Global Governance: Poorly done and Poorly Understood

A set of ethical issues—tensions between democratization and globalization, about some ways in which the global inequalities have increased, and about gross failures of contemporary international cooperation—provide reason to consider our understanding of global governance and the political forces organized to support or transform it. Many scholars agree on the existence of a global polity characterized by the dominance of neo-liberalism, the growing network of both public and private regimes that extend across the world's largest regions, the system of global intergovernmental organizations, and transnational organizations both carrying out some of the traditional service functions of global public agencies and working to create regimes and new systems of international integration. Scholars who emphasize the historically contingent social construction of human institutions and who focus on the transformative potential of transnational social movements have provided the greatest insight into what can be done to confront the ethical issues raised by contemporary global governance. Almost all analysts agree that the current great powers cannot be relied upon to facilitate progressive change, although that is only one reason why global governance is likely to remain inefficient and incapable of shifting resources from the world's rich to the poor, even though it may continue to play a role in promoting liberal democracy and the empowering of women.     

Balance of Power and Political Equilibrium: A Response

This article analyses the international thought of the US sinologist and political advisor Owen Lattimore (1900–89). A well-known expert on China and the Far East, Lattimore was a ‘public intellectual’ and advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1950, after Senator Joseph McCarthy accused him of Soviet espionage, Lattimore's reputation was irrevocably damaged and his political thought forgotten. By assessing his visions of global democracy and geopolitics, this article claims Lattimore made insightful contributions to international thought. On the eve of the cold war, Lattimore's ideas of pluralistic democracy and tripolar world order offered an alternative vision of the post-war era, focusing on political participation and diversity. This article focuses on Lattimore's published writings in the 1940s, when, as political advisor and director of the Johns Hopkins’ Page School of International Relations, he sought to shift international attention from Europe to the Far East as the potential birthplace of a new version of post-colonial democracy. A fervent anti-imperialist, Lattimore crafted new political space for global democracy in a post-imperial age. His thoughtful discussion of participation, co-operation, democracy, knowledge, and pluralism make his vision of world order an interesting contribution to international thought in the twentieth century.     

Soft power in global politics? diplomatic partners as transversal actors

The extent to which diplomatic partners act as transversal actors, exercising soft power in global politics, is explored in this research paper. Diplomatic partners are found to be key actors operating on every level—the personal, the social, the political and the international—furthering the interests of their official partners, and the state. Although located in the private sphere, male and female diplomatic partners are conditioned by a gendered norm that incorporates them into their official partners’ profession. As a consequence of this incorporation, diplomatic partners become instrumental (transversal) actors in the international public sphere of the diplomatic service. A feminist ontology that theorises the dynamic relationship between the public and private spheres is shown to be necessary for an accurate and comprehensive understanding of global politics.     

Editorial

Abstract

During this last century war has taken more lives and wrought more damage than in all of human history. Its persistence - with over a hundred armed conflicts on the scale of ‘war’ raging in the last decade - prompts a search for causes, since diagnosis comes before a cure. Many fingers point to the stress of poverty as a major contributing factor, but both anecdotal and modelling approaches reveal that poverty has not been and is not now a significant proactive or enabling factor: if poverty were to become a thing of the past there would be no assurance that wars would be eliminated or even significantly reduced. Poverty is associated with societal stress and with sporadic and endemic societal violence, but stress does not lead to war or play a major role in enabling the rise to power of war prone leaders and their associated elites unless other factors are at play. The causal factors conducive to war making are varied but all are characterised by tribal, religious, and ethnic rivalries that political leaders exploit to mobilise support for war, and/or by the lust for money or hegemonic power of the political leadership. It is exceptionally difficult to prevent the rise of leaders who, for various self-serving reasons, are able to gain power and are prone to pursue policies leading to war. The way to thwart these ambitions is to create conditions, nationally and internationally, that are inimical to the rise to power of such leaders and, if they do gain power, to make the realisation of their war bent policies too costly to them. At the national level of governance the essential elements of policies to create such war inhibiting conditions are education, especially at the primary level, a free independent media, and a guaranteed protection of political and civil rights - in a phrase, democratic governance. At the international level of governance the support calls for financial and other forms of assistance that would enable national governments to carry through the democracy enhancing programmes and projects related to education and to political and civil rights, and measures to strengthen democratic control of the system of international institutions and to constrain the exercise of national sovereignty in those areas where doing so enhances ‘the global common good’, one key element of which is the radical diminution of international and intrastate wars. Economic and social rights are the other aspects that comprise the concept of ‘human rights’, and, though they are mutually reinforcing, for tactical reasons the struggle to achieve these rights should be pursued on a separate track from the struggle to gain political and civil rights that appear to face less formidable obstacles and could thus, in the short and medium term, progress sufficiently to have a significant impact in reducing the occurrence and intensity of wars.     

