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154 The Russian Perspective on Global Governance: Normative Challenges Alexandra A. Arkhangelskaya G lobalisation presents a core challenge to many historical assumptions. Since the 1990s the global community has been pushing to modify the global governance system, which is based on the power architecture of the United Nations. However, the system, built as an outcome of World War II, has remained rigid. This is largely supported by the opposition of the most powerful states and those, particularly Western actors, that would find themselves in an uneven influential position within international organisations that would not correspond to their post-World War II power. Emerging powers have been most audible in pressing for the beginning of changes. Nowadays, they are not a power to be ignored. The need for modification in global governance is increasingly seen. In recent years, philosophers and political theorists have been busy discussing the normative implications of our globalising international system. A vivid discourse about the possibility of getting to the goal of justice at the international level now pits representatives of cosmopolitanism against those of communitarianism. There are two main approaches to changing global governance and ruling the state system: setting up new institutions and organs that correlate with the current global landscape, and starting the reform of these bodies. The rule of law has a core role to play: it affects affairs and interdependence , and can imply content-dependent assessments to develop, without relying on self-closure or monistic dogmas. This comes traditionally from the normative implications of the rule of law stance, but appears to facilitate a prominent research agenda on global governance. Thus, this chapter will look at the changing nature of global governance with a special focus on the Russian perspectives and the normative challenges for such processes of the global system with respect to policies at the G20, BRICS, G8, UN and other international forums. CHAPTER 8 155 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND The global governance system, with the United Nations as the head, has been under pressure for changes and alterations since the 1990s. However, the system, built in the context of the aftermath of World War II, has proven very inflexible to modification. This is due mostly to the opposition by the influential, in particular Western, actors that would find themselves in a disproportionate power stance compared to their global power after World War II. Today’s emerging powers have been most audible in their demands about introducing systemic modifications. The two main variants to change global governance and regulate the state system have been setting up new institutions and organs that correspond with current global vision and initiate the reform of these institutions. The waning of the West at the international level since World War II is not a discussible reality. At the same time, other global powers, such as Russia and China, and emerging powerhouses such as Brazil, India and South Africa, among others, have gained political and economic weight at the international level. This has resulted in the diminishing effectiveness of the global governance institutions in which Western states play an important role relative to the strength of the other powerful states. For instance, the UN has become increasingly worried by its scarce ability to reach consensus on a number of vital issues, such as the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the nuclear development of Iran. This has made the need for modification in global governance increasingly apparent. The role of global governance institutions has been visibly undermined by the intervention into domestic affairs effectuated by some states. Growing protests from individual states have raised the claim that they function for the interests of specific states and violate national sovereignty. There is an ongoing debate about the prospects of democratic institutions at the international level. In a cosmopolitan mode, David Held, a British political theorist active in the field of international relations on issues of globalisation and global governance, debates that globalisation requires the extension of liberal democratic institutions (including the rule of law and elected representative institutions) to the transnational level. Nation-state-based liberal democracy is badly equipped to deal with the deleterious side effects of contemporary globalisation, such as ozone depletion or burgeoning material inequality.1 In opposition to Held and other disciples of global democracy, communitarian -minded sceptics underscore the purportedly utopian character of such suppositions, arguing that democratic politics previsions deep emotions of trust, commitment and belonging that remain unpopular at the transnational level. Cosmopolitanism’s universalistic moral vector not only THE RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE...

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