The Future of Global Affairs Managing Discontinuity, Disruption and Destruction
The Future of Global Affairs Managing Discontinuity, Disruption and Destruction
The Future of Global Affairs Managing Discontinuity, Disruption and Destruction
Global Affairs
Managing Discontinuity, Disruption
and Destruction
Edited by
Christopher Ankersen · Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu
Foreword by Helen Clark and Vera Jelinek
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ENGLISH PRECIS & COMPOSITION
HAFIZ KARIM DAD CHUGTAI
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Foreword by Helen Clark
The United Nations (UN) was founded 75 years ago to advance peace,
human rights, and development—a mandate as relevant today as it was
in 1945. Its most remarkable year in recent times in achieving global
consensus on a better future for all was 2015. That year, agreement
was reached on Agenda 2030 and its seventeen Sustainable Develop-
ment Goals (SDGs), the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduc-
tion, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development,
and the Paris Climate Agreement. The New Urban Agenda was agreed
the following year at the UN’s Habitat III Conference on Housing and
Sustainable Development. Taken together, these constitute an ambitious
agenda, which if implemented in full would transform the prospects of
the world’s peoples and ecosystems.
This ambition is consistent with the UN’s impressive track record of
agenda-setting—the UN was credited by the UN Intellectual History
Project for having been an incubator of new and powerful ideas which
have shaped norms, policies, and practice in many areas. It has been a
platform for the negotiation of a substantial body of international law,
and it has enabled much practical development, and humanitarian work.
In earlier years, it played a significant role in supporting decolonization,
which in turn led to the expansion of its membership from the 51 member
states present at its founding to the 193 of today.
That is not to say that the UN’s record has been without blemish.
The 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica—also
v
vi FOREWORD BY HELEN CLARK
neither equipped to act nor have a mandate to act to stem the violence
which greets them. In a number of the currently raging conflicts, there is
no mandate for UN peacekeepers to be present at all. All too often these
conflicts are in effect proxy wars, with the powerful patrons who back
warring parties having little interest in international mediation.
Additionally, the UN is largely a bystander as key parts of the nuclear
weapons control architecture are being dismantled. An egregious example
is that of the Iran nuclear deal which was endorsed by the UN Security
Council. The US withdrawal from the agreement was a direct challenge
to the authority of the Council which all UN member states are bound
to uphold. The expiry of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
between the United States and what is now Russia is a major threat to
peace and security, but one which the multilateral system in its current
state is not equipped to address.
Challenging as the outlook for the multilateral system currently is,
however, it would be wrong to walk away from it. Its institutions need to
be maintained for times when geopolitics are more conducive to making
them effective. Disengaging only contributes to their decline in rele-
vance. Meanwhile thought should be given to how to reinvigorate the
system. Not all parts of it are useful. Some need a fundamental over-
haul and reorientation. Some entities barely continue on life support, and
would be better absorbed or eliminated altogether. Others need radical
improvements to their efficiency and effectiveness.
To date, neither the UN nor the Bretton Woods Institutions have been
able to address the nature of their outdated governance systems compre-
hensively. For example, the UN Security Council configuration with its
five permanent members designated in 1945 does not remotely reflect
today’s geopolitics. When the World Bank and the International Mone-
tary Fund changed their leaders last year, there was no serious questioning
of where the new heads would come from. They were preordained to be
an American and a European, respectively. Obsolete governance structures
undermine the credibility of these institutions.
The international system could strive to become more inclusive by
embracing a wider range of actors, beyond member states. A pioneer
in that was the International Labour Organization. From its inception
in 1919, it has had tripartite membership consisting of governments,
unions, and employer organizations. Other non-UN bodies, such as the
Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, GAVI—the Vaccine
viii FOREWORD BY HELEN CLARK
The idea for a Center for Global Affairs at New York University had been
brewing in my head for many years prior to its establishment in 2004, but
gained momentum with the seismic and rapid shifts occurring in the field.
With the end of the Cold War, the events of 9/11, and the US invasion
of Iraq in 2003, it became increasingly evident that “international affairs”
was no longer an adequate rubric to describe, understand, and cope with
the rapidly changing landscape. The number of players, even in terms
of traditional states, were expanding exponentially from the 51 original
United Nations members to 193; Non-Governmental Organizations had
evolved to become contenders in shaping and influencing policies; the
private sector and international organizations were setting new norms.
And that speaks only to the actors shaping international relations.
The impact of horizontal forces that were either ignored or previ-
ously played a minor role was also coming to the forefront. The role of
gender, peacebuilding, refugee flows, climate change, energy, terrorism,
transnational security, the internet and communication, among many
other factors, begged for closer scrutiny and study. New trends became
evident: nonalignment lost its salience as the world moved first to unipo-
larity and then multipolarity, multilateralism flourished and gained an edge
over bilateral arrangements, regional organizations expanded, and global-
ization trumped borders and promoted a freer movement of capital, ideas,
people, and goods.
ix
x FOREWORD BY VERA JELINEK
Vera Jelinek
Divisional Dean
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies
New York University
New York, USA
Acknowledgments
The genesis of this edited book project was to celebrate the fifteenth
anniversary of the Center for Global Affairs (CGA), and be a festschrift
to honor the vision of its founder, Dean Vera Jelinek. CGA’s faculty
warmly embraced the idea and also provided ambitious and encouraging
inputs. Based on that, the initial conception further evolved into a volume
that would offer a glimpse into the future of global affairs across the
concentrations and specializations that the Center offers.
It is of course, one thing to plan an edited volume but quite another
to bring it to fruition; and we are deeply grateful and indebted for the
support and contributions of the many individuals who made it possible.
First, under the tutelage of Dr. Jelinek, CGA has become a home for
global scholars and citizen to hone their skills, and apply lessons from
the classroom into the policy world. Her enthusiastic support helped to
get this project off the ground. Second, our heartfelt thanks to faculty
colleagues who carved out time from their busy teaching, researching,
and engagement schedules to contribute insightful chapters.
The project came alive at workshop on September 13, 2019, which
allowed for a critical discussion of the overall theme of the book, as
well as critique of the individual chapters. It is no exaggeration to claim
that without the frank feedback of the discussants from the academic
and policy worlds, this book would be a shadow of what it is now.
For their constructive inputs and comments we are very grateful to
Franz Baumann, Visiting Research Professor, Program in International
xi
xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Christopher Ankersen
Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu
Contents
xiii
xiv CONTENTS
Index 321
Notes on Contributors
xv
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
xvii
xviii LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 5.1 The impact organization (Source Author’s own creation) 113
Fig. 11.1 Estimated petroleum and natural gas production in
selected countries (Source U.S. Energy Information
Administration, based on International Energy Statistics.
Note Petroleum includes crude oil, condensate, and
natural gas plant liquids) 251
List of Tables
xix
CHAPTER 1
“The world,” according to, United States President Donald Trump, “is
a very dangerous place.”1 While this might be dismissed as character-
istic hyperbole from, perhaps, the most sciolistic leader of our times, it
inadvertently underlines the existential challenges posed by the multitude
of seismic shifts since the start of the twenty-first century. While Trump’s
sentiment is perceived by many as characteristic of the international arena,
the ways in which it is dangerous are changing. Three distinct trends
are discernable. First, there are growing intrastate conflicts, which range
from urban violence to terrorism, the takeover of ungoverned spaces
by extremist groups, secessionist movements, and civil wars. These have
erupted on every continent and have mostly been conducted with small
arms and light weapons, though some conflicts have also witnessed the
use of chemical and biological weapons. The period has also seen matura-
tion of the “Forever War” that started on 9/11, accelerated after the
invasion of Iraq, and now sees US forces continue to fight terrorism
violent age now than our ancestors.3 Billions of people have been lifted
out of absolute poverty, diseases like small pox and polio have been
eradicated or nearly so. Life expectancy for most of the world has been
extended. This has not come about automatically or by accident: it has
required dedicated planning and consistent efforts from a whole range
of actors, working top-down, bottom-up, and inside-out all at once.
Lessons have been learned, forgotten or ignored, and relearned in the
process. This progress has been measurable and welcome, but should in
no way be regarded as permanent. Any hope for continued improvement
will rest on deliberate, and collective effort.
The fragility of progress is evident in the United Nations (UN) Secre-
tary General’s warning that the SDGs, hailed as the pinnacle of a desire for
global improvement for all, are in grave danger, as no country is on target
to reach them by 2030.4 Similarly, the erstwhile hope contained within
the wishy-washy 2015 Paris agreement and climate targets was revealed
just four years later in Madrid to have been insufficient, as several nations
clung to the illusion that incremental remedies in the face of a climate
emergency were still plausible. The global trade regime, embodied in the
World Trade Organization, is on the precipice of irrelevance: tariffs and
counter-tariffs look ready to resume, and its dispute resolution mechanism
has come under concerted attack from Washington. In the COVID-
19 era, the need for global responses seems apparent, but today the
centrality of the UN across a range of topics is seriously undermined by
the contempt for multilateralism shown by the current US administration
and other key governments around the world. Some believe that the very
world order—liberal, rule-based, or a vehicle for soft US-hegemony—
is, at the very least, set to shift or, in the extreme scenario, is likely to
entirely collapse. Within that world order, what was once regarded as
the “end of history”—the supremacy of the liberal democratic form of
governance—now appears more fragile than ever, with populism on the
rise everywhere and authoritarian regimes retrenching around the globe.
Ironically, the biggest threat to the liberal democratic order is coming
from within and is led by those who were until recently its custodians. In
2018 Freedom House, for instance, reported its twelfth consecutive drop
in overall freedom, noting a reduction in a number of rights.
What are we to make of this? Will the future of global affairs be the
extension of current trends? Or will we see more disruptions, discontinu-
ities, and even destruction of the existing world order? The complexity
6 C. ANKERSEN AND W. P. S. SIDHU
• Are there lessons we can learn from the past to help build a better
future?
Cold War. After decades of strict us versus them approaches, untidy prob-
lems began to be noticed; untidy because they did not fit into existing
organizational mandates or categories. And so foreign ministries began
creating new divisions and desks to deal with these so-called new or non-
traditional challenges. What was included in those miscellaneous bureaux
began modestly enough: things like human security, sustainable develop-
ment, post-conflict justice, etc. Rather than the black and white world of
war and peace, there was a recognition—long overdue—that global affairs
was far more complex than previously conceived.5
Building on this appreciation of complexity, Global Affairs,6 as an
academic field of study seeks to be more holistic, harnessing the special
knowledge contained in Economics, International Law, and Interna-
tional Relations (as examples), and amplifying their analytical power
through combination with other approaches. For instance, no discus-
sion of the global economy can be complete without reference to world
energy markets. And, as is increasingly clear, only looking at energy as
a commodity, and ignoring its effects on the environment and human
development is inadequate, to say the least. Indeed, a singular focus on
politics or economics, will yield a poorer result than a more well-rounded
approach, inclusive of social and cultural aspects of global affairs.
As such, this volume is committed to surveying the future of global
affairs from a number of perspectives, looking to point out connec-
tions where they occur. When looking at security, for example, we have
to consider the role of gender. When considering the UN, we have
to see it across all its facets, not just the Security Council, the Secre-
tariat, or any one of its specialized agencies. When considering global
actors, we must include more than just states, incorporating the needs
and contributions—both positive and negative—of corporations, NGOs,
and individuals.
Finally, it is vital that we expand our focus beyond the West and
acknowledge the truly global nature of global affairs. The ideas, aspi-
rations, and challenges of many states and peoples around the world
have tended to have been sidelined by International Relations, or, when
considered, shoe-horned into existing structures (e.g., East versus West,
North versus South), neglecting the needs of billions of people, rele-
gating countries to bit parts, with only significance if and when they
might further an agenda other than their own. A large part of this belated
recognition must include an appreciation that, while change may be a
global constant, it impacts us all in different ways. Beyond irresponsibly
1 INTRODUCTION: NAVIGATING UNCHARTERED WATERS 9
in scope and all three may overlap and coexist, with different outcomes
extant in different issues or geographic areas. While we are not confi-
dent in forecasting what comes next, we are reasonably confident that
tomorrow’s global affairs will not look like today’s.
