital interests, others affect us trivially, yet others not at all. Allowing an equal


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say in a decision to people with greatly differing stakes in the outcome generates pathologies similar to those involving large differences in capacities for exit. This is one reason why the idea of basic interests is an important criterion for delimiting the appropriate decision-making unit in many circumstances. Those whose basic interests are at stake in a particular decision have a stronger claim to inclusion in the demos than those for whom this is not so. (Shapiro, 1999: 235) To Shapiro, we are affected when our most basic interests are impinged upon, and those concern our security, nutrition, health, and education. In this way, the all-affected principle automatically speaks for the least advantaged, since any decision-making structure that affects human beings’ chances to get access to water, food, or education now is open to a legitimate claim of inclusion on their part. Moreover, since the claim for inclusion will vary depending on who are affected, membership in a people is no longer an all-or-nothing decision. On the contrary, “the franchise is best defined activity by activity, decision by decision” (Shapiro, 1999: 235). What is important to note, however, is that this proposition can be read quite differently, depending on whether we see it as a justification for rearranging the boundaries of the people or as a theory of legitimacy in the regulation of those boundaries. To rephrase this as a question, is the all-affected principle a justification for democracy or a theory of democracy? In the first scenario, the principle of one person, one vote is still the prevailing democratic ideal. The primary purpose of the all-affected principle is to call our attention to how this ideal has become perverted under present political conditions. The problem is that the nation-state system, which divides the world into distinct and separate peoples, does not coincide with existent power structures. Today the decision-making structures of the world are at once integrated through globalization and disintegrated through decentralization and, to close the gap between those who take decisions and those who are affected, it is therefore necessary to redraw the boundaries of the people. Otherwise, the democratic idea of self-rule is violated. People who have no stake in certain decisions are thereby given the right to rule over those who have; conversely, those who actually have a stake in a question are deprived of their say. The unfortunate result of this mismatch is that we are no longer free and equal. We do not rule over ourselves. In effect, we are ruled by others and we rule over others. If the purpose of the all-affected principle were to call attention to this mismatch, one would have little to object to. The all-affected


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principle would then serve as an important critical force. It would signal that, in order to retain democracy under contemporary political conditions, it is necessary to redraw the boundaries of the people. The problem occurs when the principle is interpreted as a theory of democracy. In this scenario, the mismatch is not a problem that can be corrected by focusing on who are affected. It is now a constant feature of politics that people are affected differently, and to account for this problem the concept of democracy must be rethought at its very basis. It is no longer possible to give each person an equal say, since this would violate the democratic idea of self-rule. It would lead to pathologies, since some persons have more stakes than others. Equality of numbers will instead have to be replaced by equality of proportion. The idea is that everyone should have an influence proportional to the stake that one has in a question. Different stakes should generate different say. It is not always easy to make out the exact status of the argument being made in favor of the all-affected principle − whether it should be read as a justifying or a legitimizing force − and one could very well read Shapiro’s proposition both ways. Still, the frequent reference to the problem of regarding the people as a “trump” indicates that we are presented with a theory of democracy, one that aspires to make the people itself into an object of democratic regulation. As Shapiro points out, there is no people to appeal to in case of conflicting claims. Who the people are will itself have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. He admits that this poses difficulties, when it comes to both “establishing who is affected how much by a particular decision and who is to determine which claims about being affected should be accepted.” Still, through a parallel with tort law, he insists that such difficulties can be remedied. There are “developed mechanisms for determining whose claims should be heard, for sorting genuine claims from frivolous ones, and for distinguishing weaker from stronger claims” (Shapiro, 1999: 38–9). But, granted that we cannot appeal to the people and its current institutionalization in the electoral system to decide these questions, what mechanisms are we actually talking about? Are there other, more objective ways to decide who is affected? The problem is that, by arguing that there is an alternative authority to the people to decide who is affected, the all-affected principle, while speaking for the powerless and disadvantaged, in effect takes away one of the most powerful weapons they have in their favor, that of being numerous. By accepting that “different groups of persons are seen as sovereign over different classes of decisions,”


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the power of the many is impeded (Shapiro, 1999: 254n). Moreover, the democratic ideal of counting each equally is replaced by a model of distribution according to stakes. This model has a well-known precedent in the past. Why, for example, should women be given the chance to influence the governance structures of the WTO? Since many of them are supported by their husbands, they have no basic interest − whether in the form of nutrition, security, or health − in participating in those structures. Or take the persons who have no private property; shouldn’t they have less of a say? Although this is the very opposite of what Shapiro wants to say − that the most vulnerable have a claim of inclusion in the structures that affect them − the all-affected principle becomes a slippery slope once interpreted as a theory of democracy. Rather than protecting historically marginalized groups against domination, it deprives them of their most effective source of appeal: that each should count equally. If the all-affected principle runs the risk of developing into a theory of democracy in which some count more than others, discursive representation suffers from a different problem. Drawing on the deliberative tradition and its focus on subjectless forms of communication, it asks us to stop counting people altogether and instead focus on the substance of the claims they make. In the deliberative democratic tradition it is not sufficient that citizens are given the right to rule, whether directly or indirectly. There also has to be a free and open discussion before we go to the polls. In recent years, theorists have come up with a number of innovative mechanisms to enhance a more critical discussion, such as deliberative polls, citizen assemblies, and juries (e.g., Fishkin, 1995; Warren and Pearse, 2008).8 What distinguishes discursive representation from these other propositions, however, is that it sidesteps the decision-making moment of the people. Citizens do not first deliberate and then cast their vote. In discursive representation, deliberation replaces vote as the democratic mechanism of authorization. The idea is that we do not need to elect representatives in order to rule over ourselves: “Democracy can entail the representation of discourses as well as persons or groups” (Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008: 481). Why represent discourses rather than persons? According to Dryzek and Niemeyer, there is something deeply problematic with a democracy that counts. The reason is that citizens are not distinct wholes. What is actually represented in a democracy is not the persons themselves, but the values and interests they hold. The modern citizen is divided. He or she is partaking in a number of discourses, which in turn take place at different institutional and geographical levels. This means that one cannot treat citizens as “unproblematic wholes.” Instead, we ought to


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recognize that, since citizens engage in multiple discourses, “it is important that all these discourses get represented. Otherwise, the individual in his or her entirety is not represented” (Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008: 483). Counting heads or votes is therefore not the primary matter: The key consideration here is that all the vantage points for criticising policy get represented − not that these vantage points get represented in proportion to the number of people who subscribe to them ... . For policy-making rationality, then, all relevant discourses should get represented, regardless of how many people subscribe to each. (Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008: 482) Viewed as a critique of the current electoral system, this proposition makes sense. Election limits democracy to the nation-state system. Yet the concerns of many citizens have a tendency to transgress national constituencies. The support for NGOs and other transnational actors testifies to this. This means that under contemporary political conditions the electoral system becomes a democratic straightjacket for anyone concerned with issues that fall beyond national discourse. For, although the electoral system gives the citizen the right to choose representatives, this right paradoxically demands of the citizen “to repress some aspect of his- or herself” (Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008: 483). He or she cannot opt for all the things that he or she is. However, as soon as discursive representation is supposed to do more than point to the limits of the current electoral system, its significance changes. Viewed as a theory of democracy, discursive representation turns into a critique of numerical equality. The contention is that, since citizens are not distinct wholes, there is no need to count them. The various discourses that citizens endorse are more important than the citizens who endorse them. They all resonate with a particular aspect of their selves. To ask citizens to vote is therefore counterproductive from this point of view. It can only represent some part of them by excluding others. This is in the end why we need to stop counting. Citizens are too small for themselves. They cannot give voice to the multiplicity of discourses that they themselves hold. It follows that, to protect the right of citizens to rule over themselves, the equality of number must give way to equality of proportion or worth. All the relevant political discourses ought to get represented, regardless of how many people subscribe to each. Dryzek and Niemeyer (2008: 489) admit that discursive representation cannot offer a complete theory of democracy. Its role is to supplement


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other institutional mechanisms. However, they stress that “in non-state and transnational contexts, it is easier to imagine granting more substantial and perhaps even final authority to a Chamber of Discourses.” The implication of this argument is that, while electoral and discursive representation go hand in hand within nation-states, discursive representation is what determines politics beyond nation-states. In global politics, we should give up the power of numbers and have representation of discourses instead. Needless to say, the members of this global Chamber of Discourses “cannot be elected because then they would represent constituencies of individuals” (Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008: 485). How, then, is one to select the “relevant” discourses and the persons able to represent them, given that there is no people to decide either? The answer given by Dryzek and Niemeyer is that “science” should replace the people as the proper source of authorization in global politics. By various methods, they argue, it is possible for political scientists to select and identify both the relevant discourses and the ones who should represent them. It gives us the freedom to decide “what we actually want the deliberating group to do.” For example, in some cases “we might want to select for moderation across discourses,” at other times we may want to generate new ideas, and then extremism is the right option (Dryzek and Niemeyer, 2008: 488). What gets lost in this model is the essential historicity of democracy. By dismantling the people as the authority of democracy, discursive representation banishes the indeterminacy that comes with the democratic experience. Since it is possible to scientifically identify the relevant discourses in society, there is no reason to hear people out. In this respect, the experimentation with the meaning of democracy endorsed by Dryzek is a privilege reserved for scientists, not for citizens. Nothing could be more comforting, but also more worrying for the convinced democrats that we are.

Conclusion Defenders of the all-affected principle and discursive representation are the first to acknowledge that the concept of democracy stands in need of change in the face of globalization. What they overlook is the site of its historicity. The lack of a unified people on the global level is not a problem to be resolved, or a flaw calling for compensation. It is the condition of possibility for a democratic society, and the task is precisely to understand its significance under new historical circumstances.


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Once this is granted it demands a reorientation of the discussion in two respects.9 To begin with, it calls for a more critical attitude toward our own motivations. Global politics is characterized by indeterminacy. It comprises many political levels, actors and institutions. From a democratic point of view, however, the main problem is not the indeterminacy that accompanies the democratization of global governance, but how we as citizens, politicians and theorists choose to respond to this problem. The frequent reference to global politics as plural and multileveled easily gives the impression of openness. Rather than appealing to the people − which is taken to be tantamount to appealing to unity − we are invited to leave history behind and construct a theory of democracy without authorization by the people. But this picture misrepresents what is going on. Taking the people out of democratic theory does not signify a need to banish a unity no longer within reach. On the contrary, it restores unity in the face of globalization. It suspends the plurality that goes with an authority that refuses to become harmonized into a single voice. This attempt to sidestep the authority of the people is democratically motivated. It is nourished by a desire to put an end to the risks that democracy encounters, to protect it against a world not yet ready for its arrival. This move is understandable. The obstacles to a democratization of global institutions are overwhelming and could make a pragmatist out of the most hard-headed idealist. Must we, then, not compromise our ideals and go for what is realistic? A more constructive approach would be to critically examine the democratic ideals themselves. Ideals are not passive pictures of what ought to be. They have the power to make us act in certain ways rather than in others, and sometimes they also make us draw the wrong conclusions. This is what I think has happened in the case of the people. Like Dahl (1999: 26), who argues that global institutions cannot be democratized since “unanimity is unattainable,” defenders of the all-affected principle and discursive representation somewhere expect there to be unity in order for democracy to work. This expectation makes global democracy look hopelessly unrealistic unless one gives up its authorization in the people. But what if we were to recognize that disagreement is not only the rationale behind, but also the rationality of, democracy? What if we regarded the people as the site of disagreement rather than agreement? Acknowledging that democracy holds an absence of unity at its heart has the advantage of taking the debate on global politics out of its current deadlock between optimists and skeptics. However, it calls for a


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reorientation of the discussion in yet another respect. For why should we regard the site of conflict as global rather than national? The incalculable authority of the people requires calculation, and calculation in turn implies that one has an understanding of what to measure or count. Affirming the people as a site of disagreement does not in itself establish whether we should count fellow citizens, Europeans, or human beings. We therefore seem to be back where we started and to what motivated the resort to the all-affected principle and discursive representation in the first place: how to agree in the face of global conflict and diversity. At this point it is important to be attentive to the changing historical conditions of democracy. In Athens, the incalculable authority of the people, or what Plato (1997: 493b) calls the “huge strong beast,” was institutionalized through direct vote. In modern nation-states it has taken the form of representative or electoral democracy. The question is what form democracy could take today. One way to go about answering this question is to focus on the current change in the direction of conflict. What distinguishes contemporary politics from its precedents is that it is preoccupied with the question of the people. With contemporary processes of globalization and migration, the constitution of the people has turned into a political question in its own right. As the all-affected principle and discursive representation themselves indicate, the people is no longer the source but the object of politics. Citizens, politicians, and theorists are today involved in a conflict on the appropriate constitution of the people. They disagree as to whether the people should be conceived of in national, European, or cosmopolitan terms; whether it should be unitary or plural, territorial or functional. This conflict concerning who counts − in the double sense of being among the people who matter and among those who are allowed to take the ultimate decision in this question − is worth emphasizing. It suggests that the enabling conditions for a democratization of global governance are already in place. Debating who the people are is an integral part of what we do in global politics. Another way to put this is to say that there is no need for a great theoretical leap to take us from here to there. That step is already taken in practice. The relevant question is whether we dare to start counting.10

Notes 1. Earlier drafts of this chapter have been presented at APSA in Toronto 2009 and at a Transdemos workshop in Stockholm 2009. I would like to thank all participants for helpful comments, in particular Hans Agné, Ludvig Beckman, Eva Erman, Casiano Hacker-Cordón, Christer Jönsson, and Jonas Tallberg.


