The Rising Tide of Populism and Its Implications to Global Governance in the 21st Century

The rising tide of populism in the 21st century brings about new challenges to an age-old problem in politics. Among them is to identify and understand the symptoms and causes of populism in the modern era. As a political approach which holds”the forgotten man and women” as a morally good force against the perceived corrupt and self-serving “establishment,” this chapter analyzes the populist phenomenon and how it can bring about dividends, not just constraints. This chapter ends by recommending policy-makers to re-think and re-adjust global institutions to be more inclusive, to enhance their nations' cybersecurity measures, and to promote free speech. Overall, populism is a signal that something is inherently wrong in today's global society. Rather than turning a blind eye to the issue, leaders should take a hard look at the facts and understand that there are genuine grievances that have to be identified and solved in building a just and equitable new world order. We can only ignore populism at our peril.

A Global, Democratic, Institutional and Humble Cosmopolitanism? Response to Contributors in Symposium on The Humble Cosmopolitan

This article engages contributions from Cricket Keating, Natasha Behl, Fred Lee and Jaby Mathew, and Brooke Ackerly’s introduction, in a symposium on The Humble Cosmopolitan. It first notes insights taken for the development of a democratic cosmopolitanism oriented to political humility from the work of Indian Dalit-rights champion and constitutional architect B.R. Ambedkar, and from interviews conducted with globally oriented Dalit activists. It then considers Mathew’s concerns about accommodation of the moral importance of local democratic practices, and Keating’s about the book’s emphasis on advancing institutional over attitudinal changes. It addresses issues Behl raises around attention to alternate conceptions of citizenship, e.g., ones which would center Dalit women’s voices; and Lee’s concerns about whether the model can recognize the importance of subaltern nationalisms. Responses focus on ways in which the model seeks to enable individuals to challenge political arrogance from a position of co-equal citizenship in regional and global institutions.

Rethinking Global Administrative Law: Formulating a working definition of “global administrative action”

<p>Global administrative law (GAL) aims to plug the “accountability deficit” in global institutions by projecting national administrative law principles onto the global scale. Global administrative action has been provisionally delineated as "rulemaking, adjudication, and other decisions that are neither treaty-making nor simple dispute settlements between parties”. But the concept has not yet been defined. The paper adopts a “bottom up” approach by analysing the domestic administrative law of America, New Zealand, and South Africa in order to construct a definition of global administrative action. The paper presents a working definition of the concept.</p>

Rethinking Global Administrative Law: Formulating a working definition of “global administrative action”

<p>Global administrative law (GAL) aims to plug the “accountability deficit” in global institutions by projecting national administrative law principles onto the global scale. Global administrative action has been provisionally delineated as "rulemaking, adjudication, and other decisions that are neither treaty-making nor simple dispute settlements between parties”. But the concept has not yet been defined. The paper adopts a “bottom up” approach by analysing the domestic administrative law of America, New Zealand, and South Africa in order to construct a definition of global administrative action. The paper presents a working definition of the concept.</p>

Rocking the Boat:The Participation Rhetoric Exposed: Why Should People Living in Poverty Have a Voice and Space at the United Nations?

<p>Poverty is one of the most serious issues of our time, and the major seat of the poverty eradication discourse is at the United Nations. The term participation has increasingly featured in the high level poverty discourse in recent years, as well as in development practice. However, in contrast to other identity groups, such as women, indigenous people and people with disabilities, the participation of people living in poverty in high level UN processes is not given priority. They are not seen as an identity group in their own right, rather they are subsumed into others. Furthermore, any participation is assumed to be acceptably realised at the local level, with little priority placed on the facilitation of participation in transnational or global institutions such as the UN. NGOs are assumed to be able to represent the poor, a situation which is problematic and serves to further marginalise people living in poverty. As NGOs translate and represent, they effectively silence people living in poverty. In the absence of the poor, perceptions held by the general public and by decision makers about the poor continue to hamper the debate and restrict possible solutions. Furthermore, the exclusionary statistics-dominated language of UN debate and procedural restrictions present barriers to people living in poverty being meaningfully involved in the poverty discourse. Additionally, the overuse of statistics in these debates serves to abstract and dehumanise the poor. This thesis makes the normative argument that people living in poverty should have a place and space at the United Nations, as do other identity groups. Their participation represents an opportunity to force the debate beyond statistics, and expose the harsh realities of ongoing suffering resulting from the world's failure to act. Their testimony and input could provide an effective catalyst for mobilising political will. Drawing on critical theory, I argue that regular participation and testimony of the poor has the potential to pierce the political facade within which the powerful at the UN make decisions, with scant realisation of the often devastating consequences for the currently invisible poor. The conclusion drawn from this argument is that the poor must be allowed to be leaders of their own liberation and to reclaim their dignity.</p>

Rocking the Boat:The Participation Rhetoric Exposed: Why Should People Living in Poverty Have a Voice and Space at the United Nations?

