Governance in a Partially Globalized World Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 2000.

Talk of globalization is common today in the press and increasingly in political science. Broadly speaking, globalization means the shrinkage of distance on a world scale through the emergence and thickening of networks of connections--environmental and social as well as economic (Held et al. 1999; Keohane and Nye [1977] 2001). Forms of limited globalization have existed for centuries, as exemplified by the Silk Road. Globalization took place during the last decades of the nineteenth century, only to be reversed sharply during the thirty years after World War I. It has returned even more strongly recently, although it remains far from complete. We live in a partially globalized world.

Globalization depends on effective governance, now as in the past. Effective governance is not inevitable. If it occurs, it is more likely to take place through interstate cooperation and transnational networks than through a world state. But even if national states retain many of their present functions, effective governance of a partially--and increasingly--globalized world will require more extensive international institutions. Governance arrangements to promote cooperation and help resolve conflict must be developed if globalization is not to stall or go into reverse.

Not all patterns of globalization would be beneficial. It is easy to conjure up nightmare scenarios of a globalized world controlled by self-serving elites working to depress wages and suppress local political autonomy. So we need to engage in normative as well as positive analysis. To make a partially globalized world benign, we need not just effective governance but the right kind of governance.

My analysis begins with two premises. The first is that increased interdependence among human beings produces discord, since self-regarding actions affect the welfare of others. At worst, the effects of international interdependence include war. As international relations "realists" have long recognized, interdependence and lack of governance make a deadly mixture. This Hobbesian premise can be stated in a more positive form: Globalization creates potential gains from cooperation. This argument is often seen as "liberal" and is associated with Adam Smith and David Ricardo, but it is actually complementary to Hobbe's point. The gains of cooperation loom larger relative to the alternative of unregulated conflict. Both realists and liberals agree that under conditions of interdependence, institutions are essential if people are to have opportunities to pursue the good life (Hobbes [1651] 1967; Keohane 1984; Keohane and Nye [1977] 2001).

My second premise is that institutions can foster exploitation or even oppression. As Judith Shklar (1984, 244) expresses it, "no liberal ever forgets that governments are coercive." The result is what I will call the governance dilemma: Although institutions are essential for human life, they are also dangerous. Pessimistic about voluntary cooperation, Hobbes firmly grasped the authoritarian horn of the governance dilemma. We who are unwilling to accept Hobbe's solution incur an obligation to try to explain how effective institutions that serve human interests can be designed and maintained. We must ask the question that Plato propounded more than two millenia ago: Who guards the guardians?

Clearly, the stakes are high: no less than peace, prosperity, and freedom. Political science as a profession should accept the challenge of discovering how well-structured institutions could enable the world to have "a new birth of freedom" (Lincoln 1863). We need to reflect on what we, as political scientists, know that could help actors in global society design and maintain institutions that would make possible the good life for our descendants.

In the first section of this essay I sketch what might be called the "ideal world." What normative standards should institutions meet, and what categories should we use to evaluate institutions according to those standards? I turn next to what we know about real institutions--why they exist, how they are created and maintained, and what this implies about their actual operation. In the concluding section I try to bring ideal and reality together to discuss institutional design. Are there ways by which we can resolve the governance dilemma, using institutions to promote cooperation and create order, without succumbing to exploitation or tyranny?