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Karen Tucker
Subjectivities and the WTO
Participation and Subjectification in Global Governance: NGOs, Acceptable

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DOI: 10.1177/0305829813518257
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MILLENNIUM
Journal of International Studies
Participation and
Subjectification in Global
Governance: NGOs,
Acceptable Subjectivities
and the WTO
Karen Tucker
University of Bristol, UK
Abstract
In this article, I examine the ways in which NGO participation in global governance both relies
on and produces particular forms of NGO subjectivity. Focusing on NGO interaction with
WTO policy-makers in relation to ongoing policy debates about trade, intellectual property law
and the protection of traditional knowledge and biodiversity, I explore the ways in which
particular forms of subjectivity are elicited and rewarded from (would-be) NGO participants in
dialogue, consultation and information-sharing with the WTO. I also consider the forms of NGO
subjectivity that are treated as normal, credible and acceptable in this field of global governance,
and those that are constructed as undesirable and unacceptable. In doing so, I illustrate some of
the forms of inclusion and exclusion that underpin the contributions that NGOs make to policy-
making on traditional knowledge and biodiversity in the WTO, disrupting and complicating ideas
about the qualities that NGOs bring to global governance.
Keywords
global governance, NGOs, subjectification, subjectivity, traditional knowledge, WTO
Intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) have, in the past two decades, increasingly
sought to engage in dialogue and collaboration with non-governmental organisations
(NGOs).
1
As NGOs have successfully positioned themselves as credible and necessary
Corresponding author:
Karen Tucker, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol, 11 Priory Road,
Bristol BS8 1TU, UK.
Email: karen.tucker@bristol.ac.uk
518257MIL0010.1177/0305829813518257Millennium: Journal of International StudiesTucker
research-article2014
Article
1. In this article, I use the term NGO as an umbrella category to refer to the different kinds
of private, non-profit-oriented organisations that are eligible to engage in dialogue and
at Aristotle University on April 27, 2014 mil.sagepub.com Downloaded from
Tucker 377
participants in democratic global governance, IGOs both inside and outside the UN sys-
tem have opened or deepened channels of communication with NGOs and the civil
society they are often assumed to represent.
2
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is
no exception to this general pattern. Prompted in large part by the so-called Battle of
Seattle that accompanied the 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference, and the broader cri-
tiques of the WTO and its role in promoting neoliberal globalisation that were prevalent
at the time,
3
the WTO Secretariat has implemented a series of measures intended to
increase public understanding of the organisations policies and activities, and to gener-
ate opportunities for interaction and dialogue between national delegates involved in
negotiating WTO agreements, WTO Secretariat staff and representatives of NGOs.
These measures have included the creation of an Information Centre on the WTO web-
site which provides regular updates about ongoing negotiations and other WTO activi-
ties, annual Public Forums and Open Days at the WTO headquarters in Geneva, smaller
symposia on specific negotiating issues, and the issuing of security badges to Geneva-
based NGOs which allow access into the WTO building without invitation. Regular
meetings, seminars, workshops, emails and telephone calls also take place between
national delegates, Secretariat staff and NGO representatives outside these formal
initiatives, often instigated by NGO staff themselves. The WTO Secretariat now proudly
declares that [f]rom a sensitive, one-dimensional and mostly process-oriented relation-
ship which primarily evolved around access to information, the WTONGO interaction
has matured into a more substance-based one.
4
collaboration with intergovernmental organisations. In the context examined here, this
includes international NGOs and think-tanks with offices and activities in more than one
country, regional NGOs linking organisations across a particular geographical region, national
NGOs with activities in one country, peasant and indigenous organisations with more direct
links to local communities, trade unions and business associations, all of which carry out a
mixture of research, networking and advocacy relevant to the WTOs activities. Although
NGO is a broad and potentially ambiguous category of analysis, its use is appropriate here,
not only because of this empirical context, but also because the article aims, as discussed in
more detail below, to explore how individuals representing the full range of NGOs just men-
tioned are affected by dominant discourses within the WTO.
2. For an overview of NGO interaction with different parts of the UN system, and a discussion
of the pro-NGO norm in global governance, see Kim D. Reimann, A View from the Top:
International Politics, Norms and the Worldwide Growth of NGOs, International Studies
Quarterly 50, no. 1 (2006): 5560.
3. For an overview of these critiques as well as interpretations of the significance of events in
Seattle, see Stephen Gill, Toward a Postmodern Prince? The Battle in Seattle as a Moment
in the New Politics of Globalisation, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29,
no. 1 (2000): 13140; Fred Halliday, Getting Real about Seattle, Millennium: Journal of
International Studies 29, no. 1 (2000): 1239; Philip McMichael, Sleepless since Seattle:
What Is the WTO about?, Review of International Political Economy 7, no. 3 (2000):
46674.
4. World Trade Organisation, World Trade Report 2007 (Geneva: WTO Publications, 2007), 342.
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378 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42(2)
Although more critical literatures have emerged which see this type of engagement
with NGOs as part of the workings of a global governmentality
5
and/or question the
quality of participation such policies enable,
6
NGO involvement in the activities and
processes of intergovernmental organisations has more typically been analysed in terms
of the qualities and values it can add to global governance. In the WTO context, for
instance, the increasingly substance-based relationship that has developed between
(some) NGO representatives, national delegates and Secretariat staff has been posited as
injecting new energy, ideas, and values into WTO deliberations,
7
enhancing the trans-
parency, accountability and democratic legitimacy of decision-making processes,
8
and
facilitating the construction of global social contracts between citizens, states and the
WTO.
9
In the broader literature on NGO activities and relations with institutions of
global governance, NGOs have, similarly, tended to be examined and evaluated in terms
of the particular qualities their involvement might bring to global governance, whether
technical expertise and professional skills which enhance the epistemic quality of
5. See, for example, Louise Amoore and Paul Langley, Ambiguities of Global Civil Society,
Review of International Studies 30, no. 1 (2004): 89110; Jens Bartelson, Making Sense
of Global Civil Society, European Journal of International Relations 12, no. 3 (2006):
37195; Hans-Martin Jaeger, Global Civil Society and the Political Depoliticization of
Global Governance, International Political Sociology 1, no. 3 (2007): 25777; Hans-Martin
Jaeger, World Opinion and the Founding of the UN: Governmentalizing International
Politics, European Journal of International Relations 14, no. 4 (2008): 589 618; Ole Jacob
Sending and Iver B. Neumann, Governance to Governmentality: Analyzing NGOs, States,
and Power, International Studies Quarterly 50, no. 3 (2006): 65172.
6. See, for example, Kenneth Anderson, The Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines, the Role
of International Non-governmental Organisations and the Idea of International Civil Society,
European Journal of International Law 11, no. 1 (2000): 91120; Tanja Brhl, Representing
the People? NGOs in International Negotiations, in Evaluating Transnational NGOs:
Legitimacy, Accountability, Representation, eds Jens Steffek and Kristina Hahn (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 18199; Sangeeta Kamat, The Privatization of Public Interest:
Theorizing NGO Discourse in a Neoliberal Era, Review of International Political Economy
11, no. 1: 15576.
