Global InformationMultistakeholder governance information
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Multistakeholder governance is a practice of governance that employs bringing multiple stakeholders together to participate in dialogue, decision making, and implementation of responses to jointly perceived problems. The principle behind such a structure is that if enough input is provided by multiple types of actors involved in a question, the eventual consensual decision gains more legitimacy, and can be more effectively implemented than a traditional state-based response. While the evolution of multistakeholder governance is occurring principally at the international level, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are domestic analogues.
Stakeholders refer to a collection of actors from different social, political, economic spheres working intentionally together to govern a physical, social, economic, or policy area. The range of actors can include multinational corporations, national enterprises, governments, civil society bodies, academic experts, community leaders, religious figures, media personalities and other institutional groups.
At a minimum a multistakeholder group must have two or more actors from different social, political, or economic groups. If not, then the group is a trade association (all business groups), a multilateral body (all governments), a professional body (all scholars), etc. Almost all multistakeholder bodies have at least one multinational corporation or business-affiliated body and at least one civil society organization or alliance of civil society organizations as key members.
Alternative terminologies for multistakeholder governance include multi-stakeholder initiatives(MSIs),[1] Multi-StakeHolder (MSH),[2] multi-stakeholder processes (MSPs),[3] public-private partnerships (PPPs), transnational multistakeholder Partnerships (transnational MSPs), informal governance arrangements, and non-state regulation.
The key term 'multistakeholder' (or 'multistakeholderism') is increasingly spelled without a hyphen to maintain consistency with its predecessor 'multilateralism' and to associate this new form of governance with one of the key actors involved that is also generally spelled without a hyphen; 'multinationals'. 'Multistakeholderism' is similarly used in parallel to bilateralism and regionalism.
As an evolving global governance form, only a limited number of organizations and institutions are involved in multistakeholderism. In a number of arenas, opposing forces are actively challenging the legitimacy, accountability, and effectiveness of these experimental changes in global governance.
- ^ Utting, P. (2001). "Regulating Business Via Multistakeholder Initiatives: A Preliminary Assessment." Archived 15 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine (Paper prepared in late 2001 under the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) research project "Promoting Corporate Environmental and Social Responsibility in Developing Countries: The Potential and Limits of Voluntary Initiatives".) Accessed 14/May/2014, Fuchs, D., Kalfagianni, A., & Havinga, T. (2011) "Actors in private food governance: the legitimacy of retail standards and multistakeholder initiatives with civil society participation", Agriculture and Human Values, September 2011, Volume 28, Issue 3, pp 353-367.
- ^ Nancy Vallejo, Pierre Hauselmann (6 February 2005). "Multi-stakeholder Governance: A Brief Guide" (PDF).
- ^ Hemmati, Minu (Ed.) 2002. Multi-stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability: Beyond Deadlock and Conflict. London: Earthscan.