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Get ready to vote! The YALSA election runs from March 19 through April 25, and to help you be an informed voter, we’re sharing interviews with each of the 2014 YALSA Governance candidates.

We will start with the candidates for Board Director-at-large. YALSA Board members serve three-year terms, during which they jointly determine YALSA’s policies, programs, and strategic direction, in accordance with YALSA’s bylaws. They attend both virtual and in-person meetings and serve as liaisons to YALSA’s committee chairs and members. A full description of Board duties and responsibilities can be found here.

Candidates, who will be presented in alphabetical order, were asked to craft “Twitter-length” responses (i.e. around 140 characters). Full biographical information on all of the candidates can be found on the sample ballot.

Today we have an interview with Rachel McDonald.

Name and current position: Rachel McDonald Teen Librarian, King County Library System.

Why did you decide to run for a YALSA office? What excites you about serving on YALSA Board?  

After getting to know YALSA by serving on task forces & selection committees, serving on the board is the logical & exciting next chapter.

What areas of YALSA’s Strategic Plan do you think you can best contribute to? Why? 

Having served on the YA Advocacy Benchmarks Task Force, I’m excited to educate and empower our members to do more advocacy.

What is the most pressing issue facing YALSA today?

Advocating for our members whose positions, whether in school or public libraries, are often in jeopardy. Let’s show everyone how much we’re needed!

What priority activities should YALSA take on to address the “paradigm shift” as described in The Future of Library Services for and with Teens report?

We need to encourage librarians to facilitate connected learning with teens and provide opportunities for them to connect with mentors.

What attributes have helped you succeed professionally?

I welcome the opportunity to collaborate and learn from others, but still do my research so I can back up the positions I hold.

What do you see as the primary role of the Board?

Using the strategic plan as a guide, the primary role of the board is to help our members better serve teens in their communities.

If elected, how will you help YALSA members (in their daily work, in their careers, other)?

I look forward to helping library staff & teen advocates connect by sharing research, best practices, & advocacy tools.

What else would you like voters to know about you?

I believe my collaborative skills & vision will help move YALSA forward as we continue to look for ways to engage & support our members.

Get ready to vote! The YALSA election runs from March 19 through April 25, and to help you be an informed voter, we’re sharing interviews with each of the 2014 YALSA Governance candidates.

We will start with the candidates for Board Director-at-large. YALSA Board members serve three-year terms, during which they jointly determine YALSA’s policies, programs, and strategic direction, in accordance with YALSA’s bylaws. They attend both virtual and in-person meetings and serve as liaisons to YALSA’s committee chairs and members. A full description of Board duties and responsibilities can be found here.

Candidates, who will be presented in alphabetical order, were asked to craft “Twitter-length” responses (i.e. around 140 characters). Full biographical information on all of the candidates can be found on the sample ballot.

Today we have an interview with Jennifer Korn.

Name and current position: Jennifer Korn, TeenSpot Manager, The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

Why did you decide to run for a YALSA office? What excites you about serving on YALSA Board?  

Serving on Board will allow me to give back to YALSA and to lead the organization in a way that supports my fellow teen serving professionals to reach their potential.

What areas of YALSA’s Strategic Plan do you think you can best contribute to? Why? 

Advocacy and continuous education because of my past and present involvement in both of these activities within my library system, regional organizations, and YALSA.

What is the most pressing issue facing YALSA today?

The decrease in support for teen-focused, school and public library services as illustrated by a reduction of allocated resources and dedicated professionals.

What priority activities should YALSA take on to address the “paradigm shift” as described in The Future of Library Services for and with Teens report?

Advocating for the necessity of teen library services needs to be a top priority – advocacy to legislators, library and school administrators, potential partners.

What attributes have helped you succeed professionally?

I welcome challenge and growth. I perform best with a team and prefer collaborative work. I am thorough and focused with all of my work.

What do you see as the primary role of the Board?

Creating high-level initiatives that support the organization’s strategic plan, and then arming members so they can translate these initiatives into objectives that address immediate organizational needs and encourage member growth.

If elected, how will you help YALSA members (in their daily work, in their careers, other)?

I will make decisions guided by member needs and concerns, and emphasize the importance of engaging more members in YALSA’s activities.

What else would you like voters to know about you?

