Non-state Participation Research Articles

Людський капітал у повоєнному відновленні енергетичної галузі

Restoring the energy infrastructure damaged due to military aggression requires consistent political leadership, effective planning, financial resources, and human capital. The purpose of the article is to analyze the current state of human capital formation and justify the directions of its increase. The issue of human capital formation is presented in the article through the prism of the need for the post-war recovery of Ukraine's energy industry on an innovative basis. Within the framework of the economic mechanism of human capital formation for the needs of the energy transition, a critical component is the system of education and science. The authors assessed the "Human capital and research" factor for post-war recovery based on an input-output analysis of the components of the Global Innovation Index for Ukraine. The study showed a decrease in the contribution of the "Human capital and research" factor to the development of the innovative sphere of Ukraine during 2021-2023. The decomposition of the "Human capital and research" factor allowed us to conclude its further weakening by the following components: the total volume of education funding in % of GDP; the average performance of students according to the PISA assessment; coverage of the population by higher education; expenditure on research and development in % of GDP; the success of Ukrainian universities, measured regarding the success of the top 3 universities in the world according to the version of the QS World University Rankings. Based on the results of the analysis, steps aimed at strengthening individual components of human capital are proposed: diversification of non-state participation in both financing and provision of education, in particular through state stimulation of training at the workplace; support of employment with intensive use of knowledge; determination of priority areas of specialist training. State instruments for the implementation of these steps are: the provision of direct budget support in the form of grants and innovative transfers; the provision of state guarantees for enterprise loans obtained for the implementation of innovation and investment projects; the provision of state support for the export of carbon-free energy products; reduction of the corporate income tax base by the volume of innovation costs and personnel training costs.

Non-State Participation in International Organizations 1998–2017: Introducing a New Dataset

Abstract In recent decades, one of the most prominent trends in global governance has been the increasing openness of international organizations (IOs) toward non-state actors (NSAs). As participants in the policymaking bodies of IOs, NSAs have become important actors in global governance, providing policy-relevant information to decision makers, representing constituency interests, and ultimately, influencing policies. Yet to date, we have little systematic comparative knowledge about the NSAs that participate in IO bodies. This article introduces the Non-State Participation in International Organizations (N-PINION) dataset, which maps NSA participant populations across eighty one policymaking bodies in twenty four global IOs between 1998 and 2017. The dataset provides indicators on the density, diversity, and volatility of NSA populations, available yearly across IO bodies. These indicators provide potential dependent and independent variables for scholars interested in a wide variety of research questions relating to the drivers, consequences, and normative merits of NSA participation in IOs.

Judicial Reasoning and Non-State Participation before Inter-State Courts and Tribunals

Abstract The present article explores the premise that the participation of non-State actors may in some instances be necessary to the conduct of contentious or advisory proceedings before inter-State courts and tribunals. It first considers whether such necessity may be directly asserted as a legal requirement, in the absence of lex specialis treaty mechanisms or party consent. The article thus considers the potential to apply general principles of law, customary international law, and doctrinal concepts to this question. Unsatisfied with reliance on the stated legal considerations of international courts and tribunals, however, it turns to assess the root causes of such necessity, beneath pronouncements of legal sources and doctrine. The authors identify these as practicality – which speaks to what a court or tribunal must do to fulfil its mandate today – and legitimacy, which speaks to what it should do to ensure that its mandate is respected tomorrow.

Cultures of Responsibility : The Globalization of Corporate Social Responsibility

This paper explores the global CSR culture, including its global character, institutional rules and mechanisms, non-state participation, and voluntary nature. CSR is an inclusive term, meant to encompass multiple conceptions such as corporate citizenship and sustainability, and also cover an array of human rights, labor, environmental, and employee concerns. There are several observable cultures of responsibility but possibly the most prominent is the global nature of CSR ideas and practices. Current cultural conceptions of CSR thus acknowledge that business operations increasingly span national boundaries and that nation-bound policies may not be adequate to address social and environmental concerns as they emerge from business activities in cross-national context. A core cultural feature of CSR is the increasing rationalization of CSR issues, seen in the rise of CSR rules and mechanisms that explicitly delineate the principles by which businesses should conduct their CSR affairs. The culture of CSR has also largely incorporated a significant non-state component, both in the form of nongovernmental participation but also proactive involvement from businesses themselves. The cultural dimension of CSR is its voluntary nature, focusing on soft rather than hard forms of regulation. The global CSR culture is also marked by several distinctive contentions: private actor dominance, the problem of enforcement, CSR differences between small businesses and transnational corporations, and a governance divide between developed and developing countries. The consolidation of a global CSR culture, with its observable characteristics and areas of contention suggest several promising avenues of research for scholars interested in the cultural and institutional dimensions of corporate responsibility.