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2. For a discussion of the all-affected principle, see, among others, Whelan (1983); Shapiro (1999); Fraser (2005, 2008); Agné (2006); Bäckstrand (2006); Goodin (2007); Bauböck (2007); Näsström (2003, 2010). 3. On “conceptual stretching,” see Sartori (1970). 4. In the governing of society, Michael Walzer (1981: 397) writes, “truth is indeed another opinion, and the philosopher is only another opinionmaker.” See also Yack (2010). 5. This is what Derrida calls “autoimmunity” or the “suicidal” character of modern democracy. The point is that the threat to democracy is not only external (terrorists at our borders), but internal to democracy itself (Derrida, 2005: chapter 3). 6. It should be noted that in democracies we often mix numerical and proportional equality. What is discussed here, however, is the guiding principle of democracy itself; and it is in this context, I argue, that we can witness a shift from numerical to proportional equality. 7. For an account of the various ways to use the all-affected principle in the literature, see Näsström (2010). 8. For a helpful evaluation of citizen panels, see Brown (2006). 9. The discussion in this chapter proceeds on the assumption that democracy refers to equality of numbers. The intention has been to show that there is a close connection between the authority of the people and numerical equality and that, once we give up the former, we also give up the latter. Yet one could question this assumption and argue that proportional equality is the democratic principle that should guide the governing of society. To my knowledge, no such argumentation has been made by proponents of the all-affected principle and discursive representation. I think this is due to the fact that, while they still hold on to numerical equality, they have not yet analyzed the consequences of taking the people out of democratic theory. 10. This is not the only question at hand. Once it is granted that there exists a global conflict on the proper constitution of the people, this raises at least two further questions. First, how is one to institutionalize this conflict on people-making? What is the appropriate mechanism of counting, and the appropriate units to count? Second, and more philosophically, what do we actually do when we debate the boundaries of the people? What does it mean to justify or give reasons for who “we, the people” are?

References Agamben, G. (2000) Means without End (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press). Agné, H. (2006) “A Dogma of Democratic Theory and Globalization: Why Politics Need not Include Everyone it Affects,” European Journal of International Relations, 12: 433–58. Aristotle (1996) Politics and the Constitution of Athens, ed. S. Everson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Bäckstrand, K. (2006) “Democratizing Global Environmental Governance? Stakeholder Democracy after the World Summit on Sustainable Development,” European Journal of International Relations, 12: 467–98.


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216 Sofia Näsström Bauböck, R. (2007) “Stakeholder Citizenship and Transnational Political Participation: A Normative Evaluation of External Voting,” Fordham Law Review, 75: 2393–447. Brown, M.B. (2006) “Citizen Panels and the Concept of Representation,” Journal of Political Philosophy, 14: 203–25. Canovan, M. (2005) The People (London: Polity Press). Dahl, R. (1999) “Can International Organizations Be Democratic? A Sceptic’s View,” in I. Shapiro and C. Hacker-Cordón (eds) Democracy’s Edges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Derrida, J. (2005) Rogues: Two Essays on Reason (Stanford: Stanford University Press). Dryzek, J. (2000) Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Dryzek, J. and Niemeyer, S. (2008) “Discursive Representation,” American Political Science Review, 102: 481–93. Fishkin, J. (1995) The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press). Fraser, N. (2005) “Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World,” New Left Review, 36: 69–88. Fraser, N. (2008) “Abnormal Justice,” Critical Inquiry, 34 (3): 393–422. Geuss, R. (2008) Philosophy and Real Politics (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press). Goodin, R. (2007) “Enfranchising All-Affected Interests, and Its Alternatives,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 35: 40–68. Grant, R. and R.O. Keohane (2005) “Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics,” American Political Science Review, 99: 29–44. Laclau, E. (2005) On Populist Reason (London and New York: Verso). Lefort, C. (1986) The Political Forms of Modern Society, ed. J.B. Thompson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Lefort, C. (1988) Democracy and Political Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Locke, J. (1988) Two Treatises of Government, ed. P. Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Manin, B. (1997) The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Miller, D. (1995) On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Näsström, S. (2003) “What Globalization Overshadows,” Political Theory, 31: 808–34. Näsström, S. (2010) “The Challenge of the All-Affected Principle,” Political Studies, forthcoming. Plato (1997) Plato: Complete Works, ed. J.M. Cooper (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company). Rancière, J. (1999) Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press). Sartori, G. (1970) “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics,” American Political Science Review, 64: 1033–53. Saward, M. (2008) “Authorisation and Authenticity: Representation and the Unelected,” Journal of Political Philosophy, 17: 1–22.


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Shapiro, I. (1999) Democratic Justice (New Haven and London: Yale University Press). Tocqueville, A. (2000) Democracy in America (New York: Bantam Classic). Urbinati, N., Warren, M.E. (2008) “The Concept of Representation in Contemporary Democratic Theory,” Annual Review of Political Science, 11: 387–412. Walzer, M. (1981) “Philosophy and Democracy,” Political Theory, 9: 379–99. Warren, M.E. and H. Pearse (eds) (2008) Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizen’s Assembly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Whelan, F.G. (1983) “Prologue: Democratic Theory and the Boundary Problem,” in R.J. Pennock and J.W. Chapman (eds) Liberal Democracy (New York: New York University Press). Yack, B. (2010) “Democracy and the Love of Truth,” in A. Norris (ed.) Truth and Democratic Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press). Young, I.M. (2000) Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press).


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11 Beyond Democratic Legitimacy: Global Governance and the Promotion of Liberty Jens Bartelson

Introduction1 Under which conditions can global governance institutions and transnational actors be considered legitimate? According to what has become the standard answer to this question, global governance institutions and transnational actors can only be considered legitimate to the extent that they conform to standards of democratic legitimacy. But, since many of the preconditions of democratic legitimacy are lacking in the global realm, attempts to assess their democratic legitimacy usually end on a gloomy note. Global political authority is relatively weak and decentralized, and the pluralistic makeup of global society has conspired against the formation of a global demos that could provide global institutions with the kind of legitimacy that derives from popular consent. Although some scholars have tried to replace the requirement of popular consent with other standards of democratic legitimacy – such as transparency and accountability – these are believed to require the creation of a global civil society in order to make any difference in terms of democratic participation. Yet these surrogate sources of legitimacy merely beg the question of whether most human beings actually could be said to enjoy the political liberty necessary to respond effectively to a perceived lack of accountability and transparency on behalf of global governance institutions and transnational actors. Such rights of democratic participation are meaningful only in the context of a political community within which they can be exercised, and that exercise in turn presupposes that agents are free and safe to express and act upon their beliefs and desires in ways conducive to such participation. 218


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In this chapter, I shall argue that, since none of these requirements are met by contemporary global society, it is not meaningful to apply standards of democratic legitimacy in the global realm. Instead, we should demand that global institutions and transnational actors should help deliver the preconditions for constituting an inclusive global political community, within which human beings would be safe and free enough to enjoy the rights of participation and redress necessary for democratic standards of legitimacy to become applicable at some point in the future. Doing this prompts us to redefine the concept of legitimacy in terms both universal and communitarian: I take the legitimacy of political institutions to depend on their being socially recognized as rightful by those over whom they claim to wield authority (Reus-Smit, 2007). Thus no political institution can be coherently described as legitimate if it is not socially recognized as rightful by those subjected to it, and whether such endorsement will be forthcoming or not will in turn depend on the social norms prevailing in the corresponding community. Furthermore, being recognized as rightful is not only essential to the legitimacy of a political institution, but also an important source of authority in its own right. With social endorsement of authority comes voluntary compliance, and with voluntary compliance comes the predictability essential to its effective exercise (Hurd, 1999; Kratochwil, 1989). From this broadly constructivist perspective, it makes little sense to maintain the distinction between sociological and normative accounts of legitimacy. Normative and sociological conceptions of political legitimacy ought rather to be understood as interwoven, insofar as normative accounts provide the conceptual resources by means of which political authorities are able to gain social endorsement from the relevant audiences (Tornhill, 2008). It follows that a systematic analysis of legitimacy in the global context must be able to account for the general conditions under which global political institutions can contribute to the constitution of a global political community, within which their authority in turn can be recognized as rightful by those subjected to it. Identifying these conditions is the main task of the present chapter. What, then, would it take for a political community to evolve on a global scale, and what would this imply for the legitimacy of transnational actors and global governance institutions? My answer to this question is fairly straightforward, yet replete with complications: an inclusive global community can only emerge as a result of the institutionalization of political liberty and the corresponding rights among those subjected to global political authority. It follows that the legitimacy of global


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governance institutions and transnational actors ought to be judged according to how well they succeed in promoting such political liberty, and how well they themselves succeed in avoiding becoming a threat to that liberty while doing so. As I shall suggest, an important criterion for assessing their legitimacy is the extent to which their output is open to contestation. The conception of liberty I have in mind is essentially one of freedom from the arbitrary exercise of power, on behalf of agents – public as well as private – at any level. Since it takes political authority to protect those liberties that are necessary to the constitution of a political community, to the same extent that it takes a community of free agents to recognize such an authority as rightful, the relationship between political authority and political community is a two-way street. It follows that global political institutions and transnational actors have an important integrative mission to fulfill: contributing to the formation of a global political community by promoting political liberty. Doing this can be expected to increase both their legitimacy and their authority, while failing to accomplish this task is likely to undermine both. The promotion of liberty is not only integral to the legitimacy and viability of global institutions, but also a necessary step toward the realization of popular sovereignty on a planetary scale, in whatever shape such sovereignty will take. If and when political liberty has been secured for a sufficiently large number of people in this world, then and only then does it become meaningful to apply standards of democratic legitimacy to global governance institutions and transnational actors. At this point the worn distinction between input and output legitimacy collapses, since my argument is based on the assumption that a certain kind of output from global institutions – protecting people from the arbitrary exercise of power – is necessary for any process of democratization to gain momentum at the global level. The rest of my argument is organized as follows. In the next section, I shall analyze some recent attempts to apply standards of democratic legitimacy to global governance institutions, arguing that the conceptual stretching of democratic legitimacy is bound to backfire due to the structural mismatch between the domestic and the global context. I then argue that legitimacy ought to be reconceptualized in response to the distinct challenges posed by the global context, such as the functional differentiation of political authority and the boundless nature of political community. Doing this, I will reconsider the foundations of legitimate authority, by arguing that global governance institutions ought to be judged according to how well they chime with, and succeed


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in, promoting and institutionalizing political liberty in the global as well as in the domestic realm.

