The Challenge of Global Governance

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The Challenge of Global Governance

• Edward A. Kolodziej
• Center for Global Studies
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Theses of this Presentation

• There now exists a world society, the product of
  centuries of human evolution and creativity
• The survival, perfection, and replication of the
  world society depends on effective governance as
  the medium through which the diverse and divided
  peoples of the world society address and solve
  their shared challenges
• Governance can be defined as the responses of
  societal actors to the imperatives of order (O),
  welfare (W), and legitimacy (L) OWL
  imperatives of governance predicable of all human
  societies
• The provisional solutions to OWL imperatives of
  global governance the state, markets, and
  democracy, respectively are necessary but
  gravely flawed
• The principal challenge of the 21st century,
  confronting the worlds diverse and divided
  peoples, is surmounting these multiplying,
  accumulating, and interdependent crises in global
  governance

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Consciousness of the Rise of a World Society Is
Increasingly Global

• Real human consciousness can only be expected to
  arise after political and economic processes have
  created such a tight-knit human community that
  every people and polity is forced to recognize
  its subordination to and participation in a
  global system. We are not far short of that
  condition in the last decade of the twentieth
  century. . . .. . .
• William McNeill, The Global Condition, pp. x-xi.
• (Princeton University Press, 1992)

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What Is Meant by a World Society

• A human society arises when humans and their
  social agents enter into interdependent
  exchanges, such that what an actor wants or needs
  depends on the cooperation of some or all other
  actors comprising that society
• agents include groups, states, corporations,
  social movements, IGOs, NGOs, etc.
• Cooperation may be consensually or coercively
  elicited

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The Key Concept of Interdependence as the Central
Property of a Global Society

• The key concept is interdependence
• That is, the mutual dependence of an actor state
  or corporation, individual, on another actor(s)
  to to support or to accede to the actors
  preferences as the outcome of their exchange

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Examples of political, economic and social
interdependence evidence of a world society

• (1) Cold War Nuclear Deterrence the US and USSR
  develop nuclear weapons systems that rely on each
  to cooperate in a regime of deterrence
• (2) A global market system It depends on all
  actors agreeing to market rules that produce real
  costs and prices (not subsidized by the
  government), the faithful execution of contracts
  (no defective products sold and no cheating) and
  respect for the rights of private property
  respected (no infringement of patents or
  intellectual property rights)
• (3) Actor legitimacy The recognition of the
  legitimacy of a state or domestic regime depends
  on its recognition by other actors as legitimate
  e.g., the crisis of the Israeli state or the
  defects of the Myanmar or North Korean regimes.

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What A Global Society Is Not!

• 1) The global society is NOT a community with
  shared aims, interests, values
• The preferences of actors for security, material
  welfare, or principles of legitimate rule do NOT
  converge
• As an evolving product of long biological and
  social evolution, the world society comprises
  multiple, diverse populations contesting and
  divided peoples, defined by differing cultures,
  religions, classes, levels of wealth and
  development, national, ethnic tribal loyalties
  and identities, and languages, grouped within a
  decentralized, anarchical nation-state global
  order.
• Conflicts over preferences in the interdependence
  exchanges of actors within the world society are
  to be expected

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Or Where a Global Society is Not Headed

• The global society in not destined toward a
  singular destiny or unity any time soon and
  very likely never.
• The optimism of pre-World War I notions of
  perpetual peace and the coming unity of mankind
  has been challenged by the historical experience
  of 20th century violent wars interstate,
  anti-imperial, and domestic civil conflicts,
  resulting in massive ethnic cleansing and
  genocide
• Problematic then is the optimism of the Bush
  administration in the face of contrary evidence
  People everywhere want to speak freely. . .
  Worship as they please. . . Own property. . . .
  These values are right and true for every person,
  in every society. . . . (National Security
  Strategy of the U.S., September 2002)

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Avoiding the Blind Indian Men Syndrome Singular,
Linear Futures

• The Emergence of a World Society is very likely
  NOT Destined
• To be flat (Friedman/Chicago School/Hayek)
• To collapse into culture clash (Huntington)
• To converge in values (Fukuyama) or degenerate
  into global class warfare (Marx)
• Or is the world society likely to be ruled
  inevitably by a coalition of democratic states
  (Kant)

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I. Images of Interdependencies Defining the
Global Society

• Interdependencies of communications,
  transportation tourism
• Interdependencies in the struggle for order
• Interdependencies in the struggle for welfare
• Interdependencies in the struggle for legitimacy
  in exercising political power

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Some Key Properties of a Global Society

• 1) Power has never been more diffuse at the
  disposal of multiple and multiplying actors
• 2) Nor, given this condition, has it ever been
  more difficult and complex to orchestrate actor
  preferences and power to address shared problems
  or exploit opportunities for mutual gain
• 3) The realization of aims, interests, and values
  of discrete national populations and states must
  be pursued simultaneously and synchronously at
  local, national, regional, and global levels
• 4) Solutions increasingly depend on the
  cooperation of anonymous actors counted in the
  millions.

