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3 eThekwini’s Green and Ecological Infrastructure Policy Landscape
work in an institutionalist setting, namely, the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.
Within this organisational structure, strategies and discourses play a prominent role.
In fact, the information that I uncovered was replete with these reproducible elements.
The ‘label’ liberal institutionalism speaks to the ‘organizational patterns’ that Jessop
(2002) refers to. What is more, liberal institutionalism does not exist in a pure
form; we can see this in eThekwini, where collaboration and policy critique happen
simultaneously, as mentioned by Respondent 11 above.
Liberal institutionalism rests on several assumptions. For example, it assumes that
states consist of citizens, interest groups, local authorities and government departments that continuously compete with one another (Viotti and Kauppi 1999) to
receive the scarce resources emanating from society and the economy. However,
the state and its governing apparatus, is not the only significant player in (world)
politics (Viotti and Kauppi 1999), because non-state entities also have autonomous
preferences (Stone 1994), or an inclination to act independently, or free from external
control or influence.
With the plurality of actors in mind, ideologically, liberalism claims that economic,
political and social relations should be organised through the free choices of unrestricted and rational actors. These role players do so to advance their own material or
ideational interests within an autonomous institutional arrangement (Jessop 2002).
To recognise a range of actors, including non-state actors, liberal institutionalists
substitute sovereignty, which is associated with the state system, with autonomy, as
a settled norm (Heywood 1997). The theory accepts that the relationships between
plentiful actors resembles a cobweb of relations, with the numerous performers on
the political stage being linked to each other in diverse ways, based on their highly
complex and multiple interdependent relationships (Heywood 1999).
Economically, the self-regulating market is one of the central features of the
theory. The market is self-regulating because it has a wide geographical scope and
a comprehensive governing mechanism for allocating all goods and services. This
market is also important for organising and evaluating institutional performance; in
other words, everything needs to be commodified, even the natural resources, in order
for the market to do all these things (McCarthy and Prudham 2004).
Politically, collective decision-making involves both a constitutional state (Jessop
2002; Ikenberry 2009) and its governing apparatus. These have limited ‘substantive powers of economic and social intervention’ while, at the same time, they
are committed to increasing the formal freedom of actors and stakeholders in the
economy, as well as the liberty of actors in the public sphere (Jessop 2002).
With respect to these highly complex relationships, there is no clear distinction
between domestic affairs and international politics. The two realms of political action
are interdependent, with the one influencing the other (Moravcsik 1997; Ikenberry
2009), and the actors have simultaneous roles to play in both domains. What is more,
cooperation between the actors in both systems is quite normal, since international
relations experts perceive the systems as being free (Stone 1994; Ikenberry 2009).
Green and Ecological Infrastructures through liberal institutionalism
3 eThekwini’s Green and Ecological Infrastructure Policy Landscape
work in an institutionalist setting, namely, the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.
Within this organisational structure, strategies and discourses play a prominent role.
In fact, the information that I uncovered was replete with these reproducible elements.
The ‘label’ liberal institutionalism speaks to the ‘organizational patterns’ that Jessop
(2002) refers to. What is more, liberal institutionalism does not exist in a pure
form; we can see this in eThekwini, where collaboration and policy critique happen
simultaneously, as mentioned by Respondent 11 above.
Liberal institutionalism rests on several assumptions. For example, it assumes that
states consist of citizens, interest groups, local authorities and government departments that continuously compete with one another (Viotti and Kauppi 1999) to
receive the scarce resources emanating from society and the economy. However,
the state and its governing apparatus, is not the only significant player in (world)
politics (Viotti and Kauppi 1999), because non-state entities also have autonomous
preferences (Stone 1994), or an inclination to act independently, or free from external
control or influence.
With the plurality of actors in mind, ideologically, liberalism claims that economic,
political and social relations should be organised through the free choices of unrestricted and rational actors. These role players do so to advance their own material or
ideational interests within an autonomous institutional arrangement (Jessop 2002).
To recognise a range of actors, including non-state actors, liberal institutionalists
substitute sovereignty, which is associated with the state system, with autonomy, as
a settled norm (Heywood 1997). The theory accepts that the relationships between
plentiful actors resembles a cobweb of relations, with the numerous performers on
the political stage being linked to each other in diverse ways, based on their highly
complex and multiple interdependent relationships (Heywood 1999).
Economically, the self-regulating market is one of the central features of the
theory. The market is self-regulating because it has a wide geographical scope and
a comprehensive governing mechanism for allocating all goods and services. This
market is also important for organising and evaluating institutional performance; in
other words, everything needs to be commodified, even the natural resources, in order
for the market to do all these things (McCarthy and Prudham 2004).
Politically, collective decision-making involves both a constitutional state (Jessop
2002; Ikenberry 2009) and its governing apparatus. These have limited ‘substantive powers of economic and social intervention’ while, at the same time, they
are committed to increasing the formal freedom of actors and stakeholders in the
economy, as well as the liberty of actors in the public sphere (Jessop 2002).
With respect to these highly complex relationships, there is no clear distinction
between domestic affairs and international politics. The two realms of political action
are interdependent, with the one influencing the other (Moravcsik 1997; Ikenberry
2009), and the actors have simultaneous roles to play in both domains. What is more,
cooperation between the actors in both systems is quite normal, since international
relations experts perceive the systems as being free (Stone 1994; Ikenberry 2009).
Green and Ecological Infrastructures through liberal institutionalism