TuomasYlä-Anttila
Department of Sociology
University of Helsinki
PO Box 18
00014 University of Helsinki
FINLAND
Tel. +358-50-369 2617
tuomas.yla-anttila@helsinki.fi
Paper to be presented at the colloquium LesMobilisations altermondialistes, organized by the GERMM group of the FrenchAssociation of Political Science, Dec. 3-5 2003, Paris.
Abstract
The World Social Forum, the largestannual world meeting of NGOs and social movements, can be understood as a hostof publics; it is where these different actors come together to take part inglobal public debates. In this paper I examine some of the factors that makepossible such debates and, in particular, the ways in which these debates enternational contexts and influence decision-making on the national level. I dothis through three examples of debates participated in by Finnish associationsat the WSF: The debate on global democracy initiatives participated in by theNetwork Institute for Global Democratization, the debate on worker’s rights inthe globalizing economy participated in by the Trade Union Solidarity Centre ofFinland and the debate on taxing global currency transactions participated inby Attac Finland. The existence of these global debates is made possible byglobal networks of associations. Their means of exerting influence seem to betwofold. On the one hand they aim at influencing public opinion throughpresence in the media, and on the other hand influencing decision-makers moredirectly through what I call the development cooperation policy network. Thisnetwork acts not only as a channel of influence but also as a provider ofresources for organizing global public debates. As national media institutionsare still relatively important in comparison with the global ones, and globaldemocratic decision-making structures and related policy networks are lacking,much of the influence of global public debates passes through the nationallevel.
Introduction: The WorldSocial Forum as a Host of Publics
The World Social Forum is an openmeeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulationof proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effectiveaction, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed toneoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form ofimperialism (The World Social Forum Charter of Principles 2001).
The World Social Forum is the largestannual world meeting of social movements and NGOs, held for the 3rdtime in 2003 at Porto Alegre, Brazil. The WSF can be understood as a host ofpublics, engaged in global public debates. The WSF does not have a single unifyingpolitical goal or even a programme consisting of various goals. It is not,therefore, a pressure group or a transnational advocacy network (in the senseof Keck and Sikkink, 1998), even though it may be thought of in a way as anetwork of various such networks. Nor is the WSF a social movement. The most commonlyaccepted definitions of a social movement converge in seeing collective actionfor achieving a common goal as the central feature of movements (cf. dellaPorta & Diani 1999 14-15; Tarrow 1994, 3).
It is truethat the organizing of the WSF can be seen as a part of what is often calledthe Global Justice Movement, which emerged from the massive street protests andother forms of collective action from Chiapas to Seattle to Gothenburg toGenoa. It is equally true that the WSF itself exhibits various demonstrationsand other features of collective movement action – including the hugeinauguration march each year – and the forum’s participants representorganizations that function as parts of various social movements. I would stilllike to argue, that treating the WSF in its present state a social movementwould amount to missing something important about the phenomenon. Rather, atthe core of the WSF seems to be the appeal to the idea of public debate as anessential part of democracy, and the attempt to conduct this debate globally.
Theemergence of the idea and institutions of the public sphere in 18thcentury Britain is traced by Jürgen Habermas in his modern classic TheStructural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989 [1962]). The bourgeoispublic sphere emerged to challenge the societal order of the era of feudalism,based on hereditary relations of power. These relations were to be replaced bypolitical decisions based on rational public debate between equal citizens. Thecentral idea was to bracket out the differences of status between theparticipants of the debate and have the best rational argument carry the day.Domination was to be replaced by reason.
The WorldSocial Forum appeals to this idea of public debate that came about with thebirth of modern democratic nation-states. But the WSF does not differ from the18th century national bourgeois public spheres only by being globalin its reach. The self-understanding concerning the nature and norms of debatealso seems to be different. The norms of debate stated in the WSF charter ofprinciples and the practices used to enact them convey a conception of publicdebate that is far more conscious of the power relations inevitably present,and less universalistic in its claim to rationality than the 18th centuryconception as presented by Habermas. Debate is no longer understood as means ofdoing away with power relations, but rather as means of continuous thematizingof those relations and thus at the same time questioning them and acknowledgingtheir presence as a context for the debate.
