The Study of World Politics

Volume 2: Globalization and Governance

James N. Rosenau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134172023
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Politik

James Rosenau's work is known for its originality and clarity and the sixteen articles in this new volume are no exception.

Tackling the specific challenges posed by globalization and governance, this book covers four key areas:

• the challenge – tensions, contradictions, outcomes and global affairs
• the profession – community, globalized space and international relations
• globalization – complexities, contradictions and theory
• governance – understanding and future

The Study of World Politics presents the thinking of one of the most innovative scholars in the last half century. The subjects addressed provide the big picture, whilst also being meticulous in detail.

This new book gives the reader an unparalleled understanding of globalization and governance and is an invaluable tool to students and scholars of politics and world affairs alike.

1 Introduction

In contrast to the first volume of this two-volume selection of my essays on The Study of World Politics, those included here focus on two substantive phenomena. The first volume is subtitled Theoretical and Methodological Challenges and spans a wide range of conceptual problems confronted across nearly five decades of probing why world affairs unfold as they do. Here, on the other hand, the essays were all written since the end of the Cold War, a landmark event in the sense that it resulted in the surfacing of new structures and processes through which the affairs of polities, societies, and economies are conducted. The termination of the US–Soviet rivalry permitted a rapid and vast acceleration of the dynamics of globalization in every realm of human endeavor, an acceleration that, in turn, highlighted the question of whether and how world affairs could be governed. Hence this volume is subtitled Globalization and Governance since these two complex phenomena have constituted the core of my writing since 1989.

To describe the two central phenomena as complex is to understate the enigmas they pose. Globalization has a number of dimensions that are so loosely linked that one is tempted to cling to a narrow formulation that focuses on trade, finance, and other economic structures and processes rather than allowing for the diversity of the interactions which have and continue to undergo globalizing dynamics. Indeed, much of the literature on the subject is framed in this narrow context and, as such, offers clear-cut, though contentious, perspectives on the nature and underpinnings of globalization. While in no way dismissing the importance of the economic dimension, I prefer to confront the complexities of a broad conception of globalizing processes and to treat them as having a common characteristic: namely, expansion across long-established national and societal boundaries. As can be seen in Table 8.1, this broad formulation has led to the identification of innumerable foci worthy of systematic inquiry.

The transformations of world affairs that followed the end of the Cold War and their implications for the study of globalization are probed in the chapters of Parts 1 and 2, while some of the dynamics of globalization itself are analyzed in Part 3. Relatively speaking, these chapters are straightforward in the sense that they are rooted in my conviction that globalization consists of boundary-spanning ideas and activities. Taken together, they contend that the new, post-Cold War arrangements have lessened the role of the state, that a central feature of the arrangements is a continuing disaggregation of authority in all parts of the world and all walks of life, and that consequently the salience of local phenomena has been heightened. Put differently, the global–local nexus underlies tensions between worldwide forces pressing for integration and those fostering fragmentation, an interaction that I have sought to capture in a label (“fragmegration”) that combines the two forces.

These themes in the first eleven chapters are straightforward compared to those that permeate Part 4. The latter consists of five chapters that focus on the nature of governance on a global scale. While a vast literature has long existed on the structures and processes of governance, it has been largely concerned with governance and government at the local and national levels. The advent of pervasive globalization, however, has led to considerable speculation as to the ways in which governance can be and has been recast in a global context – what has come to be called “global governance.”¹ Perforce, therefore, the analysis of these chapters is murky, with some overlap and duplication, and with a restless ambivalence weaving through them as I sought to identify reasons why the future of global governance is not bleak even as I point to several severe obstacles that may prevent the emergence of an effective set of institutions that would, in effect, amount to global governance. A measure of ambivalence can be discerned in a tendency to give new labels to the phenomena deemed to be reflective of the emergent trends toward global governance. As will be seen, for example, the most complex designation involves what I call “mobius-web governance,” which is elsewhere described as

Rooted in the impetus to employ rule systems that steer issues through both hierarchical and networked interactions across levels of aggregation that may encompass all the diverse collectivities and individuals who participate in the processes of governance. These interactions constitute a hybrid structure in which the dynamics of governance are so intricate and overlapping among the several levels as to form a singular weblike process that, like a mobius, neither begins nor culminates at any level or at any point in time. Mobiusweb governance does not culminate with the passage of a law or compliance with its regulations. Rather, it is operative as long as the issues subjected to governance continue to be of concern.²

In order to retain the original context in which the essays were written I did not revise them with a view to rendering them consistent with the structures and processes that evolved in subsequent years. It is tempting to display one’s wisdom by retrospectively indicating the accuracy of one’s earlier writings. Such a display, however, is profoundly misleading, if not essentially disingenuous and deceitful. So here the reader will find all the misreadings and miscalculations to which analysts of world affairs are prone. Some expected outcomes proved to be sound, but others were erroneous. For the most part, however, the expected developments were cast at a level of abstraction high enough to avoid being dead wrong.

