Global Activity Research Articles

Southern agency in global norms creation: Bangladesh in the SDGs formulation process

This paper examines which institutions, ideas, and interests have shaped the position of Bangladesh in creating the norms of the United Nations (UN)’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Bangladesh’s contribution to the SDGs norms creation process is examined in two distinct stages: drafting a position paper (June 2012–June 2013) and participating in UN Open Working Group (OWG) negotiations (March 2013–July 2014). Findings reveal how a small cohort of policy entrepreneurs played a key role in both stages. They gave prominence to ideas such as poverty alleviation, global inequality, and migrants’ rights in structuring the SDGs agenda. In the final round of OWG negotiations, Bangladeshi delegates calculated that active participation in the norms creation process would best serve the interests of the Global South by challenging the Global North which wanted to impose its interests. This paper offers an important insight into the norms literature by showing convergence and divergence of interests and agendas of global and local actors.

The EU as a Global Actor: The Significance of Changes in the World Order From 2004 to 2024 as Regards EU Actorness

Contrary to the prevalent focus on the EU’s capabilities, this article analyses the implications for the EU’s global actorness stemming from changes in the world order. These changes are elaborated upon according to Hettne’s (2005) three-dimensional analysis of the world order, namely, its structure, mode of governance, and form of legitimisation from 2004 when the CEE countries became EU members, to 20 years into their membership in 2024. The main changes of the world order are identified as: the evolving multipolar international system; a transition from multilateralism towards plurilateralism; and the sporadic unilateral actions and delegitimisation of liberal world order alongside instances of the major powers’ disregard of international law. The article then elucidates the impact of these changes on EU actorness via illustrative case studies of issues dealt within the UN system and the WTO, namely, international trade, sustainable development, climate change, and international peace and security. Findings show that firstly, in an evolving multipolar international system, the EU aligns strongly with the US which maintains central power in security issues. Secondly, all case studies prove that the EU remains committed to transparent multilateralism. Thirdly, despite instances of increasing state-level disrespect of international law by the US, Russia, and China, the EU’s resolve and advocacy for international norms remains stable. The EU has managed to leverage its economic and normative capabilities along with its positive presence to exert legitimate leadership in, for example, digital trade agenda, the green transition, and artificial intelligence, but not in enlargement policy. And yet, the war in Ukraine has prompted the Union to bolster its military capability and upgrade its geopolitical strategy towards its neighbours. The authors conclude that the potential development of the EU’s defensive security capability – provided it is developed complementary to its unique market and normative power – offers an opportunity for the EU to reduce its capabilities/expectations gap and enhance its global actorness.

Climate change resilience and social capital: Insights from informal urban neighbourhoods in Kumasi, Ghana

This research addresses the pressing need to strengthen climate change resilience of the urban poor living in informal settlements by leveraging social capital - skills and networks. This research builds upon existing works to understand how social skills and networks contribute to building climate resilience in two informal settlements of Kumasi, noted to have diverse and strong community skills and networks. Through a qualitative research approach encompassing household surveys and focus group discussions, we gathered data from residents of Aboabo and Asawase, two of Ghana's largest informal neighbourhoods in Kumasi. We observed a strong presence of social bonding among the residents, characterized by tight-knit networks and reciprocal relationships. This form of social capital played a critical role in facilitating information sharing, resource pooling, and collective action in response to climate hazards. Despite limited government support, residents demonstrated a remarkable capacity for self-organization and community resilience-building, leveraging their social ties and local knowledge to address climate-related risks. However, we identified that the insular nature of these networks may hinder the inclusion of marginalized or vulnerable groups within the community, potentially exacerbating existing inequalities in climate resilience outcomes. These findings highlight the implications of our research for policy and practice, emphasizing the need for inclusive and participatory approaches and multi-scalar responses that involve local, national, regional, and global actors to climate resilience in informal settlements.

