Global Governance Fields

Definitions
 Cooperation
o Process whereby states, “adjust their behavior to the actual or anticipated
preferences of others, through a process of policy coordination”
 Regimes
o “A set of mutual expectations, rules and regulations, plans, organizational energies
and financial commitments, which have been accepted by a group of states”
o
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Institutions
 Stephen Krasner – A regime is effective to the extent that its members abide
by its norms and rules & that it achieves certain objectives or fulfills certain
purposes
 John Ikenberry – After Victory
o Robert Keohane’s, After Hegemony is the classic text cited that
articulates the views of neoliberal institutionalism and cooperation in
a world “after hegemony” (Keohane 1984). In a play on Keohane’s
words, Ikenberry seeks to understand a world “after victory”. In
particular, Ikenberry’s book examines the period in history after the
Allied powers victorious triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945. What
would the world order be after victory? Ikenberry’s answer is
straightforward, but surprising. Ikenberry argues that once a state
wins a war, they are met with three choices: to dominate their
enemies, abandon the losers, or transform the international system. In
the case of the United States, they transformed the international
system by employing institutions as a way to establish political
control and order (Ikenberry 2001: 5-6). For example, the end of
World War II saw the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions, the
United Nations and NATO. Furthermore, once institutionalized, states
– particularly the industrial democracies -- commit and link to one
another to create a post-war order that is durable and stable
(Ikenberry 2001: 6). As Ikenberry suggested: “…[I]nstitutions
are…critical at the beginning of hegemony – or ‘after victory’ – in
establishing order and securing cooperation between unequal states”
(Ikenberry 2001: 17).
o This ‘world order’ is even more surprising considering the huge
asymmetries of power that existed following the war. Contrary to
conventional realist assumptions, the United States neither dominated
nor abandoned Europe after the war. Instead, there were great
incentives to “locking in” an institutional order. For strong states,
institutionalization had the long-term gain of preserving international
 order and stability. For weaker states, joining institutions reduced the
likelihood that powerful states would dominate or abandon them.
Although a common refrain from realists is that institutionalists do
not treat power seriously, Ikenberry places power at the center of his
argument. Institutions develop because of the asymmetries of power
between weak and strong states in the international system. While
neoliberal insitutionalism usually speaks of institutions as resolving
‘collective action’ or ‘information’ problems, Ikenberry sees
institutions as crucial for resolving these power “asymmetries”.
o Ikenberry sees the international order as one shaped constitutionally
– through institutions – rather that just “creatures of the international
distribution of power” (Ikenberry 2001: 28). For Ikenberry,
institutions create a “constitutional order”; a political order that exists
because of agreed upon rules, that allocate rights and restrain power
(Ikenberry 2001: 29). Institutions create order in three ways.
 One, institutions have shared, or mutual agreements, over the
rules of the game.
 Two, these rules set limits on the ability to exercise power.
 Lastly, once these rules are in place, they are not easily
changed (Ikenberry 2001: 31).
o The ability of these institutions and a constitutional order to become a
stabilizing presence in the international system is due in large part to
an expansion of democratic regimes throughout the world. It is no
accident, Ikenberry claims, that as democracy becomes the norm in
the world, “deeper linkages” will lead to more intergovernmental
commitment (Ikenberry 2001: 5

