Orchestration is a soft mode of governance, in which a ‘governor’ enlists the voluntary cooperation of intermediary actors to carry out governance functions that further the governor’s goals. Environmental issues figured prominently in the origin of the orchestration concept, and orchestration has since played a significant role in earth system governance research on architecture and agency. This chapter summarizes key empirical findings of this research, especially on sustainable development and climate change. It also identifies contributions of earth system governance research to orchestration theory: for example, concerning the conditions for successful orchestration, the role of orchestration platforms and orchestration’s role in institutional complexity. The chapter then engages with critiques and normative concerns, particularly relating to power, accountability and legitimacy. The chapter concludes with thoughts on an orchestration research agenda that can support the transformative goals of the new earth system governance science plan.

There is a growing consensus in the literature that governance architectures matter. However, we lack sufficient knowledge about their emergence, dynamics and impacts. This concluding chapter summarizes all insights in the book Architectures of Earth System Governance, and emphasizes how this book has made a scientific contribution by enhancing conceptual clarity, synthesizing a decade of intense research, and charting directions for future research. The book has made at least one point clear: the ‘architecture lens’ offers a bird’s-eye view on the global governance landscape that is highly valuable in explaining outcomes of world politics. The architectures matter in how institutions interact with others, how institutions are entangled with others in larger regime complexes and how institutions are affected by broader architectures that are more or less fragmented or polycentric. In this concluding chapter, we also illustrate how such key insights gained could inform a set of transformative policy proposals regarding the architecture of earth system governance.

Abstract

This chapter develops a conceptual framework for analyzing orchestration, a mode of governance widely used by international organizations (IGOs) and other governance actors, but rarely identified or analyzed. IGOs engage in orchestration when they enlist intermediary actors on a voluntary basis, by providing them with ideational and material support, to address target actors in pursuit of IGO governance goals. Orchestration is thus both indirect (because the IGO acts through intermediaries) and soft (because the IGO lacks control over intermediaries). These features distinguish orchestration from traditional hierarchical governance, which addresses targets directly through hard instruments; from governance through collaboration with targets, which is direct but soft; and from delegation, which is indirect (because the IGO works through an agent) but hard (because the IGO can control the agent). The chapter elaborates the concept of orchestration, identifies common patterns and techniques, and advances hypotheses regarding the conditions under which governance actors in general and IGOs in particular can be expected to rely on orchestration.

Introduction: orchestration and international organizations

IGOs have ambitious governance goals but moderate governance capacity. IGOs are charged with, among many other tasks, containing the use of violence, facilitating free trade, advancing economic development, fighting organized crime, promoting human rights, improving labor standards, defending biodiversity and providing relief after natural disasters and armed conflicts. Yet IGOs’ ability to govern state and non-state behavior in pursuit of these goals is constrained by restrictive treaty mandates, close member state oversight and limited financial and administrative resources. In brief, IGOs often lack the capabilities to perform the roles they have been nominally allocated.

We started this project with a puzzle and a hunch. The puzzle was whether and how IGOs can have an impact on international governance even though they lack the authority and resources normally seen as necessary for successful governance. The hunch was that this could be understood by investigating IGOs’ use of “soft” governance techniques to mobilize third parties to assist in achieving IGO goals.

In the introductory chapter of this volume, “Orchestration: global governance through intermediaries,” we theorize our initial hunch, both in general terms and for the special circumstances of IOs. We introduce the concept of orchestration, a mode of governance that is soft and indirect; orchestration thus stands in contrast to modes of governance that are direct and/or hard, including hierarchy, collaboration and delegation. In orchestration, one actor, the orchestrator, enlists the voluntary assistance of a second actor, the intermediary, to govern a third actor, the target, in line with the orchestrator’s goals. We refer to this as the O-I-T model of orchestration. We focus in this volume on the special case in which the orchestrator is an IGO. The introductory chapter introduces six hypotheses regarding the conditions under which governance actors, and IGOs specifically, are likely to engage in orchestration.