International Affairs (Balsillie School of)

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A network-based study of ideological conflict in public policy and global governance
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-25) Piereder, Jinelle
Humanity's ability to deal with its vast array of challenges depends on its capacity to understand how ideologies and worldviews inform and interact with decision-making processes. Once relegated to dusty library shelves, and declared “dead” at least twice, ideology seems to be more relevant to global politics then ever. Ideology plays a crucial role in how societies understand, frame, and attempt to solve collective problems; but when viewed as just a unidimensional phenomenon comprised of a few “big isms,” much of ideology’s causal influence/impact gets obscured. Further, existing scholarship tends to study ideology as primarily an individual-level or society-level phenomenon, setting aside questions about social context in the first instance and questions about the inner workings of the mind in the second instance. This paper-based dissertation contributes to the existing scholarship on ideology by (1) synthesizing over a decade’s worth of efforts to map the multidisciplinary field of ideology studies, and (2) by developing a novel framework—grounded in a complexity ontology—to analyze the interconnections between ideologies, discourses, and social networks. Together, the three articles in this dissertation deepen our understanding of how ideologies shape and are shaped by the social and discourse networks in which they are embedded. By studying the role of these interacting elements in multiple governance contexts, the dissertation further shows how and why ideology matters across policymaking scales and spheres of influence. The main goal of Article #1 is to provide a comprehensive look at the many different ways that ideology is conceptualized, understood, and studied. Building on several major mapping efforts, this chapter synthesizes the field of ideology studies using an Ideology Research Matrix comprised of three dimensions: the methodological approaches used, the underlying ontological commitments of scholars, and the typical research goals and designs that accompany those methods and commitments. After engaging systematically with the literature via the Matrix, the paper discusses the problems with current approaches to ideology, especially around the particularly difficult challenge of studying ideological change. The paper calls for a more integrated approach and makes the case for a complex reflexive systems approach to conceptualizing and studying ideology. It fleshes out the details and benefits of a complexity ontology in this context, particularly around linking causation and social context through identifying feedback loops across social and discursive scales. Grounded in this much-needed complex systems shift, this article presents a new conceptual framework of trans-scalar ideological networks—and a proposed methodology that uses networks as both metaphor and modelling tool—that integrates the perspectives of existing ideology scholarship and moves forward our understanding of ideological change. In Article #2, my co-authors and I operationalize the framework developed in Article #1 using a case study of energy transition discourse in Canadian Parliamentary proceedings. Skepticism about Canada's ability to meet its Paris Agreement targets, anxieties over economic and energy security, and major concerns about the impact of an energy transition on key vulnerable or marginalized communities have all led to a wide range of ideologically charged priorities for addressing the climate crisis and distributing the costs/benefits of energy transition. This chapter presents the first operationalization of the trans-scalar ideological networks framework, focusing on the energy transition discourse. The article first examines existing literature related to ideology and climate change, identifying gaps where it can contribute. It then argues that tracing "how and why ideological discourses have the influence they do" is both more difficult and more important in non-polarized contexts, as ideological conflict and influence are still at play in more subtle ways that are not well-captured by existing methods. As the ideological differences between groups advancing different goals, priorities, and policies become less pronounced (e.g., between climate change "believers" and "deniers"), the task of tracing or measuring "how and why ideological discourses have the influence they do" becomes more nuanced and difficult, but just as important. Using my framework, the chapter demonstrates a multi-directional approach to studying ideology: first outside-in (using Discourse Network Analysis), then inside-out (using Cognitive-Affective Mapping). The chapter identifies several emergent ideological “camps” and dives deeper into “representative actors” from each camp and examines their ideologies from the inside-out, using CAM. Overall, the paper supports my claim that ideological heterogeneity—just as much as ideological polarization—matters for how ideology influences decision-making. Article #3 examines a second case study, civil society advocacy efforts leading to the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The chapter operationalizes the trans-scalar ideological networks framework to study the ATT, making the case that multi-scale approaches are especially useful in studying these complex international advocacy spaces where ideology helps shape governance outcomes. In the more narrative-based section, the chapter describes the post-Cold War background of arms control advocacy, as well as the key actors and events that led to the ATT being proposed and eventually passed. It demonstrates and explores the ideologies of four key organizations using CAM and compares insights across the four CAMs generated. It also maps the broader issue network using social network analysis (the outside-in approach) and analyzes how the CAM insights inform/explain some aspects of the network structure. Compared to Article #2, this article offers another way to operationalize the trans-scalar ideological networks framework, showing that the framework is well-suited to more "established" cases in addition to more "active" ones (like the energy transition discourse case). Finally, the chapter argues that new developments in ideology studies—including my trans-scalar ideological networks framework—can help address many of the challenges that other ideationally-focused sub-disciplines face, especially around the supposed "belief vs. strategy" dichotomy.
Agency Through Adaptation: Explaining The Rockefeller and Gates Foundation’s Influence in the Governance of Global Health and Agricultural Development
(University of Waterloo, 2014-01-28) Stevenson, Michael
The central argument that I advance in this dissertation is that the influence of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in the governance of global health and agricultural development has been derived from their ability to advance knowledge structures crafted to accommodate the preferences of the dominant states operating within the contexts where they have sought to catalyze change. Consequently, this dissertation provides a new way of conceptualizing knowledge power broadly conceived as well as private governance as it relates to the provision of public goods. In the first half of the twentieth-century, RF funds drove scientific research that produced tangible solutions, such as vaccines and high-yielding seed varieties, to longstanding problems undermining the health and wealth of developing countries emerging from the clutches of colonialism. At the country-level, the Foundation provided advanced training to a generation of agricultural scientists and health practitioners, and RF expertise was also pivotal to the creation of specialized International Organizations (IOs) for health (e.g. the League of Nations Health Organization) and agriculture (e.g. the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) as well as many informal international networks of experts working to solve common problems. Finally in the neo-liberal era, RF effectively demonstrated how the public-private partnership paradigm could provide public goods in the face of externally imposed austerity constraining public sector capacity and the failure of the free-market to meet the needs of populations with limited purchasing power. Since its inception, the BMGF has demonstrated a similar commitment to underwriting innovation through science oriented towards reducing global health disparities and increasing agricultural productivity in poor countries, and has greatly expanded the application of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) approach in both health and agriculture. Unlike its intellectual forebear, BMGF has been far more focused on end-points and silver bullets than investing directly in the training of human resources. Moreover whereas RF has for most of its history decentralized its staff, those of BMGF have been concentrated mainly at its headquarters in Seattle. With no operational programs of its own, BMGF has instead relied heavily on external consultants to inform its programs and remains dependent on intermediary organizations to implement its grants. Despite these and other differences, both RF and BMGF have exhibited a common capacity to catalyse institutional innovation that has benefited historically marginalized populations in the absence of structural changes to the dominant global power structure. A preference for compromise over contestation, coupled with a capacity for enabling innovation in science and governance, has resulted in broad acceptance for RF and BMGF knowledge structures within both state and international policy arenas. This acceptance has translated into both Foundations having direct influence over (i) how major challenges related to disease and agriculture facing the global south are understood (i.e. the determinants and viable solutions); (ii) what types of knowledge matters for solving said problems (i.e. who leads); and (iii) how collective action focused on addressing these problems is structured (i.e. the institutional frameworks).
