Global Governance Flashcards
Define global governance: Give 3 groups that can influence.
-The steering of human activity at an international level using norms, codes and rules.
Suprantional bodies (UN/EU), national governments (state actors) enforce and TNCs/NGOs/IGOs (non-state) can with their power and influnece.
Give 3 transnational global issues
-Climate/resources.
-Health.
-Economic inequality
What’s the Schengen Area?
Successful free flow of labour in EU.
Define incentive gap
Gaps between need to do something and motivation to
Participation Gap
international cooperation remains primarily the affair of governments, leaving civil society groups on the fringes of policy making. Such is democracy, some civil society groups may not have their voices heard on the global stage as their government chooses not to prioritise their needs
On the other hand, globalisation of communication is facilitating the development of global civil society movements! BLM social media.
Jurisdictional Gap
Lack of authority due to conflicting ideas
Pro-active and reactive TNC
Pro:
Example – BAT sponsor anti-smoking NGO’s within LIC’s. In order to avoid lawsuits that began to come their way in HIC’s.
Re:
Example – In 2013, an 8 storey building, mostly owned by Primark, Rana Plaza, in Bangladesh collapsed. Primark paid compensation and provided emergency aid to the victims
Pro and reactive national gov (global governance would be Antarctica)
Pro: Action – Lobby for and contribute to international discussions, votes and decisions
Example – Some national governments hold more influence than others on the UN Security Council. Mostly the G20 countries . These nations will take leadership roles in conflict resolution.
Re: Action - Legislate and invest, to implement international initiatives, laws, targets and agreements
Example – UK Gov’s recent support for renewable energy sources rather than fossil fuels in response to continued pressure from NGO’s like greenpeace.
Pro and reactive IGO
Pro:
Example – In 2013 the UNI Global Union, in alliance with other NGO’s, sponsored and created the legally binding ‘Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety’ to protect workers in the garments industry. Signed by 200 clothing companies to encourage deeper inspection of factories.
Re:
Example: WHO and cyclone Winston Doctors.
What are the regulation and reproduction of global systems?
Regulation using protectionism measures such as EU tarrifs that must be paid if buying goods from non-member.
Reproduction is the way that the global economic system has essentially remained unchanged.
Give example of UNCLOS Law (global)
What’s bioprospecting
Territorial sea limits, protection of marine environment,.
However, not all states from UN signed up to it.
Could link with other Antarctica laws eg UNEP.
Some bioprospecting (searching for animal and plant species with valuable compounds/containing medicinal properties) not accounted for.
Institutions include World Bank and IMF: Who are the WTO and evaluate them? What’s SDT?
-Try to liberalise trade and settle disputes between the 162 members.
-Difficult to get all members to agree.
-Difficult to create fair laws for rapidly EMEs.
-Widening the gap between low income and high income countries, despite being the very organisation created to avoid this. In general, the WTO can be seen as biased towards richer countries. Some examples include: The protection of HIC agriculture, but the pressure for LICs to open their markets up to international produce.
-SDT enables developing countries to participate in global trade but has allowed unfairly cheap imports for HDEs.
Who are the WHO and evaluate their response to Covid-19
Success of other policies
Under UN umbrella. Promote health and keep world safe. Depends on accuracy of data they’re provided with. They also cannot enforce decisions to be made. Eg Winston response.
Pros: Issued early guidance and invested in R+D for Covid.
But: Some HICs hoarded vaccine supplies and UN/WHO couldn’t do anything. Trump cancelled funding to WHO due to believing they were helping China. But Biden made a priority to rejoin.
AIDS pandemic is South Africa
22 million lives saved in last 20 years
How has stability been achived since 1945 excluding UN
More countires have large miliray vessels/weapons that act as a deterent. No world wars since but more recently on regioanl scales.
What are norms? Give an example of the Animal Welfare Act. What happens if not followed?
Accepting certain attitudes as valid. Face condemnation if you don’t uphold. Eg norm to not hunt whales is trying to be established.
Norms will often get enshrined into the law of the country in question. For example owning a pet (loving it, caring for it and protecting it from cruelty) is a norm within the UK. So, specific laws like the Animal Welfare Act will reflect these norms and when enforced, provide protection of this norm.
Difficulty in establishing norms
Norms take time to develop and differ country to country.
What is the CIGI and give 3 aims
Global thinktank for governance.
Environmental governance is now involving so many agencies and agreements that duplication and incoherence is restricting progress.
Key state/non-state actors need to be more collaborative.
Predicted world wasn’t ready for pandemics proven by Covid.
Who are the UN, evaluate their success towards reducing poverty and hunger, maintaining peace, keeping fiendly relations and helping to improve standards of living for countries (on next flashcards)
193 countries.
4 primary goals of peace, developing friendly relations, improve well-being and harmonise actions of nations.
17 oter sustainable development goals
Reducing inequalities
Attempts by the UN to reduce inequalities have had mixed success as well – the Millennium Development Goals (2000) have had mixed success. Some countries such as Brazil met all of them, 1 billion lifted out of poverty others such as Benin didn’t reach any – this has increased global inequalities.
However, targeted at easy win areas such as urban, disregarding rural eg northern Nigeria
More women in international seats.
Promoting stability/reducing conflicts
- Evaluation of the role of the UN in promoting growth through the resolution of conflict. For example, peacekeeping forces in Africa have been able to maintain a fragile peace, resulting in development in those countries. However, they have not been able to resolve some long-standing conflict issues in places such as Somalia, resulting in further inequalities. In short, succeed most of the time.
More firearms in some countries now. But deterrent.
World Bank/UNDP are part of inequality solution. UNEP for sustainable environment.
Humanitarian aid eg winston for WHO
..
Preventing hunger evaluation
Wolrd Food Programme. Fairtade and agro-technology to increase yields. 18% in extreme poverty 2010 but 36% 1990.
Still a prominent issue.
Are countries achieving their sustainable development goals (previously MDGs)?
Africa facing major challenges. N/S America and Europe also facing challenges. Few countries achieved their aim.
UN concerning Russia
Couldn’t do anything when Russia annexed Crimea 2014 despite it being frowned upon
Why are NGOs often better than global political organisations at reducing inequality?
Focus on local/national scale and needs of communities
Direct funding that is constant.
Eval
To further strengthen your evaluation (AO2), you could consider regional variations in the effectiveness of global institutions and alternative approaches to growth and stability.
For example, while the IMF and World Bank have been instrumental in stabilizing economies in some developing nations, their effectiveness is not uniform across all regions. In Sub-Saharan Africa, SAPs have often led to long-term economic hardship rather than sustainable growth, as seen in Zambia and Tanzania, where IMF-imposed austerity measures reduced public spending on healthcare and education, exacerbating poverty. In contrast, in emerging economies like India and Brazil, engagement with global institutions has contributed to significant economic growth, particularly through infrastructure funding and trade liberalization. This suggests that the effectiveness of these institutions is context-dependent, varying based on political stability, governance structures, and existing economic conditions.
Additionally, some regions have turned to alternative approaches to promote growth and stability. Regional development banks like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and African Development Bank (AfDB) provide more tailored financial assistance with fewer structural constraints than the IMF and World Bank. For example, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has provided significant investment in infrastructure across Asia and Africa, demonstrating that regional partnerships and South-South cooperation can sometimes be more effective than Western-dominated global institutions.
By incorporating these points, your evaluation would become more nuanced, recognizing that while global institutions play a role in promoting growth and stability, they are not always the most effective solution for every region or economic context.
