Multipolar governance and global imbalances

The deficiency of financial regulation and the presence of large macroeconomic global imbalances should be considered complementary interpretations of the global economic and financial crisis. The risk we face is that a new expansionary phase will bring back large and growing external imbalances, which will keep world growth on an unsustainable path. At the international level there is a classical ‘collective action’ problem to address since if export growth oriented strategies are pursued by all major countries they will generate a deflationary bias in world demand. This article explores how multilateral cooperation and international institutions can become reengaged with, and provides a meaningful device for addressing, these new issues and problems. It is necessary to restore shared rules of the game for international macroeconomic adjustment. This means endorsing a strengthened surveillance regime for the IMF in order to induce more compatible macroeconomic policies. In this regard, the IMF should have enforcement rule incentives and mechanisms, otherwise we are going to repeat past negative experiences where peer pressure did not produce significant results.     

China,the international criminal court,and global governance

ABSTRACT

This article explores the Chinese policies towards the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the context of global governance. Despite China’s fast-growing foreign policy competence, the level of confidence held by China in engaging with global governance systems has not yet fully transmitted to the legal institutions governing human rights issues, and the ICC is such an example. This article examines specific policy concerns of China regarding the ICC in light of China’s engagement with global governance, and some of the traditional concerns that have had an impact on that engagement. It discusses the extent to which these concerns should still be regarded as policy barriers preventing China’s full accession to the ICC in years to come.     

Contest and conquest: Russia and global internet governance

For more than a decade, Russia's foreign policy has sought to challenge the international consensus on a number of issues. Today, as the international internet ecosystem is becoming more volatile, Moscow is eager to shift the western narrative over the current global internet governance regime, in which the United States retains considerable leverage. In a context wherein states increasingly forge links between cyberspace and foreign policy, this article explores Russia's deepening involvement in internet governance. The disclosure by Edward Snowden of the US government's wide net of online surveillance contributed to legitimize the Russian approach to controlling online activity. While the struggle around the narrative of internet governance has been heating up since then, Russia actively seeks to coordinate internet governance and cyber security policies with like‐minded states in both regional forums and the United Nations. By introducing security concerns and advocating more hierarchy and a greater role for governments, Moscow is contributing to the politicization of global cyber issues and seeking to reshape the network in accordance with its own domestic political interests. Indeed, the Russian leadership has come to consider the foreign policy of the internet as the establishment of a new US‐led hegemonic framework that Washington would use to subvert other sovereign states with its own world views and values.     

The European contribution to global environmental governance

The European Union has become an increasingly central player in international environmental politics. Its role, especially as a protagonist to the United States, has been highlighted by the way in which it successfully led the campaign for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. The 2005 UK presidency has made climate change one of its twin priorities along with African development, and it is with this in mind that the article discusses the way in which the Union can be considered an international environmental actor in its own right and the various contributions that it makes to global environmental governance. While the EU is well known as a trade actor the complexities of its role as an environmental actor, operating under shared competence between the member states and the Community, are less well understood. Despite the inherent difficulties it has been surprisingly effective, although in areas such as climate change there is a need for strong presidential leadership.
The EU's most evident field of activity has concerned the many multilateral environmental agreements in which it has come to play a leading role. However, this does not exhaust its contribution to global environmental governance that extends to the dissemination of norms and the incorporation of partners in its accession and neighbourhood policies. Sustainable development is also a key area of internal and external Union endeavour at the WTO and elsewhere, although there are continuing contradictions arising from its agricultural and fisheries policies. Finally, the Union's credibility will rest upon its ability to implement its environmental commitments and this is nowhere more evident than in its new emissions trading system. This is the centrepiece of the EU's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol and it is the need to co-ordinate the Union's diplomacy in the extension of the climate change regime, to include the United States and the developing countries, that the UK presidency must address.     

Improving the global environment: policies,principles and institutions

Recent surveys in Australia show that improving the global environment rates high as a public policy concern. Responding to these challenges at a global level requires more than finding the best or most appropriate scientific, economic and technical approaches. It also requires that global environmental governance be based on sound normative principles. Two of the most important principles respond to the challenge that, while humanity is outstripping its ecological footprint, contributions to global environmental change are uneven and the experience of environmental harm is being displaced across time and space. Improving the global environment should therefore take into account the precautionary principle and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. Improving the global environment also requires a more robust institutional framework. The model favoured here is to build on UNEP to establish a more coherent, more authoritative and more independent environmental organization.     