 Robert Keohane – After Hegemony

o 2 purposes:
 Hegemonic cooperation
 The context of the decline of a hegemonic state
o Arguments:
 Cooperation often fails despite countries having common
interests
 Once the dominant country is in decline, the international
regimes it established to originally preserve its power over
other states would be autonomous and would function on its
own
o Requirements of Hegemony:
 (1) Productivity in manufacturing
 (2) Control over capital
 (3) Possession of raw materials
o d
 John Mearsheimer – The False Promise of International Institutions
o Refutes idealist claim that international institutions are responsible
for the maintenance of peace and security
 o 3 principles:
 (1) Liberal Institutionalism
 Liberal institutionalism does not directly address the important question
of how to prevent war, but focuses instead on explaining why economic
and environmental cooperation among states is more likely than realists
recognize. The theory is predicated on the belief that cheating is the
main inhibitor of international cooperation, and that institutions provide
the key to overcoming that problem (prisoners dilemma). The idea is to
create rules that constrain states (cheaters will be caught, will be
punished immediately and will jeopardize future cooperative efforts),
but not to challenge the fundamental realist claim that states are
selfinterested actors.
 Rules can ideally be employed in four ways to change the “contractual
environment”: institutionalized iteration, issue-linkage, information
transparency and reduction of transaction costs.
 (2) Collective Security
 The theory of collective security deals with the issue of how to cause
peace. The key to enhancing stability in this world of armed states is
the proper management of military power, which is best achieved
through institutions.
 Collective security starts with the assumption that states behave
according to the dictates of realism. The aim however is to move
beyond the self-help world of realism where states fear each other and
are motivated by balance-of-power considerations. Institutions are
meant to convince states to base their behavior on three profoundly
anti-realist norms:
o States should reject the idea of using force to change the status
quo
o To deal with states that violate that norm and threaten a war,
responsible states must not act on the basis of their own
narrow self-interest
o States must trust each other to renounce aggression and to
mean that renunciation. Trust is the most important of the
three elements because it underpins the first two.

 (3) Critical Theory

The Rise of Non-State Actors, the Development of Norms & the Creation of
Global Civil Society
 Barnett & Duvall – Power in Global Governance
o Argue that the field of global governance has neglected an adequate
understanding of power and the ways in which power can differently
affect different situations
 Criticizes existing IR literature on power for its primary
attachment to realism, namely how one state uses its material
resources to compel another state to do something it does not
want to do
 Not enough attention to social relations
o Power is the production, in and through social relations, of effects on
actors that shape their capacity to control their fate
o Proposes 4 forms of power:
 Compulsory Power
 Direct control of one actor over the conditions of
existence and/or the actions of another
 Steers attention towards material resources to control
others
o Great powers often use (or threaten to use) resources
to influence others. MNCs use capital resources to
shape economic policies at national and global levels
 Not limited to material resources but also includes
symbolic and normative resources
o Transnational activists, civil society & NGOs employ
policies of shaming to alter state policies.
o Non-permanent members of the UNSC use legal
norms to constrain the permanent members
o International organizations use their expert, moral,
delegated, and rational-legal authority to discipline
both state and non-state actors.
 Institutional Power
 Actors’ indirect control over the conditions of action of
socially distant others
 Focuses on the institutions that mediate between actors
 Institutions enable some actors to shape the behaviour or
circumstances of socially distant others. Dominant actors set
the agenda of most global institutions and that agenda might
work to the development or detriment of other actors. Market
forces can create dependent relationships that limit the
choices of weaker nations. Systems of exchange can also be a
media of power.
 The behavioral constraints and governing biases of
institutions often create institutional rules that generate
unequal leverage in determining collective outcomes. As
such, weak actors often lose out on the collective rewards that
are created by institutions.

