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Nonstate Actors: Impact on International

Relations and Implications for the United
States
Key Points
Participants in a series of NIC-Eurasia Group seminars in late 2006 and early 2007
discussed how the proliferation in recent years of nonstate actorsprimarily
multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, and super-empowered
individualsis transforming international relations.

A globalization-fueled diffusion of finance and technology has enabled nonstate

actors to encroach upon functions traditionally performed by nation-states,
facilitating their evolution into forms unheard of even a few years ago. For
example, philanthrocapitalist charities such as the Gates Foundation have
greatly expanded notions of what a charitable NGO should look like.

Estimates of their impact should be made cautiously, however, for few nonstate
actors are completely independent of nation-states, and they do not have
uniform freedom of movement. Although nonstate actors have a great deal of
latitude in both weak and post-industrial states, modernizing states such as
China and Russiahome to the bulk of the worlds populationhave been
highly effective in suppressing them and in creating their own substitutes, some
of which have demonstrated their power to counter US objectives and even to
challenge global rules of engagement.

Most benign nonstate actors originate in the developed world, work within the
framework provided by Western institutions and regimes, and act as
propagators of western values such as free markets, environmental protection,
and human rights. From that standpoint, a key concern for the United
States may be not that these actors have become too powerful, but that in
many parts of the world their influence is limiteda factor that is
contributing to the tilting of the global playing field away from the United
States and its developed-world allies.

This report was prepared under the auspices of the National Intelligence Officer
for Economics and Global Issues.

This paper does not represent US Government views

DR-2007-16D
23 August 2007

This paper does not represent US Government views

Introduction
The National Intelligence Council and Eurasia Group co-hosted a series of four seminars in late
2006 and early 2007 on The Role of Nonstate Actors in International Politics. These sessions
examined a wide range of such actors (including terrorists and international criminals), but their
primary focus was on non-criminal nonstate actors: multinational corporations, NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), and philanthropic super-empowered individuals. These entities
were chosen because they have international clout, but are often overlooked in geopolitical
analysis as they do not pose explicit security threats to the United States.
A Note on Terminology
Nonstate actors are non-sovereign entities that exercise significant economic, political, or social power and
influence at a national, and in some cases international, level. There is no consensus on the members of this
category, and some definitions include trade unions, community organizations, religious institutions, ethnic
groupings, and universities in addition to the players outlined above. The bulk of the NIC-Eurasia Group
discussions centered on organizations and individuals which are truly nonstate, or which perform functions
not typically associated with national governments in advanced Western economies:

Multinational corporations are enterprises that manage production or deliver services in at least two
countries. The traditional multinational is a private company headquartered in one country and with
subsidiaries in others, all operating in accordance with a coordinated global strategy to win market share
and achieve cost efficiencies. A significant portion of the discussion, however, centered on the relatively
recent multinationalization of state-owned enterprises such as Russias arms-export monopoly
Rosonboronexport or Chinese oil company CNPC, which as state entities may or may not share the same
incentives and goals as their private counterparts.

NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) are organizations that are private, self-governing, voluntary, nonprofit, and task- or interest-oriented advocacy organizations. Within those broad parameters there is a huge
degree of diversity in terms of unifying principles; independence from government, big-business, and other
outside influences; operating procedures; sources of funding; international reach; and size. They can
implement projects, provide services, defend or promote specific causes, or seek to influence policy.
Discussion briefly touched on the contradiction-in-terms Government Operated NGO (GONGO), which
may be set up by governments to garner aid money or promote government interests.

Super-empowered individualspersons who have overcome constraints, conventions, and rules to wield
unique political, economic, intellectual, or cultural influence over the course of human eventsgenerated
the most wide-ranging discussion. Archetypes include industrialists, criminals, financiers, media moguls,
celebrity activists, religious leaders, and terrorists. The ways in which they exert their influence (money,
moral authority, expertise) are as varied as their fields of endeavor. As bounded by seminar participants,
this category excludes political office holders (although some super-empowered individuals eventually
attain political office), those with hereditary power, or the merely rich or famous.

There are far more shared interests between NGOs and super-empowered individuals (driven by normative
agendas) than between either of them and multinationals (driven by a quest for profit and growth). At the
same time they do not exist in isolation from each other; for example, NGOs may censure, lobby, or advise
multinational corporations and super-empowered individuals may head a multinational or an NGO.

This paper does not represent US Government views

This paper does not represent US Government views

What is New About Nonstate Actors?