Why democracy cannot be globalized The debate on the democratic legitimacy of global governance institutions and transnational actors looks much like an away game, since it was precisely the perceived lack of democratic legitimacy of those institutions and actors that once got this debate started. Earlier advocates of global governance were largely content to justify global political institutions in squarely pragmatic terms, quite irrespective of whether those affected by their decisions had any say in their making. But, by equating legitimacy with democratic legitimacy, the critics of global governance could easily argue that global institutions, when measured against the ideals of modern democratic theory and the best-functioning democracies, suffered from a democratic deficit. As Kratochwil (2006: 305) has argued, the meaning of legitimacy – like that of most other political concepts – is dependent on the context of its usage, the meaning of this term consisting “in its use according to recognized and shared criteria not in its representational capacities.” As I shall argue in this section, by applying the standards of democratic legitimacy embodied in modern democratic theory, we might not simply be asking too much of global governance institutions, but we might even be asking for the wrong things, thereby paving the way for outcomes we do not want, however democratically legitimate they are made to appear. A global institution or a transnational actor might score well in terms of democratic legitimacy but nevertheless make decisions that go against the interests of those who are not in a position to voice a complaint or demand redress, due to widespread domination by other agents. And, conversely, an institution may well lack democratic legitimacy, but nevertheless contribute to the promotion of those liberties that are essential to democratic participation. An exclusive focus on standards of democratic legitimacy blinds us to these possibilities, however. But, before we dig into the requirements of democratic legitimacy, it is important to remember that the idea of democratic legitimacy once evolved in response to a predicament in which political authority already had been centralized and communities homogenized. The influential benchmarks of democratic legitimacy provided by Rousseau and Sièyes presupposed the existence of a sovereign locus of authority and a bounded community, and then proceeded to justify a relocation


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of the locus of legitimacy from kings to people in terms of the identity and interests of the latter (Wokler, 1998). Since such features are lacking in the global realm, these accounts are of limited value when determining what legitimacy reasonably might be taken to mean in this context. In the global realm, there is no absolute sovereignty to democratize and nothing that could be turned into a people. Yet most attempts to assess the legitimacy of global governance institutions and transnational actors remain premised on the possibility that legitimacy ought to be defined in such a way that it becomes possible to judge global governance institutions according to the same criteria that routinely have been applied to domestic political institutions. But, as I hope to make plain in the rest of this section, this conceptual stretching comes at a price, since tensions are apparent between the traditional meanings of democracy and those generated by extending the range of reference of this concept to include institutions and practices of a planetary scope. This should be evident from existing attempts to conceptualize a global demos, whether in terms of all human beings or in terms of those affected by decisions in a particular issue-area. In the first case, a global demos ought to include all human beings. Each human being should have an equal voice, since each serious political concern is likely to be of global scope. In the second case, only those who are affected by a particular decision should be included in the demos, so what constitutes the scope of the demos in question will vary with the nature of the decision. Each issue should therefore be settled by those affected by the outcome in each particular case, not by mankind as a whole. But, as both Näsström (2003; this volume) and Wendt (1999) have shown, justifying these solutions is difficult, since the transition from our present situation, in which political communities are bounded, to an unbounded global community of all mankind has to take the present situation into consideration: in order for this new community to enjoy democratic legitimacy, it has to be considered legitimate by its prospective citizens, who still happen to be stuck within their respective bounded communities. That is, a global demos must be democratically constituted, rather than forced upon people by some political authority beyond their own control. But this merely begs the question of who these citizens are, a decision that itself cannot be settled by any democratic process, since that process then would presuppose exactly what it is supposed to yield: a global democratic community. The second solution is equally problematic, since we then have to face the question of how to determine who is affected and who is not by a particular decision, and this might of course lead to divergent


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interpretations in each individual case. But, if democratic legitimacy is wanted, who is affected and who is not should be settled in ways themselves democratic, that is, by those affected. Ergo: who is affected should be decided by those affected. Thus, both ways of justifying a global democratic community in terms that are themselves democratic presuppose the prior existence of that community, trapping these attempts to construct a global demos in a vicious circularity. At this point, the quest for global democracy seems doomed to disappoint, since any attempt to construct a global demos must issue in paradox. But this is equally true of domestic democracies, since attempts to derive democratic legitimacy from the consent of the people merely beg the question of the democratic legitimacy of the people itself (Näsström, 2007). Since the claims to legitimate authority raised by particular peoples are hard to vindicate in terms that are themselves democratic, the existence of bounded political communities has come to appear as the outcome of historical contingencies more than anything else. But, if true, the contingency of communities would seem to make any normative account of their legitimacy redundant. It would follow that the creation of a global demos would require that some global political authority cancelled out all particularistic claims to legitimacy made by bounded communities, but without having any wider community from which it could draw any consent while doing so. But it also follows that all particularistic claims to legitimate authority already raised by bounded political communities ought to be judged with reference to mankind as a whole, since mankind as a whole is the only demos that could enjoy prima facie democratic legitimacy (see Bartelson, 2008). The so-called “democratic paradox” thus turns out to be a category mistake, resulting from the misapplication of domestic standards of democratic legitimacy to the global realm, rather than a genuine paradox. But, if we accept the above line of reasoning, it also follows that claims to authority by particular peoples and communities can only be considered legitimate to the extent that they are consistent with the standards of legitimacy peculiar to the global realm within which they are embedded. Now, such radical conclusions are normally resisted by cosmopolitan democrats, since they undermine the legitimacy of domestic democracies without providing any alternative standard with which to judge them. Consequently, the quest for a global demos has largely been abandoned by those who want to assess the democratic legitimacy of global governance institutions and transnational actors in recent years (Buchanan and Keohane, 2006). In response to this problem, scholars


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have tried to specify other characteristics of good democratic governance, such as transparency and accountability, and have then applied these criteria to global governance institutions and transnational actors. Transparency and accountability are believed to be instrumental to democratization to the extent that they enable popular participation in decision-making processes that otherwise would remain opaque and closed to those affected. Thus, as Keohane (2003: 139) has argued, “An accountability relationship is one in which an individual, group or other entity makes demands on an agent to report on his or her activities, and has the ability to impose costs on the agent. We can speak of an authorized or institutionalized accountability relationship when the requirement to report, and the right to sanction, are mutually understood and accepted.” Much of the ensuing debate has concerned whether agents external to the entity to be held accountable actually do possess such ability to impose costs, and whether they indeed are free to exercise this ability in a way that actually constrains the agents in question. Quite irrespective of whether this is the case or not, this strategy fails to recognize that transparency and accountability are hard-won achievements of a Western liberal democratic culture, rather than transhistorical conditions for the emergence of such a culture valid beyond its original geographical scope. To make transparency and accountability work as effective constraints on power presupposes the existence of a public sphere characterized by enough freedom from domination for opinions to form freely, as well as a citizenry sufficiently free to hold decision-makers and institutions responsible within that public sphere. Furthermore, the mechanisms of accountability presuppose not only that agents are free to hold political institutions responsible for their decisions, but also that the very notions of accountability and transparency make good sense to them in the first place. While these preconditions might be present in the best-functioning domestic democracies, they are certainly in short supply elsewhere. Worse still, to the extent that these features indeed are present in modern democracies, they frequently serve to justify particularistic claims to authority by their governments, claims that indirectly invalidate any corresponding claims to legitimate authority raised by global institutions. Even granted that the public sphere today has become increasingly transnational in character, and that public opinion nowadays extends beyond state boundaries in many issue-areas, the crucial point is that there is no political authority beyond that of individual states with enough clout to safeguard those political rights and liberties that would make transparency and


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accountability meaningful as benchmarks of democratic governance in the global realm. This is, of course, not to deny that increased transparency and accountability might be instrumental in promoting the spread of a democratic culture into the global realm, but another way of pointing out what has already been pointed out earlier: that the quest for global democracy has a tendency to presuppose what it is supposed to yield. Partially in response to this lack of a democratic infrastructure at the global level, a number of authors have suggested that a global civil society has an important role to play in promoting democratization of global governance institutions, much in the same way as domestic civil societies are believed to have done during earlier transitions from authoritarian forms of rule to more democratic ones in Europe and elsewhere. Thus, according to Scholte (2004: 213), “civil society associations do indeed offer significant possibilities to increase democratic accountability in global regulatory arrangements.” Such a civil society “might be conceived as a political space where voluntary associations seek, from outside political parties, to shape the rules that govern one or the other aspect of social life” (Scholte, 2004: 214). A global civil society might elicit accountability from supranational institutions and transnational actors by demanding increased transparency, by monitoring and reviewing global policies, by seeking redress for mistakes and harm attributable to global regulatory bodies, and by advancing the creation of formal accountability mechanisms for global governance. Apart from contributing to increased accountability, a global civil society is also believed to foster democratic values through more indirect means, by allowing a broad participation of non-governmental agencies across national boundaries, “with the deliberate aim of drawing the world together in new ways” (Keane, 2003: 8). But, as I have argued elsewhere, the concept of a global civil society serves to legitimize global governance institutions as well as an array of transnational actors, but without being ethically inclusive (Bartelson, 2006). This is so not only because the concept of a global civil society is instrumental in justifying the global spread of neoliberal modes of governance, but also because theories of global civil society make assumptions about membership that tend to exclude large parts of mankind from explicit consideration and participation. Hence, attempts to democratize global governance institutions and transnational actors by holding them to standards of transparency and accountability, while assuming that a global civil society will provide the infrastructure necessary for individuals to exercise the corresponding rights in a


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meaningful and effective way, presuppose that key elements of a democratic political culture already have been institutionalized on a global scale. But, quite irrespective of whether this is the case or not, theories of democratic legitimacy seem blind to the fact that the values they embody do not command universal acceptance, and sometimes are perceived as little more than hollow justifications for continued Western dominance of global political institutions (Cohen, 2004). Thus, to sum up, domestic democratic standards might not be particularly well suited to judge the legitimacy of global governance institutions and transnational actors. Global political authority is both weak and decentralized, and there is no demos at the global level that could endow global political authorities with the kind of legitimacy that supposedly derives from popular consent. Finally, the infrastructure necessary to support democratization is still largely absent in the global realm, and many of the cultural prerequisites of democratization are missing outside the Westernized core of global civil society networks. Since global political authority is shared by different kinds of agents across many functional domains, the problem of legitimacy ought to be reformulated in a way that takes the specifics of the global context into more careful consideration. As Buchanan (2002: 717) has argued with respect to a situation in which the institutional requirements for democratic authorization are unavailable, “it is necessary to establish and support some particular coercive agent that lacks the imprimatur of democratic authorization in order to achieve the modicum of order needed to develop the democratic institutions which alone make the exercise of political power fully legitimate.” So, instead of demanding that global governance institutions and transnational actors be democratically legitimate, we should perhaps rather demand that they provide some of the preconditions for constituting a more inclusive global political community that then could be democratized. It is to this problem we now must turn our attention.

Liberty and the constitution of global community Given that modern standards of legitimacy evolved in a context in which authority already had been centralized and communities were in the process of being homogenized, what could legitimate authority possibly mean in the global realm? Answering this question is not only a matter of discussing the conditions under which structures of global political authority might be recognized as rightful by those subjected to them, but equally a matter of identifying the basic features of


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the political community in which such recognition could take place. This also implies an account of what it would take for an agent to recognize political institutions as rightful. This is a problem characteristic of situations in which both authority and community are lacking but have to be constituted in tandem: while the strength of political institutions partly derives from being recognized as rightful by those subjected to them, the creation of a political community requires a political authority strong enough to protect the liberty of those agents doing the recognition. There seems to be a growing awareness that the global realm indeed displays some significant societal features that make it categorically distinct from the international system of states out of which it has emerged. Globalization has brought intensified flows of people, capital, goods, and information across state boundaries, and domestic societies have become increasingly interdependent in the process. Strucures of global political authority, however weak and decentralized, have nevertheless proved efficient in many issue-areas. Some norms have been successfully institutionalized, as a result of global society having become recognized as an independent source of moral authority in world politics (Clark, 2007). But global society also possesses certain characteristics that compromise potential sources of political legitimacy. Simply by virtue of being of a planetary scope, global society has no outside. It thus offers no exit option. Whereas earlier forms of human association were voluntary in the sense that dissenters could leave, escape from global society is not a realistic option. This fact makes tacit consent a morally meaningless criterion of legitimacy. Furthermore, lacking an outside, global authorities cannot derive any legitimacy from being recognized by similar societies, since there are no such societies around, at least as far as we know. Hence all recognition of rightful authority has to come from within global society itself. But this poses another set of problems, since global society can hardly be described as a political community in any recognizably modern sense of this term. There is no common cultural identity and no common historical memory to support a global Gemeinschaft, no universal agreement on basic values and few common interests that could provide the foundations of a global Gesellschaft. Instead, the politics of identity continues to reinforce particularistic allegiances that make any hope for an agreement on basic values seem vain, and gross disparities in wealth and power effectively prevent the formation of common interests in those issue-areas where action by global institutions seems most urgent. Perhaps more than anything else, global


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society resembles a good old banana republic, stuck in a generalized state of exception with no constitutional structure there to enable and constrain the exercise of power by the most powerful agents (Agamben, 2005: 1–31; Huysmans, 2006). Since those constraints on power that happen to exist in the global realm are the outcome of agreements between states, they are also subject to both limitation and violation by them. If this arbitrariness cannot be checked somehow, it is hard to see how global political authorities could evolve and be subjected to the kind of open contestation that would be a source of their legitimacy and the key to voluntary compliance. Some recent scholarship indicates a growing awareness that global governance institutions ought to be judged on the basis of how well they actually contribute to the promotion of those rights and liberties that are necessary for domestic democracy to thrive. As Grant and Keohane (2005: 30) have argued, “institutions of governance should limit and constrain the potential for abuse of power.” According to Keohane et al. (2009), international organizations might constrain arbitrary actions of government and abuses of power by promoting minority rights and freedom of expression. Yet these authors fail to see the wider implication of their argument. To the extent that global institutions indeed are necessary in order to provide the preconditions of democratic governance within domestic societies, they would thereby render the latter redundant as independent loci of legitimate authority to the same degree. This begs the further question of whether global governance institutions can still meaningfully be said to derive any legitimacy from agreements between states, if the former sometimes are required to boost the legitimacy of the latter. This possibility suggests that we may have reason to look beyond domestic communities for sui generis sources of legitimacy in the global realm. In order for any standard of legitimacy to become applicable in global society, this requires the creation of a global political community in which agents are free to contest precisely those political institutions that have enabled such a relocation of authority in the first place (cf. Bohman, 2004: 340). But the corresponding freedom to contest political institutions can hardly be taken for granted today. As Tully (2002: 221) has argued, “… there are two major types of relations of meaning and power that render contemporary citizens unfree. These are relations of communication and governance that arbitrarily or unnecessarily constrain citizens from exercising their democratic freedom to engage freely in effective practices of deliberation and negotiation of the rules by which they are governed.” To Tully and many others, neoliberal justifications of global governance have instead enabled the spread of dominance, by promoting the kind of negative


