Surviving Global Change?

Agricultural Interest Groups in Comparative Perspective

Darren Halpin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780815397274
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351148306
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This engaging volume investigates the fate of national industry associations amidst global change through analysis of interest group organizations representing farmers and agricultural producers. It asks how these groups have fared during a period of global change and examines the challenges inherent in their operation in the 21st century. Case studies from North America, Europe and Australasia provide illuminating research into farm interest groups at the national level and organizational features of individual groups. It will be of value to scholars and researchers in the fields of global governance, political science and rural studies.

Chapter 1
Agricultural Interest Groups and Global Challenges: Decline and Resilience

Darren Halpin

Introduction

What challenges do national industry associations face in the 21st century? What is the contemporary fate of such organizations? National industry associations in western developed nations have often been credited with partnering the state in mid 20th century efforts at reconstruction and development. They are said to have formed close knit partnerships, or 'associational governance', with the state to modernize a range of national industry sectors (Coleman, 1997c). Like labor, professional and welfare client interest groups, these industry associations 'developed' or were 'revitalized' by post-war interventionist policies (Grant, 2000, p.2). The value of such groups to the state resided in their national coverage, ability to generate sectoral consensus and independent information gathering and analysis capacities.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the environment confronting national industry groups appears to be vastly different. It has been argued that national economies have entered a 'globalizing era' (Coleman and Grant, 1998), one in which establishing the international competitiveness of national industries amidst liberalizing world markets is a key state imperative. The value of such 'associative' arrangements in a globalizing era, along with the capability of national groups to retain the abilities long valued by the state, is the subject of some contention.

Adherents to strong versions of globalization may be tempted to see reductions in national sovereignty as evidence that decisions have moved out of reach of national group-state partnerships. It has more generally been noted that in responding to global challenges national governments seem to increasingly favor market arrangements and institutions as modes of governance; viewing groups as self interested rent-seekers rather than valuable partners (Marsh, 1995). Finally, market change and restructuring is often viewed as undermining the cohesiveness and organizability of industry sectors, rendering industry associations less valuable and capable (Coleman, 1997c). These are all causes for pessimism about associational governance and the contemporary fate of national industry associations.

However, there is a thread in the literature that finds a valuable contemporary role for groups — albeit too infrequently recognized by governments — in assisting nation states to address global challenges like international competitiveness (e.g. Marsh, 1995; Weiss, 1998). Others are more optimistic still, arguing that associative arrangements with a long standing history tend to be resilient to challenges arising from global change (Coleman, 1997c). There is even the talk of a revitalization of neo-corporatism (even macro-corporatism) in the European context (e.g. Rhodes, 2001; Schmitter and Grote, 1997). But there is less attention on how groups who may participate in such arrangements have fared amidst global change.

In engaging with this debate, interest group scholars can make a valuable contribution by elaborating the contemporary challenges facing groups and enunciating their links with global change. In a modest way, this book takes up the task and examines the fate of national industry associations in the 21^st century amidst global change.

Global Change

Almost all spheres of social scientific and political scholarship have been touched by discussions of the scope and impact of processes referred to as 'globalization'. While there is a degree of debate over what this term refers to specifically,¹ characteristics of global change or a globalizing era surely encapsulate; the partial deterritorialization of governance; the emergence of multi-layered or multi-level governance with potential divisions of authority, autonomy and sovereignty; the ascendancy of a form of liberal globalization (a push for a reduction in impediments to economic activity across the globe); and the development of multilateral institutions to facilitate these economic programs (see Held et al., 1999 and Scholte, 2000, for excellent summaries).

Not surprisingly, talk of these global changes has sparked a debate about the role of the nation state. Some argue that the impact of global change implies the decline of the territorial nation-state; its sovereignty and authority displaced by emerging global actors and multilateral institutions. Others argue that there is little new in 'globalization'; that these 'global' forces amount to economic 'internationalization'. Here nations are authors rather than victims of 'internationalization' (Weiss, 1998). Wary of perpetuating exaggerated claims about global change, perhaps a more balanced view is that,'... states survive under globalization, but governance has become substantially different' (Scholte, 2000, p.22). These global changes require nation states to balance both domestic (territorial) and global (non-territorial) interests and to recognize and work within non-territorial forms of transnational (regional or global) authority and sovereignty. While the nation state is still a prominent player, it shares its authority 'upwards', to regional and international organizations and 'downwards' to sub-national government. Governance in global terms also involves a range of new players apart from the nation state, including non-state actors like transnational business, multilateral institutions and global social movements (O'Brien et al., 2000, p.2). Concepts such as multi-level governance or multilayered governance seek to capture the essence of this emerging pattern of activity (see for example Hooghe, 1996; Marks, Hooghe and Blank, 1996).

Much of what is referred to as global change is about reorganizing global economic affairs or (trade) liberalization. Indeed, some argue that 'contemporary globalization' amounts to 'neoliberal globalization' (Held et al., 1999, p.431; Scholte, 2000, p. 135). This aspect of global change is about eliminating national borders as an impediment to free trade and facilitating the unfettered flow of capital through the convergence of national policies and approaches. Key multilateral institutions, like the World Trade Organization (WTO), pursue these goals through promotion of principles like 'harmonization', 'de-regulation', 'world best practice' and 'transparency' (Braithwaite and Drahos, 2000). As such, key tools used by nation states in promoting domestic industries, raising revenue and managing balance of payments issues, like tariffs and price subsidization, are today under high levels of scrutiny and regulation by bodies like the WTO and through regional trade agreements (NAFTA, EU single market) (Held et al., 1999, p. 187).