7. Steve Charnovitz, The WTO and Cosmopolitics, in Reforming the World Trading System:
Legitimacy, Efficiency and Democratic Governance, eds Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann and James
Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 442.
8. See, for example, Steve Charnovitz, Transparency and Participation in the World Trade
Organization, Rutgers Law Review 56, no. 4 (2003): 92759; Jeffrey L. Dunoff, Public
Participation in the Trade Regime: Of Litigation, Frustration, Agitation and Legitimation,
Rutgers Law Review 56, no. 4 (2003): 96170; Patrizia Nanz and Jens Steffek, Global
Governance, Participation and the Public Sphere, Government and Opposition 39, no. 2
(2004): 31435; Elizabeth Smythe and Peter J. Smith, Legitimacy, Transparency and
Information Technology: The World Trade Organisation in an Era of Contentious Trade
Politics, Global Governance 12, no. 1 (2006): 3153.
9. Baogang He and Hannah Murphy, Global Social Justice at the WTO? The Role of NGOs in
Constructing Global Social Contracts, International Affairs 83, no. 4 (2007): 70227.
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Tucker 379
global policy-making,
10
the representation of neglected voices and perspectives,
11
or
democratic values such as accountability, transparency and representative legitimacy.
12
Another important set of questions may be asked, however, about the forms of pro-
ductive and disciplinary power that operate within and through intergovernmental organ-
isations policies of engagement with NGOs, and how these forms of power construct
and constrain the subjects of dialogue and cooperation with IGOs. How do prevailing
discourses and truth configurations shape IGO staff and policy-makers ideas about the
proper behaviour and attitudes to be adopted by NGO representatives if they are to par-
ticipate in dialogue and activities such as information-sharing and expert consultation?
How are such discourses and truth configurations implicated in both the constitution
and self-constitution
13
of acceptable, credible and legitimate NGO interlocutors? What
forms of subjectification (i.e. that work on the subjectivity of others) and subjectivation
(that work on the self) are emerging in the spaces and channels through which NGO
representatives interact with staff and national delegates in organisations such as the
WTO? What patterns of NGO inclusion and exclusion do these forms of subjectification
and subjectivation reinforce or engender?
In this article, I take up and develop some of these questions with reference to NGO
participation in dialogue, consultation and information-sharing with government offi-
cials, national delegates and WTO Secretariat staff in relation to the WTOs Trade
Related Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS), and the way it incorporates what is
10. See, for example, Elizabeth A. Bloodgood, The Interest Group Analogy: International Non-
governmental Advocacy Organisations in International Politics, Review of International
Studies 37, no. 1 (2011): 93120; Marie Trnquist-Chesnier, How the International Criminal
Court Came to Life: The Role of Nongovernmental Organisations, Global Society 21, no. 3
(2007): 44965; Jens Steffek and Maria Paola Ferretti, Accountability or Good Decisions?
The Competing Goals of Civil Society Participation in International Governance, Global
Society 23, no. 1 (2009): 3757.
11. See, for example, Ann Marie Clark, Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and
Changing Human Rights Norms (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Leon
Gordenker and Thomas G. Weiss, Pluralising Global Governance: Analytical Approaches
and Dimensions, Third World Quarterly 16, no. 3 (1995): 35787; Margaret E. Keck and
Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University
Press, 1998); Lisa Jordan and Peter van Tuijl, Political Responsibility in Transnational NGO
Advocacy, World Development 28, no. 12 (2000): 105165.
12. See, for example, Karin Bckstrand, Democratizing Global Environmental Governance?
Stakeholder Democracy after the World Summit on Sustainable Development, European
Journal of International Relations 12, no. 4 (2006): 46798; Magdalena Bexell, Jonas
Tallberg and Anders Uhlin, Democracy in Global Governance: The Promises and Pitfalls of
Transnational Actors, Global Governance 16, no. 1 (2010): 81101; Rosa Sanchez Salgado,
NGO Structural Adaptation to Funding Requirements and Prospects for Democracy: The
Case of the European Union, Global Society 24, no. 4 (2010): 50727; Jan Aart Scholte,
Civil Society and Democratically Accountable Global Governance, Government and
Opposition 39, no. 2 (2004): 21133.
13. Jan Selby, Engaging Foucault: Discourse, Liberal Governance and the Limits of Foucauldian
IR, International Relations 21, no. 3 (2007): 333.
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380 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42(2)
typically referred to in international law as traditional knowledge
14
and biodiversity.
The TRIPS Council, the WTO body charged with monitoring and approving any changes
to the TRIPS Agreement, has been examining the links between traditional knowledge
the knowledge inherent in indigenous communities practices relating to the natural
environment biodiversity and Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPS Agreement since the late
1990s, under a mandate built into the article itself and reiterated and broadened during
the 2001 and 2005 WTO Ministerial Conferences.
15
NGOs in the global North and bio-
diverse countries in the global South have been campaigning on these and connected
issues since the 1990s, raising concerns, inter alia, about the role of intellectual property
regimes in the misappropriation of traditional knowledge by Northern companies, the
lack of consideration given to non-Western forms of knowledge in Western intellectual
property regimes, and the commodification of nature and knowledge facilitated by
TRIPS, which some of them have sought to feed into discussions in the TRIPS Council.
16

I examine, more specifically, the forms of subjectification and subjectivation that work
through the processes of dialogue, consultation and information-sharing taking place in
relation to this policy debate, and the forms of NGO subjectivity that are thereby elicited
as appropriate, credible and legitimate. In doing so, I highlight the ways in which domi-
nant discourses construct and constrain the subjects of dialogue with WTO policy-
makers, and place limits on who is considered qualified to participate in dialogue and
information-sharing in this field of global governance.
The analysis builds on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork
17
carried out in Geneva and
key regional centres in Peru (Lima, Cusco, Puno and Iquitos) between 2007 and 2010.
Geneva is home to the WTO Secretariat, as well as numerous international NGOs such
as Oxfam and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) that set up offices in
14. Other terms used to describe this kind of knowledge include indigenous knowledge,
folklore, indigenous intellectual property and traditional ecological knowledge. For a
more detailed discussion, see Peter Drahos, Towards an International Framework for the
Protection of Traditional Group Knowledge and Practice, paper presented at the UNCTAD-
Commonwealth Secretariat Workshop on Elements of National Sui Generis Systems for the
Preservation, Protection and Promotion of Traditional Knowledge, Innovations and Practices
and Options for an International Framework, Geneva, 46 February 2004, 6.
15. For an overview of TRIPS Council discussions of these issues and the different mandates,
see WTO, TRIPS: Reviews, Article 27.3(b) and Related Issues: Background and the
Current Situation. Available at: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/art27_3b_
background_e.htm.
16. For an overview of these debates and the issues they raise, see Margarita Flrez Alonso, Can
We Protect Traditional Knowledge?, in Another Knowledge Is Possible: Beyond Northern
Epistemologies, ed. Boaventura de Sousa Santos (London and New York: Verso, 2007), 249
71; Debora J. Halbert, Resisting Intellectual Property (London: Routledge, 2005), 13563;
Christopher May and Susan K. Sell, Intellectual Property Rights: A Critical History (London
and Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006), 18998; Vandana Shiva, NorthSouth Conflicts in
Intellectual Property Rights, Peace Review 12, no. 4 (2000): 5018.
