in the economic dimension.

While there are still those who believe that nation-states are
still relevant in the globalization context. Nation-states are still governing agencies and
political units that affect and shape power relations even in the international or global
arenas. As the representative of its people, nations-states are called to practice…
the power to determine economic, social and environmental objects for national
development and the capacity to ensure that transnational corporations meet these
priorities and to set the stage for new forms of participatory democracy whereby the
citizens become effectively involved in international policymaking on trade,
investment, and finance (Cavanagh and Mander, 2004 as cited in Schattle, 2014:
936).

The nation-states of the world are here to stay and play key roles in the shaping of
globalization. This manifests in the formation of regional partnerships with neighboring
countries (e.g. the Philippines in the ASEAN); membership, and active participation in
international organizations and global governing bodies like the United Nations;
adherence to universal norms and values; and establishment of transnational networks
among others.
Global politics and interstate conditions have their fair share of positive and
negative implications and results, yet these do not stop nation-states in increasing the
interconnectivity and interrelationship to one another as the forces of globalization bind
them together. The challenge remains as to how global policies created and lobbied by
interstate agencies with a high participatory mandate will create a more just
globalization process in all its economic, political, and cultural aspects.

TOPIC 3: CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Internationalism ideals and interstate relations reconstruct the world into a

borderless one, where ideas, influence, power relations, institutional affairs, and impacts
on human material conditions meet in complex and intersecting contexts. As nation-
states grew closer to one another in terms of economic, political, and cultural practices,
among others, the global structure of this interconnectivity and interrelationship is
confronted with the challenge to maintain interstate harmony—therefore, global
harmony—amid individual nation-state interests. This challenge calls for the formation of
a global governance body.
Today, the presence of International Organizations (IOs) adheres to the ideals and
pragmatics of global governance, where various intersecting processes that create an
essence of world order through the creation, recognition, and practice of global norms
(Claudio & Abinales, 2018: 39).

Global Governance. Image from https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/a0783886e96c75a90d351d6faf5a45c1.jpg

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GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
DEFINITION
There is no global government yet international transactions work in order,
stability, and predictability. This poses the question, “how is the world governed even in
the absence of a world government?” For Wiess and Thakur (2014), the answer to the
question lies in global governance. They defined global governance as “the sum of laws,
norms, policies, and institutions that define, constitute and mediate trans-border
relations between states, cultures, citizens, intergovernmental and non-governmental
organizations and the market—the wielders and the objects of exercise of the
international public power” (Weiss and Thakur, 2014: 535).
Global governance is further characterized by Weiss & Thakur (2014):
a. An authority that is constantly shifting and the patchwork of institutional elements
varies by sector.
b. All actors depend upon multilateralism and the underwriting of regularity and
public goods in the international system.
c. If the actors of global governance are to remain viable, international organizations
and the values of multilateralism embedded in them must be reconstituted in line
with 21st-century principles of governance and legitimacy.
d. Global governance actors must be capable of addressing contemporary
challenges effectively.
e. Global governance is a rules-based order without government.
f. Global governance is not a supplement but rather a kind of surrogate for authority
and enforcement for the contemporary world.
g. The emergence of global governance roots from (1) the growing recognition of
problems that defy solutions by a single state; (2) the growth in the numbers and
importance of non-state actors (civil society and market).
h. The United Nations (UN) is both a global governance actor and site.
i. “Good” global governance implies an optimal partnership between the state,
regional, and global levels of actors and between state, intergovernmental, and
nongovernmental categories of actors.

SOURCES OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE (Claudio & Abinales, 2018):

1. States sign treaties and form organizations to help in the process of drafting and
legislating public international law (i.e. international rules that govern interactions
between states). E.g. peace treaties.
2. International Non-government Organizations (NGOs), though they do not have
formal state power, can influence government or states to behave in a certain
way. E.g. WHO, an international organization under the UN, played a key role in
lobbying guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION
International Organizations (IOs) make a big part of global governance.
International Organizations refer to “international intergovernmental organizations or
groups that are primarily made up of member-states” (Claudio & Abinales, 2018: 40).
United Nations or institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World
Bank are usually categorized and called International Organizations (IOs). International
organizations are not a mere amalgamation of various state interests, but IOs can take on
lives of their own—an institution created by man yet can govern the order and
intersecting aspects of human relations and conditions.

