Democracy and accountability: the challenge for cross-sectoral partnerships*

James Meadowcroft

I would like to thank the Canada Research Chairs for supporting the program of research which gave rise to this essay

2 This chapter examines the democratic credentials of strategic cross-sectoral partnerships for sustainable development. Over the past decade collaborative interactions that draw together novel combinations of actors from government, business and civil society have increasingly come to be seen as critical to promoting sustainable development (WSSD 2002). But worries about the real impact of such partnerships remain. For the most part debate has focused on effectiveness: can partnerships actually promote better environment and development outcomes. Here I would like to address a related anxiety -- that partnerships have weak representative and participatory foundations, and that their widespread deployment will ultimately undermine democratic norms and practices. The argument is organized into six parts: (1) a brief introduction; (2) a presentation of the democratic critique of partnerships; (3) an initial reply to this critique; (4) a more positive statement of the democratic potential of partnerships; (5) consideration of the additional complexities posed by international partnerships; and (6) the implications for the future. 1. Introduction Today partnerships are everywhere. To some extent this reflects the evolution of political idiom. The term has a positive normative resonance intimating ongoing interaction, mutually shared goals, and collaboration on the basis of equality. So it is constantly pressed into service. But the move toward partnerships also appears to herald a deeper change in modes of governance, as states and other actors respond to growing societal complexity, to the difficulty of applying traditional approaches to handle emergent problems, and to the internationalization of economic and political life (Kooiman 2000, Pierre and Peters 2000). A comprehensive democratic audit of partnerships would imply a detailed assessment of the particular characteristics of the vast array of institutional forms gathered under this label. Partnerships may be understood to vary according to: the area of environment and development decision-making concerned; the geographic and jurisdictional scale of partnering activities; the sectors from which participants are drawn (state/business/civil society); the purposes and functions of the initiative; the selection of participants and operational procedures; as well as linkages to other mechanisms of governance and processes of democratic decision-making. For an individual partnership the evaluation of democratic impacts would depend also on the way all this was operationalized, the political contexts in which the partnership was created and operated, and its interactions with other actors and processes. Detailed discussion of different types of partnership lies beyond the scope of this chapter. And so the arguments presented here are necessarily general, assessing the extent to which the partnership phenomenon writ-large represents a challenge to democratic rule. Nevertheless, it is possible to specify at the outset that the kinds of partnership with which we are essentially concerned are those where actors from more than one societal sector engage strategically to manage problems related to sustainable development. Such bodies necessarily have a public character (even if all the participants are private actors, such as businesses or NGOs) because they claim to undertake actions (rule making; fostering technical and/or social innovation; managing an issue area or development process; promoting education; and so on) that serves public ends. Thus the discussion does not primarily relate to partnerships that are basically commercial arrangements (for example, publicly funded but privately managed infrastructure projects), or that are essentially vehicles through which agencies distribute funding to recipients (including many of the so-called type-two parnerships arranged in the run-up to the WSSD in Johannesburg). Instead the concern is with problem solving partnerships that take up the collective management of societal problems.

