Search Results

This chapter considers the place of regions within our understanding of global international society. It focuses on the relationship between the one world and the many worlds — on the one side, the one world of globalizing capitalism, of global security dynamics, of a global political system that, for many, revolves around a single hegemonic power, of global institutions and global governance, and of the drive to develop and embed a global cosmopolitan ethic; and, on the other side, the extent to which regions and the regional level of practice and of analysis have become more firmly established as important elements of the architecture of global political order; and the extent to which we are witnessing an emerging multi-regional system of international relations.

This chapter builds on the luck egalitarian ideal defended in Part II, arguing that since equality matters independently of the ideal of democracy, it potentially applies outside the confines of the (democratic) state. On my institutional luck egalitarian account, what is significant is whether there are global practices and institutions that systemically translate natural and arbitrary facts about persons into significant advantages for some and disadvantages for others. This chapter thus elaborates on the ways in which global institutions and practices turn facts that are “arbitrary from a moral point of view” and contingencies into actual social advantages and disadvantages for persons. It points out that the institutional focus prevents global luck egalitarianism from sliding into the absurdity often attributed to it, namely, that global luck egalitarianism has to take on distributive (not just humanitarian) commitments to anyone who so happens to be worse off. Distributive obligations kick in only where there is some institutional order that transforms luck into differential life prospects.

In this chapter, the theologian Hans Küng looks at the various attempts to formulate an acceptable cross‐cultural (multicultural) global ethic, which might be used both as an end in itself, and a basis for the motives and conduct of the institutions that fashion global capitalism. Such an ethic (notably that proposed by Küng himself and the Parliament of the World's Religions) is designed to identify and promote an agreed set of core human values and behavioural standards as agreed by the leading faith traditions, but might also be endorsed by non‐religious persons and institutions. Küng is aware of the difficulties in identifying and practising a universally acceptable moral code, but he considers that not only is the idea of such a code gaining increasing support, but it is also undergirding and guiding the strategies and policies of many global institutions, particularly global businesses.

This chapter examines how the state might best live up to its obligation to be accountable. It first considers the notion of one ground being embedded in another, noting that since states are embedded in other grounds, principles not tied to shared membership in states also apply to states. It then outlines a list of principles that apply to the state and looks at the notion of accountability, focusing on whether agents are accountable to those in the scope of principles toward whose realization they have duties, and what such accountability implies. The chapter proceeds by distinguishing different forms of accountability and argues that agents with duties toward realizing principles of justice are accountable to those in their scope. It concludes by rejecting the suggestion that we ought to build global democratic institutions.

Economic reform and democratization are the twin challenges for Arab countries after the Arab spring. In this, there are four separate but interrelated “transitions” that Arab states must undergo to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century: (1) an intergenerational transition toward meeting the economic needs of the large youth population in the region; (2) the modernization of the public sector; (3) the establishment of confidence in the private sector; and (4) integration in global markets and global institutions. The chapter also explores some key challenges that pose an immediate threat to sound economic policy making in the Arab world.

Globalization means that functional differentiation, first realized historically within the nation states of Europe and North America, now encompasses the whole world. Certainly, not all subsystems have globalized simultaneously, with the same speed and intensity. Religion, science, and the economy are well-established as global systems, while politics and law still remain mainly focussed on the nation state. Due to this staggered globalization, the pressure to constitutionalize internally the globalized subsystems is all the greater as compared to their national counterpart. This chapter raises the question of which are the new constitutional subjects under conditions of globalisation. It discusses social constitutionalization by the states, the independent constitutions of global institutions, and transnational regimes as potential constitutional subjects. It raises the question whether in transnational regimes dynamics of pouvoir constituant and pouvoir constitué can be identified.

This chapter examines the causal link between absolute deprivation and relative deprivation and defends the role of this link in asserting an account of global egalitarianism focused on the relationship between poverty and inequality. Emphasizing the role of a particular kind of goods, global positional goods, it illustrates their normative role where certain patterns of production and distribution are globally extended. These trigger global relational practices where a sharp distinction between sufficientarian justice (typically associated to statism) and egalitarian justice (typically associated to cosmopolitanism) is hard to justify. A similar egalitarian conception, the chapter concludes, constitutes a more progressive, as well as diagnostically appropriate, account of the function and purpose of global institutional practices.

This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It argues that there is a gap between what informed citizens of the world want and what global institutions deliver. There seems also to be a gap between the values of a nation's citizens and what is then provided by way of health care and public health. These gaps need to be investigated more and ways found to address them. Health economists have a role to play (with others) in examining these gaps and seeking ways of filling them. The paradigm suggested in this book is one way for health economists to make a contribution to reform.

This introductory chapter outlines the global governance institutions that structure the realization of human rights for global health. With this volume examining the relationship between human rights, global governance, and public health, a proliferating set of global governance institutions have developed policies, programs, and practices to operationalize human rights to address public health challenges in a globalizing world. As an institutional analysis that focuses on organizations, the organizations in this volume include those international bureaucracies that bear implementation responsibilities for health-related human rights. Examining institutional dynamics to implement human rights, the contributing authors analyze institutional factors that facilitate or inhibit human rights mainstreaming. This introduction concludes by recognizing the importance of comparative analysis in understanding institutional approaches to human rights in global health, outlining the research methods for studying human rights mainstreaming in global governance institutions and framing a new field of study on rights-based governance for global health advancement.