The temptation to up-date the citations was especially acute because some of the cited materials were encompassed in subsequent books. Yet, again it seemed prudent to present the essays as they were originally written in order to convey a sense of how the various ideas evolved and fluctuated. This process can be discerned in the way my preoccupation with the global–local nexus is articulated in several essays even as it ultimately culminated in my 2003 book quoted above.

In short, the collective goal of the essays turns out to be that of provoking thought about the complexities and dynamics that presently sustain world politics. At the very least it is hoped that the ensuing analysis will contribute to an appreciation of the difficulties that attach to comprehending the sources and consequences of globalization and global governance.

Part I
The challenge

2 The new global order
Underpinnings and outcomes¹

What heady years these have been! In 1988 six wars came to an end.² In 1989 the Berlin wall came down and the Cold War came to an end. In 1990 a 32-nation coalition formed to contest and reverse a despot’s naked aggression in the Middle East. In 1991 that aggression, under authority granted by the United Nations, was quickly ended and reversed.

So swiftly and so extensively did these events follow on each other that hopes soared, allowing people to dare to believe that the world had shaken the shackles of the past and was moving onto something new and, presumably, better. Yes, uncertainty was pervasive and, yes, problems remain; but now it was possible to imagine that humankind was on a different track, a saner, gentler track that offered the potential for righting wrongs and ameliorating distortions. History, it seemed, had ended,³ or at least its “very texture… was changing before our very eyes.”⁴ Nothing less than a new global order was in the making. Presidents proclaimed it, pundits affirmed it, and people sensed it.

And then came the aftermath. Instead of the arms trade dwindling to a trickle, its flow expanded. Instead of the European Community opening its doors to new states clamoring for membership, it reverted to old hesitations and squabbles. Instead of evolving a new set of arrangements for the Middle East, the states of that region reverted to old patterns and historic enmities. Israel remained stubbornly opposed to change. Saudi Arabia retreated behind its long-standing cultural barriers. Saddam Hussein still controlled Iraq and continued to oppress its minorities. Instead of thriving on greater independence, Czechoslovakia split in two and Yugoslavia collapsed into a brutal civil war. By mid-1993 nothing seemed new. The emergent global order appeared to be no more than a mirage, a momentary fantasy of what might have been, proof that hopes should be contained and aspirations narrowed. History, it could be argued, was deceptive. Rather than tracing new paths into the sunset, it offered a dizzying ride on a roller coaster.⁵

Global orders as outcomes

The ensuing analysis suggests that this ups-and-downs approach to the turbulence of our time is an erroneous reading of history. It suffers from a failure to distinguish between global orders and global underpinnings, between outcomes and sources, between hopes and fears on the one hand and dynamic forces on the other.

Although much of the discussion about an emergent global order focuses on empirical changes – the collapse of Communism, the splintering of the Soviet Union, the UN resolutions and the 32-nation coalition – its conclusions invariably concern the way in which the changes portend new value hierarchies, new arrangements whereby self-serving actions in the international arena are subordinated to collective interests that allow for the promotion and preservation of democratic values, a more equitable distribution of resources, and a wider set of opportunities for people and states to participate in the decisions that shape their fates. And most of all, the emergent order is conceived to embody new ways of establishing and maintaining peace on a regional and global scale.

Although there is no inherent reason why dialogues over the structures and vulnerabilities of the prevailing global order should give way to debates about its prospect for improving the human condition, somehow they always do. Perhaps this is because the word “order” is itself loaded with value dimensions. To establish and maintain collective order is to achieve a measure of harmony among groups and between them and nature. To be plagued or threatened with collective disorder is to suffer conflict among groups and asymmetries between them and nature. With few exceptions, no one favors disorder; most aspire to an underlying order so that they can get on with their tasks and move toward their goals. Yet, one person’s order is another’s disorder, and herein lies the incentive to recast, knowingly or otherwise, any analytic discussion of global order into a value context.

Another powerful inducement to ponder the prevailing order in value terms derives from the relevance of power and hierarchy to the conduct of world affairs. The most immediately visible activities on the international scene all involve collectivities – governments, organizations, groups – at all levels of aggregation seeking to get other collectivities to comply with their demands. In so doing they exercise power in various forms and their successes and failures in this regard manifest a hierarchical pattern, what is perhaps best described as the international pecking order. This power-derived hierarchical dimension of the prevailing global order evokes value perspectives because it can serve as an easy explanation for why things happen the way they do: noxious outcomes are seen by those lacking power to be the work of those who have power, just as the resistance of the Havenots is explained by the Haves as stemming from long-standing grievances or efforts to break free of severe constraints imposed by the existing pecking order.

