Global Governance in Transformation


Book Description

This book analyzes the state of global governance in the current geopolitical environment. It evaluates the main challenges and discusses potential opportunities for compromise in international cooperation. The book’s analysis is based on the universal criteria of global political stability and the UN framework of sustainable development. By examining various global problems, including global economic inequality, legal and political aspects of access to resources, international trade, and climate change, as well as the attendant global economic and political confrontations between key global actors, the book identifies a growing crisis and the pressing need to transform the current system of global governance. In turn, it discusses various instruments, measures and international regulation mechanisms that can foster international cooperation in order to overcome global problems. Addressing a broad range of topics, e.g. the international environmental regime, global financial problems, issues in connection with the energy transition, and the role of BRICS countries in global governance, the book will appeal to scholars in international relations, economics and law, as well as policy-makers in government offices and international organizations.




Rethinking Global Governance


Book Description

The world currently faces a number of challenges that no single country can solve. Whether it is managing a crisis-prone global economy, maintaining peace and stability, or trying to do something about climate change, there are some problems that necessitate collective action on the part of states and other actors. Global governance would seem functionally necessary and normatively desirable, but it is proving increasingly difficult to provide. This accessible introduction to, and analysis of, contemporary global governance explains what it is and the obstacles to its realization. Paying particular attention to the possible decline of American influence and the rise of China and a number of other actors, Mark Beeson explains why cooperation is proving difficult, despite its obvious need and desirability. This is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying global governance or international organizations, and is also important reading for those working on political economy, international development and globalization.




Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World


Book Description

"Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" is the fourth unclassified report prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in recent years that takes a long-term view of the future. It offers a fresh look at how key global trends might develop over the next 15 years to influence world events. Our report is not meant to be an exercise in prediction or crystal ball-gazing. Mindful that there are many possible "futures," we offer a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss. (From the NIC website)




Development Issues in Global Governance


Book Description

Development Issues in Global Governance presents the first serious academic study of multilateral organizations’ current partnerships with the private sector. This new volume describes empirically, and analyzes theoretically, the impact of such partnerships on the practices, legitimacy and authority of the parties involved. With detailed case studies of key international bodies, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Bank, and the UN's Education, Science and Communication Organization (UNESCO), the reader is given a clear understanding of present debates in this critical area of world affairs. This invaluable book: includes fresh case studies that deal with five different industries: pharmaceuticals, software, water supply, tobacco and chocolate provides an overview of the scope of the phenomenon of partnerships in the multilateral system, and classification of different types is based on detailed qualitative research, including extensive interviews in the multilateral organizations places the findings in a rigorous theoretical framework, relating them to current trends in international politics and international political economy examines the challenges contained in the Millennium Development Goals: the provision of drugs to HIV/AIDS patients and vaccination for all children; the bridging of the digital divide; combating child labour; and the provision of clean water to the poor. The authors conclude that we are witnessing the emergence of a new institutional form, best characterized as ‘market multilateralism’. They argue that although transnational corporations have become heavily involved with multilateral organizations, these partnerships are crafted to deal with specific instances of market failure, while the guiding principles of the global economy remain unchallenged. This book will be of great interest to all students of development studies, international relations, political science and business management.




Global Governance


Book Description

The contributors to this volume draw upon the experiences of environmental regimes to examine the problems of internationalgovernance in the absence of a world government.




Global Governance in a World of Change


Book Description

Global governance has come under increasing pressure since the end of the Cold War. In some issue areas, these pressures have led to significant changes in the architecture of governance institutions. In others, institutions have resisted pressures for change. This volume explores what accounts for this divergence in architecture by identifying three modes of governance: hierarchies, networks, and markets. The authors apply these ideal types to different issue areas in order to assess how global governance has changed and why. In most issue areas, hierarchical modes of governance, established after World War II, have given way to alternative forms of organization focused on market or network-based architectures. Each chapter explores whether these changes are likely to lead to more or less effective global governance across a wide range of issue areas. This provides a novel and coherent theoretical framework for analysing change in global governance. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.




Governing the World?


Book Description

‘Global governance’ has become a key concept in the contemporary study of international politics, yet what the term means and how it works remains in question. Governing the World: Cases in Global Governance takes an alternative approach to understanding the concept by exploring how global governance works in practice through a set of case studies on both classical issues of international relations such as security, labour and trade, and more contemporary concerns such as the environment, international development, and governing the internet. The book explores the processes, practice and politics of global governance by taking a broad look at issues of human rights governance and focusing on detailed aspects of a topic such as torture and rendition to help explain how governance does, or does not, work to students and researchers of international politics alike. Bringing together a diverse and international group of scholars, each chapter responds to a set of questions as to what is being governed, how and who by and offers issue-specific case studies and recommended reading to develop a full understanding of the issue explored and what it means for global governance.




Global Governance Diplomacy


Book Description

Nations, even the most powerful, cannot cope by themselves with many of the problems confronting them. Collective efforts are needed, and diplomacy is a key element in this process. This text examines how diplomacy serves global governance, how the diverse international actors use it, and what it accomplishes. The focus is on diplomatic practice, looking at the diverse methods used by the international actors involved and how they contribute to its effectiveness. The first section examines how various levels of international actors practice diplomacy. Nation states are still key actors and they use many methods in embassies, international conferences, international organizations, summit meetings, and more. International organizations are both a forum for multilateral diplomacy and a major set of international actors still growing in significance for global governance diplomacy. In addition, a multiplicity of regional or limited membership institutions play a role in global governance. At the transnational level, there is the increasing role of civil society institutions and nongovernmental organizations in international affairs. This is where a new kind of international actors is found, unevenly contributing to global governance diplomacy beyond the control of public authorities. The second section explores the functional level, looking at how diplomacy operates in five areas of global governance: peace and security, economic governance, social issues, human rights, and environmental protection. Each of these presents different challenges for global governance diplomacy and requires the development of different diplomatic strategies and new techniques. Some of the issues are more amenable to global governance while others, such as the eradication of global poverty remain fairly intractable. The text extends beyond the usual description of diplomatic apparatus and dynamics to explore “diplomacy at work” in specific, current policy areas that are very relevant to the present debates in international politics.




Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals


Book Description

This book draws on the expertise of faculty and colleagues at the Balsillie School of International Affairs to both locate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a contribution to the development of global government and to examine the political-institutional and financial challenges posed by the SDGs. The contributors are experts in global governance issues in a broad variety of fields ranging from health, food systems, social policy, migration and climate change. An introductory chapter sets out the broad context of the governance challenges involved, and how individual chapters contribute to the analysis. The book begins by focusing on individual SDGs, examining briefly the background to the particular goal and evaluating the opportunities and challenges (particularly governance challenges) in achieving the goal, as well as discussing how this goal relates to other SDGs. The book goes on to address the broader issues of achieving the set of goals overall, examining the novel financing mechanisms required for an enterprise of this nature, the trade-offs involved (particularly between the urgent climate agenda and the social/economic goals), the institutional arrangements designed to enable the achievement of the goals and offering a critical perspective on the enterprise as a whole. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals makes a distinctive contribution by covering a broad range of individual goals with contributions from experts on governance in the global climate, social and economic areas as well as providing assessments of the overall project – its financial feasibility, institutional requisites, and its failures to tackle certain problems at the core. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of international affairs, development studies and sustainable development, as well as those engaged in policymaking nationally, internationally and those working in NGOs.