GLOBALIZATION AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
THE WORLD AS A FAILED STATE
When we talk about globalization, we should also talk about the multiple crisis that are ongoing. The world as a
failed state à the world isn’t a state, but for some reasons it can be compared to a state, the way it should be
governed, the kind of functions they should fulfill… Depicting the world as a failed state is warranted.
Taking notes is very important à exam
GLOBALIZATION, GLOBAL ISSUES & GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
What is globalization?
• What happens in the world and needs to be done in the world?
• Deeply interconnected processes: political, economic, cultural
• Actors in some regions becoming more and more dependent than in other places, there are certain
connections there what actors do (localities become more and more connected on a local scale)
• A system of changes that makes the world more interconnected, the system is a source of dynamics and
it delivers explanations
• Borders become less relevant; globalization goes with the process of debordering. Borders in physical
and political regulatory senses. It is fostered by political decisions to bring down borders à liberalizing.
• It’s a process by which increasingly events or developments in one location have an impact on other
locations in the world, it includes all spheres of dimensions (financial, cultural, …)
• It is the important political, social and economic background for global issues à managing world
problems, the multiple interlinked crisis that we face in this world
What is global governance?
• Global political collaboration and all kinds of action that contribute to solving global issues
• Governing, managing, solving, global problems and crisis à interlinked crisis that we face in this world
• A capability to regulate multinational corporations and citizens on a global scale
• Regulation of interaction between states
• Multilateral corporation between governmental actors or multinational arrangements
• The global architecture of globalization
• Solving, addressing global issues from the personal, local to the global system
• It can mean both global political globalization and all kinds of action to solve global issues
Do we really need global governance in the forms of institutions, arrangements? (UN, IMF, …). Can’t we work
with more decentralized responses? à forms of deglobalization (left- or right-wing approaches), the state versus
forms of globalization and the state versus global collaborative arrangements. Both globalization and global
governance are contested by growing numbers of people.
How does globalization add to global issues (multiple crises)?
• Globalization is a transmission belt of crisis (viruses à currently the spread of the COVID-19 virus)
because of the interconnectivity
• Collapsing of the global financial crisis in 2008
• Globalization makes it harder to solve global issues à many actors around the table, increasing volumes
of trade in goods, it is historically unprecedented (emissions)
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, • Interlinkage between domains (Covid-19 has an impact on economy, health crisis, unfolding financial
and economic crisis), once climate change is moving, we face so many other crises like migration flows
• Link between globalization and environmental degradation: globalization makes it harder to solve
environmental issues
o It can make global governance more difficult
How does global governance add to (problematic) globalization?
• Interlinkage between domains, the pandemic as a health crisis lays at the basis of unfolding financial and
economic crisis and the worst is yet to come according to experts
• One’s climate change is moving, we have huge migration flows that will cause security challenges in
certain regions, even then undependably what will happen with the climate
• Move towards opening up markets with certain ideological underpinnings that we refer to as
neoliberalism
o The specific form globalization takes, depends on what human beings make of it, depends on
political decisions
o The hardware of neoliberal globalization is still more or less in place, so that nations, countries…
have become more and more a subject of competitive pressures and they got obsessed to
competitiveness, because there is an integrated market (an area in which everybody competes
with everybody else).
• Globalization has ingrained an obsession with competitiveness, and it narrows down the policy options,
if economically speaking the national state is mostly in charge, the national government/parliament have
the social economic conditions on their territory relatively under control because there are enough buffers
between the national economy and the rest of the world by protectionist walls, tariffs, barriers,... The
national economy increases, then you don’t care that much about international competition. But if you
remove all your borders to form competition, then it might be bad for global governance.
• It is an enemy of global governance of our global challenges à globalization has had some good effects
on the overall economy, it might be good for growth (it helps to solve social issues), globalization had
been contributing to create inequality (between and within countries). They have benefitted the most of
globalization, leaving many others behind. Within communities you see many people who are the
victims/losers of globalization. Certain politicians like to exploit the negative feelings of globalization
(Trump) and attack multilateral arrangements. It has also increased social and economic uncertainty for
some people. They become more isolated. Certain global institutions have been promoting neoliberal
globalization. It is the mission of the WTO, the IMF, … It is understandable that global institutions
became targets from those who are losing from globalization, for their own economic sake and also
because of their values.
Global governance has sparked globalization and trouble with globalization comes back as criticism against global
governance.
Forcibly displaced people: people who are forced to
flee their home (migrate)
o Internally displaced people: people on the move
who are staying within their countries
o Refugees: forcibly displaced people who cross their
borders
o Asylum-seekers: already in procedure
o the highest number since WWII
o the global refugee crisis and the governance
challenge
o 85% are hosted in developing countries (Columbia,
Ethiopia…)
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, What needs to stay in the ground to
counteract the climate change. It illustrates
the political, economic challenge. How can
all those countries stick to this discipline?
