Intergovernmental Actors Research Articles

New intergovernmentalism: European council and environmental policy

ABSTRACT The article tests the theory of the new intergovernmentalism on environmental policy of the EU with the main objective of applying the alternative approach to European integration beyond its traditional policy focus. The research question is whether the quantity and quality of the engagement of the European Council (EUCO) in environmental policy has increased in the post-Maastricht period examining the EUCO Conclusions from 1993 to 2023 through the qualitative theme content analysis combining deductive and inductive coding and the holistic grading method. The findings did not confirm that the EUCO is a pivotal actor in the further integration of environmental policy. It rather seems that the analyzed policy is driven altogether by supranational and intergovernmental actors. It thus indicates a relatively broad consensus among EU bodies for an ambitious environmental policy. The findings, therefore, challenge the core assumptions of the NI theory.

The role of European (transnational) business actors in the emergence of a boundary spanning policy regime in European education and employment

ABSTRACT Although research on European education policy has aptly focused on the role of supranational and intergovernmental actors, less attention has been devoted to its analysis as a policy arena in which legitimacy can be created and power can be exerted in sophisticated ways. Specifically, the role of non-state actors as agenda-setters for European education and employment policies is still unexplored. By combining a neo-Gramscian approach of political economy with Jochim and May’s boundary spanning policy regimes’ perspective, which captures activity across policy subsystems that seek to manage ‘wicked’ policy problems, this paper looks at the role of private and business actors, and specifically the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), in European education during the 1980s and 1990s. The findings show how this period can be considered a foundational period for the emergence of a BSPR in education and employment, and in which specific goals and directions were set out in the European education agenda more fine-tuned with employment goals and industry’s needs. Moreover, the paper illustrates why private and non-state actors shape boundary policy spanning regimes at the nexus of education and employment, which in this case reflected the economic interests and preferences of European transnational companies.

Naming and shaming as a strategy for enforcing the Paris Agreement: The role of political institutions and public concern

Enforcement is a challenge for effective international cooperation. In human rights and environmental law, along with many other domains of international cooperation, "naming and shaming" is often used as an enforcement mechanism in the absence of stronger alternatives. Naming and shaming hinges on the ability to identify countries whose efforts are inadequate and effectively shame them toward better behavior. Research on this approach has struggled to identify factors that explain when it influences state behavior in ways that lead to more cooperation. Via survey of a large (N = 910) novel sample of experienced diplomats involved in the design of the Paris Agreement, we find support for the proposition that naming and shaming is most accepted and effective in influencing the behavior of countries that have high-quality political institutions, strong internal concern about climate change, and ambitious and credible international climate commitments. Naming and shaming appears less effective in other countries, so further enforcement mechanisms will be needed for truly global cooperation. We also find that the climate diplomacy experts favor a process of naming and shaming that relies on official intergovernmental actors, in contrast with studies suggesting that NGOs, media, and other private actors are more effective at naming and shaming. We suggest that these tensions-the inability for naming and shaming to work effectively within the countries least motivated for climate action and the preference for namers and shamers that seem least likely to be effective-will become central policy debates around making cooperation on climate change more enforceable.

Toward a Super-COP? Timing, Temporality, and Rethinking World Climate Governance

Toward a Super-COP? Timing, Temporality, and Rethinking World Climate Governance

Governing Open Ocean and Fish Carbon: Perspectives and Opportunities

Marine life plays a vital role in the ocean’s biological pump by sequestering and mediating fluxes of carbon to the deep sea and sea floor. The roles that fish and other marine vertebrates play in the biological pump are increasingly attracting scientific and policy attention. In this paper, we investigated the interest in and possibilities for the international governance of open ocean and fish carbon ecosystem services. We used semi-structured interviews with representatives from environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs), policy makers, and policy experts, along with an exploratory review of grey and peer-reviewed literature to: 1) trace the pathway of important milestones, key actors, and their strategies to influence governance of ocean carbon, and, 2) investigate which frameworks might be used to govern open ocean and fish carbon. Strategies of key actors to direct attention to open ocean and fish carbon included collaborating with scientists, organising side events at climate and biodiversity negotiations and seminars to engage policy makers, as well as educational campaigns directed to the public and policy makers about the co-benefits of open ocean and fish carbon. While we found a strong focus of ENGO activities related to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, we also found strong opposition against active governance of open ocean and fish carbon by key Intergovernmental actors in this forum. Opposition stems from a lack of scientific information on how long open ocean and fish carbon is stored, difficulties in attributing carbon flows with individual countries mitigation actions, and fewer perceived co-benefits (e.g. coastal protection in the case of coastal blue carbon) for coastal communities. More viable routes for the future governance of open ocean and fish carbon may lie in international fisheries management and in current negotiations of a treaty for biodiversity conservation in the high seas.

