The Dark Side of Governance: Discursive Strategies in Global Sport Governance

• In Event: Global Governance and Global Sports: Law, Regulation, and Hybrid Sovereignty

Abstract

The standard governance mode for addressing transnational policy problems is network governance, understood here as policy making and implementation through non-hierarchical coordination between public and private actors. Private actors can support and complement transnational public action by providing important resources such as information and expertise as well as the ability to ensure credible commitments through private regulation. Network governance offers problem-solving capabilities because it leverages these resources to address the shortcomings of transnational public policymaking, which is slow and marked by enforcement and information problems.
The many failures of global governance illustrate, however, that effective network cooperation between public and private actors is by no means guaranteed. The governance network literature advances 'meta-governance' as the primary solution to this problem. It is broadly defined as shaping the conditions under which networks operate through diverse subtle ways. Meta-governance scholarship places central emphasis on discursive actions employed by public actors. These actions are aimed at building trust and consensus, which in turn facilitates cooperation among actors with conflicting policy preferences. Surprisingly, this literature devotes almost no attention to the discursive strategies private actors use to advance their private interests, which potentially comes at the expense of the common interest. This despite a burgeoning actor-centred constructivist literature, which demonstrates that opportunistic private actors exploit uncertainty to influence the beliefs of governmental actors through discourse.
Aiming to address this gap, this paper explores and explains the distinctive discursive strategies private actors may use to manipulate the beliefs of public meta-governors. Merging the governance network literature with the actor-centred constructivist literature, the paper develops a framework that identifies different discursive strategies in the ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ phases of networked governance. It argues that the common features of governance networks facilitate private actors’ use of these strategies. In doing so, this paper shed lights on what has thus far remained a dark side of governance networks, namely the political nature of network interactions. It is customary in governance network scholarship to place exclusive emphasis on the beneficial effects of social interaction, which include building trust and consensus. The paper reveals, however, that public meta-governors may operate in pursuit of the common interest while effectively promoting the interests of those private actors who manipulated their beliefs. Networks characterised by trust and consensus may therefore produce policy outcomes that further private interests rather than those of the affected collective.
The empirical part presents concrete examples of the application of the framework by means of three illustrative case studies from global sport governance. It provides detailed empirical answers to the question how governance networks that address the issues of doping, match-fixing, and corruption by sport officials have produced outcomes that further the interests of sport governing bodies (and their members and sponsors) rather than those of the affected collective. This paper thus expands the research on global sport governance by demonstrating how sport governing bodies have utilized various discursive strategies to enhance their autonomy while evading responsibilities that conflict with their preferences. The analysis relies on academic and newspaper articles as well as data drawn from policy documents and 20 semi-structured interviews with governmental and sport actors involved in the three networks.
These findings have important implications for global governance. They question the value of network governance as an approach for dealing with transnational issues. Because it is inherently biased towards establishing trust and consensus, this governance mode allows private actors to escape accountability, which ultimately comes to the detriment of the common interest. To enhance their accountability, it would be better to pre-empt private discursive strategies aimed at enhancing autonomy by institutionalising distrust. The paper concludes by offering some tentative proposals for achieving this.

Author

• Arnout Geeraert, Utrecht University