The establishment of MPAs both in national waters and in the high seas faces a complex polycentric ocean governance system, including multi-level and multi-jurisdictional governance. Ocean issues are a transnational and transboundary problem. Current and emerging issues such as fisheries, aquaculture, biodiversity conservation on the high seas, MPAs, deep-sea mining, ocean acidification, blue carbon, and plastics pollution extend across national boundaries and into areas beyond national jurisdiction. When managing transboundary issues and formulating public policy, decision makers must not only increasingly take into account the interests of NGOs and multi-national corporations, but also consider other important authoritative participants, such as various levels of government at an international level, the interests of a growing number of influential states around the world, and obligations arising from the signing of international agreements and memberships in intergovernmental organizations. Decision-makers in ocean governance are working in an environment marked by a proliferation of power centres affecting policymaking and governance (Cairney 2019). To establish a global network of MPAs decision makers must not only take into account the various levels of governance (e.g. national, regional and global) but also the interests and agendas of intergovernmental organisations (IGO), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), scientists, and multinational corporations.
According to Wolfish and Smith (2000) the multiple ‘power centres’ theory can be understood in three ways as shown in Table 2 . The first approach suggests the existence of three or more dominant states interacting in the international system. Here ‘power’ is understood as the means for a state to pursue its interests internationally, typically through economic influence or military force. For example, China is one of the World’s most economically powerful states and has one of the largest fishing fleets in the world. China’s role in oceans governance is increasing adopts a more assertive stance on national interests in key areas such as the South China Sea (McGee, Gogarty and Smith, 2017), the Southern Ocean (Brady 2017) and the Arctic (Geng 2012).
The second approach of Wolfish and Smith (2000) focuses on involvement of other actors as power centres, such as global and regional agreements, intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), NGOs and private organisations which influence ocean governance. Here the ‘power’ refers to the capabilities of the actors to pursue their agenda and interests. The sources of power will vary according to the type of actors and their particular aims and may arise from the ability to generate and use knowledge and media, funding, and from moral influence. IGOs and global and regional agreements have international membership, scope and presence and bring member states together to cooperate on particular issues that have global impacts. Membership often requires state governments to harmonize their own national policies to conform to internationally agreed upon norms and standards. However, in this respect, they are limited by the commitment of member states to comply with their rules, and by the effectiveness of their enforcement mechanisms (Wolfish and Smith 2000). Some power centres can stem from communities of shared knowledge. Success of many international environmental agreements can be attributed to the involvement of an environmental epistemic community of scientific and/or policy experts which set the international agenda and convince their own states to support international efforts toward the introduction of internationally agreed management measures/targets (Haas 1989).
The third approach of Wolfish and Smith (2000) focuses on the interaction of the actors. Within a given issue area, relevant actors (e.g. governments, NGOs, corporations, scientists) interact to produce a convergence of expectations and a set of common understandings that give rise to a set of legitimate norms, values, rules, and procedures. The power centre does not refer to a political actor, but rather to a sphere of authority,11A sphere of authority can be defined as ‘an issue-area in which relevant actors, be they states, non-state actors, quasi -state institutions, transnational communities, or any combination thereof, interact and in which one can discern a convergence of expectations on the rules, norms, principles, and procedures through which decisions are made and implemented’ (Rosenau 1999: 290). and in this view, ‘power is not synonymous with capability, but with legitimacy and authority’. The emphasis is on actor interaction and on the institutions that arise from their interaction, and thereby focusing on the values underpinning actor behaviour. Compliance with the decisions tends therefore to be voluntary. Legitimacy, in turn, is derived from the agreement of participant expectations on the values, rules, and procedures within a given issue-area.