Global health institutions, including the World Health Organization and other United Nations organizations, the World Bank, the vast numbers of foundations, civil society organizations and other actors, and nations themselves have been unable to address global health problems sufficiently. Health actors have proliferated dramatically, and the global health enterprise has become kaleidoscopically fragmented and incoherent. The modus vivendi underlying the activities and interrelationships of these actors arguably works against resolving the world’s health challenges. Decades-old international problems in health governance still persist today. These problems present serious ethical questions and demand a normative theoretical foundation as we seek their solutions.

One should be careful with those who speak in the name of humanity and try to impose any particular blueprint on the world. Proposals for the legal-institutional architectures for the government of the whole world and other designs may seem appealing when stated in the abstract. However, their concrete realization always involves some distribution of power, and with it, some privileging of preferences and values. Claims to humanity are always infected by the particularity of the speaker, the world of his or her experience, culture and profession, knowledge and ignorance. This chapter argues that a realistic utopia can only begin with the critique of present institutions — the United Nations, the World Bank, the Kyoto Protocol, the operations of large multinational companies, the structures of public law and private ordering that decide on the distribution of material and spiritual values today. It is a mindset and an attitude that seeks to highlight the contingency and contestability of global institutions and their distributionary consequences.

Chapter 3 places the EU’s unilateral regulatory influence in the context of the EU’s broader external influence. The Brussels Effect is not the sole manifestation of the EU’s global regulatory power. Instead, the EU wields norm-setting power through a number of different channels such as trade agreements and participation in international institutions and transnational government networks. This chapter reviews these alternative channels of the EU’s regulatory influence in an attempt to provide context for the Brussels Effect within the broader set of tools that the EU has at its disposal. It then compares the relative advantages and disadvantages of those alternative methods when contrasted with the Brussels Effect, and discusses when these other channels of influence are likely to complement or, alternatively, substitute the Brussels Effect.

This chapter describes the multi-dimensional expansion of the university, focusing especially on its accumulating numbers and global diffusion. It stresses the transcendence and universalism of the university at the global level. It also analyzes how university expansion is expected to occur earlier and more fully in the global core than in the global periphery, in democracies than in dictatorships, in the natural sciences than in the social sciences or humanities, and in world-class research universities more than local teaching colleges. The chapter highlights the university as a global institution and the global knowledge society that arises upon it. It examines the spread of universities around the world and studies local instances of a general model that is a central point to sociological neo-institutional theory.

This chapter offers the context for the book, introducing its overarching theme of the need to address security and justice concerns simultaneously and with equivalent weight and urgency when facing the major threats, challenges, and opportunities for global governance in the present era. It looks at the history of international organizations in the last century and at the role of the United Nations, and summarizes the book’s chief research questions and arguments and how they also informed the choice of the book’s three main thematic baskets (violent conflict and state fragility, climate governance, and managing the hyperconnected global economy). It concludes by highlighting key points from the remaining chapters.

This chapter reflects on the university's sweeping expansion and its centrality in a contemporary global society built on liberal and neoliberal institutions. It delineates multiple dimensions of expansion, giving special attention to the growing cultural content included in the university and in a public society deeply intertwined with the university. It also talks about entities that claim explicit university status and to those whose credentials and content are clearly oriented to the university world. The chapter assesses how local organizations gain their authority and credibility through their membership in a great imagined and now global institution known as the university. It also discusses how extraordinary expansion characterized the relationships between the university and society.

This chapter describes the state of Hunza after the partition of India which formed the sovereignty of Pakistan in 1947. It also examines the region's representation as a marginal but remote place within Pakistani geopolitical nationalism. During this period, the region was characterized as a place that harbored the origins of the mythical Pakistani nation. Hunza became the indigenous face of the modern Pakistani nation-state. In the development discourse, Hunza is constructed as an economically marginal region because of its geographical distance from centers of political and economic power, its minority ethnic status, and its harsh climate. On the other hand, the economic development discourse is pushed by the global Ismaili development institutions (GIDIs), a set of nongovernment organizations working for the social, cultural, and economic uplift of the Ismaili community around the world. The chapter looks into how GIDIs divides Hunza into central and remote areas.

This chapter finds that Japan has been unable to emerge as a global leader despite being backed by significant economic prosperity and military strength, but has been able to use its external environment to highlight its national interests. Japan has successfully accessed foreign raw materials and supplied its products in international markets despite being unable to influence international global institutions and systems, and has also attracted investments into the domestic economy, and maintains cordial relationships with other countries, including the United States. It has satisfied its own needs by following the policy of limited international agenda and non-interference in the matters of others.

Recent debates about global justice have featured various proposals to make the world more just by means of transferring money. Their assumption is that just purposes may be achieved by applying, in a global context, the kind of redistributive fiscal policy that has proven capable of supporting social justice within the context of a welfare state. In global or international contexts, however, that assumption may not be warranted. In the absence of global political institutions and a single global currency, it would be premature to make policy commendations whose effectiveness would presuppose their existence. Additionally, there is a problem that the value of taxes, even if successfully raised and transmitted, can be subject to volatilities in financial markets. Attention should be directed to the institutional conditions required for global taxation as well as for the governance of global finance more generally to ensure it is in the public interest.

The suspension of the comprehensive Doha Round trade negotiations in 2011 dealt a serious blow to the World Trade Organization (WTO). What were the causes of the breakdown of this global institution? There appear to be many sources of the failure, from the shift in bargaining power toward emerging market countries and other problems of the “development divide,” to fears of globalization and reduced involvement of business interests in the negotiations. This study will present an institutional approach to the problem. Trade liberalization continues to be a key determinant of global economic growth, and removing remaining barriers to trade could create new gains from trade and increase global GDP by as much as 10%. New, “murky” protectionism during the recent global recession illustrates the potential dangers of a weakened trading system. The role of the WTO therefore remains essential to the world economy.