My involvement in YALSA has helped me move from librarian to a manager with recognized leadership ability. I want all of YALSA’s members to experience the same benefits to their professional growth.

Get ready to vote! The YALSA election runs from March 19 through April 25, and to help you be an informed voter, we’re sharing interviews with each of the 2014 YALSA Governance candidates.

We will start with the candidates for Board Director-at-large. YALSA Board members serve three-year terms, during which they jointly determine YALSA’s policies, programs, and strategic direction, in accordance with YALSA’s bylaws. They attend both virtual and in-person meetings and serve as liaisons to YALSA’s committee chairs and members. A full description of Board duties and responsibilities can be found here.

Candidates, who will be presented in alphabetical order, were asked to craft “Twitter-length” responses (i.e. around 140 characters). Full biographical information on all of the candidates can be found on the sample ballot.

Today we have an interview with Gretchen Kolderup.

Name and current position: Gretchen Kolderup,Manager for YA Education & Engagement @ New York Public Library.

Why did you decide to run for a YALSA office? What excites you about serving on YALSA Board?  

I’m jazzed about the opportunity to to dig into the work of our association with others who care deeply about library services for teens!

What areas of YALSA’s Strategic Plan do you think you can best contribute to? Why? 

Member recruitment/engagement. My YALSA experience has been so meaningful; I love sharing that & helping others hook in to the association!

What is the most pressing issue facing YALSA today?

Remaining relevant and effective to its members as well as financially stable as our profession continues to change.

What priority activities should YALSA take on to address the “paradigm shift” as described in The Future of Library Services for and with Teens report?

Sounds silly, but: help ppl feel comfortable getting out of comfort zones. Report shows evolution’s necessary & good, but change can be scary.

What attributes have helped you succeed professionally?

Determination, creativity, collaborative leadership style. Learned from building YA svcs from scratch in my first job & leading The Hub!

What do you see as the primary role of the Board?

Board fulfills YALSA’s mission to expand & strengthen teen services. Should help members in the now & advocate for members’ futures.

If elected, how will you help YALSA members (in their daily work, in their careers, other)?

Provide practical tools (like YALSA’s Pub Lib Eval Tool), create opps to recognize & share best ideas, advocate for teen services nationwide.

What else would you like voters to know about you?

Whether I’m elected or not, I’m interested in helping us all become even more stellar librarians for teens. Always up to collaborate or chat!

Get ready to vote! The YALSA election runs from March 19 through April 25, and to help you be an informed voter, we’re sharing interviews with each of the 2014 YALSA Governance candidates.

We will start with the candidates for Board Director-at-large. YALSA Board members serve three-year terms, during which they jointly determine YALSA’s policies, programs, and strategic direction, in accordance with YALSA’s bylaws. They attend both virtual and in-person meetings and serve as liaisons to YALSA’s committee chairs and members. A full description of Board duties and responsibilities can be found here.

Candidates, who will be presented in alphabetical order, were asked to craft “Twitter-length” responses (i.e. around 140 characters). Full biographical information on all of the candidates can be found on the sample ballot.

Today we have an interview with Betsy Fraser.

Name and current position: Betsy Fraser,Selector, Calgary Public Library

Why did you decide to run for a YALSA office? What excites you about serving on YALSA Board?  

I was inspired to run by the Board liaison I had while chairing the Summer Reading Taskforce and I am excited about the opportunity to do the same thing for someone else.

What areas of YALSA’s Strategic Plan do you think you can best contribute to? Why? 

Advocacy and member recruitment, as I am a staunch believer in YALSA and what it offers.

What is the most pressing issue facing YALSA today?

The need to attract and retain members, which offers possibilities for partnerships and advocacy.

What priority activities should YALSA take on to address the “paradigm shift” as described in The Future of Library Services for and with Teens report?

Promote digital and media literacy and capitalize on the know-how and innovative programming done by members.

What attributes have helped you succeed professionally?

Enthusiasm, determination, and a sense of humor.

What do you see as the primary role of the Board?

To look to the best possible future for the Division.

If elected, how will you help YALSA members (in their daily work, in their careers, other)?

Be available as a sounding board, as others have consistently been for me.

What else would you like voters to know about you?

I’ve served on Council, ALSC committees, & YALSA award, selection & process committees & have a solid understanding of where we fit.

