As political authority shifts to the global level, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) increasingly attempt to influence policy-making within international organisations (IOs). This article examines the nature and sources of non-governmental organisations’ advocacy strategies in global governance. We advance a twofold theoretical argument. First, non-governmental organisation advocacy can be described in terms of inside and outside strategies, similar to interest group lobbying in American and European politics. Second, non-governmental organisations’ chosen combination of inside and outside strategies can be explained by their organisational goals and membership base. Empirically, this argument is corroborated through a large-n analysis of original data from structured interviews with 303 non-governmental organisation representatives active in relation to the United Nations (UN), complemented by 19 semi-structured interviews with UN and state officials. The article’s findings have implications for the theory and practice of non-governmental organisation involvement in global governance.
Many environmental problems such as global warming, biodiversity loss and waste accumulation can be described as large-scale collective action dilemmas. Previous research on collective action in Common Pool Resource settings has demonstrated that institutional structures and social capital are important for successful management of natural resources. The objective of this article is to investigate the effect of such factors on large-scale environmental collective action. The analysis employs survey data and indicators of institutional quality for 22 countries. Two measurements of environmental collective action are used: (1) intermediate group collective action; and (2) latent group environmental action. Findings point to a dominating role for two factors - institutional quality and membership in voluntary organisations - as key determinants of participation in both latent and intermediate group environmental collective action. These results are interpreted as indications of a possible decoupling between trust and participation in large-scale collective action.
Although the concept of “AI governance” is frequently used in the debate, it is still rather undertheorized. Often it seems to refer to the mechanisms and structures needed to avoid “bad” outcomes and achieve “good” outcomes with regard to the ethical problems artificial intelligence is thought to actualize. In this article we argue that, although this outcome-focused view captures one important aspect of “good governance,” its emphasis on effects runs the risk of overlooking important procedural aspects of good AI governance. One of the most important properties of good AI governance is political legitimacy. Starting out from the assumptions that AI governance should be seen as global in scope and that political legitimacy requires at least a democratic minimum, this article has a twofold aim: to develop a theoretical framework for theorizing the political legitimacy of global AI governance, and to demonstrate how it can be used as a compass for critially assessing the legitimacy of actual instances of global AI governance. Elaborating on a distinction between “governance by AI” and “governance of AI” in relation to different kinds of authority and different kinds of decision-making leads us to the conclusions that much of the existing global AI governance lacks important properties necessary for political legitimacy, and that political legitimacy would be negatively impacted if we handed over certain forms of decision-making to artificial intelligence systems.
How do international non-governmental organizations select countries for naming and shaming? I argue that three focal actors influence non-governmental organizations' shaming decisions: inter-governmental organizations, governments, and non-governmental organization members. Moreover, drawing on existing research, non-governmental organizations might respond differently to focal actors' preferences, by either targeting states that have been criticized by focal actors or, alternatively, targeting those who have escaped their scrutiny. To test these propositions, the article conducts multiple interviews and gathers original data on shaming within the International Trade Union Confederation during period 1991-2011. The main findings are threefold. First, focal actors, except governments, have a significant influence on International Trade Union Confederation shaming. The members' preferences regarding which states should be singled out have the strongest impact. Second, the International Trade Union Confederation is likely to adopt a bandwagoning strategy by shaming states that have been targeted by focal actors, rather than focusing on states that have escaped their criticism. Third, as a result of the bandwagoning approach, the International Trade Union Confederation mainly targets states with poor labor rights conditions.
The literature on international political theory is replete with proposals to make world politics a more just and democratic place. This article explores how the cosmopolitan design project can be made more tractable in a world composed of sovereign nation states. Specifically, it argues that flexibility mechanisms - tools common in international cooperation - enhance the feasibility of design. The article draws upon the recent work on political feasibility and argues that economic, institutional and cultural constraints can be overcome by using flexibility mechanisms. In order to gain traction on the argument, prescriptions made in the field of intellectual property rights are analysed. Thomas Pogge and Allen Buchanan, Tony Cole and Robert Keohane have separately advanced institutional proposals to reform the global essential medicine system. The article details how feasibility can be enhanced through flexibility in light of these proposals, and makes a suggestion about their comparative feasibility and desirability.
This study examines how the growing competition over immigration and welfare between social democratic parties and populist radical right parties impacts electoral outcomes. The study argues that the historical legacies of the social democratic and conservative welfare regimes influence how voters respond to this competitive struggle. The findings support this argument. In the social democratic regime, populist radical right parties gain more support when they compete over welfare, although Nordic social democratic parties can mitigate this trend by appearing tough on immigration. However, populist radical right parties’ emphasis on welfare is the main source of electoral mobilization, particularly among voters with anti-immigration sentiments. In the conservative regime, the competitive dynamic is less connected to immigration, and populist radical right parties’ welfare discourse appeals primarily to economically vulnerable voters, while social democratic parties lose votes by taking a strict stance on immigration. These results have important implications and suggest that welfare regimes shape voting behaviour differently today than in previous eras.
Political parties are crucial in crafting effective national climate policies in democratic states. At the same time, there is a practical and academic debate of whether political parties matter for policy output. This article speaks to this debate by investigating the link between what parties say and what parties do with respect to environmental issues. More concretely, it analyzes whether there is a connection between the degree of environmentalism expressed in parties' electoral manifestos and national environmental policy output. Theoretically, the article draws on existing research on program-to-policy linkages in general and for environmental issues specifically to argue that saliency of environmentalism in party manifestos shapes more stringent environmental policies. This argument is empirically tested by combining data on policy stringency with data on manifesto contents for 28 countries for the period 1990-2015. The findings corroborate the main hypothesis, which has implications for understanding the overall potential for political parties to structure national environmental politics. The article concludes by sketching broader implications for research on parties' ability to shape national environmental policy across political systems, and across partisan ideologies.
This article examines the recent turn to the all-affected principle as a means to determine the proper boundaries of the people. The popularity of the principle notwithstanding, it argues that many of its proponents are prone to underestimating the challenge it raises to contemporary political theory. More specifically, two claims are made. Firstly, it argues that we must distinguish between two principles which, while both relating to the question of people-making, do so under radically different conditions: the all-subjected principle and the all-affected principle. Secondly, it argues that while the all-affected principle is a popular device in debates on cosmopolitan democracy it does not have a singular meaning. The all-affected principle in fact has three distinct roles to play, those of diagnosing, generating and justifying the boundaries of the people. The latter is the most difficult to account for in so far as it draws proponents of the all-affected principle into the very conflict that they set out to assess. It is concluded that this circumstance calls for a reorientation of the current debate, both with regard to the characterisation of the conflict under consideration and the challenge it raises to contemporary political theory.