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Professional Authority After the Global Financial Crisis pp 19–32Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Dynamism of Authority in Global Governance

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Abstract

This chapter outlines a novel approach for examining how, who, and where authority is exercised in global governance. Rather than an attribute, authority is re-framed as a dynamic process by drawing on notions of power and legitimation developed in constructivist literatures on identities and practices in sociology, IR as well as GPE. Post-structuralist insights are engaged along with interdisciplinary studies emphasising the importance of discourses in legitimating power both in finance specifically and in contemporary governance more generally. Professionals are finally identified as a “special” category of non-state actors exercising authority beyond the so-called public-private divide.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Closely related literatures on “business power” (Fuchs 2007) and the “structural power of business” (Marsh et al 2015) have been less concerned with the legitimacy of power.

  2. 2.

    Though not entirely in the case of actors exercising moral forms of private authority. This point is expanded upon further below.

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  1. Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

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Campbell-Verduyn, M. (2017). The Dynamism of Authority in Global Governance. In: Professional Authority After the Global Financial Crisis. Building a Sustainable Political Economy: SPERI Research & Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52782-6_2

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