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Foreign Policy
The Other World Wide Web: Global Public Policy
Networks
By Wolfgang H. Reinicke
This abstract is adapted from an article appearing in the Winter 1999-2000 issue of Foreign Policy magazine.
Whining is a central feature of the debate on how to meet the challenges of globalization. Traditional political institutions, we are told, are incapable of dealing with all the problems that lie ahead. The nation-state? Passé. International organizations? A story of failure rather than success. Few newspaper or journal contributions do not leave us with a certain sense of helplessness. Is this a form of millennial depression?
Equating political change with political institutions masks a simple truth: Individuals and groups, not bureaucracies or formal institutions, drive innovation and learning. Change is a bottom-up process, not a top-down steering committee.
Global public policy networks are a case in point. These networks are alliances of government agencies, international organizations, corporations, and elements of civil society that join together to achieve what none can accomplish alone. They thrive in a borderless environment, capitalize on technological innovation, and give once ignored groups a greater voice in international decision making. Although their objectives and budgets remain modest, networks hold the promise of untangling a knot of global problems and improving the methods of global governance.
Bureaucratic Growing Pains
Traditional policy makers face several new constraints. First, social and economic integration around the world has extended the geographic scope of public policy, with cross-border environmental hazards as a classic example. Trapped by the territoriality of their power, policy makers have little choice but to address the symptoms rather than the causes of public problems. Moreover, the frenetic pace of technological change has drastically reduced the time that policy makers have to develop competencies or make decisions. Recall the precipitous collapse of the Barings Group, a major U.K. bank, in 1995. Financial regulators were ill-equipped to assess how the use of new products such as financial derivatives could lead to such an abrupt debacle.
Finally, policy makers must tackle more issues that cut across areas of bureaucratic expertise. Reactions to the recent World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle only emphasize the extent to which trade policy, for instance, encompasses economic, ecological, and security considerations. This broadening of policy debates challenges the focus of national or multilateral bureaucracies.
Network Solutions
Global public policy networks help policy makers meet challenges in three essential areas of global policy making: managing knowledge, overcoming market and intergovernmental failures, and broadening participation.
Global policy networks sort through conflicting perspectives, help hammer out a consensus, and translate that consensus into action. Their value rests not on the ability to offer quick solutions, but on the creation of an environment that enables parties in conflict to reach agreement. The World Commission on Dams is a good example.
In the early 1990s, the construction of dams became one of the most conflict-ridden issues in the development community. The breakdown of dialogue between NGOs, private developers, and international organizations prompted the World Conservation Union and the World Bank to convene a workshop in 1997, bringing champions and critics of large dams together. A year later, the World Commission on Dams was born, with a mandate to spur the development of standards for dam construction. The commission is compiling case studies of dams worldwide and conducting regional consultations to solicit feedback from interested groups. Today it is widely recognized as an innovative response to a thorny global policy issue.
Networks also support the creation and deepening of markets and remedy the weaknesses of existing private and public arrangements. For example, the Global Reporting Initiative is a policy network charged with developing standards for assessing the environmental impact of private corporations. Although many firms produce such assessments, each employs its own indicators, making it difficult to compare reports and make informed decisions. The initiative plans to complete its “corporate environmental sustainability” guidelines by the end of 1999.
Global public policy networks can also help implement existing international accords. The Global Environment Facility, for example, finances projects in countries seeking to adhere to international treaties on climate change, biological diversity, and ozone depletion.
To achieve a lasting consensus, successful global policy networks emphasize broad participation, nonhierarchical structures, and shared financing responsibilities. The World Commission on Dams provides a strong example: Its members share the funding burdens, and all sectors participated in formulating the network’s mandate and selecting its leadership.
Support Your Local Network
Global networks are meant to complement traditional policy institutions, not replace them. They help governments and multilateral agencies to manage risks, take advantage of technological change, and be more responsive to their constituents. Mindful of these benefits, governments are throwing their support behind global policy networks. Multilateral organizations also recognize that policy networks can help sharpen their missions. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has expressed support for such initiatives, and World Bank President James Wolfensohn has made connecting “coalitions for change” a priority of his second term.
Less than 10 years old in most cases, global public policy networks need the leadership and initial financing that governments and international organizations can provide. But such leadership can also turn into a liability. Once a network has established itself as a powerful voice on a particular global issue, its founders must be ready to step back and recruit constituents from other sectors for leadership, organizational, and funding roles.
The Strength of Weak Ties
Sociologist Mark Granovetter suggested more than 25 years ago that “those to whom we are weakly tied are more likely to move in circles different from our own and will thus have access to information different from that which we receive.” Acquiring information from diverse sources is not just politically correct hand-wringing—it is a key advantage in global public policy making.
Although inclusiveness may be these networks’ greatest contribution, the facade of inclusiveness may prove their fatal weakness. There is a tendency for Western governments, large multinational corporations, and prominent NGOs to dominate networks. The inclusion of less powerful groups from the developing world is critical. A lesser-known NGO in a poor nation may hold the key to solving an ancient economic or environmental puzzle. Will we ever know? Unless global public policy networks constantly bolster their ranks with new voices, they risk becoming as sluggish as the traditional bureaucracies they now seek to help.
References
Christopher K. Ansell and Steven Weber’s “Organizing International Politics: Sovereignty and Open Systems” (International Political Science Review, January 1999)
Tanja A. Börzel’s “Organizing Babylon: On the Different Conceptions of Policy Networks” (Public Administration, Summer 1998)
Mark Granovetter’s “The Strength of Weak Ties” (American Journal of Sociology, May 1973)
Maryann K. Cusimano’s Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda (Boston: Bedford, 1999)
Ernst B. Haas’ When Knowledge is Power: Three Models of Change in International Organizations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)
Haas and Peter M. Haas, “Learning to Learn: Improving International Governance” (Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, September 1995)
Charles Heckscher’s “Defining the Post-Bureaucratic Type” in Charles Heckscher and Anne Donnellon, eds., The Post-Bureaucratic Organization: New Perspectives On Organizational Change (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1994)
Wolfgang H. Reinicke’s Global Public Policy: Governing Without Government? (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 1998)
Mark Thatcher’s “The Development of Policy Network Analyses: From Modest Origins to Overarching Frameworks” (Journal of Theoretical Politics, vol. 10, no. 4, 1998)
Steve Waddell and L. David Brown’s “Fostering Intersectoral Partnering: A Guide to Promoting Cooperation Among Governments, Business, and Civil Society Actors” (IDR Reports, vol. 13, no. 3, 1997).