Academic debate Essay Example for Free

Academic debate Essay There has been considerable academic debate concerning the emergence and meaning of globalization with differing views ranging from those who believe that there has been no change to what already existed with previous trade and movement across nation states to those who believe that the consequences of globalization can be felt everywhere and that the sovereignty of nation states has been greatly diminished. It is argued by those such as Modelski that the world society today is global in direct contrast to all other historical societies and for David Held (1) globalization is about a significant transformation resulting in local communities linked to global actions (1). This paper does not delve into the debate about the theory of globalization, rather it focuses upon the infrastructure of the UN in terms of governance of world affairs. During his leadership as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sought to define a new role for the United Nations at the centre of ‘global governance’ (Held and McGrew 1). In response to the onset of globalization there are those, including Rosenau (8) who believe that a new complex multilateralism is evolving as a system of global governance. In the absence of a world government Rosenau (8) believes that the concept of global governance is the most apt description of the system that decides who rules and governs across the international community. This evolution has been made possible following a number of significant events over the past two decades. Firstly the end of the cold war opened up opportunities for new ways of governing at the global level. Secondly there was a massive increase in global issues such as the environment (for example climate change), health (for example the HIV / Aids epidemic) and consumerism that was affecting the way that world affairs were being run. These changes to global affairs has convinced the advocates of global governance that the traditional geopolitical management of global affairs with its hierarchical forms of management is unsuited to the challenges and tasks that are now emergent and that new forms of global governance need to be introduced. The common arguments against global governance include the inequalities of power between states, the structural privileging of the interests and agenda of global capital and the technocratic nature of the global policy process (Held and McGrew 13). In general there are three principle explanatory accounts of global governance: liberal institutionalist, realist and neo-Gramsic. Each attempt to explain how governance works beyond the national state but there are considerable differences in their epistemological frameworks which are a reflection of their interpretations of the social world as well as difference assumptions about world politics. Liberal institutionalism argues that governance beyond the state is endemic (Held and McGrew 12) because of the important benefits that global institutions can bring to individual nations, for example the functional benefits of a global health organization. Liberal institutionalists believe that international institutions ‘empower governments rather than shackle them’ (Keohane 13) . Realism finds that governance beyond the nation state depends upon the policy interests of the most powerful states, which means that the global institutions can have little autonomy or power as their function is primarily to advance the interests of those more powerful states (Held and McGrew 12) and thus the inequalities of power between the states is highlighted. Neo-gramsican theories share the bases of the realism theory however they consider the structural imperatives of globalizing capitalism as the key component. This theory states that the conduct of global governance is underpinned by the expansion of globalizing capital through the dominant forces, i. e. the US and therefore the global institutions are merely instruments to obtain this objective at the expense of the welfare and environment of the global communities. There is concern that the there is an insurmountable deficit within the current capacity of global governance to address the pressing global issues of poverty, health, environment, security and welfare. In practice this can imply a criticism of how the United Nations is structured and functionally operates, and essentially makes the presumption that the UN is ineffective (Luard 1). The United Nations Organization (UN) is an international organization that brings together 191 states in a voluntary forum to consider all affairs – such as security, living conditions, affecting the global population. The structure consists of the General Assembly, the Security Council, The Economic and Security Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, the Secretariat and the UN System (www. un. org) . This paper focuses on the operations of the UN System. The United Nations has a number of organizations formally within its system as ‘specialized agencies’ – although in reality they are largely autonomous from the central UN, for example the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNESCO. These specialized agencies are linked to the UN through cooperative agreements have wide-ranging international responsibilities in the economic, social, cultural, educational, health and related fields. Some of them, like the International Labour Organization and the Universal Postal Union, are older than the UN itself (www. un. org) . All these organizations have their own governing bodies, budgets and secretariats. Together with the United Nations, they are known as the UN family, or the UN system. Together, they provide technical assistance and other forms of practical help in virtually all economic and social areas. The reform of the UN is an issue of constant debate, although only the member states have the power to implement any changes so it must be driven through them. It can be argued then that the UN is not a global organization, rather it remains an inter-governmental organization as it can only develop so far as the member states will allow and they will always weigh development against their own self interest. However this reality is in comparison with the global expectation placed upon the UN and Bernhard (213) believes it is this contradiction in reality and expectation that causes the UN to over stretch itself. Bernhard (213) presents three scenarios for the future of the UN. Firstly that the UN system will weaken, and ultimately fail in the members states withdrew participation and secondly that the UN could develop as a sort of world government with the institutions forming a central coordinating role of the global governance process and ultimately leading to the loss of nation state autonomy. The third scenario seems more plausible, that the UN will remain as an imperfect instrument in need of reform but also an important global organization. This itself requires examination of a number of issues, namely whether it takes on a role as actor in its own right or continues to be held to member state autonomy. The leadership of Koffi Annan as the Secretary General has had some impact on the pace of UN reforms. At the Millennium Summit in 2000 he called for members states to reorganize the UN so that it could be better equipped to meet the challenges that globalization brings . However in practice the extent of the UN reform appears modest and Bernhard (214) makes the distinction between internal reforms of the UN’s by-laws which are easier to achieve than constitutional changes, which would require changes to the Charter. The complexity of the UN system doesn’t allow for reforms to be made easily. Every amendment needs a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly and the ratification of two thirds of the member states, including the five permanent members. Therefore the permanent members have a high level of strength and can block any reforms, although to be fair they would need the agreement of more than 120 UN members for their own projects to succeed (Bernhard 242). Koffi Annan (Bernhard 243) drew attention to the institutions of the UN being unfit for the present day purpose as they had been created for an inter-national rather than global world. The UN system has resulted in a tradition of decentralization, along with a steady growth of new agencies. It is this situation that draws critics to argue that there are overlaps and duplication of effort and irrational allocation of resources (Ziring 464). There is no world budget to deal with economic and social affairs and each UN agency are responsible for their own budgets and programmes, subject to the limitations of the collective will of their members. Ziring (464) argues that the Economic and Social Council has not fulfilled its central coordinating function, being mainly consigned to discussion and liaison and he makes the important statement that the most formidable barriers to improved functional co-operation between the agencies are in fact political and budgetary, not organizational. This would then mean that the UN reforms should be focused on gaining the collective political and economic will of member states rather than introducing organizational changes alone.