Setting the rules: private power,political underpinnings,and legitimacy in global monetary and financial governance

The role of private market agents in global monetary and financial governance has increased as globalization has proceeded. This shift in both markets and patterns of governance has often been encouraged by states themselves in pursuit of liberalization policies. Much of the literature views these developments in a positive light, yet there are other aspects of these developments that also merit attention. This article supports its central propositions with two cases of emerging global financial governance processes: the Basel II capital adequacy standards for international banking supervision and the International Organization of Securities Commissions‐based transnational regulatory processes underpinning the functioning of cross‐border securities markets. Based on the case findings, the article argues first that private sector self‐regulation and/or public‐private partnership in governance processes can leave public authorities vulnerable to dependence on the information and expertise provided by private agents in a fast‐moving market environment. Policy in the vital domain of financial regulation has been increasingly aligned to private sector preferences to a degree that should raise fears of bureaucratic capture. Second, the article contends that the overall outcome in terms of global financial system efficiency and stability has been mixed, bringing a range of important benefits but also instability and crisis for many societies to a degree that has led to challenges to global governance itself. The case material indicates that the input, output and accountability phases of legitimacy in global monetary and financial governance are highly problematic, and much of the problem relates to the way in which private market agents are integrated into the decision‐making process. Third, the article posits that a better consideration of these three ‘phases’ of legitimacy and their interrelationships is likely to enhance the political underpinnings and legitimacy of global financial and monetary order.     

Soft power,global governance of cultural industries and rising powers: the case of China

This article addresses the importance of cultural industries for the strengthening of the soft power of the rising powers and it seeks to understand how the cultural industries allow rising powers to shape the structures of their international environment. More specifically, studying the cases of People’s Republic of China and of the movie industry, my article focuses on the current evolution of the relationship between the Chinese authorities and the film industry, as well as on the development of the domestic film market. I further aim to draw up an inventory of China’s role within the global governance of cultural industries. Finally, I aim to highlight the global cultural competition that China faces, emphasizing the practices of the US administration and Hollywood. I argue that even if China is the current centre of gravity within the world economy, it still has a long way to go in order to shape the distribution of resources within the global governance of cultural industries and to play a crucial role in the international battle of cultural symbols.     

Syncretism and subversion in AIDS governance: how locals cope with global demands

This article raises a set of theoretical questions about culture and governance in organizational responses to AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. It draws on material from two visits to sub-Saharan Africa (Botswana in July 2003 and Malawi in June and July of 2004): interviews with government officials, international organization representatives and staff from AIDS NGOs across a variety of settings in sub-Saharan governance. The article examines the relation of AIDS governance to existing patterns of African governance and argues that while 'institutional isomorphism' can be imposed by international funders, such efforts often produce paradoxical outcomes on the ground. It seeks to understand why the intersection between the organizational models proffered by AIDS NGOs and existing patterns of authority and cooperation produce either syncretism, subversion, or simply a standoff.     

Embracing diversity,correcting inequalities: towards a new global governance for the UNESCO World Heritage

This paper addresses imbalances affecting world heritage sites in terms of how well conserved they are and what resources are available for their valorisation. The authors propose a policy mechanism of global governance divided into three steps. The first is a tax mechanism based on collecting resources from tourist activities and redistributing these resources at a regional level. The second step is meant to ensure an objective approach to measuring the needs and risk value of world heritage sites. The third step consists in using valorisation strategies to generate new economic resources, in particular from cultural tourism. The authors proposal is a contribution to the growing literature on UNESCO world heritage sites which helps ground the approach to decision making adopted to raise funds for conservation.     

New powers in the club: the challenges of global trade governance

No good deed goes unpunished: the WTO's timely response to accommodate the new powers—Brazil, India and China—at the heart of its decision‐making has produced new inefficiencies, has heightened its proclivity to deadlock, and has exacerbated disengagement and disillusionment among all its stakeholders. Particularly in the context of a major economic crisis, a reliable international institution is necessary to ensure the continued provision of freer trade—well‐recognized as the route to recovery. With the WTO's recent record to provide these necessary public goods under doubt, where do the solutions lie? This article discusses the changing role of the new powers in the WTO, and further analyses the opportunities and challenges that these developments generate. The concluding section examines possible routes to reform. While very little can, or indeed should, be done to alter the balance of power itself, it is argued that appropriate institutional reform can help the multilateral trading system retain the advances it has made on grounds of fairness and further address the concerns of efficiency that are central to the crisis that it faces today.     

