Analysis of the Main Elements of Global Governance

Abstract

“There is no government for the world. Yet, on any given day, mail is delivered across borders; people travel from one country to another via a variety of transport modes; goods and services are freighted across land, air, sea, and cyberspace; and a whole range of other cross-border activities take place in reasonable expectation of safety and security for the people, groups, firms, and governments involved. Disruptions and threats are rare…This immediately raises a puzzle: How is the world governed even in the absence of a world government in order to produce norms, codes of conduct, and regulatory, surveillance, and compliance instruments? How are values allocated quasi-authoritatively for the world, and as accepted as such, without a government to rule the world?

The answer…lies in global governance. It is the sum of laws, norms, policies, and institutions that define, constitute, and mediate relations between citizens, societies, markets, and states in the international system–the wielders and objects of the exercise of international public power” - Thakur & Weiss (2015)

In contemporary International Relations debates, how the states behave in the absence of centralized political authority in the anarchic system in terms of either cooperation or defections has been answered through various approaches. Neorealists believe that anarchies are necessarily “self-help” system in which both central authority and collective security are absent, generating the competitive dynamics of the security dilemma and collective action problem. [footnoteRef:2] But although without the existence of an overarching central authority, on certain occasions behaviors of states are still under regulation. And what are the factors that influence how states behave?

But this never offers a sufficient and comprehensive explanation of why states behave the way they do, since human nature and the system are only a part that defines states’ behaviors, and for an enhanced understanding of why states operate the way they do in the anarchic system, discussions should shed lights on the different modes of governance that serve as the reference of the states’ behaviors. Global governance should be illustrated through a close examination of the relationships between power, authority, legitimacy, institutions, practices and norms.

Global governance rises in various forms, such as power, authority, legitimacy, norms and rules, and strengthens itself in practices.

Foremost, how global governance is defined and contributing to existing order should be explored. Furthermore, consideration upon how power, authority, legitimacy, norms and rules interact with each other and how they are constructed is called upon. Then how this discourse of global governance conversation develops over time and how additional values are added will also be analyzed. Lastly, how the future of the field might unfold will also be considered.

Introduction

In this literature review which consists of five sections, a basic overview of how global governance is developed through the interactions between different dynamics such as power, legitimacy, authority, institutions, practices and norms will be offered. And the linkage between the elements and evaluation of relevant literature will also be presented throughout this literature review. Progress made in relevant field will also be identified with its weakness. The expectation to offer advisory regarding how the field should be potentially developed further is also raised through the analysis of relevant literature.

Power

Power is one of the important aspects of global governance. Generally, the concept of power has been central to international relations discussions. Power comes in different forms: it can be both material and non-material. However, the discipline always overlooks the differences between different forms of power, and always fails to develop sophisticated understandings of how global governance is produced through the interactions of different forms of power and the connections between them.

Barnett and Duvall define power as four aspects: compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive which are conceptualized through the interactions of social relations and the specificity of social relations.

Barnett and Duvall’s conceptualization of power has two core dimensions: the first is concerned with whether power works in interactions or social constitutions with the second focusing on how specific are the social relations through which power works. Barnett and Duvall are successful in demonstrating an effective power diagram which can help readers analyze the nature of power from different dimensions, however it neglects the fact that sometimes the lines between different dimensions of power are blurredly drawn and hard for readers to distinguish.

Constructivism also finds it place in the context of coercion as manifested in rhetorical coercion. A model of ‘rhetorical coercion’ which focuses on the transformation of values through rhetoric coercion where the importance of beliefs, ideas, and culture is addressed is proposed by Jackson and Krebs for the understanding of the role of constructivism in compulsory power.

Although the exploration of a language-focused mechanism of political influence is innovative and offering fresh perspective in this discipline in the context of rhetoric, its methodology has downplayed the possible influence of some external intervening factors. So it only partly captures the dynamics of framing and implication contests.

Authority

Authority is seen as a key concept that has ample repercussions in global governance. In International Relations, the concept has been seen as the antithesis of the anarchic structure of international order, which is solid authority. However, authority should not be only seen as static. It is more likely to be dynamic.

According to Krisch, the notion of authority is narrowly focused on a command model of authority, which is the exercise of binding powers to create formal obligations that highlight the emergence of a new kind of international organization that is equipped with tools reminiscent of domestic governments, realizing hopes associated with the creation of international institutions since the League of Nations. However, it misreads the ways in which authority is created and maintained through simplification of authority as merely deference rather than commands. And this is called solid authority. Now another facet of authority which is liquid authority should be illustrated for a more comprehensive view of power.