If this istrue, the notion of counterpublics as developed, among others, by NancyFraser (1992) and Michael Warner (2002) provides a fruitful perspective on theWSF. Publics, to begin with, may be defined as “self-organized social spacesconstituted by circulation of discourse, that consist of relations betweenstrangers”<![if !supportFootnotes]>[1]<![endif]>. The public sphere of society, fromthis perspective, consists of various such spaces, constituted by circulationof discourse concerning a certain political issue. The opinions formed duringthe circulation of discourses by different publics often conflict with eachother and the conflicts pertain not only to differences in opinion aboutparticular policy choices. Often the norms of the debate themselves arequestioned. This is true in particular with regard to the norms concerningwhich things are to be subject to public debate and which are left in theprivate sphere, and who are the legitimate participants in public debates andwho are not.
Counterpublics,according to Warner (2002), are those publics who question the limits ofpublic/private issues and legitimate/non-legitimate participants. For example,some publics at the WSF challenge the doctrine of economic neutrality of theinternational financial institutions, and claim that economic matters are notprivate or apolitical, but ought to be subjected to democratic control andpublic debate. Besides the limits of public and private, the limits of thegroup of legitimate participants are questioned. It is insisted that that notonly economic experts, but in principle all citizens, should be considered legitimateparticipants of the debate about economic issues. To take another example, thefeminist counterpublics of the WSF insist that violence towards women shouldnot be left a private matter, but made public and questioned, and that womenshould be considered legitimate participants of public debate.
Theobjective of this paper is to analyze some examples of the counterpublics ofthe World Social Forum. But rather than providing a detailed analysis of theirdiscourses, I have chosen to concentrate on the institutional arrangements that(1) make possible their existence and (2) provide them with the means forinfluencing political decisions.
I shallexamine three examples of debates participated in by representatives of Finnishassociations at the WSF 2002. This provides a possibility to concentrate, inparticular, in the interaction between global debates and Finnish nationalpolicy makers. My argument is (1) that the existence of global publics dependson the existence of global networks of different kinds of associations, fromthink tanks to trade unions to social movement organizations and (2) that theirmeans to influence decision-making are on the one hand influencing public opiniontrough presence in the media, and on the other, at least in the case ofFinland, by national policy networks.
I shallproceed by first presenting the concepts of networks of associations and policynetworks and the ways in which they are relevant to the analysis of globalpublic debates. Then I move on to analyze three examples of debatesparticipated in by Finns at the WSF and the global networks of associationsthat these debates are built on. Last I shall examine what I call the Finnishdevelopment cooperation policy network as a provider of resources to thepublics in question, and in particular as a channel of influence trough whichglobal publics and the Finnish national system of governance interact.
Publics, Networks ofAssociations and Policy Networks
Networks of associations have alwaysprovided a necessary basis for public debate. Although Habermas’ originalanalysis of the bourgeois public sphere does not account for this fact, laterresearch has pointed out the importance of voluntary associations as thebreeding ground for critical publics. For example Eley (1992) shows how theclubhouses and libraries of bourgeois cultural and philanthropic associationswere centers of local political life in various settings around Europe, and howthe associations formed networks that were often later mobilized for moreexplicitly political purposes.
Today,those theorists of democracy who emphasize the importance of public debate fordemocratic governance generally acknowledge the importance of networks of associationsas a basis for debate. This is true of Habermas’ later writings (cf. Habermas1992; Habermas 1996), but also of many others, including Cohen & Arato(1994) and Mark E. Warren (Warren 2001; for a brief overview, see Fung, 2003,524-526).
Networks ofassociations have, starting after the Second World War and especially duringthe last two decades, become increasingly global. Especially in the globalsouth the networks of associations have strongly developed since the 1980’s(Rucht 1999, 210–211). The sole task of these associations or NGOs is rarelyengagement in public debate. For example, some associations present at the WSF,like Oxfam and others, concentrate chiefly on implementing concrete developmentcooperation projects. Others, like trade unions, aim at betterment of theposition of their members and exert pressure towards employers and governmentsby many other means besides speaking out in public. Yet others state “researchand advocacy” as their objectives, and are thus more oriented to gathering informationand using it to participate in public debates.
The WSF iswhere these various kinds of associations with different aims and differentways of trying to reach them come together to debate. On the one hand these debatesaim at forming opinions and possibly finding common aims and means forachieving them for the multitude of different actors that the WSF bringstogether. On the other hand, the debates are meant to be distributed outsidethe forum itself, and so bring the issues to the agenda of political debate anddecision-making in different parts of the world. For this reason, theorganizers of the WSF seem to go trough a lot of trouble to attract mediaattention – and seem to be doing reasonably well in gaining it. But there are otherways for the debates at the WSF to spread outside Porto Alegre and influencedecision-making.