3 A decade ago William Lafferty and I applied the term cooperative management regimes to capture the character of this type of partnership, which involves organisations with their roots in different domains of societal life coming together around practical problems linked to the promotion of sustainable development (Lafferty and Meadowcroft 1996). But there are many other ways to conceptualise such arrangements. Some researchers have referred to the emergence of joint environmental policy making (Mol, Lauber and Liefferink 2000; Mol 2003). Others have emphasised the growth of rule-making in which government has no part -- business/business linkages, civil society/civil society unions, and business/civil society partnerships (Pattberg 2004, 2005). And the ideas of network management, interactive governance, collaborative environmental governance, and cooperative environmental governance have also informed discussion (Glasbergen and Driessen 1993; Glasbergen 1998; Koontz, Steelman, Carmin, Korfmacher, Moseley and Thomas 2004; Edelebonos 2005). 2. The democratic critique of partnerships The core of the democratic critique of partnerships involves two interrelated arguments. The first suggests these processes are not really democratic: the constitution and operation of partnerships falls short of the norms of representation, interaction and accountability that democracy entails. The second suggests that by tolerating or actively encouraging the emergence of such bodies democratically elected governments are potentially alienating powers that should be used to promote the public good. With respect to the first line of argument, points are made concerning representation, participation, equity, and accountability. To start with, most partnerships are hardly models of democratic representation. Participants typically reflect a narrow subset of all those who might be affected by the issue under discussion. Those who could speak for the disadvantaged (the poor, minorities, and so on), or those whose views are inconvenient to the multi-national corporations, government agencies and establishment-oriented environmental groups sponsoring the process are most likely to be excluded. Even if there is no deliberate intention to bar these interests, underprivileged constituencies are less likely to generate professionalized organizations that form attractive partners for such exercises. And if there are many such processes (on different topics, at different scales) the resources of groups that do exist will be stretched further. Moreover, the wider the political/geographic scale over which partnerships are established (moving from locality to region, to country, and to the international realm) the more tenuous any claim to representivity that can be made on behalf of participating bodies. Because the groups are bound to be increasingly remote from any direct contact with the constituencies they are supposed to be representing. Above all, these mechanisms take up issues of public policy without giving the concerned individuals and collectivities the right to chose who is to speak in their name. They embody representation from above, rather than applying the democratic principle that people are entitled to select (and deselect) those who are to act on their behalf. Then there is participation. Although governments talk glibly about encouraging participation in decision-making, they systematically conflate participation by citizens and participation by stakeholders. But these are quite different. Participants in multi-stakeholder processes are not ordinary citizens coming together to take part in the governance of their community. What you have instead are leaders and paid officials of lobby groups meeting with government personnel in an attempt to stitch up a deal that can then be sold to the public. Thus to the extent that partnerships are participatory at all, they privilege elite, over democratic, forms of

4 participation. And as an ever great role is given to organized groups, the relative influence of ordinary citizens acting as citizens is correspondingly diminished. Next there are the power differentials which mean that partnerships are not the equitable ventures that some pretend. Although participants in a co-operative venture are formally equal, they are not really equal. Business participants are certain to wield greater influence. They already enjoy the ear of government officials, who are eager to maintain a positive economic climate, and are conscious of every nuance that might impact on investment and jobs. Financial resources give the for-profit sector an unfair advantage for corporations have no difficulty attending discussions, preparing material, bringing forward experts, and so on. In contrast, civil society organisations are poorly funded, and they lack the personnel and assets required to participate on an equal footing. Similar differentials exist among organisations based in different regions with NGOs from developed states being comparatively wealthy in comparison to those from the South. Indeed this is true also of governmental organisations, where poorer countries may lack the resources to participate in partnerships on an equal footing. Thus real power inequities can vitiate the egalitarian pretensions of partnerships. Finally, there are issues of accountability. To whom are such partnerships accountable? Certainly not to voters, who have no say in their constitution. Nor to local governments or national parliaments, where members may struggle to find out what is actually happening. Moreover, the participating groups are also unlikely to be internally democratic. Business corporations are not run on democratic lines. Executives and boards have more or less unlimited control over their day to day operations. And NGOs the supposed standard bearers of civil society in such processes actually have rather dubious democratic credentials. Leaders are often un-elected. Members may have little say over the orientation of the organisation. And while all sorts of groups claim to speak for one interest or another, there are no formal mechanisms by which they can be called to account for their actions. Without such mechanisms, those who take decisions are not responsible to those who must bear the consequences, and the feedback link that is so critical to democratic politics is missing. The second line of argument focuses on the systemic implications of partnerships, and the claim is that by devolving authority to such bodies democratic institutions are abandoning their responsibility to govern in the public interest. When areas of societal decision-making are handed over to bodies made up of representatives of particular groups, there can be no guarantee that the public interest and the common good will prevail. In fact they are almost certain not to prevail, because the interests at the table all have particular axes to grind. The systematic turn toward partnerships thus appears either as a move towards private governance or a move towards corporatist governance -- depending on the configuration of actors and the role assumed by government. If government stands back from the process, leaving things to private actors (businesses and civil society organisation in various combinations), or if governments adopt a passive role (even if they are formally at the table), then we are headed towards private interest governance where the different spheres of social life are divided up and ruled by implicated interests as they see fit. If government is a more active partner then we are headed towards neocorporatism -- where the state and major sectoral organizations work together to devise solutions which they impose on society as a whole (Ottaway 2001). Either way, democracy is the casualty. For democracy is not just about consensus. It is also about the majority taking decisions, and pushing through with reforms that are judged to be in the best interests of the community as a whole. In the context of sustainable development this seems particularly pertinent, because organized interests that benefit from current (unsustainable) practices will certainly resist change.

