Module 2

INTRODUCTION

Although many internationalists like Bentham and Kant imagined the possibility of a
global government, nothing of the sort exists today. There is no one organization that various
states are accountable to. Moreover, no organization can militarily compel a state to obey
predetermined global rules. There is, however, some regularity in the general behavior of
states. For example, they more or less follow global navigation routes and, more often than
not, respect each other’s territorial boundaries. Moreover, when they do not – like when
Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 – it becomes a cause for global concern and debate. The fact
that states in an international order continue to adhere to certain global norms means that
there is a semblance of world order despite the lack of a single word government. Global
governance refers to the various intersecting processes that create this order.

There are many

the process legislating public international law (international rules that govern interactions
between states as opposed to, say, private companies). International non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), though not having formal state power, can lobby individual states to
behave in a certain way (for example, an example animal protection NGO can pressure
governments to pass animal cruelty laws). Powerful transnational corporations can likewise
have tremendous effects on global labor laws, environmental legislation, trade policy, etc.
even ideas such as the need for “Global democracy” or the clamor for “good governance” can
influence the ways international actors behave.

Our lesson will not be able to cover the various ways global governance occurs. As
such, this lesson will only examine how global governance is articulated by
intergovernmental organizations. It will focus primarily on the United Nations (UN) as the
most prominent intergovernmental organization today.

Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. Define global governance;
2. Identify the roles and functions of the United Nations; and
3. Determine the challenges of global governance in the twenty-first century.

Lesson 1. The United Nations and Contemporary Global Governance

International Organization– the term is commonly used to refer to international

intergovernmental organizations or groups that are primarily made up of member-states.
Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore listed the following powers of IOs.
1. Power of classification –a states are required to accept refugees entering their borders,
this power to establish identity has concrete effects.
2. Power to fix meanings – this is a broader function related to the first. Various terms
like “security” or “development” need to be well-defined. States, organization, and
individuals view IOs as legitimate sources of information. As such, the meanings they
create have effect on various policies. For example, recently, the United Nation has
started to define security as not just safety from military violence, but also safety from
environmental harm.
3. Power to diffuse norms –norms are accepted codes of conduct that may not be strict
law, but nevertheless produce regularity in behavior. Their power to diffuse norms
stems from the fact that IOs are staffed with independent bureaucracies, who are
considered experts in various fields. For example, World Bank economist come to be
regarded as experts in development and thus carry some form of authority. They can,
therefore, create norms regarding the implementation and conceptualization of
development projects.

What is Global Governance?

Global governance brings together diverse actors to coordinate collective action at the
level of the planet. The goal of global governance, roughly defined, is to provide global public
goods, particularly peace and security, justice and mediation systems for conflict, functioning
markets and unified standards for trade and industry.

The leading institution in charge of global governance today is the United Nations. It was
founded in 1945, in the wake of the Second World War, as a way to prevent future conflicts
on that scale. The United Nations does not directly bring together the people of the world, but
sovereign nation states, and currently counts 193 members who make recommendations
through the UN General Assembly. The UN’s main mandate is to preserve global security,
which it does particularly through the Security Council. In addition the UN can settle
international legal issues through the International Court of Justice, and implements its key
decisions through the Secretariat, led by the Secretary General.

The United Nations has added a range of areas to its core mandate since 1945. It works
through a range of agencies and associated institutions particularly to ensure greater shared
prosperity, as a desirable goal in itself, and as an indirect way to increase global stability. As
a key initiative in that regard, in 2015, the UN articulated the Sustainable Development
Goals, creating common goals for the collective future of the planet.

Beyond the UN, other institutions with a global mandate play an important role in global
governance. Of primary importance are the so-called Bretton Woods institutions: the World
Bank and the IMF, whose function is to regulate the global economy and credit markets.
Those institutions are not without their critics for this very reason, being often blamed for
maintaining economic inequality.