Policy Networks: WhereNetworks of Associations and Decision-Makers Meet
Policy networks form one channel throughwhich debates of various publics can reach the ears of those who have the powerto make political decisions. On the other hand, they may provide resourcesneeded for conducting debates.
Research onsocial movements has pointed out the increase in number and importance ofdifferent institutional arrangements through which groups of citizens may gettheir voices heard. Expert commissions set up as a result of demands by theenvironmentalist movement and official committees for gender equality wherewomen’s movements and associations are represented are examples of thesearrangements (cf. della Porta 2000, 243-245; della Porta & Diani 1999,273-241; Rättilä 2001).
Policynetworks can be seen as one of such arrangements. They can be defined as “(more or less) stablepatterns of social relations between interdependent actors, which take shapearound policy problems and/or policy programmes” (Kickert, Klijn & Koppenjan1997, 6). Policynetworks have been formed during the past two decades in policy sectors such asagricultural policy, housing and social service provision. The networks usuallyconsist of governmental or administrative bodies (local, national, global)NGO’s, experts and research institutes and private enterprise. Besides debatingon policy guidelines, the networks also engage in implementing policies. Forexample a housing policy network may include the city administration,residential district associations and construction companies, who togetherdesign and implement a construction project. The implementing role may be takennot only by a private enterprise, but in some cases, such as social serviceprovision or development cooperation projects, by non-profit organizations.
Policynetworks are not necessarily sites of equal debate open to all citizens’ groups– often to the contrary. The emergence of policy networks has been associatedwith the neo-liberal policies of the Thatcher and Reagan administrations andso-called new public management, that “stress a businesslike approach to governmentfocusing on performance indicators, deregulation and privatization, and makinggovernment 'function like a firm'” (Kickert et al. 1997, 3). In the local networks studied by Cole (1999)for example, business interests play a strong role, and rather than subjectingpolicy decisions to debate and control by citizens, take them to the shelter ofclosed cabinets.
Globalpolicy networks often display similar tendencies. For example the GlobalDevelopment Network put together by the World Bank is assembled together withthe Center for International Private Enterprise(CIPE) run by the US Chamber of Commerce. The members of this network belongCIPE’s Economic Freedom Network, that states as its mission to “advance thecause of economic freedom, democratic consolidation and business development” (www.cipe.org/efn,cited in Stone 2000, 170). “Cooperation with civil society” turns into lettingbusiness interests set the agenda.
But as Iaim to demonstrate in this paper, policy networks are not only a way ofoutsourcing state functions to private enterprise and to increase the influenceof business interests in policy making. The Finnish development cooperationpolicy network provides resources for organizing global debates participated inby various associations, and acts as a channel trough which these debates caninfluence Finnish national policy making. Such networks could, in principle, bea step from a centralized and heavily bureaucratic state towards openness andmore active citizen participation.
Three Examples of GlobalNetworks of Associations as the Basis of the Debates at the WSF
The first edition of the WSF in 2001attracted only a few Finnish participants representing the Network Institutefor Global Democratization (NIGD). In WSF 2002 the Finnish delegation consistedof 16 people. Six were representatives of the NIGD, two of the Trade UnionSolidarity Centre of Finland (SASK) and two of the Advisory Board for DevelopmentCooperation, an advisory body for the Department of Development Cooperation ofthe Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. One delegate represented each ofthe following: The Service Centre for Development Cooperation, a centralorganization that coordinates the development cooperation of Finnish NGOs, TheWorkers' Educational Association and Attac Finland. Three members of thedelegation were journalists. The delegation in 2003 was rather similar incomposition, but its size had increased to 21 persons.
Toillustrate the role of networks of associations as the basis of debates at theWSF, I shall take as examples three of the above-mentioned associations, namelythe NIGD, SASK and Attac. I shall provide a brief description of one debatethat each of these associations has participated in at the WSF by outlining theissue at stake in the debate, the composition of the network ofassociations engaged in the debate and the means by which each of these debatesaims to influence decision-making.
NIGD: North-South Dialogueon Global Democracy Initiatives
The NIDG is a think tank that “aims atpromoting global democratization by producing and developing emancipatoryknowledge for democratic movements, organizations and states.” (NetworkInstitute for Global Democratization - Goals, 2003). The institute was set upby a (Finnish) professor at the Nottingham Trent University. It is organized asa network of researchers based in Finland, Peru and India.
