Global Liberal Governance: Networks, Resistance and War

Abstract

There is clarity in simply asking why there is resistance to liberal governance, what forms that resistance takes and how global liberal governance anticipates and responds to resistance. But that clarity may also be misleading if we do not immediately acknowledge also that power and resistance are always found together, correlated in a co-productive and co-evolutionary dynamic. No power, no resistance. No resistance, no power. Behind this proposition is the closely allied one that forms of war and forms of life are also correlated. The dialectic of this complex process of violent differentiation is, of course, a dynamic one. It has no predetermined or certain resolution. From this perspective, then, it would be absurd to think that there would not be resistance to global liberal governance. It would be equally absurd to think that global liberal governance would not be actively involved in anticipating, and making provision for dealing forcefully with, opposition to its currently dominant regime of power. In short, the liberal way of peace is correlated with a liberal way of war. The liberal way of peace is currently characterised by global liberal governance.