Unpacking the Role of Metrics in Global Vaccination Governance

AbstractRecent efforts by intergovernmental actors, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), to foster collaboration on vaccine-preventable diseases stand in stark contrast to the contextually contingent nature of national immunization programs: vaccination schedules and delivery differ greatly, and so do the ways in which these programs are assessed by means of coverage rates—a key metric in global health governance. These divergences, we show, are sidelined and resolved diplomatically in WHO assessment practices: here, seemingly standardized metrics and practices of datafication function to translate political differences into technical discussions about “data quality.” Using a practice-based approach, we conceptualize data practices as a form of health diplomacy and their infrastructures as constitutive of global health governance. Drawing on document analysis and interviews, we examine the WHO’s practices of producing coverage rates provided by member states. We argue that these metrics are performative inasmuch as they help frame vaccination as a global concern and mediate between global norms and local practices. We show how datafication is both an effect of, and a means for, health diplomacy and helps sustain the authority of the WHO. Our research further demonstrates the need to attend to practices of datafication and their political implications.

Voice in an asymmetric federation? The U.S. territories as intergovernmental actors

ABSTRACT United States territories—home to more than 3.5 million Americans—are excluded from the safeguards of American federalism. Unlike states, they are subject to the plenary power of the U.S. Congress, lack core legal protections, and are denied meaningful political representation. As such, territories must find alternative approaches to exercising political voice in the American federal system. Yet territorial-federal relations have received virtually no empirical attention from federalism scholars. To address this gap, we examine territories’ efforts to advance their interests within both bottom-up and top-down intergovernmental councils, as well as through territory-specific advocacy. Our analysis of organizational participation, agendas, and policy outcomes suggests that territories—while denied access to traditional mechanisms of shared rule—do participate in intergovernmental relations, through a combination of bottom-up and top-down multilateral intergovernmental councils (IGCs), as well as bilateral intergovernmental lobbying. Challenges to exercising political voice vary across these institutions.

Mayors’ attention to metropolitan policy: exploring communication and engagement patterns in Rockford, Illinois

ABSTRACT Mayors are important intergovernmental actors. Understanding how they conceptualize their roles in intergovernmental relations can help us better understand metropolitan governance. Network institutionalism and institutional role theory frame this investigation of how mayors discuss their metropolitan policy engagement in the Rockford, Illinois, USA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Through an exploratory case study of this mid-sized American metropolitan region, including in-depth interviews, social network analysis, and review of media coverage, embeddedness in metropolitan-wide policy dialogue is contrasted with clique-based interactions that advance policy goals for smaller groups of local governments in the region. Differentiating how mayors participate in metropolitan intergovernmental relations aids in a refined theoretical understanding of polycentric metropolitan governance while also highlighting practical challenges for political leaders in metropolitan collective action.

Between capacity development and contestation: a systematic review of the involvement of inter- and non-governmental actors in inclusive education

ABSTRACT The adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has brought about extensive education policy reforms towards inclusive education in many countries around the world. At the same time, it has been observed that intergovernmental organisations and non-state actors have been extensively involved in establishing these reforms. To better understand the roles of these actors in this field, we conducted a systematic literature review combined with network visualisation techniques. Specifically, we applied the policy cycle framework to analyse peer-reviewed articles published between 2006 and 2020 on the implementation of inclusive education and the roles of intergovernmental and non-state actors therein. The systematisation of findings from the studies included in our review indicates that inter- and non-governmental organisations are the dominant actor groups, which become involved through the provision of capacity development support and implementation in practice. At the same time, researchers and experts are becoming increasingly involved at different stages of the policy cycle, from policy formulation, to capacity development, to implementation in practice. Overall, our results provide a comprehensive picture of intergovernmental and non-state actor involvement in inclusive education and can contribute to a better understanding of implementation processes in the field of inclusive education.