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Implications of the Properties of a World Society

• No one actor, however powerful and most notably
  a self-proclaimed superpower, can compel other
  actors to accede or bandwagon on its preferences
• a) Relevant actors and the power they possess to
  effect preferred outcomes differ over policy
  issues
• B) Instability and uncertainty are the prevailing
  properties of a global society in which actors
  are ceaselessly engaged in negotiating preferred
  outcomes in their interdependent exchanges and
  favorable social and political rules to govern a
  world society which are congenial to their aims,
  interests, and values

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The Precondition for Societal Survival,
Perfection Replication Governance

• The three imperatives of governance of all human
  societies through time and space
• Order The locus of force or violence to
  arbitrate conflicts
• Welfare The social system instituted to produce
  and disseminate goods and services or material
  wealth and services
• Legitimacy The capacity of an actor(s) to
  legitimately exercise the governance of Order
  and Welfare Power Structures and to issue rules
  that will be obeyed by actors to which these
  rules are directed

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The OWL Imperatives of Governance as Power

• Each social structure is a system of power with
  its own logic of power
• Order the logic of force
• Welfare the logic of consent generation of
  consensual accords on the distribution of the
  factors of production, the production of goods
  and services, and the dissemination of material
  wealth and well-being
• Legitimacy the logic of values the possession
  of authority by actor(s) to issue rules for other
  actors and expect them to be observed in order
  and welfare power systems

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II. The Crisis of Global Governance of the World
Society

• A. The state and state system as solution to
  Order IS the problem
• B. Global markets as the solution to global
  welfare IS the problem
• C. Democracy and popular rule as the solution to
  Legitimacy IS the problem

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IIA.The State State System as THE Problem of
Global Order

• 1) State sovereignty vs. self-determination
  clash of principles
• 2) The state state system as a warfare system
• 3) Impediment to collective action
• 4) Failed states as sources of conflict
  terrorist bases

• 5) The nation-state as guarantor obstacle to
  free economic exchange and global welfare
• 6) The nation-state as guarantor obstacle to
  democratic rule and protection and promotion of
  human rights

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IIB. Global Markets as THE Problem of Global
Welfare Some Key, Structural Weaknesses

• B1. Markets, as expected, distribute unequally,
  creating and perpetuating class divisions
• B2. Unequal wealth yields unequal social
  political power
• B3. Addressing global poverty subsistence
  ignored or neglected
• B4. Costs of spillover or adverse environmental
  effects are inefficiently and ineffectively
  priced and inequitably allocated across actors
• B5. Self-defeating incentives of markets in
  directing self-interested actor behavior require
  regulation
• To discourage monopoly
• To prevent and punish cheating
  misrepresentation of products services
• But to strike a balance between the costs of
  regulation by states or IGOs that does not impede
  free exchange and economic growth

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B1. Inequality and Market Distribution of Wealth

• Pure markets based on Quid pro Quo inevitably
  generate inequality in the distribution of wealth
• National and global wages are depressed as
  holders of capital gain disproportionately more
  than labor
• Class divisions and conflict created and
  perpetuated at domestic state and global levels
• Despite its proven superiority over
  centralized economic systems, public support for
  open markets is undermined by the unequal
  distribution of wealth

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B2. Unequal Wealth Yields Unequal Social and
Political Power

• Inequality of economic wealth and incomes loads
  for unequal social, and political power, a threat
  to democratic ideals based on the principles not
  only of freedom but also of equality
• Voluntary market contracts terminations produce
  unequal burdens Youre fired! power in the
  hands at the head of corporations
• Inequality of income power institutionalized
• little or no tax on inheritance the principle of
  proportional taxation is weakened or abandoned.
• Elections and special interests, backed by
  individuals and corporations with large economic
  resources, define property and contract rights in
  their favor
• Bureaucratic and judicial rulings reinforce
  political inequality
• Governmental oversight and monitoring of products
  and services weakened.