By Matthew Flinders

Hands up if you’ve heard of National Voter Registration Day? And in the somewhat unlikely event that you have, did you realise that it took place last month?

If this momentous milestone passed you by, you’re not alone. Whatever 5 February means to the people of the United Kingdom, it’s safe to assume that electoral participation doesn’t figure prominently. This is not a surprise; it reflects a deep-seated public disengagement from politics, as indicated by the fact that only two thirds of eligible voters in the 2010 general election actually voted. Throughout the twentieth century, general election turnouts almost always exceeded 70%, but that’s a level of participation that has not been seen since 1997. Incidentally, the highest turnout since 1900 was 86.8% in January 1910, though only rate-paying men over the age of 21 could vote.

Low voter turnout is clearly a problem, but arguably a much greater worry is the growing inequality of that turnout. As a recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research makes clear, the United Kingdom is very much a ‘divided democracy’, with electoral participation among the young and the poor declining dramatically. In the 1987 general election, for example, the turnout rate for the poorest income group was 4% lower than for the wealthiest. By 2010 the gap had grown to a staggering 23 points. A similar pattern is observable in relation to age groups. In 1970 there was an 18-point gap in turnout rates between 18–24-year-olds and those aged over 65; by 2005 this gap had more than doubled to over 40 points, before narrowing slightly to 32 points in 2010. ”If we focus on participation within these age-groups,” the IPPR report concludes “we can see that at the 2010 general election the turnout rate for a typical 70-year-old was 36 percentage points higher than that of a typical 20-year-old.”

If this isn’t bad enough there is little evidence that young people will simply start voting as they get older. On the contrary, the IPPR’s research suggests that “younger people today are less likely than previous generations to develop the habit of voting as they move into middle age.” These trends mean that politicians tend to address themselves to the older and richer sections of society – the people, in other words, that are most likely to vote. This, in turn, reinforces the views of the young and the poor that politicians don’t care about them. And that, naturally, leads to even greater political estrangement.

So what’s the solution? How do we re-establish a connection between ordinary people and politicians? In particular, how do we persuade the young and the poor that the political system really does have something to offer them?

The answers lie not in quick fixes or technological solutions – such as the introduction of compulsory voting, changing the ballot paper or promoting ‘digital democracy’ – but in adopting a fundamentally deeper, richer and more creative approach to democratic engagement. People will only vote – be they young or old, rich or poor – when they understand why democratic politics matters and what it can deliver. Therefore, to increase electoral participation we must focus on promoting the public understanding of politics from all perspectives (conservative, traditional, radical, etc.) in a way that demonstrates that individual responses to collective social challenges are rarely likely to be effective. It’s this deeper understanding, this notion of political literacy promoted by Sir Bernard Crick and defined as ‘a compound of knowledge, skills and attitudes’ that citizens can use to navigate the complex social and political choices that face us all. Political literacy can be seen as a basic social requirement that empowers people to become politically aware, effective, and engaged while also being respectful of differences of opinion or belief.

In this regard, the message from survey after survey is a dismal one. Large sections of the British public appear to know very little about the political system. Even relatively basic questions such as “What do MPs do?” or “What’s the difference between Parliament and the Executive?” tend to elicit a mixture of mild embarrassment and complete bafflement.

Given that levels of political literacy are so low, it’s little surprise that many people choose not to vote. They’re unaware of the very real benefits the political system delivers for them (clean water, social protection, healthcare, education, etc.) and they no longer believe that they can become the engine of real social change. And yet they can. Worse, by opting out of elections they risk diminishing their representation as politicians focus their messages on the groups that do vote. Young people are constantly reminded that to be “uneducated” – let alone innumerate or illiterate – is to risk deprivation and vulnerability, but in many ways to be politically illiterate brings with it exactly the same risks. Moreover, the impact of declining political literacy isn’t only felt at the individual level. With so many people in society alienated from politics, democracy itself is weakened

Such arguments are by no means abstract concerns. On 7 May 2015, a General Election will be held on the basis of individual voter registration rather than the previous system of household voter registration. Research suggests that although this transition is likely to increase electoral security it may also result in a considerable decline in levels of electoral participation amongst – yes, you’ve’ guessed it – the young and the poor.  This is not a reason to turn back from individual registration but it is a reason to step-back and acknowledge that if we’re really serious about healing a divided democracy, then we need to focus on promoting engaged citizenship through different channels and processes. We need to take some risks and stir things up, but most of all we need a long-term plan for fostering political literacy.

