December 07, 2012 12:30 PM

Talk by Steven Bernstein, Associate Professor at the University of Toronto on public non-state authority and global governance.

Practices of “publicness” increasingly render ostensibly “private” social and environmental global governance institutions public, limiting the utility of the old public/private analytic divide.  Their constitution as public stems from the public ends they pursue, the public recognition of their authority to pursue those ends, and requirements for political legitimacy that demand practices of “publicness” that are the corollary to public authority.  These institutions engage in practices to produce public non-state authority that range from democratic processes to those that define legitimate international standards under international law, and arise from an interaction of international social structure and “communities of practice,” mediated by institutional and productive power.  To illustrate this, Professor Bernstein will look at transnational climate change governance initiatives, and member organizations of the ISEAL Alliance.

Steven Bernstein is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. His research interests are in global governance, global environmental politics, international political economy, globalization and internationalization of public policy and international institutions. His publications include, The Compromise of Liberal Environmentalism (Columbia University Press, 2001); Global Liberalism and Political Order: Toward a New Grand Compromise?, co-edited with Louis W. Pauly (SUNY Press, 2007), as well as a number of book chapters in edited volumes and refereed articles.

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Hosted by the Liu Institute and the department of Political Science