5 And the cosy collaborative relationships established in private interest or corporatist governance may simply encourage complacency, mutual accommodation and incrementalism, rather than a determined drive for change. Thus by weakening democratic control, partnerships may contribute more to political sclerosis than to innovation for sustainability. 3. A democratic defence of partnerships There are various ways that one might respond to this sort of critique. One option is to accept that the democratic credentials of partnerships are weak, but to suggest that other advantages particularly positive environment and development outcomes outweigh this shortcoming. In governance, there are always trade-offs, and perhaps this trade-off is acceptable. On the other hand, it may not be necessary to concede this democratic deficiency so readily. To mount a democratic defence of co-operative management approaches we will first respond to the criticisms of the sceptics, and then move on to offer a more positive account. Let us take the elements of the critique one by one, starting with the four points focused on the partnerships themselves. 1. Representation. Partnerships operate on the basis of functional representation. Individuals sit at the table because they represent an organized stakeholder in a particular issue matrix. There is nothing illegitimate about this. Election is not the only form of representation appropriate to a democratic polity. In different circumstances a representative may be nominated by a sponsoring agency (a scientist chosen for a government advisory panel), appointed by the party to be represented (a lawyer selected by a client), or picked by an independent adjudicator (a trustee designated by a court). Representatives can also be self-selected, as when one speaks up on behalf of a group to which one belongs, or for a cause one believes to be just. In fact, there are many types of representation, but what is important is that the mechanism employed corresponds to the function required. In this case, the purpose is to draw conflicting interests into a collaborative effort to resolve societal problems. Clearly, these interests are entitled to be heard, and to be represented in any process that will affect them. Each interest constitutes a facet of a problem that needs to be understood and managed in a multi-faceted manner. But interests are constituted through social practice, and they are articulated though societal organizations. Thus representatives of such organizations are best placed to contribute to processes that require a pooling of knowledge, and engagement to develop a shared understanding and to explore possible solutions. The organisations concerned exist because they serve some function in the wider society, be it administering public programs, meeting economic demand, articulating a desire to protect the environment, and so on. They are rooted in economic and social life, in the practical ways in which society actually operates. The answer to the question -- who does an ENGO represent? is: those who share its concerns and support its work. The fact that the group does exist, engages in societal action, and survives the cut and thrust of public life with a reputation for authenticity, proves such a constituency is there to be represented. The answer to the question -- who do corporations and business interests represent? is: all those whose economic future is connected to the enterprise or industry. Of course, this is not to suggest that supporters of environmental groups have identical interests in other respects, any more than do all those involved with a business (management, workers, consumers, suppliers, and so on). But it is to suggest that in each case there is an organized interest, with a legitimate claim to be represented, and one that has the potential to contribute positively to collective management initiatives.

6 2. Participation. Those involved in partnership processes are generally leaders, officials, or experts from organized groups. They are not ordinary citizens, but members of diverse elites with specialist professional knowledge. It is precisely this that equips them to participate in interactive problem-solving bodies. Of course there are also mechanisms that can encourage direct citizen participation in decision making particularly at the local level. But with the exception of the referendum (where everyone can vote), representation is also a difficult issue for citizen-based participatory forums. For example, the randomly selected members of a citizen jury can in one sense be taken to represent all citizens (because they are just like them), but in another sense they represent no one but themselves. And such bodies face a challenge in terms of the integration of specialist knowledge, long term continuity, and iterative learning that are so important in relation to sustainable development. In any case, independent of the potential for greater individual citizen involvement in governance for sustainable development, partnerships offer the possibility of a net participatory gain. Groups that were previously excluded from the policy process (particularly civil society organizations) can become more closely involved with defining and solving problems. 3. Power differentials. Participants in co-operative ventures have varied capacities to mobilize power resources. But this reflects the social reality that power comes in various kinds and is distributed unevenly a fact that has implications for all governance practices, including the operation of elections. And yet, within the partnership framework each party can be treated with equality: each acknowledges the others as legitimate interlocutors; each has an equal right to be heard, to listen, and to deliberate, and to work with others to devise a common way forward. Thus partnerships can contribute to equalizing rather than exacerbating power inequalities. Since the forces representing environmental interests are typically less-well resourced than economic interests, partnership should prove favourable to their cause, and certainly not less favourable than traditional processes of lobby politics. 4. Accountability. Partnerships are not directly accountable to voters in the same way as are elected politicians and governments. On the other hand, that does not mean that partnerships are unaccountable. On the contrary, there are at least four distinct forms of accountability that operate in well-designed partnerships for sustainable development. First, individual participants are accountable to the groups from which they come. They must explain their actions and the orientation adopted by the partnership to their sponsoring organisation. Company boards, NGO steering committees, and public agencies will want to know what is being agreed and why. Second, beyond these groups stand broader communities of interest from which the participating organisations have sprung. Thus environmental groups must have an ear to the constituencies that support them and business interests cannot ignore the views of shareholders, suppliers and consumers. Government officials also have wider audiences to please in the political sphere. Of course, the particular linkages that are pertinent and active in any specific case depend upon the character of the participating organizations, the nature of the partnership, and the rules under which it operates. But in any well-constituted partnership, each member has both an organized group and underlying constituencies to which lines of accountability can be established. Third, there is a form of collective accountability. Each participant is accountable to the partnership as a whole for their role in the process participation in dialogue, development of practical activities, implementation of the agreed course of action, and so on. And participants who fail to adhere to agreed procedures and substantive orientations (including the effort to engage their home group in the required courses of action) may be called to account by other participants. Finally, the partnership as a whole is in some sense accountable before the bar of the public opinion, and the judgement of representative political processes. Partnerships and their members do not function in a vacuum, but in a very

