Jonathan W. Kuyper

The democratic legitimacy of orchestration: the UNFCCC, non-state actors, and transnational climate governance

ABSTRACT Is orchestration democratically legitimate? On one hand, debates concerning the legitimacy and democratic deficits of international politics continue unabated. On the other, the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has progressively engaged in processes of orchestration culminating in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Scholarship on orchestration has almost exclusively focused on how to ensure effectiveness while excluding normative questions. This lacuna is addressed by arguing that orchestration should be assessed according to its democratic credentials. The promises and pitfalls of orchestration can be usefully analyzed by applying a set of democratic values: participation, deliberation, accountability, and transparency. Two major orchestration efforts by the UNFCCC both pre- and post-Paris are shown to have substantive democratic shortfalls, not least with regard to participation and accountability. Ways of strengthening the democratic legitimacy of orchestration are identified.

Systemic Representation: Democracy, Deliberation, and Nonelectoral Representatives

This article explores the relationship between non-electoral representatives and democratic legitimacy by combining the recent constructivist turn in political representation with systemic work in deliberative theory. Two core arguments are advanced. First, non-electoral representatives should be judged by their position in a wider democratic system. Second, deliberative democracy offers a productive toolkit by which to evaluate these agents. I develop a framework of systemic representation which depicts the elemental parts of a democratic system and assigns normative standards according to the space occupied. The framework gives priority of democratic analysis to the systemic level. This helps mitigate a central concern in the constructivist turn which suggests that representatives mobilize constituencies in ways that are susceptible to framing and manipulation. I engage in case-study analysis of the collapsed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement to unpack the different spaces occupied by non-electoral representative and elucidate the varied democratic demands that hinge on this positioning.

Democratic Deliberation in the Modern World: The Systemic Turn

ABSTRACT The normative ideals and feasibility of deliberative democracy have come under attack from several directions, as exemplified by a recent book version of a special issue of this journal. Critics have pointed out that the complexity of the modern world, voter ignorance, partisanship, apathy, and the esoteric nature of political communications make it unlikely that deliberation will be successful at creating good outcomes, and that it may in fact be counterproductive since it can polarize opinions. However, these criticisms were aimed at “micro” theories of deliberative democracy. The new “systemic” turn in deliberative democracy avoids these problems by positing a system-wide division of labor in a nation-state: experts and ordinary citizens “check” each others opinions; partisanship and even ignorance can spur deliberation among citizens; and citizens may remain apathetic about some issues but deliberate about others. So long as the overall level of systemic deliberation increases, instead of decreases, the ideal of deliberation is still relevant in a society as complex as ours.

Non-state actors in global climate governance: from Copenhagen to Paris and beyond

‘Together now!’ was the slogan used in the invitation to the Marrakesh Partnership for Global Climate Action (GCA), an initiative launched on the second day of the 22nd Conference of the Parties (C...

Global democratization and international regime complexity

How can democracy best be pursued and promoted in the existing global system? In this article, I propose a novel suggestion: democratization should occur at the level of international regime complexity. Because each issue-area of world politics is distinct, we require tailor-made (as opposed to one-size-fits-all) responses to the global democratic deficit. I conceptualize global democracy as an ongoing process of democratization in which a set of core normative values are more or less satisfied. I explicate equal participation, accountability, and institutional revisability as those key standards. I argue that the democratization of regime complexes should occur across two distinct planes: (1) the realm of multilateral negotiations; and (2) institutional forms of democratic experimentalism between rule-makers and rule-takers. I evaluate and defend the potential of this argument by analyzing the intellectual property rights regime complex. Because intellectual property rights represent a ‘tough case’ for global democrats, we should be optimistic about the democratization of alternative regime complexes.

Accountability and Representation: Nonstate Actors in UN Climate Diplomacy

Observer organizations in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are clustered into nine constituency groups. Each constituency has a “focal point” (representative) to mediate between the Secretariat and the 1800 NGOs admitted during each Conference of the Parties meeting by collating information, coordinating interactions, offering logistical support, and providing collective representation. Drawing upon a series of interviews with constituency groups and other qualitative data, we explore how the focal point of each constituency group remains accountable to the observer organizations he or she represents. We make two major contributions. First, we map the accountability mechanisms that exist between the observer organizations and focal points in each constituency. Second, we argue that variation in the usage of accountability mechanisms across constituencies corresponds to the existence of parallel bodies operating outside the UNFCCC. This article speaks to broader issues of accountability and representation in global climate governance.

