Nicole Deitelhoff

Corporate Security Responsibility: Corporate Governance Contributions to Peace and Security in Zones of Conflict

We are ready to boycott beverage companies at universities if they are alleged to be involved in or ignore maltreatment of labour union workers in Latin America1 and we refuse to purchase oil from companies that are not willing to comply with environmental protection standards when disposing of their defunct oil platforms.2 We expect Chinese suppliers to refrain from using toxic ingredients in producing child toys.3 In summary, we believe that companies, no matter where they operate or sell their products or services, should at least comply with, if not go beyond, existing international social, environmental and labour standards, and human rights more broadly. Usually referred to as corporate social responsibility, commitments and practices by business companies rose during the late 1980s and 1990s. Public expectation, so it seems, demands more of it, particularly in areas where the state fails to provide fundamental collective goods or protect basic normative standards.

Beyond soft balancing: small states and coalition-building in the ICC and climate negotiations

The role of small states has been largely neglected in research on the process and outcome of multilateral negotiations. Even though these states may be active in the agenda-setting processes or display a specific engagement in certain thematic aspects of negotiations, in the end game the outcome of negotiations has been perceived to be dependent on the bargaining between major powers. However, small states also have strategies at their disposal to compensate for these weaknesses. Two principal ones come to mind, prioritization or niche diplomacy, and coalition-building to join forces with like-minded states in order to draw on their resources, expertise and manpower. In the article, we compare two cases of small state coalitions in multilateral negotiations, namely the Like Minded (LM) group in the negotiations that led to the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in United Nations climate negotiations. While the two coalitions resort to similar strategies, they have not been comparably successful. We will show that the ability to translate discursive power into measurable effects on outcomes ultimately depends on the institutional setting of the negotiations and the nature of the issue that coalitions are tackling.

Parliaments and European security policy. Mapping the Parliamentary Field

The more important governmental cooperation and bureaucratic involvement become in ESDP, the more pressing becomes the issue of democratic control of executive cooperation. This article starts from the argument that parliamentary involvement in decision-making is of central importance for ensuring the democratic quality of ESDP. It uses the notion of a multilevel parliamentary field to examine how parliaments at different levels are currently involved in ESDP. It turns out that during the past two decades or so no clear-cut privileged channel of parliamentary involvement has evolved in this field. Although national parliaments are of central importance due to the intergovernmental nature of decision-making, even they face severe problems in controlling executive decisions as their powers vary widely and both international cooperation among executive actors and military integration pose severe problems to control procedures at the national level. The European Parliament and various forms of inter-parliamentary cooperation complement the work of member state parliaments. While they provide opportunities for public scrutiny of European security policies and for information sharing, working relations among parliaments in the field are not without frictions. The more executive decision-making departs from the purely intergovernmental model, the more problematic the existing arrangements for parliamentary involvement will become. There will be no easy remedy as adjustments in parliamentary control will require careful attention to the relations of the different elements in the parliamentary field.

Keine Widerrede? Opposition und Deliberation in der überstaatlichen Politik

Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Deitelhoff, Nicole ; Thiel, Thorsten: Keine Widerrede? Opposition und Deliberation in der überstaatlichen Politik. In: Landwehr, Claudia (Ed.) ; Schmalz-Bruns, Rainer(Ed.): Deliberative Demokratie in der Diskussion: Herausforderungen, Bewährungsproben, Kritik. Baden-Baden : Nomos, 2014 (Schriftenreihe der Sektion Politische Theorie und Ideengeschichte der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft 28). ISBN 978-3-8487-1543-5, pp. 421-451. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-56008-9

Die Internationalen Beziehungen: ein einführender Überblick

Einfuhrende Uberblicke zum politikwissenschaftlichen Teilgebiet ‚Internationale Beziehungen‘ beginnen haufig mit einer Beschreibung des Gegenstands internationale Beziehungen als der Analyse von Politik in einem anarchischen System souveraner Nationalstaaten. Darauf folgt dann eine Darstellung der unterschiedlichen Analyseperspektiven entlang der drei grosen Denkschulen, die die Internationalen Beziehungen lange gepragt haben: Realismus, Liberalismus und Marxismus.

