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Global governance in crisis? Fragmentation, risk and world order

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Abstract

This paper examines some of the similarities between finance and security from a global governance perspective. We argue that finance and security share a number of similar properties in terms of prevailing arrangements at the level of global governance, and also a number of problems which we conceptualize as problems of governance capacity. Such similarities, we argue, are not unique to these domains but actually tell us something about the character of global governance as a whole. In so doing, we argue that the evolution in thinking about governance challenges and the institutional solutions required to meet them further underscores an already pernicious dynamic at work in global governance.

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Notes

  1. As Tsingou (2010, p. 623) has pointed out, the IMF has only been a reluctant participant in anti-money-laundering efforts, often simply ‘piggy-backing’ money laundering issues on top of their other efforts.

  2. As Biersteker and Eckert (2008, p. 252) document, proposals to put together a new institution within the US system to specifically target terrorist finance have been disregarded both by the G8 and by the UN Secretary General.

  3. See Diprose et al (2008); Debrix and Lacy (2009, pp. 4–5). As Aradau et al (2008) have reminded us, the concept of risk within the study of international security emerged at the end of the Cold War when major states as well as international organizations such as NATO and the UN increasingly referred to the collective security environment in terms of risks where they had once referred to dangers and threats.

  4. Rather than a simple set of institutions or rather just a system of institutions, both security and finance are characterized by webs of institutions, operating much like the ‘regime complex’ notion increasingly foregrounding discussions of the changing global order (see Raustiala and Victor, 2004).

  5. In subsequent decades it expanded to focus on international financial cooperation among central bankers, and to conduct research and disseminate monetary policy ideas.

  6. For example, strong confidence in banks’ own internal risk assessments was a cornerstone of both the Federal Reserve in the US and the Financial Services Authority in the UK, and this confidence was often translated into the global regulatory standards for banking in the Basel II Capital Accord.

  7. See Held and Young 2011.

  8. For a useful review, see Borio and Disyatat, 2011. Their argument, a variation on a common theme, is that the excess elasticity of the international financial system failed to restrain the build-up of unsustainable credit and asset price booms.

  9. Strauss-Kahn quoted in IFC Review (2011)

  10. See, for example, the early critique in Kaldor (1982).

  11. According to data for 2008, total global spending on multilateral operations such as peacekeeping forces was just $8.2 billion, or 0.56 per cent of total global military expenditures (SIPRI, 2009).

  12. On the consequences of US multilateralism, and it's dynamic relationship with the decline of US soft power in international affairs, see Cox and Quinn (2008, p. 204–213) and Slaughter and Hale (2008, pp. 176–186).

  13. Learning has been slow but now some of the world's most senior military figures have taken up the challenge and are changing the way warfare is being conceived. For example, see Petraeus (2010)

  14. The UNDP Human Development Report's initial articulation of human security included two distinct elements: ‘1) Safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression. 2) Protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life – whether in jobs, in homes or in communities’: that is freedom from want and freedom from fear (see UNDP, 1994 and Alkire, 2003 for reference).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Government and International Affairs, University College, Durham University, The Castle, Durham, DH1 3TU, UK

    David Held

  2. Department of Political Science, 200 Hicks Way, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, 01003, MA, USA

    Kevin Young

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Held, D., Young, K. Global governance in crisis? Fragmentation, risk and world order. Int Polit 50, 309–332 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2013.9

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