From Humanitarian Rescue to Border Security: Managing Migration in the Central Mediterranean

Abstract While images of boats in distress, overflowing with migrants in the Central Mediterranean, flash on television screens and front pages of Italian and European newspapers, search and rescue (SAR) missions continue to draw attention. This article takes a look at migratory flows across the Central Mediterranean from 2012 to 2018 and focuses on the response of governmental, inter-governmental, and non-governmental actors rescuing lives at sea. Using aggregate data on migrants’ sea arrivals and deaths as well as official documents from the UNHRC, the European Union, Italy’s Ministry of Interior, and NGOs, this study investigates 1) how different actors have responded to migratory flows across the Central Mediterranean, and 2) how actors’ narratives and response have impacted the situation at sea. The study finds that, although all three actors act on the humanitarian principle ‘to save lives,’ their narratives and response diverge as the intensity of sea arrivals persists.

Governance networks shaping the G20 through inclusivity practices

ABSTRACT This article analyses how global governance networks contest, influence, and shape the Group of Twenty (G20) forum through the latter’s growing inclusivity practices, with important effects on global economic governance norms and practices. These transnational networks include public, intergovernmental, private, and civil society actors that interact through professional ‘ecologies.’ Some network actors participate in the G20’s official engagement forums, others contribute to G20 policy formulation and implementation in other ways, including member-state representatives and officials from international institutions. The research includes evidence from participant observation, semi-structured interviews, public statements, and document analysis, deploying analytical tools from social constructivism, discourse analysis, and the sociology of professions. It examines G20 policy-shaping capacities of global governance networks, especially on macroprudential financial regulation, sustainable economic growth, and sustainable development. The research finds that governance networks have contributed significantly to decentralising global governance authority by diversifying its actors since the 2008 financial crisis.

INTERNATIONAL FEATURES AND NATIONAL PECULIARITIES OF THE HUMAN CAPITAL FORMATION OF THE WORLD ECONOMY

Topicality. Subjective educational, professional, moral and psychological properties of a person which were important at all times, nowadays receive special significance in the context of the formation of a global knowledge economy,. It now becomes an axiom that a person, his knowledge and skills, his ability to creativity is the main productive resource and the main value of society. Valuable measure gets an economic importance in the sense that, in the case of its deformation, all society's efforts, expenditures of government and intergovernmental institutions, households and other actors in sufficient (or high) cost of human capital achievement will fail in forming the main value and the main productive resource of society. Aim and tasks. The purpose of the article is to study the functional role, international features of the formation of human capital and their manifestations in the national economy. Research results. The most developed countries are those which have a high level of human capital development. The functional role of human capital in world development is realized through qualitative improvement of the human potential of the country, the formation of the abilities and needs of its population, plus the characteristics of the contribution of these non-market investments to economic growth, efficiency and competitiveness. Human capital, like all kinds of capital, is not objectively predetermined, it is the result of the joint efforts of the man himself, his family, enterprise, and state. For a person, these efforts are associated with labor costs, time and financial resources, for enterprises and the state - mainly with the financial costs associated with economic and social development. The financial cost of a qualitative improvement of the workforce, which means its transformation into human capital, takes the form of investment � all kinds of investments into a person, that can be valued in cash or another form and are purposeful, that contribute to the growth of labor productivity and increase income level. Investments in human capital in comparison with investments in other types of capital are distinguished by a number of peculiarities that influence the decision making of the subject in relation to the choice between current consumption or savings for the purpose of further investment and accumulation of human capital. Each of the subjects, investing in individual human capital, pursues its own goals and sees in his own way the future benefits of its accumulation. The dynamics, structure and volume of these investments shows that they differ significantly in the industrialized countries and in Ukraine. The volumes of investments into different components of human capital in Ukraine are lower than in Western countries, the USA, and Japan. As a result, in the last decades there has been a deformed structure of investment in a person, which complicates its quantitative and qualitative reproduction. Conclusion. International tendencies of human capital development are manifested in the following: the formation of a human-centric concept and the humanization of world development; growth of the role of financial markets in investing in human capital; a large proportion of human capital in the national wealth of highly developed countries; high and stable expenditures on human capital development at all levels of the economy; rapid response of the educational sphere to structural changes in the economy; the transformation of knowledge into the most extensive sphere of investment. In the system of reproduction of human capital in modern Ukraine has accumulated a number of acute problems of socio-economic and moral-ideological nature, which, due to the unfavourable development of events, could lead not only to the progress of the economic system, but also to its destruction.

