"The momentous gravity of the state of things now obtaining": annoying Westphalian objections to the idea of global governance.(Symposium on Operationalizing Global Governance)

A Post-Westphalian Moment between the Entree and Dessert

Often the most valuable moments at a conference take place away from it--conversation during the breaks, often over dinner or drinks. So as I cut into my steak, or perhaps it was salmon, I listened to a fellow attendee expound on the ways Argentina is constrained by the changes and forces on which the case for global governance--the subject of our conference--is built. And then he concluded: "Argentina is just an actor like any other."

I have no metaphysical awe of the Argentine Republic's sovereignty--one of my earliest political memories is of the Falklands War--but this struck me as profoundly incorrect. I could think of no corporation, non-governmental organization, union, or other non-state actor whose capacities come close to those of this mid-level power. (1) Yes, Argentina is constrained; it is just one player--a tremendously powerful, resourceful player. And it is not, of course, the only one.

Yet this comment was consistent with ones I heard throughout the conference--another attendee, for example, predicted the state as we know it would not be around in fifty years--and would hardly be unprecedented in any discussion of global governance. (2) Statements of faint praise for the power of states--"still relevant," with the implication "barely" or "but not for long"--suggest that there already are or soon will be other, more decisive actors. This strikes me as a problematic position--but more, as one that might indicate something problematic in the framework out of which such analysis arises, which is to say the framework of global governance: an orientation, a perspective, and ultimately a self-definition that privileges proofs of change over continuity, and that is therefore, in some endemic way, susceptible to the risks of fahionability.

I was skeptical. Still, I finished my dinner; I sat through the conference. I enjoyed both: learned a lot and ate well. I am still skeptical.

I. Does This Make Me Look Global? A Problem of Interpretation

Every era has its fashions, every decade its fads. These are not trivial; the character of the times is best remembered by its style. Some fashions--abandoning corsets, adopting casual Fridays--reflect shifts in power and social roles. And taken together, ephemeral fashions may not only mark but constitute humanity's transformations. Perhaps we confront such a moment now, when something fashionable proves foundational, when the trendy resolves into a trendline. Perhaps the idea of global governance--which is undeniably fashionable (3)--is also world-historical. Certainly global governance, and the changes driving it, merit serious consideration; as the same text that provides my title notes--admittedly, in a somewhat different context--"wise men are discussing it; practical men are proposing schemes; popular meetings, legislatures, and rulers of nations are all busied with it--actually there is no question which has taken deeper hold on the public mind." (4) In the moment, of course, it is so hard to know. Still, it is all very exciting