Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 

About: Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations is an academic journal published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): International law & Public international law. It has an ISSN identifier of 1075-2846. Over the lifetime, 576 publications have been published receiving 15723 citations.

Cities and the Multilevel Governance of Global Climate Change

Abstract: We explore how the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program, a network that is simultaneously global and local, state and nonstate, could be conceptualized as part of global environmental governance. We suggest that traditional approaches to international relations— regime theory and transnational networks—offer limited conceptual space for analyzing such networks. These approaches obscure how the governance of global climate change takes place through processes and institutions operating at and between a variety of scales and involving a range of actors with different levels and forms of authority. We contend that it is only by taking a multilevel perspective that we can fully capture the social, political, and economic processes that shape global environmental governance. KEYWORDS: climate change, multilevel governance, global environmental governance, transnational networks.

Governance in the Twenty-first Century

Abstract: To anticipate the prospects for global governance in the decades ahead is to discern powerful tensions, profound contradictions, and perplexing paradoxes. It is to search for order in disorder, for coherence in contradiction, and for continuity in change. It is to confront processes that mask both growth and decay. It is to look for authorities that are obscure, boundaries that are in flux, and systems of rule that are emergent. And it is to experience hope embedded in despair.

Civil Society and Democracy in Global Governance

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed substantial civil society mobilisation on questions of global governance. This paper considers the implications of this development for democracy. After specifying concepts of ‘civil society’, ‘democracy’, ‘globality’ and ‘governance’, the paper identifies deep democratic deficits that have emerged as a consequence of contemporary globalisation. The discussion then outlines various ways that civil society can either enhance or undermine democracy in the governance of global relations.

The Privatization of Global Environmental Governance: ISO 14000 and the Developing World

Abstract: oluntary codes of conduct for firms and private standards-setting bodies are growing in number and are increasingly gaining recog nition and public status by states and intergovernmental organiza tions. This has led to a growth in what some have labeled as "mixed" regimes of a hybrid nature, whereby both states and private authorities are heavily involved in the creation and maintenance of international princi ples, norms, rules, and decisionmaking procedures. In such hybrid re gimes, the boundary between public and private spheres is blurred.1 In the environmental realm, the ISO 14000 series of environmental management standards recently adopted by the International Organization for Standard ization (ISO) is illustrative of a hybrid private-public regime. These stan dards, intended to help firms take environmental considerations into ac count in all aspects of their operations by establishing an environmental management system (EMS) and other operation guidelines, were recently adopted by the membership of the ISO as official international standards. Though strictly voluntary for firms, the ISO 14000 standards are extremely important, as their impact goes beyond private industry. States are plac ing great hope in voluntary industry efforts to help improve environmental quality.2 The ISO 14000 standards in particular are being adopted by stan dards-setting bodies in some states, either whole scale or in part, as na tional EMS standards. Moreover, these standards are now recognized by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as legitimate public standards and guidelines and in effect create an international ceiling for EMSs.3 Industry has also been very supportive of the ISO 14000 standards, as it hopes that adherence to them may preempt, or at least soften, present and future state determined environmental regulations.4 While industry-based voluntary environmental measures such as ISO 14000 have gained initial encouragement from public organizations, de bates have emerged over whether they are actually capable of meeting en vironmental goals such as the promotion of clean production processes in both industrialized and less industrialized countries, as outlined in Agenda 21. Industry advocates see these new environmental codes of conduct as

Bridging the Digital Divide: New Route to Development or New Form of Dependency?

Abstract: The Catholic Church has the practice of appointing a devil's advocate (Advocatus Diaboli) when considering a person for sainthood. The role of the advocate is to ferret Out all the reasons why that person should not be made a saint and present them forcefully in the discussion among the cardinals who make the decision. The current campaign to promote the uptake of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in developing countries and to get aid donors to redirect their aid budgets needs devil's advocates to challenge what John Stuart Mill once called "the deep slumber of a decided opinion." In the first half of this article, I argue that ICTs are being oversold as the key both to higher efficiency of corporate and public organizations and to stronger responsiveness of government to citizen-customers. ICT tools can help people learn how to absorb knowledge generated elsewhere and combine it with local needs and local knowledge, and they can help raise real economic returns to investments; but they are being touted in the development community as though they can leapfrog over the more familiar development problems. This is like saying that cheap books can cure illiteracy. Once the illiteracy problem is solved (as in Kerala, India), cheap books are a great boon, but giving illiterate people cheap books does not solve illiteracy. My purpose is not to throw out the whole idea of an ICT-for-development campaign but to signal traps that will cause the campaign to lose credibility. By engaging with these issues, ICT proponents can ensure that the ICT fad ends up with benefits greater than resource misal locations, in contrast to some earlier development fads. In the second half of the article, I suggest that efforts to bridge the digital divide may have the effect of locking developing countries into a new form of dependency on the West. The technologies and "regimes" (international standards governing ICTs) are designed by developed country entities for developed country conditions. As the developing countries participate in ICTs, they become more vulnerable to the increasing complexity of the hardware and software and to the quasimonopolistic power of providers of key ICT services. Worse, the Western aid industry, by linking aid to good governance and good governance to programs to digitalize the public sector ("e-govemance"), may be reinforcing the overall dependency of developing countries. Less developed country (LDC) governments should not take the technologies and international regimes as given. They should press for standards and pricing regimes that make it easier for entities in their countries to access the global information economy. They need more rep resentation in the standard-setting bodies and more support in the ICT domain for the principle that "simple is beautiful." Beware the Assumption that ICTs Are a Top Development Priority In taking for granted that "bridging the digital divide" is the central issue of development, literature from the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Group of Seven (G7) governments, and individual academics displays a high aspiration-to-evidence ratio and a disregard of trade-offs between specific ICT investments and alternative investments. The unwillingness to grapple with choices is signaled in the commonly heard refrain, "It is not either/or," meaning that ICT investments do not compete with other investments. A kind of groupthink has emerged such that, in the words of a well-known World Bank ICT expert who has become skeptical of the claims, People react as though you are mouthing obscenities in St. Peters if you suggest that there might be problems with treating the digital divide as the number one development priority. For that reason, I've been very cautious in sharing my skepticism within the Bank, although I'm trying a process of gentle acclimatization. …