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The Politics of Expertise
Competing for Authority in Global Governance
By Ole Jacob Sending The University of Michigan Press
Copyright © 2015 University of Michigan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-472-12125-0
CHAPTER 1
Competing for Authority
Recognition and Field Dynamics in Global Governance
Global governance is made up of more or less distinct and autonomous fields whose logic and boundaries can be uncovered by analyzing their genesis. Within these fields, actors compete with each other to be recognized as authorities on what is to be governed, how, and why. Actors are compelled to seek such recognition in terms of any given field's dominant evaluation criteria. The contents of any given evaluative criterion vary considerably between fields, as I detail in the chapters that follow. It is thus an empirical question which particular configuration of actors (state representative, expert group, advocacy network, international organization, or other) will come to occupy a position of authority in any given field.
Thus conceived, authority is about relations of deference, but such deference is not produced by legitimate belief (Hurd 1999, 387–88) or by a social contract (Lake 2010, 595–96) but — paradoxically — by the constant search for recognition within always hierarchically organized social spaces (Markell 2003, 22–23): some actors succeed in presenting their interests and attendant categories as natural and universal rather than arbitrary and particular, thereby establishing for themselves an idea of sovereign agency while transferring to others the burden of having to orient themselves through and seek recognition from categories not of their own choosing. I show in chapter 4, for example, how a small group of US-based demographers prevailed over a range of other actors, authoritatively defining the problem of population growth in such a way that health professionals were relegated to a marginal position. It was simply not possible for health professionals to be recognized for their distinctive definition of reproductive regulation within the parameters of this field's evaluative criterion, defined by demographers. Then, in chapter 5, I show how that same field was later transformed through a relative loss of autonomy, enabling health professionals to undo the authority of demographers and forcing demographers to reorient themselves in order to safeguard their position in the field.
My point of departure is that while authority has been central to debates about global governance, its conceptualization leaves much to be desired. There has been a tendency to use typologies of sources of authority, link these to actor attributes, and then conclude that a specific type of actor has authority. But such a conceptualization fails to account for the fact that authority is a relationship between a superordinate and a subordinate actor. We thus lack a theory-based framework for empirically exploring how authority is constructed, through what strategies, and with what effects on the contents of governance. To construct such a framework, I draw extensively on the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 1991, 2000), highlighting the dynamics of recognition and misrecognition as central to the constitution of authority within distinct issue areas, or fields. Actors engaged in global governance, I hold, compete with each other to be recognized as authorities on what is to be governed, how, and why. They make use of the material and symbolic resources available to them, seeking to win recognition for their distinctive conceptions of governance. This view of the constitution of authority in global governance has three significant implications.
The first is that authority here becomes the explanandum, so we need to situate authority within a larger analytical framework that moves beyond ideal-typical classifications of sources of authority. It is worth recalling that Weber's ideal-typical sources of authority formed part of a larger conceptual apparatus. In Collins' words, ideal types of authority "do not make much sense in the absence of a larger network of concepts" (1986, 6). We need to place the exploration of authority within such a larger network of concepts and bring it to bear on global governance. The aim is to explain the competition between different actors over what counts as a "mark" of authority in particular contexts. If one given expert group is found to have authority in an issue area, we should ask why that particular group or constellation of actors and not some other constellation of actors came to win recognition as authoritative.
The second implication is that we cannot use analytical tools that are organized around and thus a priori privilege specific types of actors — be they states, international organizations, advocacy groups, or expert groups. We need a framework that shifts the focus from actors' attributes to their positions relative to others and the resources they bring to bear in the competition to be recognized as authoritative. International organizations (IOs) often have authority — but an analysis focused on IO attributes cannot explain why equally expert-driven and rule-following IOs have variable authority across different issue areas or why some state actors have almost complete control in some issue areas while remaining comparatively marginal in others.
The third implication is a theme that occupied Weber (1978) in his exploration of authority: how the source of an actor's authority gives rise to distinct forms of rule (Onuf and Klink 1989). With a few exceptions (Avant, Finnemore, and Sell 2010), extant literature has been content to demonstrate that particular types of actors have authority without exploring how an actor's source of authority is integral to and structures the type of rule and contestation associated with it. Put differently, the processes by which authority is constructed and the defining features of specific actors' authority are endogenous to the conceptions of governance advanced by that actor. When, for example, the UN Secretariat has authority over a given set of tasks — such as peacebuilding — we should locate the explanation of how the project of peacebuilding is defined and performed with reference to the genesis of the Secretariat's authority.