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freedom that makes the arbitrary exercise of power so easy to get away with today. But at this point international theory runs into considerable conceptual difficulties, since the semantics of the concept of community seems to prohibit exactly what is needed. Many of those who have tried to argue that the global realm indeed constitutes a community have had to face difficulties stemming from prior semantic commitments, according to which all forms of human association have to be territorially bounded in order to qualify as communities in the first place. If we bother to look beyond modern international theory for inspiration, however, we might find conceptions that better fit our present concerns. For a long time, the predominant way of conceptualizing human association in Western political thought was by regarding the human species as one immanent and universal society, by virtue of its members sharing the potential for forming social bonds through the use of language. All the way from the Stoics via Dante to Kant and Herder, the assumption of a universal society of all mankind constituted the default setting of Western speculation about the nature of human associations, and also served as an important starting point for critiques of despotism, imperial expansion, and colonial exploitation. These theories of community also made one very useful assumption about the nature of human association, by positing the existence of a boundless social whole: mankind constitutes such a larger social whole simply by being something more than the sum total of its individual parts, held together by their shared capacity for social intercourse (Bartelson, 2009). But for our purposes it is certainly not sufficient to simply posit the potential existence of a moral community of all mankind. We also have to make sense of that community in political terms, by identifying political principles that could help bring about its actualization by virtue of the acceptance they might command. Doing this, we have no recourse to the kind of glue that once kept nations together, since any attempt to homogenize global society would be but to hegemonize a particular way of life. In order for such a universal community to perform an integrative function in world politics, it has to be able to protect its members from the abuse of power that invariably results from such attempts. Thus, in order to be viable, a world community must be a community without identity, based only on the uniqueness of each individual member. I think important clues to how such a community might be realized can be found in the republican tradition of political thought, which once evolved in historical contexts that bear a striking resemblance to


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our own present. In Renaissance Italy, rival claims to political authority shot through the politics of domestic societies – city-states – thus making it pointless to distinguish between inside and outside. Threats to the civil liberties of citizens were posed not only by competing claims to universal authority raised by Pope and Emperor, but often, and more acutely, by acts of usurpation within individual city-states. In this context, republican thought was thus concerned with protecting the liberty of those exposed to the constant threat of having their rights violated or usurped by political authorities that recognized neither territorial boundaries nor any inner limits to their claims and aspirations. As Skinner (1997; 2002) and Pettit (1997) have shown, the republican conception of liberty is neither a matter of non-interference nor a question of self-mastery. Republican theorists were thus not concerned with the creation of a homogeneous people whose consent could provide a source of legitimacy, but with the preconditions for popular sovereignty understood in terms of freedom from domination. Hence the republican concept of liberty denotes the absence of arbitrary interference under the protection of political authority, as well as the right to contest the exercise of that authority in order to prevent it from becoming itself arbitrary. Domination occurs whenever an offer is made that you cannot refuse. An agent dominates another to the extent that he or she is able to interfere on an arbitrary basis with the range of options available to the other, or with the payoffs that result from the choices available (Pettit, 1997: 52–3). The sheer awareness of the possibility of arbitrary interference is psychologically inhibiting, reducing people to dopes of the dominant culture or institution in whose name this arbitrary power is being exercised. Domination is thus a primitive but effective way of creating and sustaining particular communities – nation-states were often created this way – simply because it destroys the capacity to think and act autonomously among those exposed. In a society where domination prevails, its members are likely to recognize political authority in the same way as slaves recognize their masters. They will bow to authority simply because doing otherwise would expose them to the risk of further degradation and deprivation at the hands of the powerful. The prevalence of domination is another reason why popular consent is a less than reliable source of legitimacy in the contemporary world, since consent today often is manufactured precisely in order to legitimize domination. Domination thereby flies below the moral radar of democratic legitimacy, since such accounts presuppose that the consent required is the result of unconstrained deliberation rather than a


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manifestation of arbitrary power. Hence the need to move beyond democratic legitimacy: in order to be legitimate, political authority has to be an offer you indeed can refuse, the ideal of non-domination entailed by republican liberty being precisely such a right of refusal. But what would characterize a non-arbitrary exercise of power? It is clear that, although formal requirements of legality might be necessary conditions of nonarbitrariness in a domestic context, these are hard to apply in the global realm for want of an existing constitutional structure. Another way to check the arbitrariness of power would be to demand that the interests of those affected should be taken into consideration. Thus, according to Pettit (2001: 156–63), a political authority should be forced to track the common and avowable interests of the citizens in order to avoid becoming an arbitrary sort of power. The trouble with this requirement is that it forces us back to square one with respect to the question of a global demos, since in this case the question of who those affected are ought to be determined in a way that is itself non-arbitrary, that is, with reference to the interests of those affected. In order to circumvent this difficulty, I would like to suggest that we should require of political institutions – whether global or national in scope – that they recognize agents as bearers of rights, and also create and uphold the social conditions in which agents can choose to recognize political authorities as rightful in return. From this point of view, political authority is non-arbitrary and therefore legitimate only to the extent that it respects the right to contest the rightfulness of its claims. As Pettit (1997: 63) has formulated this requirement, “it must always be possible for people ... to contest the assumption that the guiding interests and ideas really are shared and, if the challenge proves sustainable, to alter the pattern of state activity.” From this perspective, no political authority can be recognized as rightful if it cannot uphold the basic preconditions for being recognized as such by those subjected to it, since social endorsement presupposes that those subjected to political authority are able to withhold recognition without fear of having their freedom infringed upon as a result. Liberty might thus be understood as a condition of possible legitimacy, since it enables the very kind of agency that is required for the social recognition of authority to be possible and meaningful in the first place. But modern republicans such as Pettit sometimes take too much for granted, when they assume that a corresponding community within which such contestation could occur is already in place. We should remember that republican thought once evolved in contexts where political authority was decentralized and political community largely


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absent, having to be created ex nihilo. As it transpires from more historically sensitive accounts of republican political thought, a paramount problem of older versions of republicanism was to explain how to create and maintain a viable political authority in social contexts beset by discord and intense struggles for power between competing groups or factions (Kapust, 2004; Onuf, 1998). As Pocock (1975: 194–8) has argued, a major upshot of Machiavelli’s Discorsi was that disunion among nobles and people was the very cause of Roman liberty, since such discord gradually forced the former to allow the latter to express their aspirations in the interest of moderating the destructive consequences of intensified strife between the orders. Such a dynamic of emancipation was propelled by its own negation, since patrician domination paved the way for plebeian freedom, by granting some authority to the tribunes in the interest of saving the republic from being torn apart by continued strife. Hence a community of free agents was the final outcome of a painful process of emancipation that was propelled by the struggle for recognition by the dominated party. I think it is fair to say that this end result was achieved by institutionalizing civil liberties as the very foundation of the political community, and that this was the very starting point of the constitutional development in the Western world that eventually issued in demands for popular sovereignty and theories of democratic legitimacy. One important mechanism that provided this process with momentum was the reciprocal recognition between rulers and ruled: when rulers started to recognize their subjects as bearers of rights they could become recognized as rightful authorities in return, thereby gradually diminishing the costs of ruling by making compliance increasingly voluntary. This emphasis on reciprocal recognition is also what makes republican liberty potentially relevant to our contemporary world. Yet one crucial difference between the contexts within which republican thought once evolved and our present predicament must be taken into consideration. Those great republics in the past indeed had an outside, and overcoming internal discord was in many cases motivated by the necessity to attain external security. These concerns are reflected in existing attempts to adapt republican theory to present concerns within international relations. As Deudney (2007) has pointed out, republican security theory offers a way of avoiding the extremes of hierarchy and anarchy by creating a republican world government. The main impetus behind a world government, Deudney (2007: 264) writes, “comes not from the desire to embody consensual principles of mutual restraint, but rather from the brute facts of rising interdependence in anarchy


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and the acute insecurity it produces,” only to add that “the most likely outcome of the current and emergent constraints and opportunities is not a nuclear union of restraint, but rather the incremental extinction of political liberty.” Thus, in contrast to other political communities in the past, a global community would by definition lack external enemies, its chief enemy rather being internal claims to universal authority based on this or that identity or way of life. This would mean that global security could not be attained by sacrificing the liberty of individuals, since the legitimacy of those institutions necessary to constrain these particularistic authority claims would thereby be undermined. Hence, I would like to conclude that global security can only be attained through the gradual abolition of domination on a global scale, the institutionalization of political liberty being as crucial to the legitimacy of those institutions charged with this difficult task as it is to the viability of the global political community in whose name this task is undertaken.

Conclusion Liberty thus has to be a shield before it can become a sword. In order to be able to participate democratically, people have first to be free to do so without fear of reprisals. For that reason, the ideal of liberty as nondomination might be better suited than democratic standards to assess the legitimacy of global governance institutions, and may also serve to caution us against some of the dangers associated with using the democracy as the gold standard of legitimacy in the contemporary world. Not only are standards of democratic legitimacy intrinsically hard to apply to the global realm, but rigid adherence to such standards might also be a way of detracting attention from the realities of domination in contemporary global society. Applying democratic standards of legitimacy to the global realm might also help sustain the illusion that domestic political institutions are more legitimate than global ones by virtue of being based on popular consent, and that the latter therefore ought to derive their legitimacy from agreements between the former rather than from independent sources. Finally, standards of democratic legitimacy might easily be twisted into justifications of continued Western domination of global governance institutions, and might also be carelessly transplanted into cultural contexts in which they make little or no sense. But to say that democracy cannot be globalized is not the same as saying that the global cannot be democratized. In this chapter, I have


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argued that we have to look beyond standards of democratic legitimacy, not because these standards are invalid, but rather because their application in the global realm seems premature, and therefore also counterproductive. Hence, I have argued that, rather than judging global governance institutions and transnational actors by how much consent they succeed in commanding, or how transparent and accountable they succeed in becoming, we should focus on the extent to which these organizations succeed in providing the preconditions of democratic participation. In order for rights of participation and redress to make any difference in democratic terms, bearers of these rights must be free to exercise them without being exposed to the risk of arbitrary infringements on their capacity to act by the powers that be. Since domination runs rampant in global society, this precious liberty is in short supply. One paramount task of global governance institutions and transnational actors, then, would be to make sure that their output at least is consistent with the wider aim of promoting the ideal of non-domination, and that they themselves try to remain as open to contestation as ever possible. Promoting non-domination would enhance both the legitimacy and the authority of those institutions and actors, and, in order for them to be recognized as rightful by those subjected to their authority, these people must first be free and safe to do so. A genuinely inclusive political community is only likely to result if the processes of emancipation and legitimization can be made to reinforce each other on a global scale. Global governance institutions and transnational actors have a special role to fulfill in this regard, if they are able to back their claims to global authority with measures that promote the political liberty necessary to turn global society into a political community, within which rival claims to authority deriving from particular identities and interests can be effectively neutralized. The old republican warning against the vices of factionalism applies equally on a global scale. By delivering exactly what many states still fail to deliver to their citizens, global governance institutions might gradually be recognized as rightful by those who are still deprived of the possibility to contest domestic political authority and to participate in its exercise. So, instead of demanding that global governance institutions and transnational actors should abide by standards whose meaningful employment was conditioned by the nation-state, we should rather demand that they help make the world safe for democracy (and democracy safe for the world) by promoting the political liberty essential for the constitution of an inclusive global community.