Matthew Flinders is Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics at the University of Sheffield and also Visiting Distinguished Professor in Governance and Public Policy at Murdoch University, Western Australia. He is the author of Defending Politics (2012). 

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By Sara B Hobolt and James Tilley

During November 2012 hundreds of thousands of people across Europe took to the streets. The protesters were, by and large, complaining about government policies that increased taxes and lowered government spending. This initially sounds like a familiar story of popular protests against government austerity programmes, but there is a twist to the tale. Many of the people protesting were not aiming their ire at the national governments making the cuts in spending, but rather at the European Union. In Portugal, people carried effigies of their prime minister on strings and claimed he was a ‘puppet of the EU’; in Greece people burned the EU flag and shouted ‘EU out’; and in Italy people threw stones at the European Parliament offices. It was, at least for some people on the streets, not the incumbent national politicians in Lisbon, Athens, and Rome who were to blame for the problem of the day, but rather politicians and bureaucrats thousands of miles away in Brussels.

The economic crisis in Europe has illustrated that citizens are increasingly blaming not just their national governments, but also ‘Europe’ for their woes. This raises the question of whether citizens can hold European politicians to account for the outcomes for which they are thought to be responsible. The notion of democratic accountability relies on the critical assumption that voters are able to assign responsibility for policy decisions and outcomes, and sanction the government in elections if it is responsible for outcomes not seen to be ‘in their best interest’. This process, however, is clearly complicated in the multilevel system of the European Union where responsibility is not only dispersed across multiple levels of government, but there are also multiple mechanisms for sanctioning governments.

Democratic accountability in multilevel systems can be viewed as a two-step process, where specific requirements need to be met at each step to allow voters to hold governments to account. The first step is one where voters decide which level of government, if any, is responsible for specific policy outcomes and decisions. This depends on the clarity of institutional divisions of powers across levels of government, and the information available about the responsibilities of these divisions. The second step is one where voters should be able to sanction the government in an election on the basis of performance. This depends on government clarity: that is the ability of voters to identify a cohesive political actor that they can sanction accordingly.

Both of these steps are important. Assignment of responsibility to a particular level of government is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to be able to punish an incumbent at the polls. To do so, voters also need to know which party or individual to vote for or against. Yet, the EU lacks a clear and identifiable government. Executive power is shared between the European Council and the European Commission, and legislative power is shared between the Council of the EU and the European Parliament. The primary mechanism through which citizens can hold EU institutions to account is via elections to the European Parliament. Unlike in national parliamentary systems, the majority in the European Parliament does not ‘elect’ the EU executive, however. Despite the formal powers of the European Parliament over the approval and dismissal of the European Commission there is only a tenuous link between the political majority in the Parliament and the policies of the Commission, not least since there is no clear government-opposition division in the Parliament. Despite current attempts to present rival candidates for the post of Commission president prior to the European Parliament elections in May, there is still no competition between candidates with competing policy agendas and different records at the EU level. Without this kind of politicised contest it is simply not possible for voters to identify which parties are responsible for the current policy outcomes and which parties offer an alternative.

As a consequence, the classic model of electoral accountability cannot be applied to European Parliament elections. Even if citizens think the EU is responsible for poor policy performance in an area, they find it difficult to identify which parties are ‘governing’ and punish, or reward, them at the ballot box. This has broader implications for trust and legitimacy. When people hold the EU responsible for poor performance, but cannot hold it accountable for that performance, they become less trusting of the EU institutions as a whole. Thus the danger for the EU is that every time the system fails to deliver — such as during the Eurozone crisis — the result is declining levels of trust and a crisis of confidence in the regime as a whole, because voters lack the opportunity to punish an incumbent and elect an alternative. In other words, the lack of mechanisms to hold EU policymakers to account may lead to a more fundamental legitimacy crisis in the European Union.

Sara Hobolt and James Tilley are co-authors of Blaming Europe? Responsibility without accountability in the European Union. Sara Hobolt is the Sutherland Chair in European Institutions at the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science. James Tilley is a university lecturer at the Department of Politics and International m Relations at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Jesus College, Oxford.

