Comparing regional organisations in global multilateral institutions: ASEAN, the EU and the UN

Structural change brought about by the end of the Cold War and accelerated globalisation have transformed the global environment. A global governance complex is emerging, characterised by an ever-greater functional and regulatory role for multilateral organisations such as the United Nations (UN) and its associated agencies. The evolving global governance framework has created opportunities for regional organisations to participate as actors within the UN (and other multilateral institutions). This article compares the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as actors within the UN network. It begins by extrapolating framework conditions for the emergence of EU and ASEAN actorness from the literature. The core argument of this article is that EU and ASEAN actorness is evolving in two succinct stages: Changes in the global environment create opportunities for the participation of regional organisations in global governance institutions, exposing representation and cohesion problems at the regional level. In response, ASEAN and the EU have initiated processes of institutional adaptation.     

From a Rhetoric of Nostalgia to a Health-Based Policy: Tobacco,Obesity and the WTO

The globalisation of health demands a multilateral response. Instead of the developed world pursuing agricultural policies oriented towards propping up declining sectors of their economies, a better approach would put health concerns as a top priority. The new Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is a good example of a useful global agreement to promote health. This approach could be replicated in a multilateral framework to control obesity.     

The EU Global Strategy in a Transitional International Order

This article explores the prospects for the EU’s role as a global leader in a transitional international order, based on the assumption that multilateral principles will remain at the heart of global governance. It focuses in particular upon the EU’s 2016 Global Strategy in the context of three principal trends and challenges for global governance: political and normative challenges, legitimacy challenges, and systemic challenges. It argues that the prospects for the EU’s global role are limited as long as the EU remains committed to traditional forms and norms of global governance, because these are increasingly out of touch with the emerging international order, and the nature of contemporary collective action challenges.     

Regionalisation, inter-regional cooperation and global governance

The contradiction between trans-boundary issues largely driven by globalisation and conventional authority based on sovereign state leads to the problem of global governance. Regionalisation emerges as a process in which nation states within geographic proximity take collective measures to cope with problems of global governance. With the increasing tendencies of regional cooperation, a new issue thus arises as to the interaction among regions. In fact, the more regionalized the world, the more necessary, enabled and willing for regions to construct connections with each other. Inter-regionalism and trans-regionalism therefore become a further step which regional blocks take to build one layer in the hierarchy of global governance. The paper takes the Asia–Europe Meeting as the case to analyze the above thesis. In the first section, it presents the observation that the global system is characterized with regionalisation, then analyzes the coordination problems facing regions interdependent upon one another and then formulates a modified framework for analysis of the Asia–Europe Meeting. In the second section of rational design, it analyzes the process in which Europe and Asia rationally establish the cooperation structure of ASEM as a means to tackle the coordination issues between the two regions. In the third section of governing globalisation, it discusses the effects and implications of ASEM’s contribution towards global governance mainly in ways of rationalizing international relations and strengthening regional identity in the era of globalisation.

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数字经济时代的全球数据安全治理与中国策略

进入数字经济时代以来,日益严峻的数据安全风险与变幻莫测的国际形势交织叠加,各国围绕数据安全治理规则博弈呈现加剧态势,引发全球数据安全治理问题。各国际行为体虽然已经意识到数据安全治理的重要性,但对全球数据安全治理并未形成统一的治理框架。全球数据安全治理仅仅由单边、双边和多边框架以及贸易规则拼凑而成,相关治理议题在公民个人、社会、经济以及国家安全等多个层面相继涌现。多领域多维度的数据安全问题难免造成治理主体利益诉求的差异,也导致全球数据安全治理出现了规则碎片化、机制效用不足、治理乏力等问题。与此同时,个别国家的数据霸权主义行为更是使得国际行为体难以凝聚共识,全球数据安全治理步履蹒跚,重视和加强对全球数据安全问题的治理迫在眉睫。中国高度重视数据安全的相关议题,由于中国在数据治理领域起步较晚,仍存在立法不完善、技术创新能力薄弱、国际合作不足、治理乏力等问题。中国需要全面、系统地分析影响数据安全的各种重大风险因素,准确把握全球数据安全趋势,进一步优化中国在全球数据安全治理中的策略选择。     

Global Economic Governance between China and the EU: the case of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

The recent establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the initiative launched by the People’s Republic of China in 2013 underpins Beijing’s intensions to promote its own narrative about global economic governance (GEG) as well as China’s readiness to play a far more proactive role at the international level. In the age of global power shifting and with 14 EU member-states part of the AIIB, the European Union (EU) necessitates to engage further with China, in particular, within the context of multilateral institutions. This article analyses the impact of China’s evolving global governance policies on the EU. China’s and EU’s approaches to the reform of global governance present both differences and similarities, yet, the article highlights EU’s needs to make sense to what extent China’s growing ascent in the realm of global governance is reshaping world’s regional and global architectures vis-à-vis financial multilateral cooperation.     

