The importance of non-state actors in the World politics.

Research Paper Revision

Duisheev Nurlan

ICP-100

28.04.02 The Importance Of Non-State Actors In The World Politics

The world is certainly changing its political appearance. That is related to the growing interdependence of states to each other that in turn is related to the emergence of strong non-state actors. States and tremendously growing transnational actors inevitably influences the history of humankind. Today there is an ongoing debate considering the significance of the world political actors: “which of them have more impact on world’s political issues?”

First, I will deal with the operational definitions, given by some prominent thinkers, of the actors in the world stage that are discussed and try to provide broad explanations to the activities conducted by each actor. Arguments proving the importance of the non-state actors, the differences between the actors, and the problems that states are facing will be given briefly in the very middle. The conclusion will be drawn from the perspective of changing world towards pluralism.

There is a little ambiguity in the meanings of some terms: state, non-state actors, transnational corporations. It is easier to understand if I use technical terms by operational definitions. Peter Willets figured out the meaning of some key concepts that are considered useful among other thinkers:

“A state is an entity that is recognized to exist when a government is in control of a community of people within a defined territory, having the executive, legislative, judiciary, armed forces, and police in order to carry out certain policies with regard to its own interests” [Willets, 289].

“Non-state actor is a term used to mean any actor that is not a government”[Willets, 289].

“Transnational actor is any non-governmental actor from one country that has relations with any actor from another country or with an international organization” [Willets, 289].

“Sovereignty simply means the condition of a state being free from any higher legal authority” [Willets, 289].

“Realism is a theoretical approach that analyzes all international relations as the relations of states engaged in the pursuit of power. Realism cannot accommodate any non-state actors within its analysis” [Willets, 289].

“Pluralism is also a theoretical approach that considers all organized groups as being potential political actors and analyses the processes by which actors mobilize support to achieve policy goals. It can encompass, contrary to realism, non-governmental organizations, companies, and international organizations” [Willets, 289].

From the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 the principle of modern nation-state was established. Most of the states are considered to be sovereign and have equal power “in the eyes of international law” to enforce their own policies in the international arena [Russet, 55]. However, in reality some state-actors are more sovereign and freer than others and have more influencing power. That is because of the unequal distribution of resources, capabilities, available menus, and ability to exploit others. Since each country has its own national interests, it pursues to implement its policies and receive the expected results. In this kind of international relations, states find their interests conflicting with another states’ interests, so they face inevitable problems of finding reasonable solutions for their interfering goals. An example is the United States’ bombing of Afghanistan: so-called “War on Terror”, an aggressive reaction to the events, which took place in New York in September 2001.

In order to prevent such terrible actions they need to cooperate with each other, so they should find compromises to their clashing interests. It is the main reason for the creation of such international organizations like United Nations, whose primary goal is to keep peace in the world and the facilitation of relations between states in the international level. States will increasingly need such IOs because they are highly specialized in their fields and can perform certain tasks better than the states. Consequently, the importance of these international organizations will grow by the growing complexity of international affairs. The importance ...

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All political writers divided non-state actors into two categories: intergovernmental and nongovernmental international organizations.

How does these organizations affect the global political world? Most of the countries are the members of intergovernmental organizations, which vary in terms of their political, economic, military, developmental, social, and cultural scopes. Some of these agencies, such as United Nations, have very wide range of functions and some, like African Postal Union, have very narrow. They have significant and continuing impact on interstate relations. Their power has grown so much that they can affect the foreign policy of the member states. These agencies can work passively simply by organizing meeting places for conferences and forums or actively by becoming a high-ranking mediator between conflicting states [Goldstein, 298]. In some cases when states lose authorities, non-state actors take leading roles. For example: in 1990, UN provided aid to Kuwait despite that it was invaded by Iraq [Waller, 609]. Another evidence of help activities of UN is the bringing up the order in Somalia in 1993 [Waller, 632].

Another example dealing with the strong financial intergovernmental organization is the case of World Bank: its impact on the domestic policy of developing countries. Particularly during Asian Financial Crisis in 1998, most Asian countries with serious economic troubles looked for aid at World Bank. For instance, Kyrgyzstan government had to follow the instructions of World Bank (WB) even they contradicted to the policies of Kyrgyz government to reduce percentage of value added tax to 10 %. Kyrgyzstan terribly struggled between WB and tax reform. The result was that our government did not achieve its major objective for the development of tax system. That was due to the power of WB, which provides credits for countries only if certain conditions are met by governments. Here we see how non-state actor influenced and even dramatically changed the policies of state in economic terms.

According to Russet, only few IGOs can be regarded as supranational, to which member states have granted the authority to act independently and to make binding decisions for member states, so that even those who do not agree with the decisions have to obey them [Russet, 61]. European Union is the sole support for this argument, however even this organization does not have complete authority above its member states. Despite that, it has some organs like European Commission, which had developed extensive independent authority in recent years.

Nongovernmental organizations are private international actors made up of individuals or national groups, who are not the official representatives of national governments. These organizations exist “below” the state level and, like the IGOs; deal with various kinds of issues [Russet, 62]. The important function of these institutions is the ability to act as pressure groups affecting national governments or international organizations. Political focus of most of the NGOs is usually on national governments, and they are effective through changing the government policy [Goldstein, 299]. Non-state actors reflect the structure and distribution of power of the states and by existing in a tremendous numbers; they inevitably become important and eventually affect the menu of constraints and possibilities of states. Building his theses on the approach known as Pluralism, P. Willets gives a broader picture of world politics, where all actors are considered to have some influence on shaping of political outcomes. He asserts that it is an unacceptable political bias to decide that only states have the influence in the international arena. The importance of each will vary from issue to issue.

