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Using Ideas Strategically: The Contest Between Business and NGO Networks in Intellectual Property Rights
Abstract
Whose ideas matter? And how do actors make them matter? Focusing on the strategic deployment of competing normative frameworks, that is, framing issues and grafting private agendas on policy debates, we examine the contentious politics of the contemporary international intellectual property rights regime. We compare the business victory in the establishment of the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) in the World Trade Organization with the subsequent NGO campaign against enforcing TRIPS to ensure access to essential HIV/AIDS medicines. Our analysis challenges constructivist scholarship that emphasizes the distinction between various types of transnational networks based on instrumental versus normative orientations. We question the portrayal of business firms as strictly instrumental actors preoccupied with material concerns, and NGOs as motivated solely by principled, or non-material beliefs. Yet we also offer a friendly amendment to constructivism by demonstrating its applicability to the analysis of business. Treating the business and NGO networks as competing interest groups driven by their normative ideals and material concerns, we demonstrate that these networks' strategies and activities are remarkably similar.
... I illustrate my theoretical argument with an analysis of the epistemic competition around the pharmaceutical innovation system. While a wide body of literature described the governance of pharmaceutical patents as having gone through a paradigm shift towards more flexibility in patents for health concerns (Drahos, 2007;Harmer, 2011;Morin, 2014;Ney, 2012;Sell & Prakash, 2004;Stevenson & Youde, 2021), the COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on an undeniable and persisting hesitation within the international community. Building on a social network analysis of 129 experts speaking in the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trilateral Cooperation's events held between 2010 and 2019, this paper finds that the preestablished epistemic community arguing for stronger patent protection has not, in fact, lost its epistemic authority. ...
... The pharmaceutical industry is credited for pushing IP protection into the Uruguay Round's agenda through lobbying within the United States, the European Union, and Japan. In this process, a community of experts who find that infringements to patent rights will jeopardize the sustainability of the pharmaceutical innovation system established itself (Drahos, 2007;Harmer, 2011;Morin, 2014;Ney, 2012;Sell & Prakash, 2004;Stevenson & Youde, 2021). This first, preestablished epistemic community is more conservative and in favor of the status quo in patent governance. ...
... In this context, a network of civil society actors led by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) organized itself and pressured the international community into recognizing the need to incorporate further legal flexibility in the TRIPS Agreement. This movement fostered the emergence of a new community of experts who believe that using existing and further flexibilities in the global patent regime is essential to respond to public health (Drahos, 2007;Harmer, 2011;Morin, 2014;Ney, 2012;Sell & Prakash, 2004;Stevenson & Youde, 2021). This newer epistemic community will be referred to as "proreform." ...
Expert consensus helps policymakers solve complex problems by identifying and legitimizing policy solutions. Yet, persistent hesitation remains among policymakers regarding the technically adequate policy solution despite the existence and mobilization of epistemic communities. This paper contends that more attention should be given to studying the epistemic competition that may arise when multiple epistemic communities grapple with the same problem but have divergent understandings of its technical nature and its adequate policy solutions. Building on Science and Technology Studies and on the literature on polarization, this paper suggests that two social dynamics, namely the mobilization of resources and increased polarization, may complexify the technical disagreement among experts. In turn, these dynamics may lead to a deadlock in the debates, negatively impacting the institutional context where they take place. To illustrate this, this paper analyzes the case of the pharmaceutical innovation system, which has been prone to tensions between experts arguing for strong patent protection and experts arguing for greater flexibility to meet public health needs. This paper builds on a mixed method combining a social network analysis of experts invited to provide their expertise in the WHO‐WTO‐WIPO Trilateral Cooperation events and on semi‐structured interviews with 24 of these experts.
... For decades, the prevailing assumption has been that human rights have been pushed off the agenda of the World Trade Organization (WTO). While global trade rules are known to matter to the enjoyment of many human rights, many have argued that the WTO, as an international institution, is an inhospitable space for advancing human rights concerns (Aaronson, 2007;Joseph, 2013;Lang, 2011;Sell & Prakash, 2004). To a large degree, this understanding of the politics of human rights at the WTO has been imprinted on generations of scholars by a single, yet pivotal, event: The failure of the US and other Northern actors in the mid-1990s to incorporate a 'social clause' into the WTO that would have made market access conditional on developing countries improving human and labor rights (He & Murphy, 2007;Hughes & Wilkinson, 1998;Pahle, 2010). ...
... Scholars have identified a variety of both value-based and instrumental motives for states to link trade and human rights (Hafner-Burton et al., 2019;Lechner, 2016;Mckenzie & Meissner, 2017;Slawotsky, 2022). Ascribing states' behavior at the WTO to either purely principled or purely strategic motives risks being overly reductionist and obscures the complex dynamics shaping how states chose to approach WTO negotiations (Aaronson, 2007;Eagleton-Pierce, 2013;Hopewell, 2022;Lang, 2011;Sell & Prakash, 2004). A state's negotiating position can combine multiple objectives, thus making it difficult to disentangle its motives. ...
... WTO members have long disagreed over whether the TRIPS agreement-which requires all WTO members to put in place legislation and enforce intellectual property rights-is sufficiently flexible to address public health crises (Forman, 2008;Hilberg, 2015). Such concerns, for example, made the WTO in the early 2000s the target of a transnational advocacy campaign to ensure states could grant compulsory licenses to provide access to affordable essential HIV/AIDS drugs (Helfer, 2015;Muzaka, 2011;Sell & Prakash, 2004). Developing countries, led by India and South Africa, secured a TRIPS waiver in 2003 that confirmed the right of WTO members to issue compulsory licenses for essential medicines without permission of the patent holder. ...
... Scholars and policy actors have recommended improved governance practices for trade policymaking including: greater transparency and accountability, the representation of health officials on government trade delegations, the use of health impact assessments, South-South networking, and mechanisms for civil society participation [9,23,[31][32][33][34][35]. These policy prescriptions have been primarily generated from experience with, or studies of, specific instances, such as the WTO Doha Declaration on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Public Health [36,37], or specific instances of trade-related policymaking at the national level [23,25,31,[38][39][40]. There has not yet been a comprehensive analysis of the strategies and conditions that have enabled the elevation of health in trade-related policymaking across different contexts given these governance challenges. ...
... Ideas refer to the understandings actors bring to the issue, shaped by their values, beliefs and ideologies, including the role of framing in generating support (or opposition) to the issue [45]. Successful framing occurs when advocates secure attention to their desired problem and solution through convincing arguments and narratives [12,37]. Institutions are defined as the formal and informal rules of the game. ...
... Favourable media attention was identified in 18 studies as a key condition for elevating health goals in trade-related policymaking [13,37,46,[52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65]. Favourable media attention was intimately connected to public opinion and political party support (see further sections below) [37,46,53,55,[57][58][59]. For example, favourable international media attention was identified in three studies as a key condition in shaping the WTO Doha Declaration negotiations in favour of access to medicines [53,57,59]. ...
Background
Despite accumulating evidence of the implications of trade policy for public health, trade and health sectors continue to operate largely in silos. Numerous barriers to advancing health have been identified, including the dominance of a neoliberal paradigm, powerful private sector interests, and constraints associated with policymaking processes. Scholars and policy actors have recommended improved governance practices for trade policy, including: greater transparency and accountability; intersectoral collaboration; the use of health impact assessments; South-South networking; and mechanisms for civil society participation. These policy prescriptions have been generated from specific cases, such as the World Trade Organization’s Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health or specific instances of trade-related policymaking at the national level. There has not yet been a comprehensive analysis of what enables the elevation of health goals on trade policy agendas. This narrative review seeks to address this gap by collating and analysing known studies across different levels of policymaking and different health issues.