Rethinking EU Governance: From ‘Old’ to ‘New’ Approaches to Who Steers Integration*

AbstractEU scholars have long been divided on the main drivers of European integration. The original approaches were at odds on whether EU level intergovernmental actors or supranational actors were better able to exercise coercive or institutional power to pursue their interests, with Andrew Moravcsik's liberal intergovernmentalism serving as a baseline for one side of those debates. Newer approaches are similarly divided, but see power in terms of ideational innovation and consensus‐focused deliberation. The one thing old and new approaches have in common is that they ignore the parliamentarists, new and old. What all sides to the debates have failed to recognize is the reality of a ‘new’ EU governance of more politically charged dynamics among all three main EU actors exercising different kinds of power. This has roots not only in the national level's increasing ‘politics against policy’ and its bottom up effects on the EU level. It also stems from EU institutional interactions at the top, and its ‘policy with politics’.

A dynamic perspective on how public actors shape transnational private regulatory regimes

This paper addresses recent calls to research interactions concerning private and public forms of governance in the transnational sphere. To date, the involvement of government has either not been considered, been promoted as a solution to the regulation proliferation problem or been conceptualized in the singular – one government interacting with numerous non-state actors. We extend these perspectives by studying the dynamics of a transnational regulatory field involving numerous government and intergovernmental actors. By means of 34 interviews and 474 archival sources covering a twenty-five year period, we examine public involvement in the development and evolution of private regulatory coalitions addressing sweatshop issues in global supply chains. Our findings disaggregate “government” from a temporal perspective, revealing the organizational and political dynamics that underpin transnational private regulation. We propose a process model of field-level change that takes into account the involvement of public actors over time, and draws attention to the inherent tensions between social policy (labor issues) and trade policy (harmonization of PRIs). These findings also contribute to practice and policy. We discuss the circumstances when the involvement of multiple governments lead to problematic and counterproductive outcomes at the field level and undermines the reasons for government creation of multi-stakeholder roundtables.

Transnational REDD+Rule Making: The Regulatory Landscape for REDD+ Implementation in Latin America

AbstractREDD+ – an incentive mechanism to reduce deforestation and associated greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries – was developed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and subsequently included in the Paris Agreement. Its early implementation activities have highlighted the role of certain intergovernmental actors: REDD+financing initiatives, including the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and Forest Investment Programme, and UN-REDD, a collaborative programme involving three agencies of the United Nations. By setting conditions for the provision of support for REDD+, these initiatives have actively and influentially engaged in REDD+rule making. This article focuses on the regulatory landscape for REDD+and examines rules developed under the UNFCCC and elaborated by the REDD+financing initiatives, using examples from the Latin American region. The analysis shows that informal lawmaking plays a more relevant role in REDD+rule making than international formal law, and has demonstrated legal and practical effects. However, informality can also tilt power relations between donor and recipient countries, which could jeopardize the legitimacy of transnational rule making.

Multilateral Collaboration in Canadian Intergovernmental Relations: The Role of Procedural and Reciprocal Norms

This article investigates the conditions that facilitate multilateral collaboration in Canadian intergovernmental relations (IGR). It argues that durable patterns of multilateral collaboration require particular procedural and reciprocal norms. These norms develop through structured and repeated interactions among intergovernmental actors as they learn over time how to share jurisdictional responsibility for a policy field to their mutual advantage. We trace the development of procedural and reciprocal norms of multilateral collaboration in three policy fields (agriculture, immigration, and labor markets), and the role these norms played in constraining unilateral government action in recent IGR. We find that procedural and reciprocal norms of multilateral collaboration are associated with intergovernmental agreements that combine an overarching multilateral framework to pursue common/pan-state priorities with supplementary bilateral agreements to accommodate more specific goals of different provincial governments.

The Global Governance of Trafficking in Persons: Toward a Transnational Regime Complex

ABSTRACTTwenty years ago, international cooperation against trafficking in persons was close to nonexistent. This changed suddenly and irreversibly in 2000, with the signing of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons (TIP), especially Women and Children. Since then, regional and bilateral cooperation initiatives on TIP have proliferated. In addition to these interstate agreements, recent years have witnessed the emergence and spread of novel forms of soft or voluntary rule making, developed by intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and private actors. As a result, the governance of TIP has evolved from a state-centric regime to a transnational regime complex, in which public and private actors share responsibilities over various global governance tasks, including information sharing, standard setting, and monitoring and evaluation. In seeking to map out and shed light on the different components of this transnational regime complex, the article proposes a typology of transnational governance initiatives and illustrates its usefulness with an original dataset of 58 private, and public–private schemes involved in various aspects of the governance of TIP. The article then considers the implications of this increasing institutional complexity for international efforts to stop human trafficking. I argue that despite these remarkable institutional transformations and the growing role of private actors, the implementation of TIP rules and norms remains uneven and driven by state interests. Notwithstanding the increasing participation of nonstate actors and IGOs in the governance of TIP, states’ security concerns and their reluctance to cooperate on migration issues continue to drive anti-trafficking policies worldwide.