Analyzing Major Royalty Debates in Alberta's Oil Sands: Corporate Power at Play in a Subnational Resource-Cursed Petrostate
(University of Waterloo, 2021-05-27) Salam, Justine
Canada has the third largest proven oil reserves in the world and these are predominantly located in the province of Alberta in the form of oil sands. Despite having large oil resources and the ability to profit substantially from oil royalties, Alberta levies lower royalties on oil corporations than other comparable jurisdictions. Even when oil prices were extraordinarily high in the post-2000s, over the last decade, researchers argue Alberta was inefficient in maximizing revenues from the oil industry (Campbell, 2013; Shrivastava and Stefanick, 2015). This is a critical problem given that the natural resources sector, particularly the oil sands, is a primary stream of provincial government revenue. Focusing on ideational, interest-based, and institutional factors (the three “I”s) that influenced provincial policy under both successive Progressive Conservative (PC) (2007) and New Democratic Party (NDP) (2015) governments, this study examines the underlying reasons for Alberta’s unwillingness to raise royalties and profit accordingly from oil exploitation during the two landmark royalty review processes of 2007 and 2015-16. This study also uses resource curse and petrostate theories to illuminate collections of “I”s specific to oil contexts and Doris Fuchs’ corporate power framework to map the various ways the dominant interest-group, oil corporations, exerted influence on the royalty review process and ensuing policy. I find that oil sands royalty stasis in Alberta can be explained by constellations of intertwined institutional, interest-based, and ideational factors, both general and typical of oil contexts.
Climate-Geoengineering as Development: Applying the Capabilities Approach to Climate Responses in South- Asia
(University of Waterloo, 2025-01-15) Chattha, Nisar Azmat
The significant range of climate change impacts and capacities to address climate change demands that responses be diverse and indigenized through a democratic process. In the case of climate geoengineering (CGE), the predominant views have come from scholars from the global North who have explored CGE research based on their perspectives and developed states' political and economic contexts. As the discussion surrounding CGE moves from the periphery to the center of climate policy debates, there is a need for more scholars from the global South to come forward and apply perspectives and theoretical lenses informed by the conditions experienced in the global South to the debates on CGE research and governance. Framing CGE as a set of climate responses that address the needs and values of the global South may increase the salience of these debates for developing countries. To this end, this dissertation develops a theoretical framework for examining CGE based on Amartya Sen's capabilities approach. Then, it applies this framework to two case studies addressing the relationships between CGE and South Asia's development context. In the theoretical chapter, I argue that it is important to reframe CGE in a way that is more likely to align with the broader development aspirations of the global South. Reframing CGE as a development is a difficult task because development is a contested term with multiple meanings. Therefore, I consider Sen's idea of “development as freedom” and explore CGE through Amartya Sen’s capability framework to analyze whether CGE can be of potential use for protecting and advancing human capabilities threatened due to climate change. The theory of capabilities offers a promising framework that can provide an ethical foundation for analyzing the interface of developing countries with CGE research and governance. The capability approach is rooted in the reality of the global South. The justice-oriented capability framework emphasizes human autonomy, which looks at practical capabilities to attain individual and collective ends. The first case study examines the link between Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and development under China's transnational development initiative, namely the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Pakistan. BRI is seen as a crucial enterprise for economic development by policymakers of many developing countries. However, simultaneously, BRI can compromise the emission reduction goals of host countries, which they committed to under the Paris Agreement. Pakistan is one of the most significant participants of the BRI, with numerous coal-fired energy projects sponsored by China under the BRI. Pakistan also has ambitious emission reduction goals demonstrated through its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and an internationally celebrated afforestation and reforestation project like the Billion Tree Tsunami (BTS). This case study examines whether CDR initiatives can be integrated into modern development structures like the BRI and the associated governance challenges. The key findings point to the limited degree that the BRI structure has engaged with CDR, notwithstanding the acknowledgment of the need to “green” the BRI. CDR holds potential as a source of just climate development, but the top-down structure of the BRI limits the democratic values that lie at the center of Sen’s approach to development (as freedom). In the second case study, I analyze the case of targeted geoengineering for protecting and preserving the rapidly melting glaciers in the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Hindukush (HKHK) in South Asia. These rapidly melting glaciers can cause floods and food insecurity in the region and reduce the capabilities of the people to pursue development. The imperative of glacier preservation is recognized by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution in designating 2025 as the International Year of Glacier Preservation. In South Asia, the mountain ranges of HKHK present a case for glacier preservation because of the extreme importance of these glaciers for the water, food, and energy security of the region's people, making glacier preservation a key development issue. This chapter examines whether targeted geoengineering can protect development under threat due to climate-induced disasters in the HKHK region. The idea of targeted geoengineering has been primarily explored in the context of Arctic intervention to preserve and protect the polar ice, but the urgency of glacier preservation in South Asia underlines the importance of examining new climate responses. The case study applies the capabilities framework to consider the normative and governance dimensions of glacier preservation. This case study is more exploratory, given the high degree of uncertainty surrounding approaches to glacier preservation. The chapter seeks to identify a set of governance principles consistent with the capabilities approach that may guide the complex cooperation and governance challenges that regional glacier preservation would entail. The conclusion revisits the merits of framing CGE as an emerging element of development discourses.
Constructing China’s National Food Security: Power, Grain Seed Markets, and the Global Political Economy
(University of Waterloo, 2019-07-19) Gaudreau, Matthew
What is China’s place in the global food system? This thesis provides an analytical lens to explain the factors behind the structure of China’s national seed industry and recent global agribusiness expansion. Scholars of Global Political Economy and critical food studies have begun to assess the (re)emergence of actors from China in global markets replete with powerful agribusiness from the global North. However, these scholars have thus far paid less attention to the domestic, normative origins and dynamics that explain China’s place in the global food system. For example, though the global grain seed industry is highly concentrated, China’s domestic grain seed market does not share the same characteristics. To explain this discrepancy and shed light on the place of China in the global food system, I develop the concept of securitized foodways. Securitized foodways is built on a power framework that incorporates both positive and negative forms of power. Three dimensions of power (ideational, material, and autonomy) correspond to three factors that have shaped China’s grain seed industry, its place in the global food system, and its broader economy. The first factor is the Party-state’s ideational priority of self-reliance, particularly in the context of grain security. In contrast to other large Southern countries (e.g., India and the Philippines), the historical priority for China to be self-reliant has led to a distinct conception of national food security focused on national ownership over each segment of the grain supply chain and particularly seed resources. The second factor is the Party-state’s control over its domestic agrifood system through law and regulation limiting the participation of foreign seed companies. More recently, the Party-state’s power over its domestic grain seed markets has shifted into nascent material power in the global food system. This expansion of Chinese agribusiness in the name of national food security occurs through a combination of overseas seed extension projects as well as through the acquisition of foreign agribusinesses including Syngenta, Noble, and Nidera. The third factor is China’s historical autonomy from the U.S. food regime (1950s to 1970s). China remained independent of the agrifood networks developed under the U.S.-led green revolution and food aid architecture, instead establishing its own domestic research networks and extension system. This autonomy provided the Party-state with the power necessary to retain domestic policy space, develop a home-grown seed industry, and challenge the dominance of Northern agribusiness firms in the global food system. Combined, the three factors explain China’s domestic grain seed market structure (ideational priority of self-reliant national food security, material power over the domestic food system, and historical autonomy from the U.S. food regime). Further, these factors serve to explain and interpret the recently expanded presence of actors from the PRC in global grain and grain seed markets. Despite pressure from MNCs and other states, national agribusinesses continue to hold market share in China’s domestic grain seed market demonstrating both the continued normative commitment of Party-state actors to support national industry and the material power to maintain control over national markets in the context of economic globalization. These national Chinese agribusinesses (with the help of financial actors) have also rapidly increased their presence abroad to compete in both domestic and global markets. However, despite the exercise of material power in the global food system, actors from China have not yet displaced the incumbent agribusiness power of MNCs headquartered in the global North. Further, there are challenges and impacts related to the pursuit of national food security through domestically owned industrial agriculture. Given MNC ownership of patents, the potential introduction of genetically modified (GM) grain seeds to the domestic Chinese market presents a challenge to the Party-state’s continued control over the PRC’s seed industry. Further, the growing commercial seed system and discourse of national food security has placed pressure on, but also provided limited space for, alternative food movements within China. These food movements share similar ideational concerns to the Party-state vis-à-vis global agribusiness concentration, but promote a path to food security rooted in local food systems. As agribusinesses from China, with strong connections to the Party-state, expand their global grain and seed networks, both GM seeds and food alternatives are domestic sources of contention for the Party-state’s emerging agrifood power.