Progress in understanding the social dimensions of desalination and future research directions

The piece outlines the contributions of key works in the field of the political ecology of desalination over the past decade. We note that the field is diverse in terms of contributions from geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and public policy scholars. The research to date has been concerned with the ways in which the deployment of desalting techniques can reflect and reinforce social processes of inequality, political power and economic flows. In this way, desalination has been opened up for intellectual debate beyond technical considerations of the desalting industry and engineers. A critical perspective that complements the recent discussions of environmental harm caused by the desalination industry has emerged as well across a number of global and transboundary contexts. A number of themes emerged that will continue to be of interest to scholars and that need to be addressed in the years ahead. First, desalination intersects transboundary water governance and geopolitics between different water uses and emerges from complex assemblages of local and global actors, including financial actors, water companies, governments, technologies, and natural forces. Second, critical scholarship on desalination needs to continue to pay attention to the interests in and overarching patterns of, the Green New Deal and Blue Economy, each of which intersect with the worlds of academia and policymaking, and involve issues of climate adaptation and mitigation. Third, questions about equity remain with desalination as it is a solution deeply imbricated in the unequal distribution of resources, and questions about representation in decision-making remain. Fourth, research on finance and infrastructure have been at the core of critical desalting research and should remain so. Fifth, there is a growing heterogeneity in terms of research in types of desalting, from reverse osmosis to inland desalting to nuclear and more. This variety will make for rich research for the years ahead. Our hope is that the epistemological, theoretical, and methodological flexibility of this area of research will remain a strong point continuing its rigor, as well as the already robust collegiality among scholars in this interesting, and still nascent field.

Foreign Policy of India as the Reflection of Change in its Ruling Elite

The article examines the changes in the formulation, prioritisation and implementation of India’s foreign policy objectives as a result of a significant renewal of its political elite, triggered by the economic reforms that began in the 1990s. It is argued that India’s ruling elite is now largely identical to its political elite, whose mindset, although considerably younger and better educated, is more than ever defined by its self-identification with traditional values, which are religious and, for the vast Hindu majority, caste-based. At the same time, the composition of India’s elite has broadened during the reform years, mainly through the inclusion of middle and even lower castes in the traditional hierarchy. Many of its representatives tend to associate the strengthening of the country with a return to the “correct” cultural and civilisational basis which, in the centuries before foreign conquest, gave India what the y saw as its natural primacy in the world. The main change is the emergence of a sense of self-confidence among the elite, on which the so-called “new nationalism” of the “man of the people”, the current Prime Minister N. Modi, is based. Drawing on his statements, speeches by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, and articles by Indian and Russian scholars, the author shows the innovations introduced by the Prime Minister in promoting India’s core national interests in a changing world. The article examines the creation of India’s own sphere of influence within the framework of the new Indo-Pacific strategy, the combination of cooperation and competition in relations with China, the reasons for the dynamic expansion of interaction with the United States and the “red lines” involved, the motives for developing a particularly privileged strategic partnership with Russia and for using multilateral formats, and the return to India’s agenda of the task of gaining the status of the main voice of the Global South. It is concluded that approaches to the imperative of building a multipolar world order “in which India would be a strong pole”, based on the priority goal of establishing for it the status of a great power and a global actor in world politics, create historic opportunities for increasing Russian-Indian interaction.

From Argentina to Zimbabwe: Exploring the global appeal of the International Baccalaureate

This paper presents the third stage of a larger research project examining perceptions of the International Baccalaureate (IB) to better understand its growing influence on education systems around the world. The first two stages involved a synchronic and diachronic analysis of IB discourse in a 27 million word specialized corpus of global press articles, created as an unsolicited window into public opinion (Mautner, 2008). The present study uses the same corpus to explore how the IB is represented in different countries, what values and attitudes may be associated with it, and how it interacts with other global education actors. Bottom up and top down methods from corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) were used to analyze 34,104 newspaper articles from 56 countries. Frequency, collocation and concordance analyses revealed four dominant discourses of deficiency connected to national education systems in countries across the ideological spectrum that helped to legitimize the inclusion of private actors in the provision of education. Results also showed unique discourses associated with the IB in North America, thereby highlighting the key role that this region plays in the IB world.

IB World Schools in the lusophone world: an exploratory field study in São Paulo, Lisbon and Maputo

ABSTRACT The article provides a global comparison of IB World Schools in the lusophone space, including countries in three different world regions, in response to a lack of research on international education in Portuguese-speaking countries. Following an introduction to the literature on this topic, focusing on a widely known typology of international schools, we present the first results of three case studies of the IB school field in the metropolitan regions of São Paulo, Lisbon and Maputo based on an analysis of school websites, databases and public documents. The study is based on a global comparative approach that enables an analysis of the complex interrelation between global and local actors in education, primarily addressing the school level. We aim to provide some insights on the implementation and development of the IB World Schools in Portuguese-speaking countries, in the light of existing studies on international schools.

