The cardoso report on the UN and civil society: Functionalism, global corporatism, or global democracy?

Global Governance

Volumn 12, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 305-324

  Willetts, Peter ^a  

^a CITY UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Cardoso Report; Functionalism; Global civil society; Legitimacy; Neocorporatism; Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); Participation; United Nations

Indexed keywords

EID: 33749239853     PISSN: 10752846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/19426720-01203006     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. For the current workings of the consultative arrangements, see T. G. Weiss and L. Gordenker, eds., NGOs, the UN and Global Governance (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996);
2. Peter Willetts, ed., The "Conscience of the World": The Influence of Non-governmental Organisations in the UN System (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution; London: Christopher Hurst, 1996);
3. and J. Foster, Whose World Is It Anyway? (Toronto: United Nations Association of Canada, 1999).
4. We the Peoples: Civil Society, the United Nations and Global Governance (New York: UN, 2004)
5. also available as UN Doc. A/58/817 (11 June 2004). The Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations-Civil Society Relations, which produced this report, was chaired by the former president of Brazil, Fernando Cardoso.
6. UN Doc. A/51/950 (14 July 1997), quote from par. 59; in addition, pars. 207-216 contain a section titled "Civil Society."
7. UN Doc. A/57/387 (9 September 2002), par. 34; actions 2-5, 6-10, 14-15, 19, 20, respectively.
8. UN Doc., Ibid., action 19.
9. UN Doc. A/58/817, Annex I (emphasis added).
10. UN Doc., Ibid.; the text and the bulleted text are direct quotations.
11. The paragraph summarizes the arguments in Section I, "Enhancing United Nations-Civil Society Relations in a Changing World," that underpin the Panel's proposals. The specific quotes are, respectively, from UN Doc. A/58/817, pars. 15, 18, 20, 24, and 33.
12. The main NGO responses came in August and September 2004, in an attempt to influence the Secretary-General's response. A wide selection can be found at www.globalpolicy.org/reform/initiatives/panels/cardoso.
13. Annan's response to the panel was issued as UN Doc. A/59/354 on 13 September 2004. Government responses were given in two General Assembly plenary meetings on 4 October 2004; see UN Docs. A/59/PV.18 and PV.19 and press releases GA10268-10270.
14. UN Doc. A/58/817, par. 53
15. cites the code, but not US opposition to it. For the full story of the code being passed, see A. Chetley, The Politics of Baby Foods: The International Campaign to Control the Marketing of Dried Milk by Transnational Companies (London: Frances Pinter, 1986).
16. The report, UN Doc. A/58/817, contains three slightly different lists of issues on which they consider global policy networks to have made a positive impact (Executive Summary, p. 9; pars. 19, 51). The quote is from par. 19. There is also a reference in par. 2 to "unilateralism and war," and par. 177 talks of "world powers lurching between unilateral and multilateral options."
17. The quotes are, respectively, from UN Doc. A/58/817, par. 24, and the Executive Summary, p. 7.
18. UN Doc. A/58/817; the quotes are from the Executive Summary, Proposal 3, and twice from par. 29. The idea in the first quote is also expressed in pars. 31 and 187. The report contains twenty-five endorsements of multilateralism.
19. UN Doc. A/58/817, par. 19.
20. UN Doc. A/59/354, par. 38.
21. In UN Doc. A/58/817, pars. 32-34, headed "Embrace Many Constituencies," there was a more pluralist approach, but the section ended with civil society still being treated as a single constituency. Only pars. 138 and 156 explicitly recognized diversity, while twenty-one references encompassed civil society as a single constituency. In contrast, A/59/354 referred to multiple NGO constituencies, in pars. 8, 13, and 36.
22. UN Doc. A/58/817, Proposal 9.
23. See nine documents, in August-October 2004, from major NGOs expressing varying levels of unease about engagement with the private sector, all available at www.globalpolicy.org.
24. In UN Doc. A/59/354, Proposals 4, 7-9, 17, and 21 were ignored. Also, renaming the Partnership Office, Proposal 24 on indigenous people, and merging Department of Public Information (DPI) accreditation with consultative status were rejected in note 4, par. 52 and par. 27, respectively.
25. UN Doc. A/58/817, Glossary (NGO entry).
26. UN Doc., Ibid., pars. 43, 53, 97, 98, and 172.
27. Quote from UN Doc. A/59/354, note 1.
28. UN Doc. A/58/817, par. 43.
29. Mitrany's most influential work was a pamphlet, A Working Peace System (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1943).
30. For further functionalist work in Britain, see J. W. Burton, World Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972);
31. and A. J. R. Groom and P. Taylor, eds., Functionalism: Theory and Practice in International Relations (London: University of London Press, 1975).
32. A more detailed account of the influence of functionalism on the design of the UN system is given in R. Righter, Utopia Lost: The United Nations and World Order (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1995), pp. 33-36.
33. UN Doc. A/58/817, par. 45.
34. UN Doc. A/58/817; headings from Section VII and text from Proposal 19. See also par. 65, introducing Proposal 6.
