The course aims to introduce the key assumptions of the international relations theory as a part of social science and as an analytic tool, focusing on the problems of war and peace, foreign policy decision-making, etc. The course combines historic approach and analysis of the modern political problems. The historic part shows the evolution of the international relations theory from being a part of political philosophy to its emergence as a special branch of political science, which is essential to understand the key ideas of the IR science. The lectures also include broad outline of the modern concepts and debates in the context of the contemporary political problems, such as rise of China and other emerging powers, threat of terrorism, US-Russia confrontation, etc. The lectures of the two outstanding Russian scholars and political analysts – Timofey Bordachev and Dmitry Suslov - cover such fields as the problems of international security and conflict resolution, international economic relations, foreign policy decision-making, global governance, the role of power in the IR.
What is global governance
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En provenance du cours de National Research University Higher School of Economics
Understanding International Relations Theory
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
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Global governance
Is it possible to establish a world government? And will it lead to "eternal peace"? These questions are essential to understand the key patterns and contradictions, which drive the modern international politics.
Rencontrer les enseignants
Timofei BordachevAssociate professor
Department of international relations
Dmitrii SuslovSenior Lecturer
Department of international relations, HSE
Hello. Today we will talk about a very complex partly contested,
but nevertheless extremely important topic which is global governance.
What is global governance?
Global governance in a very general understanding is
collective management of common transnational or global problems,
which are those problems that were created,
or exacerbated by globalization,
and the problems which cannot be managed at the level of the nation state,
by the nation state.
So, global governance is inseparable from globalization.
And management of these problems is provided through a very highly complicated, flexible,
and loose systems of rules, institutions and processes,
and involving huge number of both states and non-state actors.
So, just to summarize this very general understanding of global governance,
it is the management of problems which are created by globalization,
management of the problems through rules,
institutions and processes, and management
which involves both state and non-state actors.
What kind of problems does global governance deals with?
What are these problems which are created,
or exacerbated by globalization?
Here is their example.
They are global climate change and pollution of the environment,
poverty and management over economic development,
deficit of fresh water in the world,
financial instability and management of financial markets,
global economic crisis and recessions,
management of global trade and investment,
global energy markets and the instability of global energy, global migrations,
pandemics such as the Ebola virus,
transnational terrorism, transnational organized crime,
and so on and so forth.
And indeed some of those problems are direct products of globalization,
such as transnational terrorism,
proliferation of extremist ideas and ideology,
instability of global financial markets,
global economic crisis, and so on and so forth.
These problems could not simply exist,
be in the era before globalization,
they were created by globalization.
It is globalization who make them possible.
The other problems that I've mentioned,
have different origin, but they become real problems of IR,
of international relations and security in conditions of globalization such as;
poverty, starvation, or even civil,
regional, and local wars.
Indeed before globalization, poverty for instance,
or civil wars had low importance except for those who were directly involved in them,
or impacted by them.
Starvation in Africa, poverty in Latin America, civil wars,
and local wars in some remote lands,
it didn't really bother the others, especially great powers.
But now, in conditions of globalization these same phenomena can have,
and do have very dangerous repercussions for everyone,
for everyone in the world including most powerful nations.
Even most powerful nations cannot resist those trends,
and these threats and challenges can result for instance in pandemics,
which conditions over intense transborder travel can reach other continents in hours.
These problems can result in the spread of political extremism,
which can in its own term result in
Islamic terrorism including the so-called catastrophic terrorism,
which is the terrorism with the use of nuclear weapons,
or weapons of mass destruction, and so on and so forth.
Moreover, these problems are
interconnected both geographically and across the problem areas.
For instance, the geographical interconnectedness is this,
that extremism in one area spills over into extremism in the other areas.
The rapid spread of Arab Spring,
and the rise of Islamist extremism in
the Western European countries as a result of the existence of ISIS,
Islamic State thousands of miles away,
is a good illustration of this phenomena.
People from Europe go to fight in Iraq and Syria at the side of Islamic State,
and then they return home,
and spread the same ideology in the streets of Paris,
or London, or Moscow.
But problems are also interconnected across problem areas.
For instance, poverty which is
the essential economic problem could result in terrorism and Islamic extremism.
Water deficit and conditions of globalization can result in regional conflicts,
which in their turn also result in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
terrorism, political extremism, and so on.
Once again, Arab Spring can be a very vivid example of
this interconnectedness with one of the reasons for instance,
of the Arab Spring was hot summer of the year 2010.
Which in its turn is the result of the climate change,
and this climate change resulted in the collapse of states of
the non-monarchical Arab States in
the Middle East and triggered the instability of the Arab Spring.
And as these problems have become common, or global,
or transnational in conditions of globalization,
they can no longer be tolerated and require collective action to be managed.
What is common to all those problems that I have enumerated before, or mentioned before,
is that they can not be dealt with,
they cannot be managed at the national level by individual states acting alone.
No state acting alone can resolve
the turbulence of global economy and water economic crisis.
No state acting alone can overcome terrorist challenge,
or fully protect itself from the transborder diseases.
No state, except for instance with North Korea,
cannot protect itself from the spread of dangerous ideas and extremist ideologies.
Thus, what is needed is collective action,
collective management of these problems,
and this collective management is basically global governance.
So, we can make a conclusion that global governance is only
about managing problems and issue areas related to globalization,
and the consequences, and ethics of globalization.
Global governance is not about managing
traditional problems of world economy, or international relations.
It is not about for instance,
adversarial relations among states.
It is not about regional and local conflicts as such,
and so on and so forth.
James N. Rosenau which is one of the founding fathers of global governance concept,
exemplifies this phenomenon in
a phrase which is that we are living in, "A bifurcated world."
Right. A bifurcated world of global governance
co-existing with the world of traditional international relations.
So, we leave in a bifurcated world meaning that we leave
both in the world of states and international relations,
where powers compete, promote interest,
fight for power and prestige,
and so on and so forth,
and traditional international relations and global politics takes place.
And there is the world of all actors,
not just states, but also non-state actors and global governance.
And this world of global governance belongs to management of globalization,
and to globalization as such,
and is about management of the problems of globalization.
Just to make it very vivid for instance,
the traditional great power competition between
Saudi Arabia and Iran is not about global governance.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not about global governance.
The contradictions between Russia and NATO,
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
or the problems of arms control between Russia and
the United States of America are not about global governance.
They are traditional problems of international relations,
whereas climate change, a transnational terrorism,
transnational extremist ideology, water deficit,
and other problems that I have enumerated before,
they are about global governance.
And of course, we also need to keep in mind that
some repercussions of the traditional conflicts and problems of international relations,
can become problems of globalization.
The problems which are created and
strengthened by globalization such as; transnational terrorism,
political radicalization, transnational criminal network,
they do fit into the realm of global governance.
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