Participation In Global Governance Research Articles

Self-Determination Between the Challenges of Diversity and Liberal peace Dictates

Self-determination is a crucial concept in establishing the legitimacy of political communities in the international system, and thereby in constructing social identities and political loyalties. At the most general level, self-determination refers to an idea of a right to freedom. In international politics, it also refers to a norm on ways of bounding political communities. At the same time, what the self-determination precisely means is contested and contingent. I argue that self-determination envolves today amidst a tension between the challenges of diversity and liberal peace dictates. While diversity has to do with varieties of cultural expression, socioeconomic organization and political status, liberal peace dictates concern global governance practices that tend to impose previous liberal models of democracy, development and human rights. The essay first presents the evolution of the meaning of self-determination in international politics. Then it addresses critical approaches upon contemporary leberal peace. The remaining sections analyze how contemporary self-determination movements present claims highly suggestive to rethink forms of political community, of state-community relation, and of participation in global governance structures.Keywords: Self-determination, Liberal Peace, Diversity, Development.

Crowdsourcing global governance: sustainable development goals, civil society, and the pursuit of democratic legitimacy

To what extent can crowdsourcing help members of civil society overcome the democratic deficit in global environmental governance? In this paper, I evaluate the utility of crowdsourcing as a tool for participatory agenda-setting in the realm of post-2015 sustainable development policy. In particular, I analyze the descriptive representativeness (e.g., the degree to which participation mirrors the demographic attributes of non-state actors comprising global civil society) of participants in two United Nations orchestrated crowdsourcing processes—the MY World survey and e-discussions regarding environmental sustainability. I find that there exists a perceptible demographic imbalance among contributors to the MY World survey and considerable dissonance between the characteristics of participants in the e-discussions and those whose voices were included in the resulting summary report. The results suggest that although crowdsourcing may present an attractive technological approach to expand participation in global governance, ultimately the representativeness of that participation and the legitimacy of policy outputs depend on the manner in which contributions are solicited and filtered by international institutions.

Invisible Barricades: Civil Society and the Discourse of the WTO

Concerns about the legitimacy and accountability of international institutions have prompted a sizable literature on the potential of civil society to help democratize global economic governance. Attention has primarily focused on the institutional factors impacting civil society participation in global governance. In this article, however, I point to the existence of yet more fundamental barriers operating at the level of discourse. I use critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze the discourse of the World Trade Organization (WTO), focusing on a key text in which it attempts to engage directly with the concerns of civil society, supported by a broad range of additional data sources, including documentary materials, interviews, and observation. Drawing on the case of the WTO, I argue that the discourse of global governance institutions can itself act as an ‘invisible barricade’, preventing the meaningful inclusion of civil society in policy debates and deliberations.

China’s ascent in global governance and the Arctic

The paper explains the tendency of China’s Arctic policy by locating it in general patterns of China’s uneven rise in global governance across fields. Among the four major pathways of China’s enhanced participation in global governance, the Arctic case is best explained by the ‘push in’ pathway, where a significant increase of lobbying and engaging activities can be found. The paper highlights that the Arctic is an issue area where China will experiment with new tactics to exert influence on the reform of the existing multilateral institutions and to promote its own normative principles for global governance.

Deconstructing ‘Emerging Powers’ and ‘Emerging Markets’: India and the United States in Global Governance

Academic literature and the media offer a variety of monikers for emerging states like Brazil, India and China, most prominently, ‘emerging powers’ and ‘emerging markets’. This article argues the terms used to describe these states create assumptions about their behaviour in global governance (GG). In order to accurately assess the impact of emerging states on international institutions, it is necessary to more systematically examine their current participation in GG. Does the use of power and economic interests in GG negotiations distinguish emerging states from traditional powers, as the ‘emerging’ part of these terms suggests? And can the content of GG negotiations predict the dominance of each factor, as implied by the ‘power/market’ part? This article tackles these questions by comparing the behaviour of one emerging state (India) and one traditional power (the United States) in negotiations at the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations Security Council. The results demonstrate that, while there is clearly something distinctive about at least India’s participation in GG, focussing on power or economic interests alone is insufficient to explain that distinctiveness or its implications for relations between rising and traditional powers in GG.

