Building G20 outreach: The role of transnational policy networks in sustaining effective and legitimate summitry

G20 outreach processes, in the form of the Think 20, Labour 20, Business 20, and Civil 20, Youth 20, and Women 20, are a formal attempt by G20 leaders to engage various social sectors with G20 policymaking. This essay contends that G20 outreach processes are best understood as transnational policy networks, which are involved in widening the field of policy communication and deliberation. The importance of these transnational policy networks rest upon their role in developing and disseminating G20 policy priorities and principles; and are an attempt to enhance the legitimacy and influence of the G20 and its policy proposals.

"We agree that, in order to strengthen its ability to build and sustain the political consensus needed to respond to challenges, the G20 must remain efficient, transparent and accountable. To achieve this, we decide to … pursue consistent and effective engagement with non-members, regional and international organisations, including the United Nations, and other actors, and we welcome their contribution to our work as appropriate. We also encourage engagement with civil society.G20 Cannes Summit Final Declaration 2011 (G20 2011)"

The difficulty in balancing the effectiveness and representativeness of the Group of Twenty (G20) has led to sustained questions about its legitimacy (Cooper 2010; Rudd 2011; Cooper and Pouliot 2015). Consequently, while leaders have long sought external advice about the agendas of Group of Seven (G7) summits since 1975, and about the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors’ meetings (G20 FM/CBG) since 1999, there has been intensification, elaboration, and institutionalization of transnational networks of policymakers with respect to the G20 in recent years. These networks are especially evident in the form of the G20 working groups and G20 outreach processes involved in the G20 FM/CBG and the G20 leaders’ forum created in 2008.

G20 working groups include transgovernmental groups of government officials and outside experts within a specific policy area who are charged with preparing material for G20 deliberations. G20 outreach processes are a recent and more formal attempt by G20 leaders to engage various social sectors with the policymaking activity of the G20 and were first considered by the G20 membership in 2010 with a more formal engagement with business interests. This led to the formal development of G20 outreach groups in 2013 in the form of the Think 20 (think tanks), Labour 20, Business 20, Civil 20 and Youth 20, which include representatives from these sectors. In 2015, a Women 20 outreach group was also added. These outreach processes are best understood as transnational policy networks which have been built to support the G20’s capacity to be effective and legitimate.

This essay focuses on G20 outreach processes and examines why and how the G20 has sought to augment its intergovernmental summitry and transgovernmental working groups with transnational policy networks, purposely involving a range of societal interests. Transnational policy networks demonstrate the existence of policymaking practices which include the policy influence of experts and advocates outside government. These networks also indicate the ways in which governments, International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) and summits like the G20 engage society, or where elements of society engage themselves with the policymaking process (Stone 2008). These networks intersect with the intergovernmental activities of leaders and key diplomats, and overlap with the transgovernmental relationships of various levels of government bureaucrats (Baker 2009). One of the principle features of transnational policy networks is the way they create and channel the communication of political ideas and priorities. However, it is important to keep in the mind the purpose and power of actors involved in the network and consider who has the discretion and motivation to create the network in the first instance. As the G20 members stated in 2012, the aspiration for outreach is founded upon an intent to strengthen the G20’s capacity “to build and sustain the political consensus”. Consequently, it is important to consider how the development of transnational policy networks in the form of G20 outreach processes are able to sustain the effectiveness and legitimacy of the G20.

This essay contends that G20 outreach processes are best understood as transnational policy networks. These networks have been built to widen the field of policy communication and deliberation. Furthermore, these outreach processes and networks are an attempt to enhance the legitimacy and influence of the G20 and its policy proposals. While there is no doubt that outreach practices are “ad hoc responses to the widespread charge that the G20 reproduces the politics of exclusion in global governance” (Cooper and Pouliot 2015, 347), these practices have the potential to improve both the effectiveness and legitimacy of the G20. The G20 possesses uncertain legitimacy and members of the G20 demonstrate an awareness of this and a corresponding willingness to actively develop various political practices to support the capacity and legitimacy of the G20.

