Summary – what have we learned?

With nine seminars addressing different aspects of global governance, the project gave insightful answers and posed interesting new questions to a broad variety of themes. While it is hard to do the entire series justice in one big swoop, here are some key topics, questions, and challenges that ran throughout the seminars.

Starting with first a seminar on China and then on the United States (US), set the stage for the centrality of the relationship between these two great powers. The increasing rivalry that characterizes this relationship has impact beyond just the field of US-China relations. It brings tension and upheaval to global security and political-economy. As the seminar on an ecological economic regime showed, it already has had big impacts on the global green transition. Still, the rivalry may also develop into a rivalry in terms of funding global public goods, which could lead to positive developments and could open possibilities, especially in the Global South.

Another theme running through many seminars is that of the role of knowledge and expertise in global politics. While technocratic tendencies may already be part of global governance, questions remain as to how this plays out in a changing world. As the seminar on New Media, Big Data, Civil Society showed, abstract knowledge and the ability to slice up phenomena into smaller, storable pieces – be they numbers, code, or other forms of data – is a great source of power and domination, a source that has historically been located in the Global North. Whether this continues to be the case remains to be seen, as does whether the dominance of neoliberal market-based quantifications endures. Regarding the latter, both Angela Wigger and Wolfgang Streeck argued that we ought to have a critique of the sovereignty of prices, echoing John Maynard Keynes’ point that capitalism devalues life because of price mechanisms.

Expertise also has implications in the important field of international law. As Martti Koskenniemi argued, the fields of international law and politics cannot be separated but are rather two alternative descriptions of a world that remains one. One key political challenge in international Law is what Koskenniemi calls the politics of definition. One of the most central recent developments in international law has been the intensification in the role of experts. As international law has become more stratified, increasingly, environmental lawyers work on environmental law, trade lawyers work on trade law etc. This can cause two main problems. Firstly, richer countries are more likely to be able to afford experts, whereas poorer countries will rely on generalists. Secondly, it increases the dominance of people educated in northern institutions being relied upon by the south. The turn to expertise then brings with it the threat of strengthening northern hegemony in international law.

These questions are part of a general focus on the relationship between continuations and breaks. As many seminars have hinted at, the current moment of crisis and change inevitably asks the question not only of where we are and where we are going but also, what was? While big shifts in economic and financial policies have occurred, broadening our understanding of what neoliberalism was/is, opens possibilities for better analyzing potential continuities in these shifts. Furthermore, as the seminar on New Claims on Global Order showed, there might even be room for a liberal rejection of neoliberalism. On the other hand, as our panelists in the final seminar on European neoliberalism explained, the flexibility of neoliberalism as an ideology, as well as the economics profession it has so often been associated with, is an important factor to keep in mind.

What actors, institutions, and states are then central in these changes? Where is the agency? While looking beyond the nation state is important and the relevance of non-state actors has come up time and time again, the idea that globalization would reduce states’ influence on global politics, economics, and governance has not been born out. States, especially great powers, remain important. As John Mearsheimer argued in the panel on US foreign policy, trans- and international cooperation, especially through economic trade, may be fine for a while, but when push comes to shove, power politics and the state suddenly matters a great deal. Yet, there are also important insights found when opening the realist black box of the state. As many panelists have shown, internal power struggles, especially within powerful states, often have global consequences. For example, the influence of more localized forms of capital in the Trump administration as well as the Obama presidency’s success in turning the US from a net energy importer to exporter, have had serious impact on global trade and security, far beyond US borders and relations.

Finally, what might be new ways of understanding global governance? What could emerge as an alternative to neoliberal ideas and concepts for guiding this understanding? Several ideologies, principles, and analytical theories have been brought up. The specter of a cold war 2.0 looms large and with that increased securitizations and power politics. So too does technocracy, though potentially in a more regionalized, non-internationalist form than previous iterations. On a more positive note, hopes of a liberal rejection of neoliberalism, prioritizing liberal-democratic values above economic competition lives on. So does greener visions of the future. The idea of “the Planetary” as both James Quillligan and Dominic Sachsenmeier presented in their interviews, has spread in both academic and public discourse especially through the idea of planetary limits to growth. The dream of a more planetarily aligned form of economics already brings new ideas of quantification, expertise, political goals, historical awareness etc., all ideas that could challenge neoliberal dogma. Still, with massive amounts of economic, political, and social capital having been invested in both fossil-driven and neoliberal economies, the big question remains, from where and by whom could such challenges gain proper momentum?