How to diagnose democratic deficits in global politics: the use of the “all affected principle"

Is there a “democratic deficit” in global politics? If so, which changes in institutions and practices can mitigate it? Empirically oriented scholars who ask such questions often use as a yardstick the normative principle that people significantly affected by a decision should be able to take part in reaching that decision. This “all affected principle” is also endorsed by prominent political theorists. However, its most logically consistent interpretation seems so demanding that it casts doubt on the principle’s usefulness to guide the assessment of real-world situations, since it appears to require that virtually everyone in the world should have a say on any proposal or any proposal for proposals. The argument presented here intends to rescue the principle as a tool for empirical assessments of real-world situations by stressing its role in comparative judgements and especially by showing that its implications are not too expansive and/or indeterminate, once we take into account that certain types of prior decisions significantly restrict the agenda of other decisions in a systematic way. The theoretical guidance for empirical research offered in the first part of the article is then illustrated with an application to global child labor policies

Who are the people? Defining the demos in the measurement of democracy

Large-scale efforts to measure the democratic nature of polities across space and time are most useful when they reflect the variety of conceptions of democracy developed by political theorists. Traditionally, the attention of political theorists as well as political scientists focused on what it means for the people to rule, to the neglect of the equally important question of who the relevant people should be. In recent years, however, an increasing number of political theorists have tackled the problem of defining the demos and offered a wide range of answers. The article argues that empirical democracy measurement projects should take into account the variety of conceptions of the demos debated today instead of assuming consensus on this dimension. It also discusses how this can be done systematically. The arguments are developed with reference to the most ambitious and comprehensive democracy measurement project yet: Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem)

Understanding the global dimensions of policy

Beyond wide agreement that many areas of contemporary policy making are unintelligible if processes that transcend the boundaries of individual states are not taken into account, analysts often disagree on how various 'global' and 'local' factors interact to produce policies and policy outcomes. The disagreement stems in part from the use of different analytic lenses, and specifically from the choice between 'state-centric' and 'polycentric' lenses. This article examines the fundamental assumptions of these general perspectives with regard to the polity, politics and policy dimensions of global policy making, and surveys some of the research questions and findings that resulted from their use. It concludes that scholars and policy makers should treat the two analytical lenses as complementary, as each of them stimulates the analyst to ask questions and look for entities and causal connections that the other lens may miss

Do Britons and other Europeans disagree on policy issues? The answer might surprise you

Eurosceptics in the UK and elsewhere often argue that the EU subverts democracy by forcing countries with different values and economic systems to follow the same rules. The Vote Leave Campaign, for instance, laments that “Politicians have surrendered the UK’s power to veto laws we disagree with, so if the EU decides to introduce a law that will be bad for Britain there is nothing we can do to stop it.” But is it true that Britons and other Europeans want different things? Does European integration cause people in Britain, and possibly other member states, to be systematically outvoted on the policies they care most about, and thus find themselves relegated to a position of “permanent minorities”? Research by Thomas Hale and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi provides some surprising answers to this question

National action on antimicrobial resistance and the political economy of health care

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is one of the biggest threats to human health in the twenty-first century. A key dimension of global governance in this domain consists of encouraging governments to create national action plans (NAPs) aimed at improving awareness of AMR, improving knowledge through surveillance and research, reducing infection, optimising the use of antimicrobial medicines, and investing in new drugs, vaccines and other interventions. The adoption and implementation of NAPs occur in the context of great political and institutional diversity across countries, and this article examines the consequences of different ways of financing health care. We expect the implementation of NAPs to be more successful in optimising antibiotics use when governments play a larger role in financing health care compared to private expenditure. An analysis of patterns of antibiotic consumption in 191 countries between 2000 and 2018 supports the hypothesis

Harmful side effects: how government restrictions against transnational civil society affect global health

Governments have increasingly adopted laws restricting the activities of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) within their borders. Such laws are often intended to curb the ability of critical INGOs to discover and communicate government failures and abuses to domestic and international audiences. They can also have the unintended effect of reducing the presence and activities of INGOs working on health issues and deprive local health workers and organisations of access to resources, knowledge, and other forms of support. This study assesses whether legislative INGO restrictions are associated with fewer health INGOs in a wide range of countries and with the ability of those countries to mitigate disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost because of 21 disease categories between 1993 and 2017. The findings indicate that restrictive legislation hampered efforts by civil society to lighten the global burden of disease and had adverse side effects on the health of citizens worldwide

Does transnational private governance reduce or displace labor abuses? Addressing sorting dynamics across global supply chains

The attention of practitioners and scholars of private regulation of working conditions is focused on whether and how corporate buyers can help improve labor and safety standards in the factories that supply them by adopting codes of conduct, joining social certification schemes, participating in social audit processes, and financing safety improvements. In this Note, I argue that more attention should be paid to the possibility that private regulation schemes – whatever degree of compliance they achieve - mostly result in a displacement effect or sorting dynamic that leaves overall level of working conditions unchanged. The Note sketches a research agenda aimed at identifying the conditions under which a sorting dynamic can occur and at conceiving innovative private governance designs that could avoid it

The social construction of global health priorities: an empirical analysis of contagion in bilateral health aid

Donors of development assistance for health typically provide funding for a range of disease focus areas, such as maternal health and child health, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other infectious diseases. But funding for each disease category does not match closely its contribution to the disability and loss of life it causes and the cost-effectiveness of interventions. We argue that peer influences in the social construction of global health priorities contribute to explaining this misalignment. Aid policy-makers are embedded in a social environment encompassing other donors, health experts, advocacy groups, and international officials. This social environment influences the conceptual and normative frameworks of decision-makers, which in turn affect their funding priorities. Aid policy-makers are especially likely to emulate decisions on funding priorities taken by peers with whom they are most closely involved in the context of expert and advocacy networks. We draw on novel data on donor connectivity through health IGOs and health INGOs and assess the argument by applying spatial regression models to health aid disbursed globally between 1990 and 2017. The analysis provides strong empirical support for our argument that the involvement in overlapping expert and advocacy networks shapes funding priorities regarding disease categories and recipient countries in health aid