Randall W. Stone, Controlling Institutions: International Organizations and the Global Economy (original) (raw)
Related papers
Transnational Legal Theory, 2019
The rapid proliferation of international institutions has been a defining feature of postwar global governance architecture. Many international institutions overlap, playing similar or identical governance roles. Contributing to the existing research literature on this phenomenon, we offer the new concept of 'international institutional bypass' (IIB). Just like surgeons grafting new pathways around blocked arteries in coronary bypasses, global governors have increasingly responded to clogged international institutions by working around them. After presenting a definition of IIBs, we articulate why this concept may prove useful to work on global governance, how it is different from existing concepts, and discuss possible policy implications. Specifically, when faced with competition from an IIB, existing dominant institutions either fight back, shape up, or do nothing, which may result in displacement, merger, or coexistence. Our analysis both informed and drew upon a series of case studies published in this symposium issue of Transnational Legal Theory journal.
Power and resistance in multilayer Global Governance
Multiple layers of global governance exert power in its multiple forms, in the process producing multiple sites of power that simultaneously evoke and challenge the possibility or perhaps of resistance. This is so because power relations cannot exist without resistance (Foucault, as quoted in Neumann and Sending, 24). I employ these ontological and foundational arguments to frame the thesis of my discussion. Specifically, I argue that different power relations evoke different possible forms of resistance that nonetheless coalesce around the demand for accountability, which involves calls for fairness and equity, greater transparency, enhanced participation and holding power responsible. I unpack this thesis by first illustrating why demands for accountability are in themselves acts of resistance before explaining the logic behind the possibility of resistance, which I link to the broad contours of what I argue is a neoliberal form of GG. Here, I briefly illustrate how neoliberal mechanisms accentuate the difficulties that confront dissent and resistance. After laying out this contextual framework, I turn my attention to four specific relationships of power and resistance: neoliberal regimes/institutions and reformist demonstrations; intergovernmental organizations and dissenting blocs within those organizations; transnational corporations and public-private partnerships; and credit rating agencies and global administrative law. I end by emphasizing the feasibility of resistance while taking into close consideration the constraints put on it.
Democratizing International Agreements in the Context of Inter-State Hierarchies
Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity, 2021
This paper aims to contribute to the literature on accountability and world politics by bringing to the discussion some of the insights of scholarship on international hierarchy. This literature goes beyond the well-known debate between realists and liberals, and explores status-based models which highlight how both material and normative factors constitute Great Powers. This elite class of states can help to make international agreements more accountable because they have the material means of enforcement, and because their divergent interests and diverse normative orientations help to broaden representation. When the world's Great Powers cooperate to solve global problems, and their proposals include mechanisms for dispute resolution overseen by global governance institutions, agreements are more likely to generate 'legitimacy', a concept which refers to weaker states' willingness to accept the decisions of the powerful because of the sense of fairness and the benefits which accrue to those impacted by the agreement. To illustrate an example, the paper will discuss the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an approach to nuclear non-proliferation overseen by the world's Great Powers and accepted by other members of the international community, strong and weak alike.
The turn to authority beyond states
The concept of authority has become increasingly palatable to scholars in law, political science and philosophy when describing, explaining and assessing global governance. While many now seem to agree that applying authority to transnational relations opens fruitful arenas for legal, empirical and normative research, they rely on partly incompatible notions of authority, how it emerges out of and affects the social relations between key actors, and how it relates to legitimacy. In this paper, we introduce this special issue on transnational authority. We discuss why international authority has become a central concern in international studies and compare key contemporary conceptions of international authority, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. We also present the different contributions to this issue, which further seek to clarify the concept and its application in law, political science, and political theory, theoretically or empirically, assessing arenas where authority is or is not legitimately exercised and developing legal conceptions, which might be utilized to constrain the use of authority in international relations.
International commitments and domestic politics: Institutions and actors at two levels
Locating the Proper Authorities: The …, 2003
In the last two decades, international relations (IR) scholars have responded to the parsimony of systemic theory, with its exclusive focus on interactions among states, by looking both above and below the level of states. Thus international cooperation and institutions, on the one hand, and domestic politics and institutions, on the other, have assumed important positions as both independent and dependent variables. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the interaction of international and domestic institutions, although there is no theoretical reason to presume that the two should be analytically separated. The primary exception is the two-level games literature (Putnam 1988; Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam 1993) and related work on how domestic political constraints shape international cooperation (Milner 1997) and the ability of states to make credible international commitments (Cowhey 1993; Martin 2000). Much less effort has been devoted to the reverse channel of inBuence-how international institutions constrain domestic politics. 1 This volume investigates how actors use international institutions to overcome domestic political obstacles. It addresses two principal impediments that may confound the pursuit of political goals. On the one hand, highly centralized states are plagued by commitment problems: When government power is not checked, then other actors, both within the state and internationally, cannot be sure that the policy will be maintained over time and so may be unwilling to take actions desired by the policy initiators. Decentralized states, on the other hand, face domestic veto problems because the consent or participation of key actors ("domestic veto points") is required for policies to succeed. The involvement of international institutions can potentially solve both of these political dilemmas.
Introduction: The Turn to Authority beyond States
Transnational Legal Theory, 2013
The concept of authority has become increasingly palatable to scholars in law, political science and philosophy when describing, explaining and assessing global governance. While many now seem to agree that applying authority to transnational relations opens fruitful arenas for legal, empirical and normative research, they rely on partly incompatible notions of authority, how it emerges out of and affects the social relations between key actors, and how it relates to legitimacy. In this paper, we introduce this special issue on transnational authority. We discuss why international authority has become a central concern in international studies and compare key contemporary conceptions of international authority, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. We also present the different contributions to this issue, which further seek to clarify the concept and its application in law, political science, and political theory, theoretically or empirically, assessing arenas where authority is or is not legitimately exercised and developing legal conceptions, which might be utilized to constrain the use of authority in international relations.