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Elements of a Theory of Global Governance

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Elements of a Theory of Global Governance ELEMENTS OF A THEORY OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE DAVID HELD Durham University [email protected] Abstract: After the devastation of World War II, a new international community was built, organized under the newly formed United Nations which oversaw the develop- ment of a new legal and institutional framework for the maintenance of peace and security. Maintaining global peace and stability served the purpose of limiting vio- lence, but it was also a prerequisite for accelerating “globalisation”. Even during the years of the Cold War, deep tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union facilitated, paradoxically, a deepening of interdependence and coordination among world powers. The logic of MAD (“mutually assured destruction”) determined the awareness of the shared vulnerability of the globe. From the late 1940s to the begin- ning of the 21st century, a densely complex and interdependent world order emerged. Global interdependence has now progressed to the point where it is beginning to un- dermine our ability to engage in further cooperation. The need for international co- operation has never been higher and yet effective institutionalized multilateral coop- eration has stalled. It is possible to identify four reasons for this blockage, four path- ways to gridlock: rising multipolarity, more difficult problems, institutional inertia and institutional fragmentation. Still, there exists a range of instances in which grid- lock has not prevented effective global governance from emerging – some “pathways” out of gridlock. The following article discusses the reasons behind gridlock and the four pathways through and beyond it, in order to identify mechanisms through which effective global change can occur. This task, the search for pathways through and be- yond gridlock, is a hugely significant one, if global governance is to be once again ef- fective, responsive and fit for purpose. Keywords: Gridlock, Pathways, Interdependence, Cooperation, Global Governance. INTRODUCTION World War II was calamitous, not just for Europe, but for the world at large. The scale of the destruction was almost im- possible to comprehend. Alongside the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe, were the trails of brutality left by the Japa- nese invasions of China and Southeast Asia, and the march of Stalin’s armies through the bloodlands between Moscow and Berlin. In the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, children were playing and people were going to work – and more human be- ings died in a second than anyone thought imaginable. It was against this backdrop that 45 countries met in San Francisco in 1945 to try and find a new way forward in the wake of two World Wars and a Great Depression. They met ISSN 2283-7949 GLOCALISM: JOURNAL OF CULTURE, POLITICS AND INNOVATION 2017, 2, DOI: 10.12893/gjcpi.2017.2.1 Published online by “Globus et Locus” at www.glocalismjournal.net Some rights reserved 2 DAVID HELD to ask the question, “Can we rebuild the international com- munity or will we face a drift into an anarchical world order?” Addressing the gathering of leaders in 1945 the then Pres- ident of the United States, Harry Truman, warned that the world was at a crossroads: You members of this conference are to be the architects of a better world. In your hands rests our future. By your labors at this conference we shall know if suffering humanity is to achieve a just and lasting peace. With ever-increasing brutality and destruction, modern warfare, if unchecked, would ultimately crush all civilization. But we still have a choice. Between on the one hand, the continuation of chaos, and on the other, the creation of a world organization for the enforcement of peace. At the heart of the post-war security arrangements was, of course, the newly formed United Nations and along with it the development of a new legal and institutional framework for the maintenance of peace and security. Article I of the UN Charter explicitly states that the purpose of the UN is to “maintain international peace and security and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and re- moval of threats to peace”. Article I goes on to stress that peace would be sought and protected through principles of international law. It concludes with the position that the UN is to be “a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends”. With peace comes the prospect of stable and rising prosperity. While maintaining global peace and stability serves the obvious purpose of limit- ing violence, it is also a quintessential prerequisite for acceler- ating ‘globalisation’ across many domains of human activity: trade, finance, and communication being the most prominent among them. In the context of the calamity of the first half of the 20th century, this was a critical moment of human aspiration: through the rule of law it may well be possible to manage and mediate the conflicting interests