Asia's role in twenty‐first‐century global economic governance

The basic foundations of today's framework for global economic governance were laid in the years following the Second World War. Reflecting the balance of economic power at the time, Asia did not play a major role in either designing the institutional architecture or setting the agenda for global economic governance. In more recent decades the centre of gravity of the global economy has shifted towards Asia, and this trend is likely to continue in the decades to come. Asia's growing economic weight enhances its potential to play a much stronger role in shaping twenty‐first‐century global economic governance. Realization of that potential will, however, depend upon how successfully Asia addresses five key challenges: rebalancing sources of growth; strengthening national governance; institutionalizing regional integration; providing political leadership; and adopting the global lingua franca—English. While the Asian policy‐makers' ambition to play a bigger role in global economic governance is growing, their appetite for addressing the necessary policy challenges is not necessarily keeping pace with that growing ambition. This gap between ambition and action will need to be gradually closed—only then can Asia help itself in playing a bigger role in global economic governance.     

Graduated sovereignty and global governance gaps: Special economic zones and the illicit trade in tobacco products

Illicit trade in tobacco products has been a significant problem globally for many years. It allows cigarettes to be sold far below their legal price and thus contributes to higher consumption, morbidity and mortality, and deprives state treasuries of a substantial amount of revenue. This article identifies special economic zones (SEZs), particularly free trade zones, as a key conduit for this illicit trade. The development of SEZs as weak points in the global governance architecture is explained with reference to the concept of ‘graduated sovereignty’, whereby the uniform management of territory by modern states has given way to a more spatially selective form of territorial governance, in which some slices of territory are more fully integrated into the world economy than others via various forms of differential regulation. Attempts to comprehensively (re)regulate SEZs, in the face of growing evidence of the dysfunctionalities that they can engender, have so far been unsuccessful. It is concluded that the neo-liberal global economy has facilitated a regulatory ‘race to the bottom’, a problem that can only ultimately be overcome by international negotiation and agreement.     

Three worlds of global value chains: multiple governance and upgrading paths in the Korean animation industry

Cultural production is increasingly fragmented and dispersed organizationally and geographically as a result of growing offshore outsourcing within and across firms, giving rise to global value chains (GVCs). Yet, a GVC perspective has been applied limitedly to the study of cultural industries without serious consideration of inter-firm governance structure and its consequences on upgrading. Building upon the GVC literature on multiple governance structure, this paper examines three GVCs in Korea with distinctive governance forms: U.S. outsourcing chains, Japanese outsourcing chains, and international coproduction chains. The two outsourcing chains exhibited marked differences in various governance dimensions with distinctive upgrading patterns. International coproduction chains emerged as an alternative pathway of upgrading after the rapid decline of outsourcing exports, posing unique opportunities and challenges to firms and policy-makers. The findings are discussed in the context of multiple governance structure in GVCs and its implications to upgrading in networked global cultural production.     

The dynamics of emerging middle-power influence in regional and global governance: the paradoxical case of Turkey

This article attempts to understand the properties, potentials and limits of middle-power activism in a changing global order. Extensive debate on the rise of emerging powers notwithstanding, the potential contributions of emerging middle powers in regional and global governance, and the imminent challenges they face in their struggle for an upgraded status in the hierarchy of world politics, is an understudied issue. This study aims to fill this gap by offering a broad conceptual framework for middle-power activism and testing it with reference to the Turkish case. In this context, the authors aim to address the following questions: What kind of roles can emerging middle powers play in a post-hegemonic international system? What are the dynamics, properties and limitations of emerging middle-power activism in regional and global governance? Based on an extensive study of the Turkish case, the authors’ central thesis is that emerging middle powers can make important contributions to regional and global governance. Their ultimate impact, however, is not inevitable, but depends on a complementary set of conditions, which are outlined in this study.     

The potential and pitfalls of global environmental governance: The politics of transfrontier conservation areas in Southern Africa

This article examines the potential and problems associated with global environmental governance with particular reference to Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) in Southern Africa. By taking a political ecology approach, it reflects on theories and practices of global environmental governance through an analysis of transboundary environmental management. In particular, it examines the politics of the struggle over control of and access to key natural resources and how it impacts on the implementation of transfrontier conservation. In order to do this, this article includes an analysis of the complex role of local and global NGOs, the changing role of the state in relation to international actors, the importance of community based natural resource management, the commitment to tourism to make conservation pay its way and the problems associated with illicit networks of traffickers of wildlife products, cars and people.It is important to investigate the politics of TFCAs because they are part of a wider context of increasing forms of transnational management of the environment; such transnational forms of management are often deemed to be more effective than national level management because of the transboundary nature of environmental problems. This article argues that the assumption that transnational management can be neatly implemented needs rethinking. In particular, it highlights the ways that complex networks of actors constitute a significant challenge to global environmental governance. This in turn raises more general questions about the effectiveness of other forms of global environmental governance centred on managing problems such as climate change, pollution or trafficking of endangered species and tropical hardwoods.