Introduction
Nowadays one can hardly find a more topical and debatable theme than globalization. Dozens of conferences and symposiums, hundreds of books, thousands of magazine and newspaper articles are devoted to it. It is discussed and argued by scientists, politicians, businessmen, religious actors, people of art, journalists. Last century humankind has become a witness and a direct participant of great changes. The development of communication networks, digital technologies and genetics, trade and culture connections, and general globalization of civilization gives a variety of possibilities. People and states get more and more freedom in choosing their behavior and the way of life in general, however, everyone should understand that such freedom involves certain responsibilities.
Main text
According to a typical definition, “globalization is “the intensification of economic, political, social and cultural relations across borders” (Holm and Sorensen, 1995). Speaking about the basis of this phenomenon it is possible to note that some features of modern globalization have a long history. The roots of this process are in the epoch when the becoming of colonial empires has laid the foundation of the first bases of international economic relations in this millennium. However, the modern international economic relations underlying globalization essentially differ from those that have been generated from the beginning of an epoch of Great geographical discoveries and the foundation of colonial empires. However today developed countries use former colonies as a source of raw material and labor, frequently bringing out there their hi-tech manufacture.
The other important feature of the process of globalization consists in the internationalization of not so much barter, but more production processes. Here it is necessary to mention such a child of globalization as transnational corporations. Transnational corporations “have become central actors of the world economy and, in linking foreign direct investment, trade, technology, and finance, they are a driving force of economic growth” (Enderwick, 1994). Present international trade in many respects realizes processes of cooperation and barter, proceeding inside of one transnational corporation, for example, between branches or daughter enterprises, which are located in different parts of the world, or with other transnational corporations.
Global governance is a mechanism, which necessity is caused by globalization, this powerful transforming force responsible for “all-round shaking up” of societies and the world order. Global safety, globalization of policy, globalization of trade, globalization of business, financial globalization, cultural globalization, globalization of environment, globalization of migratory streams, etc. – all these natural processes have both positive tendencies, which testify to expansion, deepening, and acceleration of world cooperation, and negative, which if not to be engaged in them seriously, can lead to the global crisis of modern civilization.
Such problems of planetary-scale as mass poverty in developing countries, degradation of the environment, the organized violence and confrontations, streams of refugees bear global threats. It is quite obvious that processes of globalization cannot either be detained or prevented. At the same time, globalization is not an automatic or self-generating process. In this connection, the special importance is got with political regulation of modern globalization, the institutionalization of this regulation at all levels.
Global governance can become that paradigm based on priorities of cooperation and mutual aid, which will direct and form globalization, will enter this natural and irreversible process into the frameworks of civilization and democracy. Global governance can become the effective mechanism of social regulation and relatively fair distribution of benefits in the modern more and more globalized world.
Since the nineties of the twentieth century the analysis of global governance has been made by such scientists as Beck, Cable, Cooper, Finkelstein, Groom, Powell, Luard, Rosenau, Held, Goldblat, McGrew, etc.). The history of research of global governance is rather short, that is why many problems of global governance require careful analysis. The purpose of this essay is to consider tendencies and prospects of formation of the global governance.
Under global governance, as marked Rosenau, are understood not only official institutes and organizations, which create and support (or not create and not support) rules and norms governing the world order, the state institutes, intergovernmental cooperation, etc., but also all those organizations and groups of influence: from multinational corporations, transnational social movements up to the set of nongovernmental organizations, which pursue the purposes and objectives, which achievement depends on transnational ruling and imperious institutes (Rosenau, 1997). Last decades the structure of global governance has grown quantitatively and qualitatively.
One of the key actors of global governance is the state. Probably it is possible to speak about two forms of participation of the state in global governance: direct and mediated. The direct form concerns large states, which owing to enormous resources can render unilaterally significant influence on the decision-making process concerning every possible regional or global problem.
First of all, it concerns certainly the United States of America, which during the nineties of the twentieth century more and more actively realize its claims to direct a course of world politics and economy, at times even ignoring international law, the opinion of the United Nations Organization and its Security Council. The majority of the states participate in global governance indirectly through intergovernmental organizations, which they form, and to which laws and norms submit. In this connection, it is impossible to disagree with the statement that the qualitative state of the international organizations, which aspire to carry out global governance to a great extend depends on the qualitative state of its members – the separate states (Putzel, 2005, p. 13).
A New and perspective form of global governance differing from the traditional one, which assumes the presence of certain centers of sovereign political authority, is the international regimes. An international regime is implicit or obvious principles, norms, rules, and procedures of decision-making, in the occasion of which in the given sphere of international relations the consent is supposed (Krasner, 1983, p. 2). In the international agreements, according to which this or that international regime is established, as a rule, participate international organizations, governmental bodies, and nongovernmental institutions. These structures create a system of “governance without government” (Rosenau, 1992, p. 5).
The international regimes are rather a widespread phenomenon in the modern international community. They cover a wide spectrum of problems (global and regional regimes of safety, global regime of the international transport system, the regime of non-distribution of nuclear weapon, etc.), various geographical areas, and different quantities of participants. As for the membership, the number of participants of regimes varies from two-three, if it is a question of fishing in exterritorial waters, according to the international agreement on the fishery in northern areas of the Pacific ocean, up to hundred and more, as in regime of non-distribution of the nuclear weapon (Young, 1989, p. 11).
