Bevir (2009) Key Concepts in Governance. Differentiated Polity
A differnetiated polity consists of a number of interdependent organisations such as governments,
departments and agencies.
- Is fragmented between organisations that cover different territories, deliver varied functions
- => the government occurs through a number of institutions that give rise to a complex
pattern of decentralised
- Political organisation is limited
- Governance occurs through networks composed of departments, agencies and other social
and political actors
- The organizations in the networks are interdependent; each organization relies on
cooperative exchanges with the others
- The networks are often self-organizing and they have at least some autonomy from the
center
Difference between differentiated polity and unitary state
- Unitary state is an identifiable polity with clear boundaries and a sovereign center that
formulates law and rules over the territory
- In contrast a differentiated polity has fuzzy boundaries and by the flow of power and
authority downwards, upwards and outwards
Anglo governance = main source for differentiated polity
They introduced it to correct the outdated westminster model
The anglo governance school argues that power is diffuse, and that the central government is just
one of several public, voluntary and private bodies involved in the policy process.
Differentiated polity – the UK, the EU
Networked polity and disaggregated state = similar to differentiated polity
The EU = networked polity because it relies on a complex web of committees and societal
associations to advise, manage and regulate
Transnational groups and corporations often generate private governance
Two accounts of differentiated polity
1) Differentiation can refer to a process based on functional differences; this concept inspires
accounts of governance as a complex set of institutions defined by their social roles. In this
concept, the differentiated polity is temporal, part of the new governance.
2) Differentiation can refer to different meanings and beliefs that are often within an
institution or practice. This inspires decenterd accounts of governance. Here it is a new
theory of governance.
States and international organisations are just groups within diverse networks of individuals.
,Hurrell, A. and Macdonald, T. (2012). Global public power the subject of principles of global political
legitimacy
1) Global public power supplies a concept of subject that can help to unify analysis of
legitimacy across multiple sub-disciplines, thus facilitating the future development of a more
diverse and integrated research agenda
2) Commonly legitimacy is conceptualised as itself as justification of certain specified forms of
power and the authors want to reconceptualise it to political justification of power
3) The reconceptualisation provides analytic tools for problems and dilemmas raised by the
sifnificant forms of power
More demand for legitimacy, greater participation, accountability, transparency, democracy
First, the idea that states are subjects of these principles is commonplace within traditions of
political and legal philosophy that link the concept of political legitimacy either to the justification
of coercive state power, or to the authority of a state’s legal norms and directives.
Second, the idea that principles of global political legitimacy should regulate a global basic
structure or institutional scheme is sometimes encountered within post-Rawlsian theoretical
literatures on global ‘justice’, in which the question of the subject of principles of political legitimacy
is not clearly distinguished from the question of the subject of distributive principles of justice, such
that the same regulative subject –global basic structure –is (sometimes implicitly) ascribed to both.
Third, literatures on institutional legitimacy that spring from the discipline of international
relations commonly adopt a more empirically-grounded notion of global governance –or
sometimes disaggregated ‘global governance institutions’–as the subject(s) of principles of political
legitimacy
- Political legitimacy can be understood as a category of principles of applied morality
concerned with a special political subject such as the state or some features of the state
- Political legitimacy principles are distinguished from some moral principals by embodying
non-ideal standards of justice
Weiss and Wilkinson (2014) Rethinking Global Governance. Complexity, Authority, Power, Change
- The terms was born from a marriage between academic theory and practical policy in the
1990s
- Global governance replaced world order studies which was seen as top down and static, the
world order failed to capture the variety of actors, networks and relationships
- Global governance came to refer as collective efforts to identify, understand or address
worldwide problems and processes that went beyond the capacities of individual states
- Global governance meant different things to different people
- Before the great depression world wars and so on the society thought that states can solve
issues on their own
- The third wave of democratisation helped the spread of global governance especially for
nonstate actors
, - Many contemporary problems are transnational ex: climate change, pandemics, terrorism,
migration
- Everything is globalised except states
- Contemporary global governance is a mix of international anarchy and a wolrd state
- Agency and accountability are absent from global governance
- But global governance is not enough because it cannot eliminate poverty, fix global warming
or halt mass attrocities
Nye and Keohane (1971) Transnational Relations and World Politics
- The politics is usually state-centred, but nuclear power has changed the dynamics
- But usually on the world arena, there are non state actors as well such as international
enterprises
- Transnational interactions – the movement of tangible and intangible items across state
boundaries when at least one actior is not an agent of government
- Transnational organisations can create myths, symbols
- Transnational relations create multinational pluralism, dependence and interdependence
- Americans usually transnational
-
, Auld (2015) Certification As Governance
- A lot of certificates to allow businesses
- Categories of certificates focus around: what problems do they seek to address; what actors
set the rules; what motivates operators to participate; and how is compliance verified?
- Multiple stakeholders have influence over rulemaking, while private actors like ngos,
companies establish rules of an initiative
Characteristics of certification
- They set standards that focus on social and environmental issues
- They constitute governance systems – they make rules on how progrsms should take
decisions
- They have external verification – either some external auditors or organisations
- They have as de jure voluntary programs, incentives play a vital role in affecting the
motivations operators have to participate. Incentives like higher prices, customer loyalty,
market access
The rise and evolution of certification
first category of factors comprise of gov actions – because of inability of states to cooperate
onternationally to regulate environmental prbls
- Perceptions of public policies – discontent on how gov address controversies
- Public policy determined which operators can participate in private certification programs
Second category are market conditions – more capitalism – more neoliberal norms and institutions;
transnational institutions
- Some multinational companies encouraged certification
Third factor is the agents founding certification programs
- It depends on their interests and what they look for in their programs
Fourth category is internal operation of individual programs and how programs interact over time
- Certification programs face the threat of competitive entry as they seek to be recognised as
rule makers on a given issue
Consequences of certification
- Spatial dimension – there are spillover effects beyond national borders; but certification
happens in more developed countries
- Issue area or problem space – if certification has positive or negative effects on other
problems which is true, they affect
- Multiple certification programs exist to address the same issue
- Interaction with puvlic policy can range from positive to negative; certification can improve
adherence to puvlic rules
- Time is important as certification changes over time
Implications and future directions
- Certification has solidified its role as a governance mechanism in the last two decades
