Are norms manipulative or constructive of actors` behavior in global governance?

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ARE NORMS MANIPULATIVE OR CONSTITUTIVE OF ACTORS' BEHAVIOR IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE?

Lazarenko Darina Dmitrievna

Аннотация

Лазаренко Дарина Дмитриевна

СУЩЕСТВУЕТ ЛИ СОЗАВИСИМОСТЬ МЕЖДУ НОРМАМИ И ПОВЕДЕНИЕМ АКТОРОВ В ГЛОБАЛЬНОМ УПРАВЛЕНИИ?

Это эссе исследует сложные взаимоотношения между нормами и поведением акторов в глобальном управлении, задавая вопрос, являются ли нормы манипулятивными или конститутивными. Автор погружается в теоретические рамки, описывающие нормы в международных отношениях, и исследует, как они влияют на действия различных актеров на мировой арене. Критически проанализировав роль норм в формировании поведения в глобальном управлении, эссе проливает свет на динамику власти и поднимает важные вопросы о характере нормативного влияния в международной политике. Автор предлагает нюансированный взгляд на эту проблему, предоставляя ценные идеи для ученых и политиков, заинтересованных в понимании влияния норм на поведение актеров в области глобального управления.

Ключевые слова: глобальное управление, акторы, манипулятивные нормы, конститутивные нормы, динамика власти.

Annotation

actor international relations global

This essay explores the complex relationship between norms and actors' behavior in global governance, questioning whether norms are manipulative or constitutive. The author delves into the theoretical frameworks surrounding norms in international relations and examines how they influence the actions of various actors on the global stage. By critically analyzing the role of norms in shaping behavior in global governance, the essay sheds light on the power dynamics at play and raises important questions about the nature of normative influence in international politics. The author provides a nuanced perspective on this issue, offering valuable insights for scholars and policymakers interested in understanding the impact of norms on actors' behavior in the realm of global governance.

Key words: global governance, actors, manipulative norms, constitutive norms, dynamic ofpower.

Introduction

The question of what the driving influences on political actor's motivations are has been a topic of debate in the field of political studies. First and foremost, the foundation to any means of conduct between said actors has been established within international law that provides the states with some distinction of what they can or can't do, with consequences of many kinds usually listed or alluded to. While this may ring true, there is clear evidence that there are and there will be evidence of attempts at subverting set norms.

On one hand, countries can be observed acting within the boundaries of the established international order, in part, represented by the global governance institutions. Some believe that the norms that shape and maintain the functionality of the global system are enforced to an extent following the establishment of global liberal hegemony at the end of the previous century (Patomaki 2023). The untold power hierarchy that came with it forces the political elites of developing countries to act in a certain way in face of political and economic repercussions.

Despite that, the norms that are established within the framework of global governance institutions are, more often than not, vague or open to various interpretations. This opens up an opportunity for any actor participating in international relations justify their motives and subsequent actions on existing rules and regulations provided by regional and global agreements.

The problem of interpretation of the established norms still remains a key aspect in international politics; further polarization between the world's actors will contribute to the growing divide. This notion has been supported for several decades (Patomaki 2023) and such researchers as Held (mentioned in Patomaki's publication) emphasize the importance of international agreement on the decisions made within the framework of global governance in order for them to come into full force.

However the norms of international conduct are interpreted, they remain essential to relations between various actors on account of how they're shaping the ways of communication. I suggest that the norm's primary constitutive function is the main influence on actor's behavior if it concerns any global governance entity.

Within the constructivist theory, we can perceive norms either enforced or set by global governance institutions as an agreement between several political actors; this is achieved either through bureaucratic consensus that manifests itself in the form of documents or through united policies aimed at achieving desired goals. This, in turn, further transforms the international order, influencing established connections and diplomatic relations. Despite the power struggles that challenge this approach (Taggart, Abraham 2023) who present other theoretical approaches to similar problems concerning separate areas of global governance, I'm inclined to believe that constitutive factor affects state's or organization's behavior the most due to the organizational specifics within the global governance system and legitimization that the agreements bring.