The issueat stake in the debates organized by the NIDG at the WSF was identifyingand evaluating different initiatives towards global democratization. Theinitiatives were 1) global taxation (on currency transactions and carbonmonoxide emissions), 2) UN reforms, 3) democratization of the Bretton Woods–institutions, 4) a north-south truth commission and 5) strengthening the WorldSocial Forum. The aim of the project was to bring out views held by actors inthe global south in debates on global governance that are often, according tothe project report, “heavily dominated by the northern/international researchinstitutes in general, and by Anglo-American writers in particular.” (Rikkilä& Sehm-Patomäki 2002, 15).
The networkthat acted as a basis for the debate consisted of associations based in theglobal south that mainly concentrate on research but engage also in otheractions. The four associations were the Forum du Tiers Monde, based inSenegal but networked to Asia and Latin America, the Centre for the Study ofDeveloping Societies in India, the Centro Flora Tristán in Peru andthe Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas in Brazil(Rikkilä & Sehm-Patomäki 2002, 16).
The meansof exerting influence were twofold: media presence and the Finnish developmentcooperation policy network. To gain the attention of the representatives of theglobal media present at the WSF, a large conference on global democracy initiativeswas organized besides the smaller-scale debates held among the representativesof the different organizations that took part in the project. As a memberorganization of the International Council of the WSF the NIGD was in a positionto put together an event in one of the larger arenas and with such superstarsof the Global Justice Movement as Susan George and Walden Bello. The conferenceattracted a large number of participants and managed to gain attention from thepress of different countries – though not the mainstream media in Finland. Somemedia attention in Finland was gained later when the project report waspublished.
Perhapsmore important, however, was the effort to influence those who make decisionsconcerning Finnish development cooperation. The North-South Dialogue –projectwas launched before the WSF with a workshop in Helsinki, organized jointly bythe NIGD and the Department for Development Cooperation of the Finnish ForeignMinistry. Representatives of the organizations participating in the projectwere met by the minister of foreign trade and the the minister of environmentand development cooperation, many officials, plus the former president ofFinland Martti Ahtisaari who before and after his term in office has worked invarious UN missions of development cooperation and related issues. Thisworkshop and the seminars organized in Finland after the WSF, when the projectreports were published, aimed at making the global democracy initiatives andsouthern organizations that promote them known to the civil servants and therepresentatives of the Finnish government.
SASK: Workers’ Rights inMultinational Corporations
SASK, The Trade Union Solidarity Centre ofFinland, implements development cooperation projects that mostly aim at strengtheningtrade unions in countries of the global south. The centre is affiliated to thecentral confederations of the Finnish trade unions. SASK sees its projects notonly as aid for those less well off, but as “a way of securing workers rightsglobally” that is taken to be to the advantage of workers both in the north andin the south (SASK 2003).
The issueat stake in the debates that SASK participated in at the WSF, thus, isworkers’ rights in the globalizing economy. The specific objective was to organizethe monitoring of working conditions at the plant of Nokia, a Finland-basedmultinational telecommunications company, in the free trade zone of Manaus inBrazil. Nokia controls over 50% of mobile phone sales in Brazil and is thelargest employer in the free zone of Manaus. The working conditions were to bechecked against five criteria set by the International Labor Organization: 1)the right to unionize, 2) the right to collectively bargained contracts, 3)forbidding child labor, 4) forbidding discrimination based on ethnic origin,gender, or political opinions or religious belief and 5) protection fromaccidents at the workplace.
The networkthat the public in question builds on consists of labor union related organizationsin south and north. The research institute conducting the monitoring process,the Observatorio Social (OS), is affiliated to the Central Unica dosTrabalhadores (CUT), the Brazilian confederation of trade unions. CUT isthe largest and the best-resourced of the Brazilian organizations that took theinitiative to organize the WSF. OS was created as a result of a project ofcooperation between the CUT and German and Dutch labor unions, to monitor theworking conditions in Brazil in plants operated by German and Dutch multinationals.
The globalnetworks of labor union related organizations have brought actors from othercountries to work with the OS. In the seminar organized by the OS at the WSFthere were for example representatives from the US trade union confederationAFL-CIO, who are interested in setting up a similar monitoring system in plantsowned by North American companies in the maquiladora zones of Mexico. SouthAfrican trade unionists were also present and are planning to establish aninstitute similar to the OS. In cooperation with several European trade unions,and with funding from the European Commission, the OS is also establishing anoffice in Brussels to enhance its capabilities to monitor European companies.