Results
Sixty-five studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Health issues that received attention on trade policy agendas included: access to medicines, food nutrition and food security, tobacco control, non-communicable diseases, access to knowledge, and asbestos harm. This has occurred in instances of domestic and regional policymaking, and in bilateral, regional and global trade negotiations, as well as in trade disputes and challenges. We identified four enabling conditions for elevation of health in trade-related policymaking: favourable media attention; leadership by trade and health ministers; public support; and political party support. We identified six strategies successfully used by advocates to influence these conditions: using and translating multiple forms of evidence, acting in coalitions, strategic framing, leveraging exogenous factors, legal strategy, and shifting forums.
Conclusion
The analysis demonstrates that while technical evidence is important, political strategy is necessary for elevating health on trade agendas. The analysis provides lessons that can be explored in the wider commercial determinants of health where economic and health interests often collide.
... For decades, the prevailing assumption has been that human rights have been pushed off the agenda of the World Trade Organization (WTO). While global trade rules are known to matter to the enjoyment of many human rights, many have argued that the WTO, as an international institution, is an inhospitable space for advancing human rights concerns (Aaronson, 2007;Joseph, 2013;Lang, 2011;Sell & Prakash, 2004). To a large degree, this understanding of the politics of human rights at the WTO has been imprinted on generations of scholars by a single, yet pivotal, event: the failure of the US and other Northern actors in the mid-1990s to incorporate a 'social clause' into the WTO that would have made market access conditional on developing countries improving human and labor rights (He & Murphy, 2007;Hughes & Wilkinson, 1998;Pahle, 2010). ...
... Scholars have identified a variety of both value-based and instrumental motives for states to link trade and human rights (Hafner-Burton et al., 2019;Lechner, 2016;Mckenzie & Meissner, 2017;Slawotsky, 2022). Ascribing states' behavior at the WTO to either purely principled or purely strategic motives risks being overly reductionist and obscures the complex dynamics shaping how states chose to approach WTO negotiations (Aaronson, 2007;Eagleton-Pierce, 2013;Hopewell, 2022;Lang, 2011;Sell & Prakash, 2004). A state's negotiating position can combine multiple objectives, thus making it difficult to disentangle its motives. ...
... WTO members have long disagreed over whether the TRIPS agreementwhich requires all WTO members to put in place legislation and enforce intellectual property rightsis sufficiently flexible to address public health crises (Forman, 2007;Hilberg, 2015). Such concerns, for example, made the WTO in the early 2000s the target of a transnational advocacy campaign to ensure states could grant compulsory licenses to provide access to affordable essential HIV/AIDS drugs (Helfer, 2015;Muzaka, 2011;Sell & Prakash, 2004). Developing countries, led by India and South Africa, secured a TRIPS waiver in 2003 that confirmed the right of WTO members to issue compulsory licenses for essential medicines without permission of the patent holder. ...
The conventional wisdom is that human rights have long been off the negotiating agenda at the WTO. The failed attempt by Northern states to include a 'social clause' in WTO rules during the late 1990s and early 2000s is often cited as having foreclosed bringing human rights to bear in multilateral trade negotiations. This article challenges this traditional view, by demonstrating that states are mobilizing human rights at the WTO to shape current global trade rulemaking. Moreover, in sharp contrast to the prevailing assumption that developed countries are the primary champions of human rights in the trade regime and developing countries the opponents, I show that developing countries have in fact become key protagonists in marshalling human rights at the WTO. To illustrate these claims, I examine how developing countries have been mobilizing human rights norms, principles and discourse to shape global trade rulemaking in two of the most contentious issues in recent WTO negotiations: the use of public food stockholding for food security purposes and a TRIPS waiver to ensure access to COVID-19 vaccines.
... The ascension of essential medicines to global acceptability is not the result of natural progression but rather the outcome of a competition among the pharmaceutical industry, the WHO, academics, and NGOs to redefine the concept after their own priorities. [21][22][23][24][25] Yet, very little attention has been given to these aspects in the literature, particularly over the past two decades, during which pharmaceutical innovation has undergone substantial transformation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the factors outside evidence appraisal that have contributed to inconsistencies in recommendations for essential medicines. ...
... Scholars have described the authority of private and nonactors in the development of global essential medicines policy, such as the pharmaceutical industry, academics, and NGOs. 23,24 Ideas are defined as "the content and strength of actors' values and knowledge in the policy process." 36,37 Put simply, ideas are the ways problems and solutions are framed by actors. ...
Policy Points
The World Health Organization (WHO) Model Lists of Essential Medicines (EML) aims to select clinically beneficial and cost‐effective medicines that ought to be prioritized by health systems based on the priority needs of their populations. However, the rapid evolution within the pharmaceutical sector toward complex, high‐priced medicines has challenged WHO decision making in recent years, as evidenced by earlier literature demonstrating inconsistencies in the application of decision criteria and recommendations.
Proposed solutions to these challenges focus on technical aspects of the program, such as refining the quality of evidence in applications, improving the connection with guidelines, and using evidence assessment frameworks. Yet, earlier literature has not examined the political challenges that the WHO—as a global health organization—has encountered during the past 20 years. This article examines these challenges by reviewing documents and interviewing stakeholders involved with the WHO EML decision making.
A diverse range of stakeholders shape the process to select medicines, each with different interests (e.g., protecting commercial interests versus advocating for access) and ideas (the role of the WHO EML in indirectly resulting in lower prices versus safeguarding low‐ and middle‐income countries from catastrophic expenditure). A lack of data and financial and human resources inhibits evaluation of the impact of the EML and exacerbates the influence of external actors, including which products are reviewed and how they are recommended. As a result, a degree of inconsistency has emerged, both in recommendations and in the concept of essential medicines.
Context
The World Health Organization (WHO) Model Lists of Essential Medicines (EML) aims to help countries select medicines based on the priority needs of their populations. However, rapid evolution within the pharmaceutical sector toward complex, high‐priced medicines has challenged WHO decision making, leading to inconsistent decisions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how political factors impact the WHO EML.
Methods
Document review and semistructured interviews of diverse stakeholder groups with direct experience with the WHO EML, either as stakeholders involved with WHO EML processes (e.g., selection of medicines, observers) or external applications ( n = 29). Donabedian's structure–process–outcome framework was combined with the Three I's framework (ideas, interests, and institutions) to understand how political factors shape the WHO EML.
Findings
The concept of essential medicines evolved from an original focus on generic medicines in resource‐constrained countries to include complex, high‐priced therapeutics also relevant to high‐income nations. The WHO has never explicitly addressed whom its decisions are for. Some believe the Model Lists have a “symbolic” price‐lowering mechanism, whereas others do not (e.g., the pharmaceutical industry concerns to profitability). This tension has led to different ideas and interests driving the EML. A lack of data and human resources inhibits evaluation and exacerbates the influence of external actors. A degree of inconsistency has emerged in the concept and recommendations of essential medicines.
Conclusions
The current debate about the role of the WHO EML centers on the question whether the Model Lists ought to include complex, high‐priced medicines. However, this research demonstrates that challenges may have roots deeper than amending decision criteria. At the core of this issue is the role of the list. Defining a strategic vision for the WHO EML, refining decision criteria, and increasing institutional support would align interests, good processes, and, ultimately, contribute to positive societal health outcomes.