Progress and Skepticism: What Angola's New Penal Code Means for Its LGBTQIA+ Community

Abstract: In 2019, Angolan officials voted to change their penal code to make homosexual acts legal and create protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Western outlets touted this change as a triumph for global LGBTQIA+ activism broadly and sub-Saharan African LGBTQIA+ rights specifically. But what does the penal code mean for the LGBTQIA+ community in Angola? Laws that establish new legal rights may make minor steps in altering individuals' lives. Referring to fifty semistructured interviews conducted from 2022–23 and using a discursive meaning-making approach, I argue that while global actors welcomed progress, local benefits were mixed, with little progress gained and increased skepticism about future action from the government.

Inclusion of gender and labour standards in preferential trade agreements: evidence from North American and Canada-Chile agreements

ABSTRACT This article analyses the causes of the incorporation of gender provisions into preferential trade agreements (PTAs), based an analysis of the reasons for the inclusion of both labour and gender provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and in the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA). Drawing upon feminist and constructivist analysis, it argues for the importance of ideational factors such as policy emulation, social learning, the formation of transnational advocacy networks (TANs), as well as the role of Global South actors. Gender provisions often contain neoliberal elements that promote female entrepreneurship rather than more transformational approaches. The comparison of the USMCA and the CCFTA shows that the inclusion of stronger gender provisions in labour chapters (as in the USMCA) may be a more effective way to promote the interests of vulnerable workers than the inclusion of a gender chapter.

World‐makers and social justice: Strategies of (in)action?

AbstractThis article applies a Bourdieusian lens to a critical analysis of global power dynamics to argue that a field framework is useful for studying praxis and (in)action in complex and dynamic global spaces of decision‐making. It is argued that individuals with global power can interact strategically to change their actions for improved social and economic justice, but it requires resisting dominant practices that may maintain existing inequalities. By exploring the interrelations between positions within the global spaces of the World Social Forum and the World Economic Forum, we offer an original contribution to the field of strategic change. We show how the actors in these global spaces have the potential to provoke greater social justice but also risk perpetuating a status quo that continues to favor the few over the many. Participants are world‐makers who wield symbolic power and can create disruption in the “rules of the game,” but the strength of those who seek to defend the status quo can perpetuate inertia. The article offers a novel contribution to the research on global spaces and elite actors by critically analyzing accounts of strategic practices therein, thus offering a more nuanced understanding of world‐making in action or inaction.

Who and what belongs to us? Towards a comprehensive concept of inclusion and planetary citizenship

In this theoretical article, we ask who and what belongs to us. We aim to conceptualise planetary citizenship and identify the scale for experiences of planetary inclusion. As a basis for the planetary approach, we utilise systems thinking and eudaimonic well-being that transcends hedonism and materialism and that focuses on meaningful and purposeful living, personal growth, engagement and positive relationships. Expanding the concept of human participation is necessary as the contemporary lifeworld has gradually stretched beyond the traditional boundaries of local communities and nation-state societies. Furthermore, the lifestyle of people living in high-income industrial countries has also been noted to have serious consequences in wider circles of life. Thus, human–biosphere relationships must be renegotiated to strengthen responsible citizenship and facilitate caring for life on Earth. To promote this ideal, we widen the already validated scale for experiences of social inclusion towards a scale for experiences of planetary inclusion. We introduce the concept of planetary citizenship, which enhances the concept of inclusion. Planetary citizenship refers to a life orientation where the boundary between humans and the rest of nature disappears. It refers to the citizen who is simultaneously a local, global and planetary actor. The attachment to something larger could help planetary citizens grow towards being a person who is aware and reflective and can look at the world from new perspectives. Experiences of planetary inclusion could also help to solve the problems of climate change, depletion of natural resources and biodiversity loss.