<p>Poverty is one of the most serious issues of our time, and the major seat of the poverty eradication discourse is at the United Nations. The term participation has increasingly featured in the high level poverty discourse in recent years, as well as in development practice. However, in contrast to other identity groups, such as women, indigenous people and people with disabilities, the participation of people living in poverty in high level UN processes is not given priority. They are not seen as an identity group in their own right, rather they are subsumed into others. Furthermore, any participation is assumed to be acceptably realised at the local level, with little priority placed on the facilitation of participation in transnational or global institutions such as the UN. NGOs are assumed to be able to represent the poor, a situation which is problematic and serves to further marginalise people living in poverty. As NGOs translate and represent, they effectively silence people living in poverty. In the absence of the poor, perceptions held by the general public and by decision makers about the poor continue to hamper the debate and restrict possible solutions. Furthermore, the exclusionary statistics-dominated language of UN debate and procedural restrictions present barriers to people living in poverty being meaningfully involved in the poverty discourse. Additionally, the overuse of statistics in these debates serves to abstract and dehumanise the poor. This thesis makes the normative argument that people living in poverty should have a place and space at the United Nations, as do other identity groups. Their participation represents an opportunity to force the debate beyond statistics, and expose the harsh realities of ongoing suffering resulting from the world's failure to act. Their testimony and input could provide an effective catalyst for mobilising political will. Drawing on critical theory, I argue that regular participation and testimony of the poor has the potential to pierce the political facade within which the powerful at the UN make decisions, with scant realisation of the often devastating consequences for the currently invisible poor. The conclusion drawn from this argument is that the poor must be allowed to be leaders of their own liberation and to reclaim their dignity.</p>

Impact of Covid-19 on Livestock Production Chain and its Consequences on Food Security: A Review

Covid-19 represents an unprecedented public health threat and a severe crisis of society globally. Government agencies, policymakers and the global institutions, on the other hand, should give particular attention to and try to alleviate the problem (present and prospective) of the pandemic and related crisis response on key sectors that contribute to food stability, nutrition and livelihoods. The livestock sector plays an essential role in these areas, particularly for the particularly vulnerable population groups. Covid-19’s effects on livestock production are still largely unsubstantiated and not fully felt. Although case studies are not yet possible, observational data show interruptions in livestock’s entire value chain. The consequences of Covid-19 on the livestock production chain are in particular interruptions throughout the entire livestock value chain, lack of sales markets, import/export restrictions due to border closures, substantial financial losses to producers, increased cases of food insecurity.

US-CHINA COMPLEXITY: DEFINING THE POST-COVID-19 PANDEMIC WORLD

The US-China relation becomes the most important part of the international new post-pandemic order related to the evolution of the world order after the Covid-19. We are talking about the most important economies of the world, giving 25% and 23.5% of the world GDP, economies and countries involved in a number of strategic rivalries as well as of harsh competitions, with a lot of newly come instruments that do not benefit of any international regime, rules and norms – cyber, a.i., quantum computers, space, Arctic region etc. In the absence of a dominant power able to impose the respect of a rules based world and to project its power in order to forge the new rules and norms in the field of new technologies, the US needs a real multilateralism and a conjunction of the democratic powers in order to acquire altogether the needed preeminence in order to get those rules and norms approved at the level of global institutions, if it is not for a smooth bilateral relation with China which could agree a number of such provisions and try to negotiate for including its own interest.

The Return of Global Asymmetries

`The last three decades have witnessed the reversal of the ‘great divergence’ between the centre and the periphery that characterized the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth. The promise of this ‘great convergence’ was a much more symmetric world where prosperity and power would be much more equally distributed, where nations would abide by a rules-based international order and where effective global institutions would help ensure an adequate provision of global public goods. Economic analysis helped foresee how such a world would function. In contrast to those in vogue in the early post-war decades, the workhorse models for international trade, money, and finance of the late twentieth century all emphasized symmetry in international relations. Countries could be big or small, developed or poor, capital exporters or importers, but the same mechanisms and rules applied to them. It was only a matter of time before they would converge, or possibly trade places. More recent models, however, have started to challenge this benign view. Asymmetries between centre and periphery do matter in the network-based models of trade, investment, and finance that have been developed to account for emerging patterns of interaction. This is even truer of data flows and the networks that structure them. Meanwhile, the centrality of the dominant global currency and the asymmetries that it entails in exchange-rate adjustment are being rediscovered. Today’s world is much more asymmetric than we thought. This change of perspectives has significant implications for international economic relations and for global governance.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: An Emerging Venue for China’s New Diplomacy

China’s increasing strategic investment and continued diplomatic outreach has indicated that it aims to play a larger leadership role in global affairs in the years to come. To project its global power, Beijing has not only tried to bolster its position in existing regional and global institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, but also launched its own initiatives, programs, and projects to reinforce and reform the current international order. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) stands out as the only grouping whose inception, expansion, and functioning best showcase China’s rise and ambitions in the region and the larger world. Indeed, the SCO is a key platform for Beijing’s efforts to play such a role; it is a multilateral mechanism that has long provided an effective means for achieving China’s regional and international goals and interests. Yet, internal tensions between member states may pose new challenges, which will be a major test of the SCO’s resilience and capacity in the years to come.