Experiments in governance and citizenship in Kenya’s resource frontier
(University of Waterloo, 2016-11-29) Enns, Charis
Over the past four years, natural resource exploration and development have rapidly expanded across northern Kenya and, as a result, the region is in the midst of a frontier-making project that may have seemed unimaginable a few years ago. In this dissertation, I use the concept of frontier as an analytical framework to examine processes that are transforming society, the economy, and landscape in northern Kenya. This dissertation contributes to scholarship on resource frontiers by analysing the specific governmental technologies used by both powerful and less powerful actors to produce, negotiate and contest the rules that govern landscapes and people in frontiers. In Article #1, I examine the use of novel technologies of governance in frontier spaces. I show how transnational corporations use voluntary standards — designed to regulate their social and environmental conduct — to legitimize and consolidate control over land and resources. In constructing my argument, I engage with two examples from Kenya’s northern resource frontier. I trace the specific technologies used by two corporations to secure access to land for the purpose of resource development, focusing specifically on their use of voluntary standards. I frame my analysis using Hall et al.’s (2011) ‘powers of exclusion,’ arguing that voluntary standards serve as one legitimising discourse that corporations can deploy to justify excluding other land users. In Article #2, I shift my focus to how frontiers are governed ‘from below’. This article focuses on the spectrum of different, sometimes competing, reactions to mega-infrastructure development in northern Kenya among rural land users. The central aim of this article is to examine how rural groups draw upon different forms of expertise — ranging from ecological science to international legal frameworks — to frame and legitimize their reactions to frontier-making projects. The analysis in this article contributes to wider debates about rural agency in frontier spaces, by demonstrating how rural land users can strategically deploy different forms of expertise to negotiate the rules that govern access to land and resources. In Article #3, my co-author and I analyse changing social and political relationships in northern Kenya in light of oil exploration and development. This article demonstrates how some northern Kenyans are seeking protection of their rights from oil companies, in light of the Kenyan government’s hands-off approach to governing northwestern Kenya. We argue that new expectations around corporate social responsibility are drawing oil companies and rural communities into an uneasy citizen-state-like relationship, altering the experiences and practices of citizenship in the region. This article contributes to discussions about new political spaces and new forms of political subjectivity in frontier spaces. Combined, these articles use northern Kenya as a case study to illustrate how the rules that govern access to land in resource frontiers are shaped through experiments in governance and innovative acts of citizenship. I frame my conclusions using recent literature on post-frontiers.
The Fox Building the Henhouse: Corporate influence on global health governance and the risks to the World Health Organization
(University of Waterloo, 2020-08-10) Wagner-Rizvi, Tracey
Like global governance more generally, global health governance and the global health architecture are changing and, in the process, creating new kinds of openings for non-state actors (NSAs) such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, and philanthropic organizations. This growing role for NSAs in global health governance has occurred at the same time as the World Health Organization (WHO) has turned to the private sector and philanthropic organizations for multistakeholder partnerships and voluntary contributions to bridge its budgetary gap due to some states capping their annual contributions. But without adequate safeguards, there is a risk that the increased influence of the private sector on global health policy-making, norm-setting and governance at the WHO can result in substantive policy shaped to prioritize profits over public interest and health outcomes. There are also risks for the WHO, as the global lead body on health, including the potential for conflicts of interest, damage to institutional reputation, and deeper reliance on private funding in ways that undermine the WHO’s mandate. This dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: 1) In what ways have profit-oriented NSAs engaged with the WHO as a site of global health governance on substantive policies and paradigms that shape policy-making? 2) What are the implications for the WHO of the agency’s enhanced engagement with the private sector? This dissertation examines these questions broadly as well as through in-depth analyses of the specific cases of the baby food and soda industries. The analysis in this dissertation finds that, despite their self-representation as trustworthy partners in addressing health issues, private sector actors have worked to influence substantive initiatives by the WHO related to the sale and consumption of their products. Private sector actors have also engaged in a long-game to shape paradigms that determine which policies are pursued and what role private actors are able to play in developing them. These paradigms create an environment conducive to companies and their associations, for example, arguing against regulation and in favour of voluntary measures and representing themselves as legitimate partners in developing health-related policy. Like other industries, the baby food and soda industries have pursued their substantive and long-term interests by drawing on a so-called “corporate playbook” of strategies and tactics to access and impact upon global health policy-making at the WHO. These strategies and tactics are iterative and mutually reinforcing. Furthermore, in its efforts to bridge its budgetary gap, the WHO has potentially set itself up for even more in-depth influence by opening itself to fuller engagement through multistakeholder arrangements and PPPs. This fuller engagement has been formalized by the WHO’s Framework of engagement with non-state actors (FENSA). Analysis of the contested development of FENSA serves to highlight the types of issues against which the WHO must guard itself if it is not to undermine the agency’s independence, integrity, credibility and mandate. Although FENSA is ostensibly intended to safeguard against potential conflicts of interest, conflating “conflict of interest” with the different but related notion of “conflicting interests” leaves the WHO vulnerable to those very conflicts of interest and can lead the agency to greater, not less, influence from profit-based actor. As it continues to adopt a multistakeholder approach and widen its engagement with NSAs in order to address its financial challenges, the WHO is potentially setting itself up for greater dependence on for-profit entities, which can lead to further conflicts of interest and erosion of the WHO’s role as lead global health body.
