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Governance by Other Means: Rankings as Regulatory Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2020

Judith G. Kelley Open the ORCID record for Judith G. Kelley [Opens in a new window]  and
Beth A. Simmons
Judith G. Kelley*
Affiliation:
Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC, U.S.A.
Beth A. Simmons
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Wharton Business School, and Penn Carey Law School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: judith.kelley@duke.edu
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Abstract

This article takes the challenges of global governance and legitimacy seriously and looks at new ways in which international organizations (IOs) have attempted to ‘govern’ without explicit legal or regulatory directives. Specifically, we explore the growth of global performance indicators as a form of social control that appears to have certain advantages even as states and civil society actors push back against international regulatory authority. This article discusses the ways in which Michael Zürn's diagnosis of governance dilemmas helps to explain the rise of such ranking systems. These play into favored paradigms that give information and market performance greater social acceptance than rules, laws, and directives designed by international organizations. We discuss how and why these schemes can constitute governance systems, and some of the evidence regarding their effects on actors’ behaviors. Zürn's book provides a useful context for understanding the rise and effectiveness of Governance by Other Means: systems that ‘inform’ and provoke competition among states, shaping outcomes without directly legislating performance.

Keywords

ratings and rankingsindicatorsperformanceshamingnormssocial pressure
Type
Symposium: Authority, Legitimacy, and Contestation in Global Governance: Edited by Orfeo Fioretos and Jonas Tallberg
Information
International Theory , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 169 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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