Contem - 5 Contemporary Global Governance
Contem - 5 Contemporary Global Governance
Contem - 5 Contemporary Global Governance
INITION
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE: A DEF of
(1995) defines governance as “the sum
~The Commission on Global Governance
and private, manage their common
many ways. individuals and institutions, public
icting or diverse interests may
affairs. It is a continuing process through which confl
o-operative action taken. It includes formal institutions and
. be accommodated and c
nce, as well as informal arrangements that
regimes empowered to en force complia
either have agreed to or perceive to be in thei
r interest” (“Global
people and institutions
Governance,” n.d.).
in which global affairs are managed
Global governance is understood as the way
ce as “the-sum of laws, norms, policies,
today. Thakur & Weiss define global governan citizens,
and mediate relations between
and institutions that define, constitute,
em-the wielders and objects
societies, markets, and states in the international syst
global governance will
- of the exer cise of international public power” (2015). Ideally,
international system.
assist in helping to solve challenges within the
97
ce, this global governance
Se eat
csa varie actoTS including states ang
normally involves
’ M4 ty 0.
he.» bi h
societies and between humankind and the biosphere,
llmage source: https:// the concept “global governance” may refer to the process
commons.wikimed ia.org/ 5
ee
. ;
wiki/File:Building_of_the of designating laws, rules, or regulations meant
f
for a
International_Criminal_Court_ worldwide scale.
—
in_The_Hague.jpg ]
98
Contemporary global governance can thus be depicted as the summation of laws,
policies, regulations, norms, and institutions that define, establish, and mediate
transborder relations among states, cultures, citizens, intergovernmental and
nongovernmental organizations, and the market. It holds the “totality of institutions,
policies, rules, practices, norms, procedures, and initiatives by which states and their
citizens (indeed, humanity as a whole) try to bring more predictability, stability, and
order to their responses to transnational challenges—such as climate change and
environmental degradation, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism—which go beyond
the capacity of a single state to solve” (“Global Governance and the UN,” n.d.).
The development of contemporary global governance also stems from the increase
in numbers and importance of nonstate entities and their new roles. Today, civil society
actors take part as activists, advocates, and even as policymakers in several cases.
That is, they perform progressively active roles in forming laws, norms, and policies at
various levels of governance. Their criticisms and recommendations have perceptible
effects in the governmental and intergovernmental allocation of resources and even in
the exercise of economic, political, and military power.
The contemporary global governance has the following features (Biermann and
Pattberg, 2008):
1. the emergence of new types of agency and of actors in addition to national
governments; :
that
2. the emergence of new mechanisms and institutions of global governance
go beyond traditional forms of state-led, treaty-based regimes; and
system
3, increasing segmentation and fragmentation of the overall governance
across levels and functional spheres.
by a multitude
The contemporary structure of global governance is shaped
organizations,
of actors. Such actors as states, civil society groups, international
(NGOs), multinational corporations, networks,
non-governmental organizations
companies, as well as
partnerships, scientific experts, private military and security
global politics with multi-
transnational criminal and drug-trafficking networks offer
global political system.
actor outlooks and participate in directing the local and
actors today widen the
Biermann and Pattberg also noticed that global governance
also transform the patterns
range of activities in which they are involved and they
in confronting present-day issues on a worldwide
of interaction and cooperation
flexibility over rigidity, prefer
level. “Current global governance arrangements favour
over individual actions, and
voluntary measures t o binding rules, choose partnerships
j
give rise to new initiatives and ideas” (2008).
99
THE ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF THE UNITED NATIO NS
‘¢ an
.
internationa|
= The United Nations (UN) }
945. It is th
organization founded on ca ni ; sifesntbniee
second multipurpose ee t was global in
instituted in the 20th century tha sor, the
Leagueag
dos setae
membership and scope. Its aii
of Nations, was established in noe Lis
Chinese
Versailles but disbanded in 1946. AF ish ‘are
UN's
English, French, Russian, and Span
© Members of the commission of
red in New York City,
official languages. Headquarte
the League of Nations created by the. } ional offices in Vienna,
the United Nations also has region
Plenary Session of the Preliminary
; Naiairobi.i
Peace Conference, Paris, France, 1919:
Geneva, and :
The League of Nations, established in
1919 by the Treaty of Versailles and
disbanded in 1946, is the predecessor THE UN’S FUNCTIONS .