Governing Sovereign Bankruptcy: Writing International Rules for Rewriting National Debts
(University of Waterloo, 2019-08-09) Brooks, Skylar
This thesis examines three sets of recent initiatives aimed at reforming the international regime for sovereign debt restructuring. The first involved changes to the rules governing IMF lending and their role in triggering debt restructurings. The second entailed reforms to sovereign bond contracts in order to facilitate smoother restructuring processes. The third took place within the UN, where states advanced the idea of an international hard-law approach to debt restructuring but settled for a set of soft-law principles. Taken together, these initiatives had a mixed impact on the regime. Contract reforms strengthened bond restructuring processes; IMF reforms weakened the mechanism designed to trigger necessary restructurings; and UN reform efforts had little concrete impact in either direction. What explains the variation in these recent regulatory outcomes? I argue that this variation can be understood according to two dimensions: the process-trigger distinction and the legal-institutional design of process-oriented mechanisms. A trigger mechanism is hard to institutionalize because of the time-inconsistent preferences of powerful states and their more general desire—supported by sovereign debtors and private creditors and amplified by recent experiences—for case-by-case decision-making when it comes to if and when to trigger a debt restructuring. Compared to the trigger, some but not all process mechanisms have greater odds of success, depending on their design. Hard-law designs face huge political opposition, whereas soft-law tools can encounter political challenges but are also of limited effectiveness in this issue area. By contrast, private-law contracts provide useful mechanisms for navigating the trade-offs of regulating debt restructuring processes, especially for dominant states. I also argue that historical legacies and processes have influenced recent reform outcomes, but mainly through their ability to further enhance or diminish the prospects of mechanisms whose political utility had already been determined by the process-trigger distinction and/or their legal-institutional design. This thesis makes an empirical contribution to IPE and global governance literatures by providing the first comprehensive analysis of recent sovereign debt restructuring reforms. It makes important theoretical contributions to these literatures by developing an analytical framework for understanding the politics of regulatory reform within the sovereign debt restructuring regime. It also offers insights that contribute to wider debates about institutional design and development, including those related to the choice of international hard-law or soft-law governance instruments, the use of contracts in global governance, and the role of historical legacies and processes in shaping regulatory outcomes.
Just and Unjust Sanctions: The Case Study of Iran
(University of Waterloo, 2016-09-28) Hormozi, Shani
This dissertation aims to accomplish two major goals: 1. To provide a theoretical framework for studying and evaluating justice in sanctions by modifying and expanding the Just War Tradition (JWT); 2. To apply this theoretical framework, Just Sanctions theory (JST), in order to study justice in sanctions on Iran. Accordingly, first I introduce a new theoretical framework: Just Sanctions Theory (JST), and then I use the theory to explore the degree to which the authorization and implementation of sanctions against Iran have been just. In this analysis, it is important to distinguish, compare and contrast the sanctions authorized by the United Nations (UN) from those authorized by the US and the EU. I carry out this analysis realizing fully that the contexts of UN and non-UN sanctions on Iran are deeply intertwined. The findings of this research substantiate my hypothesis that the authorization of non-UN sanctions against Iran has not been just and that non-UN sanctions have not been implemented justly. In contrast, I argue that both the authorization and implementation of UN sanctions on Iran were less unjust. At the same time, however, I show that the impacts of sanctions against Iran from all three sources, in general, have been overarching and indiscriminate. Furthermore, I examine the degree to which the rapid globalization of transnational economic connections facilitates to this day the deep and destructive living conditions of the citizens of Iran. Such conditions have emerged as a consequence of the sweeping and crunching impositions of sanctions. Lastly, given the recent developments in Iran’s nuclear case and the partial sanctions relief Iran has received, I briefly analyze “Just Post Sanctions” in the case of Iran. In carrying out the necessary research, I have conducted both field research (in Iran) and library research (primary and secondary sources); in addition, I have devoted a portion of my research to the content analysis of statements by both sides (sanctioner(s) and target) as well as content analysis of sanctions-related documents.
Mapping the Complexity of Mining & Peacebuilding in Guatemala
(University of Waterloo, 2022-10-13) Silburt, Aviva
This dissertation examines the intersection between foreign owned mining operations and peacebuilding efforts in Guatemala, responding to a number of academic debates and practical issues. Two mines were comparatively analyzed using complex systems theory and qualitative research methods. Although mining was not a core issue from Guatemala’s 36-year Internal Armed Conflict, it became an issue in Guatemala’s “post-conflict” peacebuilding context. This is because Guatemala prioritized economic development by means of an extractive development model based on foreign investment as a means to implement commitments from peace accords signed in 1996—following the advice of the international community. Mining generated significant controversy and conflict in ways that are both shaped by and impacted peacebuilding efforts. Mining reinforced pre-existing inequalities and exclusion in the communities near the two mines examined. These were important underlying issues from Guatemala’s Internal Armed Conflict that peacebuilding sought, but failed, to address. These issues characterized the dynamics of mining-related conflict in different ways at the two mines that reflected important differences in each town’s history and situation in Guatemalan society. In this sense, peacebuilding issues shaped mining-related conflict. In doing so, however, mining also made these issues more difficult to address as part of peacebuilding, and thereby impacted peacebuilding. That said, mining conflicts are just one of several issues that Guatemala faces in its post-conflict peacebuilding context, many of which are also a consequence inequality and exclusion. These various other issues were interconnected with each other and formed part of a positive feedback loop that reinforced inequalities and exclusion in context of each mine. This complicated the dynamics of mining conflict and compounded each issue and the situation overall in ways that ultimately undermined longer-term sustained efforts needed to address inequalities and exclusion as part of peacebuilding. International influence in both Guatemala’s peacebuilding progress and mining governance framework undermined Guatemala’s ability develop capacity and accountability to overcome its peacebuilding challenges and appropriately govern the extractive sector.
Mindmade Politics - The Role of Cognition in Global Climate Change Governance
(University of Waterloo, 2013-08-20T18:42:07Z) Milkoreit, Manjana
This dissertation explores the role of cognition—the elements, structures and processes of individual and collective thought—in finding effective, cooperative solutions to climate change. It makes three contributions—theoretical, empirical, and methodological—to international relations scholarship. First, it explores cognition as a significant variable in international political life, developing an analytical framework that not only links a cognitive framework of analysis to major IR theories but bridges current theoretical divides between rationalism and constructivism. Second, by identifying and visualizing current belief systems of participants in global climate negotiations, the thesis offers insights regarding cognitive obstacles to multilateral cooperation. The most important obstacle is a clash of substantively and emotionally different belief systems. Depending on the specific constellation of a person’s beliefs about collective identity, perceptions of climate-change threat, and associated emotions, some belief systems contain normative beliefs about justice (i.e., a dominant logic of appropriateness), while others do not. The latter belief systems reflect the national-interest logic of consequences. Focusing in particular on the “wicked” characteristics of climate change, the analysis further reveals a neglect of scientific knowledge (in particular knowledge of the possibility of climate tipping points), a serious under-valuation of the distant future, and perceptions of a number of constraints on agency, some of which cannot be resolved within the negotiations. The study also identifies six distinct belief systems among climate negotiators, which I label The International Community, A Minilateral Club, The Market, Individuals, The Developed World, and The Irresponsible West. The key element distinguishing these belief systems is actor type, which affects problem definitions, proposed solutions, political strategies, and more generally an actor’s role in global climate governance. Third, this dissertation expands the methodological toolbox available to IR scholars by demonstrating the value and synergistic power of cognitive-affective mapping and Q Method. These are powerful tools to reveal individual and collective belief systems respectively.
