Cooperation among intergovernmental organizations in global cultural governance: Towards an actor-centered constructivist approach

ABSTRACT

This article provides an empirical investigation of the cooperation among intergovernmental organisations (IOs) in global cultural governance. The existing scientific literature has not yet taken up the inter-organisational cooperation as a serious topic of research and the present contribution aims to fill this gap. Based on an actor-centred constructivism, the article seeks to address inter-organisational cooperation as an observable empirical phenomenon, to explore when and why the cooperation between IOs risks not lasting and to understand why the dynamics of inter-organisational cooperation in cultural affairs have a specific-time limit. The focus will be on two cases: the European Union-Mercosur audiovisual programme and the United Nations interagency group on creative industries. As such, the article is more concerned with analysing the political micro-foundations through which the cooperation among IOs takes place and with exploring the factors, which contribute to not establish sustainable cooperative arrangements.

KEYWORDS:

• Intergovernmental organizations
• actor-centered constructivism
• global cultural governance
• cultural industries
• European Union
• UNESCO

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The term ‘Intergovernmental organizations’ (IOs) work better for UN bodies such as UNESCO or UNCTAD, rather than for regional organizations, such as the EU which includes partially supranational organs. For the needs of the research, the IOs include both international organizations such as UN bodies and regional organizations, such the EU or MERCOSUR.

2. The results of the interviews will be anonymously presented for reasons of confidentiality.

3. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Spain, and Venezuela.

4. Today, the Ibermedia’s members are 21: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

5. Regarding financial resources, the data is available from 1998 to 2014.

6. Ventana Sur receives more than 2 000 accredited members.

7. In the UN context, a ‘Joint Program’ is a program involving two or more agencies.

8. The above analysis shows that all the three factors could be observable in both frameworks of inter-organizational cooperation. However, the goal of the article is to provide a valuable empirical study of both cooperative arrangements; in this sense, the EU-Mercosur audiovisual cooperation deals deeper with the first factor and the UN multi-agency group on creative industries is concerned with the two other sets of factors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antonios Vlassis

Antonios Vlassis is Senior Researcher at the Center for International Relations Studies (CEFIR), University of Liège and Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, University of Liège. His research and teaching fields deal with international cultural cooperation, global cultural politics, EU cultural and media policies.