The functions of the United Nations are parallel
of the United Nations.
ei ‘ts Charter. the UN
[Image source: https://commons. aims:
to its objectives. Based on its Charrel,
wikimedia.org/wiki/File:League_of_ ;
Nations_Commission.jpg ] “to save succeeding generations from the scourge
of war,...to reaffirm faith in fundamental human
rights,...to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations
arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be soon seencs and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom” (“United
Nations,” 2018).-
In other words, some remarkable functions of the UN include the following:
1. maintaining peace and security (especially in the international level);
2.. developing friendly relations among nations anchord on respect for the
principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples;
3. achieving global cooperation to resolve ihternational economic, social,
cultural, and humanitarian problems;
4. respecting and promoting human rights; and,
5. serving as a center where nations can coordinate their actions and activities
toward these mentioned ends.
Since the start of the 21% century, the United Nations and its affiliated
agencies have
endeavored to address civil wars and humanitarian crises, unparalleled refugee
flows, the
damage caused by the spread of AIDS, worldwide financial disruptions, global
terrorism,
and the inequalities in wealth between the world’s richest and poorest
peoples.
100
TT
Managing knowletige. Although basic research is done in universities, yet
the posee Nations is a knowledge-based and knowledge-management
international organization. The prototypical UN tasks include flagging
concerns and keeping them in front of undecided sates. Idea-mongering
happens through expert groups, organizing prominent individuals into panels
and study groups, and especially through the worldwide ad hoc conferences.
The United Nations has remarkable convening power and mobilizing
capacityto help bringin knowledge from outside and to make sure its discussion
and propagation among states. The UN-sponsored global conferences, summits
of heads of government, and blue-ribbon commissions and panels have been
utilized for “framing issues, outlining choices, making decisions; for setting,
even anticipating, the agenda; for framing the rules, including for: dispute
settlement; for pledging and mobilizing resources; for implementing collective
decisions; and for monitoring progress and recommending mid-term corrections
and adjustments” (“The UN’s Role in Global Governance,” 2009).
Developingnorms.Newnorms havetobe pronounced, circulated, and established
once information has been gathered and knowledge acquired that a problem is
‘severe enough to warrant attention by the worldwide policy community.
The First UNis an indispensable way to allow the expression and subsequent
jelling of official views from around the globe oninternational norms despite
the understandable problems of accommodating the standpoints of 192
nations. Likewise, in spite of the apparent problems of running a secretariat
with a variety of nationalities, cultures, languages, and administrative norms,
the Second UNis also an continuing bureaucratic experiment in opening up the
array of inputs to include a broad range of outlooks.
Promulgating recommendations. Once the norms start to change and become
prevalent, a succeeding step is to frame a range of possibilities about how
states and their citizens and IGOs can change conduct. When an emergent
norm comes close to becoming a global one, addressing particular approaches
to problem-solving, to fill the policy gap, becomes compulsory. The policy
stage pertains to the articulation of ideologies and actions that an institution is
expected to employ in the event of specific eventualities.
The United Nation’s capacity to consult far and wide plays a huge part in its
capability to frame operational ideas. “Thisisa function that is quintessentially
in the job descriptions not only of member states but also of the Second UN,
trusted
the staff of international secretariats, who are often complemented by
are
consultants, NGOs, and expert groups from the Third UN. Policy ideas
and global
often discussed, disseminated, and agreed upon in public forums
conferences” (“The UN’s Role in Global Governance,” 2009).