... We use a constructivist lens to argue that these actors have distinct logics for promoting how renewables extractivism ought to be governed, which may comprise informal, non-hierarchical, and flexible mechanisms compared with formal state treaties for example (Rosenau, 2007). In what follows, we argue that public, private, and "voluntary actors," separately and in collaboration at multiple scales (Biermann & Pattberg, 2008), establish norms, rules, and practices based on their framing of what should be governed transnationally and what they are willing to be held to account for (Kramarz & Park, 2019;Sell & Prakash, 2004). 1 In other words, the basis for action stems from the normative logic of the actors advocating a given governance initiative. Within our framework, public actors drive global energy agendas according to concerns over state energy security, energy access, and tackling climate change (Cherp et al., 2011;Sanderink, 2020). ...
... Constructivism recognizes that governing markets is a social activity not just a technical one, in this case undertaken by states, IOs, companies, business associations, affected communities and NGOs. As detailed below, together or in combination, authoritative actors determine what constitutes appropriate behavior and how extractive industries for renewables should be governed (Bartley, 2007;Rohrkasten, 2015;Sell & Prakash, 2004). Given the increasing demand for renewable energy globally, and the stickiness of institutions more broadly (Mahoney & Thelen, 2012), it is important to understand how the governance of renewables is being constituted and what counts as appropriate behavior (Jepperson et al., 1996). ...
The global uptake of renewable technology is both a dramatic and insufficient contribution to achieving a 1.5–2° world. However, urgently decarbonizing energy use and systems by shifting to renewables relies on intensifying global supply chains, beginning with the extraction of “critical” minerals, an industry that has a long history of generating significant social and ecological harms. This paper examines the nature of transnational governance initiatives that have emerged to regulate what has been called “renewables extractivism.” We develop a novel database of 44 transnational initiatives for governing minerals for onshore wind, solar PV, and lithium‐ion batteries, which are driving renewable energy uptake. The database reveals “governance gaps” that refer to an absence of rules for many critical minerals and “accountability traps” where actors are held responsible for processes, standards, and sanctions that reflect their own normative logics, rather than the needs of affected communities and ecosystems. Current initiatives are designed in a way that measures, evaluates, and (very rarely) sanctions governance outcomes primarily in relation to supply chain security and energy access, as opposed to mitigating the social and environmental harms of resource extraction. The result is a transnational governance architecture that operates primarily (and systematically) with minimal scrutiny, transparency, and accountability. For stakeholders directly affected by the latest mining boom cycle, the absence of effective and legitimate accountability mechanisms reinforces a pattern of uneven development that shifts the most destructive forms of extraction to the social and ecological margins of the global commodity frontier.
... As Sell and Prakash (2004) argue, both NGOs and business interests engage in strategic ideational framing to get what they want. Accordingly, we will show how both advocates and opponents maintained particular interests in the outcome of a possible TRIPS waiver, and framed those ideas strategically to sway the TRIPS Council and key political players. ...
... Political science literature has long described agenda-setting processes around issues to be debated for public action and the range of solutions to those issues to be seriously considered by decision-makers (Baumgartner and Jones 1993;Brummer et al. 2019;Green-Pedersen and Walgrave 2014;Kingdon 1995;Sell and Prakash 2004). In global health, agenda setting occurs in a wide variety of venues, including at decision-making bodies like the UN General Assembly, within international organizations like the WHO, in the funding decisions of agencies like the World Bank or the Gates Foundation, as well as through media outlets, research institutions, and beyond (Smith and Shiffman 2018). ...
Context:
To facilitate the manufacturing of COVID-19 medical products, in October 2020, India and South Africa proposed a waiver of certain WTO intellectual property (IP) provisions. After 18 months, a narrow agreement that did little for vaccine access passed the ministerial, despite the pandemic's impact on global trade, which the WTO is mandated to safeguard.
Methods:
The authors conducted a content analysis of WTO legal texts, key actor statements, media reporting, and the WTO's procedural framework to explore legal, institutional, and ideational explanations for the delay.
Findings:
IP waivers are neither legally complex nor unprecedented within WTO law, yet TRIPS waiver negotiations exceeded their mandated 90-day negotiation period by nearly 2 years. Waiver opponents and supporters engaged in escalating strategic framing, which justified and eventually secured political attention at head-of-state level, sidelining other pandemic solutions. The frames deployed discouraged consensus on a meaningful waiver, which ultimately favored the status quo that opponents preferred. WTO institutional design encouraged drawn-out negotiation while limiting legitimate players in debate to trade ministers, empowering narrow interest group politics.
Conclusions:
Despite global political attention, the WTO process contributed little to emergency vaccine production, suggesting a pressing need for reforms aimed at more efficient and equitable multilateral processes.
... Several studies have alluded to the importance of national context in explaining the strategic behavior of NGOs (e.g., Dupuy et al., 2015;E. Johnson & Prakash, 2007;Sell & Prakash, 2004). Therefore, we investigate ENGOs operating in a set of countries where the salience of climate change as well as the socioeconomic and political context varies. ...
... Existing research on NGOs has argued that they are strategic in their organizational decisions and pursue goals centered on securing organizational survival, such as maximizing funding (e.g., Dupuy et al., 2015;E. Johnson & Prakash, 2007;Sell & Prakash, 2004). If we conceive of NGOs as advocacy organizations, their main strategic goal is to maximize their policy influence through political agenda-setting (Baumgartner & Leech, 2001;Fraussen et al., 2021;Halpin et al., 2018;E. ...
To what extent do traditional environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) tackle climate change issues? What explains the variation among ENGOs regarding their attention to climate change issues? To answer these questions, we use an original dataset comprising 293 ENGOs that are affiliated with the International Union for Conservation of Nature and based in North, Central, or South America. We find that generalist ENGOs have a higher likelihood of tackling climate change issues and even of indicating them as a priority area of their work. However, we also find that the issue areas of the specialist ENGOs and whether these align with climate action explain variation across ENGOs based in different countries. Compared with wildlife-focused ENGOs, especially those working on nature protection and sustainability are more likely to tackle climate change issues. Interview data confirmed that ENGO leaders make informed decisions on their organization’s goals.
... Although this research has shed light on these critical determinants, there is still room for further research into specific strategies and practices that can maximize the use of SM in the DPP among NGOs in the Indian context. From a management perspective, NGOs and commercial firms share many similarities in terms of their organizational structure, financial management, marketing and communication, human resource management, strategic planning and innovation (Sell and Prakash, 2004). Based on this assumption, we based the hypothesis on the extant literature on commercial firms. ...
Purpose
Numerous prior studies highlight the importance of social media adoption (SMA) in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the disaster preparedness phase (DPP). However, in India, social media is underused by NGOs in their attempts to mitigate the adverse impact of the disaster. Therefore, this study aims to seek to empirically investigate the relationship between factors influencing the SMA in NGOs in the DPP in India.
Design/methodology/approach
The “Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE)” framework, integrated with organizational creativity (OC), forms the theoretical foundation of this study. Data were collected from 266 respondents representing 120 Indian NGOs using a seven-point Likert scale. To test the hypotheses, this study used a variance-based structural equation modeling technique.
Findings
The empirical findings show that relative advantage, organizational readiness (OR), top management support and government support positively influenced the SMA in NGOs during the DPP. However, compatibility and complexity do not affect the SMA. In addition, OC moderates the relationship between OR and SMA in NGOs. These results underscore the need for NGOs to develop an organizational culture that is more forward-thinking and technology oriented.
Originality/value
This study fills an important research gap in the literature by developing a research model designed to improve the SMA in NGOs during the DPP in India. Furthermore, the authors integrated OC into the TOE framework to develop and examine the relationship between factors that impact SMA.