 The United Nations is divided into five active organs:

1. General Assembly (GA)
 Main deliberative policymaking and representative organ.
 According to the UN charter: Decisions on important questions, such as those
on peace and security, admission of new members, and budgetary matters,
require a two-thirds majority of the GA.
 Annually, GA elects a GA President to serve one-year term of office.
 The Philippines played a prominent role in the GA’s early years when Filipino
diplomat Carlos P. Romulo was elected GA president from1949-1950.
 2. Security Council (SC)
 Takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or an act of
aggression. It calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle the act by peaceful
means and recommends methods of adjustment or terms of settlement.
 This body consists of 15 member states. The GA elects ten of these 15 to two-
year terms. The other five – sometimes referred to as the Permanent 5 (P5) – are
China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These
states have been permanent members.
3. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
 The principal body for coordination, policy review, policy dialogue, and
recommendations on social and environmental issues, as well as the
implementation of internationally agreed development goals.
 It has 54 members elected for there-year (3).
 It is the UN’s central platform for discussion on sustainable development.
4. International Court of Justice (ICJ)
 To settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by
states and to give advisory opinions referred to it by authorized United Nations
organs and specialized agencies.
 The major cases of the court consist of disputes between states that voluntarily
submit themselves to the court for arbitration.

5. Secretary-General (SG)
 UN staff members who carry out the day-to-day work of the UN as mandated by
the General Assembly and the organization’s other principal organs.
 As such, it is the bureaucracy of the UN, serving as a kind of international civil
service. Members of the secretariat serve in their capacity as UN employees and
not as state representatives.

Challenges of the United Nations

1. Geopolitical aggression and intransigence: Conflicts are becoming protracted by intense

rivalries between global powers and regional powers as they support proxies to wage war
overseas. The wars in Syria and Yemen are prime examples.

2. The practice of relabeling conflicts as counter-terror struggles: This tendency leads to

the neglect of the factors and actors driving conflict and the erosion of space needed to build
peace. We’ve seen this occur in high-profile cases like Syria, but also in Egypt, Turkey and
elsewhere. When leaders use the pretext of counter-terror to crush dissent and political
opposition, it escalates violent conflict rather than reducing it.

3. Legacies of military intervention and regime change: Framed as interventions to counter

terror, save civilians or remove rogue regimes, in case after case military intervention and
regime change have failed to bring lasting stability or to defeat fundamentalist groups. On
the one hand this has brought deep distrust of interventionism – but at the same time there
are huge risks in simply giving up on supporting constructive, peaceful change in the face of
repression.

4. Panic over forced displacement: As desperate people flee conflict zones, the impact of
forced displacement is hitting neighboring countries hardest and they are coping as best they
can. Meanwhile, Western governments are making hasty deals to support border and
security forces in transit countries to close their borders and shut the problem out. But this
 train, equip and ignore approach – as in the EU’s Khartoum Process – fails to address the
root causes of the problem.

5. Struggling humanitarianism: Undoubtedly humanitarians have a tough job. The UN and

others are making enormous efforts, with inadequate resources, to assist the victims of
conflict. But they are not yet good enough at defending humanitarian values, working for
prevention during crisis or empowering those affected by humanitarian crises to take the
initiative. And if UN Security Council members – either directly or through allies they support
– continue to bomb hospitals or attack humanitarian convoys, we are unlikely to see this
change.

https://globalchallenges.org/global-governance/

https://www.saferworld.org.uk/resources/news-and-analysis/post/755-five-challenges-the-
unas-asustaining-peacea-agenda-needs-to-address

ACTIVITY 2.1

Score
 Directions: Cases Analysis
 Read and Examine the Case Thoroughly. Take notes, highlight relevant facts, underline key problems.
 Focus Your Analysis. Identify two to five key problems. ...
 Uncover Possible Solutions/Changes Needed. Review course readings, discussions, outside research,
your experience.
 Select the Best Solution.

International Terrorism and Japan's Position

Today, international terrorism is no longer a problem foreign to Japan and its people. With

the rapid increase in the numbers of Japanese people traveling overseas and Japanese companies

operating abroad, there is a growing possibility of Japanese citizens becoming victims of

international terrorism. Because of their increasingly visible presence abroad, concomitant to the

elevation of Japan's international standing, the Japanese and their corporations are more likely to

become direct targets of terrorism than before. For instance, in China and Hong Kong after the

"June 4th Incident," a number of threatening letters announcing murder plots against the

Japanese people have arrived in succession. Also, in May 1990, a Japanese agricultural adviser of

a nongovernmental organization was kidnapped and held on Negros Island of the Philippines for

two months by the antigovernment communist guerrilla organization "New People's Army (NPA).