101
d,
4. Institutionalizing ng ideas.
j When knowledge has been nacquacd jre d, norms articulate
- theif implementation
and policies formulated, an institution can administe sar pectin
© Slit
and monitoring, However, if they are adequately distinct fromcen a reat y,
cohesive in their own cluster of qualities, and of satisfactory
then the global community of governments might well gonrs < asing th i
committed to addre S
new IGO (or focusing a part of an existing one) ied
concern area. | |
Institutions represent ideas but can also “provide a platform from wn
about the best approaches to
challenge existing norms and received wisdom
eferences for less
problem solving. For instance, the generalized system of pr tional free-
industrialized countries—which was hardly an item on the conven
Trade and Development
trade agenda—grew from both the UN Conference on
eee and GATT” (“The UN’s Role in Global Governance,” 2009).
102
Remeah Thakur, former Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University in
charge of its Peace and Governance Programme, explains that the challenge of global
governance ~ governance for the world to yield order, solidity, and predictability even
in the lack of a world government - is sixfold:
1, The evolution of international organizations to facilitate robust global
responses lags behind the emergence of collective action problems;’
2. The most pressing problems — nuclear weapons, terrorism, pandemics, food,
water and fuel scarcity, climate change, agricultural trade - are global in
scope and require global solutions: problems without passports in search of
solutions without passports. But the policy authority and legal capacity for
coercive obilization of the required resources for tackling them remain vested
in states;’
3. There is a disconnect between the distribution of decision-making authority
in international institutions and the distribution of military, diplomatic and
economic power in the real world;’
4. There is also a disconnect between the concentration ‘of decision naling
authority in intergovernmental forums and the diffusion of decision-shaping
aeeananene
influence among nonstate actors like markets, corporations and civil society
actors;’
5. There is a mutually undermining gap between legitimacy and efficiency.
os
Precisely what made the G8 summits unique and valuable — informal meetings
between a small number of the world’s most powerful government leaders
behind closed doors on a first name basis, without intermediaries and with
no notes being taken- is ‘what provoked charges of hegemonism, secrecy,
opaqueness, and lack of representation and legitimacy. The very feature that
gives the United Nations its unique legitimacy, universal membership, makes
it an inefficient body for making, implementing and enforcing collective
decisions;’
6. During the Cold War, the main axis around which world affairs rotated was
East-West. Today this has morphed into a North-South axis. The Copenhagen
Conference on climate change was suboptimal in outcome in part because of the
colliding worldviews of the global North and South. (Thakur, n.d.)
Thus, the essential challenge for the global community is how to reorganize and
reform the United Nations in order to transpose it at the center of communal efforts
to address present-day and projected worldwide problems over the next quarter and
half century. The exemplary institutions of global governance have been the G8 and
the United Nations. But the G6/7/8, set up in 1975, has been always a thin club of a
selection of nations, and, as such, never possessed either representative or electoral
legitimacy. Equally, despite its many real accomplishments, the United Nations has
4 been struggling to be effective and significant.
te
oS
103
for an alternate
Nontheless, the advent of the G20 spoke strongly to the pee as accountable
worldwide directing group to pull in all the world’s poe iy as Tule-takers. The
managers of the world order as stakeholders, and a a tran governors from
G20 is an international forum for the governments and oan France, Germany
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European engres South Koved
India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, saudi Arabia, Bout ’
Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States of AmeriC# timacy, efficieney
In theory, the G20 provided the best crossover point among le6!" dination and
and effectiveness. It should strive to direct policy consensus a
change and adps8 siorldwig :
me Lanes
to activate the indispensable political will to drive
challenges while piloting the shifting international currents of a z aenit
wealth. To be legitimate however, it still should operate with and not eae Sh
or against the United Nations. |
pful attributes of the
In other words, the real challenge is how to preserve th e hel
es. This could be
existing knots of global governance while peeling their pat hologi
ions as the core
done by configuring and operating either the G20 or the Uni ted Nat
of networked global governance. The United Nations must con tin
ue to lead efforts for '
h the appropriate
the establishment and upkeep of a rules-based order that defines bot
actors and mechanism
conduct to be followed by all state and nonstate international
and procedures for settling differences among them. The United Nations must remain
ae
in its chief role in the development of global governance through “filling five gaps inall
issue-areas: knowledge (empirical and theoretical), normative, policy, institutional, and
Ss
2
ne
on how to reconstruct the UN, you may read the Appendix E: “UN’s Structural and
ee
pe
104 4
SY
For millennia, numerous human socibties have been
governed by States, The first states are said to arise about
5,500 year S ago alongside swift growth of cities and
invention of Writing. For long, the modern nation-state has
been the leading form of state to which people are subject.