Global Governance Reform

President Barack Obama has trumpeted a ＂new era of engagement＂ for the United States. The central components of his strategy include a world order characterized by peaceful accommodation between established and rising powers; the collective management of transnational problems; and the overhaul of international institutions to reflect these shifting power dynamics and the new global agenda. Placing less emphasis than his predecessor on the pursuit of American primacy, Obama envisions--indeed, insists-that other global powers assume new responsibilities. Notwithstanding its multilateral instincts, though, the Obama administration is limited in its practical ability to promote and embrace sweeping reforms to global governance. Therefore, rather than casting its lot entirely with universal organizations like the United Nations, the United States will adopt a pragmatic approach to international cooperation that combines formal institutions with more flexible partnerships to achieve US national interests. The balance sheet for Obama＇s first year in office underscores both the opportunities for and the constraints on global governance reform in the current geopolitical environment.     

WorldWideWhale.Globalisation/Dialogue of Cultures?

This article questions the assumption that globalisation has fostered cultural dialogue. In order to understand how globalisation has specifically impacted the sphere of the cultural, it starts by examining the way cultural practises are transformed in its wake. Does globalisation yield new, global forms of culture? To address this conundrum, this article takes the example of a cultural movement that has sought to project itself on a global scale, the anti-whaling culture, exploring both its origins and the distinctive cultural forms it has constituted. It then raises anew the question of dialogue: what of the dialogue between this global anti-whaling movement and local cultures where whaling still occurs? And how does such 'global culture' negotiate with demands for cultural diversity?     

Transnational Partnerships: What Democracy? Whose Justice?

This article establishes that transnational partnerships should no longer be conceived as peripheral mechanisms of global governance. They have now become increasingly embedded in the multilateral system and a central component in the architecture of global governance. The intellectual progenitors of the partnership discourse have commonly justified governance by partnering as a means to close democratic deficits in global governance. Deliberative conceptualisations, on the other hand, view in the practice of partnering the emergence of a transnational public sphere populated by equal deliberative agents. This article argues that the ideas of democracy and justice ingrained in liberal and deliberative arguments for partnering are at odds with the concrete workings of these mechanisms of governance, which, above all, reflect asymmetrical configurations of power. Drawing on the insights of neo-Gramscian international political economy (IPE), it suggests that partnerships can be best conceptualised as sites of contested authority and frail legitimacy.     

Reflections on Global Climate Politics Post Paris: Power,Interests and Polycentricity

The Paris Agreement on climate change adopted in December 2015 has the potential to shape future climate politics and governance significantly, with broader implications for world politics at large. First of all, it solidifies the importance of ‘low-emission capacity’ as a source of power in international climate politics. Second, it supports the ongoing societal mobilisation and reinforces interest in the new climate economy. Third, it points, as a result, toward a more multipolar future climate world order. Finally, the Agreement recalibrates the role of the multilateral UN process as providing overall direction towards global decarbonisation, while leaving implementation to states, other international organisations and various non-state actors and initiatives. Therefore, phasing out global greenhouse gas emissions within the next few decades requires subnational and national policy frameworks that facilitate and promote overachievement and hence drive an upward dynamic – making the Paris Agreement a real-world experiment with an uncertain outcome.     

Globalisation,Universities and Professors

Globalisation has an increasingly profound impact on a broad range of human activities in political, economic and cultural areas. From the perspective of higher education, globalisation raises a number of challenges and concerns, particularly in preparing students--our future leaders of commerce and politics--to adequately address the demands of an ever-increasing global interdependence. Colleges and universities worldwide are responding to this challenge with an array of exchange programmes and curricular initiatives, and a recent international survey of the academic profession indicates that professors worldwide support these efforts. However, this support is considerably weaker among teachers than researchers. This has implications for policies and programmes that focus on developing more globally minded university teachers, in order to prepare our youth to adequately meet the challenges of globalisation.     

