Can the World Be Governed?: Possibilities for Effective Multilateralism

Introduction

In the foreword to a May 2007 publication of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), John English, the think tank’s executive director, summarizes CIGI’s mandate as follows: CIGI strives to find and develop ideas for global change by studying, advising and networking with scholars, practitioners and governments on the character and desired reforms of multilateral governance. (Dayaratna-Banda and Whalley 2007) With evident editor’s prejudice, I believe this volume on global governance reform fits well within that mandate; I also believe it achieves a degree of success. The evolution of the volume and its chapters on global governance reform require some elaboration. Assembling the authors and their various perspectives on global governance reform took considerable effort, as I describe more fully at the end of this Introduction. One task, however, engendered some notable discussion among the authors and CIGI officials: identifying an appropriate title for this collection of global governance issues. At CIGI’s 2006 annual meeting, at which a number of the authors presented their papers, several had time between panels to ponder an Alan S. Alexandroff * * * Introduction appropriate “cap” or “umbrella” for the volume. Out of those discussions and several subsequent editorial ones, and not without some controversy, the volume carries the main title, Can the World Be Governed? One concern raised in the discussions about the title was whether readers might imagine this volume to concern itself with world government or perhaps some form of global federalism. Ferry de Kerckhove raises this perspective directly, noting that it is expressed by idealists who urge “a transformation from a multilateral system at the service of national interests to a true system of world governance” (236). This is not, however, what the authors focus on in this book—indeed, given their theoretical, policy, and practical interests, such a focus would be unlikely. As contemporary “students” of global politics, and with many international relations specialists among them, they recognize the continuing critical importance of sovereignty and national interest in international relations. Thus, the principal attention throughout the book is on multilateralism—what Arthur Stein describes in the following broad foundational terms: Although unilateralism remains an ever-present possibility and although international organizations reflect the power and interests of their members , the growing number of such organizations, as well as international laws and agreements, over the past century makes multilateralism an existential reality. (49–50) Stein also suggests that the contemporary global structure of states is a form of “weak confederalism.” Multilateralism, then, is the key to global governance and its reform. Yet multilateralism is not restricted to a common or simple definition. As broadly understood in these pages, multilateralism includes multistate international organizations but, more broadly and additionally, principles, rules, and norms that apply to these states. Looking at multilateralism in the context of global governance, as we do throughout this volume, is designed to assess the adequacy of a number of key international organizations of global governance, generally in a formal, but increasingly also an informal, institutional form. But whereas international lawyers—one strong audience examining international organizations—have been drawn principally to the institutionalization, if not the legalization, of international organizations in the post–World War II 2 l Alan S. Alexandroff era, political scientists, including many of the authors in this volume, have approached international institutions much more broadly.1 Where the lawyers focus on the names, addresses, and secretariats—in other words, the more formal international institutional aspects—political scientists broaden the multilateralism focus. As Stein describes elsewhere (forthcoming ), political scientists expanded their examination to include first regimes and then institutions, or the “rules of the game,” where, among other things, both formal and informal organizations reside. Indeed, Richard Rosecrance divides international institutions into not just formal and informal ones but “hard” and “soft” and even “medium” institutions before concluding that a Great Power coalition—again, an informal organization— “when it can be achieved, is the most effective international regulator” (86). For Rosecrance, the coalition is the operative institution. Thus, not only do the chapters in this volume include analysis with formal/informal dimensions but also analysis in which organizations, principles, norms, and rules are relevant to looking at multilateralism and the adequacy of global governance and reform proposals. Equally, in the circumstances in which these organizations and behaviors—the “rules of the game”—seem wanting, a number of the authors suggest what kinds of reforms might improve global governance—that...