Modeling climate change impacts at the science-policy boundary
(University of Waterloo, 2017-01-20) Beck, Marisa
Climate change is a daunting policy challenge, where decision-makers must respond to a high-uncertainty and high-risk problem in an environment with a diverse multitude of stakeholders and unresolved ethical questions. For the past 25 years, integrated assessment models (IAMs) of global climate change have become standard tools for informing climate policy. IAMs are computer models that combine representations of biophysical systems and socioeconomic systems; they are used to simulate the causes, dynamics, and impacts of climate change. While IAMs are typically developed by scientists, their explicit purpose is to generate policy-relevant information. In this paper-based dissertation, I use a pragmatic model of science-policy relations as a theoretical and normative framework to examine the production and application of IAMs. My research contributes conceptually and empirically to the existing scholarship on the role of scientific models in policymaking. Together, the three articles included in this dissertation advance our understanding of the various inputs and outputs of policy-relevant scientific models, using climate change IAMs as a case study. In Article #1, my co-author and I investigate the sources and consequences of the numerous difficult modeling choices that IAM developers are required to make as a result of the pervasive uncertainty—both scientific and ethical—surrounding this topic. We argue that these choices are made in particular epistemic, ethical, and social contexts. Correspondingly, we illuminate the epistemic, ethical, and political consequences of these choices. Finally, adopting a co-productionist approach, we suggest that past modeling choices may constrain future model development by setting epistemic benchmarks, establishing ethical norms, and creating biases in academic publishing and policy application. We review and build on findings from various literatures to unpack the complex intersection of science, ethics, and politics that IAMs occupy. This leads us to suggest avenues for future empirical and theoretical research that may enable an integrated epistemic-ethical-political understanding of IAMs. Such transparency is necessary to judge the usefulness of IAMs in supporting climate change policymaking that is scientifically sound, ethically fair, and politically acceptable. Articles #2 and #3 extrapolate practical consequences from the conceptual groundwork established in Article #1. In Article #2, I apply a narrative research approach to examine how values and beliefs embedded in modeling choices may influence policy. I draw on research on the role of storytelling in scientific modeling, as well as a growing literature in policy studies investigating the influence of stories on policy outcomes. These two streams of research have yet to be connected in an investigation of how scientific models, in addition to delivering numerical results, also influence policy through the stories that are told with them. In this paper, I present a framework for analyzing the composition and content of policy-relevant stories produced with scientific models. I argue that an appreciation of these modeled stories is essential for a full understanding how models are used in policymaking—whether they are models of climate change, public health, or the economy. For illustration, I apply the framework to the analysis of stories produced with the DICE model, arguably the most prominent IAM of global climate change. In Article #3, I provide a normative, empirically grounded analysis of two of the major critiques of IAMs: that they are a) arbitrary and b) value-laden, and therefore unfit for policy use. Interviews and participant observations with IAM developers reveal that, indeed, many factors other than scientific theory and empirical observations influence modeling choices. The modelers also recognize that some of their choices in the modeling process do have a partially normative character. So, do these findings validate the above critiques and disqualify IAMs from policy use? Not necessarily. Current work in philosophy of science demonstrates the need for a more nuanced approach to this question, revealing that the ideal of objectively true and value-free models is unattainable—indeed, in some aspects, perhaps even undesirable. Instead, models should be evaluated with respect to their `fit for purpose.' Uncertain and value-laden assumptions should be addressed with transparency and conditionality. Adopting such a pragmatist perspective on IAMs, this paper concludes that IAMs are a useful, albeit imperfect, tool for assessing climate policy. Practical recommendations for how to enhance the usefulness of IAMs for policy are provided.
Networked governance and summit diplomacy: shaping the maternal, newborn and child health agenda
(University of Waterloo, 2013-01-08T18:41:28Z) Abbott, Clint L.
Diplomatic summits serve as critical opportunities for national leaders to interact and mobilize the political will needed to address the world’s greatest challenges. Yet, summits have a checkered past with both successes and failures. Consequently, summit diplomacy has been equated with highly publicized photo opportunities for heads of government and grandiose communiqués with vague commitments that are never fully realized. Due to concerns about their effectiveness, legitimacy, and representation, summits are in a period of transition. These trends and challenges are especially evident in the G8, and scholars have recognized that the G8 summit has evolved to include more actors than the past. Although acknowledged as a potential site of networked governance, empirical evidence of such activity is limited. Research has yet to identify the actors involved, the structures of the relationships, and the impact of networked approaches on the preparatory process. This research specifically explores the question of how a global level network affects the priorities adopted by the G8. Using the 2010 G8 Summit as a case to examine the increased prevalence of networked activity, this study focuses on the Summit’s signature initiative: maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH). MNCH is a longstanding global problem and despite efforts such as the Millennium Development Goals, poor health outcomes persist in regions throughout the world. But to understand the selection and shaping of MNCH as the signature initiative of the 2010 G8 Summit, a mixed method approach is used. Social network analysis provides a detailed description of the actors involved in networked governance in summit diplomacy for the G8, and the structure of their relationships with one another. Qualitative data analysis of 63 in depth interviews of network members illuminates the rich and varied perspectives of the participants, which yields insight about why and how actors engage each other in order to achieve individual and collective goals. The study demonstrated that networked governance contributed to the political prioritization and substantive policy content of summit agenda items, determined during the 2010 G8 Summit preparatory process. In the case of MNCH, while the network was found to include of a diverse range of state and non-state actors, a core group of bureaucratic, political, and NGO actors played a prominent role in the selection and shaping of the MNCH initiative. Yet, the role, values and contributions of actors within the network were contested by network members during the preparatory process, demonstrating that shared goals and norms were not a dominant feature of the network. Moreover, the networked governance process has not entirely escaped the confines of geographical boundaries, given the most central actors in the network met face-to-face on a regular basis and were located in close geographical proximity. Actors from regions where MNCH problems persist most severely remained marginalized in the networked approach. While financial capital is an essential ingredient for the MNCH programs and interventions proposed for the G8 initiative, social capital was a neglected factor that is critical for building the capacity to generate new ideas and solutions. Actors within the 2010 G8 preparatory network for MNCH adopted various strategies to build and mobilize social capital. Specifically, a group of Canadian-based NGOs and an international organization formed a coalition in order to strategically advance the MNCH issue on the summit agenda. Conversely, government actors did not invest in developing and mobilizing social capital. Ultimately, informal strategies proved more valuable for breaking down hierarchical barriers and exerting influence than formal processes designed by government. Networked governance was a key factor that contributed to the political prioritization and shaping of the MNCH signature initiative for the 2010 G8 Summit and increased the inclusiveness of the summit’s preparatory process. However, while important, networked governance was not sufficient to fully explain the final outcomes – other factors such as domestic and global political contexts and the characteristics of the MNCH issue influenced the process and outcomes. Moreover, G8 summit diplomacy moved beyond being solely a state-based process in the case of MNCH, but the presence of a network of interconnected actors did not equate to better problem-solving. Although scholars and practitioners agree that integrated horizontal and vertical approaches are required for addressing the complexity of MNCH challenges, the networked approach failed to enable a move beyond conventional solutions to address the systemic nature of MNCH challenges. The findings of the study have important implications for policy and governance processes, where widespread cooperation among a network of state and non-state actors will be required for resolving intractable global problems.
