International-Domestic Linkages and Policy Convergence

An examination of three major trends in global governance, exemplified by developments in transnational environmental rule-setting. The notion of global governance is widely studied in academia and increasingly relevant to politics and policy making. Yet many of its fundamental elements remain unclear in both theory and practice. This book offers a fresh perspective by analyzing global governance in terms of three major trends, as exemplified by developments in global sustainability governance: the emergence of nonstate actors; new mechanisms of transnational cooperation; and increasingly segmented and overlapping layers of authority. The book, which is the synthesis of a ten-year “Global Governance Project” carried out by thirteen leading European research institutions, first examines new nonstate actors, focusing on international bureaucracies, global corporations, and transnational networks of scientists; then investigates novel mechanisms of global governance, particularly transnational environmental regimes, public-private partnerships, and market-based arrangements; and, finally, looks at fragmentation of authority, both vertically among supranational, international, national, and subnational layers, and horizontally among different parallel rule-making systems. The implications, potential, and realities of global environmental governance are defining questions for our generation. This book distills key insights from the past and outlines the most important research challenges for the future.

The notion of global governance is widely studied in academia and increasingly relevant to politics and policy making. Yet many of its fundamental elements remain unclear in both theory and practice. This book offers a fresh perspective by analyzing global governance in terms of three major trends, as exemplified by developments in global sustainability governance: the emergence of nonstate actors; new mechanisms of transnational cooperation; and increasingly segmented and overlapping layers of authority. The book, which is the synthesis of a ten-year “Global Governance Project” carried out by thirteen leading European research institutions, first examines new nonstate actors, focusing on international bureaucracies, global corporations, and transnational networks of scientists; then investigates novel mechanisms of global governance, particularly transnational environmental regimes, public-private partnerships, and market-based arrangements; and, finally, looks at fragmentation of authority, both vertically among supranational, international, national, and subnational layers, and horizontally among different parallel rule-making systems. The implications, potential, and realities of global environmental governance are defining questions for our generation. This book distills key insights from the past and outlines the most important research challenges for the future.

1. Introducing Business and Global Governance - Morten Ougaard Part I: Business as Master of Global Governance 2. Direct and Indirect Influence at the World Intellectual Property Organization - Christopher May 3. Practices (Re)Producing Orders: Understanding the Role of Business in Global Security Governance - Anna Leander 4. Unthinking the Gats: A Radical Political Economy Critique of Private Transnational Governance - A. Claire Cutler Part II: Business as Subject to Global Governance 5. Business and Global Climate Governance: A Neo-Pluralist Perspective - Robert Falkner 6. Governing Corruption through the Global Corporation - Hans Krause Hansen 7. Transnational Governance Networks in The Regulation of Finance - The Making of Global Regulation and Supervision Standards in the Banking Industry - Eleni Tsingou 8. Non-Triad Multinationals and Global Governance: Still A North-South Conflict? - Andreas Nolke and Heather Taylor Part III: Business as Partner in Global Governance 9. Rethinking Multilateralism: Global Governance and Public-Private Partnerships with the UN - Benedicte Bull 10. Iso and The Success of Regulation through Voluntary Consensus - Craig N. Murphy and Joanne Yates 11. Beyond the Boardroom: Multilocation and the Business Face of Celebrity Diplomacy - Andrew F. Cooper 12. Variations in Corporate Norm-Entrepreneurship: Why the Home State Matters - Anne Flohr, Lothar Rieth, Sandra Schwindenhammer, and Klaus Dieter Wolf