While these governance structures dedicated to liberalization may be read as constricting the autonomy of nation states, the role of the state in influencing the pace of national integration into global economic activity should not be underestimated. Caution is required in 'reading off' state decline from assertions about global change. The absence of policy convergence across states points to the varying levels of adherence to neoliberal patterns of economic regulation (Held et al., 1999, p.441). As Scholte notes, different states clearly have differing capacities to respond to global change, to exhibit autonomy and to exert influence in these global spaces (2000, p. 135). Deploying a familiar set of categories, Woods (2001, p.293) contrasts 'weak' and 'strong' states, with the former shaping the 'rules and institutions which have made a global economy possible', continuing with high protective barriers in the face of global change, and able to 'control – to some degree – the nature and speed of their integration into the world economy'. In a globalizing era nation states occupy a precarious position between serving both 'internal' (territorial domestic) interests and 'external' (supraterritorial/global) interests (Scholte, 2000, p. 140). States are able to resolve this 'precarious position' in different ways and in so doing exhibit different capacities.

This discussion and debate cannot be adjudicated upon here, although it is fair to say that most contributors in this volume are cautious in embracing strong theses of global change and exaggerating (or reading off) its impacts. Nevertheless, this discussion invites interest group scholars to (re)consider the contemporary fate of groups in what has been argued is a globalizing era. It has been argued that the capacity of nation states to reorganize and modernize their domestic industries during the 20th century (but particularly the depression and the post second world war years) was assisted by close 'partnerships' with equally capable national sectoral interest groups (Coleman, 1997c). But what is the fate of such governing arrangements amidst global change? Are such partnerships important in managing the present day task of integrating national industry sectors with the international economy? Most importantly for this book, where does this leave national sectoral interest groups? How do global changes impact on the ability of industry associations to generate the requisite capacities to remain capable partners?

While much has been said about the implications of global change for nation-states, very little has been said about the fate of national general sectoral industry associations and, by extension, associative governance in a globalizing era. Much has been said with respect to the emergence of transnational or global social movements, Euro-groups, International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs), global civil society and transnational advocacy networks as evidence of the scaling up of mobilization (see for example O'Brien et al., 2000; Arts, Noorman and Reinalda, 2001; Keck and Sikkink, 1998). But, the issue of the fate of national sectoral interest group in the face of global change warrants renewed attention.

Have Industry Associations ‘Weathered the Global Storm’?

Coleman (1997c) has set out to examine whether national general sectoral groups and associative governance is able to stand up to global change. His implicit reference point for this examination is the close bargaining between industry associations and the state that was the hallmark of post Second World War economic development in many national industry sectors of developed nations. Where and when it was established, this partnership required groups 'to order and coordinate complex information and activity' and to 'be able to rise above the short-term, particularistic interests of its members' (Coleman, 1997c, pp. 129-30). In short, they were encompassing, able to generate sectoral consensus and had substantial information and data gathering capacities. They operated within a commitment to pursuing an insider strategy with its implicit norms of responsible political behavior. Adopting a framework developed by Schmitter and Streeck (1981, 1985), Coleman explores the impact that contemporary global change may have on the capacity of industry associations to organize their constituency and exert influence (logics of membership and influence).

At first blush, the contemporary evidence about encompassing industry groups and global change is that i) nation states need groups less, and, ii) that the groups themselves are less capable of undertaking key governance functions. In respect of the first plank of this argument, globalized regimes of governance and a preference amongst national governments for market based (neoliberal) modes of governing logically reduce the basis for exchange between collective organizations and the state, particularly where industry 'sponsoring' branches of the public service are disbursed (Coleman, 1997c, p. 132, pp.140-41). With respect to the second plank of the argument, it is proposed that international competition, and trade liberal policies have shrunk and restructured 'mature' industries, like agriculture. Consequently, the newly restructured industry sector is less fertile ground for associational activity. Not only are collective positions harder to find but individual motivations for association memberships are also reduced which in turn cuts the financial resources available to the groups through membership subscriptions (Coleman, 1997c, pp.130-31). As Coleman (1997, p.132) states;

Generally speaking, the processes involved in the internationalization of economic activity do not appear to favor associational governance. They promise to destabilize memberships, possibly to the point that the association may be forced into mergers or even defined out of existence. They favor developments in the policy process that may undermine cooperative behaviour between the state and collective interests. As cooperation decreases, associations will lose their access to some information, may cut back on their own policy research, and thus may become less autonomous from members. Without this policy expertise and autonomy, they become less able to exercise a governance role.

Collectively, these contemporary trends act on groups from above (reconstituting state-group relations) and below (reconstituting group-constituency relations). As Coleman (1997c, p.147) colorfully puts it, 'As an actor, the association takes on the im...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Appendices
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Agricultural Interest Groups and Global Challenges: Decline and Resilience
• PART I: EUROPEAN UNION
• PART II: AUSTRALASIA
• PART III: NORTH AMERICA
• PART IV: CONCLUSION
• Appendices
• Index