Global Governance from Regional Perspectives

Abstract

This book investigates, discusses, and confronts the different cultural and geopolitical understandings of global governance in different regions of the world. The main research questions addressed are: What does governance (as opposed to government, for instance) mean in different regions of the world? How does it relate to concepts like power, legitimacy, state, citizenship? Concepts of power are culturally informed, and the same is true for notions of citizenship, government, governance, and rule of law. Language also defines what can be ‘said’ and ‘thought of’. How is the notion of global governance shaped by and embedded in cultural perspectives? How is global governance understood in different regions of the world? What normative and political challenges does the concept of global governance and the emerging regimes of global governance institutions raise in different parts of the world? Is there something like a regional texture of global governance that builds upon regional cultural, social, historical, political, and/or institutional features and characteristics and that adapts the meaning of global governance to the spatial context in which it is adopted? We propose assessment at the regional level as a heuristic tool to examine the context of trends in global governance, in order to identify similarities and differences across continents without diluting the overarching conclusions by concentrating too closely on regional detail. The regional dimension is understood in a dynamic and critical perspective, and not as it has been traditionally used in ‘area studies’. We build on the notion of ‘regional worlds’ proposed by Acharya and their dynamic character.