Looking at the World Bank’s safeguard reform through the lens of deliberative democracy

AbstractThe sheer amount of non-state participation in the creation of the World Bank Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) is surely noteworthy. The aim of the Bank’s consultation was to get ‘global’ input and feedback, and with over 8,000 stakeholders from over 63 countries taking part, it is laudable. The extent of the participation challenges the positivist approach to international law-making, which views only states as having the power to make law and raises questions about how to legitimize such international soft-law making. Legitimacy is entangled with democracy, as scholars debate whether democracy is the required benchmark for decision-making processes at international organizations. This article uses deliberative democracy to analyse the ESF consultation process. Whilst, democratic legitimacy has been interpreted to mean inclusivity and participation, deliberative democracy raises a series of hard questions about equality and power that scholarship on global governance needs to grapple with. Although this participatory process at the World Bank challenges traditional narratives in international law, analysing it through a lens of deliberative democracy exposes the work that still needs to be done to discuss democracy in international decision-making.

The Possibilities and Legitimacy of Non-State Participation in the Formation of Customary Law

Non-state actors can contribute to shaping customary law indirectly, through inspiration and pressure, or formally when so empowered by States. Decisions on granting non-state actors customary law-making capacities must be critically decided on a case-by-case basis, in light of the legal interests at stake, risks of making regulation subservient to their interests, and legitimacy and effectiveness considerations. Since non-state involvement in the formation or change of customary law is not limited to direct law-making capacities, different strategies can be used to both receive their input and promote their acceptance of and respect of customary law. Internal and international democratization of State decisions and collective law-making are essential if the (currently) mostly-State-centric system of custom determination is to be fair. This demands a duty to examine non-state proposals in good faith.

The negotiation burden of institutional interactions: non-state organizations and the international negotiations on forests

The participation of non-state actors in international politics has been investigated since the creation of international institutions. Yet, the rules, principles and norms of global governance are no longer discussed in single isolated institutions. Rather, with the proliferation of international regimes and organizations, international issues are now negotiated in a context of institutional interactions known as ‘regime complexes’. This poses new questions, in particular on the negotiation burden that these new processes place on international actors. To answer this question, this contribution compares non-state participation in both contexts (single regimes and regime complexes), using the international forest negotiations as a case study. It uses quantitative methods to measure the negotiation burden of single regimes and compare it with the negotiation burden of regime complexes. The negotiation burden of single regimes is found to be insignificant, political interest being the major motivation for participation, while the negotiation burden of regime complexes is found to be real, demanding a certain type of material and organizational resources in order for non-state actors to participate. Yet a certain diversity of non-state representation is maintained within regime complexes, non-governmental organizations being dominant with respect to business groups.

Between Functionality and Legitimacy: German Diplomatic Talk About the Opening of Intergovernmental Organizations

Who should be allowed to participate in intergovernmental organizations? There is a growing debate about the increasing opening of IGOs for nonstate actors. Explanations of this phenomenon either highlight the functional benefits of opening, or the need of opening to maintain or increase organizational legitimacy. This article analyzes how German diplomatic talk frames nonstate participation and refers to functionality or legitimacy when justifying the opening of IGOs. The perspective of diplomats, the main gatekeepers of change in IGOs, has rarely been considered for analysis. This article argues that German diplomatic discourse about opening is mainly functional. There is only limited reference to nonstate participation as an element of IGO legitimacy. Further, there are elements in German diplomatic talk that challenge the legitimacy of nonstate actors.

How to Think About Cyber Conflicts Involving Non-state Actors

A great deal of attention has been paid in recent years to the legality of the actions of states and state agents in international and non-international cyber conflicts. Less attention has been paid to ethical considerations in these situations, and very little has been written regarding the ethics of the participation of non-state actors in such conflicts. In this article, I analyze different categories of non-state participation in cyber operations and undertake to show under what conditions such actions, though illegal, might be morally defensible.

Nonstate Security and Political Participation: Reinforcing Ruling Party Support in South Africa

This article explores the relationship between nonstate security and political participation in South Africa. Since Hobbes, political philosophers have argued that the provision of security is a chief state responsibility, one that legitimates the relationship between state and society, yet in reality, various nonstate actors provide security. Therefore, this article explores the political consequences of nonstate security provision. Using Afrobarometer data collected in South Africa in 2011, I examine whether nonstate provision shapes citizens’ decision to protest and vote. I find that individuals’ reliance on nonstate security does affect protesting and voting, albeit in different ways: South Africans who rely on nonstate security are more likely to protest and less likely to vote, but only when they see the state as legitimate.