17. For an overview of the principles that guide multi-sited ethnographic research, see George E.
Marcus, Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-sited Ethnography,
Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995): 10513.
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Tucker 381
the 1990s and early 2000s in order to carry out research and advocacy work related to the
WTO and other Geneva-based IGOs.
18
Peru was chosen as a fieldwork site because of its
high levels of community, NGO and government interest in debates about traditional
knowledge, biodiversity, intellectual property and trade policy, reflecting the large indig-
enous population and mega-biodiversity
19
in the country.
20
The logic of association or
connection that links the fieldwork sites and, indeed, defines the argument of the eth-
nography
21
is one of juxtaposition: the research was explicitly conceived to provide
insight into the ways in which different types of NGOs, including professionalised inter-
national NGOs with offices in Geneva, Peruvian national NGOs with offices in Lima,
and indigenous and peasant organisations with links to local communities,
22
interact with
the WTO. In each fieldwork site, I identified organisations and individuals who were (or
had been) researching or campaigning on issues related to trade, intellectual property
policy, traditional knowledge and biodiversity, using a combination of internet searches,
snowballing and lists of NGOs registered to attend WTO Ministerial Conferences,
23
and
interviewed them. I also identified and interviewed government officials, national dele-
gates and WTO Secretariat staff working on these issues or the broader theme of NGO
engagement. Unstructured interviews focusing on experiences of (attempted) participa-
tion in dialogue were carried out with a total of 70 individuals, including officials in the
WTO Secretariat, national delegates to the WTO, and international NGO directors and
staff in Geneva, and government officials, NGO directors and staff, independent and
government-employed researchers, and representatives of peasant and indigenous organ-
isations in Peru. I also participated wherever possible in public events on trade policy,
intellectual property policy, traditional knowledge and biodiversity, including the annual
WTO Public Forums in Geneva from 2007 to 2010, an International Workshop on
Genetically Modified Organisms and Biopiracy in Cusco, Peru, in April 2009, and the IV
18. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the World Health Organisation
(WHO), the International Labour Office (ILO) and several United Nations specialist agencies
are, for example, also based in Geneva.
19. See Conservation International (1998), Megadiversity: The 17 Biodiversity Superstars.
(available at: http://www.conservation.org/documentaries/Pages/megadiversity.aspx), and
Convention on Biological Diversity (no date), Country Profile Peru (available at: http://
www.cbd.int/countries/profile.shtml?country=pe#status).
20. Representatives of some national and community-based Peruvian NGOs have made it as
far as Geneva in their attempts to understand and participate in global policy debates about
intellectual property law, traditional knowledge and biodiversity, with representatives of one
Peruvian NGO even participating in TRIPS Council meetings in the WTO. The Peruvian gov-
ernment has also made securing more effective international legal recognition and protection
of traditional knowledge one of its foreign policy objectives.
21. Marcus, Ethnography in/of the World System, 105.
22. Some of these organisations can also, following conventional definitions (e.g. Anna C. Vakil,
Confronting the Classification Problem: Towards a Taxonomy of NGOs, World Development
25, no. 12 (1997): 2064), be considered international NGOs given the international focus of
their work.
23. See WTO, NGO participation in Ministerial Conferences. Available at: http://www.wto.org/
english/forums_e/ngo_e/ngo_e.htm.
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382 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42(2)
Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya Yala in Puno, Peru,
in May 2009.
24
I develop the analysis and arguments in three stages. I begin by setting out the theo-
retical concepts and orienting principles I use to develop my analysis, drawing on
Foucauldian work on subjectivity and the interconnected processes of subjectification
and subjectivation. I then illustrate some of the ways in which NGO subjectification and
subjectivation take place through the processes of dialogue, consultation and informa-
tion-sharing through which NGOs interact with representatives of the WTO. Finally, I
turn my attention to the forms of subjectivity that these processes of subjectification and
subjectivation work to elicit, and that are required from NGO representatives if they are
to be accepted as credible, authoritative and legitimate participants in policy-oriented
discussions about TRIPs, traditional knowledge and biodiversity with policy-makers,
government officials and WTO Secretariat staff.
Subjects, Subjectivity and Subject Formation
The arguments and analysis developed in this article build on Foucauldian understand-
ings of power and discourse, and of the ways these interconnect to construct and limit the
forms of subjectivity that are considered normal, acceptable and credible within particu-
lar discursive regimes. Like many others who work with Foucauldian concepts, I use
Foucaults work as a point of departure
25
from which to approach and develop my topic
of enquiry, and to interrogate the complex and subtle workings of power within a particu-
lar empirical context. In the context examined here, this entails using Foucauldian under-
standings of power, discourse and subjectivity to problematise the practices through
which NGOs participate in dialogue and consultation with the WTO, and to examine the
effects of these practices on the constitution and self-constitution of NGO representa-
tives who (wish to) participate in dialogue with representatives of the WTO.
My argument builds, more specifically, on an understanding of power as both
disciplinary and productive, an understanding of discourse as the means through which
disciplinary and productive power is transmitted and enabled, and the view that when
power is exercised it mediates the dominant view of what constitutes normal and accept-
able agency.
26
As Foucault argued in an interview in 1976:
If power were never anything but repressive, if it never did anything but to say no, do you really
think one would be brought to obey it? What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted,
is simply the fact that it doesnt only weigh on us as a force that says no; it also traverses and
24. Interviews in Geneva were carried out in English and observation carried out in the WTOs
three official languages of English, French and Spanish; interviews and observation in Peru
were carried out in Spanish. All translations of interview material included in this article are
my own.
25. Anna Selmeczi, we are being left to burn because we do not count: Biopolitics,
Abandonment, and Resistance, Global Society 23, no. 4 (2009): 520.
26. Ivan Manokha, Foucaults Concept of Power and the Global Discourse of Human Rights,
Global Society 23, no. 4 (2009): 435.
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Tucker 383
produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. It needs to be
considered as a productive network that runs through the whole social body, much more than as
a negative instance whose function is repression.
27
Power does not just discipline or repress (although it can certainly have this function); it
produces knowledge, discourse and discursive regimes through which individuals appre-
hend and interpret the social and material world, as well as their own and others role
within it. Power, as Rita Abrahamsen has put it, is thus not purely instrumentalist, but
works through systems of knowledge and discursive practices to provide the meanings,
norms, values and identities that not only constrain actors, but also constitute them.
28

Discursive regimes, in other words, through providing the logics and categories through
which we understand and interpret the social and material world, define what constitutes
normal, reasonable and acceptable subjectivity. In doing so, they also define what consti-
tutes abnormal or undesirable subjectivity, as attitudes and behaviours that fall outside the
boundaries of normal, acceptable subjectivity are made to appear abnormal or unaccepta-
ble. The workings of power and discourse, and the specific ways in which they constrain
and constitute actors, are neither universal nor timeless, but tied to specific contexts, peri-
ods and patterns of behaviour. As Foucault also argued, [e]ach society has its regime of
truth, its general politics of truth that is, the types of discourse it accepts and makes
function as true.