In the event that Japanese citizens are taken hostage by terrorists who make unlawful

demands, the Japanese Government will make its best efforts to rescue the hostages safely. At the

same time, the government will deal with such an event firmly adhering to the principle of making

no concessions to terrorists which is being confirmed repeatedly by the summit meetings of the 7

industrialized countries and elsewhere in order to prevent the recurrence of a similar incident and

maintain law and order. The understanding and cooperation of citizens are vital to enable the

government to act in accordance with the above policy.

Write here,

Assignment:

Read newspaper article and create a collage which depicted about the challenges of the
United Nations. Outputs will be posted and serve as a Gallery walk for the next topics.

Online Reference;
https://globalchallenges.org/global-governance/

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report 2016 (New
York: United Nations Publications, 2016): 3-4.

Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore, “The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of
International Organization,” International Organizational 3, no. 4 (1999), 270

OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

a. Explain how globalization affects religious practices and beliefs;
b. Identify the various religious responses to globalization; and
c. Discuss the future of religion in globalized world.

Lesson 2: The Globalization of Religion

Religion, much more than culture, has the most difficult relationship with globalism.
First, the two are entirely contrasting belief systems. Religion is concerned with the sacred,
while globalism places value on material wealth. Religion follows divine commandments,
while globalism abides by human-made laws. Religion assumes that there is “the possibility
of communication between humans and the transcendent.” Think link between the human
and the divine confers some social power on the latter. Furthermore, “God,” “Allah,” or
“Yahweh,” defines and judges human action in moral terms (good vs. bad). Globalism’s
yardstick, however, is how much of human action can lead to the highest material
satisfaction and subsequent wisdom that this new status produces.

Religious people are less concerned with wealth and all that comes along with it
(higher social status, a standard of living similar with that of the rest of the community,
exposure to “culture”, and top-of-the-line education for the children). They are ascetics
precisely because they shun anything material for complete simplicity – from their domain to
the clothes they wear, to the food they eat, and even to the manner in which they talk (lots of
parables and allegories that are supposedly the language of the divine).
 A religious person’s main duty is to live a virtuous, sin-less life such that when he/she
dies, he/she is assured of a place in the other world (i.e, heaven).

On the other hand, globalists are less worried about whether they will end in heaven
or hell. Their skills are more pedestrian as they aim to seal trade deals, raise the profits of
private enterprises, improve government revenue collections, and protect the elites from
being excessively taxed by the state, and naturally, enrich themselves. If he/she has a strong
social conscience, the globalist sees his/her work as contributing to the general progress of
the community, the nation, and the global economic system. Put another way, the religious
aspires to become a saint; the globalist trains to be a shrewd businessperson. The religious
detests politics and the quest for power for they are evidence of humanity’s weakness; the
globalist values them as both means and ends to open up further the economies of the world.

Finally, religion and globalism clash over the fact that religious evangelization is in
itself a form of globalization. The globalist ideal, on the other hand. Is largely focused on the
realm of markets. The religious is concerned with spreading holy ideas globally, while the
globalist wishes to spread goods and services.

The “missions” being sent by American Born-Again Christian churches, Sufi and
Shiite Muslim orders, as well as institutions like Buddhist monasteries and Catholic,
Protestant, and Mormon churches are efforts at “spreading the word of God” and gaining
adherents abroad. These philosophical differences explain why certain groups “flee” their
communities and create impenetrable sanctuaries where they can practice their religious
without the meddling and control of the state authorities. The followers of the Dalai Lama
established Tibet for the purpose, and certain Buddhist monasteries are located away from
civilization so that hermits can devote themselves to prayer and contemplation. These
isolationist justification are also used by the Rizalistas of Mount Banahaw, the Essenes
during Roman-controlled Judea (now Israel), and for a certain period, the Mormons of Utah.
These groups believe that living among non-believers will distract them from their mission or
tempt them to abandon their faith and become sinners like everyone else.

