31. Krieger and Belliger. Interpreting Networks.
32. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The Knowledge-Based Economy. OECD Publications: Paris, 1996: 3.
33. OECD. The Knowledge-Based Economy, 3.
34. Castells. The Rise of the Network Society, 1996: 62; Barney. The Network Society, 28.
35. Castells The Rise of the Network Society, 1996: 171.
36. Castells, M. and Cardoso, G., eds. The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy. Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2006: 7.
37. Castells and Cardoso. The Network Society, 12.
38. Castells and Cardoso. The Network Society.
39. Castells, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2006.
40. Barney. The Network Society.
41. Bovaird, T. “Public Governance: Balancing Stakeholder Power in a Network Society.” International Review of Administrative Sciences 71, no. 2 (2005): 217–228.
42. Castells and Cardoso. The Network Society.
43. Castells 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2006.
44. Epstein, C. The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an Anti-whaling Discourse. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.
45. Epstein, The Power of Words in International Relations.
46. Sending, O. J. The Politics of Expertise: Competing for Authority in Global Governance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015.
47. Kahler. Networked Politics.
48. Ibid.
49. The example provided was merely to make the point of networks and communication technology. Greenpeace is not a network bridger, nor does it wield private authority. Rather, the example given is one of influence. But it served as a useful example for the point that needed to be made.
50. Burt. Structural Holes, 79.
51. Burt. Structural Holes, 79.
52. Castells, M. The Rise of the Network Society: The Power of Identity. Vol. II. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1997: 8.
53. Howarth, David. “Power, Discourse and Policy: Articulating a Hegemonic Approach to Critical Policy Studies.” Critical Policy Studies, Vol. 3 (2009): 309–335.
54. Howarth, “Power, Discourse and Policy,” 7.
55. The idea of “articulations” was borrowed from the discourse approached presented in: Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso, 1985.
56. Howarth, “Power, Discourse and Policy,” 8–9.
57. Howarth, “Power, Discourse and Policy,” 8–9.
58. Ibid., 8–9.
59. Ibid., 8–9.
60. Laclau and Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.
61. Howarth, D. R., Norval, A. J., and Stavrakakis, Y. Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies, and Social Change. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
62. Epstein. The Power of Words in International Relations; as found in Abdelal, R., Blyth, M. Constructing the International Economy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010: 185.
63. Success in this book is defined simply as proliferation of the private governance program under consideration. Proliferation implicates adoption and acceptance of the imposing discourse, and thus, by extension, shaping behavior in desired ways.
64. Epstein, The Power of Words in International Relations; as found in Abdelal and Blyth, Constructing the International Economy, 183.
65. Epstein, The Power of Words in International Relations; as found in Abdelal and Blyth Constructing the International Economy, 185.
Introduction
In order to broaden current understandings of private authority, as previously mentioned, this book leverages the analytical powers of discourse analysis to examine two cases: forests and fisheries. These cases were selected due to their key position within environmental politics, and because they each contain a variety of private actors competing for private authority. Thus, they serve as rich analytical fields that are ripe for study. Within each of these cases, there will be a particular focus on what are arguably considered the most successful actors within each domain—the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for forests and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for fisheries. I have adopted this approach because I argue that the other actors examined in the case studies have come to determine their policies in relation to the positions of the FSC/MSC. Therefore, all other actors will be examined in relation to the FSC/MSC. Yet, because a variety of sub-cases will be examined within each of the cases, there is sufficient in-case variation to ward off accusations of case-selection bias.
Discourse analysis was selected as a methodological tool because the theory is premised on showing that social position within a networked political sector plays a pivotal role in the exercise of private authority. The discourse approach adopted was that of Laclau and Mouffe (1985), specifically because it is designed to examine the way social practices “systematically form the identities of subjects and objects by articulating together a series of contingent signifying elements available in a discursive field.”1 Thus, it is particularly well equipped for application to this book, and its networked approach. Four concepts make up the core of Laclau and Mouffe’s framework and will serve as guideposts for the theoretical propositions to be delivered. Here, then, I will briefly sketch their contents in order to frame the arguments laid out in the book. The core concepts are articulation, discourse, nodal points, and empty signifiers. These concepts are all geared toward explaining identity emergence and recognition. Articulation is essentially defined as any articulatory practice that establishes a relationship between entities in a way that modifies their identity.2 Discourse is then the entire discursive field constructed as a result of these articulatory practices. In the case of this book, the focus will be on environmental discourses. This book identifies 3 broad environmental discourses: the preservation discourse, the sustainable development discourse, and the environmental economism discourse. Each of these discourses shapes the scope of acceptable actor behavior because encoded in them are certain social rules. These rules are socially constructed and are followed because failure to do so threatens one’s identity. However, by focusing on changes in actors as they navigate through competing discourses, it is essential to provide grounding to this ever-shifting and developing process. Laclau and Mouffe provide a means to do so in what they deem nodal points. These points are “privileged signifiers,” or reference points wherein discourses can bind together to form a coherent system of meaning.3 Actors position themselves around these nodal points in order to make meaning of the world and of their role in that world. Their movement around these nodal points corresponds to shifting identities. These movements can be identified by shifts in their discourse and discursive practices. As actors navigate this terrain, however, they are constantly challenging the position and identity of other actors. This is indicative of the open-ended nature of any social system, including networks. These systems are perpetually open to challenge and reformulation. Actors are constantly striving for their closure, to ward off challenge and entrench themselves in positions of authority. This invariably leads them to create discourses filled with rhetorical impossibilities and contradictions. As these actors strive to close social systems of signification, to entrench themselves and maintain the status quo, they must try to close out challenges to constructed meanings. To account for this process, Laclau and Mouffe present the concept of empty signifiers. There is always a striving toward an impossible ideal, and empty signifiers are the discursive forms such strivings