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Image credit: Photo credit © European Union, 2014 via EC Audiovisual Service.

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The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) is a national association of librarians, library workers and advocates whose mission is to expand and strengthen library services for teens, aged 12-18. Through its member-driven advocacy, research, and professional development initiatives, YALSA builds the capacity of libraries and librarians to engage, serve and empower teens.

• Held a conference call with Ritchie Momon of the Road Trip Taskforce and Elizabeth Hanisian of the State Association Outreach Taskforce about the Board decision at the Annual conference to merge those two groups into one superdynamo. Many thanks to both Elizabeth and Ritchie for their dedication to helping move these important member engagement opportunities forward. Be on the lookout for a YALSA presence at a state conference near you! And in the meantime, why not use these free materials to share information and organize a meetup in your own area?

• Appointed members to serve on vacated committee positions and newly formed taskforces on  MakerSpaces, Professional Values, Administrator Resources, and Student Member Engagement.  There are still several slots available, feel free to let me know if you  have the time and inclination.

• Finalized a list of  amazing YALSA members to serve as representatives to seventeen ALA committees and assemblies.

• With YALSA Executive Director Beth Yoke, finalized agendas and documents for the August Board Conference Call.  The bulk of this call is to discuss Chair reports and  assess  progress of the annual task list. 

• Posted virtual discussions to the YALSA Board  space in ALA Connect regarding  board member professional development and a possible new standing  committees based on each of the five goals in YALSA’s Strategic Plan.

• Held a Board chat on “best practices” and what is needed by members on a national level.  If approved by the board this month, the  standing committee on  research and best practices will make recommendations on the ideas discussed in this forum, as well as those collected during the YALSA membership meeting at ALA Annual.

• Discussed digital trends in libraries  for a story in EdWeek.

• With the Executive Director and with feedback from the Executive committee,  interviewed and selected a candidate for the  Hub Manager position.  Many thanks to the amazing group of people that applied and congratulations to  the talented Allison Tran, who was selected.

• Discussed a plan of action for the year with the President’s Program Planning Committee Chair, Linda Braun.  Many thanks to Linda and the rest of the committee for their willingness to  jump in and think outside the box for what I’m sure will be  a thought-provoking process and program.

• With President-Elect, Chris Shoemaker, planned the September Board chat on member recruitment and engagement.

• Mark your calendars! The Board will be hosting a discussion with members on Wednesday, October 2nd at 2 p.m. EST.  More information can be found on the YALSA Blog.

YALSA News

• Reads 4 Teens is available. This $29 digital download is a mash-up of YALSA’s 2013 lists and winners, and includes 32 pamphlets and 10 bookmarks: http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=10646

• Practical Programming: The Best of YA-YAAC by Monique Delatte Starkey has gone on sale!

• Teen Read Week is right around the corner! Connect with colleagues and plan your programs by registering at the official Ning.

• Voting has begun for Teen’s Top Ten! Vote for your faves through October 19th and check out the TTT Tumblr.

• Bundled registration for ALA Midwinter and Annual 2014 is open!

• The YALSA Advocacy page is looking more inspiring than ever, especially with the inclusion of the recently updated Advocacy Toolkit!

Gratitude

Thanks again to all of our generous Teen Read Week partners including Soho Teen, Blink, Dollar General, Scholastic, and ALA Graphics.

Thanks to our incoming process committee Chairs and committee members for starting your terms strong!

And thank you to our YALSA and Hub bloggers!  I never fail to be energized by the content that  you share on these amazing resources.

I’m en route to Seattle even as I type this! What will the board and I be up to at the 2013 Midwinter conference? Keep reading to find out.

It’s going to be an awesome conference. We’ve got programs, meetings and activities everywhere. We’ll be talking about advocacy, collaborations, books and reading, the future of teen services in libraries and more.

First, I’ll be helping YALSA host the first National Forum on Teens & Libraries on January 23 and 24. This is the first summit of its kind, and we’ll be bringing leaders on youth development, libraries, technology, publishing, everything. The goal is figure out where teen services is going and where it needs to be in the 21st Century. ALA President Maureen Sullivan will be the lead moderator, and we’ve got some amazing special guest stars, including Lee Rainey, head of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Mizuko Ito, Professor in Residence and MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning at the University of California, Irvine, Renee Hobbs, Director of the Harrington School of Communications & Media at the University of Rhode Island and George Needham, Vice President for Global and Regional Councils at the Online Computer Library Center. We’ll be talking lots of teens, literacy, library, technology and more. I’ll even be leading the Youth Panel portion of the forum with special awesome teens from YALSA President-Elect Shannon Peterson. We’ll be tweeting, blogging and posting the entire time, so check out our social media channels to find out what’s going on.