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B3. Poverty and Market Failure

• 2.5 billion people live on 2 a day or less
• UN Millennium Goals to address poverty require
  grants and aid in billions of dollars
• A market economy to assist global poverty needs a
  jump start outside the boundaries of the market
  as a social system
• Irony the developed states currently resist
  using the market to address poverty
• The Doha Round and Agriculture
• US and EU subsidies hamper the economic
  growth of developing states

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B4. Costing Spillover Effects

• Voluntary market mechanisms (assuming equality of
  actor power and resources) are limited in
  addressing these collective choice problems
  global warming urban blight acid rain, etc.
• Tendency of the market system of selfish,
  egoistic economic actors to exploit collective
  goods water and air and land as if these were
  free goods

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B5. Coping with the Self-Defeating Logic of
Markets

• Preventing monopolies e.g. the growing
  concentration of media ownership
• Preventing fraud (Enron corporation in US
  sub-prime mortgage crisis today)
• And false advertising

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Why Is Legitimacy a Global Imperative?

• There exist no universally accepted principles on
  which to base political authority to proclaim
  rules and expect their obligatory observance
• Religion, culture, national/ethnic/tribal
  loyalties and identities, or the liberal ideal of
  free equal individual citizens and popular
  rule-- all are contesting principles
• Nor is there accord about how or by what process
  to acquire legitimate authority to address the
  shared interdependent problems confronting the
  peoples of the world
• Blood, divine law, custom, charismatic leaders or
  parties, or elections (Qualification to vote
  none? Social or economic?)
• Legitimacy as an imperative of government is only
  partially resolved at the level of the
  nation-state through popular elections and
  democratic rule

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Global Democratic Deficit and the Crisis of
Legitimacy

• Provisionally, legitimacy resides in the
  nation-states and their governing agencies
• The dominant solution for legitimate nation-state
  rule is democracy
• But, as Peter Singer argues, there is a
  democratic deficit between decisions made by
  nation-states and the unequal impact, positive
  and negative, of these decisions and the exercise
  of power on which they rest on the worlds
  populations
• Weapons of Mass Destruction Non-Proliferation
  treaty
• The US War on Terror and the right to intervene
  in the domestic affairs of other states
• The support for world markets and the unequal
  distribution of wealth controlled by the rich
  states, corporations and individuals (Three
  billionaires equal GDP of Africa)
• The resistance of rich states populations to
  address global poverty inequality
• The pollution of the globe by states (global
  warming) or the exhaustion of the resources of
  the commons (over-fishing water, etc) fall on
  the most vulnerable

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Other Defects of Democratic Rule as a Solution to
Legitimacy

• Protecting Minority Rights, human rights, or
  civil liberties are not assured by popular rule
• Whether democratic rule is appropriate or
  relevant to many peoples remains an open question
• Whether democratic governments can deliver
  efficient, effective, non-corrupt regimes is no
  less problematic
• Conducting war
• Coping with environmental degradation and crises
• Addressing the needs of the young, old, halt,
  lame, and mentally and physically challenged?

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Rousseaus Conjecture

• A world of popularly supported regimes resting on
  a widely held social compact provisionally solves
  the imperative of legitimate rule at a domestic,
  nation-state level
• But a world of such regimes can product
  contesting social compacts and embed conflict
  within a world of nation-states
• This is the converse of the expectation of
  Immanuel Kant

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After Elections, then What?

• Sir Henry Maine (1886)
• There can be no grosser mistake than to have
  an impression that Democracy differs from
  Monarchy in essence. . . The tests of success in
  the performance of the necessary and natural
  duties of a government are precisely the same in
  both cases.

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Al Gore (2007)

• Why do reason, logic, and truth seem to play a
  sharply diminished role in the way America now
  makes important decisions?
• The Assault on Reason
• Why stop at Americans?

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Refrain

• There now exists a world society, the product of
  centuries of human evolution and creativity
• The survival, perfection, and replication of the
  world society depends on effective governance as
  the medium through which the diverse and divided
  peoples of the world society address and solve
  their shared challenges
• Governance can be defined as the responses of
  societal actors to the imperatives of order (O),
  welfare (W), and legitimacy (L) OWL
  imperatives of governance predicable of all human
  societies
• The provisional solutions to OWL imperatives of
  global governance the state, markets, and
  democracy, respectively are necessary but
  gravely flawed
• The principal challenge of the 21st century,
  confronting the worlds diverse and divided
  peoples, is surmounting these multiplying,
  accumulating, and interdependent crises in global
  governance

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Religion