The rise of non-state (international, private, and transnational) actors in global politics has far-reaching consequences for foreign policy theory and practice. In order to be able to explain foreign policy in the 21st century, foreign policy research needs to take into account the growing importance of nonstate actorss. A good way to do this would be to engage the literature on globalization and global governance. Both fields would benefit from such an exchange of ideas because their respective strengths could cancel out each other’s weaknesses. Foreign policy research, on the one hand, has a strong track record explaining foreign policy outcomes, using a broad range of theoretical concepts, but almost completely ignores non-state actors. This is highly problematic for at least two reasons: first, foreign policy is increasingly made in international organizations and intergovernmental and transnational governance networks instead of national institutions like foreign ministries. Second, the latter increasingly open up to, and involve, non-state actors in their policymaking procedures. Thus, if foreign policy research wants to avoid becoming marginalized in the future, it needs to take into account this change. However, systemic approaches like neorealism or constructivism have difficulties adapting to the new reality of foreign policy. They stress the importance of states at the expense of non-state actors, which are only of marginal interest to them, as is global governance. Moreover, they also conceptualize states as unitary actors, which forecloses the possibility of examining the involvement of non-state actors in states’ decision-making processes. Agency-based approaches such as foreign policy analysis (FPA) fare much better, at least in principle. FPA scholars stress the importance of disaggregating the state and looking at the individuals and group dynamics that influence their decision-making. However, while this commitment to opening up the state allows for a great deal more flexibility vis-à-vis different types of actors, FPA research has so far remained state-centric and only very recently turned to non-state actors. On the other hand, non-state actors’ involvement in policymaking is the strong suit of the literature on globalization and global governance, which has spent a lot of time and effort analyzing various forms of “hybrid” governance. At the same time, however, this literature has been rather descriptive, so far mainly systematizing different governance arrangements and the conditions under which non-state actors are included in governance arrangements. This literature could profit from foreign policy research’s rich theoretical knowledge in explaining policy outcomes in hybrid governance networks and international organizations (IOs). Foreign policy researchers should take non-state actors seriously. In this regard, three avenues in particular are relevant for future research: (1) comparative empirical research to establish the extent of non-state actors’ participation in foreign policymaking across different countries and governance arrangements; (2) explanatory studies that analyze the conditions under which non-state actors are involved in states’ foreign policymaking processes; and (3) the normative implications of increased hybrid foreign policymaking for democratic legitimacy.

Since the end of 2019 the new crown pneumonia epidemic has brought a profound impact on the world economy, the world economy has seen a large-scale contraction, economic and trade relations between major countries have faced great challenges, and economic forms such as trade protectionism and anti-globalization have been rapidly pursued, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has also led to the disruption of the global supply chain, and the industrial production of many countries has been seriously impacted, and the global political and economic landscape has undergone significant The global political and economic landscape has undergone significant changes, and global economic governance is facing numerous dilemmas, posing unprecedented challenges to the global economy. The shortcomings of the global economic governance mechanism dominated by developed countries have been highlighted, and the global governance mechanism dominated by developed countries is facing problems such as structural changes in the dominant forces, contradictions and conflicts between different forces, the evolution of the global governance system failing to keep pace with the development of globalization, the lack of opportunities for participation by disadvantaged groups and regions, and the diminishing dominant position of developed countries and other relevant countries in global governance. The Belt and Road Initiative advocated by China, based on its comprehensive national strength and the responsibility of a great power, advocates the building of a community of human destiny, adheres to the stance of multilateralism, upholds the concept of win-win cooperation and development, and focuses on the need to respond to global challenges and to promote changes in the global economic governance system. Based on a new type of development, multilateralism and economic globalization, China has participated in the transformation of the global economic governance system by strengthening global cooperation to prevent global economic risks, building a governance concept of a community of human destiny, formulating more balanced economic policies and rules, and realizing governance innovations in digital governance, so as to promote the improvement of the global economic governance environment conducive to the double cycle of mutual reinforcement. The Belt and Road Initiative advocated by China is a product of the changes in the world economy and the evolution of the international landscape, and its purpose is to conduct business on the basis of access to roads and navigation, to find a new impetus for the growth of the world economy, to respond to the deepening of economic globalization, and to realize the transcendence and reshaping of the pattern of global economic governance.

