21st Century Meets the United Nations:

Confronting the Challenges of

Governance
By: Thomas G. Weiss and Ramesh
Thakur
REPORTERS:
ESTRADA, JONETSON
TUDLONG, LIND-SAY
INTRODUCTION
 There is no global government.
 The answer lies in GLOBAL GOVERNANCE that is the sum of the laws, norms, policies, and
institutions that define, constitute cross-border relationships between states, cultures, citizens,
intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and markets and mediates the exercise of
international public institutions.
 There is a “crazy quilt” of authority that is constantly shifting and the patchwork of institutional
elements varies by sector. (James Rosenau, 1999)
 UN is both a global governance actor and site.(Ramesh Thakur,2011)
 The UN record since 1945 demonstrates an under-appreciated capacity for policy innovation,
institutional adaptation and organizational learning.
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE: THE IDEA

 Governance is as purposeful systems of rules or norms that ensure order beyond what occurs
naturally.
 Global governance is a rule-based order without government.
 Since the 19th century, efforts to solve the problem beyond state borders are antecedents of
global governance, the birth of expressions reflects an intriguing marriage between academic
and policy concerns in the 1990s.
UNFINISHED JOURNEY
 Global governance remains an unfinished journey because we are struggling to find our way and
are nowhere near finding a satisfactory destination.
 IGO’s(Intergovernmental Organization)seem more marginal at exactly
 Depending on the issue area, geographic location and timing, there are vast disparities in power
and influence among states, IGOs, multinational corporations and international NGOs.
Coordination and cooperation are not increasingly complex but also problematic as a result of the
number of actors and the existence of decentralized and informal, largely self-regulatory
groupings.
 We certainly are not complacent about what is at stake and are not satisfied that global
governance can accomplish what a world government could.
 Even without a world government, there is much room for
more initiatives from governments and groupings in power and
better incentives and initiatives from secretariats and civil
society. In short, better mobilization and use of the three United
Nations in better government for the planet.
GLOBALIZATION
 Globalization is a process of increased interconnectivity throughout the world.
 The primary dimension of globalization concerns the expansion of economic activities across
borders, which has produced increasing interdependence through the growing volume and
variety of cross-border flows in finance, investment, and goods and services, the rapid and
widespread diffusion of technology.
 Other dimensions include the international movement of ideas, information, legal systems,
organizations and people as well as cultural exchanges.
Some Clarifications on Globalization
 Even in this age of globalization, the movement of people is still restricted and strictly regulated,
even more so in the aftermath of 9/11.
 Growing economic interdependence through the growing is highly asymmetrical: the benefits of
linking and the costs of delinking are not equally distributed among partners.
 Compared to the post war period, the average rate of world growth has steadily slowed from 3.5%
per capita per annum in 1960s to 2.1%, 1.3 and 1.0%percent in the 1970s,1980s and 1990s.
 There has been a growing divergence in income levels between countries and peoples and widening
inequality among and within nations.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

 Global governance overlaps with the rise of formal international organizations, which
began in the mid-19th century.
 In 19th century, international institutions sprouted their roots as sovereign states made
new arrangements for the increased interactions brought by the Industrial Revolution.
 3 major developments during 19th century:
1.Concert system multilateral
2. The Hague System
3. Creation of Public International Unions
 The United Nations cannot displace the responsibility of local, state, and national
governments, but it can and should be the focus of multilateral diplomacy and collective
action to solve problems shared in common by many countries.
 Good global governance implies not exclusive policy jurisdiction but an optimal
partnerships between the state, intergovernmental, non-governmental actors operating at
the national, regional and global levels.
 Many problems are global in reach but currently are defined as international scope that
is requiring cooperation from states and units that are incorporated in the states.
IDENTIFYING AND DIAGNOSING
PROBLEMS
 The United Nations plays four essential roles in its intellectual capacity of
identifying and diagnosing problems and thereby filling gaps:managing
knowledge, developing norms, promulgating recommendations and
institutionalizing ideas.
FOUR ESSENTIAL ROLES IN
IDENTIFYING AND DIAGNOSING
PROBLEMS
1.MANAGING KNOWLEDGE