Norms of global governance: influence within particular fields

Regardless of the regional changes happening at present, the relationships established in the current system of global governance still abide by three normative principles, sometimes referred to as “unobservables”, each qualifying the principle of sovereignty introduced with the Westphalian system (Zurn 2018). It denotes that “there is a final and absolute political authority in the political community... and no final and absolute authority exists elsewhere” (Hinsley 1986, Zurn 2018). Because of that, we can define the norms of global governance as fitting within the accepted paradigm of international relations theory.

A further narrowing down is required to form a basis for both arguments and illustrate the examples of influence on actors' behavior. Also, there needs to be a clarification of how the existing norms can be perceived by different actors - an additional important issue for them to work effectively. The best approach for a research of this kind is to examine particular modes of behavior in areas of international cooperation that are, in a sense, transnational and the effectiveness of which is heavily influenced by the global governance institutions' involvement.

But why is this international cooperation necessary? The thing that requires further elaboration in this case is the motive a political actor that makes decisions, the effect of which transcends the national borders. Emergence of an idea of shared obstacles on a road to a better future helps spreading the notion of “the greater good”. This political term was used throughout the XXth century by liberal and non-liberal countries alike (Zurn 2018). This is a clear indication that for a long time there has been a belief that political actors, while existing within the current system of international relations, should act with accordance with the norms that require hearing the voices of all institutions defending various interests.

“The greater good” concept finds itself at play in many fields of international cooperation, which are not reduced to the few that will be examined in this essay. The spheres that heavily depend on constitutive norms of global governance institutions include: multilateral medical research & development, information security and international trade (Linsenmaier, Spandler 2021, Zurn 2018). At the current stage of development and considering the historical background, the success of coordinated actions there is dependent on political actors to follow the norms introduced before and to have a political willingness to engage multilaterally in order to better them.

WHO in the normative field of medical global governance

In regards to medical cooperation, the constitutive quality of the system forces political actors to conduct themselves in close cooperation with World Health Organization, which becomes a central authority in evaluation of criteria and candidates who are required to follow them. Establishing a unified system of acronyms and development of globally accepted vaccines for COVID-19 both were official strategies devised by WHO in order to handle the global pandemic (Peters, Hollings, Green, Ogunniran 2022). The increase of promising vaccine candidates forced the institution to design special regulations that streamlined the process of official registration.

The effectiveness of motions initiated by WHO was provided by the efforts of a working group of experts comprised of members of several national backgrounds. Still, the final decision is made through the system of voting of member states which include almost every country in the world, supporting the notion of some sort of international acceptance. Despite that, new norms of vaccine registration sparked debate in several states including the USA, where the new WHO procedure was considered a manipulation that the organization was coerced into by China, but no substantial evidence was presented by president Trump to support his claims (Peters, Hollings, Green, Ogunniran 2022). This, at part, deals with claims that the norms created within the global governance system are, in a sense, manipulative.

Through various recommendations for healthcare workers and institutions responsible for healthcare on national or regional level it can be stated that WHO assists by providing their normative base. That gives political actors' developments international legitimacy, forcing them to comply or partially abide by set standards and procedures. In some ways, some part of state's authority (still, not sovereign powers) is being pooled by institutions of global governance (Anderson, Bernauer, Kachi 2019). Also, what needs to be mentioned is that in particular cases, not universally, by executing new decisions via majority voting, global governance institutions reduce obstacles to implementation of international agreements and a faster response time to new-emerging challenges. One of these is the rising threat to digital security worldwide.

Constitutive norms of global governance in the digital world

In response to the newly-found vulnerabilities of states and institutions to cyber-attacks and criminalization of some digital spheres, state conduct shifted from dealing locally to globally. Thus, since 2003 the Information and Communications Technologies Committee with support of the General Assembly started to function. The supposed purpose of it was to consider the threats that were already present at the time, present measures to address them and to reach an interstate agreement on what constitutes state's rights and responsibilities in the digital world (Linsenmaier, Schmidt & Spandler 2021).