... Counter-hegemonic NGOs, instrumental in thwarting the MAI, targeted the WTO, portraying negotiations for investment and competition agreements as menaces to sovereignty and sustainable development, thereby gaining influence comparable to TNCs' structural power during the Uruguay Round. Strategically leveraging sustainable development ideals over market integration, they questioned the WTO's legitimacy and authority on expanding to Singapore issues, forging a formidable counter-hegemonic bloc through educating Southern governments and influencing Geneva's intersubjective dynamics, a stark contrast to the North's unified stance during the Uruguay Round (Graham 2000;Sell and Prakash 2004;Murphy 2010). ...
This article devises an analytical framework that synthesizes neo-Gramscian and social constructivist perspectives to dissect international regimes amid global hegemonic shifts. It portrays regimes as intersubjective constructs with unique social purposes within the broader hegemonic fabric, shaped by dominant ideologies and power distributions. The study examines the transition of the trade regime from General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to World Trade Organization (WTO) through the Uruguay Round (1986-1994) and the Doha Round’s deadlock since 2001. The article posits that the Uruguay Round marked a pivotal hegemonic transformation, transitioning the regime from embedded liberalism to neoliberalism by transforming its social purpose, norms, and generative grammar. Yet, this shift, which precipitated a legitimacy crisis within the WTO and was exacerbated by the Doha Round’s failure to regenerate neoliberal hegemony with a fresh synthesis of free trade and sustainable development, arguably rendered the WTO directionless and contributed to the fragmentation of global trade governance amidst emerging regional pacts and varied ideological visions of economic liberalism.
... 45 While labor unions similarly to business associations seek to protect the interests of their members, those interests involve concerns that often are in tension with profit maximization, such as decent wages, job security, and good working conditions. 46 Sell and Prakash (2004); Mitchell and Schmitz (2014). 45 Haas (1992); Miller (2007). ...
As the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow, policymakers are increasingly grappling with the question of how to regulate this technology. The most far-reaching international initiative is the European Union (EU) AI Act, which aims to establish the first comprehensive, binding framework for regulating AI. In this article, we offer the first systematic analysis of non-state actor preferences toward international regulation of AI, focusing on the case of the EU AI Act. Theoretically, we develop an argument about the regulatory preferences of business actors and other non-state actors under varying conditions of AI sector competitiveness. Empirically, we test these expectations using data from public consultations on European AI regulation. Our findings are threefold. First, all types of non-state actors express concerns about AI and support regulation in some form. Second, there are nonetheless significant differences across actor types, with business actors being less concerned about the downsides of AI and more in favor of lax regulation than other non-state actors. Third, these differences are more pronounced in countries with stronger commercial AI sectors. Our findings shed new light on non-state actor preferences toward AI regulation and point to challenges for policymakers balancing competing interests in society.
... In doing so, firms can delay the prompt supply of essential drugs. As mentioned, such practices were a concern during the early 2000s with ART drugs (Elbe, 2006;Sell & Prakash, 2004). ...
Treaty exceptions have long been viewed as essential to the design of international agreements. Yet, agreements also leave ‘room to maneuver’ through the use of constructive ambiguity, that is, by defining treaty terms with deliberately ambiguous words. When are countries more likely to exploit this treaty ambiguity? What does this exploitation look like? We argue that in democratic countries, where states face continued pressures to react to domestic needs, governments are more likely to legislate unambiguous circumstances in which they can apply international treaty exceptions. We argue this should be especially true in developing democracies facing external pressure from foreign firms and developed countries to legislate public policy with their external interests in mind. We test our theory in the context of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and compulsory licensing legislation for HIV/AIDS drugs between 2000 and 2012. We find that when public access to medicines for HIV/AIDS is limited but in high demand, democratic governments are more likely to legislate explicit public health protection under TRIPS exceptions, especially in developing countries with high rates of foreign patent ownership. We conclude that such exploitation is most likely when countries seek to prevent precedents by action, or adjudication, that better define constructively ambiguous treaty terms.
... Introduction Norms, a highly researched and discussed concept in social sciences [1][2][3] are principles or standards of appropriate action or behavior that may or may not be backed by explicit sanctions [4]. In most policy spaces, multiple norms and approaches seek to define the policy problem and the instruments to address it [5,6]. Scholars debate about which norms get more traction and why [7,8]. ...
Milton Friedman famously argued that the social responsibility of business is to maximize shareholder wealth. Friedman’s view is challenged by the proponents of corporate social responsibility who suggest that firms should consider the interests of all stakeholders, and not just shareholders. Following the stakeholder approach, BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink has made the case that firms should use the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) metric to evaluate their performance as opposed to short-term profit maximization. Fink employs his annual “Dear CEO” letters as a platform to outline his views on ESG. While these letters focus on all three ESG dimensions, the media tends to portray Fink as a climate advocate. We examined the texts of the ten letters Fink has published since 2012 to assess the extent to which Fink focused on climate issues. We found that Fink emphasized the climate dimension over social and governance dimensions only in two letters (2020 and 2022), which suggests that the thrust of Fink’s letters differs from how the media frames them. Broadly, our paper suggests that norm advocates sometimes cannot fully control how their advocated norm is interpreted and framed. Limiting ESG to climate issues has implications for its business acceptability. Specifically, this framing links business incentives to adopt ESG to the policy salience of climate issues as well as the fortunes of both the fossil fuel industry and the renewable energy sector. Second, if businesses face a legitimacy crisis from governance shortfalls or inadequate social performance, ESG will serve as a less effective tool in alleviating stakeholder concerns.
... Second, along with a growing strand of IR literature (e.g., Cooley and Ron 2002;Sell and Prakash 2004;Mitchell and Schmitz 2014;Dellmuth and Tallberg 2017;Stroup and Wong 2017;Tallberg et al. 2018), my analysis highlights how TAGs' strategic choices are often determined by instrumental goals-such as organizational survival and growth-rather than (or in addition to) purely 'principled goals' such as influencing specific substantive policy issues. Whereas instrumental incentives have been explored in terms of how they affect issue-selection by TAGs (Keck and Sikkink 1998;Bob 2005;Carpenter 2014; Eilstrup-Sangiovanni 2019), I argue that instrumental incentives also shape more practical tactical and strategic choices about how to influence processes of political decision-making. ...
Why do some transnational advocacy groups adopt radical, confrontational tactics whereas others focus on ‘inside’ lobbying and information provision? Why do some advocacy groups appeal to large global audiences while others approach decision-makers behind closed doors? Bringing together interest group studies and population ecology theory, this chapter examines how ecological dynamics affect strategic specialisation among transnational advocacy groups (TAGs). Building on the framework in Chap. 1, this chapter argues that increasing resource competition resulting from organisational crowding, along with the introduction of new legal and technological tools has led to growing strategic differentiation among TAGs, and has prompted a strategic division of labor whereby some groups (mainly larger, well-established and resource-rich groups) specialise in gaining political access and media attention, while others (mainly smaller, less established groups) focus on developing ‘niche’ agendas and strategies including, inter alia, radical protest, monitoring and enforcement, and litigation. The chapter illustrates the argument with quantitative data and comparative cases from the realm of transnational environmental conservation advocacy.