Planet Finance: The Governance of Climate Change Risks in Financial Markets
(University of Waterloo, 2011-08-29T14:37:54Z) Thistlethwaite, Jason
This thesis asked two research questions: 1) how are the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) and ClimateWise designed to achieve their objectives and 2) what explains the emergence of these unique initiatives? In answer to the first question, the thesis argues that the CDSB and ClimateWise adopt an “unconventional” approach to environmental co-regulation that embraces what I call “cognitive governance” within accounting (CDSB) and insurance (ClimateWise) markets. Many scholars describe environmental co-regulation as a voluntary agreement between transnational corporations (TNCs) and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) to enforce best practice standards that improve corporate environmental performance without the use of state authority. Cognitive governance employs a more unconventional approach to co-regulation by trying to embed financial knowledge that links a firm’s environmental performance to financial risks throughout the global economy vis-à-vis an expansion of state authority. More specifically, the CDSB and ClimateWise use best practice standards to leverage accounting and insurance knowledge in generating a technical and political consensus that supports expanding public regulation to govern financial risks related to climate change. In answer the second question, the thesis argues that this unconventional co-regulatory strategy adopted by the CDSB and ClimateWise emerged in response to three factors. First, financial firms (in addition to corporate emitters in the case of the CDSB) had material interests in using public regulation to govern climate change risks. Second, these actors realized that collaboration was needed to generate a technical and political consensus among constituencies willing to support public regulation governing climate change risks. Third, ENGOs existed that had interests in using their technical expertise and political capacity to help generate this needed consensus through co-regulation. The thesis makes three contributions to the advancement of scholarly knowledge in the fields of international political economy (IPE) and global environmental politics (GEP). First, IPE and GEP scholars have have largely overlooked the emergence of environmental co-regulation in financial markets, and in particular, have yet to analyze the CDSB and ClimateWise. This study addresses this gap by revealing an effort to mobilize the accounting and insurance industry in strengthening global climate governance. Second, scholars have also tended to view co-regulation through a “post-Westphalian” lens that sees co-regulation as designed to pre-empt or generate an alternative to public regulation. The CDSB and ClimateWise’s strategy, and the factors that explain the creation of these initiatives, challenge this perspective. Third, analysis of this strategy also contributes to emerging scholarship on the influence of “cognition” in shaping market actors’ behavior in conditions of uncertainty.
Public Salience and International Financial Regulation. Explaining the International Regulation of OTC Derivatives, Rating Agencies, and Hedge Funds
(University of Waterloo, 2013-02-21T14:16:26Z) Pagliari, Stefano
What explains the shift towards greater direct public oversight of financial markets in international financial regulation that has characterized the response to the global financial crisis of 2007-2010? Over this period, the main international financial regulatory bodies have abandoned the market-based mechanisms that had informed their approach towards the regulation of different financial domains in the years before the crisis and significantly expanded the perimeter of state-based regulation. However, the extent and the timing of this shift cannot be regarded only as the by-product of the crisis, nor they can be explained by the existing interpretations of the political determinants of international regulatory policies. This study builds upon existing state-centric explanations of international regulatory policies, but it goes beyond these works by exploring how the preferences of the most influential countries in response to the crisis have been influenced by variations in the degree of public salience of different financial domains. More specifically, this study argues that the lasting increase in the public salience of financial regulatory policies in the US and different European countries since the last quarter of 2008 has created strong incentives for elected officials in these countries to challenge the market-based approach that had emerged in the decade and half before the crisis and to directly interfere in the international regulatory agenda. In order to explain this shift, this study will analyse the evolution in the international governance of three sets of markets and institutions that have occupied an important position in the international regulatory agenda in recent years: 1) OTC derivatives; 2) rating agencies; 3) hedge funds. Besides making an empirical contribution to the literature on the politics of international financial regulation, this study also contributes theoretically to this literature by deepening our understanding of the nexus between international regulatory coordination and domestic public opinion.
Rentier 2.0: Entrepreneurship Promotion and the (Re)Imagination of Political Economy in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries
(University of Waterloo, 2013-09-03T15:37:31Z) Ennis, Crystal
This dissertation provides an examination of the recent phenomenon of entrepreneurship and innovation promotion in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Through the use of the structured, focused comparison method, this research examines two cases, Oman and Qatar, to provide a deep analysis of the policy and practice of entrepreneurship promotion in the region. Despite a claim of responding to regional challenges of economic diversification and the weak participation of nationals in the private sector, entrepreneurship as a key component of each country’s quest for a knowledge economy seems paradoxical in its ostensible inconsistency with the Gulf rentier state status quo. Path dependencies from oil-led development and the concomitant labour market bifurcation have perpetuated incentive structures which obstruct innovation and entrepreneurialism. Responding to this puzzle, this research answers two questions. The first is concerned with the character and motivation of these strategies in the Gulf, and what that reveals about the evolution of policy making practices. The second assesses the role of the millennial generation and regional transformation. Through interrogating the entrepreneurship policy experience in the case studies, this research extends beyond the often perfunctory assumptions of rentier state literature to investigate the unfolding of development policies in the current milieu. This research finds that entrepreneurship promotion risks only becoming a new way of recasting rentier tools: rentierism 2.0. The study argues that governance in the Gulf is best understood as a contestation between reforms and rentier patterns. Being cognizant of this tension provides a venue for understanding how some policies contravene classic rentier expectations while others appear hypocritical as the implementation of policy announcements become obstructed by structural contradictions. This dissertation makes an empirical contribution on a prominent policy shift in the Gulf that has been largely ignored in social sciences. As well, it provides a theoretical contribution by integrating literature on development and innovation which is generally disconnected from scholarly work on Gulf political economy to deepen understandings of development and transition in the region. Overall, this project provides a window into transition and transformation, demonstrating the way rentier patterns and a combination of novel pressures interact and affect the practices of development policy making and the Gulf ruling bargain.
Response to International Human Rights Norms in Asia: Challenges of Ethnic Movements in Nepal and China
(University of Waterloo, 2023-06-29) Jnawali, Hari Har
This thesis examines the factors that prevent the Chinese and Nepalese governments from recognizing ethnic minorities’ claims to self-determination within their national jurisdictions. The Tibetans in China and the Madheshis in Nepal have sought the recognition of their self- determination through autonomy. But the Chinese and Nepalese governments consider that autonomy leads to territorial disintegration and hesitate to address this claim. In international norms, the meaning of self-determination has shifted from the right to independence to the right to accommodation; minorities can exercise self-determination through autonomy within the state’s boundaries. This normative development has not lessened the fear of secession among the Chinese and Nepalese political actors. Against this background, this thesis has examined the following question: why do the Chinese and Nepalese governments consider self-determination as potentially leading to secession? It identifies that these two governments associate self- determination with secession due to i) their respective political regimes, ii) the anti-colonial interpretation of self- determination, and iii) foreign intervention in ethnic conflicts. The Chinese government rejects self-determination to defend its centralized political regime whereas the Nepalese government rejects self-determination to strengthen its democratic regime that values individual rights and legal equality. Likewise, both governments interpret self-determination as the right to independence, but this understanding has affected the Nepalese government more than its Chinese counterpart. Finally, foreign intervention has also produced hesitation toward self-determination. Both governments assume that foreign actors are working against their territorial norms, and the external actors’ contradictory response to ethnic conflict provides grounds for this allegation.