One possibility is disruption. This implies a change—either tempo-
rary or permanent—in the way that global affairs are conducted, even
though the system remains mostly unchanged. Such disruptions could be
normative, political, economic, social, or technological. Previous exam-
ples of disruptive ideas might be the antislavery movement, communism,
and fascism, while today globalization is, clearly, a disruptive economic
phenomenon. Technological disruptions, such as the innovations of the
industrial revolution, advent of aviation, space travel, and artificial intel-
ligence are, clearly, dual use and could be used for both constructive or
destructive purposes. Indeed, disruptions possess both progressive and
regressive potential. However, they do not necessarily have a systemic
impact; they merely affect the way that key actors operate within it.
Another distinct possibility is discontinuity, which indicates a break
from the past, that may or may not result in a systemic change (depending
on the impact of disruption or destruction). At a minimum, disconti-
nuity might see the emergence of new powers within the existing system.
Thus, China’s growing profile and clout within the UN system might
reflect this discontinuity. At a maximum, discontinuity might also lead to
the cessation or suspension of some aspects of the global system and/or
the creation of alternative systems. Again, China’s establishment of the
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and its role in creating the New
Development Bank (along with Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa),
partly in response to being dissatisfied with the limited role in the existing
international financial institutions, exemplifies longer-term discontinuity.
Similarly, the Group of 20 countries assuming a greater role in peace and
security issues, as an alternative to an unreformed Security Council, also
marks discontinuity.
Finally, there is destruction, which suggests the permanent demise of
the existing system of global order. Historically, such destruction was
prompted by great power conflict at a global level. Thus, the collapse
of the European ancien regime in the wake of the First World War and
the death of the League of Nations following the outbreak of the Second
World War are examples of institutional destruction. Until the end of the
Second World War, such man-made destruction was inevitably followed
by the construction of a new institution to manage global order, as
evidenced in the creation of the UN. However, after the advent of the
nuclear age in 1945, any future direct conflict among nuclear-armed great
14 C. ANKERSEN AND W. P. S. SIDHU
how they could best prepare their states for declining oil production. The
scarcity of supply was the risk, and the multitude of economic and polit-
ical sensitivities associated with energy security drove countries to seek
new ways of securing hydrocarbons. Kissane explores the energy transition
and examines how the geopolitics of energy is experiencing a new stage
of discontinuity, exposing both new risks and opportunities for producers
and consumers of global energy.
Great Thunberg’s high-profile Atlantic crossing by yacht highlighted
the potential climate risks associated with energy transition, and did so in
a highly personal way. Thus, Michael Shank argues that the response to
the climate crisis is no longer the purview of national policymakers only,
since presidents and prime ministers are backing out of the Paris climate
agreement—a pact that intended to locate the focus of greenhouse gas
emissions reduction in the hands of national governments. Increasingly,
subnational actors—cities, states, businesses, universities, hospitals, reli-
gious organizations, and other nonprofit sectors in both the global North
and South—are taking the lead and filling the void left by national govern-
ments. As part of this locus shift, personal behavior change is increasingly
discussed among these subnational actors—and by the storytellers within
society (e.g., media)—and, as a result, social norms encouraging sustain-
able consumption (e.g., plant-based diets, slow fashion) are becoming
more mainstream in the climate action space, complementing the more
traditional and expected environmental choices (e.g., recycling, LED
lightbulbs, carbon-light transit). While some frontiers continue to remain
stigmatized (e.g., family planning), the invigorated action among subna-
tional actors is ambitious and inspiring. Shank explores the systems-level
transformations happening within one particular sector of subnational
society—global cities in the global North and South that are taking
aggressive action on climate change—since the majority of the world’s
population resides in cities and since cities are responsible for the majority
of the world’s energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Shank concludes
by tracing out the potential shift, within these cities, toward behavior
change strategy and how behavioral economics and social psychologies
may be useful in motivating residents within these cities to further reduce
subnational sector emissions.
How might any of these global challenges—marked as they are
by tension and contestation—be managed? Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu
contends that, despite the advent of new challenges, actors, and insti-
tutions in the post-9/11 age, the United Nations (UN) still remains
20 C. ANKERSEN AND W. P. S. SIDHU
Notes
1. America First! 2018. Statement from President Donald J. Trump on
Standing with Saudi Arabia, White House, 20 November. https://
www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-
trump-standing-saudi-arabia/.
2. Sidhu, W. P. S. 2018. “Global trends: disruptive, dangerous and disor-
derly”, Mint, 26 February.
3. Pinker, Steven. 2012. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has
Declined. New York: Penguin. Pinker’s thesis, of course, has been subject
of much discussion, including pointed critique. The best example of that
is Braumoeller, Bear. 2019. Only the Dead: The Persistence of War in the
Modern Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1 INTRODUCTION: NAVIGATING UNCHARTERED WATERS 21
Michael F. Oppenheimer
M. F. Oppenheimer (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: mo41@nyu.edu
Secular Stagnation
This unbrave new world has been emerging for some time, as US power
has declined relative to other states, especially China, global liberalism
has failed to deliver on its promises, and totalitarian capitalism has proven
effective in leveraging globalization for economic growth and political
legitimacy while exploiting technology and the state’s coercive powers to
maintain internal political control. But this new era was jumpstarted by
the world financial crisis of 2007, which revealed the bankruptcy of unreg-
ulated market capitalism, weakened faith in US leadership, exacerbated
economic deprivation and inequality around the world, ignited growing
populism, and undermined international liberal institutions. The skewed
distribution of wealth experienced in most developed countries, politi-
cally tolerated in periods of growth, became intolerable as growth rates
declined. A combination of aging populations, accelerating technology,
and global populism/nationalism promises to make this growth decline
very difficult to reverse. What Larry Summers and other international
political economists have come to call “secular stagnation” increases the
likelihood that illiberal globalization, multipolarity, and rising nationalism
will define our future. Summers11 has argued that the world is entering
a long period of diminishing economic growth. He suggests that secular
stagnation “may be the defining macroeconomic challenge of our times.”
Julius Probst, in his recent assessment of Summers’ ideas, explains:
…rich countries are ageing as birth rates decline and people live longer.
This has pushed down real interest rates because investors think these
trends will mean they will make lower returns from investing in future,
making them more willing to accept a lower return on government debt
as a result.
Other factors that make investors similarly pessimistic include rising
global inequality and the slowdown in productivity growth…
This decline in real interest rates matters because economists believe
that to overcome an economic downturn, a central bank must drive down
the real interest rate to a certain level to encourage more spending and
investment… Because real interest rates are so low, Summers and his
supporters believe that the rate required to reach full employment is so
far into negative territory that it is effectively impossible.
…in the long run, more immigration might be a vital part of curing
secular stagnation. Summers also heavily prescribes increased government
spending, arguing that it might actually be more prudent than cutting back
26 M. F. OPPENHEIMER
Illiberal Globalization
Economic weakness and rising nationalism (along with multipolarity) will
not end globalization, but will profoundly alter its character and greatly
reduce its economic and political benefits. Liberal global institutions,
under American hegemony, have served multiple purposes, enabling
states to improve the quality of international relations and more fully
2 THE TURBULENT FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 27
satisfy the needs of their citizens, and provide companies with the legal
and institutional stability necessary to manage the inherent risks of global
investment. But under present and future conditions these institutions will
become the battlegrounds—and the victims—of geopolitical competition.
The Trump Administration’s frontal attack on multilateralism is but the
final nail in the coffin of the Bretton Woods system in trade and finance,
which has been in slow but accelerating decline since the end of the Cold
War. Future American leadership may embrace renewed collaboration in
global trade and finance, macroeconomic management, environmental
sustainability and the like, but repairing the damage requires the heroic
assumption that America’s own identity has not been fundamentally
altered by the Trump era (four years or eight matters here), and by the
internal and global forces that enabled his rise. The fact will remain that
a sizeable portion of the American electorate, and a monolithically pro-
Trump Republican Party, is committed to an illiberal future. And even
if the effects are transitory, the causes of weakening global collaboration
are structural, not subject to the efforts of some hypothetical future US
liberal leadership. It is clear that the US has lost respect among its rivals,
and trust among its allies. While its economic and military capacity is
still greatly superior to all others, its political dysfunction has diminished
its ability to convert this wealth into effective power.13 It will further-
more operate in a future system of diffusing material power, diverging
economic and political governance approaches, and rising nationalism.
Trump has promoted these forces, but did not invent them, and future
US Administrations will struggle to cope with them.
What will illiberal globalization look like? Consider recent events.
The instruments of globalization have been weaponized by strong states
in pursuit of their geopolitical objectives. This has turned the liberal
argument on behalf of globalization on its head. Instead of interde-
pendence as an unstoppable force pushing states toward collaboration
and convergence around market-friendly domestic policies, states are
exploiting interdependence to inflict harm on their adversaries, and even
on their allies. The increasing interaction across national boundaries that
globalization entails, now produces not harmonization and cooperation,
but friction and escalating trade and investment disputes.14 The Trump
Administration is in the lead here, but it is not alone. Trade and invest-
ment friction with China is the most obvious and damaging example,
precipitated by China’s long failure to conform to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) principles, now escalated by President Trump into
28 M. F. OPPENHEIMER
Before the First World War started, powers great and small took a variety
of steps to thwart the globalization of the 19th century. Each of these
steps made it easier for the key combatants to conceive of a general war.
We are beginning to see a similar approach to the globalization of the
21st century. One by one, the economic constraints on military aggres-
sion are eroding. And too many have forgotten—or never knew—how this
played out a century ago.
…In many ways, 19th century globalization was a victim of its own
success. Reduced tariffs and transport costs flooded Europe with inexpen-
sive grains from Russia and the United States. The incomes of landowners
30 M. F. OPPENHEIMER
in these countries suffered a serious hit, and the Long Depression that ran
from 1873 until 1896 generated pressure on European governments to
protect against cheap imports.
…The primary lesson to draw from the years before 1914 is not that
economic interdependence was a weak constraint on military conflict. It
is that, even in a globalized economy, governments can take protectionist
actions to reduce their interdependence in anticipation of future wars.
In retrospect, the 30 years of tariff hikes, trade wars, and currency
conflicts that preceded 1914 were harbingers of the devastation to come.
European governments did not necessarily want to ignite a war among the
great powers. By reducing their interdependence, however, they made that
option conceivable.
…the backlash to globalization that preceded the Great War seems to
be reprised in the current moment. Indeed, there are ways in which the
current moment is scarier than the pre-1914 era. Back then, the world’s
hegemon, the United Kingdom, acted as a brake on economic closure. In
2019, the United States is the protectionist with its foot on the accelerator.
The constraints of Sino-American interdependence—what economist Larry
Summers once called “the financial balance of terror”—no longer look so
binding. And there are far too many hot spots—the Korean peninsula, the
South China Sea, Taiwan—where the kindling seems awfully dry.
Multipolarity
We can define multipolarity as a wide distribution of power among
multiple independent states. Exact equivalence of material power is not
implied. What is required is the possession by several states of the capacity
to coerce others to act in ways they would otherwise not, through kinetic
or other means (economic sanctions, political manipulation, denial of
access to essential resources, etc.). Such a distribution of power presents
inherently graver challenges to peace and stability than do unipolar or
bipolar power configurations,22 though of course none are safe or perma-
nent. In brief, the greater the number of consequential actors, the greater
the challenge of coordinating actions to avoid, manage, or de-escalate
conflicts. Multipolarity also entails a greater potential for sudden changes
in the balance of power, as one state may defect to another coalition or
opt out, and as a result, the greater the degree of uncertainty experienced
by all states, and the greater the plausibility of downside assumptions
about the intentions and capabilities of one’s adversaries. This psychology,
2 THE TURBULENT FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 31
least conclude that prudence dictates heightened efforts to slow the pace
of proliferation, while realism requires that we face a proliferated future
with eyes wide open.