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Note 1. I would like to thank Hans Agné, Christian Dahlman, Christer Jönsson, Sara Kalm, Sofia Näsström, Nick Onuf, and Jonas Tallberg for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

References Agamben, G. (2005) State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Albert, M. (2007) “ ‘Globalization Theory’: Yesterday’s Fad or More Lively than Ever?” International Political Sociology, 1: 165–82. Bartelson, J. (2006) “Making Sense of Global Civil Society,” European Journal of International Relations, 12: 371–95. Bartelson, J. (2008) “Globalizing the Democratic Community,” Ethics & Global Politics, 1 (4): 159–74. Bartelson, J. (2009) Visions of World Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Bohman, J. (2004) “Republican Cosmopolitanism,” Journal of Political Philosophy, 12: 336–52. Buchanan, A. (2002) “Political Legitimacy and Democracy,” Ethics, 112: 689–719. Buchanan, A. and R.O. Keohane (2006) “The Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions,” Ethics & International Affairs, 20 (4): 405–37. Clark, I. (2007) International Legitimacy and World Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Cohen, J. (2004) “Whose Sovereignty? Empire versus International Law,” Ethics & International Affairs, 18 (3): 1–24. Deudney, D.H. (2007) Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Grant, R.W. and R.O. Keohane (2005) “Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics,” American Political Science Review, 99: 29–43. Hurd, I. (1999) “Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics,” International Organization, 53: 379–408. Huysmans, J. (2006) “International Politics of Exception: Competing Visions of International Political Order between Law and Politics,” Alternatives, 31: 135–65. Kapust, D. (2004) “Skinner, Pettit and Livy: The Conflict of the Orders and the Ambiguity of Republican Liberty,” History of Political Thought, 25: 377–401. Keane, J. (2003) Global Civil Society? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Keohane, R.O. (2003) “Global Governance and Democratic Accountability,” in D. Held and M. Koenig-Archibugi (eds) Taming Globalization: Frontiers of Governance (Oxford: Blackwell). Keohane, R.O., S. Macedo and A. Moravcsik (2009) “Democracy-Enhancing Multilatereralism,” International Organization, 63: 1–31. Kratochwil, F. (1989) Rules Norms and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Kratochwil, F. (2006) “On Legitimacy,” International Relations, 20: 302–8. Näsström, S. (2003) “What Globalization Overshadows,” Political Theory, 31: 808–34.


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236 Jens Bartelson Näsström, S. (2007) “The Legitimacy of the People,” Political Theory, 35: 624–65. Onuf, N.G. (1998) The Republican Legacy in International Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Pettit, P. (1997) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Pettit, P. (2001) A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency (Oxford: Polity). Pocock, J.G.A. (1975) The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Reus-Smit, C. (2007) “International Crisis of Legitimacy,” International Politics, 44: 153–74. Scholte, J.A. (2004) “Civil Society and Democratically Accountable Global Governance,” Government and Opposition, 39: 211–33. Skinner, Q. (1997) Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Skinner, Q. (2002) “A Third Concept of Liberty,” Proceedings of the British Academy, 117: 237–68. Tornhill, C. (2008) “Towards a Historical Sociology of Constitutional Legitimacy,” Theory and Society, 37: 161–97. Tully, J. (2002) “The Unfreedom of the Moderns in Comparison to Their Ideals of Constitutional Democracy,” Modern Law Review, 65: 204–28. Wendt, A. (1999) “A Comment on Held’s Cosmopolitanism,” in I. Shapiro and C. Hacker-Cordón (eds) Democracy’s Edges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Wokler, R. (1998) “The Enlightenment and the French Revolutionary Birth Pangs of Modernity,” in J. Heilbron, L. Magnusson and B. Wittrock (eds) The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Formation of Modernity (Dordrecht: Kluwer).


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12 Transnational Access: Findings and Future Research Christer Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg

Where, why, and with what consequences are transnational actors (TNAs) granted a role in global policy-making? Dissatisfied with the existing status of research on TNA participation in global governance, this volume has sought to advance an agenda of research organized around these three questions. Taking a first step in that direction, this volume has offered contributions that expand the boundaries of research on TNA participation. Theoretically, it has served both to develop novel positive theories about the sources of transnational access, and to problematize the implications of such participation for normative theories about global democracy. Methodologically, the volume has been informed by a strong comparative ambition, and involved comparisons of TNA access to international institutions across multiple dimensions of variation. In the first part of this brief concluding chapter, we summarize the central findings of the volume under the three principal themes. As always, however, research breeds new research. Hence, in the second part of this chapter we identify new puzzles and research questions following from the studies reported in this volume. In addition, we discuss the lessons learned concerning the usefulness of different methodological approaches as well as the problems involved in integrating empirical studies and normative theory.

Summary of the findings The first theme explored in the volume pertained to patterns of TNA participation in international institutions. While existing research is rich in descriptions of transnational involvement, most mapping exercises have been concentrated in policy domains where TNA participation 237


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is known to be extensive, such as environmental policy and development policy. In this volume, we have identified and assessed patterns of transnational access across a broad range of issue-areas, as well as over time, across policy functions, and across types of TNAs. Below, we highlight the principal results as regards variation over time and across policy fields. There is a common image that transnational participation in global governance has increased in an almost linear fashion over time, as a product of more demanding governance problems and the spread of norms of participatory governance. Indeed, we may ourselves be guilty of having reified this picture in the introduction to this volume, when speaking of a transnational turn in global governance. Yet, as the contributions to this volume demonstrate, the empirical truth is more complicated. Andrea Liese (Chapter 5) finds in an assessment of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that TNA involvement in this institution has been at odds with the general trend of increasing participation over time. While the FAO constituted something of a pioneer among international institutions, working with TNAs already in the 1960 and 1970s, it loosened these ties in the 1980s and had mixed success in its attempts to move toward renewed collaboration in the 1990s. Åsa Casula Vifell (Chapter 6) similarly questions the applicability of the linear growth hypothesis in the case of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which has witnessed decreasing use of procedures for TNA participation over time, after initial establishment and enthusiasm around the millennium. While the organization in the past decade, especially following the popular riots in Seattle in 1999, has created or reinforced mechanisms of engagement with civil society actors, environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have made decreasing use of these institutional possibilities for participation and influence. Exploring the global governance of migration, Sara Kalm (Chapter 7) finds that TNA participation in this domain has remained virtually nonexistent, despite growing, albeit slow, efforts of coordination among states. While NGOs have insisted on being incorporated in nascent policy-making processes, such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), governments so far have been reluctant to offer access. In contrast to these specific cases of TNA involvement in development, trade, and migration governance, Jessica Green’s (Chapter 8) large-N assessment of delegation to private actors in multilateral environmental agreements confirms the expected pattern of growth over


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time. The proportion of policy functions delegated by states to TNAs has grown remarkably over the past quarter-century in this domain, and particularly since the early 1990s. This is a pattern that holds true for both delegation through treaties and delegation through decisions subsequently taken to implement these treaties. There is an equally common impression from existing, predominantly single-case-oriented research that some policy domains involve greater TNA participation than other fields. Assessing modes and levels of TNA access to international institutions in a broad range of policy domains, we find this to be true. Jens Steffek’s (Chapter 4) cross-policy comparison of TNA participation in more than 30 international institutions gives a broad-based confirmation of significant variation between policy fields. There is a high level of TNA participation in environmental policy institutions and processes, such as the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), both of which offer particularly good access for civil society organizations to official negotiation and decision meetings, including speaking rights. Another policy area with extensive TNA participation is human rights, in which institutions such as the Council of Europe and the Human Rights Council of the UN both operate well-developed consultative arrangements and rely on transnational actors to monitor state compliance. A policy area at the other end of the spectrum is security, in which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) remains closed to civil society actors in most respects, while the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) couples exclusion from the decisionmaking process with involvement in post-conflict management activities. Likewise, in the field of finance, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been very reluctant to open up to transnational actors, even if it engages in certain policy dialogue; and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) remains highly inaccessible as well. Other chapters in the volume expand on this comparison across policy domains, and put the findings in perspective. Liese’s research on the FAO confirms the expectation that international organizations active in the field of development tend to be among those most open to TNA participation, specifically in project development and implementation. While the formal access opportunities are moderate, the level of informal technical cooperation is extensive between the FAO and civil society organizations. By contrast, Green’s large-N study of delegation to private actors in multilateral environmental treaties puts existing optimistic accounts


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of TNA participation in global environmental governance into perspective. When measured in terms of formal delegation, TNA involvement remains low. Regardless of whether one examines delegation through treaties or through decisions taken to implement treaties, fewer than 10 percent of all policy functions are conferred on transnational actors. Where power is delegated to private actors, they are predominantly engaged to offer expert input in policy formulation, policy implementation, and monitoring of state compliance. Casula Vifell’s mapping of TNA participation in the WTO suggests that this institution is less open than organizations such as the UNEP and the World Bank, but more accessible than, for instance, the IMF. While the GATT/WTO was long known for its opaque decision-making, the organization nowadays operates several mechanisms of engagement with civil society actors, which may participate as accredited parties to ministerial conferences, through hearings and symposia, by submitting amicus curiae briefs in the dispute-settlement process, and sometimes even as members of national delegations. Kalm finds that the global governance of migration constitutes both an area of less institutionalized cooperation between states and a field with exceptionally limited means of participation for TNAs. While civil society organizations frequently engage in self-initiated operational assistance and advocacy work, interstate forums for the coordination of migration issues remain closed off for TNAs. This low level of transnational participation places migration at the same end of the comparative policy spectrum as international security and finance. How may these patterns be accounted for? Moving beyond the empirical mapping that tends to dominate existing literature, the contributions to this volume have introduced and tested a number of potential explanations. Laying the ground for subsequent empirical testing, Jonas Tallberg (Chapter 2) outlines three alternative, but potentially complementary, analytical approaches, informed by rational choice institutionalism, sociological institutionalism, and power-oriented institutionalism. The first approach privileges concerns about functional efficiency, highlighting the benefits to states and international institutions of engaging TNAs. The second approach privileges norm diffusion and the effects on international institutions of new ideas, norms, and models of participatory governance. The third approach stresses concerns about power distribution, conceiving of transnational actors as instruments in state competition. The empirical contributions to this volume explicitly test the rationalist and sociological approaches


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identified by Tallberg. In addition, one account assesses the explanatory potential of a more historical institutionalist explanation. The rational institutionalist logic receives extensive support in several empirical analyses. Steffek’s account suggests that the differences in TNA participation across policy fields reflect variation in the incentives for cooperation between international institutions and civil society actors. Policy areas are subject to different kinds of problems, and international institutions therefore have varying need of the resources that transnational actors can contribute in the various stages of the policy process. Environmental politics as a policy area, because of its complexity, generates a strong demand for TNA resources in most stages of the policy process, especially ideas and expertise. Cooperation on human rights protection requires input from civil society actors in agenda-setting, but also relies extensively on TNAs as monitors of state compliance on the ground. In the fields of security and finance, there has traditionally been a very limited functional need overall for the resources of civil society actors. In security, however, this has partly changed over time, as institutions such as the OSCE and NATO have moved into the area of security stabilization and post-conflict reconstruction, which has created incentives for operational cooperation with TNAs. Examining the field of global environmental policy in detail, Green finds additional support for the rational institutionalist explanation, whose expectations well match observed empirical variation in delegation to TNAs over time and across different policy functions. States appear to delegate functions to transnational actors to lower transaction costs and enhance credible commitments in cooperation, but also to tailor delegation to limit sovereignty costs. As multilateral environmental treaties have become more complex, we have witnessed an increasing interest in engaging TNAs, particularly because of the expertise they can contribute. The same demand for expertise influences the pattern of delegation across policy functions, with TNA participation being particularly common in policy formulation and implementation, in which states elicit expert input from private actors. By contrast, states are very reluctant to engage TNAs in the decision-making and enforcement phases of cooperation, which involve high sovereignty costs and fewer functional benefits from private actor participation. A limited level of treaty delegation to TNAs in adjudication and monitoring suggests that there are less sovereignty-threatening ways of engaging private actors for purposes of reducing credible-commitment problems. Kalm’s exploration of the global governance of migration explicitly identifies the high sovereignty costs in this issue-area as the most


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prominent explanation for the observed lack of TNA participation. These costs have made states hesitant about engaging in far-reaching cooperation, made them opt for consultative rather than binding interstate arrangements, and prevented them from engaging TNAs in any meaningful way. While migration is a complex issue-area, involving extensive linkages to other policy fields, and thus potentially could have generated a demand for TNA input, the participation of civil society actors has been restricted to consultation. Liese, too, finds some support for rationalist theories in her assessment of TNA access to the FAO. The general interest of the FAO in opening up has partly stemmed from the organization’s demand for the resources that for-profit and non-profit TNAs can contribute, such as expertise, funding, products, and access to markets. However, to a significant extent, these resources have not been forthcoming, especially not from the private sector. Part of the explanation has been an internal fear of autonomy loss within the FAO in relation to business, as well as a lack of internal resources to fully implement a partnership strategy. The empirical contributions to the volume also offer some support in favor of explanations informed by sociological institutionalism. As an addendum to his rationalist interpretation of cross-policy variation in TNA access, Steffek presents a number of observations supporting the sociological emphasis on norms, ideas, and models of participatory governance. To start with, some international institutions, such as the Council of Europe, perceive it to be in their organizational mission to engage civil society, and thus offer more extensive access to TNAs than a rationalist account would expect. Moreover, some international institutions, notably the UN system, appear to be infused by a participatory norm of governance, making it difficult to legitimately exclude civil society actors from political processes and thus generating a higher overall level of TNA participation. Finally, international institutions that perceive limited functional benefits from engaging with TNAs, such as the IMF and WTO, may nevertheless open up at the margins and pay lip service to the norm of participatory governance, as a means of silencing or limiting opposition. Liese’s account of the FAO grants additional support to the second of these conjectures, emphasizing the existence of a global script or norm, promoted by the UN and policy advisors, in favor of partnerships with transnational actors. At a general level, the 1990s offered ample evidence of cognitive pressures in the UN system on organizations to embrace the partnership principle. At a more specific level, the FAO modeled its structure for cooperation with the private sector on that of