With deliberations taking a long time, a major breakthrough in framework development was achieved in 2013 proclaiming that international law also applies to activities happening in the digital world. This caused further debate on what can be attributed to states' self-defense right in the cyberspace (Linsenmaier, Schmidt & Spandler 2021). The disagreements, yet unresolved, do not degrade the general idea that “a general understanding” is necessary in order to reach a satisfying decision that will affect everybody. Disregarding by remaining quarrels on the topic, actions performed by the General Assembly present another example of norm creation that creates a new perception of an international challenge that can be associated with global governance decisions.

Over time, the involvement in this process within transnational organizations is being extended. Because of that, to combat mounting controversy, the Committee was replaced by the Open Ended Working Group, though their resources and success were a bit limited. The old format was challenged for being non-inclusive and has undergone some structural changes. Despite considerably modest progress since then, the willingness to cooperate in the UN-centered process demonstrates that political actors still perform attempts to use deliberations within the established system holding the legitimacy of made decision in high regard.

Norms supporting the international trade

Another way of establishing the legitimacy of norms proclaimed by global governance decisions is through tariff agreement negotiations (Taggart, Abraham 2023). This one is one of the more questionable processes in global governance since it took several decades of deliberations in order for decisions to gain partial legitimacy in a form of GATT and, later, WTO. Consequently, the failure of economic liberalization created the group of “losing” actors that adopted the narrative of having been “robbed” in the face of a liberal hegemony that prevailed since the end of the Cold War. From their point of view, the policies they took on in good faith were used against them and the manipulative nature of adopted norms is self-evident.

What can't be denied is that extensive agreements aimed to reduce the costs of moving goods transnationally helped facilitate the trade process (Patomaki 2023). This also led to the increase in the amount of money gained from international trade almost fivefold, which indicates of the effectiveness and the development that this new system of international trade brought.

An openness to change is necessary in order to keep trade norms mostly constitutive for the participants in international trade. However, openness to democratization should not be equated with conduct aimed at developing global trading regulated within GATT and WTO. What proved to be efficient several decades ago is considered a long time outdated and globally inefficient. However, pursuing new standards is considerably hard with new technological advancements. The concept of what is “fair” inspires to pursue commons standards, but what still needs to be considered is that what is fair to one is not necessarily fair to everyone else.

The effects of trade that are, in part, thanks to the institutions of global governance, should manifest themselves in spillover effect that transcends the economic interests of a political actor and influences other spheres too (Hurd, 2018). This becomes harder with political differences straining international relations and with further disagreements between the states on what is the “right” or “fair” form of anything there is a rise to political manipulation which, if we strive for more constitution in political conduct, should be avoided.

Global governance under pressure of new regional transformations

There can be a few examples made in support of norms' manipulative nature in regards to the way the institutions of global governance function. One of the key aspects that are presented as core strengths of agreements on norms and the main weakness of this process is the voting.

The use of majority voting, while raising the effectiveness of global governance entities, leaves a few voices of political actors unheard. Consequently, the changed world system forces these states or organizations to act against their own political interests. Insignificant progress in raising the legitimacy of global governance is not due to citizens' inability to assess the authority of the governance framework (Anderson, Bernauer, Kachi 2019). On the contrary, citizens are inclined to consider that their increased authority leads to a partial loss of national control over some policies. This creates an opportunity for political forces within actor's structure to use it as a way to gain traction and enforce their own policies.

At the same time, it shouldn't be perceived as the unresolvable threat to the system of global governance. On the contrary, it presents the ways the existing order can be improved while taking into account the new complications. This welcomes demands for normative theorizing that can help the development of mechanisms that will maintain the normative legitimacy and keep on projecting authority to coerce political actors to make decisions that are in line with the “rules” of the system (Zurn 2018).

Conclusion

Throughout this essay, I presented constitutive qualities of norms as a primary influencing factor on actors' behavior in the context of global governance. In order for the norms within the framework to be legitimate in the eyes of states and organizations they need to undergo a few informal tests: political and economic (Rodrik, 2020). The benefits should manifest themselves in the areas that are affected by the produced and documented norm. The primary reason why this should be possible is the way the established system of global governance functions with support of the institutions that serve a particular purpose of facilitating the cooperation.