In recent decades, a turn to authority of greater liquidity which emphasizes ‘a world in motion’ characterized by mobility, instability, constant change and reconfiguration as a consequence of the rise of ‘governance’ in contemporary states in which cooperation and informality has overtaken ‘command authority’ is witnessed. Central to the study of liquid authority are degrees of dynamism, informality and multiplicity, according to Krisch.

Not only should authority be understood as liquid, Hurd also insists that authority should be understood as socially constructed in the context of “the currency of power” which often manifests itself as coercion, self-interest and legitimacy which highlights the issue of social control. Authority as a form of global governance is often exerted in institutions. In the section that follows the role of institutions in global governance will be examined.

Institutions and Legitimacy

Institutions have been a dominant force in anchoring global governance in terms of facilitating international cooperation, producing transnational knowledge, and promoting global benchmarks that measure national performance across a range of issue areas. Closely associated with study of the governance of institutions is the research on their legitimacy.

However, how the institutions are perceived as legitimate still remain not well-defined. In order to account for the legitimacy enjoyed by major institutions systematically, efforts that have been made in recent decades will be presented as follows.

To begin with, the legitimacy of UN Security Council is examined by Binder and Heupel in 2015. Two major conclusions are reached after a close examination of evaluative statements made by states in UN General Assembly debates on the Security Council for the period 1991-2009. In a nutshell, the Security Council only enjoys a rudimentary degree of legitimacy as a result of its legitimacy deficit due to its procedural shortcomings as well as negative than p evaluations by UN member state.

Research on the relationship between International Organization governance and systems of financing is also conducted by Graham in the context of multilateralism of international organizations. It is found out that different funding rules constitute different modes of governance. It is demonstrated in the case of United Nation that restricted voluntary funding rules devolve authority over funding decisions to individual actors, undercutting the collective decision making that is central to multilateral governance.

Secondly, Heldt and Schmidtke also point out that the power of International Organization is determined by necessary capabilities to fulfill these tasks rather than merely formal delegation of tasks. Three concepts of IO power are given: the concept of IO power which incorporates three principal components: tasks, issue scope, and capabilities, IO empowerment as a new concept which captures formal and informal changes in IO power over time and a dataset based on IO capacities.

With regard to the traditional study on legitimacy of institutions, three dimensions are often involved: Input, throughput, and output legitimacy. However, Oates argues that a fourth face of legitimacy should also be taken into account: Constitutional legitimacy that addresses normative and practical questions related to the constitutive justification for an institutional order.

Practices

Practices as another form of global governance is gathering momentum, however it has received scant attention in the International Relation literature. Inquiry into how practices are constructed and how practices are developed during the discourse is made possible by Bernstein and Der Ven.

Best practices are said to be a means through which global governance is accomplished., and it possesses four characteristics. Firstly, it can be distinguished by how governors obtain the legitimate authority to govern. Secondly, it is rooted in its legitimacy in the appearance of consensus. Furthermore, it can be distinguished on the basis of content. Lastly, best practices have a common means for impelling compliance.

For an enhanced understanding of how global governance is manifested in practices, the social structure as element that constrains and enables global governance as composed of global norms and institutions should also be fully understood.

Norms

The study of norms in terms of understanding its emergence, diffusion and its effects is particularly relevant to our research on global governance. Norms generally define the way rational actors in given identity will behave. And the understanding of norms is a prerequisite in understanding global governance. Winston’s understanding of norms is divided between theories that emphasize continuity and those that allow for change in the process of norm adoption and implementation. Norm component and norm cluster are also examined.

Norms are often thought to be “shared understanding that behavioral claims” or “standards of appropriate behavior”. Social constructivists such as Wiener and Wendt argue that norms are constitutive in terms of creating categories of actors and actions while determining their identities and interests, and creating meaning through the intersubjective understanding of the nature of things.

Norms as an important facet of global governance should be understood as a process of change defined by shaping and reshaping in which social order and stability are constantly being adjusted, produced and mutually influencing.

For a better understanding of the evolution of norms, Sikkink and Finnemore have developed a model called life cycle, which defines the norm influence as a three-stage process, which are norm emergence, norm cascade and internationalization.

It provides explanation of how domestic practices can develop to international norms, offering linkage between practices and norms.

Conclusion

After a close examination of basic elements of global governance and the linkages between them, it is highly expected the knowledge in the field can advance to facilitate global governance further. Further considerations should also be made regarding how the global governance can further develop through policy.