The YALSA Executive Committee will also be meeting with the executive committees of our sister divisions, AASL and ALSC. The three divisions traditionally meet every Thursday before Midwinter and Annual conferences. This time we’ll be talking about our Joint School/Public Library committee, a new Common Core taskforce and a whole lot more.

The YALSA Board will also be pretty busy this conference. Not only will you see us at Leadership Development (coffee and carbs!!!) and the YALSA Happy Hour (free drinks and apps!!!) on Saturday, feel free to drop by our meetings from 1:30-5:30 on Saturday, 4:30-5:30 on Sunday and 1:30-3:30 on Monday, all in room 309 of the convention center. You’ll also see us at the Youth Media Awards and the Morris and Non-Fiction awards ceremony on Monday.

What will the Board be talking about? Lots of stuff. In thinking about how YALSA can help its members advocate for teen services in libraries, the Board will be having a major discussion on how to reach library administrators to help them understand the importance of teen services.

We also know that members want to learn more about teen programming in libraries. So we’ll be voting to establish a new taskforce of programming best practices and replicable program examples for members. Interested in serving on the taskforce? Hit me up after Midwinter!

We also know how much everyone loves our biennial YA Lit Symposium. In fact, we know ya’ll love it so much that we’re going to be considering whether or not we should do it every year as opposed to every other year. Got an opinion? Let us know what you think.

Also back by popular demand is the YALSA Road Trip. We know from the member survey and from my virtual town halls that members really want to find better ways to connect to one another on a regional or state-by-state basis. The board will be brainstorming new ways that YALSA can reboot this exciting project.

We’ll also be exploring lots of other new ways for members to connect with one another, both virtually and in-person. We’ll be talking about a new student chapter proposal as well as a cool new idea on how members who love teen books can better connect with one another.

Finally, we’ll be at the Coffee with the Candidates, which is a great opportunity for members to meet this year’s candidates for President-Elect as well as the Board. This is your chance to get up close and personal with the candidates and let them know your concerns and ideas. I know I’ll be there with plenty of questions of my own.

All in all, it’s gonna be a super busy conference, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone there. I’ll be the guy with the crazy socks. Over and out. See you there.

By Grahame Thompson

Have we seen a potentially new form of global governance quietly emerging over the last decade or so, one that is establishing a surrogate and informal process of the constitutionalization of global economic and political relationships, something that is creeping up on us almost unnoticed?  This issue of ‘global constitutionalization’ has become an important topic of analysis over recent years. Its development is most obvious in the case of business and corporate activity but I suggest it has a much wider provenance and is threatening to encompass many other aspects of global governance like human rights, security and warfare, environmental regulation, and more besides. One difficulty in analyzing this trend is to define its characteristics and parameters since it represents a rather loose configuration, one that is not easy to pin down.

Quasi-constitutionalization is a surrogate process of constitutionalization, not a coherent program with a rounded set of outcomes but full of contradictory half-finished currents and projects: an ‘assemblage’ of many disparate advances and often directionless moves – almost an accidental coming together of elements. So it does not amount to a ‘system’ in any conventional sense. This means it marshals together a complex bricolage of resources: material techniques and devices like models, documents, court decisions, legal statutes and treaties; institutional orders like legal apparatuses, bodies  and governance organizations; and discursive expertise, theoretical knowledges and instruments. But it is a process nonetheless: it is building norms of conduct, rule-making, and a distribution of powers in a ‘global polity’.

I call this a quasi-constitutional process because while it resembles a constitution in many respects it is difficult to transpose constitutionality directly into an international environment where there is no single competent authority that might foster or enforce such a constitution.

