Global Governance and the Politics of Crisis

Abstract

The notion of global governance has always been intimately linked to that of crisis. In recent crisis episodes the architecture of global governance has been held responsible for weak or ineffective regulatory mechanisms that failed to either prevent systemic crises or to at least give an "early warning" of impending disasters, while in other episodes global governance institutions have been blamed for poor crisis responses and management. Global governance institutions have also been blamed for failing to expand the scope of their jurisdictions to incorporate new systemic risks and new market players, as well as for their inability to adapt to new political, economic, social and environmental challenges. The framing article for this special issue on "Global Governance in Crisis" examines four key features of global governance in the context of the global financial crisis: (1) the dynamic role played by ideas in making global governance "hang together" during periods of crisis; (2) how crisis serves as a driver of change in global governance (and why it sometimes does not); (3) how ubiquitous the global financial crisis was as an event in world politics; and (4) the conditions that constitute an event as a crisis. Due to the complexity and institutional "stickiness" of the contemporary architecture of global governance, the article concludes that a far-reaching overhaul and structural reforms in global governance processes is both costly and improbable in the short-term.The notion of global governance has always been intimately linked to that of crisis. In the post-World War Two period, the decision to seek solutions to a range of domestic and international problems at the global level and subsequent efforts to create organisational blueprints to underpin these arrangements-most famously at international conferences such as those of Bretton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks-was a direct response to the economic turmoil of the 1930s and the cataclysmic wars of the first half of the twentieth century. Indeed, the period since then has been characterised by the proliferation of global governance institutions. At the same time, however, claims of a crisis in global governance have been repeated at an accelerating pace, especially following the breakdown of the Bretton Woods exchange rates system, the oil shocks and the rise of global finance in the early 1970s. If we look at global financial governance in particular, it seems as if crisis has been the norm rather than the exception, which is illustrated by the string of financial crises in both the developed and developing world in the 1980s and * The authors wish to express their gratitude to the reviewers of this special issue.

The Energy Security-Climate Nexus

“…The degree to which current methods of governing towards achieving UK, and EU, climate and security objectives might yet fail could link energy governance change with calls for wider economic governance change (Gamble 2009;Hay 2010;Crouch 2011;Broome et al 2012). Hay has argued that the form of inter-paradigm borrowing by the Brown government in response to the financial crisis of 2008 was undertaken out of a desire to shore up the existing paradigm (Hay 2010: 23).…”

“…These debates about challenge and change to an established system of governance heavily influenced by neoliberal economic thought can be considered important within the context of wider discussions within IPE about challenges to financial governance under conditions of financial and economic crisis (cf. Gamble 2009;Hay 2010;Broome et al 2012).…”

Credit Ratings and Sovereign Debt

“…10 Obviously, the most severe economic correction since the Great Depression of the 1930s has produced a plethora of scholarly analyses scrutinizing its various dimensions -including, amongst others, the housing market crash and the crisis of liquidity in subprime asset markets (Langley 2008a(Langley , 2010Schwartz and Seabrooke 2009); its anchors in the neoliberal regulatory response to the collapse of Keynesianism (Broome et al 2012;Gamble 2009;Helleiner 2010); escalating economic contagion (Thompson 2010); and greedy/predatory banking practices (Rethel and Sinclair 2012). Yet one of the most egregious areas of finance, which the recent turmoil has brought into sharp focus, is the ratings space (BlackRock 2012;Eijffinger 2012;Kruck 2011;Paudyn 2013).…”

Why Has Leadership in the Asia–Pacific Proved So Elusive?

“…The position of the US is widely seen as diminished, at least in relative terms if not absolutely. The international order that the US was instrumental in creating, and which allowed it to express a distinctive and highly effective form of institutional power, is at best under strain, at worst, beginning to unravel (Broome et al 2015). Declining American power and influence were seen as being real possibilities even before the election of Donald Trump (Layne 2012).…”