global governance

power over life

Whothe world

rules

or what

does ?

What is global governance?1

Governmentality and power over life2

So let’s begin…

What is global governance?1

Most agree it is an unfolding response tog l o b a l i z a t i o n

1Liberalism

world governance

Rosenau 1995

without

world government

Global governance is

“the management of global political and

Solomon 2006: 327

economic space in the absence of aglobal state

Global governance

Creat[es] the conditions for ordered rule and collective action

Stoker 1998: 21

“

Global governance involves

efforts to bring more orderly and reliable responses to social and political issues that go

beyond capacities of states to address individually

Gordenker and Weiss 1996: 17

“

‘is not normative or prescriptive and

provides a description of real

processes of change in the international

system’

‘not founded on domination but

upon accommodation’

‘in the world [not] of the world. The latter implies a

central authority that is doing the

governing, an implication that clearly has no basis in fact’

Rosenau, Smith & Czempiel 1992

Commission on Global Governance 1995: 2-3

Rosenau 2008

Neutral and impartial

Technocratic and functional

No power since no central authority

Characteristics

From international Liberal institutions, private and public

CompositionBenign, multi-layered management system

Responds to changes accelerated by globalization

Concerned with Liberal peace

Rationale

Power in global governance takes mainly material form

Hard and soft diplomatic power

Military power

Economic power

Measureable and quantifiable

2Feminism

Global governance involves

The expression of masculine power through hegemonic beliefs and institutions

powe

r in Patriarchal

hierarchies and values in international system

Masculine biases in state and state system Condoning of violence

powe

r thr

ough International

institutions

powe

r ove

r Weaker actors

powe

r todiscipline

and punish

3Constructivism

Global governance combines and projects

ideological and material power

It is a set of ideas, a body of thought, a system of norms, which has been arranged by certain people at a particular time and place (Jackson and Sorenson 2007: 162)

The international system is not

something ‘out there’ like the

solar system.

It does not exist on its own. It exists only as

an intersubjective [shared]

awareness among people; in that sense

the system is constituted by ideas, not

by material forces.

It is a human invention or

creation not of a physical or

material kind but of a purely

intellectual and ideational

kind.

Constructivists reject claims of neutrality and impartiality

claim it projects a dominant, privileged ideal

identifies liberal/neoliberal hegemony globally

Planetary life organised around Liberal beliefs

Democracy, capitalism, individualism for the greater good

Liberal ways are the final and best ways

Fukuyama, Huntington, Kaplan

Liberal proponents produce truths about Liberalism and declare them as absolutes

No viable alternative to Liberalism

Individualism is the only freedom

Capitalism will create equitable growth

Resource depletion is sustainable through technological adaptation

Liberal proponents project and protect these claims

Liberal hegemony projected through institutions (trade regimes, IGOs), processes (governance), materials (wealth, consumption) and propaganda

productiveP o w e r a s

as an objective, absolute and neutral truth

the ability to represent a subjective, incomplete and partisan claim

(Roberts 2010)

invisible power

‘anonymousAUTHORITY’

Erich Fromm, 1941: 190

Hard to grasp power asinvisible

If it’s not evident in a person

or a state

p o w e r i n g l o b a l g o v e r n a n c e i s

SO

neutral and impartial, material only

Liberalism

masculine values and preferences, projected through masculine-dominated institutions, to

create a violent, gendered world

Feminism

composed of Liberal values expressed through institutions structured to reproduce Liberalism and

discipline non-conformity

Constructivism

Governmentality and power over life2

Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze, Michael Hardt, Achille Mbembe, Warren Montag, Antonio Negri,

idea that government has a

rationality

governmentalityg o v e r n m e n t m e n t a l i t y

A reason and purpose

To manage life

disseminated through nationwide outlets or capillary networks

national life managed through schools, hospitals, job centres, prisons, councils, police etc.

with power from centre

Rationality of government is to exert power over life

disciplines and punishes in order to generate compliance with ideology

This is

biopolitics

power over LIFE

Global governmentality as

Liberal power over planetary life

Source of global power is neoliberal hegemony

power disseminated through local and global institutions, or capillary networks

international life managed through international institutions (UN, WB, EU, WTO, Standard & Poor etc)

Power exists, so what does it do, beyond Liberal/Realist impressions?

Not limited to simple dominance and direct violence

Not limited to material expression of wealth and hierarchies

Not limited by geographies and boundaries

Ideological power influences all and everything

Conclusion

global governance is technical, material and ideological

managementc a l c u l a t e d

o f l i f e

Important because…

reveals structures, rules, actors behind international phenomena

demonstrates cause and effect

allows culpability to be identified

Holds actors, institutions and processes to account

Allows us to see and understand why good and bad things happen