Global ocean governance is the concretization of global governance. Various interest groups interact with and coordinate ocean issues. Global ocean governance is inevitably linked to the new global governance landscape. In recent years, a series of new scenarios in global governance have emerged. These situations have further shaped the plurality of participants and the diversity of mechanisms in global ocean governance. Science and technology innovation and application are prerequisites and prime movers for the evolution of global ocean governance. Major worldwide crises, represented by global climate change and the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, have added great uncertainty to the future development of global ocean governance. The divergence of interests and positions between emerging countries and developed countries, as well as the reshaping of the global geopolitical landscape in recent years, has led to the stagnation or deadlock of a series of international negotiations and international cooperation platforms related to global ocean governance. With the deepening of global governance, non-state actors are not only objects of ocean governance but also bearers of legal obligations and enjoy varying degrees of legal rights, participating in agenda setting, rule construction, and monitoring implementation at different levels of ocean governance. From a critical jurisprudence perspective, in the practice of global ocean governance, the relationship between non-governmental organizations, states, and international organizations is more likely to be one of reconciliation than the “state–civil society” dichotomy of moral imagination. This new set of circumstances exposes the divisive and fragmented nature of global ocean governance. This study concludes that the new situation of global ocean governance constitutes a historic opportunity for countries to reexamine the role of the rule of law during the Anthropocene to bridge the fragmentation and gaps in mechanisms and achieve a truly integrated, holistic, and closely nested global ocean governance. The question of how to implement the rule of law requires the introduction of theoretical perspectives such as the Anthropocene, complex systems theory, and the community of a shared future for humanity to undertake a fundamental critical reflection and rethinking of global ocean governance.

Does increased participation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) improve the democratic quality at intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)? Multilateral institutions and global governance mechanisms have emerged during the past few decades to tackle global challenges, such as climate change. However, policy making institutions such as IGOs are often viewed as lacking democratic legitimacy. The decision- making process remains tied to nation-states represented often by non-elected delegates, yet the decisions affect people who do not have a say in the process. One remedy proposed by global governance scholars to close such democratic deficit is to include a variety of stakeholders such as non-governmental actors. I challenge the conventional wisdom that assumes the democratic potential of these actors, and unpack the “blackbox” of NGOs to assess their internal politics.To assess their role in global governance, we need to understand the substantive participation and patterns of interaction among the NGOs at the governance institutions. I construct a multilevel theoretical framework from a social network perspective to understand their participation and interaction. The theoretical framework is based on transnational social movement theory and social network theory.I draw on the example of women’s groups working at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) annual conferences. Employing both quantitative statistical analysis and network analysis, I demonstrate an evident increase in women’s groups that participate substantively at the UNFCCC. How- ever, the growth is accompanied by inequality in participation. Not all groups that attend the UNFCCC participate in collective advocacy or network actively. The variation is associated with the capacity and social embeddedness of a given organization. Furthermore, the community working on women’s issues has become fragmented over- time. The fragmentation is a result of NGOs’ different strategies and understandings of their role in global climate governance. The institutional context of UNFCCC has also contributed to the fragmentation. Overall, these civil society actors contribute to the democratization of the UNFCCC process by adding new voices, establishing new issue linkages, and raising awareness for women’s rights and gender equality. At the same time, however, the internal inequality and the power imbalance could further exacerbate the democratic deficit in the global climate governance process.I have independently collected data on over 800 actors at the UN climate conferences. I have also conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with civil society representatives at the UN climate change summits in 2017 and 2018. The findings contribute to the understanding of democratic legitimacy in global governance of large-scale, transnational challenges by analyzing both macro-level network relation- ships among actors and the micro-level mechanisms among network members.

type="graphical" xml:id="gpol12155-abs-0002"> The European Union needs to close ranks in order to stand its ground in our globalised world.