Russet emphasizes additional factor that contributes to the growing importance of the non-state actors: it is the huge economic power of MNCs. In early 1990s, the top 100 multinational corporations had control of $ 4 trillion in assets, another $ 4 trillion in sales and employed more than 12 million people around the world [Russet, 63]. Surely, these giants will affect the policies of many governments. These are huge oil companies, mostly they emerge as competitors to nation-states, and so they are deeply involved in domestic policies of host countries. They do it either by supporting specific parties, candidates, financing coups or by bribery at a last resort. Mostly, large MNCs have succeeded operating in newly established countries after the WWII. With huge financial resources, they have great advantages in interfering and to some extent may be directing the domestic economic policies of these infant states [Goldstein, 336].

P. Willets challenges the importance of national governments by following statement: “First, states are weak at the face of the economic activities of transnational companies and the violent threats from criminals and guerrillas. Second reason is that NGOs engage in such a web of global relations, including participation in diplomacy, that governments have lost their political independence” [Willets, 293]. He argues that sovereignty of states is diminished in terms of economic activities of transnational companies: especially they do not have control over the currencies and foreign trade of these strong organizations. Financial Crisis of 1980s has proved states’ inability, when world’s most powerful countries failed to control the sharp inflation of their currencies [Willets, 293]. Actions of huge companies during conflict in 1980s between Argentina and Britain, and during Cold War between Cuba and United States also prove the impotence of these powerful countries against the transnational banks and other speculators [Waller, 657]. The sovereignty of states over the transnational relations of its citizens is also diminished by the effect of globalization in the telecommunication spheres. This is proved by the Tianamen Square killings which was shown directly at Western television as it took place in China; the Zapatista leader during the rebellion in southern Mexico could transmit the press releases to the US from his portable computer, while on the run from government troops. Willets proposes to understand the global world politics not as a system of states but as the world with complex systems, with an actors from different levels: state and non-state actors starting from national governments and ending up with individuals [Willets 301].

Some examples provided below is a strong evidence to challenge the states sovereignty. Overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala with the help of United Fruit Company in 1954, and removal of the Mossadegh government in Iran with the assistance of British Petroleum in 1953 are classical examples to strengthen my arguments [Waller, 316-318]. However, individuals are less effective than national groups as pressure groups in the international politics with only few exceptions. Russet refers to example of German teenager, who acting “on a behalf of world peace” landed his light plane in Red Square in 1987, exposing the vulnerabilities of Soviet air defenses and leading to the dismissal of the defense minister [Russet, 63].

Finally, the strongest and recent example that made the US and other leading countries of the world to take dramatic actions is the terrorist attacks of Al-Qaeda network under Osama bin Laden destroying the World Trade center in New York. The Pentagon, which was also terribly damaged, failed to keep the security of US in this particular case. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of United Nations stressed the vulnerability of states in front of the terrorist groups in his speech to the General Assembly on 1 October 2001: "It is hard to imagine how the tragedy of 11 September could have been worse. Yet, the truth is that a single attack involving a nuclear or biological weapon could have killed millions.” Bolotbek Shamshiev Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to United Arab Emirates in his interview to “Delo” stressed: “11 September 2001 changed the agenda of all countries in the world, even the states with different interests had united. That terrible day changed the path of the history.”

There certainly arises a logical question: So, which one is the most important political actor in the international arena? From the inquiry I have done, I would say that there is no clear and definite answer to this interesting issue. The problem arises, as we have seen earlier, from the variety of actors and their different abilities and functions. Here we have problem of considering the state as the most important actor, but it is worth stressing that there are around 200 states, which vary in their abilities, therefore some are strong, and some are weak. The same problem arises when we consider non-state actors, such as MNCs, non-governmental organizations, terrorist groups, which also differ in their capabilities.

Therefore, we have to distinguish the strong actors from weak ones. It is neither easy nor desirable to evaluate each actor’s importance separate from others. Because the politics of today’s world is so interconnected, that even a little action taken by one of the actors, state or non-state, can lead to huge changes in the policies of other big actors of the world. Therefore, it is hard to answer to my initial question. It is useful to conclude that today the primary actor of the world is the state. They make the main moves in order to pursue their interests. However, non-state actors have to be taken into consideration while states are making some calculations about their strategies that may affect other actors in the international arena.

References

John Baylis & Steve Smith, (1997), The Globalization of World Politics: An introduction to international relations// Willets Peter, Transnational Actors and International Organizations in Global Politics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc).
Russet, B. Starr, H. Kinsella, D. (2000), World Politics: Menu for choice. (New York: Bedford).
Waller Philip, Roucet John (1995), Chronology of the 20th Century. (UK: Helicon).
Goldstein S. Joshua (2001), International Relations. (New York: Longman).

Internet resources

Bolotbek Shamshiev’s, Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to United Arab Emirates, interview available from

http://www.delo.elcat.kg/archiv2/28/4.htm [Accessed 19 April 2002]

Kofi Annan’s speech to the General Assembly on 1 October 2001 available from

http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/terrorism.htm [Accessed 19 April 2002]

http://www.boston.com/news/packages/underattack/osamavid/video_collection.htm [Accessed 19 April 2002]
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020416-1.html [Accessed 10 April 2002]
http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/goldstein_awl/chapter7/deluxe.html

[Accessed 15 April 2002]