Although many states are sovereign, some are
“subject to external sovereignty or hegemony where
ultimate sovereignty lies in another state. The term state
is also applied to federated states that are members of
a federal union, which is the sovereign state ...Speakers '
© [e 1993 Mone videp ecto
of American English often use the terms state and
government as synonyms, with both words referring to Perak cthe anwentlon
over . the political existence of a state is
an organized political group that exercises authority
(“State,” n.d.). independent of its recognition by
q particular territory”
the other states.
‘ : ‘
Social historian Eric Hobsbawm, Emeritus Professor [talikeslolipops.wordpress.com]
at Birkbeck College, University of London and at the New
specific characteristics of
School for Social Research in New York enumerates some
the territorial state:
of a (preferably continuous and unbroken)
1. In the first place, it consists
(frontiers or borders)
territory, separated from other states by clearly defined lines
from that under
demarcating the area under the power of one state government
the power of another ...
within it no authority
2. Second, this territory is sovereign, which is to say that
the unforced agreement
otherthan that ofthe local stateis recognized, exceptby
imposition of a superior
of that state (by a negotiated treaty, for example) ... The
a military conquest - is an
authority against the will of the local state - such as
at least temporarily...
act of force which brings sovereignty to an end,
both of law and of the
3. Third, within its territory the state has the monopoly
been willingly renounced, as
powers of coercion, except insofar as these have
accept for certain purposes
by the member-states of the European Union which
state’s authority extends
the precedence of European law over national law. The
on that territory, again with
to all who are present on its territory; and while
all persons are, to varying
minor exceptions such as diplomatic immunity,
and to no other ...
extents, subject to that state’s power
subjects directly and not through
4. Fourth, the national state rules its citizens or
extent autonomous, as was the
intermediate authorities, subaltern but to some
empires ...
case in feudal societies or certain kinds of traditional
the inhabitants by the central
5. Fifth, direct government and administration of
degree of standardization or
authorities of a nation-state implies a certain
If, say, Monogamy is
even homogenization in the treatment of the inhabitants.
practised in the state
established by state law, then polygamy cannot be legally
the United States) ... ‘
(as the Mormons in Utah discovered when joining
105
POSitive
ed of peo ple ; hout po litical rights OF
wit
onI ally, while a nation-st
Fin ate co mp os Age of Revolution has beep
participation in its affairs is possible, the heritage of the g ch cases the state ig
to turn most states into citizen states, at least
in theory: a ee of sovereignty
considered to represent ‘the people’, and ‘the people’ to “a
. form of election or
or at least to give the state legitimacy, most commonly by ity of pe ople and state
plebiscite, or some other form of public ritual symbolizing the un
... (Hobsbawm, 1999)
crime, and terrorism, have become transnational in nature, and thus cannot be
managed only at the national level, nor by state to state dialogues.
Pe
ee
py ae
The need for better economic and social interdependence affects national decision-
making as it demands a transfer of decisions to the international level. Globalization
tt
106
engage in effective international competition except as part of a larger bloc,
or because their economies (or, more precisely, their public finances) are so
weak as to make them dependent on loans given under politically restrictive
conditions.