As in thecase of the NIGD, the means to exert influence were based on the mediaon the one hand, and networks reaching to the national level in Finland on theother – but in a configuration rather different from the previous case. Thestrategy was to produce a research report on the working conditions in theNokia plant, and in case the results were not favorable, tell the company thatif no improvements were made, the report would be made public. As mobile phonesare a heavily branded product, unfavorable publicity would have the potentialto greatly damage the company. The publication would first take place in thehome country of the company, Finland, where a national public debate on theethics of the largest company in the country could, it was thought, force themto act in case violations of the ILO conventions were to be found.
The tradeunion networks in Finland would not only take care of making public the reportbut also act as a means to exert influence on Nokia themselves. If necessary,the strong trade unions of Finland could use their floor-level organization inFinnish plants of the company to put pressure on them to improve workingconditions in Brazil.
Theresearch was conducted, but the negative publicity campaign or the trade unionpressure actions never took place – because no violations of the ILO codes werefound. The wages, benefits and working conditions in the Nokia plant of Manauswere, to the contrary, well above Brazilian minimum requirements. The reportwas published nevertheless; it is a part of the strategy of the OS to give positivefeedback when it is deserved. The workers in the Manaus plant were familiarizedwith trade union activity and the company became conscious that they aremonitored as a result of the project.
Attac: The Global CurrencyTransaction Tax
Attac (Association pour la Taxation desTransactions Financières pour l’aide aux Citoyens) was established inFrance in 1998, and rapidly spread to some 50 countries all over the world.Attac now has tens of thousands of members worldwide, 2500 of whom belong toAttac Finland, established in 2001. The association was born in the course ofpublic debate on the drawbacks vs. the benefits of economic globalization, as aresult of the proposal by Ignacio Ramonet in the French periodical Le MondeDiplomatique. Attac was one of the most important organizations ininitiating the WSF, in particular creating ties of cooperation between theBrazilian organizers and the participants from the North.
Theprincipal issue at stake for Attac is the establishment of a global currencytransaction tax (CTT). The CTT, also known as the Tobin tax, would be a smalltax levied on currency transactions. Its purpose is to stabilize the rapidlygrowing and increasingly volatile global financial markets, to decrease thestructural power of transnational financial capital vis-a-vis states and toprovide tax revenue that could be used to finance development in the poorerregions of the world. At the WSF many debates on this theme have been arranged,the latest being the workshop debating and improving the Draft Treaty for aninternational agreement on the CTT at the WSF 2003. The workshop was organizedjointly by Attacs of different countries, including Finland, and the NIGD.
The networkat the basis of this debate is the global network of national and localchapters of Attac itself. In many countries, like France and Germany, otherorganizations that support the CTT have become members of the Attac network. InFinland Attac accepts only individuals as members. Other associations besidesAttac have also been campaigning on the CTT. These include the Canadian Halifaxinitiative, the US-based Tobin Tax Initiative and War on Want in the UK. Ofintergovernmental organizations the United Nations Development Programme hasworked on the CTT, but has been forced to back off under pressure from theUnited States (Patomäki 1999).
The meansto exert influence of the CTT campaign pass, again, largely trough the nationallevel, and include both media presence and less open lobbying. The importanceof influencing decisions in the national level stems from the fact that theintergovernmental bodies that might, in principle have the mandate to furtherthe development of global taxation – like the IMF, World Bank, G8 or even theEuropean Union – are in practice unwilling to so. The aim of the campaign is,therefore, to find a state that would be willing to organize an internationalconference, as a result of which a number of countries would sign a treaty toimplement the tax. This, in turn, would require that a certain number of countrieswould, in advance, express their willingness to sign the treaty.
At theheight of the global public debate on the CTT, in the wake of the Asianeconomic crisis of 1997, leftist and green parties in various countriesexpressed support for the tax. Some parliaments, for example in Canada, passeda bill that required the government to take the initiative to promote the CTTinternationally. (Patomäki 1999, 51-52.)