Invest,Hold Up,or Accept?China in Multilateral Governance

China has played an inconsistent role in multilateral governance, sometimes contributing to the creation and maintenance of international regimes, sometimes free riding or even threatening to undermine multilateral regimes to improve its position. We show that the strategic context of a particular issue of international concern affects China's approach to multilateralism and argue that our approach adds additional leverage to existing theories that rely on assumptions about its inherent disposition or socialization processes. An emerging global power will be willing to invest more in supporting a regime when its outside options are relatively poor. When its outside options are good, it will free ride on the efforts of more established states if it is not a necessary player in maintaining regimes, and if it is seen as indispensable it will threaten to hold up regime support as a way to win concessions. We show that these two factors, outside options and indispensability, can help explain changes in China's strategy with respect to the issue of North Korea's nuclear program and the regulation of international finance.     

Globalising Accountability within the International Organisation of Credit: Financial Governance and the Public Sphere

Recent developments concerning the international financial architecture have drawn attention to what many perceive to be an accountability deficit at the level of global decision making. This problem is explored here within the framework of an increasingly globalised structure of financial governance, drawing attention to the institutional barriers that stand in the way of operationalising traditional forms of accountability. In order to strengthen a global form of accountability in the absence of traditional democratic links between citizens and decision-making institutions, it is argued that accountability needs to be better internalised within those institutions that actually make decisions with global consequences. To be effective, however, this form of accountability demands the formation of a global financial public sphere, where norms of inclusion and publicness can be established and progressively instantiated. The first step towards realising such a development must be to understand accountability itself in terms of what can be called a logic of participation. This article therefore considers how such a logic can be formulated and grafted onto the existing foundations of global financial governance, and advances several strategies to strengthen accountability framed in this way.     

The leadership deficit in Europe

The emerging global order is challenging multilateralism in the sense that power is becoming situational: centres of gravity are overlapping and transient, and the transnational interdependence that characterises this ‘polypolar’ world challenges small and great powers alike. Emerging powers are forming a ‘new middle', straddling the North-South divide with dynamic new multilateral formations, and prioritising economic self-interest. South Africa is at risk of being relegated to a new global periphery if it gives priority to political solidarity with the global South rather than economic pragmatism in its multilateral strategies. Its comparative advantage in the diplomatic arena is its middle power credentials. If it rationalizes its multilateralism to focus on diplomatic niche areas it can enhance its political influence in global governance institutions, despite its small economic stature.     

战争、和平与全球治理

战争与和平是人类社会面临的重大问题。战争的爆发与和平的实现既受国际政治经济因素的影响,也是国内政治力量相互作用的结果。裁军是决定战争与和平的重要因素,然而,当今国际社会在裁军方面的进展十分缓慢。随着全球化步伐的加快,尤其进入21世纪以来,国际安全形势令人担忧。大规模杀伤性武器的有增无减以及恐怖主义的蔓延继续威胁着国际社会,原先的国际治理逻辑已不再适用。为消除战争、增进和平,重塑全球治理机制的呼声愈加高涨。为此,国际社会需要引入新的治理机制,对影响国际安全的因素加以管理。世界各国日益加深的相互依赖意味着以议题关联为核心的治理手段能够发挥更大作用。为提升和改进全球治理的效果,国际社会必须引入具有动机的激励机制,建立起可信和可核查的制度,对违反协议的国家实施惩罚和制裁,这不仅是国际协议和国际行动成功的关键,也是确保全球治理有效性的不二选择。     

Globalisation

The term ‘globalisation’ is widely used to describe a variety of economic, cultural, social, and political changes that have shaped the world over the past 50-odd years. Because it is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, globalisation has been credited with a wide range of powers and effects. Its proponents claim that it is both ‘natural’ and an inevitable outcome of technological progress, and creates positive economic and political convergences. Critics argue that globalisation is hegemonic and antagonistic to local and national economies. This article argues that globalisation is a form of capitalist expansion that entails the integration of local and national economies into a global, unregulated market economy. Although economic in its structure, globalisation is equally a political phenomenon, shaped by negotiations and interactions between institutions of transnational capital, nation states, and international institutions. Its main driving forces are institutions of global capitalism – especially transnational corporations – but it also needs the firm hand of states to create enabling environments for it to take root. Globalisation is always accompanied by liberal democracy, which facilitates the establishment of a neo-liberal state and policies that permit globalisation to flourish. The article discusses the relationship between globalisation and development and points out that some of the most common assumptions promoted by its proponents are contradictory to the reality of globalisation; and that globalisation is resisted by more than half of the globe's population because it is not capable of delivering on its promises of economic well being and progress for all.     

Feminist Studies of Globalisation: Beyond Gender,Beyond Economism?