Business insiders and environmental outsiders? Advocacy strategies in international climate change negotiations

While non-governmental organisations (NGOs) do not formally have a voice in intergovernmental negotiations, such as the climate change negotiations, they resort to a range of activities to make their voice heard, including direct contacts with government negotiators, side events, media contacts or demonstrations. These diverse activities are typically classified as belonging to either an inside strategy or an outside strategy, depending on whether they aim at influencing politics directly or whether they seek to exert influence from the outside, via the media and the general public. What explains variation in the use of these two advocacy strategies? The strategies of interest groups in domestic politics have been studied extensively; the activities of groups in multilateral negotiations have so far mainly been looked at in qualitative case studies. This article therefore applies insights and methods from the study of domestic interest groups to groups active in the global climate change negotiations. Three reasons for specialisation in an inside or an outside strategy are put forward. First, the goals of non-governmental participation – namely, to provide accountability and to improve the negotiation process – are potentially conflicting. Second, groups differ in the degree of access to policymakers; if they lack access, they are unable to engage in inside advocacy. Third, groups do not only seek to influence policy, for which inside advocacy is presumably more suitable; they are also interested in their survival as organisations, for which outside advocacy seems more appropriate. These explanations lead to expectations that different types of groups employ different advocacy strategies. In particular, environmental organisations are thought to engage in more outside advocacy, compared with business groups that should rely to a greater extent on inside advocacy. Yet, if we find advocacy differences across group types, we cannot be sure whether these are due to differences in access, or because different groups accord differing priorities to influencing policy and organisational survival. By further analysing the effect of group characteristics, specifically expertise and membership type, this article seeks to disentangle the motivations for opting for a given advocacy strategy. Empirically, the article uses novel data from a survey conducted among organisations active in international climate politics. Over 200 fully completed questionnaires were returned and provided information on the frequency with which organisations engage in a range of inside and outside advocacy activities. A statistical analysis of the data provides evidence for differences across group types. Business groups use more inside advocacy; environmental organisations tend towards an outside strategy. Over and above group type, however, the data also indicate that experience increases the use of inside advocacy: across all group types, the longer a group has been involved in climate change negotiations, the more it uses inside advocacy. In contrast, membership type has, according to the analysis, no effect on advocacy behaviour.The article contributes to the literature on interest group strategies by looking at strategies at the international level. By comparing the advocacy behaviour of different groups active in the climate change negotiations, it also helps understand the role and influence of these different groups in the negotiations. If we assume that advocacy activities differ in their effectiveness, it is important to take into account variation in the use of advocacy strategies. As the value of non-state participation in intergovernmental negotiations stems from the diversity of views and ideas that different stakeholders can bring to the process, we need to ask whether all views and ideas have the same chance of being heard. The findings here are hence relevant for debates on the legitimacy of the negotiations, as well as, more generally, on the role of civil society in environmental governance.

Friends or Foes? Nonstate Public Goods Providers and Local State Authorities in Nondemocratic and Transitional Systems

Ordinary citizens often welcome nonstate provision of public goods and social welfare, but government officials, particularly in nondemocratic and transitional systems, may view nonstate actors as political competitors. Drawing on a combination of qualitative and quantitative data from rural China, this paper finds that some kinds of nonstate participation in public goods and social welfare provision can actually make local officials more optimistic about their ability to implement state policies and elicit citizen compliance. Local officials often believe that coproduction of public goods and services with community groups in particular, often with community actors taking the lead, can build trust and social capital that can spill over into increased citizen compliance with state demands, a central element of state capacity. Simply increasing levels of public goods provision, however, is not associated positively with optimistic perceptions of local state authority and capacity. Moreover, other forms of nonstate participation such as coproduction between private businesses and local officials or substitutive provision by nonstate actors have less potential for building trust between officials and citizens and are not seen by officials as beneficial for increasing citizen compliance.

Democratizing Global Governance? Non-State Participation in the World Bank Inspection Panel and NAFTA

This article discusses the role non-state actors may play in the democratization of global governance. It is argued that the nature of international power in a globalizing world requires a redefinition of democracy that is more expansive than the traditional notion of electoral representative democracy. Within this context, non-state actors can play important roles in democratizing global governance because they can potentially represent a range of interests in ways that transcend national boundaries. Two case studies are considered: the World Bank Inspection Panel and non-state participation under NAFTA. These case studies demonstrate that while non-state participation can lead to more democratic governance, it can also lead to governance that is less democratic, particularly if corporate actors are allowed to dominate or if important stakeholders are excluded. While the participation of non-state actors in global governance is potentially problematic, the development and implementation of an appropriate policy framework could help to mitigate the potential risks of non-state actor involvement in international affairs. Framing the participation of non-states within the context of democracy is therefore important. Since democratic values are widely supported by powerful policy makers, understanding the participation of non-state actors within the context of democracy would lend support to government reforms to empower civil society actors in ways that could lead to more representative decision-making at the international level.