International Institutions, Global “Partnerships” and the Structural Power of Multinational Corporations

The UNHCR Case Study and a New Research Agenda

Abstract

Throughout the last two decades, institutions of global security and governance have undergone a paradigmatic shift in their engagements with multinational corporations (MNCs). The United Nations, in particular, has increasingly embraced big business as “partner” in human security, humanitarian response and development through formalized “global public–private partnerships” (GP3s). Naturally, a debate has emerged on the efficacies of these GP3s and their implications for global governance. This paper contributes to this debate by proposing and employing a new research agenda that interrogates the impacts that GP3s have on international institutions themselves using a case study of a particular UN agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It will argue that UNHCR GP3s are a highly asymmetrical set of power relations that are having constitutive effects on the agency. The UNHCR is undergoing significant operational and ideological changes in the GP3 process in a manner that is synonymous with Stephen Gill’s (1998) concept of “new constitutionalism”; a reconstitution that opens up and further embeds the agency within the forces of the capitalist global political economy. Hence, this case study demonstrates that GP3s are capable of undermining the mandate and autonomy of global security and governance institutions.