The current distribution of power is not perfectly multipolar. The US
still commands the world’s largest economy, and its military power is unri-
valed by any state or combination of states. Its population is still growing,
despite a recent decline in birth rates. It enjoys extraordinary geographic
advantages over its rivals, who are distant and live in far worse neighbor-
hoods. Its economy is less dependent on foreign markets or resources. Its
political system has proven—up to now—to be resilient and adaptable.
Its global alliance system greatly extends its capacity to defend itself and
shape the world to its liking and is still intact, despite growing doubts
about America’s reliability as a security guarantor. Based on these mostly
material and historical criteria, continued American primacy would seem
to be a good bet, if it chooses to use its power in this way.30
So why multipolarity? The clearest and most frequently cited evidence
for a widening distribution of global power away from American unipo-
larity is the narrowing gap in GDP between the US and China. The
IMF’s World Economic Outlook forecasts a $0.9 trillion increase in US
GDP for 2019–2020, and a $1.3 trillion increase for China in the same
period.31 Many who support the American primacy case argue that GDP
is an imperfect measure of power, that Chinese GDP data is inflated, that
its growth rates are in decline while Chinese debt is rapidly increasing,
and that China does poorly on other factors that contribute to power—its
low per capita GDP, its political succession challenges, its environmental
crisis, its absence of any external alliance system. Yet GDP is a good place
to start, as the single most useful measure and long-term predictor of
power. It is from the overall economy that states extract and apply mate-
rial power to leverage desired behavior from other states. It is true that
robust future Chinese growth is not guaranteed, nor is its capacity to
convert its wealth to power, which is a function of how well its polit-
ical system works over time. But this is equally the case for the US, and
considering recent political developments is not a given for either country.
As an alternative to measuring inputs—economic size, political legiti-
macy, technological innovation, population growth—in assessing relative
power and the nature of global power distribution, we should consider
outputs: what are states doing with their power? The input measures
are useful, possibly predictive, but are usually deployed in the course of
making a foreign policy argument, sometimes on behalf of a reassertion
34 M. F. OPPENHEIMER
has reached into the internal politics of his Western adversaries and influ-
enced their leadership choices. He has invaded and absorbed the territory
of neighboring states. His actions have produced deep divisions within
NATO. Again, simple observation suggests multipolarity in fact, and a
full explanation for this power shift awaiting future historians able to look
with more objectivity at twenty-first-century elements of power.
When that history is written, surely it will emphasize the extraor-
dinary polarization in American politics. Was multipolarity a case of
others finding leverage in new sources of power, or the US under-
utilizing its own? The material measures suggest sufficient capacity for
sustained American primacy, but with this latent capacity unavailable
(as perceived, I believe correctly, by political leadership) by virtue of
weakening institutions: two major parties in separate universes; a winner-
take-all political mentality; deep polarization between the parties’ popular
bases of support; divided government, with the Presidency and the
Congress often in separate and antagonistic hands; diminishing trust in
the permanent government, and in the knowledge it brings to important
decisions, and deepening distrust between the intelligence community
and policymakers; and, in Trump’s case, a chaotic policy process that lacks
any strategic reference points, mis-communicates the Administration’s
intentions, and has proven incapable of sustained, coherent diplomacy on
behalf of any explicit and consistent set of policy goals.
Rising Nationalism/Populism/Authoritarianism
The evidence for these trends is clear. Freedom House, the go-to
authority on the state of global democracy, just published its annual
assessment for 2020, and recorded the fourteenth consecutive year of
global democratic decline and advancing authoritarianism. This dramatic
deterioration includes both a weakening in democratic practice within
states still deemed on balance democratic, and a shift from weak democ-
racies to authoritarianism in others. Commitment to democratic norms
and practices—freedom of speech and of the press, independent judicia-
ries, protection of minority rights—is in decline. The decline is evident
across the global system and encompasses all major powers, from India
and China, to Europe, to the US. Right-wing populist parties have
assumed power, or constitute a politically significant minority, in a length-
ening list of democratic states, including both new (Hungary, Poland)
and established (India, the US, the UK) democracies. Nationalism,
36 M. F. OPPENHEIMER
systems, and many continue to fail. And if we are correct about secular
stagnation, the stress will continue, and authoritarianism’s fourteen-year
run will not be over for some time. The antidemocratic trend will gain
additional impetus from the illiberal direction of globalization, with its
growth suppressing protectionism, weaponization of global economic
exchange, and weakening global economic institutions. Multipolarity also
contributes, in several ways. The former hegemon and author of global-
ization’s liberal structure has lost its appetite, and arguably its capacity,
for leadership, and indeed has become part of the problem, succumbing
to and promoting the global right-wing populist surge. It is suffering
an unprecedented decline in life expectancy, and recently a decline in the
birth rate, signaling a degree of rot commonly associated with a collapsing
Soviet Union. While American politics may once again cohere around its
liberal values and interests, the time when American leadership had the
self-confidence to shape the global system in its liberal image is gone.
It may build coalitions of the like-minded to launch liberal projects, but
there will be too much power outside these coalitions to permit liberal
globalization of the sort imagined at the end of the Cold War. In multi-
polarity, the values around which global politics revolve will reflect the
diversity of major powers, their interests, and the norms they embrace.
Convergence of norms, practices, policies is out of the question. Global
collective action, even in the face of global crises, will be a long shot. To
expect anything else is fantasy.
Interstate Conflict
In the world experienced by most readers of this volume, conflict is
observed within weak states, sometimes promoted by regional competi-
tors, by terrorist groups, or by great powers, acting through surrogates
or by indirect means. Sometimes, as in Syria, this conflict spills over to
38 M. F. OPPENHEIMER
This is not the end of the Syria story. Russia has established itself as a
major player in Syria and the Middle East’s power broker, the indispens-
able country with leverage throughout the region. China is poised to reap
the financial and power benefits of Syrian reconstruction. The US has just
demonstrated, in its act of war against the Iranian regime, its willingness,
without consultation, to put its allies’ security in further jeopardy, accen-
tuating the risks of security ties with Washington and generating added
opportunities for Russia and China. The purpose here is not to critique
US policy, but to point out the dramatically shifting power balance in
a critical region, toward multipolarity. The dangers of such a shift will
become apparent as some future US president attempts to reassert US
influence in the region and finds a crowded playing field.
Can a multipolar distribution of power among several states whose
interests, values, and political practices are divergent, all experiencing
bottom-up nationalist pressures, all seeking advantages in the oversupply
of regional instability, be made to work? I think not. Will this more
dangerous world descend into direct military confrontation between great
powers, and could such confrontation lead to use of nuclear weapons?
Here the question becomes, what will this more dangerous world actually
look like; what instruments of coercion will be available to states as tech-
nology change accelerates; how will states employ these instruments; how
will deterrence work (if at all) among several states with large but unequal
levels of destructive capacity, weak command, and control, disparate—
or opaque—strategies and simmering rivalries; can conflict management
work in a world of weak institutions? The collapse of the Cold War era
nuclear arms control regime, the threat to the Non-Proliferation Treaty
represented by the demise of the JCPOA, and multiple indications of an
accelerating nuclear arms race among the three principle powers, augurs
badly. Given the structural forces at play, and without predicting the
worst, we are indeed entering perilous times.
40 M. F. OPPENHEIMER
It has been the major cause of economic convergence between rich and
poor countries. From 2000 to 2009, developing economies’ growth rates
were more than four percentage points higher than those of rich coun-
tries, pushing their share of global output from just over a third to nearly
half.39 However, FDI flows into poor countries are imperiled by the struc-
tural forces discussed here. Political instability arising from slower growth
and environmental stress will increase investors’ perception of higher risk,
reinforcing their developed country bias. Protectionism among developed
countries will threaten the global market access upon which manufac-
turing investment in developing countries is premised, causing firms to
pare back their global supply chains. As companies retrench from direct
investment in poor countries, the appeal to those countries of Chinese
debt financed infrastructure projects, under the Belt-Road Initiative with
little or no conditionality, but at the risk of “debt traps,” will increase.
Global Warming
The question posed at the beginning of this section is whether the inter-
national system, evolving toward multipolarity and rising nationalism,
will find the collective political capital to confront challenges as they
arise. Global warming is the mother of all challenges, and the weak-
ness in the system’s capacity to respond is clear. With the two major
political/economic powers and greenhouse gas emitters locked in deep-
ening geopolitical conflict (and with one of them locked in climate change
denial, possibly through 2024), the chances of significantly slowing global
warming or even ameliorating its effects are very slim. We are reduced to
the default option, nation-specific adaptation to climate change, which
will impose rising human, political and economic costs on all, and will
widen the gap between rich countries with adaptive capacity (of varying
degrees), and the poor, who will suffer deteriorating economic, polit-
ical, and social conditions. (For a contrary, optimistic view see Michael
Shank’s chapter, which credits new actors—like cities—as playing a more
constructive role in climate mitigation.) This would bring to a close liberal
globalization’s greatest achievement; the raising of 1.1 billion people out
of extreme poverty since 1990,40 with all its associated gains in quality
of life (in the WHO Africa region, for example, life expectancy rose
by 10.3 years between 2000 and 2016, driven mainly by improvements
in child survival and expanded access to antiretrovirals for treatment of
HIV).41
42 M. F. OPPENHEIMER
Several forces are at work here. The problem itself is graver—in magni-
tude and in rate of worsening—than predicted by climate scientists. The
UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the major
source of information on global warming, has consistently underpredicted
the rate of climate deterioration. This holds true even for its “worst-
case scenarios,” meaning that what was meant as a wake-up call has in
fact reinforced complacency.42 (see Michael Shank’s chapter for further
discussion of climate change). The IPCC, in its 2019 report, has tried to
undo the damage by emphasizing the acceleration in the rate of warming
and its effects, the only partially understood dynamic of climate change,
and—given wide uncertainty—the possibility of unpleasant surprises yet
to come. This strengthens the scientific case for urgency—to both severely
limit greenhouse gas emissions, and to increase investment in ameliorating
the effects.
Unfortunately, the crisis comes at a moment when the climate for
collective action is ice cold. Geopolitical competition incentivizes states to
out produce each other, regardless of the environmental effects. Multi-
polarity complicates collective action. Economic stagnation mandates
job creation, making regulation politically toxic. Bottom-up nation-
alism/populism causes states to pursue “relative gains,” meaning that
if the nation is seen as gaining in a no-holds-barred economic compe-
tition with others, the negative environmental effects can be tolerated.
A post-Trump presidency would help, with the US rejoining the Paris
Agreement, and lending its weight to tighter regulation, increased R and
D, and stronger economic incentives to reduce carbon emissions. Keep in
mind, however, that President Obama was fully behind such efforts, but
in a deeply polarized America was unable to implement measures needed
to fulfill the Paris obligations through legislation, and his executive orders
to do this were swiftly overturned by Trump.
Conclusion
It may be tempting to hope that post-Trump, the US can regain its
global leadership and exert its considerable power in a liberal direction,
but with enough self-awareness of its relative decline to share responsi-
bility with others. This was, I believe, the broad direction of the Obama
strategy, evidenced by the JCPOA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership:
liberal, collective solutions to global problems, as US dominance receded.
2 THE TURBULENT FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 43
Notes
1. Oppenheimer, Michael F. 2007. The End of Liberal Globalization. World
Policy Journal, vol. 24, no. 4.
