Taking the 'Experiment' in Experimentalist Governance Seriously -But Not Too Seriously
Kenneth W. Abbott, and Duncan Snidal
Our recent work has looked at a wide range of transnational regulatory schemes.
Many of these are wholly private, others are (inter)governmental, and an increasing
number involve combinations of public and private actors. We depict this diversity
on the figure we call the Governance Triangle. Transnational regulatory schemes
have overwhelmingly emerged on a decentralized, bottom-up basis. They often
operate in isolation and sometimes in competition. While schemes increasingly
cooperate, the transnational regulatory system remains fundamentally unorganized,
and the lack of hierarchy at the international level means that there is no obvious
“organizer” of these sometimes competing schemes. Decentralized competition could
lead to a “survival of the fittest,” but often creates regulatory gaps and overlaps that
defeat regulatory purposes.
Experimentalism is a promising way to address such regulatory deficiencies. The
prevailing theory of experimentalist governance, however, is a poor fit for the existing
transnational regulatory system insofar as it assumes a centralized “experimenter”
(such as a national agency or the EU) that sets goals and delegates authority, and then
manages coordinated learning processes (Sabel & Zeitlin 2011). To be sure, many
“natural experiments” occur in a decentralized system (Hoffmann 2011), but there is
no “experimenter” positioned to establish the goals, metrics, reporting requirements
and analytical mechanisms for experimental governance to work.
Our paper will approach this problem in three ways. Descriptively, we will identify
the modes of conscious experimentation and structured learning that do operate
transnationally, even within a predominantly decentralized system. Analytically, we
will consider to what extent the existing system provides the benefits of structured
experimental governance, and to what extent it falls short. And normatively, we will
examine the potential for international organizations (IGOs) to assume the role of
experimenter, and to better provide the benefits of experimentalism. Here we will
build on our recent work on “orchestration,” a light-touch strategy through which
IGOs encourage the formation of new transnational schemes, support and endorse
schemes, and coordinate their on-going activities (Abbott et. al. 2014). In principle,
IGOs could use orchestration to move the transnational system toward proper
experimental governance. Yet the organizational imperatives of IGOs and the
restrictions imposed by states may limit these possibilities. We will draw lessons
from successful experimentalist governance in other areas, and consider their
applicability to transnational regulation as a means to overcome these limitations.
In terms of the conference parameters, we will look at a wide range of substantive
examples, mainly in the labor and environmental areas. Much transnational
governance is inherently cross-scale: small-scale transnational regulatory schemes
operate on the ground, primarily in developing countries, complementing (e.g., ILO
and labor rights) or filling gaps in (e.g., UNFCCC and climate change) large-scale
international regimes. IGO orchestration of such schemes would aim to maximize the
cross-scale possibilities. Examining the lack of centralized experimenters in
transnational governance, and the difficulties that IGOs have in becoming conscious
experimenters, will also enrich understanding of the requirements and limits of
experimental governance more generally.
References:
Abbott, Kenneth, Philipp Genschel, Duncan Snidal and Bernhard Zangl. 2014.
International Organizations as Orchestrators. Cambridge: Cambridge University
press.
Hoffmann, Matthew. 20122. Climate governance at the crossroads: experimenting
with a global response after Kyoto (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Sabel, C. F., & Zeitlin, J. 2011. “Experimentalism in Transnational Governance:
Emergent Pathways and Diffusion Mechanisms.” Paper presented at the panel on
“Global Governance in Transition”, annual conference of the International Studies
Association, Montreal, March 16-19, 2011.