In Finland,the NIGD and the NGO Service centre for development cooperation, Kepa, launcheda campaign for the tax in 1999, well before the establishment of Attac Finland.The campaign included research work by the NIGD and a publication of a book onthe subject. Media attention was gained by interviews given by the researchers,and by some journalists of the top papers in the country investigating into thesubject. Kepa set up a web discussion forum and printed material on the CTT. Anopinion poll was conducted by a tv-channel, with the result that over seventyper cent of members of the Finnish parliament were in favor of the tax(Eduskunta Tobinin veron puolella 2001). The connections of the campaigners tothe Green and the Allied Left parties, which were part of the five-party“rainbow coalition” government, were actively used to promote the tax.“Charting the possibilities to curb international financial speculation” wasput on the agenda of the newly elected government.
Thepossibilities were charted in a report commissioned by the Ministry of Finance.The group of economists writing the report concluded the CTT to be aninefficient, unrealistic project that would hinder the beneficial workings ofliberalized financial markets (Ministry of Finance 2001). Kepa and NIGDproduced their own counter-report (Kepa 2001), but in vain. The governmentconcluded that no further action needed to be taken. The following year areport commissioned by the German Ministry of the Environment, also produced byan independent working group of economic experts, concluded the CTT to be bothefficient and feasible (Spahn 2002).
As regardsthe relation of global debates and national decision-making, a further interestingfact is worth noticing. The national CTT campaign in Finland was started as aresult of global debates concerning the tax. Even though this campaign inFinland produced no political decisions, it did produce material on the subjectthat entered back into global debates. The book on the tax in Finnish waspublished in revised form for the English-speaking audience (Patomäki 2001).Parts of it were also published in Brazil (Portuguese) and Indonesia(Indonesian).
In 2002NIGD took the expertise gained in the Finnish debate and produced, togetherwith Belgian colleagues, the Draft Treaty, that is meant to serve as a basisfor a global campaign for the CTT (Patomäki and Denys 2002). The global debateon the CTT has also served as a focal point in the process that produced anetwork of Attac chapters all over the world, that now take on many other tasksbesides campaigning on the CTT – including their important role in the creationof the World Social Forum.
The Finnish DevelopmentCooperation Policy Network as a Provider of Resources and as a Channel ofInfluence
All of the three associations examinedabove belong, in one way or another, to what I call the Finnish developmentcooperation policy network. The network is formed around the Department ofDevelopment Cooperation of the Finnish Foreign Ministry, and consists ofassociations that take part in formulating development cooperation policies andimplementing development projects funded by the ministry.
Asdemonstrated above, the network provided both the NIGD North-South Dialogue–project and the Attac-NIDG-Kepa –initiated currency transaction tax –campaignwith possibilities to make themselves heard and potentially influencedecisions. With SASK this was not the case. No talks with the representativesof the Finnish of Brazilian administrative bodies were conducted; the means ofexerting influence were, in addition to the media, trade union networks insidethe Nokia Corporation.
But in allthree cases, the development cooperation policy network provided theassociations with resources to take part in the debates at the WSF. The NIGDNorth-South Dialogues were for the most part funded by the Foreign Ministry.Most of the money was used for travel costs of delegates from the global southto the WSF. Roughly two thirds of SASK’s funding comes from the ForeignMinistry, the rest being provided by trade unions<![if !supportFootnotes]>[2]<![endif]>. Attac also received a small sum form theministry to pay the way of one of their own delegates as well as four delegatesfrom their southern partner organizations to the WSF.
It has tobe emphasized, however, that none of these associations were established towork for the Finnish government, nor are they exclusively dependent on statefunding. The NIGD’s base funding comes from the Nottingham Trent University andprojects have been funded by many different foundations and institutions besidesthe Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. SASK, though most heavilydependent on the state of these three organizations, still receives a third ofits funding from the trade unions that have established it. Attac Finland hasbeen established as an association that relies for its funding on the fees paidby individual members, and the only funding it has received from the Finnishstate was the small sum granted for participation at the WSF.
Besidesthese three examples, most of the other Finnish participant organizations tothe WSF have been involved in the development cooperation policy network. Kepa,referred to above, is a node in this network, a central organization that otherFinnish organizations involved in development cooperation belong to as members.Kepa receives funding from the Foreign Ministry. The Workers’ EducationalAssociation, besides their activities in Finland, implements developmentcooperation projects funded partly by the state. The Advisory Board forDevelopment Cooperation is one of the important elements in the policy networkthat fosters dialogue and exchange of resources between NGOs and theadministration. It acts as an advisory body for the Department of DevelopmentCooperation of the Foreign Ministry, and its members represent politicalparties, trade unions and employers’ organizations, research institutes andNGOs.