2. Kupchan, Charles A. 2014. The Normative Foundations of Hegemony
and the Coming Challenge to Pax Americana. Security Studies, vol. 23,
no. 2, pp. 219–257. Layne, Christopher. 2018. The US–Chinese Power
Shift and the End of the Pax Americana. International Affairs, vol. 94,
no. 1, pp. 89–111. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iix249. Waltz, Kenneth
N. 2000. Structural Realism after the Cold War. International Security,
vol. 25, no. 1.
3. Huntington, Samuel P. 2011. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking
of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.
4. National Intelligence Council. 2017. Global Trends: Paradox of
Progress. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/nic/GT-Full-Report.
pdf. Accessed 8 January 2020. Summers, Lawrence H. 2016. The Age of
Secular Stagnation: What It Is and What to Do about It. Foreign Affairs,
vol. 95, no. 2, pp. 2–9. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-
states/2016-02-15/age-secular-stagnation. Accessed 8 January 2020.
5. Waltz, Kenneth N. 2000. Structural Realism after the Cold War. Interna-
tional Security, vol. 25, no. 1.
6. Ikenberry, G. John. 2011. Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and
Transformation of the American World Order. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
7. James, Harold. 2018. Deglobalization: The Rise of Disembedded Unilat-
eralism. Annual Review of Financial Economics, vol. 10, pp. 219–
237. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-financial-110217-022625.
8. Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2001. Thanks for Nothing. Atlantic Monthly, vol.
288, no. 3, pp. 36–40. Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2003. Globalization and Its
Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton.
9. World Bank Economic Update. 2009. Battling the Forces of Global
Recession: East Asia and Pacific Region. http://siteresources.worldb
ank.org/INTEAPHALFYEARLYUPDATE/Resources/550192-123857
4864269/5976918-1239010682147/update_april09_fullreport.pdf.
Accessed 8 January 2020.
10. Oppenheimer, Michael F. 2016. Pivotal Countries, Alternate Futures:
Using Scenarios to Manage American Strategy. New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
11. Summers, Lawrence H. 2016. The Age of Secular Stagnation: What It
Is and What to Do about It. Foreign Affairs, vol. 95, no. 2, pp. 2
– 9. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-02-15/
age-secular-stagnation. Accessed 8 January 2020.
2 THE TURBULENT FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 45
12. Probst, Julius. 2019. Secular Stagnation: It’s Time to Admit That Larry
Summers Was Right About This Global Economic Growth Trap. The
Conversation. http://theconversation.com/secular-stagnation-its-time-to-
admit-that-larry-summers-was-right-about-this-global-economic-growth-
trap-112977. Accessed 8 January 2020.
13. Kupchan, Charles A. and Peter L. Trubowitz. 2007. Grand Strategy
for a Divided America. Foreign Affairs, vol. 86, no. 4, pp. 71–
83. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2007-07-01/
grand-strategy-divided-america. Accessed 8 January 2020. Kupchan, C.A.
and Peter L. Trubowitz. 2007. Dead Center: The Demise of Liberal Inter-
nationalism in the United States. International Security, vol. 32, no. 2,
p. 7.
14. World Trade Organization. 2019. Report on G20 Trade Measures.
https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news19_e/g20_wto_report_jun
e19_e.pdf. Accessed 8 January 2020.
15. Schott, Jeffrey J. 2019. Next up in the Trade Wars: Autos. Peterson
Institute for International Economics. https://www.wto.org/english/
news_e/news19_e/g20_wto_report_june19_e.pdf. Accessed 8 January
2020.
16. Sugiyama, Satoshi. 2019. Japan and South Korean Export Control
Officials Meet in an Endeavor to Restore Trust. https://www.japant
imes.co.jp/news/2019/12/16/business/japan-south-korea-export-con
trols/#.Xhn2rC2ZM6U. Accessed 8 January 2020.
17. National Bureau of Asian Research. 2019. China’s Control of Rare Earth
Metals. Interview with Kristin Vekasi. https://www.nbr.org/publication/
chinas-control-of-rare-earth-metals/. Accessed 8 January 2020.
18. Levy, Marc A., Oran R. Young and Michael Zürn. 1995. The Study
of International Regimes. European Journal of International Relations,
vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 267–330. https://doi.org/10.1177/135406619500
1003001.
19. Donan, S. and Reade Pickert. 2019. Trump’s China Buying Spree
Unlikely to Cover Trade War’s Costs. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomb
erg.com/news/articles/2019-12-18/trump-s-china-buying-spree-unl
ikely-to-cover-trade-war-s-costs. Accessed 8 January 2020.
20. Tankersley, Jim, Alan Rappeport and Nelson D. Schwartz. 2019. How 4
Companies Struggle to Navigate Trump’s Trade Uncertainty. New York
Times, August 29.
21. Drezner, D. 2019. Will Today’s Global Trade Wars Lead to World War
III? Reason. https://reason.com/2019/04/04/will-todays-global-trade-
wars/. Accessed 8 January 2020.
22. Waltz, Kenneth N. 2000. Structural Realism after the Cold War. Interna-
tional Security, vol. 25, no. 1.
46 M. F. OPPENHEIMER
23. Herz, John H. 1950. Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma.
World Politics, vol. 2, no. 2.
24. Thucydides. 2013. Thucydides: The War of the Peloponnesians and the
Athenians, ed. Jeremy Mynott, Cambridge University Press.
25. Organski, A.F.K. 1968. World Politics. New York: Knopf.
26. Allison, G. 2015. The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed
for War? Atlantic Monthly. September 24. https://www.theatlantic.
com/international/archive/2015/09/united-states-china-war-thucyd
ides-trap/406756/. Accessed 8 January 2020.
27. Mearsheimer, John J. and Stephen M. Walt. 2016. The Case for Offshore
Balancing: A Superior US Grand Strategy. Foreign Affairs, vol. 95, no.
4 (July/August), pp. 70–83. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/
united-states/2016-06-13/case-offshore-balancing. Accessed 8 January
2020.
28. Brewer, Eric. 2019. Why the Global Nonproliferation Regime Is Fraying:
Will Nuclear Weapons Make a Comeback? Foreign Affairs, https://www.
foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-09-23/will-nuclear-weapons-make-com
eback. Accessed 8 January 2020.
29. Rosen, Stephen P. 2006. After Proliferation—What to Do if More
States Go Nuclear. Foreign Affairs, vol. 85, no. 5, pp. 9–
14. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2006-09-01/after-pro
liferation-what-do-if-more-states-go-nuclear. Accessed 8 January 2020.
30. Brooks, Stephen G. 2016. America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role
in the 21st Century. Ed. William Curtis Wohlforth. New York: Oxford
University Press. Kagan, R. 2018. The Jungle Grows Back: America and
Our Imperiled World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
31. International Monetary Fund. 2019. World Economic Outlook. https://
www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2019/03/28/world-eco
nomic-outlook-april-2019. Accessed 8 January 2020.
32. Cox, Michael. 2018. Understanding the Global Rise of Populism.
LSE Ideas Strategic Update. http://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/publications/
updates/populism. Accessed 8 January 2020.
33. Woolf Steven H. and Heidi Schoomaker. 2019. Life Expectancy and
Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959–2017. JAMA, vol. 322, no.
20, 1996–2016. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2019.16932.
34. The World Bank. 2018. Decline of Global Extreme Poverty Continues
but Has Slowed. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/
2018/09/19/decline-of-global-extreme-poverty-continues-but-has-slo
wed-world-bank Accessed 8 January 2020.
2 THE TURBULENT FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 47
35. Kharas H and Kristofer Hamel. 2018. A Global Tipping Point: Half
the World is now Middle Class or Wealthier. The Brookings Institution.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2018/09/27/
a-global-tipping-point-half-the-world-is-now-middle-class-or-wealthier/
Accessed 8 January 2020.
36. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 2015. The
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. https://sustainabledevelop
ment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld. Accessed 8 January 2020.
37. Banerjee, Abhijit, V, and Esther Duflo. 2020. How Poverty Ends: The
Many Paths to Progress—And Why They Might Not Continue. Foreign
Affairs, vol. 99, no. 1, pp. 22−29. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/art
icles/2019-12-03/how-poverty-ends. Accessed 8 January 2020.
38. The World Bank. 2018. Global Investment Competitiveness Report
2017/2018: Foreign Investor Perspectives and Policy Implications.
39. R.A. 2014. How Poor Countries Seemed to Be Catching Up with Rich
Ones—and Why They Are Now Falling Behind Again. The Economist
Explains. https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/
09/14/how-poor-countries-seemed-to-be-catching-up-with-rich-ones-
and-why-they-are-now-falling-behind-again. Accessed 8 January 2020.
40. The World Bank. 2019. Understanding Poverty: Overview. https://www.
worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview Accessed 8 January 2020.
41. Global Health Observatory. Life Expectancy. World Health Organization.
https://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables/situat
ion_trends_text/en/. Accessed 8 January 2020.
42. Harvey, F. 2018. “Tipping points” Could Exacerbate Climate Crisis,
Scientists Fear. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/enviro
nment/2018/oct/09/tipping-points-could-exacerbate-climate-crisis-sci
entists-fear. Accessed 8 January 2020.
Further Reading
Brooks, Stephen and William Wohlforth. 2018. America Abroad, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Drezner, Dan. 2015. Theories of International Politics and Zombies, Princeton:
Princeton University.
Ikenberry, G. John. 2011. Liberal Leviathan, Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Kagan, Robert. 2018. The Jungle Grows Back, New York: Knopf.
Kupchan, Charles. 2013. No One’s World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
CHAPTER 3
Christopher Ankersen
Global Affairs takes as its object of analysis the entirety of the planet,
the sum of all human activity across such fields as politics, economics,
law, and development. While the effects observed occur at scale, the
component parts (both those responsible for taking action and those
upon whom action is taken) are smaller. That is, the affairs of the
globe are not undertaken by the globe acting as one; instead, subordi-
nate elements (individuals, states, non-state actors, alliances, say) work
to produce system-level outcomes. If we believe that those elements are
static, we might say that the picture of global affairs today resembles
that of a stained glass window. Individual pieces of glass are meticulously
trimmed, artfully placed together, and held in place by a rigid frame.
Movement is neither desirable, nor possible; the resultant image is fixed.
In this way, change can only take place through destruction, one of the
three possibilities laid out in the Introduction to this volume. If we look at
the history of previous world orders in global affairs, we might appreciate
C. Ankersen (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: christopher.ankersen@nyu.edu
this analogy. For instance, the window that was the League of Nations
broke into pieces in the run up to the Second World War, later replaced by
the tableau that came to be called the Post-War, or Liberal International,
Order.
However, this is not the only way to see the world. We might see
Global Affairs as an image produced by a kaleidoscope: a captivating, yet
contingent, picture formed by a plethora of smaller components, coming
together—temporarily—to create a pattern. While major change is an
impossibility in a window, it is a hallmark of a kaleidoscope. That change,
though, exists at the level of the image, not the components. Moreover,
a kaleidoscope does not contain a homogeneous array of pieces; rather,
it uses a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors to form intricate combi-
nations. And so as we examine these kaleidoscopic assemblages, we need
to focus on two aspects: the component pieces and the gestalt patterns
they form. Here I can be unambiguous: the most important component
in future global affairs will remain the state. It will continue to act as the
sine qua non of international life.1 However, we must abandon the myth
that all states are the same, or even equal, or have the same dreams for
the future. Moreover, we cannot deduce that simply because states remain
important that the patterns they create will also remain static. Instead of
treating the state as a static unit, we should ask ourselves what purpose it
might serve in the future. What role will it play? What goals will it pursue?
What strategies will it employ? What arrangements will it become part of?
