Globalization and Global Governance

The goal of global governance is to uncover international and cooperative solutions to problems and conflicts that transcend nation states. In a decentralized world, international politics knows no world-government or single power to steer the agenda of global politics. The League of Nations was hoped to serve as a forum for the peaceful settlement of international conflict. Equipped with its own power to execute security politics, the United Nations can, in theory, actively promote security and conflict resolution. Today, multinational corporations and Global NGOs enter into formal and informal structures that transcend state government levels and negotiate legal and procedural regimes that are case-specific amongst one another.

Keywords Assemblages; Biological Citizenship; Biopolitics; Consumerism; Governmentality; Non-Gevernmental Organization (NGO); Political-Industrial-Military Complex; United Nations

Global Stratification > Globalization & Global Governance

Overview

Governing the world is not necessarily a centralized affair. Idealist scholars once thought of a single institution that could function as a world-government. The first of these, the League of Nations, was founded after the First World War and instituted in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles in 1920. It had 58 members in 1934.

It was hoped that the promotion of world security would lead to a disarmament movement in the face of the horrors of the World War's trench-line battles and use of chemical weapons. It was also hoped that the League would serve as a forum for the peaceful settlement of international conflict. Eventually the Fascist Governments Actions in occupying neighboring countries laid open the ineffectiveness of a political institution that had no executive authority over the nations that comprised its members. The Allied Powers agreed in 1943 that a new institution had to follow once the war was over, and the United Nations (UN) was born while the Second World War was still raging. The League of Nations was dissolved in 1946 and many of its committees and organizations were transferred or affiliated with the UN. Despite its failings and eventual dissolution, the League represented a milestone in international development and the dawn of global governance.

The idea for the UN was initiated by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942. The UN was founded in 1945 in San Francisco with 50 members and several "non-governmental organizations" (NGO) participating. The United Nations is a different animal in various respects. It can pass legitimate international law, has its own Forces and can enforce sanctions. Its members include basically every independent nation-state that is mutually recognized as such, making up its 192 member states.

The peacekeeping and security functions that the UN is assigned are backed up by a limited power to actually intervene with force, which distinguishes it largely from its predecessor, a "tiger without teeth." Even if recent bickering in the Security Council has displayed that the administrative set-up is not yet perfect. It should be understood that the United Nations is not a world government and was never designed to be; nor is this organization equipped to handle such a task.

3 Global Developments

It has been argued that we are currently facing three diverging developments.

1). The myth of the powers of the state. It has been argued that in the face of increased competition for creating and attracting jobs in emerging industries, a renewed importance of the nation-state and increased isolationism will be guiding international politics. Therefore states with the power to create the local conditions (taxes, education and training of labor-force, traffic systems for resource distribution, and energy) for multinational corporations will regain a powerful role in the 21st century (Strange, 1996).

2). The retreat of the state. However, it has also been argued that the same developments will render state-governments powerless and the same will happen with the international institutions they use to confer with one another. Multinational corporations and Global NGOs will enter into formal and informal structures that transcend state government levels and negotiate legal and procedural regimes that are case-specific amongst one another (Strange, 1996).

3). The myth of the retreat of the state. A third alternative has been recently suggested in the face of 2007/8 financial market breakdowns. In the recent crises, national governments have been called upon to accomplish two tasks: to bailout the markets locally, despite the global interdependencies, and to re-introduce regulations to re-enable markets to function.

The prior two alternatives depend on continued market-development without interruption. But the local crisis in the financial sector is no longer local, because the web of dependencies in the global economy has become so dense that the ripples of crises reach the entire world. Once a crisis has emerged to a level at which corporations are no longer in control, the last entities that are big enough to offer relief are national state governments (Soerensen 2004).