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POWERS OF IOs (listed by Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore in Claudio &
Abinales, 2018: 41)
1. Power of classification – IOs can invent and apply categories, they create powerful
global standards. E.g. they can define what poverty means and through that,
nation-states can determine who the poor in their demographic are.
2. Power to fix meanings – a broader function related to the power of classification;
the need to address here is for concepts such as “development” to be well-
defined. IOs are viewed as legitimate sources of information by states,
organizations, and individuals. The meaning they create have effects on policies.
E.g. if an IO defined what it means when you say development, then states will
pattern its policies to achieve the kind of development defined by IOs.
3. Power to diffuse norms – IOs can define and/or forward accepted codes of
conduct or behavior. IOs also spread ideas across the world, thereby establishing
global standards. E.g. no discrimination on employment and occupation.
Norms: accepted codes of conduct that may not be strict law, but produce
regularities in behavior.
With these powers, IOs can be sources of great good and great harm (Claudio & Abinales,
2018: 41). As IOs embody global governance, in addition to the powers they have, the
challenge for the actors that comprise these IOs is to uphold fairness in their blanket
deliberations, policies, and actions that unevenly affect nation-states engaged in their
multilateral bureaucracy and forum. Weiss & Thakur (2014) notes that the life and
survival of IOs rest on two factors: (1) the capacity to change and adapt; (2) the quality of
their governance. The capacity to adapt in an ever-changing international condition and
to uphold a premium quality in their leadership and practice of governance.
THE UNITED NATIONS
When we talk about international organizations and
when we try to identify the realization of the definition
of global governance in our objective reality, the
United Nations (UN) takes the center stage. Thakur
(2011) even dubbed the UN as “both a global
governance actor and site” (as cited in Weiss & Thakur,
2014: 535). The United Nations is an international
organization that is taking the lead in facilitating global
dialogue to uphold the global harmony among nation-
states and strengthen their interconnectivity and
interrelationship (Schattle, 2014: 938). The existence United Nations’ emblem. Image from
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co
of the UN renders important for global governance in a mmons/thumb/e/ee/UN_emblem_blue.svg
world of nation-states. Weiss and Thakur (2014) notes, /906px-UN_emblem_blue.svg.png
“the world body remains as the embodiment of the
international community of states, the focus of international expectations, and the locus
of collective action as the symbol of an imagined and constructed community of
strangers”.
CHARACTERIZING THE UN:
1. To date, there are 193 sovereign member-states. The Philippines is a member of
the UN. Filipino diplomat Carlos P. Romulo was elected General Assembly
President from 1949-1950 (Claudio & Abinales, 2014: 42).

2. Six main organs of the UN:

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 The United Nation’s Organizational Chart. Image from Google Image.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY (GA): the main deliberative, policymaking, and

representative organ of the UN. All 193 member-states of the UN are represented
in the GA—the only UN body with universal representation. Decisions on
important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new
members, and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority of the General
Assembly. The General Assembly, each year, elects a GA President to serve a one-
year term of office.
SECURITY COUNCIL (SC): the primary responsibility is on the maintenance of
international peace and security. It has 15 member-states, 5 permanent with veto
power (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and 10
non-permanent members. The Security Council takes the lead in determining the
existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression. SC’s presidency is rotational
(changes every month).
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL: the principal body for coordination, policy
review, policy dialogue and recommendations on economic, social, and
environmental issues, as well as the implementation of internationally agreed
development goals. It has 54 Members, elected by the General Assembly for
overlapping three-year terms. It is the United Nations’ central platform for
reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development.
TRUSTEESHIP COUNCIL: as established in 1945 by the UN Charter, under Chapter
XIII, to provide international supervision for 11 Trust Territories that had been
placed under the administration of 7 member-states, and ensure that adequate
steps were taken to prepare the Territories for self-government and
independence.
INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE: the principal judicial organ of the UN. The
Court’s role is to settle, following international law, legal disputes submitted to it
by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by
authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.

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 SECRETARIAT: comprises the Secretary-General and tens of thousands of
international UN staff members who carry out the day-to-day work of the UN as
mandated by the General Assembly and the Organization's other principal organs.
3. The UN has significant roles in preventing and managing conflicts, championing
human rights and international humanitarian law, liberating the colonized,
empowering women, educating children, housing the refugees, liberating the
colonized, and feeding the hungry among other (Weiss & Thakur, 2014: 535).

4. The UN provides and manages the framework for bringing together the world’s
leaders to tackle the pressing problems of the day for the survival, development,
and welfare of all peoples, everywhere (Weiss & Thakur, 2014: 538).