The case for extending measures of democracy in the world “Beneath”, “Above”, and “Outside” the national level

This article applies spatial theory, or the view that phenomena are distributed in space, to democracy. This analysis demonstrates that plural (two or more) democratic practices are evident in three spatial categories: (1) vertical stratification (i.e. at different levels of governance), (2) horizontal separation (i.e. among different agents operating at each level of governance), and (3) social association (i.e. in workplaces, families, schools). This finding, that plural democratic practices are demonstrated by agents operating at multiple levels of governance and in various non- or quasi-governmental associations prompts us to argue that measures of democracy in the world should be extended to spaces “beneath”, “above”, and “outside” the national level – presently the dominant locus for regular batteries that test the quality and extent of democratic practices globally. However, global data on the quality and extent of democracy at these other levels needs to be built before such an extension can happen.     

Twenty‐first Century Industrial Policy in a Small Developing Country: The Challenges of Reviving Manufacturing in Rwanda

The Rwandan government — widely lauded for its political commitment to development — has refocused its efforts on reviving growth in the manufacturing sector. This article examines how pressures from different levels — international, regional and domestic — have shaped the evolving political economy of two priority sectors (apparel and cement). To achieve its goals of manufacturing sector growth, the Rwandan government aims to access foreign markets (on preferential terms) and larger regional markets while developing effective state–business relationships with locally based firms. Despite the government's political commitment to reviving its manufacturing sector, its strategy has been both shaped and impeded by shifting pressures at the international level (through Rwanda's recent suspension from the African Growth and Opportunity Act), the regional level (through competition from regional firms) and the domestic level (through over‐reliance on single firms). Within the current industrial policy literature, there is limited reflection on how developing countries are dealing with the multi‐scalar challenges of enacting industrial policy in a much‐changed global trading environment. This article contributes to the industrial policy literature by addressing this lacuna.     

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.     

Beyond Hybridity to the Politics of Scale: International Intervention and ‘Local’ Politics

The evident failures of international peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions (PSBIs) have recently prompted a focus on the interaction between interventions and target societies and states. Especially popular has been the ‘hybridity’ approach, which understands forms of peace and governance emerging through the mixing of local and international agendas and institutions. This article argues that hybridity is a highly problematic optic. Despite contrary claims, hybridity scholarship falsely dichotomizes ‘local’ and ‘international’ ideal‐typical assemblages, and incorrectly presents outcomes as stemming from conflict and accommodation between them. Scholarship in political geography and state theory provides better tools for explaining PSBIs’ outcomes as reflecting socio‐political contestation over power and resources. We theorize PSBIs as involving a politics of scale, where different social forces promote and resist alternative scales and modes of governance, depending on their interests and agendas. Contestation between these forces, which may be located at different scales and involved in complex, tactical, multi‐scalar alliances, explains the uneven outcomes of international intervention. We demonstrate this using a case study of East Timor, focusing on decentralization and land policy.     

From home to city: gender segregation,homosociality and publicness in Istanbul

This article examines the complex and tangled relationships between home, city, and gender in Bagcilar, a municipality in Istanbul governed by Islamist-oriented political parties since 1992. Focusing on women’s spatial experiences at the intersection of the private and the public, the traditional and the modern, the secular and the religious, this article argues that home provides a medium through which gendered forms of governance and publicness are produced in the city. Home as a domestic sphere confines women’s roles to those of motherhood and wifehood, but also functions as a place of sociability for women. The municipality’s Islamic political discourse, combined with secular urban practices, mobilizes women through familial norms, gender-segregated events, and women-only sites in Bagcilar, where home and urban space are mutually constructed, regulated, and legitimized. Thus, women’s publicness, which derives from but goes beyond domesticity, also enables intimate same-sex sociality in urban spaces. Although this creates only conditional access to the city for women, their agency and engagement with the city emanate from such publicness.     