However, G20 outreach also enables the G20 to place some limit upon the policy narratives and ideas that develop within these policy networks. The G20 is liable to be misunderstood without examining the activity of these transnational networks because the G20 is fundamentally a deliberative policy forum rather than a negotiating forum of binding regulations. Transnational policy networks have the potential to scrutinize and amplify relevant policy ideas and thereby enhance the legitimacy of the G20 and strengthen the capacity of the G20 to address an array of global economic and social problems. However, while some narrative control is important to amplify the G20 agenda, too much narrative control will undermine its legitimacy and capacity to develop broad-based responses to global problems. This essay explores the formation of these transnational policy networks by first outlining the evolution of the purpose and configuration of the G20, then it considers the ways G20 outreach processes constitute transnational policy networks and why they have been established, and lastly, analyses how these networks operate to enhance the legitimacy and effectiveness of the G20.

Understanding quality and equity of schooling in Scotland : locating educational traditions globally

This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the OECD’s (2007) national report on Scottish education, Quality and equity of schooling in Scotland, while also briefly considering the Scottish government’s Diagnostic Report, prepared for the review. The national report is situated against Scottish traditions of schooling, particularly the view that access to academic curricula for all is a democratic and egalitarian approach, and also set against the changing role of the OECD. On the latter, the paper argues that the OECD, in the context of globalisation, has become more of a policy actor in its own right, in addition to its more traditional think-tank function. The OECD is a now significant transnational policy actor in education, contributing to the emergent global education policy field. The overarching argument proffered is that debates provoked by the OECD’s report, for example the David Raffe/Richard Teese exchange in the Scottish Educational Review, 40(1), 2008, stem from tensions between the new supranational expression of political and policy authority as articulated in the OECD’s report and that located more traditionally within the nation. The academic curricula for all, the Scottish tradition, is challenged by the OECD report, which supports more diverse curricula provision, including more vocational education in schools, particularly at the post-compulsory phase. We note, drawing on theoretical and empirical insights of Bourdieu, that the success of the former demands pedagogies which scaffold for those students not possessing the requisite cultural capitals for success with academic curricula, while the latter demands a strategic effort to ensure parity of esteem between different curricular provisions.

Same same but different: Locational policies in small and medium-sized European cities

Globalized interurban competition is affecting cities of various sizes and locations. Small and medium-sized cities have to find ways to position themselves in global markets by formulating locational policies. This paper outlines an analytical framework of locational policies that cities adopt in order to increase their competitiveness. By comparing two European small and mediumsized cities (Lucerne and Ulm), we examine manifestations of locational policies and compare if these policies are being diverse or resemble each other. We found that strategies of both cities are sharing the intentions to be competitive, but their policy choices differ because the economic and political context is enabling or restricting certain kinds of locational policies. Furthermore, the findings point to the high explanatory power of municipal tax autonomy when studying locational policies.

Transnational environmental policy:reconstructing ozone

Transnational Environmental Policy analyses a surprising success story in the field of international environmental policy making: the threat to the ozone layer posed by industrial chemicals, and how it has been averted. The book also raises the more general question about the problem-solving capacities of industrialised countries and the world society as a whole. Reiner Grundmann investigates the regulations which have been put in place at an international level, and how the process evolved over twenty years in the US and Germany.

Medienvermittelte transnationale Öffentlichkeiten im Zeitalter praktischer Hybridisierung (English title: Mediated transnational publics in environments of practical hybridisation)

This article is concerned with the repercussions of societal change on transnational media. It offers a new understanding of multilingual programming strategies by examining “Radio MultiKulti” (RM), a public service radio station discontinued from 1/1/2009 by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg. In its fourteen years of existence, “RM” had to implement a well-intended and politically-motivated logic of ‘multiethnic, intercultural service station’. However, as we demonstrate, such a direction, despite some achievements, has resulted in the constraints to RM’s journalistic activities and language policy, drawing criticism for the station’s economic viability. This paper proposes that multilingual media services are to be framed by the concept of practical hybridity that allows a necessary responsiveness towards an ever-changing media environment, at the moment within digital culture. Our approach draws on Mikhail Bakhtin’s and Yuri Lotman’s theoretical approaches to hybridity, as well as in-depth interviews conducted with “RM” staff from 2005 onwards, further interviews with key agents outside RM and a continuous monitoring of the public debate which culminated at the end of 2008 in the controversial decision to close the radio station. Against this background, the concluding remarks are meant to contribute to the scholarly debate on hybridization as well as to inform multilingual media policy in the 21st century.

