Abstract

How are the tools that govern the world economy legitimated? Here we discuss how governance tools - such as policy scripts, templates, and benchmarks - are developed to contain particular types of knowledge. Such tools contain blueprints of how the world economy should work. Understanding how they are produced and legitimated is important if we are to comprehend how they replicate particular bodies of knowledge, policy languages, and norms. We suggest that ‘recursive recognition’ is an important trend in the international political economy, where different types of organizations legitimate particular governance tools; especially ones producing common metrics. For example: a private foundation releases a study on best practices in policy area X, which is then referred to as best practice by an intergovernmental organization, an NGO, a firm, and a global professional service firm. Investigating the extent of this phenomenon requires addressing two blind spots. The first blind spot is conceptual in the reification of agency and authority based on organizational types. The second blind spot is empirical in identifying how pervasive recursive recognition has become, and how it affirms the reproduction of power asymmetries.

摘要

管理世界经济的工具如何合法化？在这里，我们讨论如何开发治理工具（例如策略脚本，模板和基准）以包含特定类型的知识。这些工具包含了世界经济应如何运作的蓝图。如果我们要理解它们如何复制特定的知识体系，政策语言和规范，那么了解它们是如何产生和合法化就很重要。我们建议“递归承认”是国际政治经济中的一个重要趋势，不同类型的组织可以使特定的治理工具合法化。特别是产生通用指标的指标。例如：一家私人基金会发布了有关政策领域X最佳实践的研究，然后被政府间组织，非政府组织，公司和全球专业服务公司称为最佳实践。要研究这种现象的严重程度，需要解决两个盲点。第一个盲点是在根据组织类型来确定代理和权限时的概念。第二个盲点是经验性的，它可以确定普遍的递归识别如何形成以及如何确认幂不对称性的再现。