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.     

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.     

全球化和“全球历史观”

全球历史观的产生和发展,和人类社会的全球化过程有密切的联系。全球化为历史学家提供了一个认识人类历史进程的全球视野和宏观历史思维的基础。全球历史观是20世纪下半期这一特定的历史时代的产物。全球历史观所以要强调“全球”,是针对西欧为中心或欧美为中心历史观的“中心”而言的。全球历史观作为一种经久不衰的新的史学思潮,已经并将继续对当代国际史坛产生深刻的影响,而且它是时代的产物,必将随着时代的发展而发展。     

The Debate on Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: Why Measurement Matters

In the last year or so, markedly different claims have been heard within the development community about just how much progress is being made against poverty and inequality in the current period of 'globalization'. This article provides a non-technical overview of the conceptual and methodological issues underlying these conflicting claims. It argues that the dramatically different positions taken in this debate often stem from differences in the concepts and definitions used and differences in data sources and measurement assumptions. These differences are often hidden from view in the debate, but they need to be considered carefully if one is properly to interpret the evidence. The article argues that the best available evidence suggests that, if the rate of progress against absolute poverty in the developing world in the 1990s is maintained, then the Millennium Development Goal of halving the 1990 aggregate poverty rate by 2015 will be achieved on time in the aggregate, though not in all regions. The article concludes with some observations on the implications for policy-oriented debates on globalization and pro-poor growth.     

Economic Governance and the Evolution of Industrial Districts Under Globalization: The Case of Two Mature European Industrial Districts

For many mature European industrial districts, the present decade has been one of trying (and often failing) to meet the difficult challenges posed by the rising tide of globalization. The future of these districts in the new global economy has become a key issue for regional and local development policy, and, in this respect, it has sparked a renewed interest in economic governance. Economic governance is important in that it underpins a region's long-term economic development path. This article is a contribution to the study of the economic governance of industrial districts and the related policy debate. The article does so by specifically exploring the economic governance issue by considering the experiences and challenges currently facing two mature European industrial districts in the global economy.     

Creative Copenhagen: Globalization,Urban Governance and Social Change

The introduction of 'creativity' and the 'creative city' in imagineering Copenhagen and in strategies for developing its urban competitiveness is analysed from a perspective on relations between processes of globalization, developments in urban government/governance and social geographic change. This perspective problematizes what on the surface seems to be an unequivocally positive quality ('creative') and goal ('creativity'). We argue there is a need to recognize the social costs of developments that are glossed over by the creative city rhetoric, including diminished representative democracy, social and geographic polarization and considerable displacement of the marginalized.     

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.     

Planning and the Culture of Governance: Local Institutions and Reform in France

Legislation introducing major reform of the French planning system is now 6 years old. It was intentionally seen as part of a trio of reforming statutes that linked spatial planning to institutional reform of local government. Taking as its starting point, the idea that planning is inevitably an embedded activity, it explores the relationship between institutional reform and the reform of planning in France generally, and then more specifically in the Région urbaine de Lyon. It concludes that the search for greater simplicity and clarity is not borne out by results on the ground. The French case demonstrates that the success or failure of planning reform is intimately linked to the nature of local government.     

浅论西方学术界关于全球化问题的争论

西方学术界在是否存在全球化问题上 ,分为“怀疑论”和“全球主义”两大对立阵营。“怀疑论者”认为 :目前所谓的“全球”经济是虚构的 ,由民族—国家为主体的国际政治体系也并没有因全球化而发生任何本质的变化 ,并且人类社会根本没有出现什么全球文明或全球文化。“全球主义者”则认为 :当代的世界经济已经从国际经济发展成为全球经济 ,同时全球化已经导致民族—国家独立自主地处理国内和国际事务能力的下降 ,某种全球政治体系已开始产生 ,并且不论愿意与否 ,全球化已经带来某种超越民族和传统文明集团的世界文化。我们不应将西方有关全球化的理论话语与自由主义、现实主义和马克思主义等理论相混淆。     