7 public environment where their doings may be subject to scrutiny by many agencies, and to supervision by elected bodies. Groups left outside the process, actors from other issue areas (whether on not they are involved in other partnerships), academic commentators and research institutes, public audit and assessment bodies, the media --- all these and more track the activity of partnerships. And of course elected government at the local, regional and national level can also monitor performance. And if the confidence of a significant proportion of these external audiences is lost, the partnership will be in real trouble no matter how satisfied are its members. True, each of these modes of accountability represents a potential rather than a certainty. But with the careful design of processes and reporting requirements they can be made more real. And even in the most opaque partnership they always have the potential to be activated. Turning now to the systemic implications of the wide-scale development of partnerships, is it really true that they will drain authority away from elected institutions and promote private governance or neo-corporatist manipulation? With respect to the first part of this claim, partnerships are unlikely to remove a function from elected parliaments and municipal assemblies because these bodies do not have the capacity to deal directly with the detailed management of a vast array of complex, knowledge-dense, problems of the sort here under discussion. Modern government is already too complex, and the competing claims on politicians time are too great. The real alternative to devolving substantial authority to multi-stakeholder processes is either to ignore many problems for the time being, or else to rely on administrative initiatives accompanied by traditional lobby mechanisms. Of these choices, partnerships are the more, rather than the less, democratic option. As for the private government charge, it simply does not stick. In partnerships involving participants from more than one societal sphere none of the actors can act entirely as private actors. The partnership context obliges them to act publicly, as responsible interlocutors, framing their arguments in terms of the public interest. Moreover, when government agencies are partners in the venture they have a particular responsibility to look to the general interest. And whether or not they are direct participants government can always keep such processes under review. In fact, in relation to the many self-governance mechanisms that are long standing features of developed countries (for example, self-regulation by the professions), this is exactly what occurs. The charge of environmental corporatism also has very limited traction. In contrast to traditional neo-corporatist arrangements, the processes we are discussing involve a greater range of interests (not just state, labour and business). Negotiations are not consolidated in the hands of a few peak organizations (political leaders, trade unions and employers federation), but fragmented into many distinct problem contexts. The process is not exclusionary, but potentially inclusive. One of the general problems with the position staked out by the sceptics is the failure to appreciate that democratic politics is not constituted simply by the electoral process, no matter how important that may be. The operation of a complex matrix of institutional practices gives government by the people a real meaning. Freedoms of speech and association, the media, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, all these contribute to a system of rule that is reasonably democratic. Within this context, the creation of co-operative management bodies does not necessarily undermine elected officials, but can open a new terrain of practical problem solving, of representation of groups, and a field for elected political representatives to exercise supervision. 4. The deliberative potential of partnerships