Further Insights

Kant & Habermas

Both the League of Nations and the United Nations were actually founded on ideas first elucidated by Immanuel Kant in his writings on history and in his work, "Perpetual Peace." These ideas have been repeatedly criticized throughout history by conservatives as too-far reaching and romantically ideal, and by leftist critics as not going far enough. Many liberal and democratic supporters of ideas of world democracy as well as some of their staunchest critics like Robert Kagan (2003) and David Jones (2005) have, however, actually gravely misconstrued Kant, who never promoted world government of the sort that is imagined by some idealistic scholars. Kant distrusted the idea of democracy while promoting a strong republicanism. The German philosopher Juergen Habermas is one of the strongest proponents of the idea of world democracy. He is as often criticized and misunderstood as Kant himself, although Habermas is not free from equating democracy with Republicanism.

Democracy is the rule of the demos (the people). Republicanism, for Kant, is the rule of law. Kant deeply distrusted the people to be able to support the rule of law. H argued that the execution of legislation requires a high level of education and emotional restraint that masses of people do not display, as the masses can be emotionally swayed to promote irrational causes.

Habermas, on the other hand, thinks that only through education can people be enabled to participate rationally in public discourse and only through public discourse can law attain legitimacy. Law must above all enable participation and subsequently, the education of the people towards participation. In this circular conception lies Habermas' equation of Republicanism and Democracy which Kant would not have supported.

Still, his interpretation of Kant is nonetheless very insightful. Kant, Habermas asserts, formulates but an ideal or a goal towards which we should be striving: This goal is the abolition of war: "The desire for such a peace, is founded for Kant in the cruelties of all kinds from this breed of war, as led by the mercenary armies for the European Dukes in those times" (1995). Therefore Kant's definition of peace is to limit war in itself, respectively the kind of war that was actually led in his times.

Habermas includes present problems in his deliberations, arguing for reforming international institutions such as the United Nations in order to create the means of developing strategies to cope with the problems of our era. In 1995 he clearly stated those to be "dangers arising from ecological imbalances, asymmetries in welfare and economic power, High-Tech, arms-trade, in particular the proliferation of WMDs, thru terrorism, drug-related crimes, etc. seem to be obvious" (Habermas, 1995).

Völkerbund & Völkerstaat

Kant developed a clear distinction between Völkerbund and Völkerstaat. Völkerstaat would constitute a true World-state, which Kant had considered to be impractical and impossible to realize. Völkerbund is a contractual Federation of independent and sovereign states, that would simply agree to mutual dismantling of the means of war in their dealings amongst one another. However, as both Kagan (2003) and Habermas point out, in order to keep the promise made in this war-abolishing contract, states would have to trust in one another's moral intention to keep this promise.

Kant - claims Habermas - had argued that such a contractual construct, as he proposes, would rely on its standing to reason, adding that three general tendencies were aided in the process quite naturally:

• The peaceful nature of Republics;
• The power of community formation that lies within world trade; and
• A functioning political public.

Habermas counters that while Kant's 18th century premises have lost some of their accuracy through the course of history, they have not yet relented their appeal, given they could be re-formulated into a concept of World-Citizen Rights.

Perpetual Peace

The most important misunderstanding in general lies in the interpretation of the term, "perpetual peace." Kant made no assertion to the fact that he ever believed such peace to be possible. But he argued that we must set this goal and constantly work towards it. In Kantian philosophy, it is very important to understand that we need to be able to transcend the facts and situations we are currently given by setting goals (or as Kant calls them, regulative ideals) that we work for; whether these goals are ever fully accomplished or not is unimportant. A situation can only be improved if a goal towards improvement is defined.

International Governing Organizations

The international community has created several organizations to promote such goals as global security, health policies and the promotion and preservation of culture and education.

The most important is of course the United Nations, which is comprised of the following bodies:

• General Assembly
• Security Council
• Economic and Social Council
• Secretariat
• International Court of in Justice

It is the most important executive and legislative body in international politics.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is part of the UN. It was founded in 1948 and tasked with the coordination of global health efforts and the promotion of creating circumstances for the best health conditions for as many people as possible world-wide.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded as part of the UN in 1945. Its goal is promoting the values of science, education and cultural diversity. These values are intended to be foundations of people's respect for justice, human rights and the procedures of law.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an institution that is currently comprised of thirty member states. This organization is based on the principle of representative democracy and the principle of free-market economy. OECD reports on scientific development, education and economic development and ranking the most important indicators in global politics and economics.