If our focus is solely on the state, the future of the Global Affairs will be
dominated by questions related to wondering who will be the rulers and
who will be the rivals in the future. And while these questions are impor-
tant, they are somewhat anodyne. The names and faces may change, and
the frequency and speed of transition may rise and fall, but the pattern
(rise, rule, retrench, repeat) is well inscribed in history. If we expand our
focus to include not only the state, but the coalitions, alliances, and inter-
national organizations created by them, we can observe more elliptical
movements. Will the groupings of states extant today—many of which
are artifacts of the immediate post-1945 moment—remain relevant? Or
will states look to change alignment or create new groupings, in order to
further their interests?
For a long time, the scholarly view of the planet has been decidedly
centered on Western experience. Increasingly, though, that perspective is
being understood as partial, at best, and problematic, at worst. I argue
that the future of global affairs will be somewhat more inclusive; that is
to say that more voices will join the choir. Put another way, while we
3 A KALEIDOSCOPIC FUTURE: THE STATE AND ASSEMBLAGES … 51
should continue to examine the state, we should not assume that it exists
in some generic, universal form. The reality is that there are powerful
states and there are weak states; there are states wedded to the idea of
furthering the welfare of their citizens and there are states that have been
hijacked by kleptocratic regimes and individuals.
I argue that, far from an era marked by a harmonious end of history,
the future will be cacophonous, with some actors joining and rejoining
with others to sing different songs, or the same song, perhaps in a
different key and at a different tempo. As is becoming clear now, identity
is not what “other people” do. The West itself is coming to the realization
that there is not a common score to be followed. Many people—ordinary
and elite alike—have radical visions of themselves, their place in the world,
and how their country and economy should be governed. While there will
be no clash of civilizations, there will not be a concert of nations either,
or at least not a universal one.
This chapter will begin with an examination of the state, then discuss
the kinds of patterns and interrelations the state will play in the future,
and conclude with a description of what this means for global affairs. In
summary, we can see that disruption and discontinuity are all on the cards.
mark. So, then, what can explain the focus on the state as the prime actor
in global affairs? The first is that states (and their leaders and govern-
ments) want it that way. States have long represented an effective means of
concentrating and instrumentalizing social power7 and using that power
in the pursuit of accumulating resources.8 The current world order,
created in the aftermath of the Second World War, was made by states, for
states, with states in mind. The United Nations’ Charter may begin with
“We, the Peoples” but it was written, adopted, and funded by “We, the
States.” States, and their particular perspectives, have remained significant,
if not primes inter pares, in terms of not only international diplomacy, but
also economics, and development.9 They alone control which entities can
be recognized as states, who can sit at the United Nations, and to whom
taxes and tariffs should be rendered. The proverbial foxes are in charge of
the henhouse and they like it that way.
The second reason states have maintained their place within global
affairs is due to analytical lacunae on the part of many scholars. Prefer-
ence, for the most part, has been given to structural conditions as the
context for, and even the cause of, competition or cooperation between
states.10 Scholars prefer to focus on what Waltz refers to as the “Third
Image” when examining global affairs: they look intently at the system,
and at the expense of the unit actors within it.11 In an apparent paradox,
the centrality of the state has been paralleled by the absence of main-
stream analysis of it: it is largely a black box that competes or cooperates
in an anarchical environment, aiming only ever to survive and prosper.
States are, at once, the prime movers in global affairs and simultane-
ously powerless against the immutable laws of the universe. Clearly such
an intellectual position is unsustainable.12 David Lake reminds to guard
against “assuming that [the state’s] role in the real world and in our
theories is constant.”13
That said, the demise or retreat of the state has long been foretold
within academic circles. Beginning as a murmur in the 1970s and reaching
a crescendo after the end of the Cold War, observers have described
and/or wished for the end of the state as the primary actor in inter-
national affairs.14 As Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane point out, “[a]
good deal of intersocietal discourse, with significant political importance,
takes place without governmental control.”15 Susan Strange, writing in
the 1990s, noted that far from occupying a commanding and solitary
position on the world stage, “[g]overnments must now bargain not only
with other governments, but also with firms…while firms now bargain
3 A KALEIDOSCOPIC FUTURE: THE STATE AND ASSEMBLAGES … 53
both with governments and with one another.”16 Both these phenomena
have only increased in the decades since they were published.
Part of the reason for that has been the impact of globalization,
regarded by some as an inherently contra-state process, one that was
believed to be “an extension of the idea of liberty and as a chance to renew
the fundamental rights of the individual” and a force that could place
“limits on the power of government.”17 Some, like McKinsey business
strategist Kenechi Ohmae, believed that the increased flow of informa-
tion and money around the world indeed signaled—as the title of his
1995 book proclaimed—The End of the Nation State.18 Put less breath-
lessly, Linda Weiss was on solid ground when she claimed that “the state
is no longer in vogue.”19 Lest one think that these sentiments belong to
an earlier age, it is possible to detect their persistence even now.20
Such pronouncements were commonplace, but not the only view.
Some saw globalization as a state modifying process, not a state nulli-
fying one. Ian Clark posits “that the state occupies a middle ground
between the internal and external and is itself both shaped by and forma-
tive of the process of globalization.”21 Others note the asymmetry of
globalization, remarking how both it and the state were never universally
consistent, favoring the West and the North at the expense of the global
South.22 (For an opposing view, especially in terms of how globalization
spurred South–South cooperation, see Waheguru Pal Sidhu’s chapter in
this volume). While this is assuredly true, it is worth noting, as Michael
Mann does, that among all the other things that have been globalized, so
has the state.23 The notion of sovereign, territorial units has spread across
the planet, eclipsing other forms of political organization.
At the same time, though, globalization was joined by the rise of both
the sub- and supra-national entity, both vying, some believe, to under-
mine the power of the state. Groups such as Al Qaeda or ISIS’s caliphate
challenge state effectiveness and weakened claims of sovereignty. If these
non-state actors could act freely, inflict casualties, and even occupy and
administer territory, what did they say about the centrality and omnipo-
tence of the state? Also working at the substate level have been cities
and provinces. National policies have in many instances been thwarted by
actions taken by cities acting on the global stage. The most prominent
examples, of course, can be seen in the context of climate change, as is
discussed in Michael Shank’s chapter in this volume. Similarly, the EU, the
IMF, and the International Criminal Court appeared to be able to defang
54 C. ANKERSEN
the state, working from above, hemming in, cajoling, or otherwise influ-
encing the autonomy of the fundamental building block of global affairs.
By 2015, states around the world were under siege on multiple fronts.
While, as noted above, it is impossible to speak of a “universal state,”
today we see that the many states are choosing to fight back, even if
only by conducting a rearguard action. The so-called “sovereignty first”
movement has become popular in several states around the world, with
proponents ranging from China (“Hong Kongers crossed a red-line, Xi
warns”24 ), to Brazil (“The Amazon is ours!”25 ), to Britain (“Take Back
Control!”). In the United States, Donald Trump campaigned successfully
on a ticket that decried the ‘“false song of globalism.’” He made his posi-
tion clear when he said “[t]he nation-state remains the true foundation
of happiness and harmony. I am skeptical of international unions that
tie us up and bring America down. And under my administration, we will
never enter America into any agreement that reduces our ability to control
our own affairs.”26 Since his term in office began in 2017, President
Trump has largely kept to his word, invoking “America First” not only
as a slogan, but as a blueprint for foreign policy decisions, whether they
are related to trade arrangements or support for the United Nations.27
Observers are divided as to whether these moves represent cynical elite
manipulation of the electorate or are a manifestation of the power of a
frustrated populace.28 There are likely many contributing factors, ranging
from disenchantment on the part of those who believe that globaliza-
tion has not benefited them, to the realization, pointed out long ago by
Hedley Bull, that as bad as the state may be, alternatives have so far not
proven to be panacea either: “Violence, economic injustice, and dishar-
mony between man and nature have a longer history than the modern
state.”29 But, all that aside, it is clear that the state is back as a vehicle, if
not the only engine, for action in global affairs.
This resurgence, however, should not lull us into thinking that the
future will be business as usual, with unitary states firmly in charge and
homogenous in function and composition. It is not now, nor has it ever
been, the case that “a state is a state is a state.” It is also important to
point out that there may well now be challenges, such as global heating
or cybercrime, that are beyond the ability of single states to solve, and that
pushing for a state-centric approach in light of this is “fragmented” and
“dysfunctional.”30 Sadly, so far this has not altered the faith that many
have in the advantages that a statist approach brings to world politics.
Even more tragically, it is unlikely to do so in the near future, either.
3 A KALEIDOSCOPIC FUTURE: THE STATE AND ASSEMBLAGES … 55
We can see in the present the seeds of the future. Specifically, we can
observe that many states are choosing to adopt one or more of three
options. First, some states are increasing and consolidating their sovereign
prerogatives. States around the world are imposing tariffs, closing their
borders, leaving political unions, exploiting the natural resources within
their borders, and using coercion to discipline their citizens and others
(which often amounts to flagrant human rights abuses, whether against
Rohingya, Uighurs, or Latin American migrants.)31
The second track is to seek out unilateral or bilateral strategies, rather
than multilateral fora to achieve their objectives. US President Trump’s
withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord was the most visible indication
of this, but it has been accompanied by other similar actions, including
leaving the Trans-Pacific Partnership, threatening to leave the Universal
Postal Union, and renegotiating (and renaming) the North American
Free Trade Agreement. Rather than creating a truly multilateral system,
China, too, has designed their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a “hub
and spoke” arrangement made up of a series of case by case bilateral agree-
ments between Beijing and the participating states.32 What is more, states
are using other states to achieve their goals. China using Greece (a state
that they helped bail out financially when other terms seemed untenable)
to advance their position amongst the European Union (EU)33 or Turkey
attempting to improve its maritime claims in the Mediterranean by sealing
a deal with Libya are examples of this “state to state” strategy.34
The third and perhaps most startling track states are pursuing is to
outsource many of their foreign policy objectives to sub- or non-state
agents, be they arms-length commercial companies (such as Huawei),
plausibly deniable proxies (such as Russia’s use of Little Green Men in
their campaign in eastern Ukraine or China’s use of armed “maritime mili-
tias” in the South China Sea), or reliant, though not necessarily reliable,
allies (such as Pakistan’s support for the Taliban in Afghanistan).
An interesting inversion of this trend actually helps cement the
centrality of states. Non-state actors—individuals, civil society organiza-
tions, and commercial firms—are clearly important actors in global affairs.
Energy companies and space firms have capacities which outstrip those
of several states, making and spending money—and providing services—
that only states could have conceived of a few decades ago. Coalitions
of NGOs and the Red Cross movement have banded together and are
driving a global campaign to outlaw autonomous weapons’ systems.
56 C. ANKERSEN
What is more, not only will global action not be advanced, existing
norms will continue to be eroded. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014
will ultimately serve as the death-knell to the norm of nonintervention,
already under stress after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The lack of
consensus over how, or even if, to punish Russia for this act of aggres-
sion, has certainly concerned states bordering the Baltic Sea.74 But more
than that, it sends worrying signals to Hong Kong and Taiwan that their
days of autonomy and independence are numbered. China may have to
be careful and how and when it “reincorporates” these territories, but it
is no longer sure of stiff opposition from the international community. As
the people of Syria and Yemen realize, to their despair, the sun appears
to have set on the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, if not discredited
in theory, demonstrably defunct in practice.75 Likewise, the peoples of
Kashmir and Rakine are now more aware than ever that there are at the
mercy of states, and no longer under any illusion of global protection.
They, like us, will have to wait and see what image forms when the kalei-
doscope next turns. For, while the near future appears to be grim, it is
unlikely to be permanent.
Notes
1. For an extended discussion of the centrality of the state in International
Relations theory, see Lake, David A. 2008. The State and International
Relations. In The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. Chris-
tian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199219322.003.0002.
2. For discussions of the processes by which this occurred, readers may
wish to consult Teschke, Benno. 2002. The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopoli-
tics, and the Making of Modern International Relations. London: Verso;
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2006. World Systems Analysis: An Introduction.
