GLOBAL

GOVERNANCE
• There is no global government.
• Yet, it is observed that international transactions occur which
are characteristically done with order, stability, and
predictability.
• This is what is puzzling: how is the world governed in order to
produce norms, codes of conduct and regulatory, surveillance
and compliance instruments?
• The answer lies in global governance.
• Global governance is known as the sum of laws, norms, policies
and institutions that define, constitute and mediate trans-
border relations between states, cultures, citizens,
intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations
and the market-the wielders and objects of the exercise of
international public power.
• All actors depend upon multilateralism and the underwriting of
regularity and public goods in the international system whose
multilateralism must be reconstituted in line with the twenty-
first century principles of governance and legitimacy of the
present day.
• There is no easily identifiable center or periphery in terms of
authority, but the UN system with universal membership and
mechanisms for involving non-state actors comes as close as
we have to a central clearing house for information and action.
• The UN is both a global governance actor and site (Thakur,
2011).
• Nevertheless, no state can be confident of being protected against
the predatory instincts of a powerful neighbor or global giant, and no
group of people can feel free from fear and want because the UN
exists and what it is expected to do.
• Still the world is an embodiment of an international community of
states, the focus of international expectations and locus of collective
action as a symbol of imagined and constructed community of
strangers.
• Since 1945, the UN has an underappreciated capacity for policy
innovation, institutional adaptation and organizational learning like
its peace-keeping missions.
• But, the term peacekeeping is not mentioned in its UN charter,
although its most characteristic activity is peace and security.
• The values and institutions of formalized multilateralism is
neither effective nor legitimate.
• The chief multilateral organizations do not meet current
standards of representativeness, consent, juridical
accountability, rule of law, broad participation and
transparency-and therefore political legitimacy.
• The challenge: not just the distribution of power, but, the
systemic factors like the nature of the state, the nature of
power, the nature of security and threats to international
security.
The vitality and survival of international organizations depend on
two factors:
• The capacity to change and adapt
• The quality of their governance