全球化时代国际劳务移民治理析论

论文基于联合国、国际劳工组织、国际移民组织等机构的数据,重点从国家、地区及多边三个层面,对国际社会有关劳务移民的国际合作以及移民工人权益保护的治理实践进行考察,并对于未来全球劳务移民治理发展趋向加以展望。在国家层面,各国政府通过建立有关劳务移民的法律框架,推动国家间协议以及参与多边体系治理合作等方式维护移民工人权益。在地区层面,在区域一体化进程中,正式区域性组织和非正式机制,积极推动区域内有关劳务移民问题的对话、协商和合作。在全球层面,国际上有关劳务移民的国际公约及法律文书代表着多边倡议,国际劳工组织也致力于政策制定以实现所有移民工人利益的最大化。全球劳动力的流动是全球化未完成的事业。随着当今国际迁移的性质和组成日益复杂,移民治理过程中的国际合作与移民工人的保护有待进一步加强。     

(Mal)Development in Central America: Globalization and Social Change

This article develops a globalization framework and a model of transnational processes for analysing social change and development, and then applies the model to Central America. The analysis emphasizes determinacy, in the last instance, of social forces in historic developmental outcomes, and documents how social forces in struggles in an emergent transnational environment have shaped Central America's changing profile within the global economy and society. Revolutionary movements, a new class structure, US geo-political considerations, and the internationalization of East Asian economies, have all contributed to a new model of development; from the 1960s into the 1990s the national model of development is being replaced by a transnational model. Maquiladora garment production, tourism, non-traditional agricultural exports, and remittances from emigrant workers are coming to eclipse traditional agro-exports as the most dynamic economic sectors linking the region to globalized circuits of production and distribution. The article also examines Central American migration to the US and gender dimensions of the new transnational model of development.     

经济全球化与民族国家的主权保护

经济全球化是一个发展过程,也是一个客观现实。经济全球化对威斯特伐利亚体系所确立的传统的民族国家主权进行着挑战,但并未导致主权的终结。对包括中国在内的发展中国家来说,必须积极参与国际经济秩序的重构,才能有效地维护国家利益和捍卫国家的主权。     

International Trade Fairs and Global Buzz,Part I: Ecology of Global Buzz

This paper investigates the importance of temporary face-to-face (F2F) contact and the physical co-presence of global communities in establishing a particular information and communication ecology during international trade fairs, referred to as “global buzz”. International trade fairs bring together agents from all over the world and create temporary spaces for presentation and interaction. Within a specific institutional setting, participants not only acquire knowledge through F2F communication with other agents, but also obtain information by observing and systematically monitoring other participants. The fact that firms do not necessarily have to be in direct contact with a specific source of information to get access to this knowledge makes participation in these events extremely valuable. International trade fairs have become important expressions of new geographies of circulation through which knowledge is created and exchanged at a distance. This paper analyses the constituting components of global buzz and aims to dismantle the complexity of this phenomenon in a multi-dimensional way. When applying this concept to Internet trade fairs, the question arises whether a similar information and communication ecology, or virtual buzz, can be established. We explore similarities and differences between both forms of buzz, using the same classification scheme.     

Texts and Contexts in the Globalizing Academic Marketplace: Comments on the Debate on Geopolitical Remote Sensing

A prominent political geographer adds to the exchange of views presented in the two preceding papers in this issue of Eurasian Geography and Economics (Antonsich, 2006; Moisio and Harle, 2006). His comments extend beyond the debate on geopolitical remote sensing (a term originated by the author) to the need to more fully contextualize concepts and practices in human geographic research and to examine more closely the role played by internationalizing (and English language-dominated) publishing markets in the review and publication of papers that increasingly cross the borders of linguistic contexts. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O52, Z13.     

中国东北与俄苏经济关系史研究的新成就--简评《中国东北与俄国(苏联)经济关系史》

俄国(苏联)与中国东北的经济关系是近代中国东北对外经济关系史的重要内容之一,历来为国内外学者所重视,出版了很多论著。在不同的时期出版或发表的论著,围绕相关问题进行了较为深入的研究,也提供了许多珍贵的历史资料。但是这些著作或是引用材料受到限制,或是仅仅研究了某一历史片断,因此很难对整个300多年的中俄(苏)经济关系史有一个完整的认识。张凤鸣同志的新著《中国东北与俄国(苏联)经济关系史》(中国社会科学出版社2003年版,以下简称《关系史》),以17世纪中叶至1949年期间中国东北与俄苏经济关系史作为一个完整的研究过程,通过使用大…