64 C. ANKERSEN
4th ed. London: Duke University Press; and Acharya, Amitav and Barry
Buzan. 2019. The Making of Global International Relations: Origins and
Evolution of IR at Its Centenary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. Currently the UN recognizes 193 member states, and 2 observers. The
CIA tracks a total of 267 states, dependent territories and other ‘world
entities.’ See Central Intelligence Agency. 2019. The CIA World Fact-
book. Washington: CIA. Most recently, the people of Bougainville voted
for independence from Papua New Guinea in a non-binding referendum,
highlighting that ‘being a state’ is still a desirable objective.
4. The Sovereign Order of Malta, as a result of the Concert of Europe
following the deposition of Napoleon in 1815, holds sovereignty but
possesses neither territory nor population. In many respects it acts like,
and is accorded the status of, a state.
5. See, for instance, Chen, Lung-chu. 2016. The U.S.–Taiwan–China Rela-
tionship in International Law and Policy. Oxford: Oxford University
Press; Visoka, Gëzim. 2018. Acting Like a State: Kosovo and the Everyday
Making of Statehood. London: Routledge.
6. See, for example, Weiss, Thomas G., et al. 2013. The Rise of Non-State
Actors in Global Governance Opportunities and Limitations. A One Earth
Future Discussion Paper; Mishali-Ram, Meirav. 2009. Powerful Actors
Make a Difference: Theorizing Power Attributes of Nonstate Actors.
International Journal of Peace Studies, 14.2: 55–82.
7. Mann, Michael. 2012. The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1: A History of
Power from the Beginning to AD 1760. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
8. Tilly, Charles. 1985. War Making and State Making as Organized Crime.
In Bringing the State Back In, ed. Robert B. Evans et al. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
9. See Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to
Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
10. This has taken the form of either the ‘Neo-Neo Debate’ or the ‘Neo-
Neo Synthesis’, referring to the similarities in approach between Neorealist
and Neoliberal International Relations Theory, particularly as studied in
the US. See Jervis, Robert. 1999. Realism, Neoliberalism, and Coopera-
tion: Understanding the Debate. International Security, 24.1: 42–63; and
Ramos, Leonardo. 2013. Some Critical Reflections on Charles Glaser and
the Neo-Neo Synthesis. estudos internacionais, 1.2: 319–328.
11. Waltz, Kenneth. 2001. Man, the State, and War: An Theoretical Analysis.
3rd ed. New York: Columbia University Press.
12. One could make the case that for many scholars the persistence of the
state within the analytical field represents a matter of ontological security.
Were the state to disappear or diminish in importance, so too might their
3 A KALEIDOSCOPIC FUTURE: THE STATE AND ASSEMBLAGES … 65
27. See Liss, Jesse. 2017. Trump’s “America First” Trade Policy and the
Politics of U.S. International Investment Agreements. Unpublished PhD
Dissertation. New York: City University of New York Graduate Center;
Gramer, Robbie and Colum Lynch. 2018. Trump Stealthily Seeks to
Choke Off Funding to U.N. Programs. Foreign Policy, October 2.
28. Bonikowski, Bart, et al. 2019. Populism and Nationalism in a Comparative
Perspective: A Scholarly Exchange. Nations and Nationalism, 25.1: 58–
81.
29. Bull, Hedley. 1979. The State’s Positive Role in World Affairs. Daedalus,
108.4: 111–123.
30. Guterres, António. 2019. State of the World Address to the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 24. https://www.weforum.org/
agenda/2019/01/these-are-the-global-priorities-and-risks-for-the-future-
according-to-antonio-guterres/. Accessed 23 August 2019.
31. See, for instance, Human Rights Watch. 2019. World Report 2019.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019. Accessed 23 August 2019.
32. Jaehyon, Lee. 2015. China Is Recreating the American ‘Hub-and-Spoke’
System in Asia. The Diplomat, September 11.
33. Horowitz, Jason and Liz Alderman. 2017. Chastised by E.U., a Resentful
Greece Embraces China’s Cash and Interests. The New York Times, August
26.
34. Baker, Luke, Tuvan Gumrukcu, and Michele Kambas. 2019. Turkey–
Libya Maritime Deal Rattles East Mediterranean. Reuters, December 25.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-libya-eastmed-tensions-exp
lain/turkey-libya-maritime-deal-rattles-east-mediterranean-idUSKBN1Y
T0JK. Accessed 17 January 2020.
35. Thunberg, Greta. 2019. If World Leaders Choose to Fail Us, My
Generation Will Never Forgive Them. The Guardian, September 23.
36. Goldstein, Joshua S. and Staffan Qvist. 2019. A Bright Future: How Some
Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow. New
York: Public Affairs.
37. Ayoob, Mohammed. 1995. The Third World Security Predicament: State
Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System. Denver: Lynn
Reiner. Of course, this phenomenon is not restricted to the ‘third world’.
See Shriver, Donald W., Jr. 2006. The Insecurity State. The Nation, May
18.
38. Tickner, J. Ann. 1992. Gender in International Relations Feminist Perspec-
tives on Achieving Global Security. New York: Columbia University Press:
8.
39. Meibauer, Gustav. 2020. Interests, Ideas, and the Study of State Behaviour
in Neoclassical Realism. Review of International Studies, 46.1: 20–36.
3 A KALEIDOSCOPIC FUTURE: THE STATE AND ASSEMBLAGES … 67
40. See, for instance, Acharya, Amitav and Barry Buzan. 2019. The Making of
Global International Relations: Origins and Evolution of IR at Its Cente-
nary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Haas, Richard N. 2018.
A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old
Order. New York: Penguin Press.
41. Of course, others have been predicting an end for some time. See Coker,
Christopher. 1998. The Twilight of the West. New York: Praeger Press;
Zakaria, Fareed 2008. The Rise of the Rest. Newsweek, May 12; and
Mahbubani, Kishore. 2008. The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible
Shift of Global Power to the East. New York: Public Affairs.
42. Lavrov, Sergey. 2017. Address and answers to questions at the 53rd
Munich Security Conference, Munich, February 18. http://www.mid.
ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJW
VmR/content/id/2648249. Accessed 17 August 2019.
43. Drezner, Daniel W. 2019. It’s the End of the Liberal Economic Order as
We Know It. The Washington Post, December 11.
44. Acharya and Buzan: 261.
45. Wardle, Claire. 2019. Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder.
Scientific American, September. See also John Kane’s chapter in this
volume.
46. Wolf, Martin. 2018. The New World Disorder and the Fracturing of the
West. Financial Times, January 2.
47. My translation. “Emmanuel Macron in His Own Words (French),” 2019.
The Economist, November 7. https://www-economist-com.proxy.library.
nyu.edu/europe/2019/11/07/emmanuel-macron-in-his-own-words-
french. Accessed 20 January 2020.
48. This was the headline of a front page column in the French newspaper Le
Monde published on September 11, 2001 following the terrorist attacks
by Al Qaeda on New York and Washington.
49. Lavrov. 2017.
50. Acharya, Amitav. 2018. The End of American World Order. 2nd ed.
Oxford: Polity Press.
51. Mahbubani, Kishore. 2013. The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and
the Logic of One World. New York: Public Affairs: 249.
52. This is not to say that there is no divergence between Russian rhetoric of
‘respect for sovereignty’ and the Russian practices of interference, both in
the physical and informational domains.
53. Wemheuer-Vogelaar, Wiebke, et al. 2016. The IR of the Beholder: Exam-
ining Global IR Using the 2014 TRIP Survey. International Studies
Review, 18.1: 16–32.
54. Liang, Qiao and Wang Xiangsui. 1999. Unrestricted Warfare. Beijing:
PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House. See also Feng, Huiyun, Kai
68 C. ANKERSEN
He, and Xiaojun Li. 2019. How China Sees the World: Insights from
China’s International Relations Scholars. London: Palgrave.
55. Jaison, Carl. 2019. Is Asia Ready for an Indo-Russian Order? The
Diplomat, September 6.
56. Japanese Foreign Ministry. 2019. Towards Free and Open Indo-Pacific.
https://www.mofa.go.jp/files/000407643.pdf. Accessed 18 August
2019.
57. Allison, Graham. 2017. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape
Thucydides’s Trap? New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
58. See, for instance, Watson, Adam. 2009. The Evolution of Interna-
tional Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis. 2nd ed. Basingstoke:
Routledge.
59. Höflinger, Laura. 2019. ‘With More Weight Comes More Responsibil-
ity’: An Interview with India’s External Affairs Minister. Der Spiegel,
November 17.
60. Held, David and Pietro Maffettone. 2019. Moral Cosmopolitanism
and Democratic Values. Global Policy, 8.6: 54–64. It is interesting to
note Held’s transition from being an advocate for strong cosmopolitan
globalization to a more modest one now. See Held, David. 2003.
Cosmopolitanism: Globalisation Tamed? Review of International Studies,
29.4: 465–480.
61. Press Trust of India. 2019. World Increasingly Becoming Multipolar,
Says Jaishankar. India Today, October 2. https://www.indiatoday.in/
india/story/s-jaishankar-multipolar-us-1605373-2019-10-02. Accessed
20 January 2020.
62. Abi-Habib, Maria. 2018. How China Got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port.
The New York Times, June 25.
63. Kessler, Glenn. 2019. Trump’s Claim the Saudis Will Pay ‘100 Percent of
the Cost’. The Washington Post, October 21.
64. Moreland, Will. 2019. The Purpose of Multilateralism. Washington:
Brookings Institution; and Paris, Roland. 2019. Can Middle Powers Save
the Liberal World Order? London: Royal Institute for International Affairs.
65. Saunders, Robert. 2019. Britain Must Rid Itself of the Delusion That It
Is Big, Bold and in Charge. The Guardian, January 9.
66. McBride, James and Andrew Chatzky. 2019. What Is the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP)? Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder. https://
www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp. Accessed
24 January 2020.
67. For an example, see Deen, Thalif. 2019. US Defunds UNFPA for Third
Consecutive Year—On Misconceived Assumptions. InterPress Service News
Agency, July 17. http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/us-defunds-unfpa-
third-consecutive-year-misconceived-assumptions/. Accessed 5 October
2019.
3 A KALEIDOSCOPIC FUTURE: THE STATE AND ASSEMBLAGES … 69
Further Reading
Acharya, Amitav. 2017. After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex
World Order. Ethics & International Affairs, 31.3: 271–285.
Cox, Robert W. 1976. On Thinking About Future World Order. World Politics,
28.2: 175–196.
Miller, Manjari Chatterjee. 2016. The Role of Beliefs in Identifying Rising
Powers. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 9.2: 211–238.
Rapp-Hooper, Mira and Rebecca Friedman Lissner. 2019. The Open World:
What America Can Achieve After Trump. Foreign Affairs, 98.3: 18–25.
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2017. The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connec-
tion in a Networked World. New Haven: Yale University Press.
CHAPTER 4
John V. Kane
For those who simply want to know “the Truth” about any given issue,
these are trying times. Despite a seemingly infinite well of knowledge
at our fingertips, we struggle to determine what information is real and
what is “fake.” The advent of the Internet, for all its benefits, allows for
even faster transmission of even less substantiated claims. From cultivating
far-right politics in Sweden1 to spreading anti-Rohingya propaganda in
India,2 the use of Internet to spread questionable or inaccurate informa-
tion is a challenge faced by citizens and governments around the globe,
with growing concern that we are collectively careening toward a “post-
truth” world.3 Indeed, we are confronted on all sides with pervasive
misinformation and disinformation,4 entertained by false beliefs,5 trapped
inside media “echo chambers,”6 and perplexed by rampant conspiracy
theories.7
An ability to critically evaluate information has, therefore, become not
only an absolutely essential skill in the present era, but also a means of
J. V. Kane (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: jvk221@nyu.edu
A Problem of Motivation
We are, on a daily basis, confronted with a seemingly endless array of
claims; an agglomeration of assertions. Parents, friends, teachers, politi-
cians, news media—all make ostensibly factual statements about reality.
