Is Global Governance Unravelling? The Revolt Against Liberal Globalisation

Ch. 2. P. 15–34.

Pabst A.

The system of global governance rests on the liberal world order at the heart of international politics since the end of World War II and especially since 1989—notably the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions. But the liberal model of globalisation and Western-dominated multilateral organisations are increasingly at odds with non-liberal conceptions of multipolarity and civilisational diversity of non-Western powers. While the institutions of global governance will likely endure, the five fundamental forces of capitalism, statism, technology, liberalism and globalisation have hollowed out the political culture and the substantive values on which it depends.

Just as the liberal world order is in reality illiberal and tends towards disorder, so too global governance is less a worldwide system of cooperation to address transnational problems than it is an arrangement that suits the interests of Western ‘great powers’. Moreover, the dominant system of global governance will not resolve the pressing problems of economic injustice, social dislocation and ecological devastation until it tames the five forces and embeds them in relationships and institutions that can democratise and domesticate them. The growing backlash against neo-liberal globalisation in the West and elsewhere highlights the need for constructive alternatives to the liberal world order.

Keywords: global governance

In book

Global Governance in Transformation Challenges for International Cooperation

Springer, 2020.