Influential nonstate actors are not a new phenomenon: the Hanseatic League monopolized trade
on the Baltic Sea between the 13th and 17th centuries, the highly powerful East India Company
was founded in 1600, European haute finance was a major contributor to the relative peace of the
19th century, and the Red Cross dates to the 1860s. What differentiates and shapes contemporary
nonstate actors, however, is an unprecedented operating environment. The end of the Cold War
meant that military and security issues no longer automatically dominated the economic and
social ones that are the benign nonstate actors stock-in-trade; globalization has made financial,
political, and technical resources more widely available (and constrained the developed worlds
ability to make the rules); and technology and the growth of a global popular culture provide new
opportunities for rallying support and getting messages across.
For multinational corporations, the most important change is the breaking down of the old
model of multinationals headquartered in developed countries, with subsidiaries in the
developing world taking orders from them. Today a growing number of multinationals (many of
them state-owned enterprises) based in emerging market countriesparticularly China, India,
Russia, Brazil, Mexico, and Turkeyhave become powers in their own right. This dynamic,
reminiscent of such mercantilist constructs as the East India Company, has been instrumental in
shifting corporate power away from the OECD countries:

Multinationals from China, India, Russia and other emerging-market states are offering
pariah states that the United States would prefer to isolate an alternative source of
investment that weakens the political and economic leverage of Western governments. For
example, Indian energy firms are investing in Burma and Cuba, and have growing ties with
Venezuela, while Chinese state-owned enterprises are investing in Iran, Sudan, Burma, and
Zimbabwe.

Emerging market-based multinationals are increasingly merging with or acquiring

developed-world companies, as well as buying up other Western assets and sometimes
gaining access to sensitive technologies in the process;

The bulk of the worlds gas and oil reserves is now controlled by emerging market-based
multinationals owned by or in close alignment with their home governments.

NGOs have prospered from both the growing (but primarily Western) emphasis on human, vice
national, securitywhich raises the stock of the social and humanitarian issues in which many
NGOs have unique expertiseand the involvement by billionaires in social issues.

In contrast to traditional charitable NGOs (which tend to be characterized by small staffs,

close-to-the-bone funding, and tactical outlook), the philanthrocapitalist (Bill Gates,
George Soros, Richard Branson) charities that have emerged since the turn of the century
espouse exceedingly ambitious goals and have vast fortunes at their disposal.

Since 2001, advocacy NGOs that work transnational issues such as the environment, public
health, migration and displacement, and social and economic justice have received greater

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This paper does not represent US Government views

visibility and influence thanks to increased public demands for action in such areas. With
national governments frequently ceding the handling of these issues to NGOs, they have been
allowed to encroach upon turf that had traditionally belonged to states.

Traditional NGO networking, information exchange, and initiation of global campaigns has
been exponentially enhanced by use of the internet.

Changes in global politics, economics, and society have generally (with a few exceptions noted
below) enhanced the super-empowered individual phenomenon:

Industrialists can exercise considerably more influence in global markets because their
assets and leverage are now internationally diversified in ways that old-style entrepreneurs
such as Andrew Carnegie (constrained by the regulatory power of the US Government) could
not have achieved. The same dynamic has also enabled international criminals to diversify
assets and escape the jurisdiction of those who would put them out of business.

Globalized media have allowed entertainers to replace artists and intellectuals as leaders in
shaping global public opinion. Bono, for example, has raised global consciousness about the
plight of Africa, while Mia Farrow has been instrumental in pressuring China over its
relations with Sudan by drawing linkages between Darfur and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Anarchists and terrorists from Guy Fawkes to Mohammed Atta have carried out violent
attacks that resonate across borders. But the ability to transmit information via the internet
and other global media has exponentially increased the speed with which their example
inspires others. Technological advances also have put ever more powerful weapons into the
hands of individuals and small groups.

At the same time, globalization has actually hurt a handful of super-empowered individual
archetypes. As technology and legal reforms make markets more diverse and liquid, no one
financier can dominate corporate finance as J.P. Morgan once did. Similarly, in an age of
myriad choices in television, print media, the film industry, and the internet, media moguls
cannot hope to earn the same market share or exercise the same public influence as that of
William Randolph Hearst. The web has also in many cases lowered the profile of political
activists whose energy and indignation are expended in relative privacy over the internet instead
of on the streets.