The European Union (EU) and the African Union are two multinational federations that have emerged in recent times that coordinate an ever larger political and economic agenda and the various boards and councils of the EU in particular have increased their global influence in the recent past.

There are a number of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) who have become major players in global politics both in media power and the finances they wield. Among them are Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, to name a few.

New and emerging power will lie in organizations that represent consumer interests, since global society is turning irrevocably into a consumerist society.

All these aspects are part of global governance, which in the most simple definition could be phrased as the art of governing cooperatively in a globalized but decentralized environment of legal regimes and organizations bodies beyond the nation-state.

Viewpoints

Globalization & the New Networks of Power

Sociologist Ulrich Beck (2006) has made the important diagnosis that in the current age, the final power lies not with governments or corporations, but with consumers. The process called globalization can therefore take two forms: Globalization and Globalism. Globalism means the form of globalization that reduces this process to a globalization of markets, wherein all the power lies with multinational corporations. True globalization involves all social levels and leaves the control of the channels of information in the hands of the people and therefore the consumers. Thus, the power in our age lies with whoever controls the channels of information.

Assemblages

Assemblages have existed in all eras and often were an engine for structural change and transformation. Current assemblages are described by global actors, such as multinational corporations, international consumer representation or environmentalist groups, whose actions are not bound by national borders and therefore have no secure legal representation that effects their actions, which are not bound to one territory.

Controlling these channels and controlling the legal regimes that govern political and entrepreneurial actions no longer lies in the hands of national governments, says Saskia Sassen (2006), but are negotiated between different actors, such as companies, regulative agencies, litigators, consultants and NGOs who form assemblies that constitute these regimes. These new networks transcend national borders and form networks that do not adhere to the schedules and limits that traditional national and international legislation have constituted. They have formed their own institutions and begun to establish a new world order, as Anne-Marie Slaughter (2004) has argued.

The importance that non-governmental organizations would reach has been predicted by surprisingly few scholars, given the explosion of literature on NGO-theory in the past decade. Science historian Alexander Stingl (2008) has argued that the renowned sociologist Talcott Parsons had predicted this development in an essay titled "The Power Bank" in 1964. This essay is one of the sharpest analyses of the structure of power in international politics in an age of global governance, but it remains to this date unpublished.

The U.S. Patriot Act

In a world after 9/11 the American government, in installing the Patriot Act, has cut deeply in the free-floating of information and the channels that carry it. Many critics have exposed the misuse of this legislation and pointed out that several unhealthy connections between legislators and private companies will lead to a renewal of the military-industrial-political complex that C.Wright Mills denounced in the 1960s. The Patriot Act is the single piece of legislation that has the power to counter the effects of global governance within a democratic state.

Biopolitics: The Governance of the Body

A new aspect of global governance is the question of biopower and biological citizenship. The myth of the power of the state as the entity controlling the livelihood and bodies of human beings began with the governance of demography and populations as well as the nineteenth century hygiene movement, according to Michel Foucault. The attitude that emerged in the governing of the body--the production of citizen body--Foucault called governmentality. In the era of global governance and of the progress that biomedicine has made, the conditions of governmentality have changed remarkably, which Nikolas Rose (2007) has studied in detail.

The legal and ethical regimes that govern what can and cannot be done in the realm of experiment of eugenics or of medical procedure differ from nation to nation. Thus, people and companies move their affairs and choose their strategies and politics accordingly. Biopolitics is not only a new and large aspect of global governance, in short it will become its most important one.

Terms & Concepts

Assemblages: Saskia Sassen has used the word assemblages to describe regimes (such as legal or truth regimes) that are agreed upon by parties outside of established institutions or sovereign entities, such as nation states. Assemblages have existed in all eras and often were an engine for structural change and transformation. Current assemblages are described by global actors, such as multinational corporations, international consumer representation or environmentalist groups, whose actions are not bound by national borders and therefore have no secure legal representation that effects their actions, which are not bound to one territory.