Value Chain Governance and Governmentality of Horticultural Exporters by Developing Economies: A perspective of Kenya’s Fresh Fruits and Vegetable Export Sector

The domain of governance has largely been extolled by Nations, States or governmental and intergovernmental actors especially in upholding Nations’ sovereignty and values. While this still holds, governance complexity has been reinforced by establishment of global value chains such as in food and agriculture commodities increasingly being influenced and controlled by non-state actors in different parts of the world by both corporate and retail actors through private governance mechanisms. These mechanisms often fall short of universal standards and the resultant effect is ramified through proliferation of standards that result to state of governance that is constantly being redefined as ‘codes of colours’. This paper thus seeks for an alternate dimension based on Foucault’s governmentality theory. The quest for this overarching theory is based on its mediatory role that regulates the excesses of private interests in regulations while not prioritizing any state’s sovereignty but views governance inclusively to both the State and non-state actors; this view promotes the broader understating of global value chains in the global economy of the 21st century. The paper’s methodology is based on literature review pertinent to governance theory, value chain governance, governmentality as its key variables in light of the agrifood sector. It applies the value chain discourse and governmentatity in light of the Kenya’s Horticultural export and strategic positioning to the EU market. This paper’s novelty in light of the discourse and building on the body of knowledge and for the plausible ways and means to re-articulate value chain governance in the global economy while creating a viable alternative between the States, and Non-State actors for the benefit of both the upstream agents and downstream customers.

Policy properties and political influence in post-delegation: the case of EU agencies

The literature on EU agencies has examined the issue of political control and independence in EU agency design and in post-delegation. However, studies measuring and providing accounts for the political influence that the Commission, the member states and the European Parliament exert in decision-making across a wide sample of EU agencies are missing in the specialized literature. This article addresses this topic and poses the following questions: How influential is each of the main parent institutional actors on agency boards' decision-making? Do agency powers and policy properties affect political influence? Based on an online survey, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, this article combines a quantitative and a qualitative study identifying differentiated patterns of political influence by supranational and intergovernmental actors. Regulatory functions and saliency decrease the leverage of the Commission and the European Parliament, whereas complexity decreases the influence of the member states. Moreover, highly centralized and far-reaching regulatory activity affects institutional balances in post-delegation.Points for practitionersThe article is of interest to practitioners concerned with the issue of political control and the independence of EU specialized agencies. The article identifies certain conditions under which political influence by the main parent institutional actors on the boards of EU agencies is diminished. More specifically, the Commission and the European Parliament are less influential on the boards of salient and regulatory agencies, whereas the member states have reduced leverage on the boards of agencies undertaking highly complex activities. Agency policy properties affect the political influence of institutional actors unevenly depending on whether it is exercised by supranational or intergovernmental actors.

Alevi Cultural Heritage in Turkey and Germany: Negotiating “Useable Pasts” in Transnational Space

The accelerating references to Cultural Heritage in politics and scholarship have impacted on ‘vernacular’ or migrant communities’ aspirations for the recognition of their distinct identities and have likewise influenced nation-states’ policies on cultural diversity. Thus Alevi communities in Turkey and Germany have used the institutions and language provided by intergovernmental actors to claim recognition of their Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2010, the Alevi-Bektasi ritual dance, semah, was inscribed onto Turkey’s National Inventory for Intangible Cultural Heritage. However, Alevis in Germany, also drawing on the semah as their “useable past”, recently initiated their own heritage project. This paper analyses the various functions and uses of heritage discourse in the context of its exercise by both state and non-state actors in Germany and Turkey. It will be argued that a critical investigation must question the empowering and disciplining aspects of the governmentalities of Cultural Heritage because, as demonstrated by the Turkish case, recognition of (Alevi) heritage does not necessarily translate into legal recognition.