Medication X is good for this; policy Y led to that; doing Z will have this
result. We can refer to these as empirical claims insofar as they concern the
state of the world as it actually exists. By implication, therefore, empirical
claims can conceivably be investigated, precisely because we can compare
what is stated against what we actually observe in reality.
We rarely encounter such claims as a “clean slate,” however. We each
have our own understandings of the world, and thus our own desires to
continue believing something (e.g., because it is fundamental to our own
sense of self). In short, claims from without quickly run up against our
motivations within.
4 THE EMPIRICISM STRIKES BACK: STRATEGIES FOR AVOIDING … 73
is not a problem confined to one area of the world, one group of people,
or one side of the political spectrum.15 For example, recent experimental
research finds that, when presented with various political articles to read,
Japanese citizens spend a significantly greater amount of time reading the
articles that they agree with compared to those they disagree with, and
that this degree of bias was similar to that of German voters (though
noticeably less than American voters).16
As a second example, liberals and conservatives in the United States
have both been shown to engage in motivated reasoning. Nisbet, Cooper,
and Garret17 find that liberals were resistant to new information that
conflicted with their views on hydraulic “fracking” and nuclear power,
while conservatives were resistant to information about climate change
and human evolution. Echoing the point above, the authors also found
that both liberals and conservatives experienced more negative emotions
upon being confronted with scientific information that conflicts with their
existing views.18 On the issue of climate change specifically, activists on
the political right have spread inaccuracies about the degree of scien-
tific consensus on anthropogenic planetary warming,19 while activists on
the political left have spread inaccuracies about the projected effects of
climate change on human life.20 Worse still, Frenda et al.21 find evidence
of both liberals and conservatives reporting that they remembered events
that did not actually happen. For example, conservatives were about
ten percentage points more likely (than liberals) to “remember” seeing
an image of former U.S. President Obama shaking hands with former
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while liberals were roughly 20
percentage points more likely (than conservatives) to remember former
U.S. President Bush vacationing with a baseball player in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina. (Again, neither of these events actually happened.)
Like everyday citizens, policymakers and politicians also engage in
motivated reasoning. In the United States, Bolsen et al.22 found that
policy advisors were ideologically polarized in their beliefs about global
warming. Similarly, in a clever study by Baekgaard et al.,23 the researchers
found that Danish city councilors exhibited clear evidence of engaging in
motivated reasoning. Using a series of experiments on topics involving
public versus private service provision, the authors find that these politi-
cians’ prior beliefs on these topics were strongly predictive of whether
they correctly interpreted objective information. In other words, when it
came to interpreting information about how public versus private services
4 THE EMPIRICISM STRIKES BACK: STRATEGIES FOR AVOIDING … 75
were performing, these politicians often saw what they wanted to see
rather than what was actually there.24
In short, motivated reasoning is not something that only other people
do—in one context or another, we all reason in a motivated fashion.
In some cases, the consequences can be fairly benign (e.g., when we
feign a “debate” with ourselves about whether or not to have a second
helping of our favorite dessert); but in cases involving global affairs, where
we, as citizens, can impact policies, social relations, and environmental
sustainability, the need to reason free of such biases and predispositions is
paramount.
As noted above, often when we encounter a claim we do not want to
be true, we might avoid thinking about it at all, and instead resort to
simply dismissing the claim outright. This is yet another form of moti-
vated reasoning and, indeed, we have a variety of tools to quickly employ
toward this end. We can, for example, attack the source as biased and
untrustworthy; we can accuse the source of hypocrisy; or we can simply
raise an alternative claim, effectively changing the subject to something
else we would rather be talking about (elegantly referred to in today’s
parlance as “whataboutism.”25 )
Yet, different as they are, such devices share a common function: they
relieve us of the need to seriously consider the claim. It must be whole-
heartedly acknowledged, though, that evaluating a claim (especially an
unpleasant one) is difficult; certainly more difficult than, for example,
simply attacking the source. And yet, when we fail to seriously consider
claims, we potentially sacrifice our analytical mind in the interest of
entertaining a false reality.
latter case, we can see that both conservatives and liberals diverge from
moderates who, presumably, would be less inclined to view “restricting
welfare” as either good or bad. These results reinforce the point that many
of us can be, in essence, predisposed to believe particular claims so long as
they pair things we regard as good (bad) with other things we regard as
good (bad). And, consistent with the literature cited above, the pattern
occurs across the political spectrum—it is not a trick that only liberals, or
only conservatives, fall prey to.
What if we made people aware of their biases? Would that help to tame
the MR monster? In an effort to investigate these questions, I fielded
an additional study in the United States (n ~ 500) that was nationally
representative in terms of age, race, region, and gender. Respondents
were again asked to indicate the degree to which they believe the claim
that “Placing strict limits on welfare increases drug-related crime” is true.
However, half the respondents were also given the following warning:
Before answering, please note that studies have statistically shown that people
tend to answer questions like these in a biased way: liberal-minded people
and conservative-minded people will tend to answer based upon their own
beliefs and “gut instinct” rather than based on actual scientific evidence.
As Fig. 4.2 demonstrates, there is some modest, but encouraging,
evidence that such a warning made a difference in how respondents
evaluated the accuracy of the claim. First, notice that in the “Control”
conditions (in which there was no warning), liberals were far more likely
to believe the claim than conservatives. (This echoes the GWGBWB
finding from the M-Turk study discussed above.) However, compared
to liberals in “Control” condition, liberals in the “Warning” condition
were roughly 11 percentage points less likely to believe the claim was
true Though modest in size, the direction of this change is exactly what
we should have expected if such warnings help to tame the MR monster.
Yet while we should have also expected conservatives in the “Warning”
condition to have a noticeably higher probability than conservatives in the
“Control” condition, the increase was only by 1 percentage point.
While the noteworthy findings here are primarily confined to liberals,
the larger point is that there is some reason for hope: encouraging (at least
some) people to be accurate appears to be able to lead them to more criti-
cally evaluate information.30 Indeed, in the “Warning” condition, liberals
and conservatives responded far more similarly than they did in the “Con-
trol” condition. With this result in mind, the following sections describe
4 THE EMPIRICISM STRIKES BACK: STRATEGIES FOR AVOIDING … 79
Fig. 4.2 A small, but encouraging, effect for warning of motivated reasoning
bias (Source Author’s creation based on data collected from U.S. adults. Notes
Left half of figure shows results for liberals, while right half of figure shows
results for conservatives. Bars indicate proportion of group believing that the
claim [“Placing strict limits on welfare increases drug-related crime.”] is “likely
to be true.” Bars include 95% confidence intervals)
six concrete steps for evaluating claims with the goal of arriving at an
accurate (rather than merely an ideologically preferred) conclusion.
with themselves, it is unlikely that this finding being true or false would
make any substantive difference: even if true, the conservative will likely
remain just as opposed to abortion; even if false, the liberal would likely
remain just as supportive of abortion rights. This is precisely because
these individuals’ stances on abortion probably do not arise from beliefs
about how abortion legalization relates to crime. Therefore, changing these
beliefs is unlikely to change their stances on abortion. As such, the two
can save a lot of time and energy by avoiding a debate about the merits
of this finding; to them, the finding’s accuracy is ultimately irrelevant.
However, if we sincerely care whether a claim is true, either for its
own sake, or because its validity may actually affect our beliefs, opinions,
and/or behavior, we should proceed to the next step.
aside for the moment. The second sentence, on the other hand, is empir-
ical: it is a statement about the actual relationship between the number
of firearms people have and gun-related fatalities. Therefore, the second
sentence is conducive to empirical investigation.
Whenever we wish to think carefully about any speech, book, news
or magazine article, etc., it is crucial to separate the normative state-
ments from the empirical statements. Doing so permits us to focus only
on the empirical statements, setting aside all other statements that might
otherwise distract us or arouse our passions.
No evidence provided 33
Evidence provided 46
Estimated share that clicked 13
on link
For example, there are many good reasons (i.e., theories) to think that
employers offering “workplace wellness programs” (WWPs) will result in
more positive health outcomes for their employees. But we need more
than just theory—we need evidence. On this point, a variety of studies do
find a statistical relationship (i.e., a correlation) between offering a WWP
(versus not) and employee health outcomes. And yet, following the Scien-
tist’s golden rule that correlation does not imply causation, there exists an
alternative explanation for these findings: the employees who elect to use
WWPs tend to be more health-conscious than the employees who do not
elect to use WWPs. Thus, when we compare the health of those who use,
versus do not use, WWPs, voila!—we find that using the WWP is “asso-
ciated” with better health.39 Put differently, the people who utilized the
wellness program would have been healthier than their co-workers regard-
less of whether the program was effective at all.40 The greater the extent
to which we cannot rule out this alternative explanation (or others) for
the evidence, we should lower our confidence in the claim that WWPs
improve employee health.
There is a second critical lesson to be learned from the wellness-
program research.41 Though somewhat beyond the scope of the present
chapter, one helpful rule of thumb is that, when it comes to evaluating
a quantitative study, our confidence in any study’s results should gener-
ally be higher when that study has used a randomized experiment (also
known as a “randomized control trial”). Why? Because, while there are
important caveats,42 the key strength of experiments (versus “observa-
tional studies”) is that they dramatically limit the number of alternative
explanations for a significant finding.43 And again, the fewer the number
of alternative explanations that exist for a piece of evidence, the more
believable the theory or claim.
Unfortunately for us, the MR monster is exceedingly dangerous
throughout this step. Specifically, we will likely find it more difficult to
think of alternative explanations for evidence when we do not want any
to exist (because we want to interpret the evidence in a particular way),
and easier to think of alternative explanations when we want some to exist
(because the evidence conflicts with what we want to believe).
To avoid this trap, treat this step as a kind of game: given the evidence
provided for a claim, how many (plausible) alternative explanations can
you come up with beyond the explanation provided? The more alternative
explanations you can identify, the better. And, the more likely each expla-
nation is to be true, the better (implausible alternative explanations should
86 J. V. KANE
steps, we have reached the same conclusion, and with just as much confi-
dence, that we would have reached had we not gone through any of the
steps, beware: the MR monster has likely struck again! If this occurs,
repeat the steps, challenging yourself to find inconvenient evidence and
alternative explanations as though your mind depends upon it.
Finally, as with any assessment, we need to cautiously arrive at some
tentative conclusions regarding the claim’s veracity. It is perfectly fine—
and, in fact, a badge of honor for the Scientist—to not be 100% certain
that a claim is either true or false. The Scientist strives to conclude that,
given the evidence, a claim may probably be true, or may probably be
untrue. (This admission of uncertainty on the part of the Scientist is
infuriating to the Propagandist, who, for her purposes, would prefer that
everything is either absolutely true or absolutely false—propaganda rarely
contains much nuance.) And, being a good Scientist, we must also always
remain open to new evidence (should it come into being).
In summary, while by no means exhaustive, nor guaranteed to always
result in the “right” answer, this guide offers a simple, yet substantially
more rigorous, method for evaluating evidence than what we do when
we unwittingly succumb to the powers of motivated reasoning.
Notes
1. Becker, Jo. 2019. “The Global Machine Behind the Rise of Far-Right
Nationalism.” The New York Times, August 11, 2019. https://www.
nytimes.com/2019/08/10/world/europe/sweden-immigration-nation
alism.html.
2. Goel, Vindu, and Azizur Rahman. 2019. “When Rohingya Refugees
Fled to India, Hate on Facebook Followed.” The New York Times,
June 14, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/technology/
facebook-hate-speech-rohingya-india.html.
3. Levitin, Daniel J. 2016. Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in
the Post-Truth Era. New York, NY, USA: Dutton; McDermott, Rose.
2019. “Psychological Underpinnings of Post-Truth in Political Beliefs.”