This is supported by the cases presented above, which cover several areas of transnational cooperation. As a general rule, deliberative mechanisms help political actors to find appropriate conditions for passing decisions through “argumentative reasoning” within the communication concerning their interests (Linsenmaier, Schmidt & Spandler 2021).

Be it in the medical, digital or trading sphere, the norms propagated by the global governance institutions form an intricate groundwork for international conduct, for states and regional organizations alike. Continuous myriad of negotiations and integration of new members into the decision-making process demonstrates political actors' acceptance of existing guidelines and may create a positive perception of progress that is made.

Even if that is the case, there still is resistance to the authority projected by global governance. In an attempt to minimize the impact on national decisionmaking and to demonstrate concern with not meeting with procedural and performance standards, certain political actors make decision to either withdraw from the structures or to limit their involvement to a minimum (Anderson, Bernauer, Kachi 2019). The dilemma of what really lies under actors' motivation in these particular scenarios still remains unsolved. Organizations' actions from a state's point of view, without a doubt, can be perceived as ineffective, however, t he factor of elite ques is also at play and it can't be dropped out when there's a discussion on manipulation that is demonstrated either by accepted norms or by actions caused by these norms, which, sometimes, underwent deliberation without a consensus which can be considered unnecessary for the legitimization process.

This perception of constructivist paradigm and certain liberal theories leads to a way of expecting compliance detached from real social needs and problems. By creating legitimacy through deliberation, the need to coerce political actors into compliance should lower (Hurd 2019). If there's no other substitute for a global governance system perceived as illegitimate, it may be accepted for some time by the people. So it raises the issue of importance of social meaning of constitutive norms in a modern world (Zurn 2018). Based on that, compliance with norms is associated with success of global governance. In pursuit of “good” governance on the basis of the existing world order, already established international organizations are viewed as inherently necessary for the global development (Hurd 2019).

In case of primarily constitutive qualities of created norms, the manipulations done either by singular states or on behalf of a group should not be disregarded from the global governance. It still remains one of the instruments to fulfill state's interest in the field of international relations. Even if we try to detach global governance from the states that through their connections make it global, there still remains a problem of authority that an institution exerts over its members. Any narrative can be pressed to create an appearance that there is support for some “common good” in an impartial way (Zurn 2018).

That's why there's always a need for open dialogue within the global governance framework to either expand existing interpretations or to broaden the communication to be as inclusive as possible. I'm inclined to believe that this will dilute coordinated efforts to undermine the authority of mentioned political entities and coerce other political actors to act in hand with existing norms in order to have an opportunity to better them for their own good.

References

1. Anderson, B, Bernauer, T, & Kachi, A 2019, `Does international pooling of authority affect the perceived legitimacy of global governance?', The Review of International Organizations, no. 14, pp. 661-683.

2. Hurd, I, 2019, `Legitimacy and contestation in global governance: Revisiting the folk theory of international institutions', The Review of International Organizations, vol. 14, pp. 717-729.

3. Linsenmaier, T, Schmidt, D R, & Spandler, K 2021, `On the meaning(s) of norms: Ambiguity and global governance in a post-hegemonic world', Review of International Studies, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 508-527.

4. Patomaki, H 2023, `Problems of Democratising Global Gov ernance: Time, Space, and the Emancipatory Process', In World Statehood: The Future of World Politics, pp. 97-125, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.

5. Rodrik, D 2020, `Putting global governance in its place', The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 1-18.

6. Taggart, J, & Abraham, K J 2023, 'Norm dynamics in a post - hegemonic world: multistakeholder global governance and the end of liberal international order', Review of International Political Economy, pp. 1-28, DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2023.2213441.

7. Zurn, M, 2018, `A theory of global governance: Authority, legitimacy, and contestation", Oxford University Press, pp. 331.

8. Peters, M A, Hollings, S, Green, B & Ogunniran, M O 2022, `The WHO, the global governance of health and pandemic politics', Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 707-716.

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