 Fairness, or the perception thereof becomes crucial in lending

fundamental legitimacy to institutions

 Insofar that an institution is deemed legitimate, the

institution can then shape the strategic environment of
actors by setting the rules to bargaining, affecting
policy bias, and mobilizing power.
 Structural Power
 Concerns the constitution of subjects’ capacities in
direct structural relation to one another
  Focus shifts away from particular actors that control
others directly or indirectly to social relations of
constitution
 Susan Strange defines structural power as the power “to
decide how things shall be done, the power to shape
frameworks within which states relate to each other,
relate to people, or relate to corporate enterprises”
 Structural power shapes the fates and conditions of
existence of actors in 2 ways;
o 1. Structural positions do not generate equal social
privileges, instead structures allocate different
capacities and different advantages to different
positions
o 2. Social structures not only constitutes actors and
their capacities, it also shapes their self-
understanding and interests.
 Structural power loses its effect if not grounded in
legitimacy (i.e. master-slave relations)
 Productive Power
 Productive power concerns the social discourses through
which meaning is produced, fixed, lived, experienced, and
transformed. These discourses produce social identities and
capacities for all subjects.
 Whereas structural power envisions binary and
hierarchical relations, productive power concerns the
boundaries of all social identity, and the capacity and
inclination for action for the socially advantaged and
disadvantaged alike, and the myriad social subjects
that are not constituted in binary hierarchical
relationships
 Categories such as “civilised,” “Western,” “rogue,”
“democratic” represent productive power, in that they
generate asymmetries of social capacities.
 A particular discourse of development can orient
action in one direction and away from others.
o The American empire pivots around compulsory power
 The ability — and post 9/11, willingness — of the US to use its
overwhelming resources to directly shape the actions of others has
been made abundantly clear. In fact, the willingness to unilaterally
take action has been argued to signal the new status of the US as an
empire.
o However, the longevity of American hegemony after World War II is
attributable to the construction of multilateral institutions — an expression
of institutional power — with democratised and autonomous decision-
making processes which nonetheless reflect American interests. These
 multilateral institutions mobilise bias to serve US purposes. The United States
exercises power indirectly through institutions.
o The role of structural power in US hegemony entails an exploration of the
US as an imperial centre structurally constituted by relations of material
production. Its capitalist clout creates a particular set of social positions and
practices. The deterritorialised nature of capitalism extends these practices to
a global rule which is perpetrated through tactics of coercion or through
attempts at generating consent regarding the order of things.
o In terms of productive power, the development of new discourses like
human rights, equality and democracy along with participatory decision-
making processes have played an important role. These transformative
discursive and material processes have created the American empire which
extends a diffuse network of hierarchy designed to privilege and pacify the
multitudes. The US, being seen as a responsible and benevolent actor on the
global stage, is the ultimate embodiment of productive power.
 “Our taxonomy of power…generates a taxonomy of resistance” (22). Compulsory power
causes balancing resistance. Institutional power causes resistance that attempts to
change the rules of the game. Structural power causes resistance in the inequality that
is inherent in that relationship. Productive power causes resistance in the remaking of
subjectivities.
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 Power Shift by Jessica T. Matthews

o The end of the Cold War has brought a redistribution of power shift
from state actors and governmental institutions to that of NGOs and
the people
o Declares that the steady concentration of power in the hands of states
that began in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia is over, at least for
awhile
o The absolutes of the Westphalian system are dissolving:
 Territory fixed states where everything of values lies within
some state’s borders
 A single secular authority governing each territory and
representing it outside its borders
 No authority above states
o Increasingly, resources and threats that matter, including money,
information, pollution and popular culture, circulate and shape lives
and economies with little regard for political boundaries
o International standards of conduct are gradually beginning to
override claims of national or regional singularity
o Even the most powerful states find the marketplace and international
public opinion compelling them more often to follow a particular
course
o The only role she argues has been least affected is the national security role each
nation controls, but even that is slowly disappearing. She makes a good point that
wars between nations are not occurring anymore and wars are focused more on
 non-traditional threats such as terrorism, organized crime, ethnic conflict, political
instability and governments acting against their own people.
 The nearly 100 conflicts after the Cold War have been intrastate affairs
 Many began with governments acting against their own citizens, through
extreme corruption, violence, incompetence, or complete breakdown, as in
Somalia
o These trends have fed a growing sense that individuals' security may not in fact reliably
derive from their nation's security. A competing notion of "human security" is creeping
around the edges of official thinking, suggesting that security be viewed as emerging
from the conditions of daily life—food, shelter, employment, health, public safety—
rather than flowing downward from a country's foreign relations and military strength.
o The engine of change in the relative decline of states & rise of non-
state actors are the new technologies
 In every sphere of activity, instantaneous access to information
& the ability to put it to use multiplies the umber of players
who matter and reduces the number who command great
authority
 By drastically reducing the importance of proximity, the new
technologies change people’s perceptions of community
o The range of NGOs work is almost as broad as their interests. They
breed new ideas; advocate, protest and mobilize public support; do
legal, scientific, technical, and policy analysis; provide services; shape,
implement, monitor and enforce national and international
commitments; and change institutions and norms

Perceptions on Rise of China

 Lyle J. Goldstein  Actual threat is minimal

o China’s armed forces are rising from a very low level of technology
and proficiency
o China has prioritized internal economic development (e.g., high-speed
rail) over military development, a trend unlikely to reverse in the near
term
o Argument: Beijing is building a military neither to attack the US nor to
conquer East Asia, but great power status?
o Nevertheless, Chinese submarine force could be extremely lethal
against US and allied ships in and around the East Asian littoral
o China’s taken a number of major initiatives to act as a so-called
responsible stakeholder in upholding global security
 Ex: anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden, an ambitious
program of training and participation in UN peacekeeping
missions
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