Social Progress and Global Governance

Over the last four years, we have worked with a large, international, and multidisciplinary group of scholars and social scientists, in the preparation of the first report of the International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP) (Rethinking Society for the 21st Century, Cambridge University Press, 2018). The question this group set itself to answer was whether we can hope for better institutions and less social injustice in the world in the coming decades, given the ongoing trends.

Structural Constraints and Human Agency in Global Summitry and the Liberal Order

Confusion surrounds how best to describe today the architecture of the liberal international order, its challenges, and prospects. The Liberal Order’s various and changing configurations its distributions of power, as well as the variety of major actors, portend consequences for the operation of the international system. Although structural approaches remain dominant in international relations analysis, it is evident that there is an interaction of structure, the distribution, and redistribution of power, and agency—the diplomatic actions, norms, and rules of international politics. Historical and existing institutions, ongoing debates, and political efforts all point to the role of agency in global governance. The ongoing search for order was the basis for the Peace of Westphalia, the Concert of Europe, the effort to construct collective security following World War I, the Western liberal order of the Cold War, and global governance constructions of the post-Cold War era. The continuing existence and direction of the liberal international order are proving difficult to determine. There are rising powers and growing geopolitical rivalry. There are many new nonstate actors affecting international politics. And, there is current U.S. policy that puts in question its collaborative role and its continuing leadership. The many architectures of global governance, even competing ones, underline that structure alone is not determinative. In addition, debates over what course to take imply that the force of circumstance does not make one and only choice possible and inevitable, and that the search for order is ongoing and omnipresent.

Trade, Inclusive Development, and the Global Order

Economic globalization has increasingly affected countries across the world, through participation in global value chains (GVCs) and helping to lift over one billion human beings out of extreme poverty since 1990. However, there are still too many people living in poverty, even in rich countries, and so concerns over exclusion of certain groups from the gains of economic globalization are rising internationally. Using the concept of inclusiveness based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, we find that G20 countries perform better than non-G20 countries. We then review how economic theory contributes to understanding the causes of (missing) inclusiveness by reviewing the literature pertaining to five drivers: growth, technology, structural change, trade, and political economy. Overall, domestic policies tailored to specific national circumstances are the main instruments for promoting inclusiveness. The danger is that in pursuing these domestic policies, states may undermine international arrangements constituting the liberal economic order. We argue that the liberal economic order generates insufficient global governance because there is always a fraction of countries opposing global policy coordination as they believe it harms them, and that this group of countries is increasing propelled by the surge of populism. This dynamic implies that global governance focus will increasingly shift to “coalitions of the willing”, rendering multilateralism an increasingly challenging, and a la carte, proposition.

“Rising” States and Global Reach: Measuring “Globality” among BRICS/MIKTA Countries

Global reach is equated with national ambition. In the contemporary international system, one measure of global reach for states is their inclusion in global summits. This association is particularly compelling for putative “rising” states from the Global South, among the BRICS (China, India, and Brazil) and also a less well-known forum, MIKTA (Mexico, South Korea, Turkey, and Indonesia) groupings. Yet the standard means of examining the attributes of rising states via country specific and impressionistic studies appears to reveal that these rising powers are similar in many respects but there are significant differences as well. To help identify these differences we turn to a concept and data referred to as “globality.” We believe that this concept is helpful in more accurately analyzing the global reach of rising Global South countries. Though not that well known in the international relations literature, globality emphasizes agency by self-aware actors. Globality can be operationalized by tracing certain dimensions: institutional/diplomatic range; trade profile; and the trajectory of official development assistance. Broadly, the conclusion drawn from such a globality analysis substantiates a sharp distinction between the BRICS members and the MIKTA countries. The BRICS countries have some considerable capacity for global reach while it turns out that the MIKTA countries are regionally entrapped and thus less capable of global projection. Moreover, the specifics in terms of this pattern of differentiation are salient as well. The overall confirmation of an interconnection between subjective impressions of hierarchy and objective measurements of global projection, underscore the contrast between BRICS and MIKTA in summitry dynamics.

The UN and Multilateralism under Siege in the “Age of Trump”

This essay poses two questions: “Would the World Be Better without the UN?” and “Would the World Be Better without Donald Trump?” The answers are “No” and “Yes.” It begins by discussing the UN’s value and continues by probing the historical context of U.S. approaches to multilateralism and Washington’s unhesitating leadership during World War II, an era as fraught as ours. It then analyzes the implications of the Trump Administration’s “America First” policy on the United Nations and considers the possibilities for concerted international action without Washington. It concludes by examining the odds that the world body can become fitter-for-purpose.