THE STRUCTURE OF GLOBALIZATION: CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL

GOVERNANCE

Objectives
_____________________________________________________________________________
1. To define the Global Governance
2. To identify the Challenges of Global Governance in the Twenty-first Century
3. To discuss the The Role of the Nation State in Globalization
4. To explain the Globalizations Impact on the State

I. DEFINING GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

 Global governance is a product of neo-liberal paradigm shifts in international political
and economic relations. It is a movement towards political integration of transnational
actors aimed at negotiating responses to problems that affect more than one state or
region. It tends to involve institutionalization. These institutions of global governance -
the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the World Bank, etc. - tend to have
limited or demarcated power to enforce compliance.

 The modern question of world governance exists in the context of globalization and
globalizing regimes of power: politically, economically and culturally.

 Global governance can be thus understood as the sum of laws, norms, policies, and
institutions that define, constitute, and mediate trans-border relations between states,
cultures, citizens, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the market.

 It embraces the totality of institutions, policies, rules practices, norms, procedures, and
initiatives by which states and citizens try to bring more predictability, stability, and
order to their responses to transnational challenges-such as climate change and
environmental degradation, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism which go beyond the
capacity of a single state to solve.

 Global governance is viewed as the sum of governance processes operating in the

absence of world government. Both the international organizations (IOS) and the United
Nations (UN) being the only universal membership and general-purpose international
organization, are essential to the understanding of contemporary global governance. The
two types of International Organizations are those with universal membership and those
 with limited membership. Examples of IOs with universal membership include: UN,
Bretton Woods institutions and World Trade Organization (WTO). Limited membership
includes European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

II. The Roles and Functions of the United Nations

 As an intergovernmental organization, the United Nation is tasked to promote

international cooperation and to create and maintain international order.

 The United Nations (UN) in the world of politics has the roles of preventing and
managing conflicts, regulating armaments, championing human rights and international
humanitarian law, liberating the colonized, providing economic and technical aid in
newly liberated countries, organizing elections, empowering women, educating children,
feeding the hungry, sheltering the disposed and displaced, housing the refugees, tending
the sick and coordinating disaster relief and assistance.

 Four Main Purposes of the UN Charter- a written grant by a country's legislative or

sovereign power, by which an institution such as a company, college, or city is created
and its rights and privileges defined.
1. Maintaining worldwide peace and security
2. Developing relations among nations
3. Fostering cooperation between nations in order to solve economic, social,
cultural, or humanitarian international problems
4. Providing a forum for bringing countries together to meet the UN's purposes and
goals

 There were five stages or main gaps meet by UN in the 21st century. These are
knowledge, norms. policy, institutions and compliance. A critical hole in any of the five
stages can cause efforts at problem solving to collapse.

III. Challenges of Global Governance in the Twenty-first Century

 Global Governance is a process which allows interconnectivity across different borders

and sovereign territories. Global governance is governing, without sovereign authority,
relationships that transcend national frontiers, Global governance has evolved as one of
the most influencing tools for globalization which has led to the foundation of
sustainable development projects around the globe.
  Issues that involve interwoven domestic and foreign challenges include threats at the
beginning of the century which include ethnic conflicts, infectious diseases, and
terrorism as well as a new generation of global challenges including climate change,
energy security food and water scarcity international migration flows and new
technologies.

 Within states the first trajectory or path is the depoliticization which can be observed in
the form of delegating decisions to independent regulators and experts, central banks, or
judiciaries.

 A second trajectory is the rescaling of economic and social relations well beyond the
territorial boundaries of nation states, facilitated by transnational legal arrangements that
have their roots in national law is also a critical ingredient for transforming real assets
into commodities and ultimately financial assets, that is, the third path which is the
capitalization of assets.

 Different effects are expected on different constituencies within and across domestic
polities (an organized society, a state as a political entity). Direct participation or
inclusion in these processes are benefitted by some though others face exclusion.
Considered important for effective governance include recognition of these paths or
trajectories and their potentially databasing effects for polities.

IV. The Role of the Nation State in Globalization

 Basic Elements of a State

1. Population- State is a community of persons. It is a human political institution. Without

a population there can be no State. Population can be more or less but it has to be there.
There are States with very small populations like Switzerland, Canada and others, and
there are States like China, India and others, with very large populations. The people
living in the State are the citizens of the State. They enjoy rights and freedom as citizens
as well as perform several duties towards the State. When citizens of another State are
living in the territory of the State, they are called aliens. All the persons, citizens as well
as aliens, who are living in the territory of the State are duty bound to obey the state
laws and policies. The State exercises supreme authority over them through its
government.

