Can global governance in the post-2015 era become inclusive, accountable and transformative towards a more equitable and sustainable world? Toward a research agenda

Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies

The Graduate Center, CUNY

365 Fifth Avenue, between 34 & 35 Streets

New York City

14 March 2016

Scope, focus and methodology of the workshop

The scope, focus, and methodology of this workshop by Terra Nuova, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies and IDDRI, have been determined in dialogue with the participants, through their reactions to a draft discussion document prepared and circulated by the organizers. A substantial consensus has emerged regarding the objective to be pursued, as illustrated by the following excerpts from participants’ comments, although some have exhibited a certain degree of pessimism or skepticism concerning the likelihood of attaining it:

• How to build a “global public sphere”, strengthening sites and practices of “people-centered alternative global governance”, and how to address and tame practices of TNCs and global financial interests (Barry Gills).
• Understanding the structure of power within the global political economy and redressing political imbalances created in a very interdependent but unequal world (Craig Murphy).
• How can citizen pressure and practice from below generate governance support for an emergent world we like? What strategy can be adopted in the Westphalian present with a view to a very different future (Harriet Friedmann)?
• What shifts in norms/ideas and openings in economic dynamics/structures are needed to enable new governance frameworks to bring more transformative change (Jennifer Clapp).
• What concrete steps can advance more desirable forms of governance embodying very different relations between people and the earth, among states, between states and people who live in them (Jackie Smith).

 

Any one of the topics to be discussed in the workshop could be the subject of an entire seminar. Often they are treated separately, and it is hoped that linking them in a single discussion can help to construct a strategic overview of the issues involved.  Each topic will be introduced by three “kick-off” speakers, who will have five minutes each to express a few key ideas leaving 35 minutes for discussion. The aim, obviously, is not to explore the questions exhaustively, but rather to define and flesh them out for further research and reflection. Follow-up to the workshop will be discussed in a final, forward-looking wrap-up session.

The majority of the participants are academics, while others come from the worlds of government, civil society and social movements (see attached list). An effort has been made to frame questions in ways that speak to problems encountered in real life in order to help bridge the gap between theory and practice.