Global Governance

Definitions

The Commission on Global Governance defined governance very broadly, as “the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs.” Rosenau conceived global governance as including “systems of rule at all levels of human activity—from the family to the international organization—in which the pursuit of goals through the exercise of control has transnational dimensions.” Elaborating on this definition, governance can be understood as the creation and implementation of rule systems that facilitate the coordination and cooperation of social actors and determine the distribution of the costs and benefits of collective action. Governance is thus conceptually distinct from government, understood as a material organization in charge of administering and enforcing such rule systems. Most scholars who use the phrase global governance maintain that government is not a necessary condition of governance and that the lack of a world government does not imply the impossibility of governance beyond the level of individual states. Issues such as ozone depletion, the spread of financial crises, and the prohibition of certain kinds of weapons are managed by governance structures that do not conform to the hierarchical model of rule setting and enforcement that is typical of states, although a degree of hierarchy can be an important element in the origin and functioning of those structures.

What is “global” about global governance is also open to contending definitions and interpretations. Broadly speaking, it may refer to global issues, global policy impact, or global participation. The existence of global issues or problems is arguably neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for global governance. It is not sufficient because issues perceived as globally relevant—in the sense of involving transcontinental interdependencies—may be addressed exclusively by national [Page 282]governance mechanisms, as in the case of the regulation of migration in the 19th century, or not at all. Nor is it a necessary condition, because some important actors may start perceiving a problem as global only as a consequence of their becoming targets of governance initiatives initiated by others. The definition of global problems is often the result of contested political processes where the exercise of compulsory or persuasive power is crucial.

Global governance may then be defined in terms of the provision of a global “solution,” with reference to either its reach or its active participants. Rules imposed unilaterally by one state on distant others may count as acts of global governance if what matters is only the geographical reach and scope of their impact. Some find that this stretches the concept excessively and insist that the idea of governance implies some form of cooperation and active participation by those who are expected to follow the rules, although the specific content of the rules may well reflect differences in power and hierarchical relationships. Furthermore, markets may or may not be considered mechanisms of governance, depending on whether institutionalized collective action is considered a defining feature of governance. The creation and enforcement of the rules of market exchange are certainly acts of governance, but arguably, the myriad individual transactions taking place in “the market” are not.

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