8 Having provided an initial response to some anxieties about partnerships, it is now time to consider whether it is possible to make a more positive affirmation of their democratic potential. Central to this case is the notion that collaborative management ventures constitute a significant site for the development of deliberative democratic interactions. As its name suggests deliberative democracy locates acts of collective deliberation at the core of the democratic process. It is typically contrasted with aggregative approaches to democracy that emphasise the act of casting a ballot as the critical step in summing community preferences. For deliberative democrats it is the reasoned discussion and exchange -- that should precede any voting process -- that allows participants to deepen their understanding of a collective problem, to move beyond their initial preferences, and to construct a shared vision of the public interest. Central to this understanding of democratic deliberation are the ideas of reasoned debate, public justification, and political equality (Bohman 1996). Collective choices are to be made through reasoned discussion, rather than by blind acceptance of the views of established authorities, by deals concluded among vested interests, or by recourse to intimidation. As they deliberate, participants advance arguments and listen to counter arguments; they employ critical reason to weigh alternatives and make judgments. Deliberative democracy implies the public justification of proposals and outcomes. To advocate publicly a particular course of action as appropriate for the collectivity implies establishing a link to some notion of the public interest or the collective good. It is not enough to say this alternative will benefit me, for the logic of the deliberative context is oriented towards determining what is right and good for the community. Finally, if deliberation is to be democratic, it requires substantive political equality: all concerned interests should have access to the process, and each participant should enjoy an equal opportunity to present perspectives, hear contributions, and take part in debates and decisions. Needless to say, every individual cannot be involved personally in each deliberative context; representative mechanisms are essential for the working of modern democracy. But the overall structure of decision-making processes must be fair for all. In particular, inequalities of wealth and status should not corrupt deliberative interaction. In the environmental sphere there has been considerable interest in the deliberative ideal: indeed, among green political theorists it has now become almost an article of faith (Gunderson 1995, Barry 1999, Smith 2003). Deliberation is viewed as promising for a number of reasons. The emphasis on representation of all affected interests may help groups that have traditionally been excluded from influence such as those speaking on behalf of the victims of environmental degradation, future generations and the non-human natural world. The focus on reasoned debate gives environmental advocates hope that their sound arguments (rather than the influence of powerful economic actors) will more often hold sway (Barry 1999). Deliberation can encourage reflexivity the collective interrogation of existing practices and the examination of alternatives (Eckersley 2004). And it becomes possible to adjust preferences that have been shaped by dominant ideological perspectives and economic relations. Moreover, the integration of lay and scientific perspectives, engagement with complex ethical issues, and discussions of different weightings of societal risk, may all be facilitated by deliberative approaches (Meadowcroft 2004). And all this is especially true when one moves beyond traditional pollution control and nature conservation to consider the transformation of existing patterns of production and consumption in the context of sustainable development. But if more deliberation is good for the environment, and/or good for constructing a more effective and acceptable approach to managing environmental problems, how is it to be secured? To answer this, it is worth pointing to three slightly different forms of deliberative interaction operative

9 on the politico-constitutional, the societal, and the meso levels (Meadowcroft 2004). The politico-constitutional level includes core institutions of the state (legislature, executive, and courts) as well as constitution-making processes. Measures to promote environmental deliberation here include enshrining environmental rights in the constitution: for example Robyn Eckersleys suggestion that a constitutional obligation to apply the precautionary principle in environmental decision-making would ensure more thorough deliberation about environmental risks (Eckersley 2004). But they can also include more general reforms such as the introduction of elements of proportional representation into first-past-the-post electoral systems, which could be expected to facilitate the entry of Green parties into legislatures and so promote more inclusive deliberation in national political institutions. The societal level relates to public debate in the widest sense -- to the enhancement of democratic deliberation in the media, within associations of all types, and among the citizenry at large. The idea is that higher standards of public debate would improve the context in which electoral contests take place as well as influencing the way in which officials carry out their duties. Green thinkers have emphasized that civil society, as an autonomous and dynamic deliberative domain, can check the instrumental and bureaucratic rationality characteristic of the administrative state, and promote more thorough-going protection of environmental values (Torgerson 1999; Dryzek 2000). The meso level refers to deliberative interactions at the interface between state and society, where the personnel and structures of the state meet individuals and groups rooted in civil and commercial life. It is an intermediate zone -- somewhere between the high politics of the politioconstitutional realm and the open interactions of societal interchange. An extension of deliberative mechanisms at this level requires the development of an array of venues and processes concerned with specific environmental and natural resource issues, which draw interested actors from the public and private spheres into closer deliberative democratic interaction. And here, of course, we return to partnerships for sustainable development. Viewed from the context of deliberative democracy such partnerships can provide an excellent opportunity for extending deliberative democratic practices. As we have seen, they allow the representation of affected interests. They provide a forum where participants can engage with an issue on a basis of relative equality, considering arguments on their merits, and interacting to derive common understandings. Features of such processes that are particularly promising from the perspective of deliberative democracy include: the differentiated contexts in which they operate: partnerships come together around particular issues, and participation can target those implicated in the problem matrix; their practical focus: partnerships are intended to engage with real issues, and this grounds the deliberative interactions in the experience of participants, and focuses attention on meaningful outcomes; their potential to move beyond discussion to active management: by collectively executing decisions and implementing solutions (rather than just recommending options) participants must take fuller responsibility for the agreements constructed through deliberation; the possibility for long term learning: if cycles of assessment and review follow decision and implementation, the body can draw lessons from experience and employ adaptive management; the potential to improve deliberation at other levels of the political system including representative bodies and broader societal discussion: this can be through increasing the level of understanding of specific problems, building links among important groups, bridging key discourses (science, law, the popular press), and so on.

