Global Governance In Question

Introduction to global governance -- a key aspect of globalisation studies -- presenting a critical approach.

Introduction to global governance -- a key aspect of globalisation studies -- presenting a critical approach.

Intellectual Property in Global Governance critically examines the evolution of international intellectual property law-making from the build up to the TRIPS Agreement, through the TRIPS and post-TRIPS era. The book focuses on a number of thematic intellectual property issue linkages, exploring the formal and informal institutional interactions and multi-stakeholder holder intrigues implicated in the global governance of intellectual property. Using examples from bio-technology, bio-diversity, bio-prospecting and bio-piracy it investigates the shift or concentration in the focus of innovation from physical to life sciences and the ensuing changes in international intellectual property law making and their implications for intellectual property jurisprudence. It examines the character of the reception, resistance and various nuanced reactions to the changes brought about by the TRIPS Agreement, exploring the various institutional sites and patterns of such responses, as well as the escalation in the issue-linkages associated with the concept and impact of intellectual property law. Drawing upon multiple methodological approaches including law and legal theory; regime theory, globalization and global governance Chidi Oguamanam explores the intellectual property dynamics in the "Global Knowledge Economy" focusing on digitization and information revolution phenomenon and the concept of a post-industrial society. The book articulates an agenda for global governance of intellectual property law in the 21st century and speculates on the future of intellectual property in North-South relations.

Like many buzzwords, "global governance" is poorly understood. In contrast to most mainstream accounts, this book examines global economic governance as an integral moment of contemporary capitalism. Susanne Soederberg presents a critical insight into its real nature and the interests that it serves. This book begins by asking what has not been discussed in the mainstream debates--and why. Soederberg explores neglected issues including transnational debt and the coercive nature of US aid to "failed states." Soederberg argues that mainstream understandings fail to engage with the wider contradictions that characterize global capitalism. In consequence, there is no explanation of the changing nature of American empire and capitalist power. Furthermore, Soederberg maintains that global governance acts to normalize increasingly austere forms of capitalist expansion.

The world currently faces a number of challenges that no single country can solve. Whether it is managing a crisis-prone global economy, maintaining peace and stability, or trying to do something about climate change, there are some problems that necessitate collective action on the part of states and other actors. Global governance would seem functionally necessary and normatively desirable, but it is proving increasingly difficult to provide. This accessible introduction to, and analysis of, contemporary global governance explains what it is and the obstacles to its realization. Paying particular attention to the possible decline of American influence and the rise of China and a number of other actors, Mark Beeson explains why cooperation is proving difficult, despite its obvious need and desirability. This is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying global governance or international organizations, and is also important reading for those working on political economy, international development and globalization.

‘Global governance’ has become a key concept in the contemporary study of international politics, yet what the term means and how it works remains in question. Governing the World: Cases in Global Governance takes an alternative approach to understanding the concept by exploring how global governance works in practice through a set of case studies on both classical issues of international relations such as security, labour and trade, and more contemporary concerns such as the environment, international development, and governing the internet. The book explores the processes, practice and politics of global governance by taking a broad look at issues of human rights governance and focusing on detailed aspects of a topic such as torture and rendition to help explain how governance does, or does not, work to students and researchers of international politics alike. Bringing together a diverse and international group of scholars, each chapter responds to a set of questions as to what is being governed, how and who by and offers issue-specific case studies and recommended reading to develop a full understanding of the issue explored and what it means for global governance.

Two of the dominant themes of discussion in international relations scholarship over the last decade have been global governance and rising powers. Underlying both discussions are profound ethical questions about how the world should be ordered, who is responsible for addressing global problems, how change can be managed, and how global governance can be made to work for peoples in developing as well as developed states. Yet, these are often not addressed or only briefly mentioned as ethical dilemmas by commentators. This book seeks to ask critical and profound questions about what relative shifts in power among states might mean for the ethics and practice of global governance. Three key questions are addressed throughout the volume: Who is rising and how? How does this impact on global governance? What are the implications of these developments for global ethics? Through these questions, some of the key academics in the field explore how far debates over global ethics are really between competing visions of how international society should be governed, as opposed to tensions within the same broad paradigm. By examining how governance works in practice across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, the contributors to this volume seek to critique the way global governance discourse masks the exercise of power by elites and states, both developed and rising. This work will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the future of international relations and global governance.

Globalization needs effective global governance. The important question of whether this governance can also become democratic is, however, the subject of a political and academic debate that began only recently. This multidisciplinary book aims to move this conversation forward by drawing insights from international relations, political theory, international law and international political economy. Focusing on global environmental, economic, security and human rights governance, it sheds new light on the democratic deficit of existing global governance structures, and proposes a number of tools to overcome it.