Translating global evidence into local implementation through technical assistance: a realist evaluation of the Bloomberg philanthropies initiative for global Road safety

BackgroundTraffic-related crashes are a leading cause of premature death and disability. The safe systems approach is an evidence-informed set of innovations to reduce traffic-related injuries and deaths. First developed in Sweden, global health actors are adapting the model to improve road safety in low- and middle-income countries via technical assistance (TA) programs; however, there is little evidence on road safety TA across contexts. This study investigated how, why, and under what conditions technical assistance influenced evidence-informed road safety in Accra (Ghana), Bogotá (Colombia), and Mumbai (India), using a case study of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS).MethodsWe conducted a realist evaluation with a multiple case study design to construct a program theory. Key informant interviews were conducted with 68 government officials, program staff, and other stakeholders. Documents were utilized to trace the evolution of the program. We used a retroductive analysis approach, drawing on the diffusion of innovation theory and guided by the context-mechanism-outcome approach to realist evaluation.ResultsTA can improve road safety capabilities and increase the uptake of evidence-informed interventions. Hands-on capacity building tailored to specific implementation needs improved implementers’ understanding of new approaches. BIGRS generated novel, city-specific analytics that shifted the focus toward vulnerable road users. BIGRS and city officials launched pilots that brought evidence-informed approaches. This built confidence by demonstrating successful implementation and allowing government officials to gauge public perception. But pilots had to scale within existing city and national contexts. City champions, governance structures, existing political prioritization, and socio-cultural norms influenced scale-up.ConclusionThe program theory emphasizes the interaction of trust, credibility, champions and their authority, governance structures, political prioritization, and the implement-ability of international evidence in creating the conditions for road safety change. BIGRS continues to be a vehicle for improving road safety at scale and developing coalitions that assist governments in fulfilling their role as stewards of population well-being. Our findings improve understanding of the complex role of TA in translating evidence-informed interventions to country-level implementation and emphasize the importance of context-sensitive TA to increase impact.

The Commission strikes back: regulatory authority and legitimacy in European technology standardization. A commentary on Cantero Gamito and Kamara

This commentary intends to provide a scholarly reaction on the two papers in this Special Issue, that discuss the emerging European legislation in the field of technology standards. The contribution of Marta Cantero Gamito addresses the (draft) Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), whereas the contribution of Irene Kamara covers the (draft) Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). Both pieces of legislation use the ‘New Approach’ regulatory technique, whereby the European Commission requests three European standards bodies to develop technical standards in support of its policies in the fields of AI and cyber resilience respectively. Drawing on the findings of these contributions, this paper starts from the premise that through its recent policy initiatives, the European Commission attempts to gain regulatory authority in the technological domains by tightening its regulatory muscle around ETSI. In doing so, the Commission invokes its concerns about ETSI’s legitimacy and procedural safeguards. Yet, as this commentary concludes, such practices are potentially detrimental to the EU’s role as a global technology actor but also to the legitimacy of European standardization.

Internationalization of Higher Education and Emerging National Rationales: Comparative Analysis of the Global North and South

AbstractThis paper provides a comparative analysis of national rationales to higher education internationalization in the global north and south countries using content analysis. The results reveal that the socio-economic rationales are dominant across most of the 27 sampled countries. However, they manifest differently across the global north and global south as countries interpret the benefits and effects of internationalization in line with their national priorities. These variations are being shaped by an increasingly complex, competitive, and multipolar higher education internationalization landscape with new global south actors acquiring agency despite the deepening global inequalities. As a result, political rationales are becoming an important driver to internationalization. The current geopolitical environment associated with global conflicts, health pandemics, and increased nationalistic, anti-immigrant, and anti-globalization sentiments is also adding more uncertainty and complexity. Due to increased concerns about this multipolar and self-centred internationalization, a few countries are starting to promote inclusive approaches to internationalization.

How integration of refugees into national health systems became a global priority: a qualitative policy analysis.

Despite a long history of political discourse around refugee integration, it wasn't until 2016 that this issue emerged as a global political priority. Limited research has examined the evolution of policies of global actors around health service provision to refugees and how refugee integration into health systems came onto the global agenda. This study seeks to fill this gap. Drawing on a document review of 20 peer-reviewed articles, 46 global policies and reports, and 18 semi-structured interviews with actors representing various bilateral, multilateral and non-governmental organizations involved with refugee health policy and funding, we analyze factors that have shaped the global policy priority of integration. We use the Shiffman and Smith Policy Framework on determinants of political priority to organize our findings. Several important factors generated global priority for refugee integration into national health systems. Employing the above-mentioned framework, actor power increased due to network expansion through collaborations between humanitarian and development actors. Ideas took hold through the framing of integration as a human rights and responsibility sharing. While political context was influenced through several global movements, it was ultimately the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe and the increasing securitization of the refugee crisis that led to key policies, and critically, global funding to support integration within refugee hosting nations. Finally, issue characteristics, namely the magnitude of the global refugee crisis, its protractedness and the increasing urbanicity of refugee inflows, led integration to emerge as a manageable solution. The past decade has seen a substantial reframing of refugee integration, along with increased financing sources and increased collaboration, explains this shift towards their integration into health systems. However, despite the emergence of integration as a global political priority, the extent to which efforts around integration have translated into action at the national level remains uncertain.