... Some INGOs are organizations that only provide services (Murdie and Davis, 2012), while definitions of interest groups generally require explicitly political behavior (Beyers et al, 2008). However, recent years have seen increasing recognition of INGOs' advocacy orientation, practical motivations, and organizational imperatives for survival (e.g., Cooley and Ron, 2002;Sell and Prakash, 2004;Bob, 2005;Bloodgood, 2010;Prakash and Gugerty, 2010;Mitchell and Schmitz, 2014;Stroup and Wong, 2017;Dellmuth and Tallberg, 2017;Tallberg et al, 2018). 6 With respect to strategies, INGOs are traditionally seen as limited in their behavior by their lack of economic or coercive power to the use of strategies of normative pressure and information monitoring intended to shift state behavior via issue framing, agenda setting, and norm diffusion (Keck and Sikkink, 1998;Brysk, 2002;Clark, 2001;Risse et al, 2015;Heiss and Johnson, 2016;Stroup and Wong, 2017). ...
The rise and influence of private advocacy groups in global governance raises important questions about their effects. Advocacy groups can capture and undermine public goals, but they can also provide information that is vital for problem-solving. Large literatures on interest groups and international non-governmental organizations are dedicated to the study of advocacy group effects in global governance, but there is very little cross-fertilization between these two bodies of work. This chapter develops a unified and novel theoretical framework based on both theoretical traditions, conceptualizing advocacy groups as an umbrella concept for both interest groups and international non-governmental organizations. Political opportunity structures, through institutional arrangements, resource configurations, and policy environments, are expected to shape advocacy group effects in global governance.
... In contrast, other non-state actors are non-profit actors, which we assume are primarily guided by alternative concerns. NGOs, social movements, and philanthropic foundations are conventionally described as driven by values and principles, even if they are often instrumental in their pursuit of these objectives (Sell and Prakash 2004;Mitchell and Schmitz 2014). ...
As the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow, policymakers are increasingly grappling with the question of how to regulate this technology. The most far-reaching international initiative is the European Union (EU) AI Act, which aims to establish the first comprehensive framework for regulating AI. In this article, we offer the first systematic analysis of non-state actor preferences toward international regulation of AI, focusing on the case of the EU AI Act. Theoretically, we develop an argument about the regulatory preferences of business actors and other non-state actors under varying conditions of AI sector competitiveness. Empirically, we test these expectations using data on non-state actor preferences from public consultations on European AI regulation. Our findings are threefold. First, all types of non-state actors express concerns about AI and support regulation in some form. Second, there are nonetheless significant differences across actor types, with business actors being less concerned about the downsides of AI and more in favor of lax regulation than other non-state actors. Third, these differences are more pronounced in countries with stronger commercial AI sectors than in countries with lesser developed AI sectors. Our findings shed new light on non-state actor preferences toward AI regulation and point to challenges for policymakers having to balance competing interests.
... It regulates intellectual property rights among WTO members and requires developing nations to file and enforce pharmaceutical patent. This can result in increased costs, reduced availability of affordable medications, and decreased export of medicines (Sell & Prakash, 2004). ...
Vaccination patent is associated with exclusive rights that restrict the production, use, and sale of inventions by third parties for a specific period. This factor contributes to the high cost of vaccines, making it challenging to access vaccines in many underdeveloped nations such as Indonesia. The urgency for faster vaccine distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic further highlights this issue. However, the patent provisions of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs Agreement) may exacerbate the unequal distribution of vaccines worldwide. This study analyzes the implementation of the flexibility feature of the TRIPs Agreement, and Doha Declaration contained in Law Number 13 of 2016 respecting Patent to achieve a pandemic-free era. It is also necessary to examine the Indonesian patent rules and regulations, the TRIPs Agreement, the Doha Declaration, and other legal documents to examine these issues. The results showed that the patent rules and regulations have adopted flexibility under the TRIPs Agreement and the Doha Declaration. However, the effect on the country’s sluggish pharmaceutical supply chain has not been improved. A patent suspension system on a global scale is required to hasten the transition to a pandemic-free period since the feature of flexibility cannot handle the slow pace of vaccine procurement. The patent suspension system can be implemented through international agreements, such as the Patent Suspension Proposal filed by South Africa and India in October 2020. The suspension is crucial to accelerate the equitable distribution of vaccines and reduce their price.
... • States and international organisations to use their structural power to change policy systems and incentivise investment in business models that are essential for health, equity, and sustainability • Commercial actors to end opposition to health regulatory policies, respect regulations to reduce harmful practices and products, and implement regenerative business models • Civil society groups to raise their collective voices, articulate alternative visions, and hold commercial actors and governments accountable • Academia and researchers, in collaboration with policy actors, to provide evidence that is fit for purpose and presented in the right way, at the right time, to the right audiences • Health actors to break with the hegemony of a biomedical model of health and engage more broadly, for example, with influential trade, finance, and business actors • This moment of COVID-19 and the growing global climate emergency provides a context that requires the advancement of bold conceptualisations of social progress to make public interests and human and planetary health and wellbeing higher priorities than profit Medicines Campaign, Via Campesina, and the Divestment movement. 22,23 In these ways, evidenceinformed advocacy by citizens and civil society organisations plays a key role in challenging commercial power. 24 The power of mobilised populations must never be underestimated. ...
This paper is about the future role of the commercial sector in global health and health equity. The discussion is not about the overthrow of capitalism nor a full-throated embrace of corporate partnerships. No single solution can eradicate the harms from the commercial determinants of health-the business models, practices, and products of market actors that damage health equity and human and planetary health and wellbeing. But evidence shows that progressive economic models, international frameworks, government regulation, compliance mechanisms for commercial entities, regenerative business types and models that incorporate health, social, and environmental goals, and strategic civil society mobilisation together offer possibilities of systemic, transformative change, reduce those harms arising from commercial forces, and foster human and planetary wellbeing. In our view, the most basic public health question is not whether the world has the resources or will to take such actions, but whether humanity can survive if society fails to make this effort.
... Indeed, civil society groups have played an important role in re-embedding trade in a broader societal sphere, by pushing for the inclusion of environmental (and labor) standards in trade agreements, whether in the EU (Ahnlid, 2013;Hannah, 2016) or the US (Aaronson, 2001;Aggarwal, 2013;Destler & Balint, 1999;Kay & Evans, 2018). Likewise, the expanding scope of trade negotiations in new regulatory fields has long been traced to the mobilization of individual companies and industry associations, whether this relates to investment, rules of origins, and trade facilitation (e.g., Chase, 2003;Ravenhill, 2017), intellectual property rights (Muzaka, 2009;Sell & Prakash, 2004) or digital trade (Azmeh et al., 2020). ...
p>The ever-expanding regulatory scope of “new generation” trade agreements has created new linkages, and thus, new spheres of political conflicts opposing advocates of trade liberalization and free trade critics seeking to make globalization more socially responsible. Scholars have provided different explanations to understand the determining factors behind attempts to re-embed trade, but little attention has been given to the persistence of “trade disconnects”—as opposed to trade linkages—between economic issues and social or environmental externalities that, at the domestic level, can hardly be dissociated. This article proposes to analyze the dynamics and factors of what might be described as persistent disconnects or enduring “disembeddedness” in US trade policy-making. To do so, it examines US digital trade policy and its mixed social record by comparing two issues: labor rights and data privacy. This article builds upon recent scholarship on deliberative forms of exclusion in trade policy-making to track the hidden dynamics of “non-decision-making.” It demonstrates that discursive, institutional, inter-scalar, and countermobilizing processes have restricted the terms of political participation and perpetuated a disconnect between digital trade and labor rights, by contrast with the growing trade linkages with data privacy.</p
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
... While often the relationship between NGO s and MNCs has been presented as conflictual, increasingly these nonstate actors may work together toward common goals. For example, NGO s and MNCs in South Africa and Brazil worked together on the access to medicines campaign to provide HIV medications globally at reasonable prices by challenging the intellectual property monopoly rights held by firms (and defended by government) in the USA on human rights grounds (Sell and Prakash 2004). More recently, CEPI and Gavi have brought together manufacturers, research institutes, universities and civil society organizations to cooperate in the creation and implementation of the COVAX program to provide access to COVID-19 vaccinations globally.3 ...
