Transparency, accountability, and global governance

Global Governance

Volumn 14, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 73-94

  Hale, Thomas N ^a,b  

^a Department of Politics ^*

^b PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Accountability; Global governance; Private regulation; Reflexive law; Transparency

Indexed keywords

EID: 41449085890     PISSN: 10752846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/19426720-01401006     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. See, for example, Ann Florini, "The End of Secrecy," Foreign Policy (Summer 1998): 50-64.
2. Mary Graham, Democracy by Disclosure: The Rise of Technopopulism (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002).
3. See ibid.
4. Gary Gereffi, Ronni Garcia-Johnson, and Erika Sasser, "The NGO-Industrial Complex," Foreign Policy (July-Aug. 2003): 56-65.
5. One area of exception might be crimes against humanity, which are universally criminal and subject to enforcement by a global body, the International Criminal Court.
6. See Ann Florini, The Coming Democracy: New Rules for Running a New World (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003), pp. 19-40;
7. Nayef H. Samhat and Rodger A. Payne, "Regimes, Public Spheres and Global Democracy: Towards the Transformation of Political Community," Global Society 17, no. 3 (2003): 273-295;
8. Rodger A. Payne and Nayef H. Samhat, Democratizing Global Politics: Discourse Norms, International Regimes, and Political Community (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004).
9. Andreas Schedler, "Conceptualizing Accountability," in Andreas Schedler, Larry Diamond, and Marc Plattner, eds., The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies (London: Lynne Rienner, 1999), p. 13.
10. See also Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, "Democracy, Accountability, and Global Governance," Politics Research Group Working Papers on International Relations, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2001;
11. David Held and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, eds., Global Governance and Public Accountability (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), p. 3.
12. Schedler, "Conceptualizing Accountability," p. 15.
13. Schedler writes, "Accountability as answerability aims at creating transparency."
14. Ibid., p. 20.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., p. 16.
17. The authors of these evaluations note that their lessons may not be transferable to the international level: "Whether our framework also proves helpful in analyzing the effectiveness of international transparency is a subject of current work." Archon Fung, David Weil, Mary Graham, and Elena Fagotto, "The Political Economy of Transparency: What Makes Disclosure Policies Effective?" Occasional Paper, Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Kennedy School of Government, 2001, p. 3.
18. Ibid., p. 9.
19. See Florini, The Coming Democracy, pp. 102-110.
20. For an in-depth look at forest certification schemes, see Benjamin Cashore, Graeme Auld, and Deanna Newsom, Governing Through Markets: Forrest Certification and the Emergence of Non-State Authority (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).
21. See the initiative's website at http://globalreporting.org.
22. Social Investment Forum, "2003 Report on Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the United States" (Washington, DC: Social Investment Forum, December 2003), available at www.socialinvest.org/areas/research/trends/ sri_trends_report_2003.pdf.
23. Elizabeth Schmidt, "The Sullivan Principles: Decoding Corporate Camouflage" (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies), p. 6.
24. William F. Moses, "A Guide to American State and Local Laws on South Africa" (Washington, DC: Investor Responsibility and Research Center, 1993).
25. David Hauck, Meg Voorhes, and Glenn Goldberg, Two Decades of Debate: The Controversy over U.S. Companies in South Africa (Washington, DC: Investor Responsibility Research Center, 1983), pp. 70-71.
26. Ibid., pp. 72, 79.
27. "Does Signing the Sullivan Principles Matter? A Comparison of the Labor Practices and Public Affairs Activities of Signers and Non-Signers" (Washington, DC: IRRC, 1985).
28. Gereffi et al., "The NGO-Industrial Complex," p. 59.
29. Fung et al., "The Political Economy of Transparency," p. 10.
30. Peter Dicken, Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy (New York: Guilford Press, 1998).
31. See, for example, Keohane and Nye's discussion of "reputational power."
32. Keohane and Nye, "Democracy, Accountability, and Global Governance," p. 5.
33. This shift tracks Teubner's embrace of what he terms "autopoietic law," a term borrowed from biology to describe a self-contained system. Gunther Teubner, "Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law," Law and Society Review 17, no. 2 (1983): 239-285.
34. Gunther Teubner, ed., Autopoietic Law: A New Approach to Law and Society (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988).
35. See David Hess, "Social Reporting: A Reflexive Law Approach to Corporate Social Responsiveness," Journal of Corporate Law 25, no. 1 (1999): 41-84.
36. Friends of the Earth International, "Towards Binding Corporate Accountability," FOEI Position Paper for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, January 2002, available at www.foei.org/corporates/towards.html.
37. Teubner, "Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law," p. 272.
