TOP3 Global Governance

Governance ist die Gesamtheit der zahlreichen Wege, auf denen Individuen sowie öffentliche und private Institutionen ihre gemeinsamen Angelegenheiten regeln. Es handelt sich um einen kontinuierlichen Prozess, durch den kontroverse oder unterschiedliche Interessen ausgeglichen werden und kooperatives Handeln initiiert werden kann

• Normative principles justifie the exercise of authority in the global governance system (global = transplanetary unit!)

  • State and non-state actors hold authority

  • Rudimentary notion of the global common good

  • Generalized belief in the possibility of international authority (no direct hierarchy but also no anarchy)

• Specific institutions exercise authority in different issue areas

  • international/transnational institutions

  • target: create convergence between the different intersts of the relevant actors, built up a red line of reaction towards certain problems = enable to act, achieve/secure common good/ act in field where otherwise would be a conflict, resistance

  • Inputs from different kinds of actors are transformed into regulations, decisions, treaties

• Interaction between authorities

  • expose fundermental legitimation problems

    • weak seperation of power, lack of judical supervision supports that

    • Limits of sectoral/technocratical justification, international authorities lack means to implement decisions themselves

• 1990s was a time in which the world really felt that there are “global problems” which couldn’t be solved by a single country e.g. climate change, global economic crisis -> those needed global solutions

• (Transnational) Non-states actors increasingly appeared with increasingly power in the scene

• International measures or institutions or even a single world institution weren’t found to be adequate and too limited to govern the planet

• GG seemed to be one of the best terms to discribe the reality of a growing complexity and the change in how authority has to or can be exercised.

• Koenig-Achibugi

  • GG includes a large social steering but without implying a hierarchical nature it’s more the possibility of a non-hierarchical order that goes beyound classical concepts of action through national states

• "! Concept fit to the time BUT it didn’t offer clear or defined means to address the corresponding problems!

• There are different understandings of GG

  • Weiss/Wilkinson: “… institutions that help all actors - states, NGOs, civil society, and TNCs - identify, understand, and address trand-boundary problems”

  • refers to GG as“cooperation paradigm”

• Zürn rather stresses GG as a hypocritical concept and shows concerns about the interests/motivation of the actors in solving global problems, their legitimacy to do so and particularly stresses that there is a modus of authority

  • This authority is powerful because it exercises across national borders

    • Following one governance style always excludes another one

  • The legitimacy is not clear because the justification doesn’t have to be truthful and there is a disproportionality of power in international institutions

  • Exercise might not necesserily serve the common good or solving those big problems

    • Zürn questions whats is ment by the “common good”? Is it really a common good like climate change or clean air or are the American interests blurred ad common goods?

• What GG is

  • Assessment of states’ creditworthiness by rating agencies

    • To assess if it’s worthy to invest there (plays also an importan role for financial development cooperation)

  • International contracts, such as an arms or nuclear weapon control contract between great powers or a trade cooperation agreement

  • It is a communicative act

• What is GG not

  • Nothing that is supposed to kept in secret and not justified in public Hitler-Stalin-Pakt

  • negotiations that happens behind closed doors

    • Free trade agreements

    • multinational corporations that agree on prices

1. Double constituency

   • states with souvereignty and conditional authority + societal actors who enjoy the right to address international authorities (GG is not objective)

2. Presupposition that the common good exists

   • common good = no exclusion + no revilary, is that possible in this world? Even stars belong to somebody

   • Often private goods are protected e.g. American interests covered as “common good” (justification doesn’t have to be true)

3. Generalized believe in the possibility of international authority

   • In the case that states and non-states actors cover their own interests as common goods and individual rights, they are favouring their interests, so there is a form of power and hierarchy and no anarchy

• International IMF vs transnational Amnesty

• Target: create convergence between the different intersts of the relevant actors, built up a red line of reaction towards certain problems = enable to act, achieve/secure common good/ act in afield where otherwise would be a conflict, resistance

• Specific institutions exercise authority in different issue areas

  • international/transnational institutions

  • Inputs from different kinds of actors are transformed into regulations, decisions, treaties

• Normative principles justifie the exercise of authority in the global governance system (global = transplanetary unit!)