10 Far from seeing cooperative management bodies as a threat to democracy, they can be understood as part of its deepening to reflect increased societal complexity and differentiation. Today many concerns exist about the declining vitality of democratic institutions in the developed world, as reflected in declining voter turnout, weakening party identification, a loss of faith in politicians, and cynicism towards political processes. The extension of collaborative management initiatives can be seen as one component of a response to such concerns. By increasing the deliberative content of environmental management, they can enhance the democratic experience. 5. The international dimension At this point it is necessary to admit that one critical problem has so far been avoided in this discussion. This is the fact that while many partnerships are international in scope, the essential arena for representative democratic processes in the modern world remains the country/state. In short, there is an apparent disjuncture between representative democratic political processes grounded in national polities, and partnerships operative in an international institutional environment. There is no democratic transnational government and no likelihood of one in the near future. The worry about a proliferation of partnerships undermining decision-making by elected bodies makes more sense when it is understood in terms of a transfer of authority away from elected domestic institutions towards non-elected transnational institutions. And this is seen to parallel the alienation of sovereignty that has already occurred in relation to international bodies such as the WTO that now constrain the action of national governments while remaining well insulated from popular inputs. Moreover, there are longstanding concerns about the inequalities embedded in the international system and in the existing institutions of world governance such as the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank. In the international realm the worries about representation, participation, and accountability considered earlier return with a vengeance. Above all, the magnitude of the power differentials that separate rich states from poor states, and rich consumers in the North from poor producers in the South, make the constitution of partnerships with a genuine deliberative content difficult. So, is the democratic potential of international partnerships necessarily compromised? One way to approach this question is turn to the new theories of transnational democracy that have emerged over the past decade. Three pertinent perspectives could be termed: liberal internationalism, cosmopolitan democracy and discursive democracy. The first approach emphasises institutional reforms to strengthen representation, transparency, and accountability within the existing mechanisms of international governance. The idea is to make state to state interactions more equitable, and to enable an invigorated international civil society to contribute to global governance and to hold official processes to account (McGrew 2001). Fairer rules for international exchange and greater openness to representatives of international civil society is key here. The second orientation, closely associated with the writings of thinkers such as David Held, anticipates a reconstruction of the existing international order to integrate national jurisdictions within a broader framework of international law (Held 1998; Held 2000). It would represent a new global settlement with self-governing collectivities at different scales ordering their affairs within an overarching legal structure. And the extension of democracy into transnational spaces would help reinvigorate democracy within nations, regions and cities. Finally, there is the discursive democratic option championed particularly by John Dryzek, which emphasises the discursive underpinnings of international governance (Dryzek 2000; Dryzek 2006). Rather than focusing primarily on