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the UNDP, illustrating the diffusion of models of participatory governance from one institution to another. Finally, Casula Vifell turns to historical institutionalism when explaining the development and use over time of the WTO’s avenues for participation by environmental NGOs. More specifically, she finds that the establishment of means for TNA participation in the WTO in the 1990s has not been supported over time by positive feedback mechanisms, such as the development of constituencies supporting the institution of participation, and the socialization of the WTO into a participatory mode of governance. Instead, the formal provisions for participation have increasingly been seen by NGOs as window dressing, since they do not allow for access to (decision-making) forums that are perceived to matter. As a result, environmental NGOs have tended to shift their attention to other international arenas with a greater potential for influence over political outcomes, leaving mechanisms of TNA participation in the WTO underused and without the support required for further institutionalization. To what extent are these theoretical accounts of variation in TNA access to international institutions competing or complementary? While few contributors to this volume explicitly address this issue, those who do so speak in favor of complementarity. Even if these approaches depart from different meta-theoretical assumptions about the nature of actors and politics, they may be combined at the level of operational, problem-driven research, where they point to alternative causes of the same phenomenon. Tallberg specifically concludes his presentation of rational, sociological, and power-oriented institutionalist approaches to transnational access by outlining three alternative models of theoretical dialogue. Two of these models rest on the notion of theoretical complementarity, and both are illustrated in this volume. Liese’s account of openness in the FAO exemplifies the model of additive explanatory power, when finding that rationalist factors (demand for external resources) and sociological factors (partnership norm) combine to explain the FAO’s drive for increasing cooperation with TNAs. Similarly, Steffek implicitly suggests a domainof-application approach, when he identifies comparative advantages for rational institutionalism in explaining variation in TNA participation across policy functions within the same international organization, and comparative advantages for sociological institutionalism in accounting for participatory norm clusters, such as the one in the UN system. What are the implications of involving transnational actors in global governance? Simplifying slightly, we may conceive of consequences in


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terms of the effects on the problem-solving effectiveness, democratic legitimacy, and distributive implications of international institutions. The first two consequences, frequently referred to as output and input legitimacy respectively, have constituted explicit foci for contributions to this volume. Hans Agné (Chapter 9) addresses the potential long-term consequences of TNA participation for some of the most pressing global problems. He takes as his starting point the transnational model of global democracy, which envisages a system of democracy at the global level built on voluntary participation by transnational actors in various forms. Against the backdrop of growing TNA engagement in global governance, as documented in this volume, Agné explores the extent to which global democracy in this version – just like national democracy – can generate positive effects in terms of reducing interstate war and intrastate famine. Agné does not offer an empirical answer to this question, but discusses the viability of this parallel in consequences. He concludes that transnational participation in international institutions provides political mechanisms similar to those that are used to explain why national democracy is correlated with an absence of famine and war. Global governance, on close inspection, meets the necessary economic, institutional, moral, and democratic premises inherent in the argument that democracy protects against famine. Likewise, transnational participation helps international institutions to meet the conditions that make democracy prevent interstate war, by providing information, raising attention, and representing oppressed interests. The broader conclusion of the chapter is, therefore, a recommendation, on the basis of the theoretical analysis, to move toward empirical research on this topic. As illustrated by Agné’s starting point, transnational actors are increasingly conceptualized as an emerging global civil society, whose participation in international policy-making may entail a democratization of global governance. In the absence of a true global demos, comparable to the demoi at the root of national democracies, TNA participation is sometimes viewed as a substitute source of democratic legitimacy for international institutions. The premises of this idea are specifically challenged in two normative theoretical contributions to the volume, suggesting that the prevalent optimism about the democratizing potential of transnational involvement may be misguided. Sofia Näsström (Chapter 10) takes issue with two prominent suggestions in the literature for how to democratize global institutions through transnational actor involvement, without having recourse to a global “people:” the all-affected principle and discursive representation. The


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all-affected principle attempts to solve the problem by stipulating that the people consists of those affected by the decisions of a specific institution and, as such, is shifting and cannot be defined in advance. The notion of discursive representation suggests that representatives should represent discourses, rather than constituencies – an idea that may have particular appeal in the context of global governance, which is rich in normative standpoints, but poor in well-defined constituencies. Reasserting the basic principle of counting in a democracy, where each individual counts equally, Näsström criticizes these two ideas for straying too far from the essence of what they seek to rescue. While the allaffected principle entails that some count more than others (because they have a greater stake in decisions taken), the notion of discursive representation urges us to stop counting altogether (as the identification of relevant discourses is left to scientists). Instead of revitalizing democracy under global political conditions, through the involvement of civil society actors, these propositions may instead undercut its radical force. While the obstacles to a democratization of global institutions are sufficiently extensive to make pragmatists out of most idealists, it would be unfortunate if we took the people out of democratic theory, rather than seeking to define its proper constitution, as contested as it may be. Jens Bartelson (Chapter 11) shares Näsström’s skepticism over suggestions that increasing civil society involvement can bring about a democratization of global governance. His specific target is the tendency among scholars to assess and assert the democratic legitimacy of international institutions on the basis of standards, such as participation, accountability, and transparency, in the absence of true popular consent. The basic problem, according to Bartelson, is the absence at the global level of the preconditions for these standards to generate democratic legitimacy, since global political authority is weak, there is no global demos, the necessary infrastructure is still absent, and most of the cultural prerequisites of democratization are missing outside Western global civil society networks. Rather than applying democratic standards to global institutions and transnational actors, we should demand that they help deliver the preconditions for building an inclusive global political community, within which individuals are free to enjoy the rights of participation and redress necessary for democratic standards of legitimacy to become applicable sometime in the future. This republication conception of democracy has gained some traction in recent research on global governance (Keohane et al., 2009), but, in opposition to this work, Bartelson emphasizes the benefits to global governance itself, rather than to national democracies, of international


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institutions and transnational actors promoting liberty as absence of domination and freedom from arbitrary exercises of power.

Future research While answering pertinent questions concerning transnational access to and participation in international institutions, the contributions to this volume at the same time raise new questions that warrant further research. Different readers will no doubt identify different potential puzzles, depending on their own research interests. Let us only point to four dimensions, encompassing unanswered questions. Formal vs. informal access is one such dimension, alluded to in several of the contributions to this volume. Especially in large-N studies, there is a tendency to pay attention primarily to formal arrangements (Green’s chapter is an illustration). In-depth case studies, on the other hand, often emphasize informal channels and networking. What is missing in existing research is a systematic study of the interrelations and relative importance of formal and informal participation by TNAs. Informal networks often emerge in the shade of formal organizations. While formal relationships normally inject an element of hierarchy, privileging states, informal networks may allow TNAs to play a more prominent role. Informal arrangements avoid difficult questions of representation (why these TNAs and not others?), facilitate less constrained flows of information, and can eventually contribute to the development of trust between different types of actors (cf. Chisholm, 1989). Anecdotal evidence suggests that the existence or absence of informal networks as a complement to formal access can make a difference to the effects of transnational participation in international organizations. The proliferation of issue-based networks with extensive participation by TNAs in the European Union is a case in point. It can be seen as a condition as well as a consequence of the fluidity and complexity of the formal organizational framework. Observers have claimed that working through networks “reduces frictions and produces results for which the formal system may be ill attuned” (Middlemas, 1995: xxii). Another example concerns the experience of parliamentary assemblies in the Council of Europe and the OSCE. One study concludes that the political significance of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) “cannot be determined by looking at its formal competencies, but only reveals itself when its policy-making powers are considered in practice,” and that the OSCE Assembly and its decision-making body, the Permanent Council, refrained from concluding a formal agreement


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on their mutual relationship, as “both parties realized that many forms of cooperation that are currently practiced informally would be jeopardized by formal codification” (Habegger, 2008). Another dichotomy deserving more study concerns supply vs. demand. Several of the chapters in this volume, following Tallberg’s theoretical contribution, highlight the demand side, exploring why intergovernmental organizations grant access to TNAs. But there is also a supply side to the transnational turn. New information and communication technology has greatly facilitated transnational organization. The widespread belief in civil society, in combination with dissatisfaction with existing intergovernmental organizations, has lent enhanced legitimacy to TNAs. As a result, they have expanded dramatically in terms of numbers, capabilities, self-confidence, and outreach. For instance, Steffek demonstrates that the critical momentum in opening up NATO to civil society organizations did not come from the intergovernmental side, but was the result of civil society pressure to get into a previously closed organization. The combination of push and pull factors in the transnational turn, in short, deserves more systematic study. As both Steffek and Liese suggest in their chapters, resourceexchange and resource-dependency perspectives may be useful points of departure in such studies. But, as Liese reminds us, cultural factors need also to be included in a comprehensive analysis of push and pull factors. A third, related dilemma has to do with autonomy vs. dependence. Networking and participation in global governance affects the autonomy of TNAs. Many civil society organizations, for example, were created in opposition to governmental actors, which were criticized for failing to solve specific problems or tackle controversial issues. To collaborate with governments and intergovernmental organizations in formulating and implementing joint programs may imply costly identity changes. Members and supporters may denounce their organizations’ loss of autonomy and growing dependence on other, more powerful actors. The loss of autonomy associated with increasing participation in global governance can thus threaten the internal cohesion of TNAs. Anticipated autonomy losses represent significant obstacles to inclusion and collaboration. As Liese’s study of FAO shows, this works in both directions. International organizations may also fear that tighter collaboration with TNAs will dilute their identity and autonomy. While this dilemma is frequently noted in the literature on NGO–IGO relations, there are few studies of different ways of approaching this dilemma by different transnational and intergovernmental actors. Nor have


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researchers uncovered the reasons why some actors are able to handle the dilemma better or worse than others. National vs. global constitutes a fourth dimension where additional research is called for. While the two arenas have traditionally been kept apart analytically, globalization has exposed the interfaces and the increasingly diffuse borderline between them. Agné’s chapter in this volume explores whether democratization has similar effects in the national and the international arena. One recent study (Keohane et al., 2009) indicates that transnational access to international organizations may, under certain conditions, enhance the quality of national democratic processes. Other studies point to the problematic relationship between national and global NGOs (see, e.g., Jönsson, 2010). Casula Vifell reminds us that one way for TNAs to influence global governance is to work through, and participate in, national delegations to intergovernmental organizations and forums. And, as Steffek hypothesizes in his chapter, international organizations that need to act in a local context are more prone to grant access to TNAs. In short, transnational participation in global governance may have effects beyond that level, at the same time as activity at other levels may influence global policy-making. The role of transnational actors in the multifaceted links between the local, national, and international arenas warrants further research. In terms of methodology, this volume points to a number of challenges in future research. These include, as always, the balance between quantitative and qualitative studies. In our specific problem area quantitative studies are in short supply. In fact, Green’s chapter in this volume can be characterized as a pioneering study of its kind. Obviously, more effort is needed in finding useful combinations of qualitative and quantitative methods, and in designing databases with this in view. For instance, the common notion, ritually reiterated in the literature, that TNAs have gained increasing access to international organizations over the years is not substantiated in any systematic statistical study. To be sure, the significant growth in the number of NGOs with observer status in the UN system is well documented, but beyond that our knowledge is scanty. Some contributors to this volume have, in fact, called into question whether there is such a general trend, and pointed to developments in the opposite direction in individual organizations. To get a more nuanced picture of variation over time and between organizations, we need large-N, diachronic studies of different arrangements for transnational access to, and participation in, international organizations.