Policekeeping is the Key: Rebuilding the Internal Security Architecture of Postwar Iraq

The main problem following a US-led international intervention in Iraq will be re-establishing widespread and sustainable governance. It is probable that with the removal of repressive political authority, state control will falter and crime rates boom. This can be countered through an international civil administration with law and order as a guiding mandating principle. Order could be ensured by 'policekeeping', via a large 'blue force' of primarily Muslim gendarmerie from surrounding nations. Reliance on military peacekeeping is precarious because of the political sensitivities in the case of Iraq. The blue force would form the foundation of the new internal security architecture in Iraq, and would act to prevent fragmentation and civil war. The role of policekeeping is to preempt and combat ethnic, religious, and political violence, economic crime and the establishment of shadow networks, as well as policing regular crime including those of property and public order. A further vital task would be the development of domestic judicial and policing capacity, which provide an exit strategy for the international mission and the beginnings of a representative and regionally devolved governance structure. These tasks could be financed through a modification of the current oil for food programme, finally transferring this wealth back into Iraqi society. The goal would be to construct a self-sustaining democratic and economically functional state governed by the rule of law, one that can serve as a political beacon for the region.     

Theoretical reflections

The article starts with a discussion about the frequent statement that culture is a marginal area in politics. It proceeds with an analysis of the phenomenon and concept of “the cultural turn” and its possible consequences for cultural democracy. Then there follows a reflection on the potential power of religion and culture in political developments. After these introductory sections I present and discuss what I call five “democracy dimensions” of cultural policy: norms and ideologies; distribution of economic resources; institutional structures and decision‐making procedures; agents and interests in the policy‐making process; and access to and participation in cultural life. The conclusion is that under certain circumstances culture may mobilise huge masses of people in political actions but this is unlikely to happen in Western European democracies where culture in a long historical process has been privatised and isolated from big politics by the establishment of a specific sphere with its own structures, norms, logics and discourses. It is questionable if cultural policies will be more democratic under the reign of global capitalism and new liberalism. “The cultural turn” is an ambivalent phenomenon which cannot by itself bring about more cultural democracy. The future of cultural democracy cannot be decided for by cultural life or the cultural policy system themselves, it is dependent on what will happen to democracy as a total political system, of which cultural policy is only a small part.     

Paradigms of participation in the National Council for Culture and Arts: challenges on representation,recognition, access to creation and reception in post-dictatorship Chilean public cultural policy

The National Council for Culture and Arts (NCCA) is the public agency responsible for the implementation of cultural policies in Chile. It was created in 2003 as part of a group of public organisms designed to promote democracy in post-dictatorship Chile, and its objectives include the encouragement of citizen participation in the national culture. This paper aims to call into question the scope and limits of citizen participation in the Chilean cultural field, through a systematisation of paradigms implicitly developed by the NCCA. Those paradigms include participation on the political level, the creation of symbols, recognition of cultural manifestations and access to reception and symbolic appropriation. It identifies challenges of these paradigms regarding representation, recognition, access to creation and reception of cultural manifestations.     

Global crisis and the systems of spatial governance and planning: a European comparison

Inadequate regulation of spatial development is at the origin of the current global crisis and increases, in years of crisis, the unequal distribution of wealth. The importance of the related risks for democracy draw attention to the systems of spatial governance and planning, through which States regulate spatial development. In Europe, the countries most affected by the unequal effects of the crisis have spatial planning systems that are traditionally based on the preventive assignation of rights for land use and development through a plan. The systems of other countries had established beforehand that new rights for land use and for spatial development are rather assigned only after the public control of development projects and their distributional effects. Despite the evidence that some models can operate better than others in ensuring public government of spatial development, the improvement of spatial planning systems is, however, limited by their complex nature of ‘institutional technologies’. Especially in a context of crisis, planners are responsible for the increase in public awareness concerning the role of spatial governance in economic and social life.     

