Chaire de recherche du Canada en ÉPI
Team
Cynthia Couette is pursuing a PhD in cotutelle in Political Science at Laval University and in Regulation and Governance at the Australian National University under the supervision of Prof Jean-Frédéric Morin and Dr Nicholas Frank, respectively. In the context of her PhD, she completed a Junior Visiting Fellowship at the Geneva Graduate Institute from February to April 2025.
Her research interests revolve around the role of nonstate actors in the global governance of common goods, focusing on the global governance of health and space. Through her thesis, she looks at the expansion of the roles of public-private partnerships in global health responses. Through her other work, she studies questions in space governance around hybrid organizations, space debris governance, and equity.
Outside her PhD positions, Cynthia has been working for the chair's project The Polycentric Governance of the Earth's Orbital Space since 2021. She was first responsible for doing interviews before she undertook the coordination of the graphic visualization and analysis team. From March to October 2024, she also worked as Research Officer for the Australian Centre for Space Governance, where she was in charge of cleaning and analyzing data. Cynthia is also a researcher at the Australian Centre for Health Equity, a fellow of the Future Leaders Program of the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse, and a member of the Working Group on Earth-Space Governance of Earth System Governance, of the clusters "Climate economics and policy", "Health", and "Law, governance and institutions" of the Institute for climate, energy & disaster solutions (IECD), of the working groups "Conceptualization and synthesis" and "Space futures and environmental integrity" of the action Futures-oriented Governance of Outer Space: Towards Peace, Equity, and Environmental Integrity (FOGOS) of the European Cooperation in science & technology (COST), and of the Centre de recherche sur la gouvernance mondiale (CIRGoM).
Before that, she completed her master's degree with research in International Studies (profile International Relations) at the Graduate School of International Studies, at Laval University. She also has a bachelor's degree in International Studies and Modern Languages, profile International Development.
Research interest
Global Governance
International Political Economy
Non-State Actors
Common Goods
Planetary Health Equity
Governance Networks
Teaching
Teaching Assistant for the course POL-1005 International Relations and the Challenges of Globalization
Guest Lecturer:
- Gouvernance mondiale de la santé & le complexe de régime santé - PI - commerce [Global health governance & the regime complex of health - IP - trade], Guest lecture for the undergraduate students of the Seminar on Global Governance
- Acteurs privés: va-t-on vers un déclin de l’État ? [Private Actors: Towards a Decline of the State?], Workshop for the undergraduate students of the course Principes d’économie politique internationale [International Political Economy Principles
Peer-reviewed articles
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Morin, JF and C. Couette (2025) "The Missing Ingredients for a Polycentric Governance System of Orbital Debris." Global Environmental Politics. Accepted for publication.
The pollution of Earth’s orbits by debris represents a pressing environmental problem. Recognizing that geopolitical factors hinder the adoption of a multilateral solution, several experts advocate for a polycentric governance system, inspired by Elinor Ostrom’s work. This paper assesses the viability of such a proposal. It finds that the global network of space organizations exhibits some of the structural characteristics of a polycentric system. However, arrangements concluded among these organizations fail to promote sustainability norms and interviews with key stakeholders reveal the absence of several favorable factors for a sustainable polycentric governance system. The paper concludes that a polycentric structure alone does not guarantee the emergence of sustainable governance. As orbital space is a relatively “easy case” for applying polycentricity theory to the global commons, this research serves as a reminder about the limitations of polycentric approaches in global environmental politics.
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Beaumier, G., C. Couette & JF Morin (2024) "Hybrid organisations and governance systems: the case of the European Space Agency," Journal of European Public Policy, DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2024.2325647
The constitutive organisations of governance systems tend to multiply and diversify over time. In parallel, a tendency toward homophily favours the creation of clusters of homogeneous organisations. Yet, few systems drift to the point of disconnection or dislocation. Several remain sufficiently cohesive to allow adaptation and other complex properties to emerge. To maintain equilibrium between order and chaos, some organisations must create bridges between otherwise homogeneous groups. This paper argues that hybrid organisations are ideally suited for this role. By their nature, hybrids share characteristics with different types of organisations in global governance, allowing them to overcome strict homophily and create bridges across clusters. Hybrids benefit from acting as brokers and in doing so, they facilitate the exchange of material and ideational resources across the governance system. Even if it is not their intention, they contribute to holding governance systems together and counterbalance the effect of homophily. We illustrate this argument by examining the space governance system and the hybrid nature, bridging activities, and brokerage role of the European Space Agency.
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Couette, C. (2024) Epistemic competition in global governance: The case of pharmaceutical patents. Global Policy, 00, 1–12. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13342
Expert consensus helps policymakers solve complex problems by identifying and legitimizing policy solutions. Yet, persistent hesitation remains among policymakers regarding the technically adequate policy solution despite the existence and mobilization of epistemic communities. This paper contends that more attention should be given to studying the epistemic competition that may arise when multiple epistemic communities grapple with the same problem but have divergent understandings of its technical nature and its adequate policy solutions. Building on Science and Technology Studies and on the literature on polarization, this paper suggests that two social dynamics, namely the mobilization of resources and increased polarization, may complexify the technical disagreement among experts. In turn, these dynamics may lead to a deadlock in the debates, negatively impacting the institutional context where they take place. To illustrate this, this paper analyzes the case of the pharmaceutical innovation system, which has been prone to tensions between experts arguing for strong patent protection and experts arguing for greater flexibility to meet public health needs. This paper builds on a mixed method combining a social network analysis of experts invited to provide their expertise in the WHO-WTO-WIPO Trilateral Cooperation events and on semi-structured interviews with 24 of these experts.