Restricting fossil fuel supply: Examining and amplifying the role of the Least Developed Countries’ Group in the United Nations Climate Negotiations
(University of Waterloo, 2024-01-23) Saha, Choyon
The demand for restricting fossil fuel supply—exploration, extraction, and transportation—has intensified recently and become the cornerstone of the global climate debate. Notwithstanding numerous impressive contributions of fossil fuels to socioeconomic developments, this demand has escalated. This is mainly due to the principal role of fossil fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions in pushing the Earth’s climate system outside of the safe boundary and stable state, thereby creating and worsening the cataclysmic consequences of climate upheaval worldwide. In the broader landscape of growing demand for constraining global supply of fossil fuels, the United Nations (UN) climate summit—Conference of the Parties (COP)—has become an important site to confront fossil fuel-producing countries and restrict their fuel supply. In COP climate negotiations, the Group of 46 Least Developed Countries (LDCG), a negotiating bloc of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), finds itself in a unique position to challenge fossil fuel incumbents, thereby developing international policies to limit fossil fuel supply, which is widely known as supply-side climate policies (SSCPs). To analyze this position, this dissertation seeks to explore—and amplify—the role and capacity of the LDCG in UN climate negotiations to advance SSCPs. To do so, this dissertation sets and resolves three distinct interconnected questions, which have been addressed in the three manuscripts. Manuscript-I asks and addresses what the paradox occupied by the LDCG looks like and to what extent this paradoxical position can be justified by the global distributive justice lens. Drawing on existing scholarship, this study examines the LDCG’s paradoxical political position and argues that LDCs call for G20 states in COP negotiations to phase out fossil fuels while expanding their own fossil fuel supply-related projects with support from the same G20 nations. By calling for G20 states to phase out their fossil fuels, the LDCG has been playing a vitally important role in developing international SSCPs through UN climate negotiations. However, the continued expansion of fossil fuel supply projects in LDCs has resulted in diverse inherent concerns, while this extension is supported by the global distributive justice lens due to their fragile socioeconomic conditions, developmental needs, less access to energy, and negligible contribution (0.4%) to global CO2 emissions. These concerns are related to resource curse risks (e.g., corruption, violence, and conflicts around controlling fossil fuels), emissions growth, uncertainty around staying below 1.5°C of warming, and obstacles to achieving sustainable development goals and the net zero target. Therefore, the analysis suggests that G20 states’ investments for fossil fuel expansion in LDCs should be redirected toward developing the low-carbon energy system. Likewise, the analysis focuses on reinforcing LDCs’ efforts to press G20 states to begin phasing out fossil fuels globally. Manuscript-II provides answers to the questions of how the coalition of LDCs is strategizing to confront fossil fuel incumbents (producers and consumers who have benefitted from fossil fuels and prevent decisions in negotiations related to the transition from fossil fuels) and their norms and practices, and to what extent the coalition has the capacity to do so. Drawing on oral interviews and the strategic power approach, this study argues that while negotiators use “soft” strategies in climate negotiations to call upon incumbents to cut fossil fuel consumption, observers undertake “hard” strategies at side events to pressurize incumbents to phase out production. The results demonstrate that the coalition is ill-equipped to challenge fossil fuel incumbents for the transition from fossil fuels. This fragility mainly lies in the coalition’s strategic capacity, which is deeply obstructed by weak strategies of negotiators, diverse interests and fragmentation in the coalition and the G77+China (a negotiating group of developing countries), interstate relations between LDCs and incumbents influenced by colonial legacy and political-economic factors. The findings finally suggest that as the coalition’s capacity to challenge incumbents is very fragile, it needs to be upheld to facilitate the development of SSCPs through COP negotiations. Manuscript-III resolves the questions of how the LDCG can advance SSCPs in climate negotiations and how the Group can reshape international mitigation policymaking through the UNFCCC. By addressing these questions, this study spotlights the compelling need to pinpoint strategic pathways to improve the LDCG’s capacity to play stronger roles in negotiations, which are very vital to accelerate the advancement of restrictive policies on the supply of fossil fuels. Drawing on interviews with negotiators and observers, this study offers politico-economic, institutional, and nonmaterial (e.g., knowledge and argumentative power) strategic pathways that would improve LDCs’ negotiation capacity to argue with producing states to curtail extraction, enable the LDCG to play more robust roles in negotiations and help address barriers that LDCs face while developing policies to constrain fossil fuel supply. The analysis suggests that the application of these strategies is crucially important for the LDCG to reshape the development of climate mitigation policies via the UNFCCC. This is because these strategies would help the LDCG facilitate the advancement of a consensus on transitioning from fossil fuels, the equitable development of supply-side policies in negotiations as compared to demand-side policies, and the diminution of the influence of fossil fuel corporations on climate negotiations. In short, the findings presented in the above three manuscripts—and/or this dissertation—stand to make novel contributions to the scholarly fields of supply-side climate politics, SSCPs, and politics in UN climate negotiations. In addition, the results also enrich the theoretical literature by expanding the realm of distributive justice, enhancing the usefulness of strategic power, and materializing the logic of supply-side climate policies.
Scripting Resistance: Governance through Theatre of the Oppressed
(University of Waterloo, 2016-01-21) Malloy, Adam
Theatre of the oppressed (TO) emerged out of a rights-repressive context to challenge the way cultural institutions are created and reproduced, and to enact alternative social and political relationships. More than a form of art, it is an interactive medium of communication, used by communities to engage in critical analysis of social, political, economic and ecological relationships. Rooted in the foundational principles of Paulo Freire’s (2005 [1970]) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, its purpose is to “humanize” relationships by identifying and deconstructing the many and complex ways in which some people are subordinated to others. Its theatrical mechanisms (improvised role play, for example) turn contextual analysis into praxis, recreating oppressive scenarios, and enacting alternative outcomes. As such it becomes a “rehearsal for reality,” generating the critical knowledge needed for oppressed people to confront their subordination, backed by the solidarity of their community. This research is an examination of the ways in which TO practitioners and communities envision and enact alternative social relationships, thereby embodying the emancipatory potential of human rights theory. I caution that not all theatre of the oppressed is equally emancipatory, but where it meets its liberatory potential, participants manifest an empowering embodiment of cultural resistance in four ways: 1. Theatre of the oppressed practitioners engage with communities in processes of intentional praxis, equipping participants with the skills for critical social analysis. 2. Practitioners are developing a provocative meshwork of solidarity to collectively resist the subordinating effects of disparate cultural power. 3. Theatre of the oppressed communities construct an emancipatory discourse which resonates among socially diverse and politically disparate groups around the world. I propose that theirs is a manifestation of counterhegemonic globalization. 4. Theatre of the oppressed participants reorient their ontologies, and decolonize their epistemologies. By negotiating the terms of co-existence in innovative ways, they bridge the gap between human rights theory and practice. Participants in theatre of the oppressed activities collectively challenge and redefine the norms which dominate cultural and political institutions. As such, their work embodies a promising demonstration of how those who are oppressed can change the way they understand and enact their political actions.