Role Change of Developed Countries and Emerging Economic Entities in Global Governance

with rapid development of globalization, numerous global problems appear, and global governance thus emerges. For a long time, the elite club G8 Group which consists of developed countries monopolizes and leads global governance, while vast developing countries are at the edge of global governance stage. However, due to increasingly complex and severe global problems, defects of G8 mechanism, low execution efficiency and legality problem, governance ability of G8 declines continuously. As emerging economic entities rise, G20 gradually replaces G8 and becomes a main mode of global governance. The role that emerging economic entities play stands out increasingly. In addition, participation in global governance by emerging economic entities intensively reflects interests and appeals of developing countries. In the future, emerging economic entities will become important force in politic and economic fields in the world.

Crowdsourcing Sustainable Development Goals from Global Civil Society: A Content Analysis

For the past several decades, members of global civil society have begun to play an increasing role in global environmental governance. Expanding participation in global decision making processes to include actors beyond the nation-state is viewed as a corrective for the democratic deficit that some argue continues to undermine the legitimacy of international institutions. Yet, important questions remain regarding how civil society should be incorporated into global policymaking. One recently implemented approach involves crowdsourcing comments through web-based platforms like e-discussions and social media. However, the viability of this approach and its implications for global governance have not been adequately assessed. In this paper, I evaluate the potential efficacy of crowdsourcing as a means of increasing participation in global environmental governance through an analysis of data from the global MY World survey and a content analysis of UN-initiated e-discussions surrounding the inclusion of environmental sustainability in the post-2015 development agenda. I find that there exists a perceptible demographic imbalance among contributors to the MY World survey and considerable dissonance between the characteristics of participants in the e-discussions and those whose voices were included in the resulting summary report. This suggests that although crowdsourcing may be an attractive tool for widening participation in global governance, ultimately the democratic quality of that participation depends on the manner in which contributions are filtered by international institutions.

Janus-faced NGO Participation in Global Governance: Structural Constraints for NGO Influence

Increasingly, nongovernmental organizations participate in negotiations within international organizations as well as in global working groups and discussion forums. This trend is commonly said to enable the influence of the participating NGOs. Yet this article highlights the negative effects of the high level of NGO participation on the NGOs' influence. It shows, in the case of the UN World Summit on the Information Society, how the NGOs' influence is reduced to less relevant issues and how this influence turns out to be highly selective: while the views and demands of a few NGO actors are successful, more diverse views from the broader NGO community become neglected. This suggests greater caution regarding the usual claim that more is necessarily better with regard to NGO participation in global governance.

Participation and Subjectification in Global Governance: NGOs, Acceptable Subjectivities and the WTO

In this article, I examine the ways in which NGO participation in global governance both relies on and produces particular forms of NGO subjectivity. Focusing on NGO interaction with WTO policy-makers in relation to ongoing policy debates about trade, intellectual property law and the protection of ‘traditional knowledge’ and ‘biodiversity’, I explore the ways in which particular forms of subjectivity are elicited and rewarded from (would-be) NGO participants in dialogue, consultation and information-sharing with the WTO. I also consider the forms of NGO subjectivity that are treated as normal, credible and acceptable in this field of global governance, and those that are constructed as undesirable and unacceptable. In doing so, I illustrate some of the forms of inclusion and exclusion that underpin the contributions that NGOs make to policy-making on traditional knowledge and biodiversity in the WTO, disrupting and complicating ideas about the qualities that NGOs bring to global governance.

