The Diffusion of Power in Global Governance (original) (raw)
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Dynamics of Global Governance: Building on What We Know?
International Studies Quarterly, 2013
It is hard to quarrel with Weiss and Wilkinson's argument that deeper investigation of global governance could have big payoffs, and the four "primary pursuits" or research tasks they sketch will interest many scholars in this field. My concern is that while Weiss and Wilkinson nicely describe the importance of these tasks, they offer only cursory suggestions about ways forward when they could do much more. Unlike Weiss and Wilkinson (hereafter W&W), I see a great deal of first rate work being done that speaks directly to issues they raise-how power is exercised globally, 2 structures of global authority, 3 increasing complexity, 4 actor proliferation, and change. The problem, I would argue, is not that scholars are ignoring these issues, but that so much more could and should be done. In this short essay, I build on foundations laid by others to sketch more focused research agendas for global governance scholars in four areas to tackle some of the central questions W&W identify, with particular attention to their laudable interest in change.
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Despite the consensus that global governance increasingly becomes more complex, convoluted, and intricate, questions of agency, (i.e. which actors can become global governors and hence should be studied) are for the most part still framed in substantial terms. Whether it is states, institutions, or individuals, we ‘locate’ agency in particular entities which then exist, act, and influence outcomes as global governors qua definition. In other words, global governance lacks a social-theoretical grounding that allows us to go beyond empirical anecdotes of agency diffusion. After reviewing how agency has been framed in global governance and beyond, the paper reverses the dominant ontology and conceptualizes agency in world politics in relational terms. As such, it discusses three requirements of agency – efficacy, corporeality, and intentionality – and assumes that each is established in social relations between rather than situated within actors. Such a perspective, it is then argued, ...
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Global governance consists of a set of institutions, procedures and networks that jointly influence collective decision making (agreements, regulations, specific choices) necessary to tackle global challenges. The need to manage problems of global nature – to govern globally – is generated by globalization processes. Globalization gradually but irreversibly undermines the once-exclusive position of nation states, which (voluntarily or involuntarily) surrender a substantial part of their informal as well as formal decision-making authority to superior international or supranational structures. Regional political and economic organizations, but also non-governmental organizations, the mass media and supranational economic corporations are thus gaining more influence in the international arena. The study focuses on analyzing the position of individual actors in the global governance process. It reaches the conclusion that, despite being so numerous and diverse, the above-mentioned acto...
Assigned readings TOPICS Introduction – Welcome and first words on Course Plan 01. Taking a look into modernity philosophic project: late modernity, post-modernity, or transmodernity? 02. Globalization as a multidimensional issue and contemporary society 03. Archeology of power as knowledge (I): classic readings, power issues, and doublesided approach 04. Archeology of power as knowledge (II): “power to” and “power over” 05. Archeology of power as knowledge (III): complex theories of power/counterpower (resistance) 06. Power multidimensional concept and its possibilities 07. Governance as a problem far beyond government 08. Emerging governance with/-out government 09. Governance with/-out government and democratic legitimacy 10. Governance with/-out government and its possibilities
Fields of Global Governance: How Transnational Power Elites Can Make Global Governance Intelligible
International Political Sociology, 2014
To make global governance intelligible, we need to study a neglected but crucial phenomenon, namely the development of the social division of labor, both in transnational society and more specifically with regard to the fields of politics, law and economics. This notion of a social division of labor has to be distinguished from the mere technical division of labor. The process in question is not merely one of differentiation in an ever more complex world, nor does it take place in a relative power vacuum. Instead, it involves unequal distributions of resources and the use of influence and power. In other words, we need to examine, far more carefully than in the existing literature, the operators of globalization: those individuals and social and professional groups, rooted in evolving national and transnational societies, who govern global governance. Going behind the fac ßade of global institutions and instead focusing on the arguably deeper structures of global governance, we can also start to explain the emergence of new forms of power as they develop around new transnational power elites operating in, around, and beyond a growing number of international institutions (Kauppi and Madsen 2013).