Globalisation and Supra-State Governance: Globalisation and Supra-State Governance


Role of State in Development: Role of State in Development Post-WWII: Model = extensive state, supreme authority Strong state = key actor in Modernisation Mobilisation of resources, directing economy, funding large-scale projects, ISI Nehruvian model – overcoming problem of infrastructural industries, opening spaces for private capital


Role of State in Development: Role of State in Development Neoliberal development: Strong state = patrimonial, self-serving, corrupt “The state has to move away from doing many things badly, to doing its fewer core tasks well. This means government must at once shrink and change its nature. No longer the prime economic agent in most areas, it must instead facilitate private activity” (World Bank)


Withering Away of State?: Withering Away of State? Reconfiguration of state Governance – ‘good governance’, ‘global governance’ Governance – Exercise of power and authority States not wholly autonomous: TNCs – production Banks, brokers, speculators – capital States no-longer able to regulate domestic markets Globalisation affects ability to implement range of policy


Withering Away of State?: Withering Away of State? Governing more complex: Governance spread across various levels Coordination among actors and agencies necessary for pursuit of policy goals State still a player, but not necessarily dominant


Good Governance: Good Governance Emerged in 1990s: François Mitterrand: “traditional aid will be more lukewarm towards regimes which behave in an authoritarian manner without accepting the evolution towards democracy” Douglas Hurd: favour countries “tending towards pluralism, public accountability, respect for the rule of law, human rights and market principles”


Good Governance: Good Governance Failure of development the result of failure of implementation by developing countries Descended from SAPs: Debt crisis Economic decline Lack of political authority and will to deal with these Descended also from post-Cold War democratisation and rights discourse


Good Governance: Good Governance Key elements: Well-managed state Market economy Democratic civil society Overhaul of the developmental state Increase of control over functioning of aid-recipient states Insistence on use of Western standards and practices


Good Governance: Good Governance “the donor-driven discourse… [is] geared towards enhancing policy effectiveness and conceptually preparing the terrain for policy intervention. The guiding motive in this interventionism, some would say, has been towards the establishment of new global-institutional patterns of ‘hegemony’, through a ‘disciplining’, in a Foucauldian sense… of state and policy structures in individual countries to conform to the norms set by the global institutions” (Doornbos) Monopoly of Western discursive power: Good governance agenda reinforces Western modernity Good governance reinforces Western-derived globalisation


Global Governance: Global Governance Post-Cold War – more cooperative system Economic globalisation – demand for common regulatory standards, stable economic and financial environment Extra-territorial problems – environment, international crime etc. Result – emergence of (patchy) global regulatory infrastructure Governance is diffuse and multi-layered


Global Governance: Global Governance States more fragmented and less centralised in exercise of authority Regulation diffused to other locations above and below states Some supra-national organisation virtually autonomous Asymmetry of state experiences


Global Governance: Global Governance Globalisation has demanded global governance solutions


Global Governance: Global Governance “Unfortunately, we have no world government, accountable to the people of every country, to oversee the globalization process in a fashion comparable to the way national governments guided the nationalization process. Instead, we have a system that might be called global governance without global government, one in which a few institutions – the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO – and a few players – the finance, commerce and trade ministries, closely linked to certain financial and commercial interests – dominate the scene, but in which many of those affected by their decisions are left almost voiceless” (Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents)


Global Governance: Global Governance World Trade Organisation: Supra-national regulatory regime Function: “to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible” in order to “improve the welfare of the peoples of the member countries” (WTO) Powers explicitly extend beyond authority of states But, states have sovereign right not to join: However, constrained policy choices in context of neoliberalism and globalisation Requirement of compatibility when entering regional agreements with WTO members


Global Governance: Global Governance Presence of developing countries in Geneva: Approximately 120 WTO meetings per week 1/3 of LDCs present in Geneva


Global Governance: Global Governance Decision-taking: Theoretically equal – consensus decision-taking Dominance of ‘Quad’


Slide17: Other actors: Strong behind-the-scenes role of private sector Much smaller role for NGOs


Finally: Finally Developing countries caught in pincer movement Domestic policy choice constrained by globalisation and Good Governance agenda linked to aid conditionalities External policy choices constrained by global governance institutions, e.g. WTO How is development best pursued? Removal of politics from development? Lasswell – who gets what, when, where, how Does governance remove this political component of development from the state?