In turn, this connects to various senses of the juridicalization of international corporate and other affairs, where new or revitalized types of law are increasingly being brought into play as the mechanisms for resolving disputes or organizing governance. This involves new forms of public law, private law, customary law, regulatory and administrative law, all of which are rapidly evolving in the international arena alongside traditional international law. Institutions that embody such a process are the WTO, various agencies of the UN, the OECD, Bilateral Trade and Investment treaties, and a huge number of standard setting and benchmarking organization many of which are private in character but which both claim and exercise a public power at the global level. This is the site of a reinvigorated private law and private authority operating in the international domain. In the case of companies, they are increasingly adopting the language of global corporate citizenship to characterize their activity as civic actors in this evolving quasi-constitutional environment, and they are being addressed as such by bodies like the World Economic Forum and the UN’s Global Compact. Bilateral trade and investment treaties have mushroomed over recent years. Investment treaties are an example of global private administrative law in action.

On the other hand we have the OECD in its capacity as sponsor of socially responsible conduct by multinational companies (Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises) which has become an instrument of global public administrative law. John Ruggie’s recent attempt to introduce a comprehensive regime of human rights into the business world (the UNs Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework) is another case in point of the creeping quasi-constitutionalizing process.

But a major issue of concern is whether quasi-constitutionalization leads to the Rule by Laws (RbLs) rather than the Rule of Law (RoL) in the international system? The RoL may be being given away as RbLs replace a comprehensive system of democratically constituted judicial review, which cannot happen in the case of global quasi-constitutionality.

Thus in this evolving environment, instead of the rule by elected and accountable political officials we are seeing the emergence of rule by lawyers and by aged judges and law professors in international commercial and other matters. These are the actors that are leading the process of institutional rule-making. Public and particularly private elites are making-up the rules as they go along, arbitrarily and on an ad hoc basis. I call this a rule by a new self-appointed Guild of Lawyers on the one hand and a new Clerisy of the Law on the other. In effect, we are giving up any form of democratic legitimacy and accountability with this introduction of global quasi-constitutionalization.

Grahame F. Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at the Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), and Emeritus Professor at the Open University (England). His research and teaching interests have been in international political economy matters, and globalization; with a recent focus on the role of business organization in the context of international economic matters. He is the author of The Constitutionalization of the Global Corporate Sphere? (OUP, 2012).

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By Mark Bevir

Governance, governance everywhere – why has the word “governance” become so common? One reason is that many people believe that the state no longer matters, or at least the state matters far less than it used to. Even politicians often tell us that the state can’t do much. They say they have no choice about many policies. The global economy compels them to introduce austerity programs. The need for competitiveness requires them to contract-out public services, including some prisons in the US.

If the state isn’t ruling through government institutions, then presumably there is a more diffuse form of governance involving various actors. So, “governance” is a broader term than “state” or “government”. Governance refers to all processes of governing, whether undertaken by a government, market, or network, whether over a family, corporation, or territory, and whether by laws, norms, power, or language. Governance focuses not only on the state and its institutions but also on the creation of rule and order in social practices.

Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament

The rise of the word “governance” as an alternative to “government” reflects some of the most important social and political trends of recent times. Social scientists sometimes talk of the hollowing-out of the state. The state has been weakened from above by the rise of regional blocs like the European Union and by the global economy. The state has been weakened from below by the use of contracts and partnerships that involve other organizations in the delivery of public services. Globalization and the transformation of the public sector mean that the state cannot dictate or coordinate public policy. The state depends in part on global, transnational, private, and voluntary sector organizations to implement many of its policies. Further, the state is rarely able to control or command these other actors. The state has to negotiate with them as best it can, and often it has little bargaining power.

But, although the role of the state has changed, these changes do not necessarily mean that the state is less important. An alternative perspective might suggest that the state has simply changed the way it acts. From this viewpoint, the state has adopted more indirect tools of governing but these are just as effective – perhaps even more so – than the ones they replaced. Whereas the state used to govern directly through bureaucratic agencies, today it governs indirectly through, for example, contracts, regulations, and targets. Perhaps, therefore, the state has not been hollowed-out so much as come to focus on meta-governance, that is, the governance of the other organizations in the markets and networks that now seem to govern us.

The hollow state and meta-governance appear to be competing descriptions of today’s politics. If we say the state has been hollowed out, we seem to imply it no longer matters. If we say the state is the key to meta-governance, we seem to imply it retains the central role in deciding public policy. Perhaps, however, the two descriptions are compatible with one another. The real lesson of the rise of the word “governance” might be that there is something wrong with our very concept of the state.