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If we consider the formal/informal dimension, discussed above, it is fairly obvious that large-N studies of this kind are best suited to cover formal agreements, whereas various qualitative methods are needed to capture informal aspects. For example, any inquiry into informal networks and networking process has to rely on interviews with participants and – ideally, but all too seldom realistically – participant observation. In our introduction we emphasized the need for more truly comparative studies. While this volume and other recent work (e.g., Steffek et al., 2008) represent initial steps in that direction, much remains to be done. First of all, to yield interesting results, comparison needs to be guided by theory. If not, the result will just be catalogues of disconnected observations. The principal purpose of a comparative approach is to increase the number of observations to allow more reliable causal inferences, “to find as many observable implications of your theory as possible and to make observations of those implications” (King et al., 1994: 208). Theory development, in short, is a precondition for comparative research design. Depending on what theoretical notions about transnational access to international organizations we want to test, comparisons could be made across space, across issue-areas, across policy-making phases, or across time. For instance, to test hypothesized effects of transnational access, we might make “before–after” comparisons (for possibilities and pitfalls, see George and Bennett, 2005: 166–7) of a set of international organizations that have at some point revised an originally restrictive policy. The three approaches outlined by Tallberg to account for organizations’ varying preparedness to grant access to TNAs suggest a variety of comparative designs. Explanations in terms of functional efficiency call for comparisons across issue-areas as well as policy phases, hypotheses on norm diffusion favor comparisons over time, and power-related explanations point to comparisons between organizations with different membership structures. Not only do we need more studies comparing transnational access in different international institutions; as Liese’s chapter demonstrates, intra-organizational comparisons may yield interesting results. In other words, the units of analysis need not necessarily be international organizations but individual units or bodies within these organizations. Another lacuna in extant research is related to the time dimension. All arrangements for transnational access are negotiated orders. Yet very


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250 Christer Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg

few studies have traced the processes by which they have come into being. Process-tracing is a “means of moving beyond covariation alone as a source of causal inference” (George and Bennett, 2005: 224). It can be seen as “a common middle ground for historians interested in historical explanation and political scientists and other social scientists who are sensitive to the complexities of historical events but are more interested in theorizing about categories of cases as well as explaining individual cases” (George and Bennett, 2005: 223). Process-tracing is particularly useful to identify more complex forms of causality, such as the convergence or interaction of several causal variables; and to uncover crucial sequences of events that entail path-dependence, that is, branching points that foreclose certain outcomes while making others more likely (cf. George and Bennett, 2005: 212–13). “Historical institutionalism” is one possible framework for tracing processes leading to TNA participation in international organizations and forums (cf. Casula Vifell). But, on the whole, the complex causal story of the “transnational turn” has yet to be told. In addition to suggesting new research questions and raising methodological issues, this volume has also advocated a combination of normative political theory and empirical research. The political-science subfields of Political Theory and International Relations (IR) have long lived in relative isolation from each other. Whereas this volume represents an effort to stimulate dialogue between representatives of the two subfields, we are admittedly still far away from an integrated approach. And the difficulties to be overcome in bridge-building efforts should not be underestimated. In the same way as political theorists do not like to be told that “your argument is really an empirical question,” IR specialists usually react negatively to suggestions that they “are defending a normative position.” Yet attempts at solving political problems, such as identifying legitimate global governance arrangements, seem to require contributions from both normative theorists and empirical researchers. Moreover, controversies within each subdiscipline may profit from input from the other. The possibilities of fruitful cross-fertilization have not been sufficiently explored. In conclusion, the field of transnational access to international institutions offers a wide range of exciting challenges to researchers from different disciplines and subdisciplines. Seldom has the ritual call for more research been more justified and genuine than here. The contributors to this volume, for their part, will continue their quest for improved knowledge of transnationalism and global governance.


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References Chisholm, D. (1989) Coordination without Hierarchy: Informal Structures in Multiorganizational Systems (Berkeley: University of California Press). George, A.L. and A. Bennett (2005) Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Habegger, B. (2008) “Democratic Accountability and Parliamentary Control of International Organizations: The Council of Europe, the OSCE, and Lessons for a Future United Nations Assembly,” paper prepared for the International Studies Association (ISA) 49th Annual Convention, San Francisco, 26–29 March. Jönsson, C. (2010) “Coordinating Actors in the Fight against HIV/AIDS: From ‘Lead Agency’ to Public-Private Partnerships,” in M. Bexell and U. Mörth (eds) Democracy and Public-Private Partnerships in Global Governance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan). Keohane, R.O., S. Macedo and A. Moravcsik (2009) “Democracy-Enhancing Multilateralism,” International Organization, 63: 1–31. King, G., R.O. Keohane and S. Verba (1994) Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Middlemas, K. (1995) Orchestrating Europe: The Informal Politics of European Union 1973–1995 (London: Fontana Press). Steffek, J., C. Kissling and P. Nanz (eds) (2008) Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).


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Index Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998) 125, 129n Abbott, Kenneth W. 136 accountability 11, 184 and authorization 199, 200 democratic 53, 144, 178, 218, 224–5, 245 of international organizations 2, 53, 101, 110, 201, 218, 234, 245 of multilateral economic institutions 47 and transnational participation 11 adjudication 161, 165, 166, 168, 241 advocacy networks 1, 4, 159 African Union (AU) 185 Agenda 21 125 agenda-setting 5, 61, 68, 71, 73–4, 76, 78, 188, 241 Al Bashir, Omar 186 all-affected principle 17, 197, 199, 202–3, 207–10, 212–14, 222–3, 244–5 alliance formation capabilities 98–9, 100, 101, 105, 106 amicus curiae briefs 117, 119–20, 126, 128, 240 Amnesty International 147 Ancient Greece 22 Ancient Rome 36, 232 Andean Court of Justice 6 Annan, Kofi 8, 141 anti-globalization movement 31, 177 Aristotle 203, 204 Aron, Raymond 23, 24, 30 Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission 167 authority claims 100, 233 autonomy loss 96, 97, 103–4, 105, 106, 242, 247 Ayala Foundation 148

Bangladesh 185 Bank for International Settlements (BIS) 7, 75, 81, 239 Basel Committee on Banking Supervision 81 Berne Initiative 140, 146 Betts, Alexander 139 Biafra 186 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 35 Bono 35, 200 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros 7 Bouwen, Pieter 70 Bretton Woods system 27 British Anti-Slavery Society 32 British East India Company 23 British Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade 32 Buchanan, Allen 226 Burma 185 Calliess, Gralf-Peter 29 Cardoso report 8 Caritas Internationalis 90 Carter, Jimmy 35 case studies 2, 12, 14, 33, 60, 89, 106, 158, 239, 246 Cashore, Benjamin W. 159 Castells, Manuel 38, 39 Catholic Church 31, 32 Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) 117 Charnovitz, Steve 52 China 103, 142, 181 civil society see also global civil society definitions 36–7 forums 55, 81 civil society organizations (CSOs) see also non-governmental organizations concept 4, 34 and democracy 12, 38, 52, 225, 245 expertise of 102

253

Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg 9780230_239050_14_ind.indd 253

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Index

civil society organizations (CSOs) – continued and peace 144, 191 participation in international organizations 1, 6, 7, 10, 14, 15, 52, 54, 63, 67–8, 74, 79, 80–3, 88, 89, 92–5, 103–4, 147–8, 238–42, 247 Claude, Inis L. 25 climate change 49, 72, 75, 76, 121, 123, 125–6, 134, 239 Codex Alimentarius Commission 92 Coding Analysis Toolkit (CAT) 157, 161, 173n cognitive scripts 96, 97–8 Cold War 9, 26, 27, 30 end of 27–8, 30, 79 commitments 5, 15, 35, 46, 47, 48–9, 57, 136, 144, 145, 158, 171, 182, 184, 186, 241 compliance 1, 3, 45, 48, 49, 61, 62, 71, 125, 161, 168, 219, 228, 232, 239, 240, 241 Conejos, Esteban 148 Congo 193 constructivism 9, 51, 52, 219 Consultative Group on Biological Diversity 111 Convention on Biological Diversity 171 Convention on the Rights of the Child 6 Convention on Trade in Endangered Species 171 corporate social responsibility (CSR) 35 Council of Europe 75, 77–8, 83, 239, 242, 246 Cutler, A. Claire 159 Dahl, Robert A. 213 Dante, Alighieri 229 Dauvergne, Catherine 138 de Hoop Scheffer, Jaap 79 delegation 9, 12, 14, 15, 46, 47, 58, 137, 140, 143, 155–73, 238–40, 241 DeMars, William 33, 34 democracy see also global democracy and global governance 2, 12

historicity of 199, 205, 206, 207, 212 liberal 176, 178, 182, 184, 187, 224 as majority rule 198, 204–5 national 16, 78, 178, 179, 180, 187, 199–200, 205, 211, 228, 244 representative 38, 198, 200–1, 205, 211, 214 standards of 2, 53, 198, 224–6 democratic culture 224–5 democratic deficit 2, 10, 51, 53, 54, 67, 221, 224 democratic legitimacy 2, 3, 11, 17, 45, 50–2, 61, 178, 218–36, 244, 245 democratic peace theory 179, 188–91 democratic theory see normative democratic theory democratization 37, 47, 67, 77, 116, 190, 194, 248 of global governance 10, 16, 53, 128, 178, 201, 213, 214, 220, 225–6, 244, 245 demos 10, 208, 222 global 17, 197, 218, 222–3, 226, 231, 244, 245 transnational 10 Derrida, Jacques 205 Deudney, Daniel H. 232 Deutsch, Karl 24 development aid 35, 52, 139, 140, 163 development ideology 51, 52, 54 development policy 3, 13, 69, 76, 141–3, 148, 238, 239 Diana, Princess 35 Diouf, Jacques 93 discursive representation 17, 197–9, 202–3, 207, 210–14, 244–5 Drezner, Daniel W. 58, 59, 159 Dryzek, John 199, 202, 206, 210, 211, 212 effectiveness 2, 3, 49, 101, 104, 183, 192, 244 efficiency 51, 56, 96, 101, 181 functional 15, 45, 46–8, 61, 240, 249 electoral system 38, 183, 200–1, 209, 211


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Index enforcement 5, 32, 47, 48, 50, 61, 136, 137, 161, 164, 165, 166, 168, 171, 241 Environmental Grantmakers Association 111 environmental policy 3, 12, 13, 14, 15, 49, 58, 62, 68, 70, 71, 72, 75–7, 82, 192, 200, 202, 238, 239, 240, 241 and trade 110–33 environmental treaties 155–76, 238, 239–40, 241 epistemic communities 71, 159 Ethiopia 187 European Association of Agricultural Economists 90 European Community Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) 185 European Court of Human Rights 6 European Court of Justice 6 European Monetary Union (EMU) 56 European Union (EU) 2, 6, 7, 39, 53, 56, 59, 67, 69, 70, 74, 80, 122–3, 140, 182, 185, 246 exchange theories 70 expertise demand for 45, 71–4, 81, 96–7, 104, 145, 167–8, 171, 172, 241 of NGOs 1, 6, 57, 116, 126, 129 of transnational actors 36, 46, 48, 49, 57, 75, 77, 102, 145, 170, 172, 241, 242 feedback mechanisms 16, 113, 121–7, 243 Ferguson, Adam 37 finance policy 13, 14, 68, 72, 73, 74, 81, 239, 240, 241 Finnemore, Martha 159 firms 6, 31, 35–6, 48, 94, 99, 102, 120, 149, 158, 159, 160 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 13–14, 15, 88–109, 163, 167, 238, 239, 242, 243, 247 Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS) 103 food security 12, 102, 103, 185

255

Ford Foundation 31, 35 foundations 4, 35, 53, 148, 160, 178 Friends of the Earth (FOE) 111 G7 (Group of 7) 53 G20 (Group of 20) 185 G77 (Group of 77) 57, 142 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) 14, 114, 115, 240 Garcia-Johnson, Ronie 159 global civil society 2, 9, 12, 16, 23, 36–8, 51, 53, 55, 156, 159, 186, 187, 202, 218, 225–6, 244, 245 Global Civil Society Forum 1, 76 Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) 141, 147 Global Compact 4, 8, 35–6 global democracy 10, 11, 16, 53, 54, 55, 61, 111, 177–96, 213, 223, 225, 237, 244 Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) 14, 135, 141–3, 146, 147–9, 238 global governance changes in 1, 60, 110 concept 5, 37 democratization of 2, 10, 16, 38, 53, 110, 128, 180, 194, 201, 213, 214, 225, 244, 245 legitimate 51, 63, 218–20, 222, 223, 225, 226, 228, 233, 250 outcomes of 16, 234 scholarship on 2, 88, 106, 144, 194, 201, 228, 245 Global Migration Group 140 global political community 17, 219, 220, 222, 226, 228, 233, 234, 245 globalization 27–9, 30, 37, 49, 72, 134, 177, 180, 190–1, 194, 199, 208, 212, 213, 214, 227, 248 Gore, Al 200 Götz, Norbert 34 Gramsci, Antonio 37 Grant, Ruth W. 228 Greenpeace 90, 117 Haas, Peter M. 159 Hannerz, Ulf 29 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 37