Multilateralism and minilateralism are the main mechanisms of global governance. Multilateralism is characterized by membership inclusiveness, a low entry threshold for new members, and a focus on universality, while minilateralism is characterized by membership exclusivity, a high entry threshold for new members, and no focus on universality. Contemporary multilateral institutions emerged after World War II under the influence of American hegemony. The US commitment to multilateralism in global governance has been inconsistent, setting the stage for the current crisis of multilateral global governance. The aforementioned crisis can be explained by the problems of American leadership, the emergence of a polycentric power configuration of the world, as well as specific actions of both the hegemon and other great powers. The issue was fueled by the increasingly evident problems of ineffectiveness of the core global institutions in dealing with pressing problems, deadlocks in multilateral negotiations and the lack of representation of developing countries in global governance. The failure of the main actors to respond to these challenges has led to the proliferation of the minilateralist mechanism of global governance. Two types of minilateralism in global governance are distinguished - clubs of the most significant states (the first type) and communities of like-minded states (the second type). The main advantage of the first type of minilateralism is the ability to solve global problems with minimal effort. Minilateralism of the second type is positively distinguished by its homogeneous structure and cohesion of the ranks. The main advantages of minilateralism in general include flexibility, adaptability, plasticity, quick decision-making, free, open and effective negotiations and resource saving. The main disadvantages of minilateralism are low legitimacy, limited technical and financial capabilities, lack of transparency and accountability, vagueness of goals and lack of focus. The first type of minilateralism is able to somewhat increase the effectiveness of interaction within the global institutions by reducing the number of parties involved, but it is unlikely to be able to overcome the core source of ineffectiveness of global governance, which is the mistrust between the main actors. The main disadvantage of the second type of minilateralism is the fragmentation of international regimes. The emergence of the minilateral competitors can both motivate the established institutions to reform and demotivate states to participate in multilateral global governance. Minilateralism will continue to play a large role in global governance. The disadvantages of minilateralism can be mitigated by combining it with the multilateralist mechanism, using a more rigorous approach to the selection of participants, goal setting and the implementation of agreements, and introducing a system of indirect representation.

As one of the founding members of the United Nations, China has been actively promoting the process of global governance. In 2012, China proposed the concept of global governance of «a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind», aiming to promote the development of global governance system in a more fair and reasonable direction. The view on global climate governance is one of the five elements of the concept of «a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind». The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of this study are many approaches, theories, and methods from political science and related scientific fields, which give this work its interdisciplinary nature. Mainly geopolitical approach, method of comparison and method of comparison. In its long-term participation in global climate governance, China has formed a unique concept of global climate governance that focuses on win-win cooperation, fairness and reasonableness. China has made contributions to global public health governance. It helps enhance China’s voice and influence in the field of global climate governance. China’s view on global climate governance not only guides the practice of China’s participation in global climate governance, but also has great significance for the construction and future development of the current global climate governance mechanism. In the post-Paris Agreement era, it is possible for China to continue to promote and even lead the formulation and implementation of specific rules for the United Nations climate negotiations, and to make greater contributions to the construction of the global climate governance mechanism.

Since the 1990s, the concepts of global and security governance have emerged as new frameworks for the analysis of international relations. The proponents of these approaches have argued that we are witnessing a transformation in global politics through the simultaneous dynamics of integration and fragmentation. The result of these two dynamics is a shift away from the state as the primary authority and actor in international affairs, thus challenging the state-centric theoretical perspectives that had developed during the Cold War. Although states retain a central role, the literature on global and security governance suggests that a growing number of international organizations and private actors, such as multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations, are taking on functions ranging from the making to the implementation of international policies (Rosenau and Czempiel 1992; Finkelstein 1995). Moreover, in addition to sectors such as those involving international finance, economics, and the environment (Young 2000; Hall and Biersteker 2002), the proponents of the governance concept find that the fragmentation of policymaking capabilities and authority among state and nonstate actors is also increasingly observed in the international security arena. In 1995, the Commission on Global Governance (1995:99) observed: The breakdown of the bipolar cold war system means that responses to security crises—both with preventive efforts and beyond them—have to come from a wider group of nations and organizations than before. The United Nations, particularly the Security Council, has the principal responsibility. But regional bodies and a wide range of civil society organization are now in a position to play useful roles. Nearly 10 years later, the concepts of global and security governance have increasingly become popular in the study of international security (Axworth 2001; Duffield 2001; Croft, Krahmann, and Howorth 2004). This popularity rests on the argument that subnational and transnational threats—such as …

