Subject: BHA: RE: Global Governance
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 07:27:18 -0500


Hi Ismail,
 
Thank's for this clarification.  In the sense you have described it here, I have to agree with your assertion of the existence of global governance.  To the extent that we disagree, it is about the scope of effective control exercised by the WTO.  "Governance" clearly is not an all or nothing thing.  To put it in the terms I have been using, organizations can have different degrees or amounts of power.  I accept that the WTO does have some power, especially over smaller and weaker nations.  So there is a question about how much power -- perceived capacity for effective control -- an organization has to have as a potentiality or exercise as an actuality for a theorists to be able to say it exercises "governance."  (Even in the master-slave relationships, the slave has some capacity for control over the maste, but we would not say he "governs" the master.)
 
It seems to me that one of the major vulnerabilities of attributing governing powers to the WTO is the argument that it is effectively controlled by the U.S., or by a coalition of the most powerful nations.  You will probably have to show that it is not an instrument of dominance used by the "center" against the "periphery."
 
Best regards,
 
Dick

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Ismail Lagardien [mailto:ilagardien-AT-yahoo.com] 
	Sent: Wed 1/14/2004 3:38 PM 
	To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU 
	Cc: 
	Subject: BHA: Global Governance
	
	


	Dick
	
	
	
	I disagree with you... In most cases - during the accession process and once a country is a full member - the WTO, DOES make policies that are implemented domestically and these implementation of these policies, or conditionalities if you will, ARE INDEED conditions for continued membership. I am perfectly satisfied that global governance is a reality while some of us may regard it as such or not.
	
	
	
	Someone made the point about social relations... My understanding of Bhaskar, at this stage of reading, is that structures exist and endure, whether individuals engage them or not.
	
	
	
	I apply this to the WTO as follows: The rules and legal texts of the WTO (essentially the GATT) as well as its institutional ideology and structures exist prior to poor countries, like, say, Niger becoming member-countries.
	
	
	
	To put it more crudely; sure they can come and make their own economic policies, or choices, but they do it under conditions that are not of their own making. The post-war liberal international economic order was created by the dominant powers in the immediate post-war years and the new entries to international society (in the form of independant countries) have to accept teh rules. in fact, they are quite powerless to change it.
	
	
	
	I believe something akin to global governance emerged with the expansion of European powers in the 15th century. The anthropologist, Eric Wolf explains
	
	
	
	[a]ll struggles for dominance within Europe would take on a global character, as the European states sought to control the oceans and to oust their competitors from points of vantage gained in Asia, America, or Africa. >From then on, too, events in one part of the globe would have repercussions in other parts. The several continents would be drawn into one worldwide system (my emphasis) of connections. (Wolf 1982: 129)
	
	
	
	Branko Milanovic argues that global governance,
	
	
	
	[w]as brought to the many “at the point of a gun” … many were “globalised” literally kicking and screaming, from Commodore Perry’s ultimatum which opened Japan, to British and French gunboat diplomacy in Tunisia, Egypt and Zanzibar, to the Opium wars and gunboats that patrolled Chinese internal waterways” (Milanovic 2003: 3)
	
	
	
	In fact, By 1900 the world was pretty much divided into colonies, spheres of influence and interest of the Europeans, North Americans and Japan, and tied together into a lattice of “inter-imperial institutions” like the gold standard and the balance of power (Murphy 2000: 789 - 790). Late 19th century globalisation in a sense, completed global governance during the Halcyon days of 1870 – 1913, when vast swathes of people in distant corners of the world were governed (in most cases, without their consent) by the metropolitan governments
	
	
	
	
	
	once again, appreciate the exchange...
	
	
	
	Ismail
	
	
	
	
	There May be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there never must be a time when we fail to protest." Elie Wiesel (1928- ) Writer, Nobel Laureate
	
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