 There are often is little or no consensus about the nature, causes, gravity, and magnitude of a
particular problem neither about its metrics nor theory and until this item are properly
defined, contestation is bound in inhibit or even empede the formulation of normative, policy,
and institutional remedies.
 Filling the knowledge gap is an important first step along the path of addressing other gaps in
global governance. If we can recognize a problem and agree on its approximate dimensions,
we can begin taking steps to solve it.
 One underappreciated advantage of the United Nations is its capacity to convene groups and
to mobilize power to help funnel knowledge from outside and ensure that is discussed and
disseminated among governments. UN sponsored world conferences, summits of head of
government, blue-ribbon commissions and panels have been used to frame issues, outline
choices and making decisions.
2.DEVELOPING NORMS
 Norms can be defined ethically to a pattern of behavior that should be followed in
accordance with a given value system that is the morale code of a society, a generally
accepted standard of proper behavior.
 Norms matter because ordinary citizens and politicians and officials care about what others
think of them.
 Once a threat or problem is being identified and diagnosed, United Nations helps to solidify
a new norm of behavior, often through the summit conferences and international panels and
commissions.
 The most effective form of behavior regulation is for complete convergence between rules
and norms, for example with regard to murder. Conversely, regulating behavior is most
problematic when there is near-total dissonance in cases where a practice has been outlawed
without a change in the underlying societal norms.
 The result is a total disconnect in which the law is continually flouted. This weakens the
rule of law.
 The reason for the dissonance lies primarily in different moral frame-works of social
behavior. At the international level, one of the most likely arenas for normative dissonance
is that of human rights, precisely because alternative moral frameworks exist that define
and locate the right and responsibilities of individuals, communities, and state vis-à-vis one
another.
3.FORMULATING RECOMMENDATIONS
 Once norms begin to change and become widespread, next step is to formulate a range of
possibilities about how a government and their citizens and IGO’s can change behavior.
 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 that
follow from identifying and diagnosing a problem and developing a norm desirable changes in
behavior and approach by states .
 This is a function that is quintessentially in the job descriptions not only of member states but
also the staff of international secretariats, who are often complemented by trusted consultants,
NGOs and expert groups. The discussion and dissemination often occur in public forums and
global conferences.
 In February 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan established the Panel of
Eminent Persons on United Nations Relations with Civil Society, chaired by
Brazil’s former president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
 The panel focused on the widening democracy deficit in global governance, the
growing capacity and influence of non-state actors and the rising power of global
public opinion. Its report offered 30 concrete proposals for the evolution of the
UN's contemporary roles, including fostering multi-constituency processes,
investing more in partnerships with civil society and including civil society in
Security Council meetings.
 The
reportisespeciallypertinentindetermininghowtheworldorganiationmeetsthechalleng
es ofglobalgovernanceinthetwenty-firstcentury
 The report is especially pertinent in determining how the world organization meets the
challenges of global governance in the twenty-first century:
1. Multilateralism no longer concerns governments alone but is now multifaceted, involving
many constituencies. The UN must develop new skills to service this new way of working.
2.It must become an outward-looking or network organisation, catalyzing the relationships
needed to get strong results and not letting the traditions of its formal processes be barriers.
3. It must strengthen global governance by advocating universality, inclusion, participation and
accountability at all levels and
4. It must engage more systematically with world public opinion to become more responsive, to
help shape public attitudes and to bolster support formultilateralism.
 Many of the recommendations from the Cardoso report were implemented almost
immediately in the response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The massive relief
effort showed the UN's ability to convene and foster multi-constituency processes,
its ability to catalyse networks and its capacity to exercise global leadership.
 4.INSTITUTIONALIZING IDEAS
 Institutions provide another example of the impact of ideas. Some seven decades into the UN's history,
virtually every problem has several global institutions working on significant aspects of solutions.
Actors in world politics can and do cooperate, and they do so more often than they engage in conflict.
 Intergovernmental organisations can help to facilitate joint action by sharing information, reducing
transaction costs, providing incentives for concessions and establishing mechanisms for dispute
resolution and agreed decision-making processes. Institutions can facilitate problem solving even
though they do not possess any coercive powers.
 State policy-making processes have been internationalized and often globalized. However,
collective-action problems have not been eliminated.
 Globalization has led to more practice in international cooperation but has introduce
additional layers of complexity and conflict potential.
 The creation of institutions requires that knowledge, normative and policy-making gaps
have been at least partially filled. If they are effective, however, institutions also have
recursive effects. Once in place, they can fill gaps but also uncover new ones. For example,
an institution can gather statistical data, which can help fill the knowledge gap.
 Based on new information, new norms can develop, leading to new policies and
institutions, but then a new gap or problem can appear(or be uncovered for example,how to
put a value on the informal sector where many women in developing countries work which
then
 Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane(1993)explain that there are three causal pathways by
which ideas ultimately can affect policy: by becoming road maps that point actors in the right
direction: by affecting their choices of strategies when there is no single equilibrium and by
becoming embedded in institutions. An overview of UN history suggests that the source of
ideas to fill international institutional gaps is more likely to be governments and IGOs than
civil society.
 Institutions give extended life to an idea because they can out last the individuals who first had
it. Institutions to attack global problems require substantial financing and backing, which
makes them the kind of concrete step that can be initiated by governments as an indication that
they are taking an issue seriously.
 A policy still needs to be implemented and additional complications and short comings might
appear during implementation. The zero tolerance policy towards sexual exploitation by UN
soldiers has been in existence for sometime, for instance, yet the problem continues.
Inevitably, even with full knowledge, adequate norms and policy and operations to back them
up, some individuals or groups always cheat, challenge and defy the norms and laws. Hence,
all societies have mechanisms in place to detect violators and outlaws, subject them to trial and
punish convicted offenders and there by deter future violators. The modalities and procedures
for enforcing compliance with international norms and laws are absent for the United Nations.
Thank you for
listening!!!