Peace as a hypothetical imperative: Brazil's foreign policy standpoint on the war in Ukraine

AbstractThe text traces Brazil's pacifist stance back to the early 20th century, rooted in a pragmatic approach to conserve resources and foster economic growth. It discusses the role of public opinion in shaping Brazil's response to the conflict, highlighting a pro‐neutrality tendency within the populace. The article also analyses the continuity of Brazil's stance under two different presidents, emphasising that despite a change in leadership, there has been no structural shift in foreign policy concerning this matter. We then reflect on Brazil's evolving role on the global stage, considering its historical alignment with the West and the changing dynamics driven by factors such as China's rising influence and the BRICS grouping. The continuing conflict in Ukraine is portrayed as an illustrative case, providing insights on the prospective foreign policy conduct of Global South actors.

The European Union's Regulatory Power: Refining and Illustrating the Concept With the Case of the Transfer of EU Geographical Indication Rules to Japan

AbstractThe European Union's (EU) regulatory power is an increasing focus of scholarly attention, but the lack of a consistent definition leaves room for refinement. Studies investigating the EU's role as a global regulatory actor yield different interpretations, some viewing the EU as a global market regulator, some as a power residing in the trade–regulatory nexus and others as a law‐making entity that creates widely emulated rules. This article refines the definition of the EU's regulatory power by presenting a conceptual framework for better understanding the EU's regulatory actorness, encompassing its ends and means as a general regulator and/or a regulatory power. Using the proposed framework to analyse the transfer of EU geographical indication (GI) rules to Japan, this study finds that the EU's regulatory power is particularly conditioned on the interest constellation between the EU and a third country. Regarding the EU's goal of exercising regulatory power, interest promotion seems to take priority over rule exporting or norm sharing.

Asymmetries Versus Sustainability: The Human Right to Peace in Brazil Post-1988

Abstract: This article has as object of study the repercussions of the dimension of the Human Right to Peace in Brazil after the decision of the Supreme Federal Court on Declaratory Action of Unconstitutionality No. 3,540, which recognized the rights of a brand-new dimension between economic and environmental aspects. The research method used was inductive, with bibliographic, jurisprudential, documentary, and normative investigation. The consequences of the pluralities of rights and people make the recognition of the Human Right to Peace in Brazil expose the advances and challenges regarding the applicability of sustainable intergenerational legal certainty. The result permeates the moral blindness of global actors, their modus vivendi and modus operandi in risk societies. Pointing out better efforts regarding Brazil's constitutional objectives and foundations in the face of the 2030 Agenda offers perspectives on understanding a complex of crises in which this right involves, giving prospects for an asymmetry to sustainability. Keywords: Peace. Risk and Sustainability. Intergenerational Legal Certainty. Development and Democracy.

Book review: The EU as a Global Digital Actor: Institutionalising Global Data Protection, Trade, and Cybersecurity. by Elaine Fahey (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2022)

Book review: <i>The EU as a Global Digital Actor: Institutionalising Global Data Protection, Trade, and Cybersecurity.</i> by Elaine Fahey (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2022)

China’s Africa Policy during the Xi Jinping Era (2012-2022)

This study examines China's Africa policy during the Xi Jinping era, in the context of political, economic, security, and socio-cultural aspects. Africa is one of the regions of strategic importance, especially in terms of meeting the energy and raw material demands of global and regional actors, despite the significant lack of accumulated capital. In this regard, China has notably intensified its relations with African countries, particularly since the 1990s. China's approach to Africa began with collaborations based on economic interests, progressed to consolidating political relations through soft power elements, and the establishment of reliable relations in this process has also paved the way for China to become a security actor in the region. In the study, these aspects are considered as turning points and are examined through the process tracing method. Consequently, the main objective of this study is to analyze China's Africa policy during the Xi Jinping era specifically using the process tracing method.