LIMITATIONS OF THE UNITED NATIONS (Schattle, 2014):

1. The UN has never transcended the state's system and instead operates mainly as
a forum for states to air their differences and try to resolve them.
2. The UN represents the world’s people based on their national membership and
not on the basis of their humanity. I.e. national membership to a particular nation-
state is the identity of an individual that is regarded and not on the basic yet deeper
level that the individual is a human being.
3. The UN has been unable to prevent many atrocities and genocides around the
world during its history. I.e. in the presence of global policies, the UN is still unable
to mediate and put an end to atrocities because the perpetrators of these are
members of the UN themselves.
GAPS IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
Five main gaps confront the UN since its foundation, namely, knowledge gaps,
normative gaps, policy gaps, institutional gaps, and compliance gaps. Weiss and Thakur
(2014) elaborated ways on how to identify, diagnose, and fill the gaps through managing
knowledge, developing norms, promulgating recommendations, and institutionalizing
ideas.

MANAGING KNOWLEDGE
1. Recognize the existence of the problem that goes beyond the capacity of any
state.
2. Collect solid data about the nature of the problem, and understand its causes
to explain the problem.
The UN should be a knowledge-based and knowledge management organization. UN
should use its convening capacity and mobilizing power to help funnel knowledge
from outside and to ensure its discussion and dissemination among governments.

DEVELOPING NORMS
Once a problem has been identified and diagnosed, the UN helps to solidify a new
norm of behavior through summit conferences, and international panels.
From knowledge to norms: when a problem serious enough warrants attention from
international policy community, new norms need to be articulated, disseminated, and
institutionalized.
International norms can be transmitted down into national politics and incorporated
into domestic laws or into the policy preferences of political leaders through elite
learning.
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 FORMULATING RECOMMENDATIONS
As new problems emerge and new norms arise, they highlight gaps in policy that also
need attention.
The policy stage refers to the statement of principles and actions that an organization
is likely to take in the event of particular contingencies.
The UN’s ability to convene and consult widely plays an enormous part in its ability to
formulate recommendations for specific policies, institutional arrangements, and
regimes.

INSTITUTIONALIZING IDEAS
Virtually every problem has several global institutions working on significant aspects
of solution.
Institutions can facilitate problem solving even though they do not possess any
coercive powers.
Globalization has led to more practice in international cooperation but has introduced
additional layers of complexity and conflict potential. The creation of institutions
requires the knowledge, normative and policy-making gaps have been at least partially
filled.
Once knowledge has been acquired, norms articulated and policies formulated, an
existing institution can oversee their implementation and monitoring.
Steps in addressing the gaps in global governance (Weiss & Thakur, 2014)

As the symbol of global governance, the United Nations is not a perfect

international organization. However flawed and limited the UN is, no one can discount
how it mediates inter-state relations and how it influences definitions, policies, state
actions, and the social, economic, political, and cultural discourses at the international
level. In the end, global governance has transcended from a strict hierarchy of
international action involving nation-states to global efforts that involve the dynamics
and participation of both nation-states and non-nation-states actors. In the end, the
actors, arenas, and architecture of global governance are continually evolving (Weiss &
Thakur, 2014: 550).

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
More on contemporary global governance through the United Nations:
• How Does The UN Work? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlmYtJiUK00)
• The United Nations Is Created | Flashback | History
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnQESSTouNU)
• How Powerful Is The United Nations?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH6Y2jUaLvI)
• FAO Policy Series: Global Governance
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUWiW8RqWSM)

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 ASSESSMENT

THINKPIECE:
As we have familiarized ourselves with the mandate and institutional nature
of the United Nations, let’s take a closer look at its role in the world and in the
country. In your paper,
1. explore the importance of the United Nations for the global interstate
system, why do we need such international organization; and
2. cite three (3) instances where the United Nations has helped,
influenced, and/or affected the Philippines in any way (be it in policy
making, human rights, calamities and disasters, and diplomacy).
Provide necessary details of each instance.
Discuss your points clearly. Don’t forget to cite your sources, use APA citation
style.
Do not copy-paste from the internet. You can read references (like articles)
but make sure to write your own paper. Refer to the rubrics below, this is how
I will grade your paper.
Format: 500 words maximum. Times New Roman. 12 font size. Single-space.
In short bond paper (8.5 x 11 in. paper size).

ASSESSMENT RUBRICS:
Format: 15%
Citation and ethical integrity: 20%
Sense and clarity of arguments, data, information, and points: 50%
Writing technicalities (narrative, grammar): 15%

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