Economic Globalization and Institutions of Global Governance

Economic globalization is reducing the significance of state boundaries. We have a global economy but lack the institutions necessary for a global polity. Unilateral action by a would–be hegemon is untenable in the long term and hence there is a need to discuss our institutions of global governance. The benefits and costs of globalization have been distributed asymmetrically, placing poor people in poor countries at a disadvantage, especially as regards the free movement of low–skilled labour and the creation of intellectual property rights. The World Trade Organization, a target of the critics of globalization, should be seen as a welcome extension of the rule of law to the international arena and a counterweight to unilateralism. More generally, global economic liberalism should be balanced by institutions which provide global public goods and international mechanisms to finance them. All of this implies a further weakening of state sovereignty and a need to ensure that global institutions are democratic and can be held accountable to people worldwide for their performance.     

Global Change and Southern Africa

The developing nations of southern Africa have previously been identified as vulnerable to the vagaries of global change, particularly in terms of future climate change. This paper explores recent climate change scenarios for the region in terms of some representative sectors of the environment‐society interface, namely biodiversity, agriculture and related land uses, water resources and health issues. It is concluded that the impacts of predicted climate changes over the next century are likely to be very marked indeed. Biome distribution, agriculture, rangelands and water resources are highlighted as being negatively impacted in ways that will increase the vulnerability of the great majority of the region's population to natural hazards. The potential impact of these changes on the prolific biodiversity of southern Africa is clear. Holistic policy responses, incorporating both environmental and human development concerns, are required in the near future if a crisis is to be averted.     

考古学与"全球变化研究"

国际组织为应对各种环境危机而组织的“过去全球变化计划” ,以 1万年和数千年以来的研究为重点。考古学在研究对象和年代学等方面的特点与优势 ,决定了其在此研究领域可以发挥独特的作用。     

International Institutions and Social Learning in the Management of Global Environmental Risks

This article investigates the role played by formal international institutions in the broader process of international efforts to respond to and manage global and transboundary environmental risks. Because few international institutions are designed to deal with the broad nature of environmental risks, it focuses on institutional learning. By analyzing the experiences of the United Nations Environment Program, World Meteorological Organization, and other international institutions involved with global warming, this article identifies institutional properties (or functions) that encourage or inhibit social learning in the management of global environmental risks by international institutions, and that influence the adoption of such lessons by their constituent members.     

Global Climatic Change: the Difficulties of Assessing Impacts

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, initiated in 1988, is complete, was debated at the Second World Climate Conference in November, 1990 and was subsequentty submitted to the United Nations General Assembly. IPCC: (i) asserted the reality of humanity's disturbance of the natural climate system; (ii) demanded studies to improve our knowledge of processes vulnerable to climatic changes: and (iii) called for policy responses to mitigate and adapt to these changes. Two fundamental issues are: how will global climatic change affect natural resources and human population and how will the impetus towards policy responses, particularly greenhouse gas emission reduction treaties, affect industry, the economy and trade? A necessary first step in the highly desirable and geographical aspiration of striving to link numerical climate modelling to the predictions of socioeconomic systems is increased awareness and improved understanding of current physical and social models. In this paper I review the status of numerical climatic modelling especially as it pertains to scenarios of the effects of human-enhanced greenhouse warming. These projections are of futures which are themselves the result of socio-economic predictions. Development of appropriate adaptive strategies depends crucially upon improved simulation of the continental near-surface climate and on improved spatial resolution of climate models by at least two orders of magnitude. Such increased resolution is likely to demand a thousandfold increase in computing power. The physical results of global climatic change are likely to be less significant than the social and economic effects resulting from international agreements on emission reduction Recent shifts in international research and policy responses place today's studies of global climatic change firmly at the focus of human-environment interactions and hence at the core of modern geography.     

International Regimes and Democratic Governance: Political Equality and Influence in Global Institutions

Proponents of cosmopolitan democracy rely primarily on institutional design to make their case for the feasibility of democratic governance at this level. Another strategy seems more plausible: proposing a 'non-ideal' theory in Rawls's sense that examines the social forces and conditions currently promoting democracy at the international level. The strongest forces operating now are various transnational associations that help to produce and monitor regime formation and compliance. Such a highly decentralized form of governance suggests that democratization is thereby promoted by a dense network of associations in international civil society, a global public sphere, and responsive political organizations. However much these forces disperse power through the normative principle of equal access to political influence, they could also fall well short of realizing desirable ideals such as free and open deliberation. In order not to devolve into an interest group pluralism, the decentralized strategy requires that a richer democracy be realized through the legal institutionalization of free and equal access to the global public sphere.     