Karine E. Peschard. 2022. Seed Activism: Patent Politics and Litigation in the Global South. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. xxii + 183 pp. Figures, appendices, notes, references, index. $35 (paperback—ISBN: 9780262544641).
Several studies have noted that the International Seabed Authority (ISA) scores low on public participation. However, none have studied the efforts of non-governmental organizations to exert influence on the ISA’s rulemaking processes. I examine how environmental NGOs and private mining contractors attempt to sway one narrow, but existential, part of the ISA’s draft exploitation regulations between 2014 and 2019: the definition of “serious harm” to the marine environment. Although environmental NGOs appear to have been more successful in influencing that definition, the interests of private contractors may still prevail. Despite the efforts of environmental NGOs, the term “serious harm” remains largely undefined, allowing for more subjectivity and flexibility in interpretation. This challenge is exacerbated when combined with current institutional weaknesses and limited scientific expertise within the ISA. Ongoing negotiations and recent developments may, however, alter this outcome.
Microsoft is making strategic attempts to change the US government's practices of exploiting technical vulnerabilities in Microsoft software for military and intelligence purposes. So far, these efforts have not borne fruit. Microsoft's strategy has much in common with one of the most common strategies proposed by the IR literature on norm entrepreneurship in terms of exposing the contradictions between the government's ideals and practices. The article contributes to this literature by examining Microsoft's strategy through Lacanian psychoanalysis and suggests that it fails to work as intended, not because the US public or those in government remains unaware of the contradictions, but because the strategy is unable to address the existing desire to transgress the cyber ideals. Lacan's formula for transformation, the Analyst Discourse, provides an alternative framework for examining norm entrepreneurial potential in light of such transgressions. It proposes that the entrepreneur must occupy a 1 Draft-accepted by International Studies Quarterly. position as the (psycho)analyst who hystericizes the norm violator. The article revisits Microsoft's attempt to halt the militarization of cyberspace and argues that the proposal of becoming a "Cyber Red Cross" holds a potential to hystericize but cannot succeed as long as Microsoft refuses to repress its status as a profitable cyber expert.
With the ever-increasing cost and complexity of the design and fabrication of modern ICs, as well as the ever-increasing recurring cost of maintaining semiconductor fabrication entities, starting the 1980s, VLSI outsourcing and reuse design methodology has been adopted largely by the semiconductor industry. When semiconductor companies started developing complex ICs that required substantial investments in research and development, with outsourcing and reuse in place, the demand for protecting their designs from being copied by competitors (to ensure that they could profit from their investments) became paramount. Starting the 1980s, with the initiation of various forms of IP protection, such as copyright, patents, masking, etc., by the semiconductor industry, companies typically started to use an individual or a combination of such techniques against any form of malicious action. This chapter will focus on the history of IP protection, starting with the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act (SCPA) in 1984, and by showing a few case studies of IP infringement, as well as the efforts accomplished on IP protection by industry, government, and academia, we demonstrate how semiconductor companies adapt their IC supply chain flow with these amendments.
International agreements on Intellectual Property (IP) have proven to be a good example to study global lawmaking. Beginning by looking at the 1990s Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement and into the negotiation and implementation of regional and national trade agreements, this article reflects on the intricate relationship between international IP agreements and public health. The comprehensive analysis of these international rules and their effect provides valuable insights into the dynamic interplay between domestic and international factors in shaping health policies. Building upon the IP case, we categorize existing scholarship on global law-making into three methodological approaches: ( a) methodological internationalism, ( b) methodological nationalism, and ( c) the interplay between domestic and international factors. We close with a call for researchers to advocate and integrate into their methods a co-constitutive approach that considers the simultaneous shaping of domestic and international elements.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 19 is October 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
This chapter surveys the different approaches to vigilante human rights enforcement, looking first at actions enabled by developments in the law and considering the impact of technological change. It looks at one particular aspect of the history of international human rights or the human rights movement, which is the autonomous enforcement of international human rights laws. It also reviews the body of international human rights law that has been continuously expanding in terms of the number of international treaties and conventions and in terms of the number of states that adhere to them. The chapter points out how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have represented victims in regional international courts. It mentions a transnational approach to human rights enforcement that has depended on the legal doctrine of civil or criminal universal jurisdiction.
How do violations affect international norms? This article demonstrates that violations develop norms by analyzing how international institutions determine the meaning of deviant behavior and the breached norm. Decisions by courts, ad hoc tribunals, commissions of inquiry, and expert committees influence formal and informal lawmaking and drive the contested and often ambiguous development of international norms. To illustrate the impact of these norm applications and lawmaking efforts, the article compares two institutions with different mandates to oversee the international torture prohibition. In the 1960s and 1970s, the European human rights institutions defined torture for human rights law and found that Greece and the United Kingdom had violated the torture prohibition, but created ambiguity regarding the threshold of torture. In 1984, the UN Convention against Torture (CAT) adopted this definition, which was informed by earlier norm violations. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the UN Committee against Torture (CmAT) applied the torture prohibition to interrogation techniques used by Israel and the United States in counterterrorism operations. CmAT’s decisions that both countries had deviated from the norm led to General Comment No. 2 on CAT, which reaffirmed and specified the absolute and non-derogable nature of the torture prohibition.
What determines the bargaining power of states in international trade negotiations? The literature focuses predominantly on economic strength as the determinant of bargaining power. However, this explanation neglects the reality of modern trade, which is characterized by the globalization of production and high levels of economic interdependence. I argue that this interdependence undermines the effect of economic strength on the bargaining power of states. Specifically, I hypothesize that the effect of economic strength declines when a country's companies rely on inputs for their production from a negotiation partner because they are integrated into global value chains. The more a country's firms are dependent on a partner country, the less that country is able to coerce concessions from the partner country by bringing to bear its economic strength. To test this hypothesis, I use a dataset covering concessions on liberalization of the services sector made by 54 countries in 61 preferential trade agreements. By calculating the relative concessions of each partner, I construct a quantitative indicator of the outcome of trade negotiations. This indicator should reflect the underlying bargaining power of each negotiating party. The results of a regression analysis of these negotiation outcomes mostly support my hypotheses.
Organizational ecology has attracted growing interest in global governance research in recent years. As a structural theory, however, organizational ecology has overlooked how organizations may shape the organizational environment by their own choices. Bridging the insights of organizational ecology and the study of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), I argue that the organizational choice of specialism (as opposed to generalism) increases the power of NGOs to influence an environmental condition—issue salience—by targeting a small but engaged segment of the public. Focusing on wildlife conservation governance, I collected new comprehensive data on NGOs and issue characteristics (2008–2015). My empirical analysis shows that specialist NGO density is strongly associated with issue salience. I further examined causal processes in the case of pangolin conservation advocacy, in which specialist NGOs first raised issue salience and generalist NGOs followed. The findings suggest a division of labor among NGOs and challenge a conventional view that the power of NGOs is concentrated in a small number of prominent organizations.
This chapter focuses on China’s multilateral intellectual property engagement, and WIPO and WTO are the key forums of this analysis. The case of China’s engagement with WIPO demonstrates various dimensions of reciprocity. In China’s engagement with the WTO, it analyses China’s early attempt at agenda-setting in its first and only proposal on IP in standardisation and China’s position and involvement in the recent COVID-19-related IP waiver negotiations at the TRIPS Council. China’s multilateral IP engagement reveals that it has taken the strategy of multi-forum engagement in navigating international IP regime complexity.