The change and continuity of China’s trade policy and its participation in global governance

The change and continuity of China’s trade policy and its participation in global governance

Dual Identity and Issue Localization: East Asia in Global Governance

This article examines the sources and consequences of East Asia's participation in global governance. Despite the rhetoric of global contribution, the article argues that global governance issues are reframed in East Asia to better suit domestic and regional priorities. Specifically, two underlying mechanisms are at work to complicate, and often render ineffective, East Asia's foray into global governance: (1) the conflicting identities of the three countries at the regional and global levels; and (2) the localization of global governance issues. By examining the global role of China, Japan, and South Korea in climate change, peacekeeping, and nuclear nonproliferation, the article shows how the shared desire of enhancing global status in East Asia is tempered by the politics of dual identity and issue localization.

Middle Range Powers in Global Governance

This article compares and evaluates the contributions of middle range powers to global governance initiatives. Examining participation in terms of personnel, financial and ideational contributions, we test several hypotheses derived from neorealism, critical theory, liberalism, constructivism, and post-internationalism against six cases: Canada, Japan, China, Russia, India and Brazil. We find that material power has a negative impact on contributions, while a country’s leadership’s attitude towards the international order, the length of its membership in major international organisations and the strength of its civil society all seem to have positive effects on its participation in global governance. Trade dependence, however, does not seem to exhibit the expected impact. The article indicates that multiple theoretical approaches may prove useful for evaluating the behaviour of middle range powers, and that further research should be conducted on the relative importance of each of the factors mentioned above in explaining middle range power contributions to global governance.

Civil society participation in global governance: Insights from climate politics

AbstractA rather unique feature of global climate negotiations is that most governments allow representatives of civil society organisations to be part of their national delegation. It remains unclear, however, why states grant such access in the first place. While there are likely to be benefits from formally including civil society, there are also substantial costs stemming from constraints on sovereignty. In light of this tradeoff, this article argues for a ‘contagion’ effect that explains this phenomenon besides domestic determinants. In particular, states, which are more central to the broader network of global governance, are more likely to be informed of and influenced by other states' actions and policies toward civil society. In turn, more central governments are likely to include civil society actors if other governments do so as well. This argument is tested with data on the participation of civil society organisations in national delegations to global climate negotiations between 1995 and 2005. To further uncover the underlying mechanisms, the article also provides an analysis of survey data collected at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Durban in 2011.

China's Participation in Global Governance from a Comparative Perspective

This article examines comparative data on countries' participation in global governance and explains China's relatively low involvement in global governance.

Renewal through Participation in Global Food Security Governance: Implementing the International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society Mechanism to the Committee on World Food Security

The food commodity price rises from 2006 to 2008 engendered a period of political renewal and reform in the governance of global food security. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) was designated as the main international forum dealing with food security and nutrition in 2009 as part of this reform. Through the CFS reform process, civil society organizations secured the right to co-ordinate autonomously their engagement in the Committee as official participants and are doing so through the International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society Mechanism (CSM). The CSM is an innovative institutional form designed to allow a broad range of civil society organizations from different regions of the world and from diverse constituencies, notably those who face food insecurity on a regular basis, to participate in global food security governance. The challenges and complexities of setting up and operationalizing the CSM are presented and illustrated. These findings are considered in the context of the longer-term move towards widening participation in global governance, with a particular focus on the trajectory of civil society participation in food security governance. The broad neo-liberal logic, or embedded neo-liberalism, that underpins contemporary world politics provides boundaries within which the innovative CSM is being given shape through the political agency of the participating civil society organizations. The study concludes by suggesting that while the Civil Society Mechanism faces some internal challenges, these are not insurmountable, and that the CSM represents an effective politicizing, engaging and connecting model for food-focused civil society organization entering into global governance.