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Index

Herder, Johann Gottfried 229 Hoffman, Stanley 23 human rights 27, 35 commitment to 182 and courts 6, 50 and international organizations 193 and migration 138, 148 and transnational actors 2, 68, 72, 73–4, 77–8, 102, 144, 192, 239, 241 Huntington, Samuel P. 26, 30 ILO Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration 140 implementation 1, 5, 6, 45, 46, 49, 50, 61, 71, 72, 74, 76, 79, 82, 88, 94, 140, 145, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 171, 172, 239, 240, 241 India 119, 181, 182, 185 information asymmetry 46, 47–8, 50, 158 information exchange 70, 71, 73, 77, 82, 143, 191–2 institutional design 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 46, 47, 51, 135–9 institutionalism historical 16, 111, 112–14, 122, 126, 127, 241, 243, 250 power-oriented 15, 45, 55, 60, 240, 243 rational choice 15, 45, 46, 47, 60, 96, 100, 135, 138, 143–5, 148, 149, 158, 240, 241, 243 sociological 9, 15, 16, 45, 51, 52, 60, 89, 97–8, 100, 101, 240, 242 interdependence 30, 59, 72, 232 International Agenda for Migration Management 140 International Alliance against Hunger 94, 103, 104 International Association of Agricultural Students 90 International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) 117 International Chamber of Commerce 90 International Coalition of Fishery Associations 93

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions 90 International Conference on Nutrition (1992) 91 International Court of Justice 26, 166 international courts 6, 9, 48, 50 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 138 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 186 International Criminal Court 186, 192 International Environmental Agreements (IEA) Database Project 160 International Federation of Agricultural Producers 90 International Fertilizer Industry Association 90 International Labour Organization (ILO) 6, 140 international law 25–6, 51, 52, 54, 186 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2, 7, 14, 53, 67, 69, 75, 81, 83, 115, 125, 185, 239, 240, 242 International Organization for Migration (IOM) 140 international regimes 7, 28, 48, 49, 56, 58, 59, 71, 72, 75, 129, 139 International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) 148 International Tropical Timber Agreement 171 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) 117, 171 International Whaling Convention 163 interorganizational relations 38, 39, 67, 70, 74 Iriye, Akira 35 isomorphism 51, 54, 98, 101 Italy 230 Jessup, Philip 25–6 Kahler, Miles 58 Kaiser, Karl 24, 30–1 Kaldor, Mary 32


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Index Kant, Immanuel 189, 191, 229 Keane, John 38 Keck, Margaret E. 159 Kenya 181 Keohane, Robert O. 23, 26, 28, 30, 31, 35, 224, 228 Ki-Moon, Ban 148 Klein Solomon, Michele 147 Koremorenos, Barbara 136 Kratochwil, Friedrich 221 labor unions 4, 178 Lake, David A. 9, 158 League of Nations 33, 35 Lefort, Claude 197, 205, 206 legalization 136–7, 139, 140, 143, 149 legitimacy 17, 208 democratic 2, 3, 7, 11, 17, 45, 50–2, 61, 178, 218–36, 244, 245 vs. efficiency 56 of global governance 1 input vs. output 16, 220, 244 of international organizations 2, 8, 55, 69, 96, 98, 125, 127, 177 of transnational actors 16, 17, 124, 247 liberty 17, 218–21, 226–34, 246 Locke, John 204 logic of appropriateness 98, 100, 106 McCubbins, Mathew D. 9, 158 Machiavelli, Niccolò 232 Malaysia 120 Manin, Bernard 203 Mao Zedong 183 Marx, Karl 37 Mayer, Peter 80 Meyer, John W. 98 Migrants’ Rights International 148 migration 12, 13, 14, 24, 28, 134–54, 199, 214, 238, 240, 241–2 Millennium Goals 186 Mitchell, Ronald 160 monitoring 45, 49, 73, 136, 137, 145, 159, 160, 161, 164–70, 225, 241 of commitments 5, 46, 48, 49, 57, 144 of compliance 48, 50, 240 of success 73–4, 78

257

multilateralism 4–5, 8, 142 multinational corporations 1, 4, 26, 31, 34, 35, 56, 59, 60, 68, 88, 89, 92, 93, 95, 105, 144, 160 NAFTA see North American Free Trade Agreement Nakajima, Hiroshi 91 nation-states 5, 10, 11, 24, 69, 150, 191, 199, 200–1, 202, 207, 208, 211, 212, 214, 230, 234 NATO see North Atlantic Treaty Organization neoliberalism 71, 123, 203, 225, 228 networking 119, 246, 247, 249 networks 5, 27, 160, 246 definitions 38–9 and NATO 79 of NGOs 34, 90, 117, 144 resources 99 NGO CorpWatch 8 Niemeyer, Simon 202, 210, 211, 212 Nigeria 181 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) see also civil society organizations accreditation 1–2, 4, 6–7, 91, 95 and agenda-setting 5, 61, 68, 71, 73–4, 76, 78, 144, 188, 241 categories of 31 consultative status in the UN 33, 52, 55, 71, 148 criticism of 8 definitions 34 and democracy 7–8, 111 and development 57, 92, 114, 117, 120, 200 environmental 2, 16, 58, 59, 111, 113–29, 159, 171, 238, 243 expertise of 1, 6, 57 growth of 5, 6, 33, 51, 53, 248 history of 32 and human rights 144, 148, 192 and monitoring 1, 3, 33, 48, 145 networks 4, 90 participation in international organizations 1–2, 7, 47–63, 78, 89–94, 101–5, 110–11, 113–29, 146, 148, 243


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258

Index

non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – continued participation in national delegations 120, 123–4, 126, 128–9 scholarship on 33–4 and service provision 1, 3, 6, 48, 50 and social movements 31–3, 178 subcontracting of 48, 156 US-dominated 26, 34–5 non-profit vs. for-profit organizations 4, 31, 57, 68, 94, 242 norm diffusion 15, 51, 54, 240, 249 norm entrepreneurs 9 normative democratic theory 2, 3, 8, 10, 11, 13, 18, 51, 52, 54, 177, 178, 179, 184, 189–90, 194, 237, 244, 250 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 7, 69, 75, 78–80, 83, 239, 241, 247 North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) 7 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 6, 56 North Korea 187 Nye, Joseph S, Jr 23, 26, 28, 30, 31, 35 O’Brien, Robert 47 Oliver, Christine 113 opportunity structures 5, 69, 144 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 7, 37, 137 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) 75, 80, 239, 241, 246 organizational culture 16, 99–101, 106 organizational learning 98–9 ozone depletion 49, 72 Pakistan 119 party associations 1, 4 path dependence 68, 83, 112, 250 Pettit, Philip 230, 231 Pierson, Paul 122 Plato 198, 204, 206, 214 Pocock, John G.A. 232

Pries, Ludger 29 principal-agent theory 50, 160 private authority 155–61, 173 private sector 30, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 101, 102–5, 147, 149, 242 process-tracing 113, 250 public opinion 111, 186, 187, 224 public-private partnerships 36, 103 Putnam, Robert D. 38 quantitative analysis 12, 62, 248 Raustiala, Kal 47, 49, 50, 70, 144, 145 Red Cross 159 Regional Consultative Processes (RCPs) (on migration) 140–1, 146–7, 148, 149 Reimann, Kim D. 48 republican political thought 229, 230–2, 234 resource-dependency theory 16, 47, 70, 89, 96, 97, 104, 247 Risse(-Kappen), Thomas 5, 28, 30, 31 Rockefeller Foundation 35 Rodriguez, Néstor 150 Rousseau, Jean Jacques 221 Rowan, Brian 98 rule-making 145, 161, 164, 165–6, 169, 171 Rummel, Rudolph J. 188 Russia 28 Rwanda 6, 192, 193 San Francisco Conference (1945) 33 Saward, Michael 200 Scharpf, Fritz 16 Schein, Edgar 99 Scholte, Jan Aart 225 Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) 166, 171 Seattle WTO Summit (1999) 14, 111, 114, 118, 122, 238 security policy 13, 14, 68, 72, 73, 74, 75, 78–81, 82, 137, 142, 173, 192–3, 232–3, 239, 240, 241 Sen, Amartya K. 179, 180–4, 185, 187 Sen, B.R. 88 Shapiro, Ian 207, 208, 209, 210 Shaw, John 91


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Index Sièyes, Emmanuel Joseph 221 Sikkink, Kathryn 159 Skinner, Quentin 230 Smith, Adam 37 social movements 4, 9, 10, 38, 47, 118 and NGOs 31–3, 178 scholarship on 31–2 soft law 137, 145 sovereignty popular 206, 220, 230, 232 state 25, 35, 47, 137, 138, 164, 178, 222 sovereignty costs 15, 137–9, 142, 145–6, 149, 165–6, 168, 169, 170–1, 241 Staisch, Matthias 49 stakeholders 1, 3, 13, 125, 126, 149 standard-setting 36, 88, 91, 95 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment (1972) 75, 115 Strange, Susan 160 Streeck, Wolfgang 112 Sudan 186, 192 supranational actors 4, 49, 225 sustainable development 76, 82, 115, 119, 126 Tarrow, Sidney 31 Thailand 120 Thelen, Kathleen 112 Third World Network 117 Thouez, Colleen 146 Tilly, Charles 31 Tocqueville, Alexis de 34, 37 Torpey, John 138 Touraine, Alain 31 transaction costs 15, 47, 136, 170, 171, 241 transgovernmental interactions 26, 30 transnational origin of concept 22–31, 39–40 transnational access consultative status 4, 6, 33, 69, 71, 76, 77, 78, 89, 90–1, 118, 239 formal vs. informal 4, 5, 6–7, 12, 13, 14, 31, 50, 69, 74, 76, 77, 78, 80, 89–95, 103, 115, 117–20, 123–7, 141, 142–4, 146, 147, 155–6, 163, 239, 240, 243, 246–7, 249

259

variation in 2, 3, 12–13, 14, 45, 49–50, 54–5, 58–63, 74, 89, 94–5, 101, 106, 135–6, 145, 156, 177, 179, 188, 237, 238–9, 241–3, 248 transnational actors autonomy of 34, 103, 247 definition 4 expertise of 36, 46, 48, 49, 57, 75, 77, 102, 145, 170, 172, 241, 242 and monitoring 1, 3, 5, 33, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 57, 71, 73, 74, 78, 144, 145, 158, 166, 164–70, 225, 239, 240, 241 and service provision 1, 3, 5, 6, 13, 36, 45, 50, 57, 92 transnational relations 23, 24, 26–8, 30, 33, 60 transnational turn 4–8, 12, 155, 238, 247, 250 transnationalism 26–30, 40, 250 transparency 2, 7, 53, 110, 111, 123, 128, 179, 218, 224–5, 245 Tully, James 228 Uganda 103 Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR) 185 United Nations (UN) 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 53, 59, 62, 67, 69, 71, 77, 97, 105, 123, 125, 126, 139, 140, 142, 192, 193, 197, 201, 242 agencies 34, 35, 36, 53, 93, 102, 103, 185 Charter 4, 33, 52, 54, 148 conferences 7, 52, 55, 71, 93, 115, 125, 141 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 4, 52, 55, 71, 77, 91, 95 Human Rights Council 75, 77–8, 239 and partnerships 94 Secretary-General 7, 101, 141, 142, 143, 148 Security Council 193 system 8, 52, 54, 55, 57, 80, 83, 89, 93, 94, 102, 106, 121, 122, 140, 142, 148, 242, 243, 248 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 185


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260

Index

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992) 75 United Nations High-Level Task Force on Global Food Security Crises 185 United Nations International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families 139 United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) 1, 14, 34, 75, 76–7, 115, 116, 239, 240 United Nations Foundation (UNF) 103 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 75–7, 239 United Nations Global Compact see Global Compact United Nations Network on Rural Development and Food Security 103 United Nations Rio Declaration (1992) 115 United States 26, 27, 32, 33, 34, 35, 56, 59, 119, 122, 123, 143 Universal Declaration on Human Rights 186

Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) 193 Vietnam 27 Waltz, Kenneth N. 27 Wendt, Alexander 222 Willetts, Peter 52, 71 Wolfers, Arnold 24, 30 World Bank 1, 2, 6, 7, 14, 53, 57, 67, 81, 115, 125, 185, 240 World Federation of United Nations Associations 90 World Food Conference (1974) 91, 92, 93, 95 World Food Congresses 91 World Food Program (WFP) 185 World Food Summits 89, 91, 95, 186 World Health Organization (WHO) 91, 92, 94, 140 World Trade Organization (WTO) 1–2, 7, 10, 14, 16, 53, 58, 67, 79, 83, 110–29, 185, 197, 202, 203, 210, 238, 240, 242, 243 World Trade Union Conference (WTUC) 33 Zimbabwe 181 Zürn, Michael 49


6/10/2010 6:58:19 PM

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