29
The context-specific workings of power and discourse thus produce
context-specific ideas about what constitutes a rational and normal subject,
30
as well as
the forms of subjectivity apprehended as abnormal, illegitimate and undesirable.
In order to explore the connections between the workings of power and discourse and
NGO subjects in the WTO context, I make use of two further Foucauldian concepts,
namely subjectification (a translation of the French assujettissement) and subjectiva-
tion (subjectivation).
31
Subjectification, here, refers to the ways in which individuals
are governed and constituted as particular kinds of subjects through the workings of power
27. Michel Foucault, Truth and Power, in Power: Essential Works of Foucault 19541984,
Volume 3, ed. James D. Faubion (London: Penguin Books, 2000), 120.
28. Rita Abrahamsen, The Power of Partnerships in Global Governance, Third World Quarterly
25, no. 8 (2004): 1459.
29. Foucault, Truth and Power, 131.
30. Michel Foucault, Subjectivity and Truth, in Ethics: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984,
Volume 1, ed. Paul Rabinow (London: Penguin Books, 1997), 88.
31. The translations of these terms, and the specific meanings attributed to them, are not con-
sistent in the literature, with asujettissement sometimes translated into English as subjec-
tion or subjugation (both of which suggest a narrower meaning than asujettissement), and
subjectification sometimes used to translate subjectivation. In addition, some scholars use
subjectification as an umbrella term for both processes of subject formation, while others
use subjectivation as the umbrella term. My use of the two concepts builds, in particu-
lar, on Trent H. Hamann, Neoliberalism, Governmentality, and Ethics, Foucault Studies 6
(2009): 3759; Mark G.E. Kelly, The Political Philosophy of Michel Foucault (New York and
Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), chapter 4 Subjectivity; and Marcelo Otero, La sociologie de
Michel Foucault: une critique de la raison impure, Sociologie et socits 38, no. 2 (2006):
4972.
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384 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42(2)
and discourse. It relies on technologies of power that determine the conduct of individu-
als and submit them to certain ends or domination,
32
and are produced and transmitted by
others practices as well as dominant norms. Subjectivation, on the other hand, has a nar-
rower and more active meaning, referring, as Trent Hamann puts it, to the ways that indi-
viduals govern and fashion themselves into subjects on the basis of what they take to be the
truth.
33
Subjectivation might take place through technologies of the self, in which indi-
viduals effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations
on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being
34
in line with dominant
norms. It might also entail work on the self which rejects or transcends dominant dis-
courses, opening space for subjects to resist or creatively rework these discourses identi-
ties, categories and logics. If subjectification refers to the ways in which human beings are
made subjects,
35
subjectivation is thus the process through which a human being turns
him- or herself into a subject
36
in ways that are shaped, but not over-determined, by the
prevailing discursive regime. An understanding of both subjectification and subjectivation
is necessary to fully grasp the ways in which the workings of power and discourse connect
to individual subjects and their agency: as Frdric Gros has remarked, the individual-
subject only ever emerges at the intersection of a technique of domination and a technique
of the self.
37
Considering them as separate but interconnected processes is a useful
reminder that subject formation is not simply a product of technologies of power but also
involves subjects agency. It also emphasises that subject formation is not just a productive
or benign process, but can also involve domination and constraint.
NGOs and the WTO: Subjectification and Subjectivation
Representatives of different kinds of NGOs regularly interact with WTO Secretariat
staff, national delegates to the WTO and other government representatives in a variety of
contexts and spaces. These include spaces of communication established and managed
by the Information and External Relations Division in the WTO Secretariat,
38
such as
briefings about ongoing meetings and activities for predominantly Geneva-based NGOs,
32. Michel Foucault, Technologies of the Self, in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with
Michel Foucault, eds Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton (Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 18.
33. Trent H. Hamann, Neoliberalism, Governmentality, and Ethics, Foucault Studies 6 (2009):
39, footnote 4.
34. Foucault, Technologies of the Self, 18.
35. Michel Foucault, The Subject and Power, in Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954
1984, Volume 3, ed. James D. Faubion (London: Penguin Books, 2000), 326.
36. Foucault, The Subject and Power, 327.
37. Frdric Gros, Course Context, in The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collge
de France 19811982, ed. Frdric Gros (New York: Picador, 2005), 526.
38. The Information and External Relations Division was created in 2009 through the merging
of the Information and Media Relations Division and the External Relations Division. Prior
to 2009, the External Relations Division was responsible for managing the WTOs relations
with NGOs and other external organisations.
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Tucker 385
informal issue-specific dialogues that take place between technical experts in the
Secretariat, delegates and selected NGO representatives, NGO Centres at WTO
Ministerial Conferences with NGO presentations and discussion sessions and briefings
from Secretariat staff, and annual two to three day Public Forums held in Geneva. They
also include regular Geneva-based meetings, seminars, working breakfasts, workshops
and side events held alongside official conferences which are coordinated by Geneva-
based NGOs, as well as occasional seminars and information sessions organised at a
national level by government ministries and local NGOs. Regular NGO interaction with
WTO Secretariat staff, national delegates and trade officials has been taking place for
over a decade: many of the Secretariat-organised initiatives, for example, were intro-
duced in the early 2000s, after events in Seattle in 1999 had prompted re-examination of
the organisations relationship with NGOs and civil society. Although the intensity of
WTONGO interaction varies in line with rhythms of work in the WTO, working rela-
tions between NGO and WTO representatives are well-established, particularly in
Geneva, where many national delegates and Secretariat officials now consider NGOs to
be part of the Geneva trade community.
The argument put forward here is that regular interaction between NGO representa-
tives, national delegates, government officials and Secretariat staff in relation to TRIPS,
traditional knowledge and biodiversity, and the close working relationships that have
developed between some NGOs and some policy-makers, both rely on and produce pro-
cesses of NGO subjectification and subjectivation. As these NGO representatives,
national delegates, trade officials and Secretariat staff have become ever more accus-
tomed to interacting and working together, particular expectations, norms and patterns of
behaviour have emerged and, through repetition and re-enactment, attained a more solid,
embedded status. These expectations, norms and patterns of behaviour have contributed
to the articulation of new discourses about the role that NGOs can legitimately play in
the WTOs activities, gradually supplanting discourses that were dominant in the late
1990s, which constructed NGOs as either dangerous and untrustworthy or irrelevant to
the workings of an intergovernmental organisation. The new discourses reflect and
incorporate some existing WTO norms, including the view that national delegates, as
representatives of national governments, are the only ones who can legitimately make
decisions about global trade agreements. They also include elements that NGO repre-
sentatives have sought to introduce and establish, such as the idea that NGOs are trust-
worthy and qualified to participate in expert-level debates about trade policy. These new
discourses, now well-established, define what constitutes acceptable and credible NGO
subjectivity, and provide the norms of behaviour
39
according to which NGO repre-
sentatives are evaluated and judged. The discourses thus subjectify (would-be) NGO
participants in dialogue, by determining the forms of conduct and subjectivity that are
permitted from them; subjectification is then further reinforced through the practices of
national delegates, government officials, Secretariat staff and other NGO directors and
researchers, who ensure that dominant norms are upheld. The discourses also prompt
39. Chris Dent, Not All Practices Are Equal: An Exploration of Discourses, Governmentality
and Scale-Free Networks, Social Semiotics 19, no. 3 (2009): 347.