International Transformations of the Capitalist State1

Abstract: There has not been a retreat but a transformation of the state, involving significant changes in both the public sphere of politics and the so‐called private sphere of economic activity, and in their modes of interaction, especially law. The privatization of state‐owned assets and the reduction of direct state economic intervention have not led to a reduced role of the state but to changes in its form, involving new types of formalized regulation, the fragmentation of the public sphere, the decentering of the state and the emergence of multi‐level governance. This has been complemented by the increased salience of “private” regulation, so that in many ways the apparently private sphere of economic activity has become more public. In fact, there has been a complex process of interaction with a blurring of the divisions between apparently private and public regulation. Despite talk of deregulation there has been extensive reregulation, or formalization of regulation, and the emergence of global regulatory networks, intermingling the public and the private. The transition from government to governance means a lack of a clear hierarchy of norms, a blurring of distinctions between hard and soft law, and a fragmentation of public functions entailing a resurgence of technocracy.     

The democracy tradition in US foreign policy and the Obama presidency

This article proposes a three‐level analysis of the democracy tradition in American foreign policy that identifies its ideational, strategic and policy dimensions and situates Barack Obama's presidency to date within it at each level. At the heart of this approach is the understanding that the motivations and practice of the United States' democracy promotion are shaped by its ideas about national identity, political order, national interest and international relations. This is the ideational source of the democracy tradition, which, as US power has grown, has led increasingly to decision‐makers setting strategic goals that include democratization abroad as a facilitator of other US goals. Only slowly has this led to the development of specific policies to that end, though, and democracy promotion as a discrete policy field mostly developed from the 1980s onwards. Democracy promotion went through a ‘boom’ after the end of the Cold War as the United States enjoyed unparalleled power on the international stage. It is clear that Barack Obama and his administration belong firmly in the democracy tradition at the ideational, strategic and policy level, and they have given no cause to expect any major change in his second term as far as democracy promotion is concerned. It is in any case a mistake to think that changes in the democracy tradition come from particular leaders; rather, it is the changing international environment confronting US foreign policy that is more likely, in the longer term, to lead to a shift away from democracy promotion.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed in this article: International Relations theory The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Edited by Gillian Brock and Harry Brighouse Justice beyond borders: a global political theory. By Simon Caney Challenging America's global preeminence: Russia's quest for multipolarity. By Thomas Ambrosio Martin Wight: four seminal thinkers in international thought, Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant and Mazzini. Edited by Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter Human rights and ethics The democracy makers: human rights and the politics of global order. By Nicolas Guilhot International law and organization American exceptionalism and human rights. Edited by Michael Ignatieff International organizations and their exercise of sovereign powers. By Danesh Sarooshi Conflict, security and armed forces My year in Iraq: the struggle to build a future of hope. By L. Paul Bremer III, with Malcolm McConnell The far enemy: why jihad went global. By Fawaz Gerges The norms of war: cultural beliefs and modern conflict. By Theo Farrell The West's last chance: will we win the clash of civilizations? By Tony Blankley The killing trap: genocide in the twentieth century. By Manus I. Midlarsky Politics, democracy and social affairs Politik der Götter: Europa und der neue Fundamentalismus. By Gret Haller Ethnicity and cultural politics The dark side of democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing. By Michael Mann Understanding anti‐Americanism: its origins and impact at home and abroad. Edited by Paul Hollander Multiculturalism in Asia. Edited by Will Kymlicka and Baogang He Political economy, economics and development Capitalism: as if the world matters. By Jonathon Porritt World development report 2006: equity and development. By the World Bank The rise of Spanish multinationals: European business in the global economy. By Mauro F. Guillén Globalizing international political economy. Edited by Nicola Phillips History US internal security assistance to South Vietnam: insurgency, subversion and public order. By William Rosenau Europe Alcide De Gasperi: un percorso europeo. Edited by Eckart Conze, Gustavo Corni and Paolo Pombeni Making the world autonomous: a global role for the European Union. By Anthony Clunies‐Ross Universities and the Europe of knowledge: ideas, institutions and policy entrepreneurship in European Union higher education policy. By Anne Corbett The dynamics of European integration: why and when EU institutions matter. By Derek Beach Constructing the path to eastern enlargement: the uneven policy impact of EU identity. By Ulrich Sedelmeier The geopolitics of Euro‐Atlantic integration. Edited by Hans Mouritzen and Anders Wivel Russia and Eurasia Central Asia's second chance. By Martha Brill Olcott Democracy derailed in Russia: the failure of open politics. By M. Steven Fish Middle East and North Africa Iran's strategic weapons programmes: a net assessment. Edited by Gary Samore Israeli democracy at the crossroads. Edited by Raphael Cohen‐Almagor Israeli institutions at the crossroads. Edited by Raphael Cohen‐Almagor Sub‐Saharan Africa Kupilikula: governance and the invisible realm in Mozambique. By Harry G. West Apartheid South Africa and African states: from pariah to middle power, 1961–1994. By Roger Pfister Politics in southern Africa: state and society in transition. By Gretchen Bauer and Scott D. Taylor Central Africa: crises, reform and reconstruction. Edited by E. S. D. Formin and John W. Forje Asia and Pacific Untying the knot: making peace in the Taiwan Strait. By Richard C. Bush Dangerous Strait: the US‐Taiwan‐China crisis. Edited by Nancy Bernkopf Tucker The Thaksinization of Thailand. By Duncan McCargo and Ukrist Pathmanand North America The 50% American: immigration and national identity in an age of terror. By Stanley A. Renshon The American era: power and strategy for the 21st century. By Robert J. Lieber Latin America and Caribbean Democracy in Latin America: political change in comparative perspective Gendered paradoxes: women's movements, state restructuring and global development in Ecuador. By Amy Lind Cuba, the United States, and the post‐Cold War world: the international dimensions of the Washington‐Havana relationship. Edited by Morris Morley and Chris McGillion Rethinking development in Latin America. Edited by Charles H. Wood and Bryan R. Roberts     

