‘GOING GLOBAL’: POLICY ENTREPRENEURSHIP OF THE GLOBAL COMMISSION ON DRUG POLICY
| Author | DEBORAH ALIMI |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12187 |
| Date | 01 December 2015 |
| Published date | 01 December 2015 |
doi : 10. 1111/p adm .12187
‘GOING GLOBAL’: POLICY ENTREPRENEURSHIP OF
THE GLOBAL COMMISSION ON DRUG POLICY
DEBORAH ALIMI
Changes in policy processes have impacted policy participants and stimulated the development
of new patterns of action and entrepreneurship, but also the emergence of new entrants claiming
authority on ‘global’ policy terrains. Privately convened ‘global initiatives’ are proliferating while
triggering some conceptual puzzles, blurring the already ill-dened limits of ‘global processes’. To
seize the meanings and implications of ‘going global’, this article explores the empirical scope of such
global framing of policy entrepreneurship and why such distinction matters for our understanding
of global policy processes. To that end, the case of the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP)
is examined.
INTRODUCTION
The idea of ‘global public policy’ remains challenging (Stone and Ladi 2015). Whereas
states remain dominant in most policy areas and analytical frameworks, new forms of pol-
icy processes have been developing above and beyond them, precipitating the evolution
of the international public sphere into a multi-dimensional, more fragmented and uid
space of diffused authority shaped by multiple actors’ interactions. Some policy scholars
have attempted to identify these specic dynamics (Renshaw 2012), focusing on global
governance venues and the modalities at stake (Kim 2013) and their impact on traditional,
domestic policy-making (Grimm 2011). The notions of global agora (Stone 2008) or inter-
nationalization of the public sector (Ladi 2005), in particular, help to better address what is
global policy, and where and how it is enacted.
Changes in governance have also impacted on policy participants, stimulating further
the development of new patterns of action and also the emergence of new entrants engag-
ing in policy processes through distinct modalities of organization and operation. Hetero-
geneous competing groups of actors such as transnational policy professionals (Slaughter
2004; Dezalay and Garth 2011), advocacy networks and private organizations are play-
ing critical roles in shaping, coordinating and managing public policies at various levels
(Ronit and Schneider 2000; Djelic and Quack 2010; Dany 2014). New ‘initiatives’ are pro-
liferating – interestingly, positioned directly on global terrain, such as the Clinton Global
Initiative or more recently the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP).
This article looks into that phenomenon. Unlike ‘global commissions’ established by
or with the support of state and inter-governmental actors to strengthen international
cooperation on particular problem-solving missions such as the Global Commission on
International Migration or the World Commission on Dams, these emerging initiatives
are privately convened and self-categorized as ‘global’. The Global Commission on Drug
Policy offers an interesting example. Despite expensive, century-long efforts to control
drugs, the intractable drug problem has created a climate of political frustrations (Jelsma
2008; Tokatlian 2010). Building on the success of a regional initiative, in 2010 former presi-
dents Cardoso (Brazil), Gaviria (Colombia) and Zedillo (Mexico) launched an independent
Deborah Alimi is at the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Centre Européen de Sociologie et de Science Politique
(CESSP), France.
Public Administration Vol.93, No. 4, 2015 (874–889)
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
‘GOING GLOBAL’ 875
‘global commission’ to ‘break the taboo of a failed War on Drugs’ and ‘encourage a global
debate’ on effective drug policy (GCDP 2011).
In a relatively short period of time, this multi-stakeholder new entrant composed of
22 commissioners, including former political leaders and cultural and media icons, and
supported by civil society and philanthropic organizations has gained sufcient author-
ity to claim authorship of a discourse of reform and established itself as a credible actor
with inuence in the drug policy arena. Interestingly, the idea of a global debate has been
echoed by sitting presidents of Guatemala, Colombia and Mexico – some traditional sup-
porters of the War on Drugs. These Presidents pressed the UN General Assembly (2012)
to bring forward to early 2016 its next Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS), initially set
for 2019 by the 2009 Political Declaration on Drugs (UN 2009), to evaluate progress and
to rethink international action on drugs. They reiterated their call for debate at the Com-
mission on Narcotic Drugs (UNODC 2013a) – the central UN policy forum on drugs, and
initiated a regional discussion on the best policy approach to adopt at the Organization of
the American States (OAS 2013).
Targeting a global issue and self-presented as based on a broad, inclusive mem-
bership, these new initiatives seem to ground their entrepreneurship on a global
framing of their mission and impact. By claiming to ‘go global’, initiatives like the
GCDP trigger some conceptual puzzles, blurring the already ill-dened limits of ‘global
processes’. From the emergence of so-called ‘global commissions or initiatives’, one
could easily leap to the conceptual possibility of a ‘global actor’ that would be capable
of engaging in, and impacting on, broader dynamics above and beyond the state,
somehow freed from the traditional patterns and constraints of policy processes.
There is indeed a ne line between the term ‘global’ as it is used by policy actors in
their common language and discourse, and the notion of ‘global’ that scholars seek to
capture.
Actors tend to use the term ‘global’ in different ways and with different meanings, often
applying it, inter alia, to their objectives, missions or impact. The reappropriations of the
term in accordance with the actors’ accounts may be misleading and merge under one cat-
egory various sets of objects and practices. Here, a quick reading of these claims-makings
risks mixing up the global framing of policy entrepreneurship with the empirical scope
of the entrepreneurial activity, and thus bypassing the question of why such distinction
matters. This article explores what is behind such framing and seeks to apprehend why
such a distinction matters for our understanding of global policy processes. Organized
around a multi-stakeholder partnership, these initiatives deploy,like any other policy par-
ticipant, specic strategies to gain a credible position of authority to be recognized as such
by other players in the policy eld, and in turn to be capable of a certain presence and
level of inuence. To appreciate the meanings and the implications of ‘going global’, it is
therefore important to observe the strategies deployed by such entrants in building their
presence and their authority in order to position themselves as serious, recognized con-
tenders in the policy eld. One way to deal with this puzzle consists in examining them
not by their claims but by the kind of strategies which those who support them build
and the repertoires of action in which they routinely engage to achieve and justify these
claims.
To understand the possible meanings, incentives and constraints participants face to
operate on a supposed ‘global’ terrain of public policy, this article aims to: (i) identify the
dynamics at stake and the actors engaged in the so-called passage to ‘global’; (ii) exam-
ine the strategies deployed by such self-claimed ‘global’ entrants to achieve, and maintain
Public Administration Vol.93, No. 4, 2015 (874–889)
© 2015 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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