Identifying the Myth of Civil Society Participation in Global Governance

We explored the narration of the myth underlying global governance by analysing key texts, that is, texts that were frequently referenced by others (UNCED 1992; CGG 1995; WSF 2001; Cardoso Report 2004; WEF 2009).

Historic Dimension: Linking the Past, the Present, and the Future

For a modern (political) myth, the founding moment needs to be believable and pervasive. The myth of global CSP commonly begins at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro/Brazil in 1992, when an unprecedented number of CSO par­ticipants attended the meeting. Based on that number, the summit is now often famously portrayed as the initiation of civil society involvement in global institutionalised settings (Munck 2002, 350). In many documents, academic texts and CSO accounts, we find references to this (apparent) watershed moment (e.g. Backstrand 2006, 470). While earlier world sum­mits, especially the one in Stockholm 1972, attracted the attention of some 300 NGOs, UNCED 1992 marked the beginning of the decade that is usually equated with large-scale NGO participation in the UN: ‘It was the series of global UN conferences of the 1990s that essentially rewrote the UN agenda and attracted thousands of NGOs (Bissio 2014, 196).

Reports like Our Global Neighborhood by the Commission on Global Governance added to this the belief that the time was ripe for a global representation of public interest which would change how global policies were being formulated and implemented:

At the global level, governance has been viewed primarily as intergovern­mental relationships, but it must now be understood as also involving non­governmental organizations (NGOs), citizens’ movements, multinational corporations, and the global capital market (CGG 1995, Chap. 1).

Accordingly, ‘a diversity of people and institutions’ became necessary for policymaking to be effective·:

Effective global decision-making thus needs to build upon and influence decisions taken locally, nationally, and regionally, and to draw on the skills and resources of a diversity of people and institutions at many levels. It must build partnerships—networks of institutions and processes—that enable global actors to pool information, knowledge, and capacities and to develop joint policies and practices on issues of common concern (CGG 1995, Chap. 1).

The idea of ‘effective global decision-making’ is presented and concep­tualised as a subject acting in its own right (it ‘needs’, ‘builds upon’, ‘must build’) and is linked causally to the actions of the variety of people con­cerned (‘diversity’, ‘at many levels’, ‘global actors’). This narration also builds a bridge between past and present, creating something new, namely governance ‘now (...) understood as’, and marking a change that would affect the future of global politics.

Often, both past and present represent a status quo that needs to be overcome. The future can either be very bleak—if things remain unchanged—or very bright, namely if the myth becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Among the problems that need to be overcome are general global processes like ‘a process of capitalist globalization commanded by large multinational corporations and by governments and international institutions at the service of those corporations’ interests’ (WSF 2001, paragraph 4). But also concrete events that illustrate the present state of the world need to be left behind, such as:

the Gulf War, the enormities of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, brutal vio­lence in Somalia, and genocide in Rwanda (...). And there is deepening disquiet over the actions—and in some cases the inaction—of governments and of the United Nations. Instead of coming together around a common vision of the way forward, the world seems in danger of losing its way (CGG 1995, Chap. 1).

The expression of ‘the world (...) losing its way’ incorporates the temporal elements of the global governance myth in a very teleological manner, linking future events to endeavours of the past and present. The present, however, is portrayed as a world in fear of the future and in urgent need of change:

Economic, business and social uncertainty is not a passing phenomenon but has become a permanent characteristic of our world. Our societies and nations risk being subverted by international crime, corruption and ter­ror campaigns, not to mention threats from environmental degradation, disease and the social consequences of poverty, especially in the least devel­oped parts of the world. Global cooperation is required to fight this (WEF 2009, 128).

When the UN stood ‘at a very delicate juncture’, it was in need of ‘the support of civil society more than ever before’ (Cardoso Report 2004, 3). Therefore:

The Panel strongly affirms multi-stakeholder partnerships for tackling both operational and policy challenges.

The plot of the myth is thus focused on how the conditions of past and present and corresponding challenges can be overcome: by governing the world in concert with CSOs. When civil society plays its part, the future, as befits a myth, will be bright:

To make life in the twenty-first century more democratic, more secure, and more sustainable is the foremost challenge of this generation. (...) The world now has a real opportunity to improve on the record of the past and to respond effectively to the current challenges of global governance (CGG 1995, Chap. 1).