• The UN is not a nascent world government, but it has and can

continue to contribute to improving global governance.
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE, THE IDEA.
• Thinking about the term governance, it seems to be a
purposeful system of rules or norms that ensure order beyond
what occurs naturally.
• In the domestic context, governance is usually more than
government, implying shared social purpose and goal
orientation as well as formal authority or police powers.
• Global governance is a rules-based order without government.
• Consequently, in international politics, what little organization
structure exists is amorphous.
• In a domestic context, governance is government plus
additional mechanisms to ensure order and predictability in
problem solving.
• For the planet, however, governance is the entire story because
there is no central authority.
• Governance of the planet is weak.
• No matter how copious the resources are but with no central
government, global efforts are useless.
• Global governance is not a supplement but rather a kind of a
surrogate for authority and enforcement for the contemporary
world.
• As a result, the governed-the UN member states- question the
rules.
• In addition to a growing recognition of problems that defy
solutions by a single state, the other explanation for the
emergence of global governance stems from the sheer growth
in numbers and importance of non-state actors (civil society
and market).
• In a diverse, complex and interdependent world, solution to
collective-action problems are often unattainable by states
alone.
• Civil society market actors have now become participants in
global governance as activists, advocates and policy makers.
• They provide additional levers to people and governments to
improve effectiveness and enhance the legitimacy of public
policy while posing challenges of representation, accountability
and legitimacy.
AN UNFINISHED JOURNEY.
• The story of global governance remains an unfinished journey
because we are struggling to find our way and are nowhere
near finding a satisfactory destination.
• Based on solidarity while working with governmental and civil
society actors, the UN provides and manages the framework
for bringing together the world leaders to tackle the pressing
problems of the day for the survival, development, and welfare
of all people everywhere.
• IGOs seem so marginal at the moment multilateralism is so
enhanced.
• Multilateralism is faced with several challenges like arms
control, climate change, international criminal justice and the
use of military force overseas
• Better and more effective global governance will not simply
materialize: agency is essential.
• The task of creating global institutions is easy.
• At the beginning of the fourteenth century, there is a long
tradition of criticizing the existing empire and the state system
(at that time only European) and replacing them with a
universal government.
• There was a fitting image for the older view of world
government in the tapestries in Palais des Nations in Geneva-
the headquarters of the League of Nations and now UN’s
European office.
• It was observed that the process of humanity combining into
ever larger and more stable units for the purpose of
governance-first the family, then the tribe, then the city-state
and then the nation- a process which presumably would
eventually culminate in the entire world being combined in one
political unit only suggests that a world state is inevitable.
• However desirable such eventuality appears to be fanciful.
• This is because power is so organized as a condition for a
national government only.
Globalization.
The primary dimension of globalization concerns the following:
a. the expansion of economic activities across state-borders;
b. the growing volume and variety of cross-border flows of
finance, investment, goods and services;
c. ideas, information, legal systems, organization and people;
d. the rapid and widespread diffusion of technology;
e. and cultural exchanges.
• Globalization is both regarded as desirable and irreversible
engine of growth that will underpin growing prosperity and
higher standards of living.
• Others recoil from it as the soft underbelly of corporate
imperialism that plunders and ravages resources in the pursuit
of unrestrained consumerism.
Historical Perspective.
• A world government would imply an international system with
some of the capacities that we customarily associate with
functional governments-notably powers to control or repel
threats, raise revenues, allocate expenditures, redistribute
incomes and require compliance from citizens as well as ensure
their rights.
• Such goal is highly unrealistic.
• Nevertheless, the UN provides a fulcrum for analysis as the
most universal and legitimate organization framework.
• While it cannot displace the responsibility of local, state and
national governments, the UN can and should be the locus of
multilateral diplomacy and collective action to solve common
problems.
• Good global governance implies, not exclusive policy
jurisdiction, but an optimal partnership between the state,
regional and global levels of actors and between state,
intergovernmental and non-governmental categories of actors.
IDENTIFYING AND DIAGNOSING PROBLEMS, THE UN’S
COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE.
The main gaps that the UN meets in the 21st century are those
that it has confronted since 1945:
• Knowledge
• Norms
• Policy
• Institutions
• Compliance
• A critical hole in any of the five stages can cause efforts at
problem solving to collapse.
• The world organization has played and will continue to play
four essential roles in identifying and diagnosing problems and
thereby filing gaps in managing knowledge; developing norms;
promulgating recommendations; and institutionalizing ideas.
Managing Knowledge.
• After the World War II, so many things were unknown until the
later years like HIV/AIDS; regulation of skies and seas; internet
traffic and mail-all of them seem to have occur by surprise.
• Several questions arise from students about global governance
like:
How is knowledge of new problems and issues acquired or
created?
How is it transmitted to the policy community?
How do solutions get formulated and adopted?
• The first step in eventually addressing a problem that goes
beyond the capacity of any state is to recognize its existence.
• Next it is necessary to collect solid data about the nature of the
problem and to understand its causes to explain the problem.
• Basic research is done in universities, not in the UN, which is or
should, however, be a knowledge-based and knowledge
management organization.
Developing Norms.
• The UN helps solidify a new norm of behaviour through
summit conferences and international panels and commissions.
• Once information has been collected and knowledge gained
that a problem is serious enough, new norms need to be
articulated, disseminated and institutionalized.
• For example, with the rising cases of HIV/AIDS around the
globe, no unprotected sexual activity is allowed. Even UN
personnel is prohibited from having sexual contacts with
another personnel and any member of the local population.
• The crucial question is how contested norms become
institutionalized both within and among states and the
interactive dynamics of the process of institutionalization at
the national, regional and global levels.
• It is only through state structures-through governments- that
international norms can be integrated into domestic standards.
• International norm diffusion is not, therefore, about the state
withering away.
• In fact, the UN as a forum has promulgated norms with the
consent of most member states; and this process sustains, not
erodes the prerogatives of the sovereigns.
Formulating Recommendations.
• The process formulating recommendations requires to take a
topic at the heart of global governance, namely civil society
and examine how the UN makes it intellectual contribution.
• The recommendations and proposals from the blue ribbon
panels and secretariats often wither and die because member
states, not the authors, are responsible for the next steps.
Institutionalizing Ideas.
• There are three causal pathways by which ideas ultimately can
affect policy by becoming road maps that point actors in the
right direction; by affecting their choices of strategies when
there is no single equilibrium; and by becoming embedded in
institutions.