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NGO Power in Global Social and Environmental Standard-Setting

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NGO Power in Global Social and Environmental Standard-Setting NGO Power in Global Social and Environmental Standard-Setting Magnus Boström and Kristina Tamm Hallström NGO Power in Global Social and Environmental Standard-Setting • Magnus Boström and Kristina Tamm Hallström* In his book Power in the Global Age, Ulrich Beck argues that globalization has in- troduced a new space and framework for politics: Politics is no longer subject to the same boundaries as before, and it is no longer tied solely to state actors and institutions, the result being that addi- tional players, new roles, new resources, unfamiliar rules and new contradic- tions and conºicts appear on the scene.1 According to Beck, we are witnessing one of the most signiªcant changes in the history of power. His analysis is based primarily on the changing relationship between global business and the state, arguing that there is increasing asymme- try between these two centers of power, to the advantage of global business. There is room for new forms of global counter-power in his analysis, however, and actions performed by NGOs are vital in this context. Beck, along with nu- merous scholars in the area of global governance and regulation,2 focuses on new roles, rules, strategies, and objectives. In this article we concentrate on rule- making within global multi-stakeholder organizations in which NGOs play cru- cial roles. We see a number of regulatory innovators in which environmental and so- cial NGOs participate working for more responsible global business. Some of the best known of these standards setting organizations are the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), Social Accountability International (SAI), and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), and * The research presented in this article has been made possible through funding by the Swedish Research Council for our joint project “Organizing Private Authority” as well as Boström’s proj- ect “The Missing Pillar,” funded by the Swedish Research Council Formas. The work with this article has proªted from collaboration with participants from the Missing Pillar research pro- gram, and we also wish to thank the anonymous referees that gave us constructive comments on earlier versions of the article. 1. Beck 2005, 3–4. 2. See, for example, Brunsson and Jacobsson 2000; Hall and Biersteker 2002; Rosenau 2003; Barnett and Duvall 2005; Djelic and Sahlin-Andersson 2006; Pattberg 2007; Fransen and Kolk 2007; and Boström and Garsten 2008. Global Environmental Politics 10:4, November 2010 © 2010 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 36 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00030 by guest on 28 September 2021 Magnus Boström and Kristina Tamm Hallström • 37 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Many such standard- setting bodies are multi-stakeholder organizations. Their members and partici- pants constitute various types of organizations and individuals: scientiªc ex- perts, representatives from governmental organizations or intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), representatives from transnational corporations (TNCs) and trade associations, and environmental and social NGOs from civil society. Standard-setting within these organizations relies on deliberations and negotia- tions among the participants and on ªnding durable compromises or consen- sus between stakeholders from various spheres of society. A number of scholars have drawn attention to the rise, inºuence, and role of NGOs in global politics—including international environmental negotia- tions,3 accountability struggles,4 world civic politics,5 and civil regulation.6 Others have focused on the mobilizing, networking, and organizing aspects of transnational social movement organizations.7 Still others focus on the ac- countability and legitimacy of NGOs.8 We argue, however, that there has been a lack of speciªc focus on their role, power, and participation within transna- tional multi-stakeholder standard-setting organizations—including the long- term challenges and dilemmas that such participation may create. Our ªrst pur- pose is to analyze the impact of NGOs on multi-stakeholder work by drawing on a power-based perspective. We then emphasize some of the institutional, structural, and discursive factors within multi-stakeholder organizations that create certain challenges to and dilemmas for NGO power and participation in the longer term. We focus on the role of social and environmental NGOs within three global standard-setting organizations: the FSC, the MSC, and ISO in its current work on social responsibility (ISO-SR). Our material is based on participant ob- servations (e.g. standard-setting meetings, workshops, and public seminars), in- terviews, and conversations, as well as documents and secondary material.9 We conducted 120 semi-structured interviews between 2005 and 2008 with key actors who were directly involved in these standard-setting organizations or ex- ternal actors who criticized or promoted the standard setters. Interviewees rep- resented NGOs as well as other types of stakeholders, including producers, re- tailers, consultants, members of scientiªc communities, and state ofªcials. The concept of NGO is, to be sure, a broad and ambivalent one. Indeed, our investi- gation has included an examination of the way actors are constrained or em- powered by being categorized as an NGO within a standard-setting organiza- tion. In this article, we refer to NGOs primarily as not-for-proªt organizations, 3. Betsill and Corell 2008. 4. Mason 2005. 5. Wapner 1995. 6. Bendell 2000. 7. Keck and Sikkink 1998; Smith 2005; and Smith 2008. 8. Van Rooy 2004; and Jordan and Van Tuijl 2005. 9. Tamm Hallström and Boström 2010. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00030 by guest on 28 September 2021 38 • NGO Power in Global Social and Environmental Standard-Setting usually with voluntary members or participants. NGOs are part of global or lo- cal civil societies. We have interviewed people working for both small and large NGOs, some of which are global (e.g. Consumers International, Building and Wood Workers’ International, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Find (WWF), Friends of the Earth), whereas others (including interviewees representing indigenous people’s groups from various continents) are local. The interviews followed a common interview guide. Our approach was ºexible, however, allowing for questions to be adjusted in accordance with the interviewee’s experience and expertise. Questions were also adjusted to accom- modate the type of actor-category represented by the interviewee. As for assess- ing the strengths or weaknesses of particular NGOs, we did not deªne any set of external criteria against which to assess the inºuence, impact, or effectiveness of NGO participation. Although possible,10 it is extremely complicated to trace a given outcome to the speciªc participation strategies, actions, and power re- sources employed by NGOs within a multi-stakeholder setting. Many variables intervene, including the counteractions of opponents, and a given power strat- egy may work in one situation but not in another, despite contextual sim- ilarities. Rather than investigating actual inºuence using a positivist/empiricist methodology,11 we were more interested in investigating potential inºuence, which corresponds more closely to a constructionist or critical realist methodol- ogy. An approach that focuses only on actual inºuence fails to acknowledge the potential power of nonparticipation (e.g. the exit strategy, discussed later in the article). To investigate potential inºuence we must pay close attention to the con- cept of power resources, while accounting for the institutional, structural, and discursive context in which power is exercised.12 Empirically, we have studied expressions of power, or potential inºuence, through a qualitative analysis of the experience and self-assessment of interviewees representing all types of stakeholders. We asked interviewees to talk about their participation experi- ences over time within or surrounding the standard-setting work (for instance, on the board, in the secretariat, on advisory committees, in working groups, or during consultations or campaigning). Some questions directly concerned the interviewees’ beliefs about the inºuence and impact of the organizations they represented, as well as the key mechanisms that were to achieve that impact (for example, formal structures, strategies, resources). We also asked about key ob- stacles and frustrations in the process, and some business people cited the power of some NGOs as one of their frustrations. Interviewees were also asked which other groups were most inºuential. Obviously, NGOs such as Green- peace and WWF tend to differ in their judgment of the usefulness of different participation strategies. In our analysis, we have focused on the most general 10. See Betsill and Corell 2008. 11. Betsill and Corell 2008. 12. Cf Barnett and Duvall 2005. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00030 by guest on 28 September 2021 Magnus Boström and Kristina Tamm Hallström • 39 and common characteristics and challenges. Our aim is not to assess the most powerful type of participation strategy; rather, our interest lies in the type of power resources that appears to be critical, and how these resources relate to the institutional,
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