of states. Yet, as soon as this noble aim was enshrined in the UN Charter, it was compro- mised almost from the outset by the Cold War. The great ide- ological and geopolitical tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, shaped the next 40 to 50 years of world history. These tensions were deep, fundamental, and even ex- istential and there came with them risk of a nuclear Armaged- don. However, this standoff facilitated, somewhat paradoxi- cally, a deepening of interdependence among world powers through the peculiar logic known as the logic of MAD: mutu- ISSN 2283-7949 GLOCALISM: JOURNAL OF CULTURE, POLITICS AND INNOVATION 2017, 2, DOI: 10.12893/gjcpi.2017.2.1 Published online by “Globus et Locus” at www.glocalismjournal.net Some rights reserved ELEMENTS OF A THEORY OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE 3 ally assured destruction. It is difficult to imagine a more im- mediate form of interdependence than Mutually Assured De- struction (MAD). Once the world reached a point at which a small group of decision-makers could release weapons that could, literally, obliterate the rest of the world, it created a new recognition of shared vulnerability. This awareness de- manded greater coordination among world powers. Thus, the nuclear standoff of the Cold War drew world powers closer together as a way to mitigate the threat and ensure that mili- tary posturing did not escalate into all-out nuclear confron- tation. It is worth highlighting that the logic of MAD (mutually assured destruction) works to some degree because neither side is willing to push the button, knowing that the ‘good life’, here on Earth, for each and all, would be destroyed. This held sway for a remarkably long period of time. The awareness of shared vulnerability, in turn, demanded greater coordination of the world powers, which became increasingly open to for- mal and informal discussions over the following decades. De- spite the complexities and risks the Second World War, nu- clear weapons and the threat of mutually assured destruction, perversely facilitated a new form of governed globalisation under the UN system, which contributed to the relative peace and prosperity of the post-war years. The importance of this should not be underestimated. Although there were, of course, many wars fought out in the global south by proxy powers, this arrangement created the conditions for what can now be regarded as an unprecedented period of global stabil- ity and economic growth across the world. While the econom- ic record of the post-war years varies by country and by re- gion, many experienced economic growth, and living stand- ards rose rapidly across several parts of the world. By the late 1980s a variety of East Asian countries were beginning to grow at an unprecedented speed, and by the late 1990s coun- tries such as China, India, and Brazil had gained significant economic momentum, a process that continues to this day (although Brazil is faltering now). Fifteen years ago, the G7 had a GDP several times of that of the biggest developing countries. Today it is the same. 85% of the world’s luxury goods are sold in China; you cannot cross the roads in Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere without seeing Rolls Royces, Porsches, BMWs, Mercedes. Luxury shopping malls are everywhere, with the young, wealthy Chi- nese paying for more luxury goods than ever. And it is not just ISSN 2283-7949 GLOCALISM: JOURNAL OF CULTURE, POLITICS AND INNOVATION 2017, 2, DOI: 10.12893/gjcpi.2017.2.1 Published online by “Globus et Locus” at www.glocalismjournal.net Some rights reserved 4 DAVID HELD the rich in China who have benefitted. 400 million people have been lifted out of poverty in 30 years. This was made possible to a significant degree because the post-war settle- ment worked. It sufficiently contained great power rivalry, and facilitated a period of growing interdependence between nation states. Post-war multilateral institutions – not just the UN, but the Bretton Woods institutions as well – created conditions under which a multitude of actors could benefit from econom- ic activity, forming corporations, investing abroad, developing global production chains, and engaging with a plethora of other social and economic processes associated with globalisa- tion. These conditions, combined with the expansionary logic of capitalism and basic technological innovation, changed the nature of the world economy, radically increasing dependence on people and countries from every corner of the world. This is not to say that international institutions were the only cause of the dynamic form of globalisation experienced over the last few decades. However, economic globalisation, and everything associated with it, was allowed to thrive and develop because it took place in a relatively open, relatively peaceful, relatively liberal institutionalised world order. By preventing World War Three and another Great Depression, the multilateral order arguably did just as much for interde- pendence as microprocessors or email (Mueller 1990; O’Neal, Russett 1997).
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