That economic integration constrains state sovereignty has been a longstanding concern and the subject of much study. We assess the validity of this concern in the context of two very particular components of contemporary economic globalization: global value chain (GVC) integration and Investor–State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). First, we document that host states have abandoned nearly 24 percent of regulations disputed by private investors in ISDS between 1987 and 2017. This behavior is puzzling because ISDS only requires host states to provide monetary compensation to investor-claimants and not the abandonment of disputed regulations. We theorize that host states are more likely to abandon a disputed regulation when the claimant has a greater potential to disrupt GVCs in the host economy. We then employ the non-parametric difference-in-differences estimator by Imai, Kim, and Wang (2021) and find that ISDS filings cause substantial decreases in GVC trade. Following this result, we provide descriptive statistics and qualitative evidence that support our core theoretical proposition that multinational corporations (MNCs) with the potential to disrupt GVC integration are more likely to see host states changing regulations in their favor. Our argument and evidence suggest that GVC integration can grow an MNC’s power to such an extent that the host state abandons a regulation that the MNC disputes.
We examine contending views about the forms and mechanisms of business power in U.S. politics by estimating time series models explaining taxation and redistribution. Taxation and redistribution constitute strong cases for theories about business and class power, since all firms have an interest in reducing taxation. We find that changes in corporate taxation and in redistribution between capital gains income and earned income and between corporate taxation and individual taxation are strongly influenced by political partisanship, with Democratic administrations increasing the tax burden on firms and their owners. How far corporations engage in electoral financing--measured through the establishment of corporate political action committees--is also influential. The models show some evidence consistent with the understanding of class power conceptualized by Bowles, Gordon, and Weisskopf and the presence of election cycle effects but inconsistent with implications arising from the structural dependence of the state on capital and asset concentration in the largest corporations as a mechanism of class power.
This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the TRIPS negotiations with particular emphasis on the different positions of developed countries generating most of the legally recognized and protected intellectual property vs developing countries in need of affordable access to products and services based on this intellectual property. In particular, the article challenges the notion that the WTO and the TRIPS could or even should deliver full protection and force developing countries to pay billions of US$ to IP owners in developed countries. It has been cited hundreds of times in academic literature and even 25 years later provides the best analysis of the Uruguay Round negotiations on the matter. See also the citation by AG Jacobs in his Opinion of 15 February 2001 in Case D-89/99, Groeneveld, on the potential direct effect of the TRIPS Agreement in the EU (ECLI:EU:C:2001:98, ECR 2001 I-5854, at note 15).
This paper critically examines available theoretical models which have been derived from statistically established patterns of association between contextual and organizational variables. These models offer an interpretation of organizational structure as a product of primarily economic constraints which contextual variables are assumed to impose. It is argued that available models in fact attempt to explain organization at one remove by ignoring the essentially political process, whereby power-holders within organizations decide upon courses of strategic action. This `strategic choice' typically includes not only the establishment of structural forms but also the manipulation of environmental features and the choice of relevant performance standards. A theoretical re-orientation of this kind away from functional imperatives and towards a recognition of political action is developed and illustrated in the main body of the paper.
This article develops a political economy approach to the study of contemporary transnational networks. We argue that many aspects of International Organization (IO) and International Non Governmental Organization (NGO) behavior can be explained by materialist analysis and an examination of the incentives and constraints produced by the transnational sector’s institutional environment.
We advance two theoretical propositions. First, the growing number of IOs and INGOs within a given transnational sector increases uncertainty, competition, and insecurity for all organizations in that sector. This proposition disputes the liberal view that INGO proliferation is, in and of it- self, evidence of a robust global civil society. Second, we suggest that the marketization of many IO and INGO activities—particularly the use of com- petitive tenders and renewable contracting—generates incentives that produce dysfunctional outcomes. This claim disputes the popular assumption that market-based institutions in the transnational sector increase INGO efficiency and effectiveness.
In advancing these arguments, we do not criticize the normative agendas, moral character, or nominal goals of individual transnational groups. Rather we suggest that dysfunctional organizational behavior is likely to be a rational response to systematic and predictable institutional pressures. In many cases, uncooperative local actors will take advantage of the transnational sector’s perverse incentives to further their own opportunistic agendas.
This paper attempts to further theoretical and empirical understanding of adherent and constituent mobilization by proposing and analyzing frame alignment as a conceptual bridge linking social psychological and resource mobilization views on movement participation. Extension of Goffman's (1974) frame analytic perspective provides the conceptual/theoretical framework; field research on two religious movements, the peace movement, and several neighborhood movements provide the primary empirical base. Four frame alignment processes are identified and elaborated: frame bridging, frame amplification, frame extension, and frame transformation. The basic underlying premise is that frame alignment, of one variety or another, is a necessary condition for participation, whatever its nature or intensity, and that it is typically an interactional and ongoing accomplishment. The paper concludes with an elaboration of several sets of theoretical and research implications.
Building on her seminal contribution to social theory in Culture and Agency, in this 1995 book Margaret Archer develops her morphogenetic approach, applying it to the problem of structure and agency. Since structure and agency constitute different levels of stratified social reality, each possesses distinctive emergent properties which are real and causally efficacious but irreducible to one another. The problem, therefore, is shown to be how to link the two rather than conflate them, as has been common theoretical practice. Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach not only rejects methodological individualism and holism, but argues that the debate between them has been replaced by a new one, between elisionary theorising and emergentist theories based on a realist ontology of the social world. The morphogenetic approach is the sociological complement of transcendental realism, and together they provide a basis for non-conflationary theorizing which is also of direct utility to the practising social analyst.
Taking a fresh look at the impact of non-state actors on world politics and on the foreign policies of states, this book revives the debate on transnational relations which started in the 1970s. This debate withered away in the face of state-centered approaches, but this book's new approach emphasizes the interaction of states and transnational actors, arguing that domestic structures of the state as well as international institutions mediate the policy influence of transnational actors. Empirical chapters examine the European Economic and Monetary Union, US-Japanese transnational relations, multinational corporations in East Asia, Soviet and Russian security policy, democratization in Eastern Europe, and ivory management in Africa. The book concludes with chapters discussing the theoretical implications of the findings in the empirical studies.
Cambridge Core - International Trade Law - Global Business Regulation - by John Braithwaite
Not so long ago, intellectual property was an esoteric issue confined to patent offices, intellectual property specialists and company lawyers. But the global campaign on access to medicines helped change all that. By the time Oxfam joined the campaign in early 2001, the issue of patents and medicine was already rising rapidly up the public and policy agenda.
The Cold War was marked by a nuclear stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, many scholars focused their research on considering the best means for avoiding a nuclear exchange between the two superpowers. A primary issue in this genre was related to deterrence, the idea that rational states could be dissuaded from engaging in a first strike. While the threat to international stability is demonstrably more multi-faceted than during the Cold War, scholars and US policy makers have nonetheless continued to devote substantial attention to deterring the use of nuclear weapons.
Adopting new and much more comprehensive concepts of both power and politics, the author develops a theoretical framework to show who really governs the world economy. He goes on to explore some of the non-state authorities, from mafias to the 'Big Six' accounting firms and international bureaucrats, whose power over who gets what in the world encroaches on that of national governments. The book is a signpost, pointing to some promising new directions for the future development of research and teaching in international political economy.