Digital intermediary: Korean transnational cinema

Since censorship was lifted in Korea in 1996, collaboration between Korean and foreign filmmakers has grown in both extent and visibility. Korean films have been shot in Australia, New Zealand and mainland China, while the Korean digital post-production and visual effects firms behind blockbusters infused with local effects have gone on to work with filmmakers from greater China and Hollywood Korean cinema has become known for its universal storylines, genre experimentation and high production values. The number of exported Korean films has increased, as has the number of Korean actors starring in films made in other countries. Korea has hosted major international industry events. These milestones have facilitated an unprecedented international expansion of the Korean film industry. With the advent of the 'digital wave in Korea the film industry's transition to digital production practices this expansion has accelerated Korean film agencies the pillars of the national cinema have played important parts in this internationalisation, particularly in promoting Korean films and filmmakers outside Korea and in facilitating international events in Korea itself Yet, for the most part, projects involving Korean filmmakers working in partnership with filmmakers from other countries are the products of individuals and businesses working outside official channels. That is, they are often better understood as 'transnational rather than 'national' or 'international' projects. In this article, we focus on a range of collaborations involving Korean, Australian, New Zealand and Chinese filmmakers and firms. These collaborations highlight some of the forces that have shaped the digital wave in the Korean film industry, and illustrate the increasingly influential role that the 'digital expertise of Korean filmmakers is playing in film industries, both regionally and around the world.

Generalizing curriculum policy across boarders : crossing boundaries

"This essay is a critique of the scientific and policy rationales for transnational standardization. It analyzes two examples of policy export: early childhood standards in one of North America’s oldest Indigenous communities and the ongoing development of international standards for university teaching. It examines calls for American education to look to Finland, Canada, and Singapore for models of reform and innovation, focusing on the complex historical, cultural, and political settlements at work in these countries. The author addresses two affiliated challenges: first, the possibility of a principled understanding of evidence and policy in cultural and political-economic context, and second, the possibility of a mediative educational science that might guide policy formation." -- EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER November 2011 vol. 40 no. 8 367-377

Negotiating teacher identities : dialogic reflections on classroom interaction in a transnational context

This study investigates the development of teacher identity in a transnational context through an analysis of the voices of sixteen preservice teachers from Hong Kong who engage in interaction with primary students in an Australian classroom. The context for this research is the school-based experience undertaken by these preservice English as a second language teachers as part of their short language immersion (SLIM) program in Brisbane, Australia. Such SLIM programs are a genre of study abroad programs which have been gaining in popularity within teacher education in Australia, attended by preservice and inservice teachers from China, Hong Kong, Korea, and other Asian countries. This research is conducted at a time when the imperative to globalise higher education provision is a strategic factor in the educational policies of both Australia and Hong Kong. In Australia, international educational services now constitute the country’s third largest export with more than 400,000 students coming to Australia to study annually. In order to maintain Australia’s current global position as the third most popular Englishspeaking study destination, the government is now focusing on sustainability and the quality of the study experience being offered to international students (Bradley Review, 2008). In Hong Kong, the government sponsors both preservice and inservice English as a second language (ESL) teachers to undertake SLIM programs in Australia and other English-speaking countries, as part of their policy of promoting high levels of English proficiency in Hong Kong classrooms. Transnational teacher education is an important issue to which this study contributes insights into the affordances and constraints of a school-based experience in the transnational context. Second language teacher education has been defined as interventions designed to develop participants’ professional knowledge. In this study, it is argued that participation in a different community of practice helps to foreground tacit theories of second language pedagogy, making them visible and open to review. Questions of pedagogy are also seen as questions of teacher identity, constituting the way that one is in the classroom. I take up a sociocultural and poststructural framework, drawing on the work of James Gee and Mikhail Bakhtin, to theorise the construction of teacher identity as emerging through dialogic relations and socially situated discursive practices. From this perspective, this study investigates whether these teachers engage with different ways of representing themselves through appropriating, adapting or rejecting Discourses prevailing in the Australian classroom. Research suggests that reflecting on dilemmas encountered as lived experiences can extend professional understandings. In this study, the participants engage in a process of dialogic reflection on their intercultural classroom interactions, examining with their peers and their lecturer/researcher selected moments of dissonance that they have faced in the unfamiliar context of an Australian primary classroom. It is argued that the recursive and multivoiced nature of this process of reflection on practice allows participants opportunities to negotiate new understandings of second language teacher identity. Dialogic learning, based on the theories of Bakhtin and Vygotsky, provides the theoretic framing not only for the process of reflection instantiated in this study, but also features in the analysis of the participants’ second language classroom practices. The research design uses a combined discourse analytic and ethnographic approach as a logic-of-inquiry to explore the dialogic relationships which these second language teachers negotiate with their students and their peers in the transnational context. In this way, through discourse analysis of their classroom talk and reflective dialogues, assisted by the analytic tools of speech genres and discourse formats, I explore the participants’ ways of doing and being second language teachers. Thus, this analysis traces the process of ideological becoming of these beginner teachers as shifts in their understandings of teacher and student identities. This study also demonstrates the potential for a nontraditional stimulated recall interview to provide dialogic scaffolding for beginner teachers to reflect productively on their practice.