I proceed in three steps. First, I identify some limitations in accounts of global governance that can be attributed to their actor-centric analytical frameworks. Second, I discuss the concept of authority in some detail, arguing that it refers to recognized relations of deference between a superordinate and subordinate actor. Third, I present and justify a relational, sociological framework where authority emerges out of the ongoing competition for recognition within social spaces defined as fields. I hold that this framework can offer a better account of the establishment and effects of authority, that it can assess the relative importance of types of actors, that it links a concern with "who governs" directly to the substantive content of global governance arrangements, and finally that it allows us to compare the distinctiveness of issue areas (or fields) in global governance in terms of their genesis, social organization, and claims to authority.
Theorizing Global Governance
As early as in 1971, Joseph S. Nye and Robert O. Keohane noted the importance of exploring the power and role of nonstate actors in shaping foreign policy and the operations of international organizations (331). Two decades later, James Rosenau (1992) introduced the term "spheres of authority" as an analytical tool so as not to prejudge the dominance of states in the analysis of governance arrangements beyond the state. And more recently, the massive literature on global governance has produced a wealth of insights about the role, power, and effects of nonstate actors in world politics (Kahler and Lake 2003). In this literature, the concept of authority is crucial. While both David Lake (2009) and Stephen Hopgood (2009) are correct in noting that the assumption of anarchy in IR theory has meant that there has been a relative dearth of explorations of authority as an integral and systemic feature of world politics, students of global governance have put it to use to explore the role and importance of a myriad of different types of actors. Analysts have focused on the authority of international organizations (Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Weaver 2008), nongovernmental organizations (Bernstein and Cashore 2007), professional associations and expert groups (Cross 2013; Haas 1992), advocacy networks (Carpenter 2010; Keck and Sikkink 1998), and private corporations and their associations (Cutler 2002).
I identify some of the limitations of extant approaches, highlighting both what these should, by their own admission, be able to account for but cannot and what we should be able to account for that falls outside their remit. On the first score, we need to account for how and why one particular actor or configuration of actors emerges as authoritative. To include authoritative as part of the very definition of an actor will not serve to account for how that actor became authoritative. Nor does linking any type of actor to a particular source of authority constitute an explanation of the authority of any particular type of actor within a given issue area. On the second score, I extend the analysis of authority, exploring the Weberian question of how particular types or sources of authority give rise to distinct forms of governance or rule.
Actors and Ideal-Typical Sources of Authority
If there is one topic that is consistently brought to the fore in discussions of nonstate actors' sources of authority, it is that of expertise . Because of the general belief in the institution of science as setting rules for truth-seeking practices, scientifically produced knowledge is a central source of authority (Toulmin 1992; Wagner 2001; Wagner, Wittrock, and Whitley 1991). Reviewing the literature on transnational actors, Richard Price (2003, 587), for example, highlights expertise as a key source of authority. Similarly, in their edited volume on private authority in global governance, Rodney Bruce Hall and Thomas Biersteker (2002, 14) identify expertise as a hallmark of the authority of private, or nonstate, actors. By far the most influential account of the role of expertise in global governance is the epistemic communities approach expounded by Peter M. Haas (1992). Its standing as an account of the knowledge-policy nexus is such that "epistemic community" has taken on the status of an ontological given actor whose influence is assumed rather than demonstrated (Beyer 2007; Biersteker 1992; Drezner 2007; Rosenau 1999). In discussing international legal theory, for example, José E. Alvarez (2002, 150) refers to epistemic communities as having the same ontological status as international organizations.
