Topic: Individual assignment
tutorthammy
plag.docxGlobal governance is a product of neo-liberal paradigm shifts in international political and economic relations. Some scholars argue that global governance as it is practiced is not working ( Coen and Pegram, 2015 : 417), while others believe that global governance is constantly adapting by readjusting strategies and approaches to solutions and developing new tools and measures to deal with issues that impact communities throughout the world ( Held and Hale, 2011 ). Rather than judging current global governance, this contribution seeks to provide an overview of the current state of global governance by discussing its present state vis à vis the challenges that it faces and its future.
As such, the concept of global governance relates to the interaction ofmyriad collective or individual entities emanating from various societal and professional orientations, which form networks that engage to address issues that threaten local and global communities.
The current phenomenon of global governance is well captured by Biermann and Pattberg in their overview of global environmental governance for the Annual Review of Environmental Resources of 2008.
A multitude of actors define and shape the current structure of global governance. States, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), multinational corporations, scientific experts, civil society groups, networks, partnerships, private military and security companies, as well as transnational criminal and drug-trafficking networks provide world politics with multi-actor perspectives and take part in steering the political system ( Dingwerth and Pattberg, 2006 ; Biermann and Pattberg, 2012 ; Karns and Mingst, 2015). Global governance actors broaden the scope of activities in which they are involvedand they also change the patterns of interaction and cooperation in tackling current issues on a global level. Current global governance arrangements favour flexibility over rigidity, prefer voluntary measures to binding rules, choose partnerships over individual actions, and give rise to new initiatives and ideas.
Global governance is arguably inevitable for the survival of the human race in present and future generations. Although global governance sometimes appears fragile and ineffective in response to current challenges, the trend of globalization and the demand for global governance approaches have already passed the point of no return. The future of global governance will be mainly shaped by the following five factors: individual empowerment, increasing awareness of human security, institutional complexity, international power shift and liberal world political paradigm.
Human security isan innovative concept for security in response to horizontal (such as military, economic and political) and vertical (such as individual, state and global) threats, which traditional security concepts cannot effectively control ( Grayson, 2008 ). The focal point of state security is too narrow to encompass the myriad threats that challenge societies today. The threat of sovereign states engaging in large-scalewar is less probable today than at any time in modern history. Third, we must additionally consider “institutional complexity” ( Held and Hale, 2011 ) as another direction for future global governance development. As the trend of individual empowerment gains more momentum, the influence of civil society is expected to grow in terms of authority and resources. Various non-state actors will not only affect their national governments’ behavior more significantly, but will also engage in networks of transnational relations more actively. International institutions in global governance will likely keep expanding to “regime complex”, a concept defined as “an array of partially overlapping and nonhierarchical institutions governing a particular issue area” (Raustiala and Victor, 2004 ).
Fourth, global governance in the future will be also be shaped by power shifts in international relations. Almost all the traditional institutions of global governance were initiated by Western countries, and their pluralistic political culture and influential civil societies have shaped the political context of global governance.
The list of parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons encompasses the states who have signed and ratified or acceded to the international agreement prohibiting or restricting the use of certain conventional weapons which may be deemed to be excessively injurious or have indiscriminate effects.