Third, territorial borders have been made largely irrelevant by the technological
revolution in transport and communications.A world in which people, with
Tare exceptions, lived and worked either in one state or in another, has been
replaced by one in which they may live and work simultaneously in, or commute
between, more than one state, as well as being in constant immediate contact
with any part of the globe. It is quite normal today for a person of relatively
modest economic situation to be simultaneously a householder and income-
earner in two or more states. The sharp distinction between permanent and
seasonal, or temporary, emigration, so typical of the wave of intercontinental
migration before the First World War, no longer applies in the present wave
of international migration. This affects the relations between permanent
immigrants and the states in which they have chosen to live, as well as between
immigrants and their countries of origin. It also . +
\\\
Ki
raises the question of social and political rights for
‘
107
Hobsbawm believes that the state, preferably the huge state or a supranationa]
: iety,
combination, remains indispensable in this respect.
Even in a see utter sa
need to provide for education, health
care, income maintenance, andt
ble purposes
indispensable and so does some form of public authority for these _ pSpaS ve
For the moment, the nation-state
remains the most effective Sa
“It may not be ideal for the purpose in a much more globalized world. aeaeathdens
eddie if
compared to global institutions which (for the time being) have N° Sea by as
international economic inequalities, nation-states (supplemented in Sasterticened
European Union) are in a position to diminish
regional or group maine .
extent” (Hobsbawm, 1999).
; ts supplanted
True, nation-states may have to be supplemented or in some respec races by
units capable of dealing with the concerns of the global economy, globa
; eae? ‘
movements, global environment, global inequalities and, especially the glo ion
of communication and
. ;
Culture; nonetheless, the territorial state will continue to play a major
- -
relation to social development. (For more discussions on the relevance of the state amid
:
globalization, you may read the Appendix F: “The Functions i a Globalized
of States in bali
World” in this book).
108
Score:
Name:
P rofessor: : Date:
2. Global governance
3. Copenhagen Conference
5. United Nations
109
6, League of Nations
8. State
Ss
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———_-
woo
+
Br
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a
ee
es
2 me
-
stribution of wealth
10. Redistribution of income and redi
110
(Soren REO ef aC,
(EVALUATION)
Name: Score:
Professor: Date:
A. Identification. Identify the term/s being referred to in each number. Write your
answer in the space before each number.
i. The political administration of a state or country
2; It is the political, economic, and cultural cooperation
among countries.
An event in which various countries adteotl to put their foot
down for the sake of Global Good.
It is an ideology anchored on the belief that people, goods,
and information ought to be ey to cross national borders
unrestrained.
These involved treaties on the peaceful settlement of war,
the rights of neutral states, and the treatment of prisoners
of war. |
An organization drawing membership from at least three
states, having activities in many states, and whose members
are held together by a formal agreement.
It is where a government can exercise its powers.
This refers to those relations within groups whose
membership and organizations transcend states. .
The French historian who introduces international system
_as characterized by the general balance of the powers
making it up.
70; It fundamentally refers to interactions by various political
entities, but mostly states.
B. True or False. Write T on the line before the number if the statement is true. If the
statement is false, write F.
1. Allauthoritative actions ofa state’s governmental authority against any
citizen or group or another state is part of interstate relations.
2. International relations can help foster cooperative behaviour by
establishing political institutions through which governments can
work together to realize common objectives.
3. Not all IGOs seek economic, political, and social integration and
cooperation.
4. Globalism is much wider term than internationalism is in meaning,
scope, and outcome.
113
) ’ came } into common
cee During the nineteenth century, the term ‘gys 89° tem’ came
use in the field of international relations.
rnational relations,
Interstate relations refer to a system for inte
r states and their
specifically that which deals with governments ©
authorities. : ‘ enden,
Inthe contemporary
world, conflicts, cooperation, a cia lag
among several countries go hand in hand and so do &
internationalism. t ni international
According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the concept Ot
system goes beyond simple geographic proximity. d interstate
aD me
Interpersonal relations are interpersonal, intersocietal,
and the international field comprises interper sonal, intersociefa’, and
interstate behavior and attributes.
tion
10. Joyce S. Osland said that there are some pro s and cons of globaliza
related to governments.
—-
s=
/
_+
eb
dhin
S
:
|
114