Speaking Private Authority. Roberto J. Flores
will trace the evolving definition of private authority as it has emerged in the body of literature on the topic. Second, because private authority is exercised by a diversity of actors, operating within and across networks, it is important to examine network society as it has been explained in the literature. Third, and finally, in order to make the case for the importance of this novel type of private governor deemed a network connector, and for its positioning within a discursive terrain as key to its authority, the section will conclude with a brief discussion on the discourse approach that will be utilized by this book.
Private Governors
There is a large bulk of literature on the topic of private governance that is generally subsumed under the broader category of global governance. This private governance literature predominantly focuses on how non-state actors adapt themselves to power structures in world politics that exist apart from them.49,50,51,52,53,54,55 Susan Strange (1996) was one of the first to examine the phenomenon of private governance and found that agents other than states are increasingly exercising authority in society. While her focus tended toward transnational corporations, and their use of markets to leverage authority away from states in international politics, her overall point was that non-state actors can exercise what she calls “parallel authority.”56 This form of authority takes place alongside that of states and is tapped by using the potential power of markets. Avant, Finnemore, and Sell (2010) take this argument a bit further by contending that authority relationships constitute the basic building blocks of global politics and can be exercised by non-state agents as much as those attached to states. This is identifiable in the ways by which non-state agents behave in a manner that mirrors states—they strategize, compete, and cooperate in order to achieve desired political outcomes. Yet, although private actors do, indeed, operate much like states in order to achieve outcomes, they operate apart from the governance mandate that states have (based in the social contract).57 Therefore, they have different bases of authority, and in order to determine those, a broader social approach is needed. Private governors do not just accrue authority by proving their instrumental utility to other actors. The social process is deeper than that, and therefore conceptualizing private governance and the exercise of private authority in this way is problematic. It treats the exercise of private authority as a static phenomenon that takes place in a hierarchical, well-organized sector, wherein the simple act of consent by the governed is the prerequisite for authority, and where markets become forums between non-state actors and states to compete over the seeming commodity that is authority. Thinking about this phenomenon along these terms leads to the conclusion that private governors are those that compete (with states as well as with other actors) in order to make rules and/or standards that other relevant actors in world politics can voluntarily choose to adopt and abide by because it provides them some valued commodity in return.58 Private authority, according to the current body of literature, is thus the equivalent of making rules and having them supported and followed by others only insofar as they provide some instrumental benefit. 59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66
While conceptualizing private authority in this way is a useful heuristic tool, it does not appreciate the complexity of this social phenomenon, particularly not as it takes place within network society. These frames do not take into consideration the process of emergence of private governors from within power structures, into positions of authority, by actively shaping discourse. I argue in this book that private governors, through the process of defining the very meaning or perception of standards in private governance (within the respective political sectors they emerge into), constrain the behaviors of other actors they seek to regulate—at the level of identity. Private governors create rules that are abided by, not due to judgments of instrumentality (although those undoubtedly play a part) but more so by framing key concepts within the field and then placing themselves in subject positions, in relation to those concepts, from where they can exert authority. Thus, traditional approaches miss the deeper social dynamics that compose private governance relationships. This is an important point to make because the works herein discussed are foundational and inform those that preceded them. Therefore, an expansion of the current understanding of private authority is needed.
Private Authority
Private authority is defined by Rodney Hall and Thomas Biersteker (2002) as “institutionalized forms or expressions of power” that are legitimate because “there is some form of normative, un-coerced consent or recognition of authority on the part of the regulated or governed.”67 Green (2014) elaborates on this conception by stating that private authority is a “social relationship between authority and subject because it is mutually constituted, requiring the subject acknowledge the consent to the claim of authority.”68 There are three key components to these popular conceptions/definitions of private authority. First, compliance with the rules and standards developed by these private governance institutions is not coerced but rather derives from consent. Second, in these forms of governance, legitimacy is the glue that binds, or, in other words, it is the bedrock of support for private governors. For, if the private governor is not legitimated by those operating within the targeted domain, consent is not granted. If consent is not granted, then authority is not granted, and the governor is incapable of governing. But as these private governors provide viable governance solutions to relevant actors, they are legitimated by these actors as authorities. Third, this is a social process wherein an aspiring governor must accumulate the social/material capital necessary to elicit the consent of the targeted subject of authority.
In the literature, it seems as if the first two components of this definition are taken seriously but not the third (the social process of accumulating the power necessary to govern). It is important to emphasize here that private authority consists of dynamic relationships, and that it is not a static condition. For example, Barnett and Finnemore (2004) use the case of international organizations to argue that they acquire authority through their bureaucratic functionalities. They create standards that can be followed, constructed through the application of their expertise. Additionally, their support brings with it moral credence, as they can advance shared values toward social and political objectives. Yet in spite of the essential “socialness” of this type of authority (i.e., moral credence, development of agreed upon standards among conflicting groups, and acknowledgment of expertise), the explanations provided by Barnett and Finnemore assume away this part. They attribute these qualities to these actors and argue authority without exploring the social processes by which these qualities came about. Structuring their argument in such a way forgoes any deep explanation of private authority, which would need to include an examination of the social process by which these actors arrived at different forms of authority. But what is the social process that underlies the accumulation of moral authority? Who defines the actions of these networks as moral, or for the “common good”? How are the concepts organized within the discursive terrain that makes articulations from these groups “moral,” or representative of the common purpose? Such explanations, again, require a deeper sociological component in order to be explained properly.
The more sociological approaches are those of Avant, Finnemore, and Sell (2010) and Sending (2015). The former, however, use authority as a generic category by referencing particular types of authority—be it expert, delegated, or institutional. They treat these forms of authority as endogenous to specific types of actors. Yet these forms of authority are rarely so clear cut; as they usually take multiple forms. Additionally, these sources of authority must be socially constructed in order to be leveraged. The process by which this takes place changes the nature of governance so that meanings that once held influence are changed to accommodate new meanings constructed by private governors. As stated in Friedman (1990), “the distinction between statement and speaker such that the latter can endow the former with its appeal,” and takes it further in stating that “[t]he concept of authority can thus have an application only within the context of certain socially accepted criteria which serve to identify the person(s) whose utterances are to count as authoritative.”69 This process not only affects meanings of concepts to different actors but also affects identities. Therefore, the authors cannot explain it fully unless such is taken