Civil Society & Accountable Global Governance

The Civil Society and Accountable Global Governance project investigates in what ways and to what extents civil society associations have furthered the accountability of global-scale regulatory agencies to their stakeholders. One of the major shortfalls in contemporary democracy arises when global governance institutions fail adequately to answer to the people whose lives they affect. In particular several of the key mechanisms of democratic accountability that operate in relation to modern states (such as elected leadership, parliamentary oversight, and nonpartisan courts) are not available to citizens in respect of global regulatory bodies. In these circumstances many people have looked to civil society activities to fill the accountability gaps. Yet how far have civil society interventions in practice delivered more democratically accountable global governance?

 

To assess this question, the CS-AGG project assembled 15 authors from 5 continents to prepare case studies on civil society engagement of 13 global-scale regulatory institutions. The diverse bodies examined include the United Nations, the Group of Eight, the World Fair Trade Organisation, and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Some two dozen discussants from civil society associations and official agencies across the world assisted the academic researchers with critical feedback on their draft studies.

 

The CS-AGG workshop was held in Gothenburg, Sweden on 13-15 June 2007 and involved 65 participants from 28 countries. Subsequently panels of authors have given presentations of their studies at the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation conference on 18 September 2007, at the Globalizations Studies Network conference on 26 August 2008, at the United Nations in New York on 5 November 2008, at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC on 6 November 2008, and at the Academic Council on the United Nations System in Trinidad on 6 June 2009.

 

The CS-AGG project has generated half a dozen working papers. Final versions of the case studies will be published together with general conclusions in a book released in late 2010 through Cambridge University Press entitled Building Global Democracy? Civil Society and Accountable Global Governance. The general findings and recommendations of the project will also be summarised in a policy brief.

 

The CS-AGG project has been supported with grants of £16,000 from the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR), US$15,000 from the Ford Foundation, SEK 80,000 from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and US$20,000 from the United Nations University (UNU).