2. Territory- Territory is the second essential element of the State. State is a

territorial unit. Definite territory is its essential component. A State cannot exist
in the air or at sea. It is essentially a territorial State. The size of the territory of a
 state can be big or small; nevertheless, it has to be a definite, well-marked
portion of territory.

States like Russia, Canada, U.S.A., India, China, Brazil and some others are large
sized states whereas Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldivies, Switzerland, Togo,
Brundi and many others are States with small territories. The whole territory of
the state is under the sovereignty or supreme power of the State. All persons,
organizations, associations, institutions and places located within its territory are
under the sovereign jurisdiction of the State.

3. Government- Government is the organization or machinery or agency or

magistracy of the State which makes, implements, enforces and adjudicates the
laws of the state. Government is the third essential element of the State. The
state exercises its sovereign power through its government.

This sometimes creates the impression that there is no difference between the
State and Government. However, it must be clearly noted that government is just
one element of the State. It is the agent or the working agency of the State.
Sovereignty belongs to the State; the government only uses it on behalf of the
State.

4. Sovereignty- Sovereignty is the most exclusive element of State. State alone

possess sovereignty. Without sovereignty no state can exit. Some institutions can
have the first three elements (Population Territory and Government) but not
sovereignty.

State has the exclusive title and prerogative to exercise supreme power over all
its people and territory. In fact, Sovereignty is the basis on which the State
regulates all aspects of the life of the people living in its territory.

As the supreme power of the State, Sovereignty has two dimensions: Internal
Sovereignty and External Sovereignty.

(i) Internal Sovereignty:

It means the power of the State to order and regulate the activities of all the
people, groups and institutions which are at work within its territory. All these
 institutions always act in accordance with the laws of the State. The State can
punish them for every violation of any of its laws.

(ii) External Sovereignty:

It means complete independence of the State from external control. It also means
the full freedom of the State to participate in the activities of the community of
nations. Each state has the sovereign power to formulate and act on the basis of its
independent foreign policy.

We can define external sovereignty of the State as its sovereign equality with
every other state. State voluntarily accepts rules of international law. These
cannot be forced upon the State. India is free to sign or not to sign any treaty with
any other state. No state can force it to do so.

 Sovereignty of individual nations is not abolished by expanded trade among countries,

instead globalization is a force that changed the way nation-states deal with one another,
particularly in the area of international commerce.
 Nation-states are challenged by multinational corporations to address the issue of foreign
direct investments to force nation-states to ascertain the allowable international influence
in their economies.
 The role of the nation-state in a global world is largely a regulatory one as the chief
factor in global interdependence. In setting international commerce policies, isolated
states are forced to engage to one another, while nation-state's domestic role is
unchanged. Roles of some states were diminished while others have exalted roles due to
interactions of various economic imbalances.

V. GLOBALIZATIONS IMPACT ON THE STATE

 Factors which lead to the increase and acceleration of movement of people, information,
commodities and capital.
1. Lifting of trade barriers
2. Liberalization of world capital markets
3. Swift technological progress (information technology, transportation and
communication)
 Problems afflicting the world today which are increasingly transnational in nature those
that cannot be solved at the national level or State to State negotiations.
1. Poverty
2. Environmental pollution
3. Economic crisis
4. Organized crime and terrorism

 Effects of greater economic and social interdependence to national decision-making

processes.
1. It calls for a transfer of decisions to the international level
2. It requires many decisions to be transferred to local levels of government due to
an increase in the demand for participation.

 The following are guaranteed by nation-State:

Internal and external security, law established, national welfare systems funding,
structures provided for popular representation, public accountability instituted, and
framework for economic and social activities built.

 The State persists because its need grows and because of its undiminished local resource
pools and socioeconomic problems on which States are based. The State remains the key
actor in the domestic as well as international arenas and that States which are effective
are essential for both tasks, and their capacity for both needs strengthening.

The following can be guaranteed only by the States through independent courts:
1. Respect of human rights and justice
2. Promote the national welfare
3. Protect the general interest

 The State has the roles in operating the intricate web of multi-lateral arrangements and
inter-governmental regimes, enter into agreements with other States, make policies
which shape national and global activities, agenda of integration by clearly pronouncing
the problem of capacity inadequacy of individual States. This indicates political leverage
of some States in shaping the international agenda while developing countries have
fewer active roles.

 It should also be responsible for adopting policies, which are conducive to greater
economic integration not forgetting that further global integration can be reversed by
state policies inimical to openness, as occurred between the two World Wars which
means that globalization does not reduce the role of the nation-State, but redefines it
given the pressures and responses it must give at the local, national and international
levels.