Biological Citizenship: Since we now have the possibility to intervene in both our own genetic make-up, as well as our neuro-chemical systems, due to the advances of biomedicine, many choices of life-style and freedom have become dependent on the genetic and neurological prerequisites of our body. The legal and ethical regulations and considerations that come with these choices, as well as the sanctions imposed upon us thereby have rendered citizenship vulnerable to issues of our bodies and our genes, so to speak. Citizenship is therefore no longer just a territorial or social, but a biological matter.

Consumerism: A society has turned into a consumerist society when its central features rest on its economy and participation in the form of citizenship is realized in the possession and acquisition of material goods and services.

Governmentality: The French term gouvernementalité was introduced by Michel Foucault. It rose to fame long after his death when it was declared that the turn of the twentieth to the twenty-first century would be marked by the advances in biotechnology. According to most Foucault interpretations, governmentality refers either to the modes of production that governments install to bring forth citizens that fit into the governments policies, or to the discursive practices (disciplines) that are governing subjects.

Media: In sociology, we can distinguish three different types of media. Media of transmission, mass media and symbolically generalized media. This distinction relates back to the works of Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann. In a very simple depiction of the distinction, we can say that media of transmission are the form in which information is stored and related from one sender to one receiver (oral speech, written word or printing or digital media). Mass Media are technologies and social institutions that relate information from a sender to a mass of people (such as radio, newspapers or the internet). Symbolically generalized media are media that increase the likelihood of the acceptance of a communication, such as money, power or influence.

Non-Governmental Organization (NGO): Non-governmental organizations began with the treaties that established the United Nations. But with very few exceptions they have not played a major role in the first decades after World War II. With the rise of the human rights debate in Western Countries and the Environmental movement, the last twenty years have seen the rise of NGOs that have actual influence in global governance.

Patriot Act: The US Patriot Act was signed into law on October 26th, 2001 as a reaction to the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001. It is an Acronym that stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001". The Act increases the rights of law enforcement agencies to act within the US and abroad, involving specifically the aspects of surveillance. It affects also the Secretary of the Treasury's rights of the regulation of financial assets, including those of foreign entities. The Patriot Act is to this date a controversial issue, since its critics assert that it destroys the very liberties and rights it is installed to protect.

Political-Industrial-Military Complex: According to Sociologist C. Wright Mills (1916 - 1962), the political, military and economic elites share in an ideology that defines themselves as superior elite in society that supposedly knows best, guided by a military outlook on foreign relations and social reality. To promote the interest of their "better community," as Mills states in "The Power Elite" (1956), this complex exists to change the structure of the general economy into a "state of war economy".

United Nations (UN): The United Nations was founded in 1945 to succeed the failing League of Nations. Based on the idea of establishing a form of world-government, the international community uses this forum and its headquarters in New York to come together and debate global problems and international conflicts. Equipped with its own power to execute security politics, the UN can in theory actively promote security and conflict resolution. In practice it actions depend on the vote of the Security Council, where the world's major nuclear powers, Russia, China, France, Great Britain and the US have made use of their rights to veto actions to promote their individual political agendas in the recent decade.

Bibliography

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Beck, U. (2006). Power in the Global Age: A New Global Political Economy. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Dubrow, J. (2013). Democratic Global Governance, Political Inequality, and the Nationalist Retrenchment Hypothesis.International Journal Of Sociology,43, 55-69. doi:10.2753/IJS0020-7659430203 Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text:http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=88986553&site=ehost-live

Foucault, M. (2008). Security, Territory, Population. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Habermas, J. (1995). Kant's Idee des ewigen Friedens - aus dem historischen Abstand von 200 Jahren. English Translation in: Habermas, J. (1998). The Inclusion of the Other. 165-202. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Suggested Reading

Crouch, C. (2004). Post-Democracy. Oxford: Polity Press.

Daalder, I. H., & Lindsey, J. M. (2003). America Unbound. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Zuern, M. (2005). Globalizing Interests: Pressure Groups and Denationalization. Albany: State University of New York Press.