This brighter future would be enabled by ‘understanding and mutual recognition among its participant organizations’ (WSF 2001, paragraph 14), resulting in ‘a planetary society centred on the human person’ (WSF 2001, paragraph 1).

On the surface, this looks like well-known political rhetoric. Things will improve if people act the right way. However, the narration is so all­encompassing and general (or unspecific and global, to put it differently) that it is not just directed at political decision-makers or a public of vot­ers; instead, it seems to be directed at the most general public imagin­able, mankind itself. It seeks to arouse the emotions of each individual human being. Single phrasings like ‘planetary society’, ‘relations among Humankind and between it and the Earth’ or ‘a new stage in world his­tory’ are symbolic and fantasmatic rather than political; they evoke com­mon fantasies, rather than being a sound basis for rational (in the sense of a homo economicus) decisions. Thereby, the idea of CSP in global gover­nance becomes a mythical narrative. This style of narration can be found throughout the programmatic documents in this context.

The Protagonists: Heroes of World Politics

In order to make the world a better place in the future, mythical actors are needed who are endowed with special features.

Next to the character of NGOs as non-governmental, i.e. private, the absence of profit-seeking is usually named as characteristic feature of these specific CSOs. NGOs rather seek to enhance the common interest and basically have good intentions, such as ‘working for the welfare of children or a healthier planet’ (CGG 1995). They become credible through the ‘responsible and constructive role they play in society’ (UNCED 1992, paragraph 27.1). The narrative also stresses the crucial link between the resources of NGOs and their functions:

All in all, citizens’ movements and NGOs now make important contribu­tions in many fields, both nationally and internationally.

The resources—‘knowledge, skills, enthusiasm, dedication, flexibility’— are decisive for making global governance more effective and less bureau­cratic (as opposed to ‘regular’ politics). Civil society actors further bring to life ‘principles of constituency engagement, partnership, transparency and inclusion, with a special emphasis on those who are normally under­represented’ (Cardoso Report 2004, 12). Finally, ‘independence is a major attribute of non-governmental organizations and is the precondition of real participation’ (Cardoso Report 2004, 12). That can be seen as a case in point for portraying CSOs as potential oppositional forces in global affairs: ‘groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism’; ‘a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context’ and in ‘diversity of genders, ethnicities, cultures, generations and physical capacities’ (WSF 2001, paragraph 9). The mythical narrative becomes powerful by presenting global governance as a complete story in offering protagonists and antagonists, both needed to complement each other, since the lack of a common antagonist would put in question the role of protagonists.

The symbolism this story entails is expressed, for example, in the idea that CSOs are the transmission belt ‘from the local to the global’. CSOs are ‘engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the interna­tional to build another world’ (WSF 2001, paragraph 8). Their function as transmission belts between different levels of political activity evidences the potential of CSOs to legitimise global governance (Steffek and Nanz 2008, 8). The title of the seminal report ‘Our Global Neighborhood’ also reflects the CSOs’ Janus face of local and global. The global sphere seems to become a local place where people take responsibility for each other as much as they ‘take control of their own lives’ (CGG 1995, Chap. 1). In this effort they are enabled by the use of ‘new information and communi­cation technologies’ which make it ‘almost as easy for advocacy groups to be global as local’ (Cardoso Report 2004, 25).

While some caveats can be found in various sources of the narrative, in the overall picture painted of CSOs in global governance as critical voices but reliable partners at the same time, they are larger than life. Civil society representatives thus could be seen as being cast for the role of heroes, at least in the sense of moral superiority and opponents of dominant authori­ties (states). As protagonists of the myth, they can embody all those quali­ties lacking in official political leaders, those responsible for the state of today’s world that needs to be overcome. Measured by realistic standards, they are doomed to fail. That, however, makes it all the more necessary to uphold the positive claims about the new protagonists to justify why CSOs should have a say at all in international policymaking, in other words, why they are legitimate actors.