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subjectivation in line with dominant norms, as NGO representatives attempt to enact and
embody the forms of subjectivity that are perceived as credible, acceptable and normal
by WTO interlocutors.
Processes of subjectification are reinforced, in this context, through explicit requests
for particular types of assistance and contribution from national delegates, and routine
decisions about who to invite to Secretariat- and NGO-organised events intended to pro-
mote dialogue between policy-makers and NGOs. Numerous interviewees in Geneva,
both national delegates and representatives of the mainly international NGOs with offices
there, explained that national delegates often request that NGOs organise particular types
of events, give advice or commission studies on particular aspects of negotiating issues,
or secure the participation of particular individuals known to possess desirable attitudes
and attributes in NGO-organised events. Such requests not only create opportunities for
interaction for NGO representatives able to demonstrate the necessary qualities and atti-
tudes; they also serve as norms which distinguish between desirable and undesirable
behaviours, feeding into broader discourses about appropriate and desirable NGO con-
duct. Decisions made by Secretariat staff, delegates and other NGO representatives about
who to invite to meetings and seminars reflect and reinforce these norms and discourses,
and ensure that only NGO representatives known to behave in appropriate ways are
invited to participate in dialogue. According to one Geneva-based interviewee, national
delegates and NGO staff typically distinguish between NGOs that are sitting there, avail-
able, because they believe in the cause, and not necessarily making placards and banners,
and those that are at the other extreme, the kinds that make T-shirts between NGO
representatives, in other words, that are quietly constructive and those that enact more
disruptive and challenging forms of subjectivity. NGO staff, he continued, when organis-
ing an event, use their discretion about which other NGOs to invite, based on their
knowledge of what kind of NGOs they are, what kind of people they are and the ways in
which they work. Such decisions give space and recognition to NGO representatives
whose subjectivity and working style conform to emerging norms and preferences, whilst
excluding those whose world-view or action-orientation is perceived as inappropriate.
Subjectification is also reinforced through the actions and responses of gatekeeper
figures such as session moderators in the annual Public Forums, who sometimes repri-
mand participants whose attitudes and behaviours do not conform to dominant norms.
During the 2007 Public Forum, for example, I attended a panel session in which the
moderator of the panel both dismissed and refused to engage with the substance of com-
ments made by a member of the audience on account of the manner in which they were
expressed. The audience member, a Francophone African, had remarked that only dis-
playing slides in English, rather than the three official languages used in the Public
Forum, as the panellists in the session had done, made it difficult for non-English speak-
ers to follow the presentations and participate fully in the subsequent discussion. Unlike
much of the communication that takes place at the Public Forums, his contribution was
animated and passionate in tone and openly questioned the dynamic and direction of the
discussion. This more emotional, active and challenging form of subjectivity was met
with disapproval from the moderator, who rebuked the audience member for not behav-
ing appropriately: Sir, youre not being polite, she repeated several times. Such inter-
ventions not only work to rearticulate emerging discourses about the forms of subjectivity
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required from participants in dialogue, but they also discipline and construct as other
and deviant those whose mode of acting and relating to others transgresses or disrupts
dominant norms.
Alongside and intersecting with these requests, routine decisions and disciplinary
responses, many NGO representatives, particularly those who have successfully devel-
oped good working relationships with national delegates, also work on and adapt their
own subjectivity, leading to subjectivation in line with dominant norms. In my conversa-
tions with NGO directors and researchers in Geneva, it became clear that many of these
individuals are very aware of the attitudes and conduct required of them if they are to be
considered trustworthy and credible interlocutors by national delegates, Secretariat staff
and the staff of other NGOs, and have found ways to successfully negotiate this discursive
terrain. A programme director in one international NGO explained that he would put on
his technical assistance hat when interacting with national delegates, as this is what del-
egates have come to expect and require, but would put on his advocacy hat in other,
non-WTO contexts. This changing of hats can be seen as a conscious attempt to enact an
appropriate form of subjectivity when participating in dialogue and collaboration with
trade policy-makers, which, although it may not completely define this individuals pro-
fessional identity, nevertheless reinforces and reproduces a discourse (along with the
power effects it transmits) that sees NGO interlocutors primarily as contributors of techni-
cal expertise. Other interviewees were less strategic and self-reflexive about the attitudes
and behaviour they enact when interacting with trade officials, conceptualising their pro-
fessional approach and attitude as a necessary and appropriate response to delegates
expectations and sensibilities. Another Geneva-based NGO representative, an individual
whose professional demeanour overlaps significantly with the figure of the aide dis-
cussed in the next section, explained that providing support to policy-makers has long
been a key part of the NGOs work, and thats why we avoid getting into political stuff.
We prefer to organise off-the-record meetings, to facilitate discussions among members
we dont get involved in political issues, we just help them. The forms of collabora-
tive, non-challenging subjectivity enacted by staff in this NGO, developed and refined
through years of regular interaction with policy-makers and constant reassessment of their
preferences and norms, also reflect and reproduce dominant norms of NGO conduct, and
ensure continued access to dialogue with policy-makers in the WTO.
NGOs, TRIPS and Traditional Knowledge: Acceptable and
Unacceptable Subjectivities
Regular interaction between NGO directors, researchers and advocacy officers and WTO
policy-makers, government officials and Secretariat staff both relies on and produces, I
have suggested, processes of subjectification and subjectivation which elicit particular
attitudes and behaviour from NGO participants in dialogue. I now focus my attention
more explicitly on the forms of NGO subjectivity that these processes normalise and
encourage, and that NGO representatives should enact if they are to be considered cred-
ible participants in dialogue and collaborative work on TRIPS, traditional knowledge
and biodiversity. I identify three acceptable forms of NGO subjectivity, represented by
figures I have termed the aide, the technical expert and the pragmatist, and discuss
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the processes of subjectification and subjectivation through which each of them emerge.
Of these three acceptable forms of subjectivity, the aide is elicited only in Geneva,
while the other two are elicited and rewarded in both Geneva and Peru. I also consider
what the normalisation of these forms of subjectivity works to construct as undesirable,
deviant and other, and the forms of NGO subjectivity that are thereby rendered unaccep-
table or illegitimate. In doing so, I illustrate some of the forms of inclusion and exclusion
that accompany NGO participation in dialogue and consultation in relation to TRIPS,
biodiversity and traditional knowledge.