All too often people evoke the state as if it were some kind of monolithic entity. They say that “the state did something” or that “state power lay behind something”. However, the state is not a person capable of acting; rather, the state consists of various people who do not always not act in a manner consistent with one another. “The state” contains a vast range of different people in various agencies, with various relationships acting in various ways for various purposes and in accord with various beliefs. Far from being a monolithic entity that acts with one mind, the state contains within it all kinds of contests and misunderstandings.

Descriptions of a hollow state tell us that policymakers have actively tried to replace bureaucracies with markets and networks. They evoke complex policy environments in which central government departments are not necessarily the most important actors let alone the only ones. Descriptions of meta-governance tell us that policymakers introduced markets and networks as tools by which they hoped to get certain ends. They evoke the ways central government departments act in complex policy environments.

When we see the word “governance”, it should remind us that the state is an abstraction based on diverse and contested patterns of concrete activity. State action and state power do not fit one neat pattern – neither that of hollowing-out or meta-governance. Presidents, prime ministers, legislators, civil servants, and street level bureaucrats can all sometimes make a difference, but the state is stateless, for it has no essence.

Mark Bevir is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of several books including Governance: A Very Short Introduction (2012) and  The State as Cultural Practice (2010). He is also the editor or co-editor of 10 books, including a two volume Encyclopaedia of Governance (2007). He founded the undergraduate course on ‘Theories of Governance’ at Berkeley and teaches a graduate course on ‘Strategies of Contemporary Governance’.

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Image Credit: Martin Schulz during the election camapign in 2009. Creative Commons Licence – Mettmann. (via Wikimedia Commons)

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Ever wonder what’s going on with the Division? A ton of great information can be found under the “Working with YALSA” portion of the website.  The minutes from the YALSA Board and the YALSA Executive Committee meetings (as well as supporting documents) can be found there in the Governance section.

Check out the most recent draft Board minutes here

and draft Exec Committee minutes here.

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75. YALSA President’s Monthly Report

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By: Beth, on 8/2/2011
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Monthly President’s Report – July 2011

My first month as YALSA President has been a busy one. Below is a summary of activities that I have completed or am working on.

Completed Tasks

• Presented two webinars for new chairs of  process committees, task forces, and juries about their roles and responsibilities.
• Presented (with Beth Yoke) a webinar for new board members about the relationship of YALSA and ALA.
• Had phone conversations with several YALSA committee chairs about the upcoming work of their committees.
• Had phone conversation with Lesley Farmer, YALSA’s IFLA representative, about the upcoming IFLA Conference and about what information about YALSA she should share there.
• Set up the @yalsapresident Twitter account, and began tweeting information about YALSA activities and linking to articles on teens and libraries.
• Filled a vacancy on the Best Fiction for Young Adults committee.
• Appointed members to a task force charged to write a manual for the Odyssey Award Committee.

Works in Progress

• Had a phone conversation with Mary Fellows, ALSC President, about the joint ALSC/YALSA Presidents’ Program for Annual 2012.
• The YALSA Board approved some new committees and task forces at the Annual Conference. I am currently appointing members for:
  • A committee to oversee and market YALSA’s portfolio of national guidelines.
  • A task force to evaluate the effectiveness of YALSA’s interest and discussion groups.
• In August, the Strategic Planning Committee, our consultant, Beth Yoke, and I will be meeting by phone to discuss the strategic planning input that we received at Annual, and start creating goals for the revised plan.

 Media & Outreach

• Spoke with Libby Goldman from Good Housekeeping about the impact of the Harry Potter books (http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/family/books/harry-potter)

 Important YALSA News & Reminders

• The deadline for submitting comments on YALSA’s draft research agenda is Friday, August 15.
• YALSA’s Board of Directors will meet via conference call on Fri. Aug. 26th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm, eastern, to review and discuss Quarterly Chair Reports.  Any YALSA member who would like to sit in on the call may do so.  Please contact Letitia Smith, YALSA’s Membership Coordinator, for the phone number and access code.
• Submit volunteer forms by September 30 for YALSA Selection and Award Committees; President-Elect Jack Martin will be appointing those committees in October.
• Vote now through August 15 for which programs YALSA will offer at the 2012 Annual Conference.

 

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