What we need to do in this course is
understanding why they are so difficult to
govern and how we can overcome these
difficulties.
TOPICAL TRENDS IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
TRENDS
• Growing regime complexity and erosion of UN centrality à we see many areas with several
institutions, treaties, public private partnerships operating at the same time on overlapping aspects within
a broader field like health or refugees. We see fragmentation when we talk about regime complexity, we
suggest that there is a phenomenon of fragmentation and in reality, deepening fragmentation with a
proliferation institution working in the same field. Institutions with different memberships (variable
geometry), regime complexity in the context of this course can also be understood in relation to a related
trend: the erosion of the centrality of the UN.
o The UN is at 75 and when it was created in 1945, it was the intention of the founders led by the
US of America that the UN would actually centralize all the global collaborative efforts. In those
days in the US, there were many people who were very progressive in advocating a world
government, a supranational institution. We need an institution that resembles a world
government. The consensus was in favor of robust multilateral organization (collaboration
between multiple states, of intergovernmental cooperation). The UN was then created as a kind
of surrogate world government.
o You could consider the General Assembly of the UN as a forum with all the members as a kind
of world parliament.
o The UN security council, at least for issues like war and peace, is like a world government.
o All these decisions were created as a desire for a government at world level. In the same
momentum, many specialized UN institutions were created. The UN would centralize global
governance and there was a strong believe that it would work and that it should be conceived
globally as well. But that centrality got eroded due to the rise of rivaling institutions (IMF and
World Bank have assumed a life on their own with their own decision-making bodies, but
politically speaking they became independent of the UN and no longer responding to the
intergovernmental bodies of the UN. Both institutions make resolutions, but in practice we can
say that IMF and World Bank are autonomous, and they don’t take the resolutions of the UN
seriously anymore.)
o The US and their Western partners were losing full control over the UN and why was that?
§ The unleashing of the Cold War right after the creation of the UN
§ The process of decolonization à number of states in the world quadrupled (lots of new
countries with governments that were no longer pro-western) à disengaging with the
UN
• The OECD is a genuine multilateral organization, which took off as a western
economic knowledge center (pro-western but rivaling with the UN)
• The G7 (most wealthy industrialized countries) also rivaling with UN
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, • Public private organizations à public policy networks, they mark global
governance as well. Sometimes they have a connection with the UN and
sometimes they don’t. UN is sidelined in a marginal position because of these
networks.
o With centralization also comes an idea of oversight and final responsibility. It was also one of
the underlying motivations to create the UN. When governments are failing, there is the UN to
step in. It is an idea of final responsibility. But now the locus of final responsibility is more or
less gone.
o Before: global corporation (=UN), now: it is more marginalized.
• Geopolitical shifts è deepening multipolarity, the political power is spreading more equally. From a
neorealist perspective we can conceive the world as a system in which we can distinguish a certain number
of great powers (poles)
o Unipolar, bipolar, multipolar world: sharing power
o The geopolitical shift must have their effect on what’s going on in global governance à it is
about addressing global issues, crises, with a demand for collaboration, but you have to look
into this process in connection with geopolitical realities and what geopolitical shifts do to our
multilateral architecture.
o Rising powers bring more problems (pollution) & capabilities (financial resources) to the table
o Power equalization with interest heterogeneity è decision-making more difficult, if you have
inequality of power, interest heterogeneity can be overcome then the powerful club will impose
its will to the others. When several countries in a developing world like China, Brazil, India…
become more powerful (economic), they also become more assertive and better at organizing
themselves in coalitions. They are in a position to oppose. Big global agreements do not occur
anymore, because with power equalization, it’s harder to reach agreements. For now, it makes
global governance more difficult.
o Power equalization raises unrest/suspicion in the West à This is why Trump is scared that China
is gaining more power within multilateral institutions. One of the reflexes of Trump is that when
the US can no longer dominate because of China, that’s the time to put into question certain
institutions like the WHO. When we can no longer dominate the place, let’s quit or let’s leave
the place. It has to do partly with those deeper geopolitical shifts, it’s causing unrest.
• Tougher international political climate (tensions, conflict, war), you see more classic tensions between
states, great powers and regional powers. It is so harmful the armed conflicts. It undermines the
collaborative spirit that you would might expect in this time. The way this drags away political energy
and time from our other global issues, ministries of foreign affairs are for most focused on the big
geopolitical issues and the questions of war and peace across the border.
• West: Anti-globalization and anti-multilateral backlash
• Some successes
THE CRISIS OF LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM
• Liberal internationalism is a container concept that summarizes a few specific phenomena, it is an
ideological project that has been put forward by so many elites over the past decades.
o Promotion of liberal democracy
o Free market economy and globally open markets (neoliberal globalization)
o Multilateral institutions
à the Kantian triangle (democracy, interdependence and multilateral cooperation due institutions) = now
in crisis (hinting at the interconnections between those three, it’s a very powerful mechanism that rolls over the
entire world)
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