11 institutional innovation, discursive democracy emphasises the potential for alternative projects to subvert dominant discourses, and thus to alter the intellectual frame within which transnational governance occurs. The perspective has a close affinity with deliberative democracy, but the discursive label is applied to emphasise that the focus is not the design of ideal deliberative forums, but rather the emergence of discursive stratagems through which civil society can transform the understandings embedded in global governance practices. It is about changing the categories through which actors make sense of the world, and by so doing transforming the way they act in the world. Presumably partnerships could be accommodated by each of these competing conceptions of transnational democracy. And any advance towards democratizing international life would improve the possibilities for more authentically deliberative partnerships. International partnerships fit well with liberal internationalism, reflecting a more active international civil society, encouraging greater openness and participation in the international sphere, and complementing formal state to state interactions. Collaborative management approaches could also find a niche in the complex web of overlapping communities and jurisdictions envisaged by cosmopolitan democracy. Yet, baring a catastrophe that swept away existing systems of international governance, the cosmopolitan vision could only be approached in a far distant future. Even Helds more modest proposals for immediate reform stretch the bounds of the possible to breaking (Held 2004). Since the questions about partnerships are immediate and practical, little help is to be found here. With respect to discursive democracy, international partnerships might be understood to provide a forum where emergent discourse coalitions could articulate their bids for ascendancy. Or they could be seen as deliberative institutional mechanisms that could become more prevalent as the (neoliberal/state-centred) discourses currently underpinning the global order lost sway. And yet, Dryzeks deep suspicion of the state, and his fear that civil society will be co-opted by a close association with government, would probably make him uneasy with the intimate cross-sectoral collaboration partnerships entail. His faith has always been placed in discourses in the public sphere, where civil society can continuously interrogate established authority. But perhaps a vigorous development of broader processes of transnational discursive democracy could at least exert democratizing pressure on the terms in which partnerships are established and operate. When considering this problem there is another element that should not be forgotten. And that is the potential of the state to promote democratic processes as it acts in both domestic and international spheres. First, to the extent that government organisations (agencies, ministries, state funded initiatives, and so on) participate directly in international partnerships, they can promote norms of representation, transparency, and accountability consistent with deliberative democracy. Second, to the extent that governments participate indirectly in partnerships (through international bodies in which they are direct participants), there is another opportunity to uphold democratic norms. Third, the domestic oversight function which governments exercise assessing whether particular governance arrangements promote the general good -- applies to international partnerships active on the national stage a well as to domestic partnerships. Governments can influence the national legal and political contexts within which international partnerships must operate, and they could even choose to attempt to influence the substantive orientation of specific partnerships. Fourth, this supervisory role can be expanded to the international sphere. As external agents governments can monitor such partnerships, independently decide whether they promote the collective good or are intervening in areas of national interest. So even though the international order itself does not function on representative democratic lines, its operations can be shaped by states that do. Developing a theme that has been touched upon by Beck, and indeed reflects a

12 broader tradition in international relations, Robyn Eckersley has applied the term transnational states to capture this image of states that act beyond their borders to uphold democratic and egalitarian norms (Eckersley 2004). 6. Implications for the future of partnerships I have argued that far from presenting a threat to democratic modes of rule partnerships for sustainable development have the potential to increase the democratic deliberative content of existing institutional arrangements. My point is not that partnerships necessarily promote democratic values. Rather it is that they represent an opportunity to enhance democratic interactions. There is little doubt that the partnership form can serve to erode democratic control. For example, in the United Kingdom there has been discussion whether regional development bodies constituted by the national government as partnerships have really functioned to erode the influence of (democratically elected) local governments over the development process. Here tensions between democratic constituencies (at the national and at the local level) play out in the partnership form. International partnerships that carefully excluded important affected interests might serve as a cover for purely self-interested action by powerful players. With respect to private rule making bodies (where business and civil society representatives establish standards), there may be difficulties ensuring genuine deliberative interactions in the face of the vast differentials of power among potential participants. And one may wonder whether some partnerships simply serve as back channels to impose the values of Northern states or consumers onto peoples in the South. And yet, the democratic potential of partnerships remains. A few additional observations will help place this conclusion in context. In the first place, this discussion has dealt with cross-sectoral partnerships: those that pull together organisations from more than one of the three traditionally defined sectors of modern life -- state, economy, and society. But what about partnerships that involve organization from just one societal sphere, say business groups, or NGOs, or agencies from various levels of government? Clearly such initiatives can play an important role in governance for sustainable development. And they too may be organized so as to promote deliberation among participants and to develop collective understandings and novel solutions. Now while there is no reason to believe that a proliferation of such formations poses a threat to democratic governance, their potential for positively advancing deliberative democracy is unclear. For the activation of deliberative norms within a given body does not necessarily imply an extension of deliberative democracy more generally. Although single sector partnerships may be effective at advancing the participants objectives, and these may coincide with the goals of actors from other societal spheres, or indeed with the designs of policy makers, they do not necessarily promote the broader deliberation and reflexivity, as well as the collective assumption of responsibility that (well-designed) cross-sectoral initiatives should entail. If a case is to be made for the deliberative democratic contribution of single-sector partnerships, it would have to turn either upon the specific content of the particular practice (which encouraged wider deliberation in society more generally), or upon the educative effects of the deliberative engagement spilling over into the other activities of the implicated actors. Perhaps in some circumstances self-governance initiatives lead to enhanced self-understanding and responsibility, and a fuller integration with broader processes of public deliberation. And yet, considering the already close contacts that exist intra-sector, and the distinctive logics that inform these activities, it is not clear that such spill over will predominate.