Seats of corporate convenience and international investment law
(University of Waterloo, 2017-01-19) Patil Woolhouse, Sarita
Seats of corporate convenience (SCCs) include tax havens, offshore finance centres and other locations frequently used by transnational corporations to channel their investments around the world. They form some of the important structural elements of the global economy. This thesis examines the role of SCCs in the evolution and growth of investor-state arbitration (ISA). By analysing 463 ISA cases through the lens of SCCs, it highlights how bilateral investment treaties (BITs) came to be used in the context of investments that were not bilateral, being routed via one or more SCCs. The Research Question in this thesis was: If the provision of Investor-State Arbitration (ISA) in Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) was intended to promote flows of investments between the signatories to such treaties, how did it come to apply to indirect investments channelled through one or more seats of corporate convenience (SCCs)? There are two aspects to this question, namely: (a) What crucial changes took place in the global economy after the 1950s to enable ISA to be used in the context of indirect investments? (b) What was the input of key actors such as states (particularly, the US and the developing countries), transnational corporations (TNCs), international organisations (IOs), and professionals (mainly, lawyers) in this process? ISA was first proposed in the context of a treaty and an investor-state agreement. The idea was then promoted in the form of a multilateral convention by Shell and a few individuals led by Herman Abs, a banker, and a British attorney general, Lord Shawcross. It did not culminate into a treaty despite the support of the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other international organisations. Germany and Switzerland then used the draft to enter into BITs, not all of which embraced investor-state arbitration. Around the 1950s and the 1960s, foreign investment in a host state tended to be made by a multinational with a clearly defined home state. The usual mode was the setting up of a subsidiary or a branch office. Foreign direct investment (FDI) was associated with an investor’s control and a 10-25% ownership over the investment vehicle. FDI was distinguishable from portfolio investments and debts. It tended to be in the sectors of extraction, production, or manufacturing. The developing countries tended to borrow money for their development objectives. States’ right to regulate investments in their territories was generally accepted albeit that the compensation payable tended to be disputed. Indeed, the OECD countries themselves used this right when necessary. BITs surged in numbers in the 1990s. The oft-cited justification for burgeoning numbers of BITs was that they would help the developing countries to attract FDI, a source of non-debt financing. However, in a globalised and highly financialised economy, the concept of FDI itself transformed to drop its association with control or a minimum ownership. In the context of ISA, it also ceased to be distinguished from loans, portfolio investments, and indeed, from a need to bring in new capital to a host state. The investors’ character was no longer that of a multinational with a clearly defined home state. The major investors were TNCs who can claim allegiance with a home state, if they need to, but whose businesses were increasingly mobile and financialised. BITs clearly contained the expectation that their signatory states would promote and protect investments from one state into the other, for their mutual benefit. Investments, however, tend to be made via SCCs thus rendering the bilateral focus on their promotion inapposite. Each investment can potentially have several investors and home states, even if they may be under the control of one ultimate investor. Expensive jurisdiction battles waged between the investors and states are indicative of the difficulty of applying BITs to the conditions they were not designed for. The mismatch between the design and function of BITs was not aleatory, but was brought about by landmark ISA awards, and it was facilitated by the actions of key actors (both state and non-state), and by the radical changes in the global economy. FDI statistics are, therefore, difficult to correlate to home or host states, and their BITs. The first twenty years of ISA appear to have been based on express agreements for such arbitrations between investors and home states. This would change to the consent to ISA being derived from BITs and investment laws, without the need for an express agreement between investors and states. Application of ISA to the radically transformed actors and situations has come about with the input of states (particularly, the US and the developing countries), TNCs, international organisations (IOs), and professionals (lawyers). There was no urgent demand in the 1980s-90s to protect investors against expropriation (the incidence of which had peaked in the mid-1970s, and declined). There was no reasonable justification for states to have privatised and outsourced their disputes in BITs, particularly commercial disputes. Yet, developing countries signed BITs, perhaps reluctantly due to their debt-vulnerability; the BITs did not clearly indicate how ISA would work, if indeed, the developing countries understood it at the time. The BITs that appear to have been against the developing countries’ interests were probably signed for the potential (not a promise) of increased investments. The US, an SCC, legitimised the use of other SCCs and offshore entities. It promoted and encouraged indirect investments. The US legal framework endorses the use, by the US investors, of BITs negotiated by other states. The US used both its aid programme and its influence in the IMF and the World Bank to promote various measures of deregulation, privatisation, and liberalisation of the developing countries. Various IOs promoted BITs and other liberalisation measures, without a focus on their effect on the developing countries’ ability to service, much less reduce, their overall debt. Their emphasis was on the improvement of the investment climate; the World Bank set up a specialist advisory agency for foreign investment. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) actively encouraged conferences and workshops to bring countries together to draft BITs. IOs’ thus played an important part in encouraging the developing countries to enter into BITs as a tool to attract FDI. No IO appears to have drawn to the attention of the developing countries to the possibility of BITs, without further agreement, leading to potential ISA with any investor who could fulfil their expansive eligibility criteria. The US also created and nurtured the conditions that allowed oligopolistic TNCs to emerge, expand and thrive. This involves allowing TNCs a substantial say in the US policy-making and implementation. TNCs made a big contribution to the US drafting of its model BIT. Some of the corporations had the early movers’ advantage because they had also contributed to the early drafts at the time of the involvement of Abs and Shawcross; that involvement in international norm-making was spearheaded by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The ICC also led the making of the operative norms that make international arbitration a powerful, effective, and largely self-regulating tool. Various lawyers, accountancy and consultancy firms helped in the convergence of practices of TNCs whether it was in relation to stabilisation clauses, tax-arrangements via SCCs, transfer pricing, or the use of offshore special purpose entities. Arbitration lawyers were mainly responsible for expanding the scope of ISA to the point that an express consent to arbitration was no longer the cornerstone of this institution that was founded on party autonomy. States’ authority to regulate the investments in their territories was transferred to private arbitration tribunals in a continuum; the original idea for such a transfer was promoted by the close association of the banker Abs, the British lawyers Shawcross and Lauterpacht, and the Anglo-Dutch TNC, Shell; this was followed by a wider, looser coordination involving the ICC, the United Nations, International Bar Association, the OECD, and so on. The World Bank set up the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in 1964, but it was slow off the mark. Another period of close association of a few arbitration lawyers gave it the boost it needed by (a) dispensing with express consent to arbitration, and (b) deriving a consent to arbitration from states’ BITs or investment legislations. A small pool of arbitrators ensured that the early ICSID cases promoted this interpretation. The scope of ISA expanded by treating BITs as, a) open offers of arbitration for all and sundry investments, and b) the last hoops through which the investment had to pass cursorily, even if it did so in a restructuring carried out after its initial entry in the host state. The extensive use of SCCs meant that the ISA-eligible investors were an expanding and moveable class in respect of any investment. With the feedback loops provided by the long-term BITs and persuasive awards, the path-dependent ISA got increasingly away from its original justification, while undermining the political bargains underpinning any bilateral commitment to promote investments from a home state to a host state. This analysis demonstrates the need to re-think the whole concept and the framework of investment protection. The framework needs to be aligned with (a) the realities of the 21st century investments routinely channelled through SCCs, and (b) the balance between states’ and private actors’ powers and interests. Arbitration awards have interpreted BITs to include within the scope of ISA, not just FDI, but also, portfolio investments and loans. This expansion coupled with the effective operative norms for the enforcement of ISA awards, effectively make BITs work as a regime for the enforcement of sovereign debt. BITs also provide an additional tool to enforce investors’ commercial contractual rights. BITs’ role in promoting developmental objectives (e.g. by reducing debt) have been all but abandoned along with any need for investors to negotiate express investor-state arbitration agreements with their host states. BITs were primarily drafted in the days of regulated economies, i.e. pre-1990. It is uncertain, however, whether, and to what extent, they remain relevant within a deregulated, neoliberal and laissez faire environment. The failure to ask this question indicates how significant an advantage the ISA option is to the interests of TNCs, the main beneficiaries of ISA. In carrying out the necessary research, I have conducted library research (primary and secondary sources) and devoted a large part of my research to the content analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties and 463 Investor-State Arbitration Awards.

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