Stitching at the boundaries : Vietnamese garment industry workers in transnational spaces

This paper explores the interfaces between the transnational politics of labour and the experiences of Vietnamese women garment workers both in Vietnam and as migrants to other countries. As the global industries have come to organise much of the contemporary economic system, so too have they crossed national boundaries in search of cheap labour. At the same time enclaves of migrant disadvantage within the multi-ethnic nation-states of the developed world have also provided workers for the manufacture of clothing. In the case of Australia, these workers are mostly home-based and not in factories. In this paper I explore Vietnamese women's different incorporations into the garment industry in various locations – in Australia, in Vietnam, and in American Samoa. In so doing, I provide an analysis of the links between gender, global power relations and the contradictory space of transnational exchange.

Health governance : law, regulation and policy

This special issue of Public Health is devoted to health governance, examining the role of law, regulation and policy in safeguarding the public's health. Each of us has devoted a career to thinking carefully about the role of law as a tool to prevent injury and disease and to promote the population's health and wellbeing. 1, 2, 3 and 4 In this Guest Editorial we first explain what we mean by the term ‘governance’, as well as the role of law in a well-regulated society. Next, we explore the increasingly important, and challenging, concept of what we call national and global federalism—the inter-relationships among the various levels of governance (local, national, supranational and transnational) and among various actors in national and global health. Third, we explain the origins of this journal symposium, which arises from three conferences on the topic in Hong Kong and Sydney. Finally, we offer a brief introduction to the articles that follow.

Strategic intelligence in law enforcement : anticipating transnational organised crime

This thesis is an explorative study of four national level law enforcement agencies' applications of strategic intelligence against transnational organised crime. The thesis develops a hybrid conceptual model for strategic intelligence in law enforcement, which explains how strategic intelligence influences police management. Dr Coyne explored case studies of strategic intelligence in the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, Serious and Organised Crime Agency United Kingdom, Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Federal Police. The research provides an understanding of the impact of strategic intelligence across strategic responses to transnational organised crime and the implications this has for police management and intelligence theory.

The 1989 Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) and refugee policy in Southeast Asia : twenty years forward what has changed?

In 2012, the only South East Asian countries that have ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereafter referred to as the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol) is Philippines (signed 1954), Cambodia (signed 1995) and Timor Leste (signed 2001). Countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have annual asylum seeking populations from Myanmar, South Asia and Middle East, that are estimated to be at 15 000-20 000 per country (UNHCR 2012). The lack of a permanent and formal asylum processing process in these countries means that that asylum-seeking populations in the region are reliant on the local offices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees based in the region to process their claims. These offices rely upon the good will of these governments to have a presence near detection camps and in capital cities to process claims of those who manage to reach the UNHCR representative office. The only burden sharing mechanism within the region primarily exists under the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime (the Bali Process), introduced in 2002. The Bali Process refers to an informal cooperative agreement amongst the states from the Asia-Pacific region, with Australia and Indonesia as the co-chairs, which discusses its namesake: primarily anti-people smuggling activities and migration protocols. There is no provision within this process to discuss the development of national asylum seeking legislation, processes for domestic processing of asylum claims or burden sharing in contrast to other regions such as Africa and South America (i.e. 2009 African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of the Internally Displaced, 1969 African Union Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa and 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees [Americas]) (PEF 2010: 19).