Keith Aoki discusses the challenge that the rise of digital information technology poses to traditional legal conceptions of property. He chronicles the evolution of the idea of "property" and its relationship to "sovereignty" in Anglo-American law. In contrast to developments in other areas of property law, the legal characterization and protection of intellectual property rights maintain a sharp boundary between public and private, a division counter to early understandings of copyright law. Professor Aoki locates the origins of this division in a deeply embedded image of originary romantic authorship, which is evoked to justify rights in information itself. As information flows more freely across borders, supranational sovereignty over information erodes traditional, territorial notions of sovereignty. Professor Aoki calls attention to the flaws in our current maps of intellectual property and concludes that reimagining the regulation of digital information flows will shape both the conceptual and the physical geography of the information age.
1) the cultural construction of repertoires of contention and frames
2) contribution of cultural contradictions and historical events in providing opportunties for framing
3) framing as a strategic activity
4) frames are contested - within the movement and externally (competetive processes determine what frame dominates)
5) frames are transmitted and reframed in the mass media
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOS) both lobby states and work within and across societies to advance their interests. These latter efforts are generally ignored by students of world politics because they do not directly involve governments. A study of transnational environmental activist groups (TEAGs) such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and World Wildlife Fund demonstrates that NGO societal efforts indeed shape widespread behavior throughout the world. TEAGs work through transnational social, economic, and cultural networks to shift standards of good conduct, change corporate practices, and empower local communities. This type of practice involves “world civic politics.” That is, TEAGs influence widespread behavior by politicizing global civil society—that slice of collective life which exists above the individual and below the state yet across national boundaries. This article examines the activity of world civic politics as practiced by environmental activists and evaluates its relevance for the study of NGOs and world politics in general.
In recent years, a great deal has been written about a `constructivist' approach in International Relations, which argues that international reality is socially constructed by cognitive structures that give meaning to the material world. Nevertheless, most of the epistemological, theoretical, empirical and methodological foundations of constructivism remain unclear. Nor are its potential contributions to a better understanding of International Relations widely appreciated. The present article seeks to fill some of these gaps. Constructivism occupies the middle ground between rationalist approaches (whether realist or liberal) and interpretive approaches (mainly postmodernist, poststructuralist and critical), and creates new areas for theoretical and empirical investigation. The bulk of the article lays out the social-epistemological basis of the constructivist approach; juxtaposes constructivism to rationalism and poststructuralism and explains its advantages; presents the concept of cognitive evolution as a way of explaining the social construction of reality; and suggests ways of expanding constructivist research agendas.
The second edition of The Nonprofit Sector provides a novel, comprehensive, cross-disciplinary perspective on nonprofit organizations and their role and function in society. This new, updated edition keeps pace with industry trends and advances as well as with the changing interests and needs of students, practitioners, and researchers. As before, every chapter has been written to stand on its own, providing sufficient background for the reader to follow the argument without referring to other chapters-allowing readers to selectively choose those chapters that are most relevant to a particular course, interest, or issue. The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook includes twenty-seven new or updated chapters. Relevant chapters from the previous edition have been refined, and new chapters have been added to fill in gaps, making this the authoritative reference for all who want an accessible, perceptive, and all-inclusive rendering of the nonprofit sector. The contributors-prominent scholars in their respective fields-carefully reflect upon the variety of changes in the rapidly growing world of nonprofits, examining a wide array of organizations, international issues, social science theories, and philanthropic traditions and covering a broad range of topics including the history and scope of nonprofit activities in the United States and abroad, the relation of nonprofits to the marketplace, government-nonprofit issues, key activities of nonprofits, aspects of giving to and joining nonprofits, and nonprofit mission and governance. For anyone who wishes to have a deeper understanding of the nonprofit sector, this remains the essential guide. © 2006 by Walter W. Powell, Richard Steinberg, and Yale University. All rights reserved.
The study of urban politics has undergone considerable change over the last ten to fifteen years. During the 1950s and 1960s the ‘community power’ approach became well-established in American political science as the dominant form of analysis of local politics, although it was less marked in Britain. In contrast, and in part as reaction, to the ecological determinism and naturalistic explanation of the Chicago school in urban sociology that preceded it, power and decision making were seen as key features in explaining urban processes. Intentionality and human action were afforded explanatory dominance. In turn, however, this approach came under sustained critique as part of the ‘anti-behaviouralist’ or structuralist resurgence in Western social science in the 1970s which attributed causal primacy to structural determination and system contradictions, not actors or voluntarism. Yet structural approaches face methodological problems of functionalism and circularity, and in constructing tests of empirical adequacy and falsifiability. Some of the more interesting, recently-published work in urban politics seeks to maintain a non-behaviouralist, more structuralist interpretation of local policy outcomes within empirically-grounded analyses that allow space for politics and power. Dunleavy, Friedland and Saunders provided three of the best examples of such an approach, and have each sought to understand either a particular policy, or a set of policies in a particular locality, through frameworks which in varying degrees incorporate structuralist assumptions. They seek to apply objective cost-benefit analyses of public policies as empirically refutable hypotheses and accept the necessity of objective criteria for assessing whether or not interests have been met in any given situation. This article examines the extent to which these selected ‘non-behaviouralist’ interpretations of urban politics have successfully been applied to empirical contexts. A central element in this examination is a consideration of the way in which business is seen as a major influence in local politics.
This article puts forward a theoretical explanation for why norms of international behavior change over time. It argues that the mainstream neorealist and neoliberal arguments on the static nature of state interests are implausible, as the recent empirical work of the growing constructivist school has convincingly shown. But the constructivists have not yet provided a theoretical basis for understanding why one norm rather than another becomes institutionalized, nor has learning theory yet provided an adequate explanation. An evolutionary approach that draws its hypotheses from an analogy to population genetics offers a promising alternative. This article briefly outlines the constructivist critique of neorealism and neoliberalism. It develops the evolutionary analogy, illustrating the model with a case study on the emergence of a norm of transparency in international security and briefly discussing how the model might apply in several other issue areas.
This book brings together classic writings on the economic nature and organization of firms, including works by Ronald Coase, Oliver Williamson, and Michael Jensen and William Meckling, as well as more recent contributions by Paul Milgrom, Bengt Holmstrom, John Roberts, Oliver Hart, Luigi Zingales, and others. Part I explores the general theme of the firm’s nature and place in the market economy; Part II addresses the question of which transactions are integrated under a firm’s roof and what limits the growth of firms; Part III examines employer-employee relations and the motivation of labor; and Part IV studies the firm’s organization from the standpoint of financing and the relationship between owners and managers. The volume also includes a consolidated bibliography of sources cited by these authors and an introductory essay by the editors that surveys the new institutional economics of the firm and issues raised in the anthology. The collection aims to introduce the core literature to advanced undergraduates, business and economics graduate students, and scholars in allied disciplines, including law, sociology, and organization and management.
Most people believe that large corporations wield enormous political power when they lobby for policies as a cohesive bloc. With this controversial book, Mark A. Smith sets conventional wisdom on its head. In a systematic analysis of postwar lawmaking, Smith reveals that business loses in legislative battles unless it has public backing. This surprising conclusion holds because the types of issues that lead businesses to band together-such as tax rates, air pollution, and product liability-also receive the most media attention. The ensuing debates give citizens the information they need to hold their representatives accountable and make elections a choice between contrasting policy programs. Rather than succumbing to corporate America, Smith argues, representatives paradoxically become more responsive to their constituents when facing a united corporate front. Corporations gain the most influence over legislation when they work with organizations such as think tanks to shape Americans' beliefs about what government should and should not do.