13 Even when dealing with partnerships that involve participants from more than one societal sector, the potential contribution to enhancing deliberative democracy should be understood as highly variable. Many partnerships are essentially concerned with implementation in the narrow sense with the delivery of specifically defined services or the distribution of grant money to deserving recipients. There may in fact be little room for creative deliberation and collective problem solving in such contexts. And the bodies may actually play much more of a co-ordination role and/or serve a symbolic function. In such cases it is implausible to argue that there is any real contribution to the broader development of deliberative democracy. At the beginning of this paper reference was made to strategic partnerships and to engagement with issues of strategic significance for sustainable development in an effort to transmit the idea of partnerships that are oriented towards substantive problem solving and the management of critical issues. Here the broader opportunities for authentic deliberation, as well as the intrinsic importance of the issues under discussion, afford greater opportunities to raise the deliberative content of societal interactions. Of course, much depends on the way processes are actually undertaken the representation of affected interests, the quality of the deliberative mechanisms, and the activation of accountability channels. And issues such as the extent to which the partnerships pass over into active management and implementation, the possibility for iterative processes stretching over time involving review, readjustment, and learning, also influence the potential of an individual process to enhance democracy more generally. This suggests that the democratic credentials of partnerships cannot simply be taken for granted. Instead they must be constructed and reconstructed by the ways partnerships operate, and by the ways established representative democratic institutions interact with partnerships. In each case, important elements have been identified by those concerned about the democratic deficiencies of partnerships. From the side of the partnerships themselves issues that require attention include the representation of social interests, the quality of deliberative interactions, and the accountability linkages. There is a great deal of excellent scholarship that examines these issues in relation to the effectiveness of partnerships, and for the most part effectiveness and democracy pull in the same direction because partnerships that exclude key interests, depend on bargaining and power games rather than deliberation, and eschew accountability, are unlikely to work (for example: Gray 1989; Renn, Webler and Wiedemann 1995). Of course, at the margin there may be trade offs. But in addition to issues that relate to the constitution and operation of partnerships there is also what might be described as their public and political outreach the extent to which they present their activities to those outside the specific problem sphere, open their work to broader scrutiny, and contribute to wider processes. Such opening allows partnerships to interact more fully with the public sphere, to be exposed to give-and-take in the broader currents of public debate and democratic decision. From the side of elected institutions it is a question of engaging with partnerships -- taking them seriously as governance processes, treating them fairly (because they represent legitimate expressions of societal perspectives), but also scrutinizing their activities and consciously structuring their field of operations. Elected governments can frame the circumstances in which partnerships operate, facilitate the dissemination of information about partnerships, encourage participation by disadvantaged groups, and encourage a pluralist culture of public monitoring and assessment. State of the environment reporting, systems of environment and sustainable development indicators, and the monitoring of societal trends, all provide critical background information for governments and other societal actors to form judgements about the relative success

14 of particular governance arrangements. Public funding should be available for an array of bodies involved in policy assessment and review: environmental assessment organisations, public audit bodies, independent research centres, and academic analysts all have an important role to play in judging whether particular governance initiatives are working in the public interest. By encouraging this activity democratic governments can further public and political reflection about the performance of partnerships. Thus elected governments have a supervisory role: although they may leave particular spheres of activity to partnerships of various kinds, they also have a responsibility to their electors to make sure that partnerships continue to serve public ends. And, as we have seen, this is a responsibility they must seek to discharge in the international realm as well as within their own territorial jurisdiction, although the ways that this can be done will certainly vary. In short, with respect to partnerships, representative democratic institutions must assume a role of meta-governance, rather than just governance as such. They need to consider how specific initiatives relate to overall policy goals, reconcile conflicting claims and objectives, and ensure that different governance modes are operating for the public interest. And if more governance is done by partnerships and more meta-governance by elected bodies, the value of democratic deliberation may be enhanced.

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