scholarly journals The Architecture of Arguments in Global Social Governance: Examining Populations and Discourses of International Organizations in Social Policies

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Dennis Niemann ◽  
Kerstin Martens ◽  
Alexandra Kaasch
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Organizational Ecology ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Social Governance ◽  
Soft Governance ◽  
Collective Actors ◽  
Influence Behavior

AbstractAs this chapter is the introduction to the book, it lays out in broad strokes the knowledge about the purposes, functions and characteristics of International Organizations (IOs) in general, and their involvement in social policy issues in particular. It then sets out some basic conceptualizations for studying IOs in global social governance before specifying the framework applied for exploring populations and discourses of IOs in global social policies. Complementing liberal and constructivist IR theories, the volume uses organizational ecology and soft governance approaches as heuristic frames for the analyses of different architectures of IO global social governance. ‘Populations’ are identified as the dominant as well as regional IOs active in a specific social policy issue; the concept of ‘discourse’ is understood as the strategic way in which individuals or collective actors frame ideas, and not as a structural understanding of how certain meanings influence behavior.

scholarly journals IOs and Climate Change: Toward Global Eco-Social Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 255-273
Author(s):  
Silvana Lakeman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Soft Governance ◽  
Policy Engagement

AbstractIn the twenty-first century, climate change poses a major challenge to the work of IOs. This chapter contextualizes the historical shift from more compartmentalized understandings of climate change at the IO level, toward the current understanding of climate change as a pervasive threat to social policy across various issue areas. Fueled by ongoing discourse surrounding the Sustainable Development Agenda at the United Nations, a multiplicity of IOs are framing social policy issues in relation to climate change that may have traditionally been viewed as largely separate. The cross-cutting nature of the issue for IOs is highlighted, and as illustrated via an exploration of climate insurance as a social policy tool, climate change has led to compelling developments regarding the archetypal roles of IOs as actors of soft governance, raising questions for the future of IOs in the context of climate change and social policy engagement.

scholarly journals Governing Children’s Rights in Global Social Policy—International Organizations and the Thin Line Between Child Protection and Empowerment

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-162
Author(s):  
Anna Holzscheiter
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Thin Line ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Social Governance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Traditional Approaches

AbstractThis chapter locates children’s rights in the context of global social governance. Social policy literature has hitherto neglected the centrality of child protection and children’s rights to many key areas of social governance such as education and healthcare. The chapter traces the history of children’s rights as a distinct sphere in international law from the first recognition of the special status of children, to the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), to the growth of the contemporary complex International Organization (IO) landscape. Children’s rights enjoy growing visibility and relevance and continue to be a cross-cutting issue in international organizations of all kinds, making them a central dimension of global social governance. Nonetheless, the chapter highlights that the growth of the children’s rights agenda has not been without conflict. International norms and measures surrounding children’s rights continue to be challenged and questioned by scholars and practitioners alike. Furthermore, the analysis of children’s rights provides opportunities to reconsider traditional approaches to global social policy.

scholarly journals International Organizations and the Architecture of Arguments in Global Social Governance

2021 ◽  
pp. 325-339
Author(s):  
Kerstin Martens ◽  
Dennis Niemann ◽  
Alexandra Kaasch
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Path Dependencies ◽  
Social Governance ◽  
Soft Governance ◽  
Cognitive Authority ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Birth Characteristics ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe concluding chapter resumes the arguments made in the introduction to this volume. It summarizes the empirical findings of the individual contributions and highlights prevailing cross-cutting issues and themes. It also depicts further and future avenues of research resulting from this volume. Overall, it becomes evident that International organizations (IOs) have been part of the architecture of arguments in global social governance for a long time. They have been populating diverse social fields in which they more often cooperate or coexist in issue-related or individual regional niches than contest each other. However, they often share a field with other actors, too. IOs have also proven strong in exercising soft governance as the broadcasters of new ideas. Thus, they have cognitive authority over their specific field. However, birth characteristics, such as membership rules or the design of decision-taking, as well as path-dependencies influence IO activities and discourses.

A Theory of Patronized Goods: Inefficient and Efficient Equilibria

2011 ◽  
pp. 65-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Rubinstein
Keyword(s):  
Nash Equilibrium ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Nash Equilibria ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Pareto Optimal ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Equilibrium Conditions ◽  
Policy Issues

The article considers some aspects of the patronized goods theory with respect to efficient and inefficient equilibria. The author analyzes specific features of patronized goods as well as their connection with market failures, and conjectures that they are related to the emergence of Pareto-inefficient Nash equilibria. The key problem is the analysis of the opportunities for transforming inefficient Nash equilibrium into Pareto-optimal Nash equilibrium for patronized goods by modifying the institutional environment. The paper analyzes social motivation for institutional modernization and equilibrium conditions in the generalized Wicksell-Lindahl model for patronized goods. The author also considers some applications of patronized goods theory to social policy issues.

Competition, cooperation, and adaptation: The organizational ecology of international organizations in global energy governance

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Christian Downie
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Shared Governance ◽  
International Energy Agency ◽  
Organizational Ecology ◽  
Energy Agency ◽  
Global Energy ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Energy Governance

Abstract In policy domains characterised by complexity, international organizations (IOs) with overlapping mandates and governance functions regularly interact in ways that have important implications for global governance. Yet the dynamics of IO interactions remain understudied. This article breaks new ground by building on the theoretical insights of organizational ecology to examine IO competition, cooperation, and adaptation in the domain of energy. Drawing on original empirical data, I consider three related hypotheses: (1) competition between IOs in the same population is likely to centre on material resources; (2) IOs are more likely to cooperate when they have a shared governance goal; and (3) individual IOs can adapt by changing their goals and boundaries. In considering these hypotheses, this article highlights the limits of the organizational ecology approach and the need to broaden it to account for the possibility that IOs do cooperate, and that individual IOs, such as the International Energy Agency, have the capacity to adapt to changes in their environment.

scholarly journals Silent Non-Exit and Broken Voice. Early Postcommunist Social Policies as Protest-Preempting Strategies

Südosteuropa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-174
Author(s):  
Pieter Vanhuysse
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
Distributive Conflict

Abstract This essay contributes to the development of an analytical political sociology examination of postcommunist policy pathways and applies such an analysis in a reinterpretation of the social policy pathways taken by Hungary and Poland. During the critical historical juncture of the early 1990s, governments in these new democracies used social policies to proactively create new labor market outsiders (rather than merely accommodate or deal with existing outsiders) in an effort to stifle disruptive repertoires of political voice. Microcollective action theory helps to elucidate how the break-up of hitherto relatively homogeneous clusters of threatened workers into newly competing interest groups shaped the nature of distributive conflict in the formative first decade of these new democracies. In this light, we see how the analytical political sociology of postcommunist social policy can advance and modify current, predominantly Western-oriented theories of insider/outsider conflict and welfare retrenchment policy, and can inform future debates about emerging social policy biases in Eastern Europe.

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