38. See, generally, Teubner, Law as an Autopoietic System (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1993), and Teubner, Autopoietic Law: A New Approach to Law and Society.
39. Teubner, "Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law," p. 273.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 256.
43. Thomas Risse, "Global Governance and Communicative Action," in Held and Koenig-Archibugi, Global Governance and Public Accountability, p. 170.
44. Ibid.
45. Over time, discourse may also inculcate actors with the norms of their interlocutors, effectively harmonizing norms across functional groups. If such a transfer of norms does occur - that is, if the targeted actor fully adopts the views of its critics - the conflict will dissipate. Regarding states, Harold Koh has called this internalization process "obedience." Harold Honju Koh, "Why Do Nations Obey International Law?" Yale Law Journal 106, no. 8 (1997): 2599-2659.
46. Kathryn Sikkink and Margaret Keck's analysis of transnational human rights groups demonstrates how civil society can compel states to internalize human rights norms. Kathryn Sikkink and Margaret Keck, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).
47. A detailed analysis of the Inspection Panel's case history is available in an unpublished manuscript from the author, "Transparency as Governance: Using Information to Regulate Global Actors," April 2004, pp. 43-64, available at www.princeton.edu/-thale/thesis.pdf.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. For a detailed analysis of the CEC's record, see ibid., pp. 24-41.
51. Ibid.
52. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, "Power and Interdependence in the Information Age," Foreign Affairs (Sept.-Oct. 1998): 89.
53. Quoted in Schedler, "Conceptualizing Accountability," p. 21.
54. Keohane and Nye, "Power and Interdependence in the Information Age," p. 89.
55. It is important to note that this section presents a fairly narrow conception of democracy, one that focuses on making decisionmakers accountable to the people whom their decisions affect. Most theorists consider such accountability necessary but insufficient for a robust conception of democracy, which typically includes rights, duties, and other aspects. See, for example, David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). However, this broader account is beyond the purview of this article.
56. A useful typology of approaches to democratic global governance is given by Anthony McGrew, "Transnational Democracy: Theories and Prospects," keynote paper presented at the international workshop "Democracy and Globalization," Gl. Vrå Castle, Denmark, 4-5 May 2003, available at www.ihis.aau.dk/ged/Mcgrew.pdf.
57. See, for example, Andrew Moravcsik, "Is There a 'Democratic Deficit' in World Politics? A Framework for Analysis," in Held and Koenig-Archibugi, Global Governance and Public Accountability (Blackwell: Oxford, 2005).
58. Chantal Thomas, "Constitutional Change and International Government," Hastings Law Journal 52, no. 1 (2000): 1-46.
59. See, for example, Joseph Nye, "Globalization's Democratic Deficit: How to Make International Institutions More Accountable," Foreign Affairs (July-Aug. 2001): 2-6;
60. Keohane and Nye, "Democracy, Accountability, and Global Governance," p. 6.
61. See, for example, Moravcsik, "Is There a 'Democratic Deficit' in World Politics?" p. 222.
62. McGrew describes this system as "radical communitarianism" or "demarchy." Anthony McGrew, "Democracy Beyond Borders," in David Held and Anthony McGrew, eds., The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate (Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), p. 410.
63. Ibid., p. 411.
64. Quoted in ibid., p. 410. The first set of brackets is McGrew's; the second is mine. It should be noted that John Dryzek advocates coupling the shift to nonterritorial political communities with "deliberative" forms of democracy. See note 57 below.
65. McGrew, "Democracy Beyond Borders," p. 411.
66. See Samhat and Payne, "Regimes, Public Spheres and Global Democracy," pp. 273-295;
67. and Payne and Samhat, Democratizing Global Politics.
68. A significant strand of critical theory argues that a reordering of political authority along thematic, as opposed to geographic, lines be coupled with a shift toward "deliberative" methods of governance. Such methods emphasize experimentation and learning over "command and control" regulation. The idea is to arrive at effective and desirable policies by developing and promulgating "best practices," as opposed to mandating certain standards. Advocates argue that deliberative methods of governance are particularly attractive at the global level because regulatory governance often faces political and technical challenges. There is much to this view, and further exploration of transnational deliberative governance and specific policy programs like the UN Global Compact is needed to better understand what such structures could offer. It is likely that transparency is central to deliberative governance arrangements, which require information sharing to allow learning to occur. However, such an investigation is beyond the scope of this article.
69. See generally John S. Dryzek, Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy, and Political Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990);
70. John S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000);
71. and John S. Dryzek, "Political and Ecological Communication," Environmental Politics 4, no. 4 (1995).