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform the contemporary global order, its governance has emerged as a paramount challenge at the intersection of technological innovation and institutional frameworks, marked distinctively by the ascendance of Big Tech companies as formidable new actors in the international arena. This paper examines how Big Tech companies are reshaping global AI governance landscapes through their unprecedented technological capabilities and market influence. While existing literature acknowledges the growing authority of non-state actors in global governance, limited attention has been paid to the distinct mechanisms through which Big Tech companies influence AI governance dynamics. Drawing on new institutional theory and its three-pillar framework, this study develops an integrated analytical framework to investigate three key mechanisms: regulative, normative, and cognitive. Using theory-testing process tracing methodology and taking Google as a critical case study, this research systematically analyzes how Big Tech companies leverage their technological resource endowments, self-regulatory practices, and epistemic authority to influence global AI governance. The findings reveal that Big Tech companies significantly shape governance outcomes through: (1) embedding technical feasibility parameters in formal regulations and standards through strategic deployment of expertise; (2) establishing normative authority through self-regulatory innovations that diffuse globally via multilateral platforms; and (3) shaping shared frameworks of meaning that define how governance challenges are conceptualized and addressed. This study contributes to both global governance and public management literature by theorizing Big Tech’s distinct role as super-sized non-state actors and demonstrating how new institutional theory can illuminate governance dynamics beyond national boundaries.

Over the two decades prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a powerful class of large private foundations emerged as influential actors in global governance. Their presence is more prominent in global health than any other issue area: foundations now account for 20 percent of all development assistance for health, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) became the World Health Organization's second largest donor behind the United States government. This dissertation examines the core question: Under what conditions do private foundations influence policies and institutions governing health crises at the global and state levels? I argue private foundations influence global policy outcomes primarily through strategic engagement in public-private partnerships (PPPs)-through which they gain voting power typically reserved for states in global governance-alongside institutional embeddedness achieved through repeated interactions with other global health actors. This runs counter to prior findings suggesting donation amount and policy windows created by crises may facilitate foundation policy influence. Findings furthermore suggest private foundations may circumvent regulations against lobbying domestic or foreign governments via PPP engagement, to influence domestic policy outcomes in low-and-middle-income countries. While a body of global health research examines similar issues, foundations as non-state actors in global governance are largely under-theorized in international relations (IR). This project seeks to bridge global health scholarship with IR theory, integrating both philanthropy as an actor and global health as an issue area with broader IR theoretical approaches. The first article presents a novel data set to analyze trends and mechanisms by which foundations engage in global outbreak response between 2002 and 2019. The second draws on these data, utilizing a mixed-method approach to argue foundation policy influence occurs primarily through PPP engagement and repeated interactions with other governance actors. Building on these findings and engaging with a case study from the COVID-19 response, the third article presents a theory of large private foundation engagement in global health governance, to be tested in future research both in the context of other issue areas, using new data from the COVID-19 pandemic.--Author's abstract

Private actors and their interplay with public actors in global governance have become a prominent focus of global governance institutions and research alike. The last decade has witnessed a remarkable growth in the number of private actors in global governance and an increase in public-private partnerships, multi-stakeholder initiatives, informal coalitions between states, NGOs and business partners, and the emergence of private self-regulatory mechanisms. With their problem-solving capacities stretched thin in the wake of globalization and denationalization, states and international organizations began to reach out to the private sector and its resources. Private actors have been brought in to set and locally implement international regulations and have contributed to the provision of collective goods. Lately the private business sector has become a prominent partner of governments, international organizations and NGOs in areas such as environmental problems, labour and social standards, and human rights more broadly. The sheer growth in the number of private actors in global governance is astonishing; equally dramatic is their changed role within the governance initiatives. While their role was initially confined to functions such as agenda setting in the input phase or norm implementation and evaluation on the output side of global governance, it has since expanded to include core decision-making, taking part in all phases of the policy-making process.

The global governance mechanism, which originated in the United States (US) dominated hegemonic system, has been facing multiple global challenges since the comparative decline of US strength, the rise of emerging countries, and the outbreak of the global financial crisis. In the coming five to ten years, there will be an unprecedented strong demand for global governance reforms in countries across the world. Despite the dilemma that the world's second largest power has often encountered in the power games of international politics, China is still enjoying an important period of strategic opportunities for full participation in global governance. This chapter breaks down the international rules that pertain to China into three categories: the system and rules of current global governance; the system and rules of global governance that are facing or may face major reforms; the new system and rules of global governance that will be of systematic significance. Keywords: China; global financial crisis; global governance mechanism; hegemonic system; international politics; United States (US)