The Aide
The aide represents a discreet and supportive form of NGO subjectivity, whose key
attitudes include a willingness to provide material and organisational support to national
delegates when required, and to respect delegates priorities, preferences and rhythms of
work. NGO representatives who enact the subject position of the aide fulfil comple-
mentary functions to staff in the technical divisions of the WTO Secretariat, acting, for
example, as an (ostensibly) impartial counsellor and adviser, as well as facilitating meet-
ings and seminars and making other arrangements and enquiries as requested by national
delegates. National delegates I interviewed frequently praised Geneva-based organisa-
tions that arrange meetings and seminars that allow them to explore and debate issues of
concern, and that provide support and material assistance when requested. One develop-
ing-country delegate talked approvingly, for example, about an organisation that had
made a neutral space available for a series of meetings between delegates and invited
NGOs, provided lunch and covered the costs of inviting a number of particularly sought-
after experts from outside Geneva. Other delegates credited the Geneva NGOs that work
in this way with helping them to fully understand the implications of negotiating issues
through their seminars and efforts to bring experts and officials together. The aide,
crucially, must accept that delegates preferences and perceptions are what determine the
types of action taken, and be willing and able to work in ways which do not challenge
national delegates authority and legitimacy as decision-makers. A number of delegates
expressed frustration, for example, at NGO representatives that fail to recognise when
their contributions to discussions are too detailed or conceptual to be useful in policy-
making processes, and at those that appear to be imposing their views and agenda on
national delegates. Any behaviour that might be interpreted as an attempt to pressurise
delegates to adopt particular negotiating positions or to impose any particular vision or
perspective needs to be avoided, as do activities and interventions that directly question
national delegates positions and authority.
The aide emerges through both subjectification and subjectivation, namely specific
instructions and requests from trade policy-makers, and NGO representatives efforts to
share their knowledge and views without transgressing a norm that sees national dele-
gates as the only legitimate participants in WTO decision-making. Numerous interview-
ees in Geneva-based NGOs reported performing tasks such as organising and facilitating
meetings and seminars between national delegates who wished to explore possibilities
for coordinating negotiating positions, identifying and inviting academic experts to pre-
sent information and advice to delegates, and assisting with the wording and structure of
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proposals, all at the specific request of national delegates. One NGO programme director
described how the African Group
40
wanted a study on geographical indications, so
they said that they needed a paper on this issue because they dont have an assessment of
geographical indications in Africa. So we received a request and we asked an expert to
write a paper. Another Geneva-based NGO researcher explained how, when national
delegates were developing position papers and proposals, he would sometimes give
advice about how one would structure things, what information is needed, what argu-
ments are relevant, what evidence, emphasising that it was mostly delegates who
decided when they needed this type of thing. They are the ones who present proposals
and defend them, so they decided when they wanted it to happen. NGO interviewees
also described the care they take to avoid giving the impression that they are trying to
impose their own views and priorities on the trade policy-makers they interact with. One
NGO programme director told me he would never approach delegates with any particu-
lar agenda, but always start by asking them what do you want to do?, and, based on
delegates perceptions of their needs and weaknesses, develop appropriate responses and
materials. Another interviewee talked about the careful way in which he frames positions
and suggestions when interacting with delegates, using language which defers to dele-
gates authority and avoids suggesting obligation or advocacy of any particular position,
such as we have noticed that there is a problem with this specific issue and maybe you
should emphasise this particular point. Delegates approval of NGOs that work in this
way, and the continued requests for assistance that flow from this, further reinforce and
legitimise the aide as an acceptable form of NGO subjectivity, encouraging further
subjectification and subjectivation in line with this subject position.
The normalisation and approval of the aide is mirrored by disapproval of NGO rep-
resentatives who embody overly assertive, biased or confrontational forms of subjectiv-
ity. Such figures include the advocate, who appears to impose a particular understanding
of issues on policy-makers and fails to respect the need for neutrality and balance in trade
policy-making, and the lobbyist, who seeks to represent the interests and perspectives
of a particular community or professional group. National delegates I interviewed made
it clear that they find NGO representatives who are forceful in their approach or align
themselves closely with particular communities of interest frustrating and difficult to
deal with. One delegate maintained that, in his view, NGOs should support general
causes and principles such as promoting free trade or protecting the environment, rather
than defending narrow interest groups. An interviewee in the Secretariat, similarly,
insisted that NGOs should work in an objective and balanced way and leave the deci-
sion-making to [national delegates] who may be in a particular national environment
that they cannot necessarily assess. Interviewees also stressed that they expect the NGO
representatives they interact with to understand and respect the rhythms and working
patterns of the WTO, and never disrupt WTO activities or cause embarrassment to trade
officials or the Secretariat. A Secretariat official told me of an organisation that had used
particularly disruptive methods to make their views known to officials, preventing them
40. A group of African countries that jointly develop and negotiate proposals in the WTO.
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from working for a whole day. On a personal basis, he reported, that is the point where
I dont ever want to talk to those people again.
The Technical Expert
The technical expert is an authoritative and confident form of NGO subjectivity that is
particularly valued and sought after by trade officials, national delegates and WTO
Secretariat staff. Successfully enacting the technical expert requires a detailed under-
standing of international trade law and intellectual property law, an ability and willing-
ness to work with legalistic concepts and framings of the social and economic world,
and, preferably although not necessarily, a reputation as a legal expert gained through
training and practising as a lawyer or publishing academic research. The types of task
that the technical expert might perform include helping national delegates and govern-
ment officials understand and explore the policy implications of particular negotiating
issues, writing analyses and evaluations of particular policies and proposals, and acting
as a sounding board for Secretariat staff wishing to discuss the implications of particular
negotiating or implementation issues. Numerous delegates and trade officials in both
Geneva and Lima identified technical assistance and reliable research on relevant issues
as the most valuable contributions that NGOs can make to policy-making processes. One
delegate emphasised that NGOs, if they are to play a meaningful role in the WTOs
activities, need to provide well-researched, technically proficient reports and publica-
tions: as a delegate, you need them to be professional. You need data, research, the right
arguments. Another attributed some of the progress made in negotiations on traditional
knowledge to the fact that civil society were next to us, in order first to understand, and
second to analyse how to present this better, to draft papers and to understand what the
best strategy is and which alliances would be better. NGO researchers and programme
coordinators who work closely with national delegates and officials in the WTO
Secretariat, similarly, pointed to the accuracy and quality of their research and publica-
tions and the expertise they can bring to bear on negotiating issues as key to making these
relationships work. As one NGO interviewee put it:
The WTO Secretariat reads a lot of our materials. We engage with them, because were also
very keen to get it right, to get their expert opinion. And I would say most of the time theyre
very happy with the work thats produced. That was also true in the intellectual property area.
They might not like the conclusions or agree with particular emphasis placed, but theyre not
going to dispute the quality of the research and analysis.
The technical expert is, like the aide, elicited through specific requests and queries
from national delegates and government officials, and encouraged and legitimated
through approval and continuing requests for assistance, reinforcing subjectification in
line with this subject position. National delegates in Geneva have, for example, requested
that studies be conducted on particular legal concepts and tools such as geographical
indications or that particular experts be invited to Geneva-based meetings and seminars,
thereby eliciting, encouraging and facilitating the participation of suitably qualified
technical experts. The technical expert is also elicited and endorsed in Lima, where
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government officials explicitly seek out individuals with particular expertise and under-
standing of legal debates about traditional knowledge and invite them to participate in
advisory committees and other official meetings. Many officials working in ministries
involved in developing Perus internal and external policies on traditional knowledge
and biodiversity interact most frequently with representatives of one Peruvian NGO that
is headed by trained lawyers. According to one interviewee, one of this NGOs pro-
gramme directors is the person who knows the most in the whole of Peru. Hes the one
who knows the most, and weve worked with him on these issues since the beginning.