China's Participation in Global Governance on Climate Mitigation: Study on the Influence of Epistemic Communities in the Policy-Making Process

As one of the leading GHG (greenhouse gas) emission countries, China is playing the most important role in the world climate mitigation issue. Since 1980s, China's climate change policy has been transformed deeply: from the symbolic participation to substantial cooperation, from the refusing to take any quantified emission cut to taking the carbon intensity reduction way, and to take the quantified emission cut in the near future. This paper argues that the Epistemic Communities, especially the Chinese experts among them, actually facilitate China's change in the climate change issue -- the change of policies and the attitude toward global governance in the climate mitigation. China has to make some change or take some responsibility facing high international press. To deal with that press, state decision makers would consult with the experts in that area. Those experts who participated in the decision making process are really influential. However, not all the professionals would be put into the consultation channel. China's transformation would be a kind of active adjustment and adaptation rather than a passive acceptance. 作为温室气体排放大国之一，中国在缓解全球气候变化事宜中扮演着最重要的角色。自二十世纪八十年代以来，中国的气候变化应对政策发生了深刻的变化：从象征性参与到 实质性合作，从拒绝承担任何量化减排指标到走上降低碳强度之路，并在不久的未来即 将实施量化减排。本文论证了知识共同体，尤其是知识共同体中的中国专家是促进中国 在气候变化问题上转变的关键因素——包括对缓解气候变化全球治理方面的态度转变 及政策转变。面对国际社会的巨大压力，中国必须做出改变或承担相应责任。为了应对 压力，国家政策制定者将向该领域专家进行咨询，因此参与决策制定过程的专家意见影 响深远。然而，并非所有专业人士意见都能获得采纳。中国在转型中将做出积极调整和 应对，而非被动接受。

Climate Change Negotiations and Civil Society Participation: Shifting and Contested Terrain

Based on ethnographic research in UN-based policy negotiations, I argue that civil society participation in global governance can best be thought through as it is played out in practice. Using examples from recent deliberations that have taken place under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, I explore the politics of participation through a couple of key issues that are currently being worked out between UN member states and civil society organizations. While civil society serves an important role of providing technical expertise to UN deliberations, it can also serve to push the boundaries of which issues are taken up in negotiations. Tactics used by members of civil society, however, are not always consistent with UN business as usual. This article explores these dynamics and points to the implications of current tensions for future participation of civil society in climate-related negotiations. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2011 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]

Comment on “International and Regional Cooperation: Asia's Role and Responsibilities”

Comment on “International and Regional Cooperation: Asia's Role and Responsibilities”

The European Union as a Security Policy Actor: The Case of Counterterrorism

This article examines the actorness of the European Union in the security policy field. Applying and adapting criteria developed by Bretherton and Vogler – namely criteria regarding structure, effect and international status – the European Union is described as a ‘collective actor’. Collective actorness is dissimilar to that of a classical international unit, i.e. the state, but implies that some coherence, cooperation and a certain amount of collective action can be expected. Also, of relevance for the measurement of actorness is the extent of participation in global governance and recognition in international law. After testing the EU on seven criteria, it can be discerned that a certain collective actorness is present, even if problems regarding a ‘common voice’ and the coherence of internal policies still exist.

Understanding Disenfranchisement: Civil Society and Developing Countries' Influence and Participation in Global Governance for Sustainable Development

This paper explores the ways in which civil society actors and developing countries are limited in their engagement in global governance for sustainable development. Beginning with the relevant literature about how these social actors face obstacles to full participation, we present the notion of what we call “disenfranchisement” to describe the condition of being marginalized within the global policy-making arena. We put forward a conceptual framework that outlines what we identify as the three dimensions of disenfranchisement. By dis-aggregating the notion of disenfranchisement into its constituent dimensions, we outline potential operationalizations of these dimensions. Through the dimensions, the framework explicitly describes the mechanics of disenfranchisement, outlining the reasons that these actors become disenfranchised. We conclude by presenting the ways in which this framework can be applied in future empirical research, which will be critical to understanding the challenges to meaningful inclusion of stakeholders in global governance for sustainable development.