From this reasoning it is a short step to the presumption that the roots of the prevailing order are to be found in the distribution of global power, the hierarchy to which it gives rise, and the superior–subordinate relationships it sustains. Thus it is that students of world politics speak of hegemonic orders, balance-of-power orders, and a variety of other arrangements which depict who gets whom to get things done in the way they are done. From this reasoning it also follows that when the distribution of power among states remains stable across long stretches of time, uncertainty is at a minimum and order is at a maximum. The stable order may be noxious or it may be praiseworthy, but in any event it is a hierarchy which describes the arrangements through which world politics unfold.

Thus it is that wars, the collapse of ideologies, and the breakdown of governments, fostering as they do vast uncertainties and extensive speculation as to how key actors will adapt to the new circumstances, can give rise to visions of a new global order emerging out of the one that collapsed with the outbreak of hostilities, the bankruptcy of ideologies, and the changes in officialdom. Surely, the reasoning goes, such conditions constitute a propitious moment, a time to be seized for the establishment of a new, more equitable pecking order and for the encouragement of innovative patterns that bring fresh thought and resolve to bear on old conflicts.

And thus too can hopes for a new order be dashed as the terms of peace, the expression of post-ideological aspirations, and the fragility of newly installed governments fail to live up to the expectations engendered by the collapse of the old patterns. Never mind that planning never moved beyond the presumption that profound change would alter the way things are done, that little thought was given to the nature of the emergent order and the new arrangements that would replace the old hierarchies and conflict resolution processes. Surely, at such a propitious moment things are bound to get better!

That is why hopes soared through 1990 and into the first three months of 1991: the moment had arrived, with George Bush leading the way in voicing the conviction that the old order collapsed with the Cold War and that the Gulf War was the first great incident of a new, emergent order. And that is why, too, the hopes came crashing down as history moved into and beyond the remaining quarters of 1991, when it became increasingly clear that sovereign states were bent upon clinging protectively to their self-interests and that the remaining superpower was neither able nor willing to exercise the power necessary to get all concerned to break with past patterns and adopt new security arrangements.

Global order as underpinnings

But there is another way to conceive of global order. If the existing hierarchy and the relational patterns it sustains are viewed as outcomes, as the result of complex dynamics which reach deep into societies and only slowly come to their surfaces, then these underlying dynamics can be treated as a form of order. As the arrangements from which outcomes derive, these underpinnings include the viability of the sovereignty principle, the emergence of new types of actors and the capacity of states to manage them, the basic orientations which publics and governments have toward the nature of authority, and the skills through which citizens and officials exercise their responsibilities and participate in world affairs. If such dynamics undergo transformation, then a new order, an underlying order that will eventually surface to reshape the conduct of governments and the structure of the international pecking order, can be said to have moved into place.

It is the contention of the remainder of this paper that the underpinnings of world politics have undergone a profound transformation and that signs of it have already surfaced even if much of the current scene appears very much yet another replay of history. What follows, in other words, asserts that a new global order has emerged! It is not the kind of order that people have been looking for and, indeed, it remains only dimly, if at all, recognized. Nor does it rest on values having to do with the certainties of a predictable hierarchy or the uncertainties of prevailing conflict patterns. It is, rather, an empirical order, one that can still evolve in either desirable or noxious directions.

The distinction between global orders as underpinnings and as outcomes is important because the former are not readily observable and their impact is not easily assessed. The origins and sustenance of a social order are to be found largely in minds and hearts – in ideas, orientations, predispositions, habits, and belief systems – and their existence thus has to be inferred from behavior rather than being the behavior itself. If these ideational sources take a long time to mature, however, the outcomes that are observed in world politics can, for a long time, continue to seem like the same old way of conducting business. The manifest behavior, in other words, reflects long-standing habits that still get acted upon even as they are steadily being undermined by the transformation of the deeper underpinnings from which they originally sprung. Thus a time lag exists between the time when underpinnings change and the reflection of those changes in the outcomes that comprise the daily routines and crises of world politics.

Viewed in this way, the Cold War and the order on which it rested did not collapse suddenly in 1989. Rather, it began its long downhill slide well before the Berlin Wall came down and the people of Eastern Europe threw off the yoke of their Communist regimes. These latter developments were only the last stage in a complex process whereby the ideational foundations of the post-World War II order underwent transformation. To be sure, pundits, politicians, academics, and people everywhere were taken by surprise when the governments in Prague, Budapest, Sofia, and other East European capitals were, suddenly, replaced. But the pervasiveness of the surprise is ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• 1: Introduction
• Part I: The Challenge
• Part II: The Profession
• Part III: Globalization
• Part IV: Governance