The Finnishparticipants to the WSF have, then, represented mostly organizations that arefairly well established and belong to the Development cooperation policynetwork. This inclination can partly be explained simply by the high cost oftravel to Brazil. It takes an established organization to whom meeting southernpartner organizations is important to have the resources and to be willing tospend them for expensive flight tickets. This is not to say that the whole WSFprocess would be, from a Finnish perspective, a project reserved for awell-resourced elite of professional activists: The European Social Forum 2003in Paris, much closer and cheaper to get to, gathered a couple of busloads ofFinnish participants from environmentalists to trade unionists and anarchiststo young politicians.
Indevelopment cooperation, like in many other policy sectors, the trend seems tobe from policy programmes centrally planned and implemented by the statetowards network-like arrangements where different types of actors participate.In Finland, state funding of development cooperation projects implemented byNGOs began in 1974. The funding was multiplied by ten during the first sixyears and by ten again during the period of next eight years (Rekola 1994,86-102; 152-155). From the beginning of 1990’s the share of NGOs from thedevelopment cooperation budget of the Finnish state has been around ten percent.<![if !supportFootnotes]>[3]<![endif]> According to the annual report ofthe Foreign Ministry on development cooperation, experiences from projectsimplemented by NGOs are positive, and there are plans to further increase theshare of the budget dedicated to NGOs (The Ministry for Foreign Affairs ofFinland 2002, 150).
Outsourcingstate functions to private enterprise has, on various occasions, provedproblematic: One well-known example is the privatization of British Rail thatled to poor quality of service and accidents and led to re-nationalization ofparts of the enterprise. Another one is the privatization of water companies inSouth Africa that left the poor with no water to drink. On the other hand,groups that have brought to light these problems related to privatization,especially as caused by multinational companies in the global south, may have,somewhat paradoxally, benefited from the same trend of states willing to decentralizetheir functions. In which ways these two trends – the decentralization of thestate’s economic functions by outsourcing to private companies and thedecentralization via policy networks that include NGOs and other such actors –are related, remains a question open to further research.
One thing,however, seems to be clear: By encouraging the formation of policy networkslike the one described above, states do not only buy services, such as implementationof development cooperation projects, form non-governmental organizations. Theyalso support structures that can act as a breeding ground for critical publicdebates. If offered the possibility, the organizations involved in implementingpartly state-funded projects do not settle for just implementation. They alsoengage in debates to influence policymaking in their particular policy sector,and this debate is conducted, besides meeting rooms, also in the mass media.Policy networks can act as channels through which the voices in these debatesthat sometimes take on a global dimension can enter national decision-makingstructures.
But isproviding support for associations a phenomenon limited to the well-off socialdemocratic corporatist states of the North? The case of the World Social Forumseems to illustrate the contrary. The WSF has been supported financially andorganizationally by the governments of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and thecity of Porto Alegre, controlled by the Brazilian Workers’ Party, PT<![if !supportFootnotes]>[4]<![endif]>. And there are other types ofcontact between the party-political apparatus, the administration and theassociations organizing the WSF. For example, The Confederation of BrazilianTrade Unions, CUT, that is the largest organization involved in organizing theWSF, also has strong connections to the Worker’s party, PT. The president ofBrazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of the PT, began his political career as atrade union leader in the CUT.
Someobservers have critically pointed to these links and expressed disapproval ofthe strong (at least visual) presence of the PT at the WSF. However, ratherthan a single annual event, the WSF is a continuous global process: Continentalforums have been organized in Asia, Africa and Europe, many countries are nowholding national social forums, and the main WSF event in 2004 will beorganized in Mumbai, India. The connections between the participants of some ofthese events to some national political parties or administrative structurescannot, therefore, lead to a takeover of the whole WSF process by any suchparty or administration.
Conclusion
The World Social Forum can be seen as ahost of publics; it is where NGOs, trade unions, social movements and variousother types of actors come together to take part in global public debates. Inthis paper, I have examined some of the factors that make possible such debatesand, in particular, the ways in which these debates enter national contexts andinfluence decision-making on the national level.
Like thebourgeois publics of the era when the idea and institutions of the publicsphere developed, the publics of the World Social Forum are based on networksof associations. Global public debates are made possible by the increasingglobal interconnectedness of such networks. The network of research institutesthat the NIGD belongs to, the trade union network that SASK is a part of, andthe global network of national Attacs are examples of these. At the WSF,members of these networks come together as publics, each to deliberate upon aparticular issue.