35. Quotes, respectively, from UN Doc. A/58/817, pars. 99, 96, and 100, introducing Proposal 12; Proposal 20; para. 46, introducing Proposal 2; and pars. 61-62, introducing Proposal 5.
36. See, for example, P. C. Schmitter and G. Lehmbruch, eds., Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation (London: Sage, 1979);
37. W. Grant, ed., The Political Economy of Corporatism (London: Macmillan, 1985);
38. A. Cawson, Corporatism and Political Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986);
39. and P. J. Williamson, Corporatism in Perspective: An Introductory Guide to Corporatist Theory (London: Sage, 1989).
40. See R. E. Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Boston: Pitman, 1984)
41. and M. B. E. Clarkson, The Corporation and Its Stakeholders: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
42. W. Hutton, The State We Are In (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995), particularly chap. 12.
43. See also B. A. Ackerman and A. Alstott, The Stakeholder Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
44. Agenda 21 is in UN Doc. A/CONF.151/26.
45. The language is used too extensively to give specific citations. Thirteen of the thirty proposals in the report, UN Doc. A/58/817, and forty of the 185 paragraphs were concerned with stakeholders and/or partnerships. Similarly, thirteen proposals and fifty paragraphs mentioned constituencies. The new office is detailed in Proposal 24.
46. UN Doc. A/58/817, Proposal 9, refers only vaguely to "engaging" with businesses.
47. This position is not stated explicitly in the report, but it is implied at many points. The three elements occur together in par. 7 of UN Doc. A/58/817.
48. Pluralism has mainly been studied at the country level. See R. A. Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963);
49. and Dahl, Pluralist Democracy in the United States: Conflict and Consent (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967).
50. The term has also been used in international relations to cover writing on transnational actors. See P. R. Viotti and M. V. Kauppi, International Relations Theory: Realism, Pluralism, Globalism (New York: Macmillan, 1987). Its use here is not intended to suggest that all groups have the same amount of influence.
51. The Security Council is an exception to this argument, both in lacking full transparency and in receiving significant media coverage.
52. For a German group (Committee for a Democratic UN), see www.unokomitee.de;
53. for a British group (UNGA-Link), see www.ungalink.org.uk;
54. and for the international network Campaign for a More Democratic UN, see www.oneworld.org/camdun.
55. There is prestigious backing for a World Forum of civil society organizations in "Action 9" of the "International Agenda" of the Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development, Our Creative Diversity (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1998), pp. 285-287.
56. Quotes from the Transmittal Letter for UN Doc. A/58/817, the Executive Summary and pars. 10, 66, 67, and 142, respectively.
57. UN Doc. A/58/817, Proposals 13-16.
58. Statement by the IPU secretary-general on 4 October 2004, in the General Assembly debate on the Cardoso Report. See www.senat.fr/uip/onu/uip-onu/ johnson_un_4oct04.html.
59. UN Doc. A/59/354, pars. 16-17. So far as the author can ascertain, no event involving parliamentarians was associated with this meeting.
60. UN Doc. A/58/817, Proposals 26 and 27. The drafting of these two proposals is poor in not making clear distinctions between the two funds.
61. The NGLS is discussed in a totally different context from the two funds, where it is suggested it might be the core of a Civil Society Unit in the Secretariat. See UN Doc. A/58/817, pars. 151-155.
62. UN Doc. A/59/354, pars. 22 and 47 on the two funds, and par. 49 on the NGLS.
63. On 25 October 2004, a prestigious group of thirty-one NGOs wrote to Annan expressing concern that insufficient funding threatened to inflict "serious wounds" on the NGLS. See www.globalpolicy.org.
64. UN Doc. A/58/817; first two quotes are from par. 46. For "depoliticizing accreditation," see the heading to Section VII and par. 127. For being "relevant" as a criterion for limiting civil society participation, see Executive Summary, "Convening Role of the United Nations"; pars. 25, 40, 65, 76, 122, 140, 142, 143, 150, 156, 158, 168, and 179; and Proposals 1 and 6. The long quote is from par. 138.
65. UN Doc. A/58/817; the suggested accreditation process is in par. 131 and Proposals 19 and 20.
66. UN Doc. A/58/817; quotes from Proposals 1 and 3. The top-down stakeholder approach is also evident in Proposals 2, 4-12, 25, 26, and 28.
67. The label non-governmental organization is used for one of the nine major groups, even though the members of all these groups can be present in the UN only when they are accredited as NGOs by ECOSOC.
68. UN Doc. A/58/817, par. 136; Proposal 21.
69. UN Doc. A/58/817, par. 165. In A/59/354, par. 22, it is not clear whether the Secretary-General rejected this by appearing to limit the participation fund to travel and accommodation.
70. On the criticisms, see UN Doc. A/S8/817, pars. 124 and 128-130; on costs and savings, see pars. 129 and 170; on the alternative accreditation system, see pars. 130-132.
71. ECOSOC Resolution 1996/31, 25 July 1996, par. 22.
72. The panel repeated the argument in UN Doc. A/58/817, pars. 143 and 161
73. but only rebutted it indirectly in par. 162. The Secretary-General appeared to endorse the argument in UN Doc. A/59/354, par. 20.
74. It would also be necessary to define global status for NGOs that do not have membership based on national sections.