The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance
March 31, 2004
Author: Thomas J. Beirsteker
Available: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=56416
Typically, when we think of governance, we think of governance by institutions of government — either by a single state or by some kind of inter-governmental institution or agency of states.
In recent years, however, private locations of authority have begun to influence and govern a growing number of issues. Authoritative private actors are not only important players in the international political economy, but they are increasingly beginning to play a critical role in the governance of other important spheres of social and political life. They are engaged in the establishment of international standards, the provision of social welfare, the enforcement of contracts, ad even in the maintenance of security.
In a recent book I edited with Rodney Hall (Oxford University), we identified three types of private authority: (a) market authority; (b) moral authority; and (c) illicit authority. Private market authority is provided by firms, private international regimes, networks, and transnational private arenas (composed of regulatory agencies and/or networks). In the case of moral authority, non-governmental organisations, transnational regimes, or religious transnationalists are examples of private actors that have assumed authoritative functions. In the realm of security, organised crime syndicates, private armies, and private security agencies are different illustrations of private locations of authority engaged in governance.
What are some of the implications of the emergence of private authority in the international system?
First, it has important implications for the changing role of the State. Second, it has implications for the institution of State sovereignty. And, third, it has implications for the prospects of accountability and global governance.
The emergence of private authority is illustrative of the changing role of the State — its diminished role — and the transformations, rather than the erosion of State sovereignty.
In some areas, like human rights, State managers increasingly share
authority with NGOs (like Amnesty of HRW), whose moral authority is sometimes
reinforced and contradicts that of states. In other areas, the authority
of private actors is translated into regulatory authority, as in the case
of transnational market actors, whose market authority is sometimes translated
into regulatory authority.
Within the realm of illicit (private) authority, actors such as mafias
and mercenaries capitalise on the failures of sovereign (public) authority
to fulfill certain basic functions or to provide fundamentally vital public
goods for the citizenry.
The emergence of private authority raises important questions about the limited degree (or virtual absence) of the accountability of public authority. As private actors begin to take on some of the functions of governments, this raises major issues for democratic and representative theories of governance. Private entities are not normatively entitled to act authoritatively for the public, because they are not subject to mechanisms of political accountability, but rather are only subject to the accountability of their private members.
The emergence of private authority has resulted in a rapid increase in the number of actors involved in global governance. While this creates greater complexity, it also creates the possibility of greater creativity in global governance.
Who Governs?
There are multiple, overlapping, and at times contradictory sources of global governance.
In recent years —as just described— there has been a significant proliferation of actors engaged in global governance (GG).
Just who governs in GG, however, depends very much on the issue area. In economic affairs, it is typically intergovernmental organisations, major private sector actors, or even the market itself. In military affairs, it tends to be the institutions of states that govern. In political affairs, it may be states, IGOs, and/or transnational networks of NGO actors.
GG does not typically emerge spontaneously or automatically. More often
than not it is the outgrowth of leadership provided by great powers.
In the past century, many of the core global institutions that have
emerged have been the product of US leadership: (The UN, the IMF and IBRD,
the NATO alliance).
Just what do I mean by leadership? Leadership is not just the simple outgrowth of power or hegemony. If it were, I would be talking of who rules, and not who governs.
Leadership in GG consists of three elements: (1) the creation of new
institutions; (2) a willingness to underwrite costs of their founding,
maintenance, an ongoing operation; and (3) a certain degree of ideological
vision and justification of that vision.
While the US provided a great deal of leadership immediately following
World War II, there is less evidence of genuine US leadership today. Some
may undoubtedly celebrate this development, but the absence of US leadership
(particularly in the post-Cold War world) has complicated the prospects
for global governance.
The US retreat from leadership in GG is not universal. There are important areas where the US has continued to provide leadership and the basis for GG: counter-terrorism activities, intelligence and financial monitoring capacities, efforts to strengthen the capacity of the institutions of states, more generally since 9/11. But the current US administration’s approach — away from unilateralism and toward the construction and manipulation of “coalitions of the willing” that vary in their membership from issue to issue — is not, in my view, evidence of the kind of leadership that facilitates global governance It is not magnanimous; it is much more narrowly based on immediate self-interest.
There are a number of problems associated with reliance on “coalitions of the willing” as an approach to GG.
*It weakens existing institutions of GG; nowhere is this more apparent than the bypassing of the UN on the Iraq war last year.
* Reliance on ad hoc coalitions raises fundamental questions about legitimacy
of actions in international relations, about the purposes of existing institutions,
and it increases uncertainty about the future. It makes it difficult for
existing institutions of GG to carry out their previous mandates, and because
the US in unwilling to underwrite the costs of creating new institutions,
it makes it difficult for existing ones to operate effectively.
Note: The writer is director of the Watson Institute for International
Studies and Henry R Luce Professor of Transnational Organisations at Brown
University. Excerpted from his lecture “Wither Global Governance” at CII,
New Delhi.