Nonstate Actors and the State

The impact of nonstate actors is context-dependent, however. The roles they play, and the
influence they exert, depend upon political, economic, and social context. As a basis of
comparison, the NIC-Eurasia Group seminars divided the world into three categoriesweak
states, modernizing states, and developed/post-industrial statesand found that most categories
of nonstate actors have far more freedom of movement both in weak and in developed/postindustrial states than in modernizing ones.

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This paper does not represent US Government views

Weak states tend to be former colonial holdings that never made the transition to viable nationstate. Such governments as exist struggle to provide order to society, and will often resort to
force in an effort to do so. Ethno-religious and tribal factionalism predominate over nationalism.
Examples include Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon, Congo, and a host of others.

Depending on the country in question, bad sub-state actors (e.g., the Taliban, Hizballah, alQaida, the Islamic Courts Union) may seriously challenge the central government;
multinational corporations, including state-owned enterprises from modernizing states, may
provide lucrative deals that enable weak governments (particularly in resource-rich countries)
to resist international demands for political and economic reform; and NGOs may substitute
for governments in the areas of sustainable development; health and nutrition; and civil,
political, and human rights.

Modernizing states, encompassing 80 percent of the global population, remain entrenched in the
classic state system: firmly sovereign (bristling at any real or perceived external interference in
their domestic affairs) and defining national security in terms of force. Nationalism is often an
instrument of state power, and unruly minorities are suppressed. Such states tend to be
centralized and highly bureaucratic, with the national government involved in management of
the economy. Such states can be either democratic or autocratic; prominent examples include
Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRICs).

These states habitually view foreign nonstate actors as a threat to national sovereignty, and
may attempt to neutralize them by banning them outright; regulating them; and/or creating
their own nonstate look-alikes such as government-operated NGOs to further state goals.
This is not to say that they always exert absolute control: NGOs that have been allowed to
operate within a country as social safety valves may end up as forces for political or social
change, and super-empowered individuals may have an influence on the most sovereigntyconscious countrys domestic and foreign policies. Generally, however, modernizing states
are the least hospitable ground for nonstate actors.

Developed/post-industrial states have moved beyond the absolutist model of state sovereignty
found among modernizing states. Nationalism exists, but the state is increasingly out of the
business of creating and maintaining a national identity. Within this world the distinction
between domestic and foreign affairs disintegrates, so that mutual interference and surveillance
among states becomes the norm. Borders between states are increasingly unguarded, and force is
rejected as a means of settling disputes. The members of the European Union are exemplars of
the states in this category.1

A majority of the most influential multinationals, NGOs, and super-empowered individuals

originate in, or operate from, the developed world. This is because many of the factors that
empower themcommunication and information technologies, globalized finance and
commerce, and the global elite2are functions of developed countries. They therefore tend

The US is harder to categorize, being a developed state with some modernizing sensibilities.
A technocratic grouping resulting from consolidation of global markets and culture. The members of the global
elite are not tied to any particular nationality, and move freely from country to country as their livelihoods dictate.

This paper does not represent US Government views

This paper does not represent US Government views

to carry developed-world values, mores, and ideas (e.g., free markets and human rights). All
three types of nonstate actors are highly engaged in developed-world politics, economics, and
culture. Although their relationship with national governments may be somewhat
adversarial, they have significant influence on policy formation and may even be employed
by states as a means of outsourcing foreign policy.

Implications for the United States

The NIC-Eurasia seminars were not ultimately conclusive in terms of how much nonstate actor
power and influence have increased worldwide, although there is a great deal of
circumstantial evidence regarding their impact in the weak and post-industrial worlds. The
exercise in sorting the worlds countries into three categories, however, was useful in uncovering
an issue that has potential impact on US policy: not only the influence of nonstate actors per se,
but how modernizing states regard, exclude, and suppress them:

During the discussions, the category of actor (aside from terrorists and criminals) that
emerged as most problematic for the United States was not technically nonstate at all: it was
the state-owned enterprise, which is often a front for advancing the interests of a
modernizing-state government. State-operated enterpriseswith home regime backing
have already amply demonstrated their ability to undermine US policy worldwide. For
example, Russian state-owned arms-export monopoly Rosoboronexports continuing arms
sales to Iran have complicated US efforts to build UN Security Council consensus on
strategies to thwart Irans nuclear development.

Rejection of benign nonstate actors (and the Western values they espouse) by a large number
of the worlds countries could be symptomatic of a wholesale rejection of the Western model
in the modernizing world.

This group is made up primarily of bankers, accountants, the upper echelons of multinational corporations,
knowledge workers, and employees of NGOs and other acronyms such as the UN, OECD, and NATO.

This paper does not represent US Government views