Immigration Responses to Global Change in Asia: a Review

There has been a parametric increase in the scale and complexity of global international migration in the last fifteen years. Asia has been prominent in this change with countries in the region being important sources and destinations of migrants. This paper summarises the main developments which are occurring in south‐north migration, student migration, forced migration, north‐north migration and international labour migration. In the transformation of international population movement in the region a most striking feature is the strong pattern of circularity in movement and the networks which are established between origin and destination. It is argued that several global changes have been instrumental in these changes. These include the three ‘Ds’: demography, development and democracy. It is shown that increasing gradients of difference between nations in the pattern of growth (or lack of it), in the workforce, in income and poverty levels and in patterns of governance, have been important drivers of the migration. Moreover they are likely to increase in their impact over the next two decades. In addition, the impact of global environmental change on migration is considered, as are the effects of proliferating social networks and the global migration industry.     

Boldness and Caution in the Face of Global Change1

Present and prospective global environmental change offers both challenge and opportunity to ‘socially and ecologically responsible geographers’. However, although degradation on the surface, and a warming trend due to trace gases in the atmosphere are well enough established, the amount of hard data available is small and sound bases for prediction of the consequences are lacking. Geographers, like others, should beware of working and writing on the basis of ‘artificial certainties’. A more cautious approach is suggested through risk assessment based on present problems of sensitive environments, since short- term future risk –which is as far as we should yet seek to predict–can be deduced from present risk. Two simple examples are outlined ‘Responsibility’ can best be discharged by a cautious and scientifically-sound approach.     

Economic Globalization and Institutions of Global Governance: Comments and Debate (I)

Reading Keith Griffin is like listening to a Frenchman presenting his ideas in three parts and ten minutes. It is clear, brilliant, and a delight for the ear, but once it is over you scratch your head and wonder what exactly the meaning of it all was. In the recent article by Griffin published in this journal ( Griffin, 2003 ), there were two instances where I scratched my head. The first instance was when he pleaded in favour of mobility of the factor labour, not only of labour in general, but of unskilled labour in particular in order to reduce global income inequalities. The second instance occurred when he argued in favour of a compulsory tax and transfer mechanism in replacement of the old‐style foreign aid that is ‘nearly obsolete’.     

Global Poverty and Inequality: Change and Continuity in Late Development

This contribution assesses the ‘converging divergence’ thesis that global inequality is falling and national inequality is rising. The article argues that falling global inequality is primarily due to China's development and that national inequality has risen in some developing countries and fallen in others. In light of the dominance of China's development in the global picture, questions arise as to what has changed and what has not changed outside of China. A set of changes and continuities is presented. It is then argued that these changes and continuities provide for the contemporary relevance an older conceptual lens — that of ‘late development’.     

World Cities and Global Change: Observations on Monumentality in Urban Design

A prominent urban geographer presents a sweeping review essay on monumentality in the urban design of world cities. After outlining a number of the large, grand urban plans and projects of the past and present, he focuses on the four components of monumental urban design: comprehensive conceptions of legible urban form; iconic buildings; integrated urban transportation hubs; and planned downtown and midtown redevelopment projects. Concentrating on the trends prevailing at present and over the near future, the author notes factors that may exert a special impact on emerging world cities in Russia and China and argues for the importance of process in the geography of monumentality. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, R51, R53. 14 figures, 37 references.     

Pastoralism and Land‐Tenure Change in Kenya: The Failure of Customary Institutions

Until recently, the Pokot in the highlands of the Baringo area in Kenya have practised semi‐nomadic pastoralism. Today they are rapidly sedentarizing and in many areas suitable for farming, they are adopting rain‐fed agriculture. As a result of these dynamics, claims to individual property on de facto communal rangelands have arisen, and to such an extent that they seriously threaten the peace of the community. This article explores the conflicts that emerge in the transition from common property to private tenure. Using locally prominent land disputes as exemplary cases, it focuses on the role of traditional gerontocratic authorities in the attempt to resolve a growing number of land disputes; on the emerging power of patrilineal clans and local elites in the enforcement of access to land; and on the incompetence of government agencies to intervene. The failure of customary institutions to ensure land tenure security leads to a situation in which women and marginalized actors in particular are threatened with displacement, and in which most local actors want the state to intervene and establish formal property rights.