Being able to demonstrate particular technical understanding and legal expertise is thus
rewarded with greater opportunities for participation in dialogue with both Geneva- and
Lima-based officials, as well as increased status and recognition.
The technical expert is also a product of NGOs efforts to position themselves as
highly qualified and knowledgeable interlocutors who can bring particular skills and
necessary expertise to trade policy-making processes, and thus subjectivation in line
with WTO norms. When discussing rationales for interacting with national delegates,
interviewees in Geneva-based NGOs frequently referred to the skills, knowledge and
technical expertise they possess or have access to, positioning themselves as superior
sources of understanding and reliable, rigorously produced research and, thus, necessary
participants in dialogue with policy-makers. One Geneva-based programme director, for
instance, explained that what were trying to do is facilitate a better understanding of the
problem, were trying to contribute a better conceptualisation of the issues, and in that
way try to see what the solutions are. Another interviewee in the same organisation com-
mented that what were trying to do, particularly in this area of intellectual property, is
to bring some evidence [to discussions]. While this positioning can be read as a success-
ful attempt to disrupt a previously dominant discourse which saw official state repre-
sentatives as the only ones qualified to participate in discussions about global trade
policy-making, it nevertheless relies on and reinforces another dominant discourse which
constructs trade policy-making as a technical, apolitical activity best carried out by suit-
ably qualified experts. This discourse is embedded, for example, in WTO decision-mak-
ing procedures, which require trade ministers to meet at Ministerial Conferences to agree
on modalities or broad outlines of the areas to be negotiated, before national delegates
with the necessary technical expertise work on the finer details in Geneva a process one
delegate I interviewed described as a legal fiction. NGO efforts to articulate and enact
the role of the technical expert, and the subjectivation that helps produce this form of
NGO subjectivity, might also be seen as an outcome and effect of this existing dominant
discourse.
The preference for the technical expert, and the discourse that constructs trade pol-
icy-making as an essentially technical activity, work to the disadvantage of those who
use emotion to communicate dissatisfaction with policy positions and assumptions, and
those who are unable or unwilling to engage in dialogue framed in technical terms.
Neither the emotional participant nor the non-expert tends to be received favourably
by many trade officials, Secretariat staff and national delegates. At the 2008 Public
Forum, for example, I attended a panel session where one of the presenters expressed her
concerns in an unusually (in the context of the Public Forums) emotional and passionate
style. Her comments were met with visible annoyance and unease from the other
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392 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42(2)
panellists, most of them Secretariat staff and national delegates. Its all very well to
make an impassioned speech, said one, but we need to address everything. I have no
shame in being passionate about whats going on, she replied. I have passion because
its about people. Her defence of her communicative style and manner did little to con-
vince the other panellists, whose disapproving reactions suggested her more emotional
form of subjectivity was inappropriate and her contribution lacking in substance.
Interviewees in Peruvian NGOs also told me of the discomfort that Peruvian officials
display when faced with NGO interlocutors who do not, because of the way in which
they frame questions and concerns, appear to understand trade law, and their relief when
these interlocutors use recognisable trade-friendly vocabularies. One interviewee who
has, as she conceptualised it, learnt how to discuss social issues using the terminology
of trade reported that trade officials sometimes say to me its clear that you at least
know things. I dont know any more than anyone else, but what I am doing is instead of
speaking in Arabic, I speak in a language of Latin origin so that the other person can at
least grasp my meaning.
41
The Pragmatist
The pragmatist shares the technical experts ability and willingness to reason within and
through legalistic, trade-friendly concepts and categories, but represents a more subordi-
nate, pliant and less authoritative form of subjectivity. The main attributes of the pragma-
tist include a detailed understanding of the processes, rhythms and logic of multilateral
trade negotiations, and a sense of what is possible and achievable in negotiations that
matches that held by national delegates and government officials. Delegates I interviewed
in Geneva emphasised how much they appreciate it when NGO representatives are practi-
cal and realistic in the suggestions and strategies they propose, particularly when they
wish to feed into decision-making processes by writing proposals and position papers, and
expressed irritation at NGOs that make unrealistic demands. One of them complained that
revamping the IP system, eliminating patents, these are positions that are not politically
viable. We cant propose things that are not politically realistic. Another stressed that we
should never forget what the WTO is there for: promoting free trade. Neither the delegates
nor the NGOs should forget that. Government officials in Peru expressed similar frustra-
tion with the radical and unrealistic positions of many of the Peruvian NGOs that moni-
tor bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations and seek to influence Perus negotiating
position. One official, for example, remarked that:
These are radical positions. When they have radical positions, and above all ideological
positions, it makes things much more complicated. Instead of helping negotiations, they make
them even more difficult, mainly because they weaken the position of the governments they
supposedly want to help. This is an important issue, the issue of responsibility, the weight that
NGOs have. They want to be taken more seriously, but to be taken more seriously they have to
be more realistic. They need to be able to handle more political issues.
41. This comment follows on from an earlier point in our discussion, where she likened trying to
converse with trade officials to talking to someone who only speaks Arabic or Chinese.
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The pragmatist thus needs to work within rather than against the frameworks and
assumptions that shape trade officials own action-orientations and perceptions of their
role, working to normalise and reinforce market-oriented strategies and conceptualisa-
tions of the social and economic world.
The pragmatist is also elicited both in Geneva and in Lima, through trade officials
positive responses to NGO representatives who embody the correct attitudes and attrib-
utes, and through increased opportunities for dialogue for those who are perceived as
realistic about what can be proposed and achieved in WTO negotiations. NGO repre-
sentatives who work with, rather than against, the principles and logics underpinning the
WTO are made to feel part of a community that understands and can discuss global trade
policy in a realistic, reasonable and well-informed manner; NGOs that work from alter-
native perspectives or epistemologies are not seen as serious participants in dialogue.
One government official in Lima talked, for example, about the impossibility of serious
dialogue with NGO representatives who adopt ideological (in other words non-free-
trade-oriented) positions: its at the ideological level that the problems start. For example,
there are NGOs who dont think that the Free Trade Agreement
42
can contribute to devel-
opment. Where can you start with them? Another official present concurred: anti-trade,
anti-intellectual property, these are the issues with NGOs. Where will such thinking get
us? Although these officials emphasised that they are willing to interact and share infor-
mation about trade negotiations with any type of NGO, even those that are anti-trade,
43

an acceptance of ongoing trade liberalisation, and a pragmatic attitude about what can be
achieved within this framework, work to distinguish between NGO representatives that
are reasonable and politically mature and those that are unrealistic, ideological and
potentially damaging to Perus national interests.
The pragmatist also emerges through processes of subjectivation in the shape of
pragmatic reasoning and habituated action from NGO researchers, directors and advo-
cacy officers who prefer to engage in dialogue and consultation with trade policy-makers
(with the potential compromises that entails) than be absent from discussions. This type
of reasoning was particularly evident among staff working in well-established Geneva-
based NGOs who had long argued in favour of greater transparency and opportunities for
dialogue with NGOs, and had sought to demonstrate to national delegates and Secretariat
staff that they are responsible and reasonable participants in dialogue. One NGO advo-
cacy officer admitted that he sometimes wonders if hes been working in Geneva too
long to be critical about the situation, because working in that context means you take
some things for granted, you learn to work within the particular framework you have to.
