Global governance in the twenty-first century: end of the Bretton Woods moment?

Abstract

The labels 'crisis' and 'turning point' are used freely to describe international politics. In the decade since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, and even more frequently in the past four years, arguments that the world is not at a turning point have become difficult to find. The debates have often been confusing, however, suggesting both fundamental and sudden ruptures as well as recent recognition of long-term structural changes. Reflecting on a century that began with the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations and is closing with a pandemic and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the effects of conflict, peacemaking, and economic turmoil on global order can certainly be identified. Long-term trends and trajectories, inflected by those episodes, have been equally influential: the dissolution of empires -from colonial to Soviet -and the proliferation of sovereign states; the integration of Europe and the rise of military and economic powers outside Europe; and a rapid growth in the institutions of regional and global governance.Arguments for a break in those trajectories in global governance can be summarized as the end of the Bretton Woods moment, that crucial reordering at the midpoint of the last century. Three distinct candidates can claim identification as this latest turning point: the end of the liberal international order; the end of the dominant position of the United States and its allies in the global order; and, finally, the relative decline of formal global institutions as constituents of contemporary global governance. Those three alleged transformations in the contemporary international order are linked, but they should 1This is an open access work distributed under the Creative Commons Attributio n-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Unported (https:// creativecommons .org/ licenses/ by -nc -nd/ 4 .0/ ). Users can redistribute the work for non-commercial purposes, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, as detailed in the License. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd must be clearly credited as the rights holder for publication of the original work. Any translation or adaptation of the original content requires the written authorization of Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.