Access and Exclusion in Global Governance

11 and 12 January 2018 – IBEI & ESADEgeo, Barcelona

Detailed program in PDF of the Barcelona Workshop on Global Governance

Global governance today involves a wide range of actors, ranging from governments to civil society organizations and multinational corporations, both in formal international organizations as well as in novel, transnational settings. The ‘opening up’ of global governance has been widely hailed for ushering in broader participation and closer links with the public sphere, while it has also drawn critique from those who fear capture by special interests the marginalization of states, governments and the public interest. However, we still know little about which actors enjoy what kind of access, and with what consequences. On the flipside, we know little about who is excluded, formally and informally, and the problems this creates.
With this conference, we seek to place the access and exclusion into the centre of attention and gain greater clarity as regards the variety of questions that surround them. The questions that guide our inquiry are the following:

• Legal-institutional: what mechanisms exist to regulate access and exclusion in different settings? What variety can we observe in institutional design, and how can we explain it? To what extent can we identify models for different institutional types – e.g., international organizations, government networks, private authority? Is the creation of access pathways due to contestation and mobilization by outsiders, or is it the result of institutional mimesis and the creation of a new normality?
• Empirical: what are the effects of the different mechanisms in the operation of global governance? Which actors benefit from them, and how much? What are the conditions that make access tools effective for different actors? What strategies do external actors use in front of different access mechanisms? In which contexts is the creation of access mechanisms merely a figleaf, in which does it have actual bite? And who remains excluded and why?
• Normative: who should be entitled to access, and who should remain outside governance structures? What is the proper balance between government control and stakeholder participation, and how does it vary across issue areas? How can stakeholder representatives be effectively connected to their constituencies, or is virtual representation a desirable option?

The Barcelona Workshop on Global Governance is a venue for the study of global governance – its structure, effects, and problems – from an interdisciplinary perspective, bringing together scholarship from international relations, law, sociology, anthropology, political theory, public administration and history. Its 5th edition will be held on 11 and 12 January 2018 in Barcelona.

The workshop is organized by ESADEgeo (ESADE Business School’s Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics) and IBEI (Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals).

Organizing Committee:

• Miriam Bradley, IBEI
• Nico Krisch, IBEI & Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
• Angel Saz-Carranza, ESADEgeo