Abstract
The past few years have witnessed a growing interest among scholars and policy-makers in the interplay of international bureaucracies with civil society organizations, non-profit entities, and the private sector. Authors concerned with global environmental politics have made considerable progress in capturing this phenomenon. Nevertheless, we still lack in-depth empirical knowledge on the precise nature of such institutional interlinkages across governance levels and scales. Building upon the concept of orchestration, this article focuses on the relationship between specific types of international bureaucracies and actors other than the nation-state. In particular, we investigate how the secretariats of the three Rio Conventions reach out to non-state actors in order to exert influence on the outcome of international environmental negotiations. Our analysis demonstrates that the three intergovernmental treaty secretariats utilize various styles of orchestration in their relation to non-state actors and seek to push the global responses to the respective transboundary environmental problems forward. This article points to a recent trend towards a direct collaboration between these secretariats and non-state actors which gives rise to the idea that new alliances between these actors are emerging in global environmental governance.
Highlights
Over the past few years, it has become increasingly obvious that the resolution of pressing transboundary environmental problems constitutes a great challenge for the existing global governance framework (Biermann et al 2012; Hale et al 2013)
We focus on the institutional interactions between three intergovernmental treaty secretariats, namely the secretariats of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and non-state actors
While some initiatives in which the secretariats are involved and work together with non-state actors can be traced back to decisions taken by national delegations in intergovernmental negotiations, others have been created by institutions active within the broader periphery of the Rio Conventions, and still others have been co-facilitated with non-state partners or even launched by the secretariats themselves
Summary
Over the past few years, it has become increasingly obvious that the resolution of pressing transboundary environmental problems constitutes a great challenge for the existing global governance framework (Biermann et al 2012; Hale et al 2013). Structural changes in global environmental governance are urgently needed both within and outside United Nations (UN) institutions, including fully fledged international organizations, specialized bodies and programs, as well as secretariats of international environmental agreements In this regard, an important process currently underway is that the bureaucracies of international institutions have started to reach out to non-state actors in order to pursue distinct policy goals. Staff members of the secretariats work closely together with research institutes and business entities to create and sustain web portals with relevant data providing a public knowledge basis of the underlying environmental problems and available solutions In this regard, our analysis highlights the dynamic interplay between international bureaucracies and their non-state counterparts. We draw conclusions about the role and function of international bureaucracies in global (environmental) governance and highlight some avenues for further research
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