  • State and non-state actors hold authority

  • Rudimentary notion of the global common good

  • Generalized belief in the possibility of internation authority (no direct hierarchy but also no anarchy)

    
    

• Authority

  • Always sector specific, different types with diefferent levels of commitment

    • political authority: produces decisions that are mandatory for the actors

    • epistemic authority: produces non-binding guidelines for states to act on (SDGs)

    • Politically asigned and epistemic authority: produces guidelines on the basis of the delegated power from states which are expected to be followed OECD

• Institutionalist Theory

  • “institutions matter”

    • states are still seen as central actors BUT international institutions are given a more important role in the shaping of the global political system

    
    

  • Institutions:

    • formal arrangements, informal patterns, regulatory patterns

    • affect states’ behaviour towards each other and enables cooperation in matters where otherwhise conflictual potential would be

    • Its’s about possibilities of inter-state cooperation and creation of convergence in a certain problem field

    • Different forms of international institutions - Most prominent form: international regimes:

      • Institutions founded on principles, norms, rules and decisionmaking procedures to regulate the expected reactions to certain global issues

        
        

• GG has its roots in institutionalist theory

• GG goes far beyond putting the focus on states and the question of how to enable inter-state cooperation

  • classical I ignores the contribution of non-state actors

  • includes non-state actors e.g. transantional networks or public-private partnerships

  • NGOs shaped human rights, gender equality

  • Business actors become global themselves or forms of self-governance

  • IGO (intergovernmantal organisation) used their autonomy to sponsor research, advise, raise topics

• International institutions e.g. International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation, G7

• Global Governance and it’s institutions formally act as if there is no central authority

• But interaction and the way how its tried to creat convergence is often managed by informal “meta authorities” like G7 that are highly exclusive

  • they are figuring out how to solve GLOBAL problems or how to face them but they don’t reflect the global unity BECAUSE

• Power is often disproportionately distributed in international institutions + a judical supervision is often missing

  • “the loudest gets heared”

• Most international authorities don’t have the means (Mittel) to implement decisions by themselves so they need the powerful states

  • also powerful states can be understood as “lighthouses” as their commitment would underly the importance/legitimation of the decision

• This “gives” powerful states the privilege to shape the normative order of the global governance sytsem substantially !!common good!! questions

• Pro-active usage of the field of global governance especially international authorities like international institutions to achieve certain/own political goals

  • especially non-state actors use this means to criticise international authorities (e.g. G7)

  • but also state actors like parties use this means (european selection -> increase regulatory, reduce inter-state cooperation EU-critics, Donald Trump “America First”)

• Process of politisation can highlight lacks the two legitimacy problems for authority of international institutions

• Global Governance is substantially working through the transformation of the state ( to a mor international state)

• Due to global governance, “world politics” is no longer an inter-state concept rather takes place at the local level

  • politicisation of international institutions puts global governance directly on the political agenda in national elections

• States adapt global standards - SDGs

• But also feel the authority of international institutions and if they don’t agree on them they try to change them which also affects their own regulatory

• Liberal scholars view is positiv

  • government’s function is now regulatory

• Critical scholars

  • transformation as political projection that serves certain interests (disproportionality of power in II)

• Three Mechanisms of State Transformation

  1. transboundary networking of states e.g. transnational governance arrangements. They have eroded state authority and strengtened international regulations

  2. the acquisition of powerful state agencies of governance functions beyond their borders e.g. interventionist techniques in the field of immigration FRONTEX

  3. the production of ‚meta-governance‘ by international institutions undermines the operative role and strenghtens a coordinative role of the state

Which assumption are still relevant

• There are global problems that can’t be solved by single states rather need a high degree of cooperation and commitment = climate change

  • Global cooperation still is important to secure peace, wealth and security and democracy

Which ideas have to be revised or are no longer valid

• It’s more than “international authority”

  • Governance need authority

  • Problem often the power belongs to the actors with most power don’t always have to be the states e.g. trade treaties, sufficiency vs economic growth

    • Definetly global sytsem doesn’t takes international organisations much in account

  • so it’s not really a multiafected concept of governance as it involves selected and not divers actors and issues

• Challenges of our time especially the russian offensive war in the Ukraine challenges global governance

  • fronts, including differents alliances of states are built up, many states voted against action against putin including influential states as China and India, there is a possibility that states will differentiate in “friend and enemy” and that there will be a global seperation again

  • BUT Russia is a nuklearpower so we definetly have to stay with cooperation

  • But states invest a lot in arming which leads to the consequens that there is a budget leakage in other fields, e.g. in Germany for development cooperation

• Still the global challenges are there and they still have to be solved

  • especially during the Corona pandemic wealth-inequalities rose significantly

  • so in this way global governance is more topical than ever

• But the societies are thretened so they are easy to manipulative and elections don’t stop in those times

  • politisation of the global governance systems’ international organisation make things worse and let parties raise that block global governance (e.g. potentially in the netherlands)

  
  

1. Reformist criticise that there are missing categories that shrinks the analystical strength.

   • suggests to take a closer look on the influence of the variable of the power of the state and non-state actors

   • Emphasise the need to undertsand the motives and interest that drive the exercise of those actors, how thes are developed and how they shape the international system