Private Security and Military Companies: The Other Side of Business and Conflict

Private business actors enter security politics in two ways. One rather indirect way is when transnational corporations (TNCs) are called upon by states, civil society or the international community to engage in security measures during their daily operations (for example the ‘Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights’ developed by the US and British governments in partnership with the biggest extraction companies, such as BP, Shell, Talisman and Rio Tinto).1 TNCs partner with strong states to provide security in areas of limited statehood or they commit themselves to private self-regulation schemes, such as codes of conduct (Bailes and Frommelt 2004; Feil et al. 2008; Wolf et al. 2007). Corporate social or security responsibility is the main area of concern here. The involvement of private business corporations in the provision of security is often a result of increasing pressure by states, the international community and civil society alike, as well as a need to secure their investment and operations in zones of weak government and conflict. TNCs may be drawn into security governance measures but it is by no means their primary focus (Deitelhoff and Wolf 2009; Wolf et al. 2007).

Business in Zones of Conflict and Global Security Governance: What has been Learnt and Where to from Here?

Private actors and their interplay with public actors in global governance have become a prominent focus of global governance institutions and research alike. The last decade has witnessed a remarkable growth in the number of private actors in global governance and an increase in public-private partnerships, multi-stakeholder initiatives, informal coalitions between states, NGOs and business partners, and the emergence of private self-regulatory mechanisms. With their problem-solving capacities stretched thin in the wake of globalization and denationalization, states and international organizations began to reach out to the private sector and its resources. Private actors have been brought in to set and locally implement international regulations and have contributed to the provision of collective goods. Lately the private business sector has become a prominent partner of governments, international organizations and NGOs in areas such as environmental problems, labour and social standards, and human rights more broadly. The sheer growth in the number of private actors in global governance is astonishing; equally dramatic is their changed role within the governance initiatives. While their role was initially confined to functions such as agenda setting in the input phase or norm implementation and evaluation on the output side of global governance, it has since expanded to include core decision-making, taking part in all phases of the policy-making process.

Unlocking the agency of the governed: contestation and norm dynamics

Abstract International Relations (IR) research on the translation and appropriation of international norms emphasises both the role of local agency and the fundamental malleability of norms. However, these perspectives cannot unlock the full agency of the governed as they limit agents’ effects on norms to incremental changes at the margins. We suggest transcending the distinction between the local and the global by taking practices of contestation as constitutive for normative agency. In such a perspective, we can differentiate types of contestatory practices and analyse how they affect norms.

From the Heart of Darkness: Critical Reading and Genuine Listening in Constructivist Norm Research

Abstract In their article on critical norm research, Stephan Engelkamp, Katharina Glaab, and Judith Renner propose a poststructuralist, hegemony-critical program. They contrast it with an affirmative mainstream in constructivist norm research, which they argue is oblivious to power, unreflective, and Eurocentric. Therefore, they make a case for a program that unmasks hegemonic values, reconstructs and strengthens non-Western, local values, and reflects more systematically on its own position in the process of truth production. We show based on three points that the proposed program is not fruitful for a truly “critical” form of norm research: (1) it distorts the weaknesses and achievements of constructivist norm research, (2) it rewards an unreflected use of the terms “Western” and “local,” and (3) it lacks the necessary instruments for subjecting political processes to normative reflection.

Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik als Gegenstand der Policy- und Governance-Forschung

Der vorliegende Artikel befasst sich mit zwei Politikfeldern, die bislang zumindest in der innenpolitisch ausgerichteten ‘klassischen’ Policy- bzw. Governance-Forschung noch relativ wenig beachtet wurden: Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik. Wahrend in Deutschland vielfach von „Reformstau“ und „Reformblockaden“ die Rede ist1, findet derzeit in den deutschen Streitkraften eine sehr weit reichende Reform von der Verteidigungsarmee zu einer „Armee im Einsatz“ statt. Es ist wenig verstandlich, warum dieser Reform im Vergleich zu anderen Reformbemuhungen in zivilen Politikfeldern sowohl in der Policy-Forschung als auch der allgemeinen Offentlichkeit relativ wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt wird. Die Reorganisation der deutschen Verteidigungspolitik sollte nicht nur Ausenpolitikforscher/ innen interessieren, sondern starker in den Blickpunkt auch der innenpolitisch sensibilisierter Politikfeld-Forschung rucken. Dies umso mehr, als der Einsatz der Bundeswehr im Inneren immer wieder zum innenpolitischen Thema wird.