The meansof exerting influence of these global publics seem to be twofold. On the onehand they aim to influence public opinion through presence in the media, and onthe other hand influence decision-makers more directly through policy networks.Both ways of influencing could, in principle, be used in the global level.There is some sort of a global public sphere, existing through global mediainstitutions, from news agencies to satellite TV to websites that are followedaround the world, where debates can be said to circulate globally. There arealso some global decision-making structures, such as intergovernmentalorganizations, and policy networks that are formed around these, and could beused to bring opinions formed in global debates to the ears of decision-makers.
However, inall three cases I have examined, the means of influencing both through themedia and policy networks seem to pass to a large extent through the nationallevel. The importance of the national level stems from the fact that both thepublic sphere and democratic decision-making structures on the global levelstill are far from what they are nationally.
Despite theabove-mentioned global media institutions, the global public sphere consistsmainly of individual national and local public spheres. Discourses spill overfrom one of these to the others and back, but as media institutions are stillmainly national, and work in national languages of different countries, trulyglobal debates that would be participated in by people form all parts of theworld are, on the level of mass media, still weak compared to national publicspheres. Publics where people participate in from around the globe may beformed through arrangements like the WSF. But when the scope of circulation ofdiscourses of these publics is widened to include larger numbers ofparticipants, this seems to occur by everybody going back to their homecountries and trying to bring the debate with them to the agendas of nationalmedia.
But it isnot only the strength of national media institutions in relation to the globalones that contribute to the importance of the national level in findingchannels of influence for global debates. More important, perhaps, is the lackof global democratic decision-making structures. Global political decisionsoccur in intergovernmental institutions, where citizens are not representeddirectly, but by their country. The UN general assembly, where thedecision-making procedure is based on the principle of one country/one vote todayhas very little power. International financial institutions (IMF, World Bank),where the principle is one dollar/one vote and the WTO where large and wealthycountries have in practice dictated the decisions play a much more importantrole (Patomäki & Teivainen 2003, 30-32, 38). The degree of responsivenessof these institutions to the views presented in public debates is not clear(see cf. Brown & Fox 2001, 43-45), but it seems, in any case, to be farfrom that of national decision-making structures.
At thenational level, in the context of multi-party democracies and more inclusivepolicy networks, the number of different channels through which opinions formedin global debates can enter decision-making structures, are more multifaceted.Of my three examples, the best illustration of this phenomenon is the case ofAttac and the debate on the currency transaction tax. As the internationalfinancial institutions or other intergovernmental organizations do not seem tobe responsive to this type of initiatives, both media debate and influencingthrough policy networks are practiced at the national level. Existinginstitutions and networks, in this case Kepa and their connections toadministrative structures and some political parties in the government were usedfor this purpose, fostered by the media debate initiated at the same time. TheNIGD’s North-South dialogue project equally focused on influencing Finnishdecision-makers and bringing opinions from the global south to their ears.SASK, in its turn, was prepared to launch a media debate and a trade unionpressure campaign in the home country of the Nokia Corporation, had the resultof the OS evaluation been less positive.
But therole of national policy networks is not limited to the ways in which they mayact as channels of influence. As all three of my examples show, they can alsoprovide resources for the organizing of global public debates. The extent towhich administrations choose to encourage the formation of policy networks toprovide groups of citizens with resources and means of influencing policymakingof course varies from one country to another. Furthermore, the interactionbetween associations (and the publics that they give rise to), the party systemand administrative structures is a tricky terrain. Administrations may chooseto include in policy networks only certain types of actors holding certaintypes of views instead of keeping them open to a diversity of participants,political parties may attempt to turn events like the Social forums to sites oftheir electoral campaigns and so on.
However,these and other possible risks involved should not lead us to take the interactionbetween associations, publics, parties and administrations as a problem, butrather, so some extent an inevitable fact that should be an object ofsociological analysis. Is the Finnish case I have presented an exception? Docomparable policy networks exist in other countries, and what is their role inproviding resources and channels of influence to the global publics of the WSF?How do different decision-making structures and national political culturesaffect the reception of global debates? Comparative research on how globalpublic debates enter national contexts and influence national decision-makingstructures is needed in order to better understand the globalization of publicdebates as a part of the process of globalizing democracy.
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