Habermasian Thinking on Civil Society and the Public Sphere in the Age of Globalization

ABSTRACT

In today's age of increasing globalization and the emergence of global public policy issues, the concepts of civil society, public sphere, and the legitimacy of the legal system require further analytical scrutiny and philosophical reflection. As such, this article reflects on how the renowned German philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas, in his Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (1996), addressed and reflected on the notions of civil society, the public sphere, and the legitimacy of the legal system. As Habermas admitted that barriers do exist within the civil society and the public sphere, the article examines the various ways of overcoming the barriers toward the full actualization of the civil society's emancipatory potential. The article shows its conceptual arguments through the use of empirical examples vis-à-vis the arguments of Habermas, and most importantly, that Habermasian insights need to be cast at the transnational level of democratic politics, rather than within the strict confines of political processes within the nation-state.     

Global Environmental Governance and the Challenge of Shadow States: The Impact of Illicit Sapphire Mining in Madagascar

The environment has become a key site of global governance because of its transboundary nature: forests, wildlife and oceans have all become central foci for networks of global governance which link international organizations, international financial institutions, states and non‐governmental organizations. This article examines how contemporary forms of global governance can be challenged and even subverted. It uses the concept of shadow states introduced by William Reno to explore how invisible global networks flow through developing states, to show how they constitute important political and economic interest groups, and to assess what kinds of environmental impact they have. It explores how powerful these networks are, and whether they are able to challenge or subvert attempts to manage, control or govern the environment. The author provides an analysis of the ways in which the clandestine networks of shadow states impact on conservation initiatives in the developing world, focusing on the features of global environmental governance and the problems posed by illicit gem mining and trafficking in Madagascar.     

Islam,Human Rights and Interfaith Relations: Some Contemporary Egyptian Perspectives

Abstract

This paper explores current discussions and debates on Islam, human rights and interfaith relations in Egypt through an analysis of the public statements and writings of various religious scholars and spiritual teachers and the textbooks used to teach Islam in public secondary schools. It is well known that Islamist perspectives have become mainstream in Egypt, a largely devout and socially conservative country that is also the source of most of the major Islamic trends and political ideologies that have impacted the Muslim world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Nonetheless, there is a broad tendency in government-issued textbooks on Islam and in the population at large to equate Islam with democracy and human rights, despite the authoritarianism of the state and the contradictions between traditional interpretations of Islam and international human rights norms. The rhetoric of democracy and human rights is linked to the threat of terrorism, which is labeled un-Islamic. Among ordinary Egyptian Muslims, even those who support Islamist politics, there seems to be a new concern to eradicate Islamic extremism and more openness to unconventional Muslim approaches. The most liberal example of this is an association that teaches the unity of all religions from a somewhat Sufi perspective, promotes interfaith dialogue, and advocates reinterpreting the Shari'a to promote gender equality and equal human rights for all Egyptians.