This article offers a distinctive mapping of the feminist literature on globalisation. Part I sets the “new wave” of debate in the context of long-standing feminist theorising and organisation around global power and politics, drawing attention to a growing focus on economic processes. Part II explores the marginalisation of feminist arguments within globalisation studies, pointing to the dominance of an economistic model of globalisation as a key factor. It also identifies a parallel feminist tendency to neglect non-feminist efforts to develop non-economistic analyses of globalisation. Part III seeks to pinpoint the originality of the contribution of feminism. Although the most obvious starting point for such an evaluation is an emphasis upon gender, the feminist contribution is not reducible to this. Feminists have integrated gender analyses into accounts of multiple, intersecting relations of global power. They also offer distinctive analyses of the relation between the local and the global and the character of agency and resistance. The article indicates that the feminist response to economism still remains incomplete. Nonetheless, it demonstrates that feminist insights pose a significant challenge to non-feminist accounts of globalisation and to those organising within and against global power relations.     

核安全全球治理:历史、现实与挑战

核安全风险超越国界,可能跨越地区,甚至影响全球,因而核安全的治理必然是全球治理。各国对核安全风险的评估、核安全意识的养成是一个演进的过程,与此同步的是核安全全球治理。核安全全球治理经历了冷战、冷战结束和九一一事件以来的三个发展阶段,治理的主要内容随着国际安全形势的变化而调整。冷战期间的核安全全球治理主要体现为建立国际原子能机构以管理核能的和平利用,防范无核国家以发展民用核能为由发展核武器,签署和履行与核安全密切相关的国际公约、培育核安全的意识;冷战结束初期,国际原子能机构强化了保障监督能力,多边出口管制机制加强了对涉核物项出口的管控,国家间展开了实质性的核安全合作;九一一恐怖袭击之后,核安全全球治理呈现加速度的趋势,国际社会日益形成核安全共识,全球性制度建设加速,多边合作加强。经过多年努力,核安全全球治理的制度建设取得了显著成就,双边和多边国际合作得到实质性推动,但核安全全球治理仍然面临如何有效减少核材料存量、如何推动相关国家切实履行国家责任等挑战。     

金融全球化、全球金融治理改革与国际金融安全*——基于信息科技革命的视角JP〗*

从本质上说,金融业是一种“信息密集性”或“信息敏感性”产业,对于金融全球化而言,信息技术进步具有特殊重要的意义。在信息科技革命引领和推动下,互联网与金融业相互融合,掀起了人类历史上第二次大规模的金融全球化浪潮。当代金融全球化迅猛发展对国际金融安全产生了重大而深远的影响,新一轮大规模金融全球化、国际金融体系的巨大变化以及由此而形成的新的国际金融格局与既有的全球金融治理框架之间的均衡逐渐被打破,既有的全球金融治理框架越来越难以适应信息科技革命条件下金融全球化发展和维护国际金融安全的要求。为更好地适应当代金融全球化条件下建立新的国际金融公共秩序,更好地维护国际金融安全的需要,以2008年全球金融危机爆发为契机,国际社会揭开了全球金融治理改革的大幕。在国际金融体系和全球金融治理框架处于大变动和寻求新均衡的背景下,中国应抓住有利时机,以更加积极、主动的姿态参与和推动全球金融治理改革,坚持命运共同体理念,遵循责任、权力相一致和平衡的原则,倡导在全球金融治理中加强互联网的运用,为维护国际金融安全做出更大贡献。     

Discursive Multilateralism: Global Benchmarks, Shame, and Learning in the ILO Labor Standards Monitoring Regime

A distinct feature of contemporary international relations is the proliferation of multilateral monitoring regimes. Despite the significance of this for the study of international law and organization, little empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of multilateral monitoring exists. This article examines the effectiveness of the supervisory system of the International Labor Organization (ILO), widely recognized as the prototypical model for all multilateral monitoring regimes. I examine the speech acts and rule-practices of the ILO regime within a hermeneutic/constructivist framework. This yields a set of heuristic hypotheses reflective of the "logic" that guides regime interactions with its member states. This asserts that "shame" influences member states to comply and respond positively to regime obligations. To test this, I statistically generate global benchmarks. These consist of world and regional averages in the behavioral patterns of member states. Quantitative findings demonstrate recidivist patterns of deviance by "global pariahs" set against a statistical background consisting of large-scale normative conformity on the part of ILO member states but configured around some regional variations. My analysis contends that global benchmarking reduces the risks of member state defection from core international labor standards and thereby promotes monitoring by learning or discursive multilateralism.