International courts and global democratic values: Participation, accountability, and justification

In a post-Cold War era characterised by globalisation and deep interdependence, the actions of national governments increasingly have an effect beyond their own territorial borders. Moreover, key agents of global governance – international organisations and their bureaucracies, non-state actors and private agents – exercise pervasive forms of authority. Due to these shifts, it is widely noted that world politics suffers from a democratic deficit. This article contributes to work on global democracy by looking at the role of international courts. Building upon an original dataset covering the 24 international courts in existence since the end of the Second World War, we argue that international courts are able to advance democratic values and shape democratic practices beyond the state. They can do so by fostering equal participation, accountability, and public justification that link individuals directly with sites of transnational authority. We contend that the ability of international courts to promote these values is conditioned by institutional design choices concerning access rules, review powers, and provisions regarding judicial reason-giving. We canvass these design features of different international courts and assess the promises and pitfalls for global democratisation. We conclude by linking our analysis of international courts and global democratisation with debates about the legitimation and politicisation of global governance at large.

Deliberative capacity in the intellectual property rights regime complex

World politics is increasingly described in terms of regime complexity – the proliferation of regulatory arrangements operating within the same policy domain. This concept has been fruitfully applied to a variety of fields including trade, climate change, human rights, energy, refugee and security politics. Although empirical work on regime complexity has burgeoned, normative work has lagged behind. In this article, I explore whether regime complexity hinders or promotes deliberative democracy. This focus is motivated in response to the much-discussed global democratic deficit. I undertake this analysis by applying the recent ‘systemic turn’ in deliberative theory. Specifically, I draw upon John Dryzek’s notion of deliberative capacity to assess whether regime complexity provides space to develop inclusive, authentic and consequential deliberation. To gain traction on this argument, I look at the regime complex which governs intellectual property rights. In addition to this normative assessment, I also begin probing the scope conditions under which deliberative capacity arises. I suggest that forum shopping, inter-institutional competition and decentralized authority – all core features of regime complexity – enable (but do not guarantee) deliberative capacity. Overall, I argue that treating regime complexes as deliberative systems opens novel ways of thinking about global democratization.

The democratic potential of systemic pluralism

This article analyses how, and under what conditions, a systemically-pluralist structure of international law provides a springboard for global democratization. I argue that contestation and deliberation – core values of democracy – can and do arise within systemic pluralism. Specifically, I contend that institutional heterarchy between legal orders and forum shopping by different actors provide a means to engender these democratic values. I maintain that democratization can be sought on both horizontal and vertical planes: the former being the sphere of multilateral negotiations; the latter being governance which links individuals directly to sites of public power. In making this argument, I analyse recent developments within global intellectual property law, establishing and treating the multiple jurisdictions in this issue-space as an instantiation of systemic pluralism. This article thus provides a normative strategy for ongoing democratization of international law. Systemic pluralism must still prove its merits in terms of stability, the rule of law, and other values. However, I provide a method to advance transnational democracy that takes seriously empirical realities and competing normative visions.

Designing institutions for global democracy: flexibility through escape clauses and sunset provisions

How can advocates of global democracy grapple with the empirical conditions that constitute world politics? I argue that flexibility mechanisms—commonly used to advance international cooperation—should be employed to make the institutional design project of global democracy more tractable. I highlight three specific reasons underpinning this claim. First, flexibility provisions make bargaining over different institutional designs more manageable. Second, heightened flexibility takes seriously potential concerns about path-dependent institutional development. Finally, deliberately shortening the time horizons of agents by employing flexibility provisions has cognitive benefits as it forces designers to focus specifically on issues of feasibility as well as desirability. I discuss a range of flexibility mechanisms and highlight the utility of sunset provisions and escape clauses. From this analysis, I build an argument for the usage of small-scale democratic experiments through which citizens (or their representatives) have a say in global policy making.