The Privatization of Responsibility: Tracing its Ambivalence in the post-2015 Global Agenda

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Abstract

Privatizing responsibility refers to shifting responsibility from its traditional locus within state institutions to private actors like civil society or business as well as the individual. In academia, this phenomenon has been explored under diverse theoretical lenses such as resilience and sustainable consumption. This contribution presents privatization as an ambivalent phenomenon: On the one hand, it has an empowering function for the new addressee of responsibility, potentially resulting in new capabilities. On the other hand, it is criticized for being a neoliberal instrument that allows governments to deflect from their own responsibility. Is this ambivalence addressed in global politics? If so, how? The paper aims to answer this research question by focusing on the final documents of four global conferences in 2015: The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. The paper reconstructs the discourse on responsibility as it unfolds in this global vision of the earth's future development and critically examines if and how privatization is addressed therein. It reveals that the discourse entangles the privatization of responsibility with a reinstatement of the state and its responsibility. By doing so, the paper contributes to the understanding of the multi-faceted nature of responsibility in global politics, uncovering its inner contradiction(s).

Speakers from the University of Münster

Prokopf, Christine

Professorship of Sustainable Development (Prof. Fuchs)