|
|
Book Review
Karl-Heinz Ladeur
Public Governance in the Age
of Globalization
Ashgate
Publishing, 2004
Published in Global Law Books Project, Edited
by Joseph Weiler and Miguel Poiares Maduro (2005).
Reviewed by Vik Kanwar
|
Review of David Kennedy’s The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism(2004)
Review of Giorgio Agamben’s
State of Exception(2003)
|
Mark
Twain once quipped, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody
does anything about it.” At times, the same seems true of
“globalization”. Though globalization is more topical than
ever, the most trenchant normative critiques have receded as scholarly
discussions have taken an increasingly empirical turn. While diverse descriptive
accounts— qualitative or quantitative, impact studies or
forecasts— should be welcomed, they risk ignoring new normative
challenges by treating the actions of global institutions as quasi-natural
and inevitable processes—as blameless as thunderstorms. This
collection of inter-disciplinary essays— published in 2004, but based on papers delivered at the European Union
Institute in March 2001— successfully applies empirical insights to
emerging normative questions about global governance. Ladeur’s editorial introduction is addressed to various
overestimations and over-simplifications coming out of anti-globalization
rhetoric. This frees up the other contributors to treat the
“age of globalization” as a social scientific phenomenon rather
than a topic of controversy, and more importantly, to develop a pragmatic paradigm
of “public governance.” To say globalized institutions have
“public” characteristics is to recognize their relationships to
effected populations, even if these arrangements often fall short of
constitutional or democratic legitimacy. Similarly, to say “governance” is to stop short of
saying “government.” While both terms connote “steering,” governance has
come to suggest “policy without politics,” or
coordination without hierarchy. The
notion of public governance gives shape to a sphere of global
“administration” that is neither as chaotic as
“globalization” nor as structured as a “global regulatory
state.” The normative payoff of this conceptual shift is a renewed
focus on purposive decision-making and accountability. In an empirical
sense, however, “accountability” no longer refers to any familiar
notion of political responsibility, but instead to multiple responsive
mechanisms across disparate market-driven, institutional, regional,
quasi-judicial, or expert networks.
The
book’s interdisciplinary approach to
public governance is particularly valuable since certain disciplines are
better suited to investigating certain institutions. Legal
historian Lawrence Friedman provides a helpful, if generic, opening essay
on the cultural dimensions of globalization. Several essays introduce new
terms for hybridized forms of public-private administration. These include
“open states” and “polycentric networks” (Ladeur),
“global private regimes” (Gunther Teubner), “transnational regulatory networks”
(Thomas Vesting), “privatized norm-making” (Saskia
Sassen), “deliberative polyarchy”
(Charles Sabel and Josh Cohen), the
interpenetration of “global networks” and “disaggregated
states” (Anne-Marie Slaughter). All of these descriptions agree on
two basic characteristics— the pluralism of global order and the
state’s permeability— but subtly tilt toward different
normative outcomes.
It is probably significant that these
papers were written before 9/11, and before the “global war on
terror” temporarily eclipsed the globalization debate. Only one contribution, Martin van Crevald’s historical essay on the monopolization
of collective security, was revised to take account of post-9/11
developments. Still, the book gives insufficient attention to the military
dimensions of globalization, a topic that could include emergent public-private
partnerships in recent conflicts (e.g., Private Military Firms) or the
global impact of resource wars. Finally, despite terminological
differences, the essays successfully contribute to the development of a
unified academic idiom. Yet, as talk of globalization becomes as commonplace
as discussing the weather, global governance warrants a more accessible
language. The material here deserves a broader readership and several
contributors have written popular works for general audiences, yet these
essays are addressed to narrower peer networks. Moreover, at USD 115, the
present edition will be relegated to academic libraries.
|
|