All more and more actively participate in global governance the international nongovernmental organizations, which are called “new actors”, “actors outside of the sovereignty”, “transnational forces”. The quantity of nongovernmental actors (except for corporations and companies), which members are representatives of more than two countries has increased from 832 in 1951 up to 5472 in 1996 (Held, 1999, p. 67). They realize their purposes in various ways: they put pressure upon the intergovernmental organizations, first of all on the United Nations; form public opinion respective their purposes; initiate and participate in the creation of new international regimes, the new agenda of the decision of global problems and democratization of the world. The effectiveness of the international non-governmental organizations in many respects is restrained with the absence of the status necessary for direct participation in decision-making.
Despite certain positive results and tendencies, global governance is ineffective. It is not formed as a system, and in the “post-Westphalian” context is not adequate to the realities of the world. More and more loudly and persistently we hear opinions about the necessity of serious reform of the United Nations, enough disputable roles of World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank in the world market, about arising of “transnational civil society” as a new form of discussion of global and regional problems.
Now in political science, there are various concepts on the possible organization of more effective global governance. So, it is possible to observe four different approaches. First, the formation of a unified “world government” using which ostensibly it is possible to make authority legitimate, and decision-making – accountable and transparent. But this point of view now does not receive great support in political or scientific circles. The main objection here is that at such a big variety of political systems, traditions, levels of economic development it looks simply unreal. Among scientists and politicians more popular is the second approach to the formation of global governance. It consists of reform of the existing system of the United Nations, consisting in the increase of legitimacy and efficiency of Security Council of the United Nations, basically due to increasing in quantity of constant (up to 6) members and changeable (up to 3 up to 9) members. The third concept is the political management of global development, which is carried out by a conglomerate of great world powers, or a super-state.
The given approach to prospects of global governance is rejected by many known scientists. So, Joseph Nye in the book “Paradoxes of the American power: Why the unique world super-state cannot operate alone”, which has been published in 2002, emphasizes that in the modern world it is necessary to consider the purpose, interests, and activity of other actors (Nye, 2002). Indeed the global leadership of the USA as a “superpower” can be successful only in presence of consent and alliance with other states. At last, the fourth approach, the most probable and perspective, is corporate global governance, which is carried out by collective efforts of the intergovernmental organizations, transnational corporations, international nongovernmental organizations, etc.
Globalization renders inconsistent influence on the development of democratic institutes. On the one hand, great information transparency of the world, imperatives of decentralization, and market competitiveness accelerate the distribution of democratic values and institutes, the number of formally democratic states on the planet grows. On the other hand, it turns out that democracy and market liberalism taken do not create states reliable and steady to challenges of globalization. For example, democratic Philippines are less adapted for realities of the modern world, than quasi-democratic “Asian tigers”.
So, there is a new problem: guaranteeing (provision) of democracy, which is organizationally issued within the frameworks of the separate states, at the creation of a system of global governance. Taking into consideration the close connection between internal sovereignty and democracy, globalization, which reducing this sovereignty, can promote the weakening of legitimation of democratic institutes within the limits of the separate state. In the world transnational corporations and non-governmental organizations, which governance is not formed using traditional democratic procedures, become more and more influential.
At last, globalization is accompanied by accumulation of the information on citizens, their behavior, and also the creation of electronic databases about their telemetric parameters, the structure of DNA, prints of fingers, etc. So it is obvious that opportunities for intervention in the private life of citizens and even for the global control over the behavior of the public sharply increase. It is in contradiction with several basic democratic principles and will demand additional measures on the protection of the sphere of private life.
In a book written by Held and other “Global transformations” are offered three mutually-crossed political projects on regulation and democratization of modern globalization: liberal internationalism, radical republicanism, and cosmopolitan democracy, which in overview outline prospects of the evolution of the global governance. According to liberal internationalism, people (nation) should govern through governments, responsible international organizations, and international regimes. If the liberal internationalism emphasizes the necessity of reforming of these named structures of global governance, the radical project calls to create self-governing communities as alternatives to the interstate organizations using which people can supervise own life. According to the third project, modern forms of authority should be democratically regulated, i.e. people should have access to various political communities and be their members. The democratic political community will turn to such a world, which citizens will have citizenship of many countries.
Prospects of the further political development of modern democracies, taken from the standpoint of tendencies of globalization, look rather painfully: the intra-global political system, which is forming today, does not comprise any particles of democratic authority. Here is developed special “culture of governance”, which over time can become the most despotic authority in the history of mankind. At the level of global society, which is forming today, there are no analogs of even those not numerous and weak democratic institutes, which are inherent in the national state. It is possible to note that in the international and interstate relations of last time it is observed steady increase of tendencies of authoritarianism and hierarchism, and the most obvious model of the future organization of the world acts as the “oligarchy” of the USA. According to Zygmunt Bauman, today we do not see in historical prospect anything even a little bit reminding global democracy. Thus it is necessary to consider that fact those external interstate relations more and more turn into internal, intra-global ones.
Summary
The analysis of tendencies of the evolution of global governance let us make the conclusion that in the near-term outlook it will be gradually formed and improved multilevel, poly-central global governance. It is quite probable creation of representative structures on a global scale, each of which will resist to concrete challenges of modern globalization. Reforms and changes of reference points of the basic actors of global governance will be realized as contradictions, crises, conflicts accompanying current structural changes will be shown. Reality will irreversibly encourage the search of mechanisms of the decision of vital problems. Formation and realization of a new paradigm can be only the result of the daily practice activities of all mankind. And for this purpose, it is required to bring up a spirit of cooperation based on principles of coordination, transparency, and accountability. There is no other alternative, except to work together and apply collective authority with the purpose to construct a more perfect (democratic) world.
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