(2008-08-31) Backstrand Accountability of Networked Climate Governance: The Rise of Transnational Climate Partnerships

Karin Backstrand: Accountability of Networked Climate Governance: The Rise of Transnational Climate Partnerships. Public-private partnerships (PPP) have been advanced as a new tool of global governance, which can supply both effective and legitimate governance. The around 300 multistakeholder partnerships launched at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) have gained public attention and been subject to scholarly assessment.1 The aim of this paper is twofold: to categorize and map the landscape of transnational climate partnerships and to evaluate the accountability of different types of partnerships. (climate change)

In the context of recent debates on the democratic legitimacy of transnational governance, this article focuses on accountability as a central component of transnational legitimacy

Network governance has gained attention in studies on transnational advocacy networks consisting of state and nonstate actors.2 Partnerships signify a shift to “new” modes of governance, which build on non

hierarchical steering3 and are characterized by decentralized, voluntary, marketoriented interaction between public and private actors. This can be contrasted with “old governance,” which builds on hierarchical topdown modes of steering and traditional regulation.

Three propositions inform this paper

First, plural forms of accountability are needed in order to evaluate the accountability of networked climate governance. Nonelectoral accountability such as peer, reputational, market accountability4 can be applied to the various types of climate partnerships, ranging from businesstobusiness to transgovernmental networks on technology cooperation

Secondly, the political relationship between state and nonstate actors is not a zero-sum game

The rise of the partnership discourse can lead to the conclusion that the sovereign state is outdated and replaced by networked governance. However, many of the climate partnerships operate in the “shadow of hierarchy” as states and international organizations are delegating rule setting or implementation functions to partnership networks

Thirdly, the rise of partnerships in climate diplomacy signifies a transformation of multilateralism, which relies increasingly on collaboration between private and public actors, such as business and civil society.

in current debates on post-2012 climate governance. The second section conceptualizes Public-private partnerships as “networked climate governance.” In the third section, the debate on the pros and cons of partnerships is summarized. The fourth section proposes a framework for studying the accountability of climate partnerships. The fifth section places climate partnerships in the wider realm of transnational multilevel climate governance. The sixth section categorizes, maps and tentatively evaluates the accountability of climate partnerships. In the concluding section the implications of the rise of climate partnerships for the accountability of multilateral climate politics are examined.

Partnerships and Fragmentation of Global Climate Governance Architecture

Transnational Partnerships as Networked Governance

Partnerships have been defined as “voluntary cooperative arrangements between actors from the public, business and civil society that display a minimal degree of institutionalization, have common, nonhierarchical decisionmaking structures and address public policy issues

A minority of the climate partnerships surveyed in this paper qualifies as true transnational Public-private partnerships (PPP).

It is easy to fall into the methodological trap of making partnerships a broad and allinclusive concept

Making the partnership definition too comprehensive can create the false impression that partnerships predominate and replace traditional regulation. It is also problematic to identify partnerships based on the actors’ own definition of their activities as a “partnership.” In policy practice, there is a proliferation of a partnership discourse, partly because the word carries positive connotations.

Legitimacy of Global Climate Partnerships?

There are highly competing accounts of whether the multitude of climate partnerships increases the legitimacy of global climate governance

The Legitimacy and Accountability of Climate Partnerships

Legitimacy in global governance can rest on effectiveness, participatory procedures, tradition and democratic values

Partnerships and New Modes of Climate Governance

Figure 1 presents an overview of the realm of global climate governance, ranging from private governance to public regulation

Climate partnerships are marked in italics in Figure 1