The epistemic communities approach seeks to account for the role of experts in shaping "how states identify their interests and recognize the latitude of action deemed appropriate in specific issue-areas of policymaking" (Haas 1992, 2). Haas defines an epistemic community as a "network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or issue-area" (3). With this definition, Haas places the explanatory focus on the process whereby experts already recognized as having authoritative and policy-relevant knowledge can shape state interests. State decision makers are assumed to be uncertainty-reducers as well as pursuers of power and wealth — and epistemic communities serve to reduce uncertainty by defining the problems attendant on policy solutions. The three core analytical concepts — uncertainty, interpretation, and institutionalization — capture the diffusion and institutionalization of already recognized authoritative knowledge claims (Haas 1992, 3–4). However, none of these concepts can explain how such knowledge claims came to be regarded as consensual, authoritative, or policy-relevant in the first place. Haas claims that the epistemic communities approach focuses on the "process through which consensus is reached within a given domain of expertise" (23). But the explanatory logic of the epistemic communities approach kicks in only after actors have produced a consensual knowledge base that is recognized as authoritative and policy-relevant. No analytical tools are offered to explain how a consensus was formed and why some actors (and not others) became recognized as authoritative. For example, Adler's (1992) analysis of the US epistemic community of arms-control experts that came to shape US policy details the process whereby this group emerged. But this account of the formation of an epistemic community and its position of authority operates outside the analytical tools offered by the epistemic community approach itself. It fails to explain how and why arms controllers rather than those who advocated armament and counterforce strategies emerged in a position of authority to have the ear of policymakers. Adler notes how a "political selection process determined the epistemic community's success" and that "the policymaker ... served as judge, jury and, if necessary, executioner over the professional output of strategic theories" (1992, 124). In other words, the authority of an epistemic community was here a result of rather than a driver of a "political selection process." In a more recent effort to reconstruct the epistemic communities framework, Davis Cross (2013) proposes an important extension of this framework by expanding the definition of epistemic communities beyond scientific experts to include analyses of interepistemic conflicts and to study the conditions under which the influence of epistemic communities is more or less likely to be influential. And yet the core elements of Cross's reconstruction retain the original formulation, where an epistemic community is defined as already recognized with authority. She argues, for example, that "when a group of professionals with recognized expertise is able to speak with one voice, that voice is often seen as more legitimate because it is based on a well-reasoned consensus among those in the best position to know" (147; emphasis added). In this way, authority is invoked as a constitutive element of this type of actor's centrality, but no explanation is offered as to how and why such authority was established in the first place.
IOs have authority in world politics. They set agendas, define categories, implement policies, and enforce rules with considerable discretion (Kahler and Lake 2003; Koremenos and Snidal 2001). The account offered by Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore (2004) is here central. They see IOs as authoritative by virtue of being bureaucratic. Invoking ideal-typical sources of authority — legal-rational, expertise, and moral authority — they move on to highlight attributes of IOs that fit with these sources of authority: IOs are rule-following (legal-rational authority), they embed expertise (expert authority), and they advance shared social and political objectives (moral authority) (ch. 1). On this basis, they show that the World Bank and the IMF (see also Seabrooke 2006; Weaver 2008), the UN refugee agency, and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations all have authority (and pathologies) qua bureaucratic organizations. This potent classification of types of authority demonstrates that IO authority may be independent of delegation from states. However, it cannot account for the emergence and evolution of such authority, since authority — as a relational phenomenon — cannot be determined by looking at the attributes of one actor. None of this tells us how and why, for example, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations is authoritative on peacekeeping, while its sister organization, the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs, is (almost) nowhere to be seen in the global governance of economic matters.
The literature on advocacy groups similarly relies on an actor-centric analytical framework, aiming to link or identify a particular type of actor, via its attributes, to a source of authority. In his review of the literature of transnational actors, Price concludes that moral authority is considered a "prime factor in the influence of transnational activists. ... [D]ecision makers and/or citizens often believe that activists are not only (objectively) right in the sense of providing accurate information but also morally right in the purposes for which such knowledge is harnessed" (2003, 589). And Sikkink (2002) argues that transnational networks and advocacy groups have "acquired 'moral authority' as a power resource that gives them influence beyond the limited material capabilities," linking this moral authority to the attributes or qualities of these networks in terms of their impartiality, reliability, representativeness, and accountability (312–35). A closely related source of authority is said to accrue from the claim to represent those who cannot speak for themselves. This claim to represent and speak on behalf of others goes hand in hand with the claim to advance a shared common good or something of moral worth. As Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink (1999) note, "Moral authority is directly related to the claim by transnational civil society that it somehow represents the 'public interest' or the 'common good' rather than private interests" (186). But the claim to represent or advance the "public interest" is common to all groups that are engaged in global governance, so we are none the wiser as to why some groups succeed with such claims and others do not.
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Excerpted from The Politics of Expertise by Ole Jacob Sending. Copyright © 2015 University of Michigan. Excerpted by permission of The University of Michigan Press.
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