In actuality, the relationship between religion and globalism is much more

complicated. Peter Berger argues that far from being secularized, the “contemporary world
is…furiously religious fervour, occurring in one form of another in all the major religious
traditions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Confucianism (if
one wants to call it a religion) – and in many places in imaginative syntheses of one or more
world religions with indigenous faiths. Religions are the foundations of modern republics.
The Malaysian government places religion at the centre of the political system. Its
constitution explicitly states that “Islam is the religion of the Federation,” and the rulers of
each state was also the “Head of the religion of Islam.” The late Iranian religious leader,
AyotollahRuholla Khomeini, bragged about the superiority of Islamic rule over its secular
counterpart’s ad pointed out that “there is no fundamental distinction among constitutional,
despotic, dictatorial, democratic, and communistic regimes.” To Khomeine, all secular
ideologies were the same – they were flawed – and Islamic rule was the superior form of
government because it was spiritual. Yet, Iran calls itself a republic, a term that is associated
with the secular.

Moreover, religious movements do not hesitate to appropriate secular themes and

practices. The moderate Muslim association Nahdlatul Ulama in Indonesia has Islamic
schools (pesantren) where students are taught not only about Islam but also about modern
science, the social sciences, and modern banking, and civic education, rights of women,
pluralism, and democracy.

Tools of uniting people all over the world on religious basis

Books
Movies
Cell phone apps
Social networks
Charity funds
Special internet sites
Religious schools

 Religion epitomizes the definition of globalization due to the fact that it can be spread
more efficiently than ever before through the use of different technological tools.
 Through the use of magazines, the media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube commercials,
podcasts, cell phone apps and much more.

 It is now possible for any religion to spread beyond national borders, allowing even
small new religious movements to engage in overseas activities and leading to new
unseen religious developments.

Expansion of terrorism on religious basis

 Videos and audios in the Internet of sermons read by missionaries which contain
extremist ideas, call for crimes, murders, terrorist attacks.

 The possibility of communicating with anyone across the world and sharing ideas
provoke the spread of terrorists and expansion of their band.

Conclusion
Globalization has a great impact on religion. As people and cultures move across the
globe, as ideas are mobilized and transported by media technology, the religious
globalization will go on and on.
It has its pro and cons. People should cope with the flow of info snd choose their own
and peaceful way.
And to our mind, finally, the globalization will end in complete domination of one of
them over the rest. Evidently and hopefully, it is Islam.

SUMMING UP!

We’ve completed a course, and we can have a small pause for the weekend before the next
classes. Have you achieved your learning goals? In this lesson, you have learned the
interconnections of globalization toward religion which broader you’re understanding about
religious aspects. Keep up the good work students! And always make yourself comfortable
during discussion
Shall we celebrate for your performance?

Whosh!!

Now turn the page for another activity. Best of luck! 

 ACTIVITY 2.2

Score
Learning Activity:
What Religion are You in? Choose at least one!

(Buddhism, Christianity-Prostestantism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, etc.) surf the web and
research the history of the assigned religion. Then describe the following:

a. The religion’s concept of good

b. The religion’s concept of evil
c. The steps needed by a person to become good and prevent himself/herself from
becoming evil.

Afterwards, conduct a research on your chosen religion’s relationship with politics, if any.
In what ways is it engaged in politics? Why did its leaders decide to be involved in politics?

Proficient Developing Emergent Insufficient Unsatisfactory

18-20 14-17 10-13 6-9 0-5

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that would be ready for be need some minor would need significant not be recommended
use by educators edits for use by enhancements for use for use by educators
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Product Conventions The product is created The product is created The product is created The product is created The conventions and
and Organizations without errors in with few errors in with several errors in with many errors in organization of the
spelling or grammar spelling or grammar spelling or grammar spelling or grammar product are
and is well organized and is fairly organized and lacks organizations and has no unacceptable or non-
organization existent

Group Participation Group participation Group participation Group participation Group participation Group participation
rubric indicate high rubric indicates a good rubric indicate an rubric indicates an rubric indicated lack of
level of collaboration, level of collaboration, average level of insufficient level of or non-existent level of
contribution, and contribution, and collaboration, collaboration, collaboration and
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