Another Geneva-based NGO interviewee commented on the tensions faced by NGO
representatives who would like to see the WTO adopt a more pro-development and pro-
public interest agenda, and the difficult, if not always acknowledged, choice they must
make between engaging in dialogue with WTO policy-makers and implicitly accepting
42. The Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and Peru and Colombia that was
being negotiated at the time.
43. The organisations in question tend not to describe themselves in this way, but as pro-
development or pro-environment.
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and reproducing trade-oriented framings of the issues at stake, or focusing their efforts
elsewhere and potentially losing their capacity to monitor developments and input ideas.
Most Geneva-based NGO staff adopt the former approach; pragmatic reasoning and a
concern not to lose access to delegates and Secretariat staff appear to act as effective
catalysts for subjectivation in line with this subject position.
The preference for, and normalisation of, the pragmatist not only works to reinforce
the existing framing of policy debates about traditional knowledge and biodiversity in
the WTO, and to limit the extent to which new ideas can be introduced in the spaces of
dialogue and consultation with NGOs, it also marginalises representatives of indigenous
organisations who are concerned about the ways in which traditional knowledge and
biodiversity are being incorporated into global trade policy. Many such organisations
question, for example, the model of development being pursued by the Peruvian state,
the common sense of trade liberalisation and the use of intellectual property mecha-
nisms to protect traditional knowledge and biodiversity, placing them in the undesirable
category of ideologist or radical. As the director of one indigenous association
explained:
We work here from a no patents on forms of life perspective. Because we think that its a
well-known argument in fact we think that the traditional knowledge and resources associated
with genetic and biological resources are a unit that cant be separated. And this idea completely
contradicts the idea of patents on inventions.
Working from a perspective that challenges the terms in which debates on traditional
knowledge and biodiversity have predominantly taken place in the WTO leads trade
officials to perceive representatives of this indigenous organisation and others like it as
unrealistic, naive and ideological, and therefore not part of any serious, reasonable com-
munity qualified to debate global trade policy. The norm which requires potential NGO
participants in dialogue to be realistic about what can be achieved in WTO negotiations
thus works to marginalise many of the organisations that seek to represent the perspec-
tives of the communities most directly implicated in debates about global trade policy,
traditional knowledge and biodiversity.
Conclusion: Included and Excluded Subjects and the Limits
of Participation
NGO participation in dialogue with WTO staff, policy-makers and government officials
has been accompanied, this article has argued, by processes of subjectification and sub-
jectivation that elicit and normalise particular forms of NGO subjectivity. These pro-
cesses encourage NGO representatives to enact attitudes and behaviours that conform to
dominant norms, and reinforce ideas about what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable
NGO subjectivity in this field of global governance. Acceptable subjectivities are elic-
ited and normalised through explicit requests for assistance from national delegates and
government officials, Secretariat and NGO decisions about who to invite to meetings and
seminars, and other gatekeeping practices that rearticulate and enforce dominant norms
of behaviour. They also emerge through NGO representatives own efforts to find and
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enact acceptable ways of working with national delegates and officials, leading, in addi-
tion, to subjectivation in line with dominant norms. In the specific case examined in this
article NGO participation in dialogue, consultation and information-sharing in relation
to TRIPS, traditional knowledge and biodiversity acceptable forms of NGO subjectiv-
ity include the discreet and supportive aide, the authoritative and confident technical
expert, and the more subordinate, less authoritative pragmatist. Unacceptable forms of
subjectivity include the advocate, the lobbyist, the emotional participant, the non-
expert, the ideologist and the radical. In practice what this means is that NGOs,
whether international or national, more research-focused or more advocacy-driven,
whose representatives act and position themselves as willing to discreetly support the
work of delegates and government officials, as able to contribute technical and legal
expertise, or at the very least as accepting of market-oriented frameworks and strategies,
are perceived and accepted as credible, reasonable and legitimate interlocutors. NGOs,
including many Peruvian peasant and indigenous organisations, whose representatives
challenge the terms in which debates on traditional knowledge and biodiversity have
taken place in the WTO, or express their views in ways that are perceived as overly chal-
lenging or emotional, are regarded as unreasonable and unqualified to participate in seri-
ous dialogue with the WTO.
Approaching NGO participation in global governance with a view to the forms of
subjectivity that are elicited and required from (would-be) NGO participants in dialogue
thus disrupts and complicates much of what is currently assumed about NGOs. While
some NGOs may indeed be injecting new energy, ideas, and values into WTO debates
about TRIPS, traditional knowledge and biodiversity,
44
or contributing technical exper-
tise which enhances the epistemic quality of policy-making in this area,
45
the ideas,
values and expertise that are considered appropriate, and the NGO representatives
deemed qualified to contribute them, are shaped and constrained by context-specific
norms. NGO representatives who comply with these norms, showing themselves willing,
for example, to approach biodiversity and traditional knowledge through market-ori-
ented frameworks and to defer to policy-makers preferences and priorities, are regarded
as legitimate and credible interlocutors, and given opportunities to participate in consul-
tation and information-sharing processes. Those who do not are perceived as unreason-
able and unrealistic, and not accepted and treated as legitimate participants in dialogue.
Similarly, while NGO participation in consultation and information-sharing in relation to
TRIPS, traditional knowledge and biodiversity has helped keep these issues on policy-
makers agendas, it has not tended to amplify the voices and perspectives of indigenous
communities.
46
NGO participation in dialogue on these issues has, rather, generated its
own patterns of NGO inclusion and exclusion based on attitudes towards trade liberalisa-
tion and private ownership of collective knowledge, degree of deference to policy-mak-
ers perceptions and existing priorities, modes of relating to policy-makers and
communicating concerns, and the ability to contribute recognised technical expertise.
44. Charnovitz, The WTO and Cosmopolitics, 442.
45. Steffek and Ferretti, Accountability or Good Decisions?, 38.
46. Something we might reasonably assume to be the case, if we believe that NGOs are able to
bring neglected voices and perspectives to global governance.
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396 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42(2)
NGO representatives who enact acceptable attitudes and behaviours, and work on their
subjectivity in line with these norms, are treated as legitimate representatives of global
public opinion. Those who do not are perceived as unreasonable and unqualified to par-
ticipate in serious dialogue. Globality, as the director of one Peruvian indigenous
organisation succinctly put it, continues to be for some but not for all. Before reaching
any conclusions about the value or significance of IGO engagement with NGOs, we
might usefully pay greater attention to the ways in which context-specific workings of
power and discourse construct and constrain NGO participants in dialogue, and the pro-
cesses of subjectification and subjectivation that emerge as a result.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Lara Montesinos Coleman, Jutta Weldes and Andrew Wyatt, the editors of
Millennium and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.
Declaration of conflicting interest
The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
Funding
The research was supported by an ESRC PhD Studentship, a University of Bristol Santander
Research Travel Grant and the Fund for Graduate Women.
Author Biography
Karen Tucker is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bristol. She is currently working on a
book about NGOs and the politics of traditional knowledge and biodiversity in the WTO.
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