GLOBALIZATION&THE PROBLEMS OF WORLD ORDE

We are currently living through a significant transformation of some of the core features of the international system, or what is more broadly often referred to as, “world order.” Several recent events have highlighted and impacted this sweeping change. The first is the failure of multilateral institutions (such as the UN, WHO or even the G-7 countries) to meet the challenge of the 2020 Covid pandemic. The failure of international collective action is also an obstacle to tackling the effects of global warming. In both cases narrow national interests trumped transnational values.  The second is the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine which highlights the failure of multilateral institutions (such as the UN Security Council) to protect the independence of territorial nation-states, a principal unit of the international system since 1945. Narrow national interests continue to outweigh the commitment to the long-standing norm of territorial integrity of nation-states as the foundation for the modern post-imperial international order. Nationalism remains the most powerful force in international affairs. Third, the optimism of the post-Cold War (post-1989) era that economic globalization would lead to the liberalization of China and Russia has now almost entirely faded. The current moment is marked by the rise of these authoritarian states (together with Iran and others) which are seeking to overturn the Western liberal international order  that was established after 1945. This Western order consists of three components: capitalist market economics, democratic self-rule and universal human rights, and peaceful diplomacy as the preferred way to manage inter-state conflicts. In its stead we are seeing in major parts of the world the persistence of socialist command economies, the rise of illiberal authoritarianism, and a return to 19th century patterns of war and conquest. Finally, the era of expanding globalization, driven by capitalist economic integration across the globe, appears to be over. The world is de-globalizing.

This course will examine some of the key institutional challenges and most vexing conceptual controversies in the current rethinking, some might say turmoil, over global governance and competing forms of world order. These debates reveal at least two key features. First, a depth of disagreement about the shape of the international system which is arguably unprecedented in the last seventy years. Almost every dimension of global government and governance is today the subjec