PS: Political Science & Politics 52 (2): 218–22.
4. Vosoughi, Soroush, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral. 2018. “The Spread of True
and False News Online.” Science 359 (6380): 1146–51.
5. Flynn, D.J., Brendan Nyhan, and Jason Reifler. 2017. “The Nature and
Origins of Misperceptions: Understanding False and Unsupported Beliefs
About Politics.” Political Psychology 38 (February): 127–50.
6. Flaxman, Seth, Sharad Goel, and Justin M. Rao. 2016. “Filter Bubbles,
Echo Chambers, and Online News Consumption.” Public Opinion Quar-
terly 80 (S1): 298–320.
7. Douglas, Karen M., Joseph E. Uscinski, Robbie M. Sutton, Aleksandra
Cichocka, Turkay Nefes, Chee Siang Ang, and Farzin Deravi. 2019.
“Understanding Conspiracy Theories.” Political Psychology 40 (S1): 3–35.
8. Lodge, Milton, and Charles S. Taber. 2013. The Rationalizing Voter. New
York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
9. Here I am specifically referring to what is more technically known as
directionally motivated reasoning (e.g., see Flynn, Nyhan, and Reifler
2017).
10. Flynn, D.J., Brendan Nyhan, and Jason Reifler. 2017. “The Nature and
Origins of Misperceptions: Understanding False and Unsupported Beliefs
About Politics.” Political Psychology 38 (February): 127–50; Kunda, Ziva.
1990. “The Case for Motivated Reasoning.” Psychological Bulletin 108
(3): 480–98.
11. Lodge, Milton, and Charles S. Taber. 2013. The Rationalizing Voter. New
York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
12. Erisen, Cengiz, Milton Lodge, and Charles S. Taber. 2014. “Affective
Contagion in Effortful Political Thinking.” Political Psychology 35 (2):
187–206; Lodge, Milton, and Charles S. Taber. 2013. The Rationalizing
Voter. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; McDermott, Rose.
2019. “Psychological Underpinnings of Post-Truth in Political Beliefs.”
PS: Political Science & Politics 52 (2): 218–22; Redlawsk, David P.,
92 J. V. KANE
37. Levitin, Daniel J. 2016. Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the
Post-Truth Era. New York, NY, USA: Dutton.
38. From The Adventure of the Norwood Builder. Available at: https://etc.
usf.edu/lit2go/178/the-return-of-sherlock-holmes/3227/chapter-ii-the-
adventure-of-the-norwood-builder/.
39. Abelson, Reed. 2019. “Employee Wellness Programs Yield Little Benefit,
Study Shows.” The New York Times, April 16, 2019. https://www.
nytimes.com/2019/04/16/health/employee-wellness-programs.html;
Carroll, Aaron E. 2018. “Workplace Wellness Programs Don’t Work
Well. Why Some Studies Show Otherwise.” The New York Times, August
6, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/upshot/employer-
wellness-programs-randomized-trials.html.
40. Note: demonstrating that the programs have yet to be effective on one
outcome does not imply that they would be ineffective for all outcomes.
41. Carroll, Aaron E. 2018. “Workplace Wellness Programs Don’t Work
Well: Why Some Studies Show Otherwise.” The New York Times, August
6, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/upshot/employer-wel
lness-programs-randomized-trials.html.
42. One such caveat is that the experimental findings may not be very appli-
cable to the real-world situation of interest (i.e., experiments can suffer
from low external validity; see Hyde [2015]).
43. Kellstedt, Paul M., and Guy D. Whitten. 2013. The Fundamentals of
Political Science Research. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press; Morton, Rebecca B., and Kenneth C. Williams. 2010. Experimental
Political Science and the Study of Causality: From Nature to the Lab.
Cambridge University Press.
44. Specifically, they were unable to do this better than chance would predict
(see Mcgrew and Mcfall 1990).
45. McDermott, Rose. 2019. “Psychological Underpinnings of Post-Truth in
Political Beliefs.” PS: Political Science & Politics 52 (2): 218–22.
46. Kunda, Ziva. 1990. “The Case for Motivated Reasoning.” Psychological
Bulletin 108 (3): 480–98.
47. Flynn, D.J., Brendan Nyhan, and Jason Reifler. 2017. “The Nature and
Origins of Misperceptions: Understanding False and Unsupported Beliefs
About Politics.” Political Psychology 38 (February): 127–50.
48. Note: This is a normative statement.
Further Reading
Haidt, Jonathan. 2012. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by
Politics and Religion. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
4 THE EMPIRICISM STRIKES BACK: STRATEGIES FOR AVOIDING … 95
Levitin, Daniel J. 2017. Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-
Truth Era. New York, NY: Dutton.
Tetlock, Philip E., and Dan Gardner. 2016. Superforecasting: The Art and Science
of Prediction. New York, NY: Broadway Books.
Wheelan, Charles. 2014. Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from Data. New
York, NY: W. W. Norton.
CHAPTER 5
Christian Busch
C. Busch (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: christian.busch@nyu.edu
goals were established in 2015, some have seen positive progress, while
others have made no progress or have slipped back (see Jens Rudbeck’s
chapter on the patchy progress of the SDGs). For example, due to
improved communication about its importance and large aid commit-
ments, clean water and sanitation has seen some of the most positive
progress—with the proportion of the world’s population with access to
safely managed water increasing from 61 percent to 71 percent, with 90
percent having at least basic access.23 In contrast, climate action continues
to be one of the most pressing problems as temperatures and sea levels
are rising faster than expected.24 Similarly, global income inequality has
actually increased despite the goals, with wage and wealth inequality
increasing in nearly every country around the world, and labor share of
GDP decreasing globally by 2 percent.25
Importantly, these problems are happening on a global level and
require long-term, large-scale political and economic effort to address.
Private organizations are increasingly called upon—and are themselves
voluntarily offering, for a myriad of reasons that we will discuss below—
to take up a role. For example, numerous CEOs of companies such as
Philips, MasterCard, and Danone use the SDGs to orient their business
purpose and efforts to make a positive impact, often facilitated by orga-
nizations such as the UN and World Economic Forum (see Waheguru
Pal Singh Sidhu’s, chapter for details of the UN-World Economic Forum
Strategic Partnership Framework).
Therefore, economic and management thinking around capitalism and
the role of the corporation in the global economy must evolve—and is
already evolving—in response to these trends and challenges. A major
factor framing the abovementioned dynamics is the way economies are
structured (on the “macro-level”), and the way businesses (and other
actors) operate within them (on the “micro-level”). Below, we discuss
relevant recent developments that have shaped policy, global affairs—and
the world.
Impact Mission
A critical first step for many companies in transitioning to impact orga-
nizations is to determine and co-create the organizational purpose in
order to inform the impact mission. The purpose is the why, whereas the
mission is “time-bound” and often enacts the broader purpose. Many top
companies describe this purpose as originating in part from their history,
as well as relevant societal issues (for example, related to the SDGs).63
Most of the companies that we looked at in our research use a process of
reconciling between external stakeholders and internal strategies to define
and decide the related values. This process often takes the form of crowd-
sourcing of sorts, such as when Philips posed the question “What does our
5 TOWARD AN ENLIGHTENED FORM OF CAPITALISM … 109
Impact Leadership
Our research shows that in order to ensure that the purpose, mission, and
values are truly practiced, they often need to be enacted, supported, and
modeled by company leadership. At Ketchum, CEO Barri Rafferty sets
the “tone from the top” by “leaving loudly” in order to promote organi-
zational values around work–life balance, such as when she turned down
a “Day as CEO” media feature during her first week in the job in order
to pursue a long-planned vacation with family.67 It is also reflected in the
leadership of not just large corporations, but also small- and medium-
sized companies. For example, Klaus Fischer, CEO of Fischer, describes
how he “thinks in decades instead of quarters” when it comes to investing
in company talent.68
Of course, CEOs might naturally hold confirmation bias—i.e., those
who care about purpose, support it in their organizations, and despite
it coming from another source, circularly believe that their role was
important in initiating related impact. However, the critical importance
of strong management leadership in driving these impact organizations
is also independently corroborated by studies, such as organizational
behavior literature on transformational leadership, which is overwhelm-
ingly linked to positive organizational outcomes such as engagement,
retention, and organizational performance.69
110 C. BUSCH
However, impact leadership need not originate only from the top—
if anything, middle-management and employee peer-leadership is just as
critical, often by core “champions” across the company.70 Just as CEOs
need to model values, individual employees can as well. For example, at
company DNV-GL, employees are encouraged to move between global
locations to “carry the DNA” or the organizational purpose. Therefore,
a culture of impact leadership can reinforce a sense of purpose within
organizations.
Impact Governance
Governance—the processes and rules that govern an organization—are
core to manifest the integration of profit and purpose.71 This includes
creative practices that manifest crucial values, and make them come alive.
At some companies learnings from unsuccessful projects are being shared
across the company; for example projects that have not been commercially
sustainable—but the technologies behind them have, in some cases, been
discovered by other project teams to be useful elsewhere.72 These prac-
tices can also be facilitated by formulating challenges and business models
differently. A key case of this is Philips, which has started to move away
from product silos to the unmet customer needs and problems underlying
its products. This enables not only product innovation, but also business
model innovation. For example, for a company such as Philips, an ultra-
sound machine might bring some income, but developing a primary care
solution and commercializing it at scale at an economically justified price
commensurate with the social impact created, could potentially lead to a
much bigger business.73
Implementing and leveraging technology plays a critical role by
enhancing transparency and visibility—internally and externally. Inter-
nally, it can help share various ideas and practices for how to ensure
impact. Externally, companies can also leverage technology to share
customer feedback in order to develop what Haier would call “user
centrism at scale”.74
Agile organizational processes and structures are often critical to
ensuring the acceleration of purpose within organizations. This allows
organizations to tackle the unexpected, to allow for changes and finding
new ways. To do this, some organizations take top level-projects “out of
hierarchy” to develop the product.75 This often requires the openness
to place diverse bets and ideas, including some which might fail. This is
particularly challenging for organizations that are emerging from more
traditional industries.76
5 TOWARD AN ENLIGHTENED FORM OF CAPITALISM … 111
Impact Networks
In addition to developing internal practices and structures which bolster
an organization’s impact focus, many companies also actively foster
networks to increase scale and impact.77 For example, social enterprise
Toast Ale focuses on fighting climate change by repurposing waste bread
to brew beer. As part of their business, they connect sandwich factories to
local breweries so waste bread can be used as a malt alternative. Often, the
bread is provided free, as it is cheaper to ship it to a brewer than dispose
of it. This networked structure allows Toast Ale to scale and expand its
impact.
In addition, sometimes companies have also leveraged networks where
they connect not just separate industries, but also traditional competi-
tors within one industry to achieve a shared goal. This is often called
co-opetition. For example, BMW partnered with rival Mercedes on car-
sharing services, and with Daimler on autonomous car sharing. In both
cases, all three companies involved were able to put aside traditional
differences to pursue win-wins that focused on a broader sustainable
purpose.
Impact Measurement
Finally, measurement and accountability play an unsurprisingly crucial
role in the impact organization—first in ensuring that positive impacts
on the organizational purpose are tracked, and second in creating a
rewards scheme tied to those metrics. Being aware that often only
what is measured is done, organizations that we examined reflected, in
their transition toward purpose-led companies, on the importance of
measurement. This includes traditional triple bottom line measures, and
in some companies, such as Danone America extends to overall objectives
(Danone America is now the world’s largest B-Corp). Transparency of
measurement can be critical, and companies, such as Turkcell use visual
dashboards that can be seen across the company to track what happens
and which results are being achieved.78
Not only is it key that this is measured, but also it’s critical that it has
consequences. At Interface, people are as accountable for their environ-
mental impact as they are for financial impact.79 The seriousness with
which organizations take their mandate can be reflected through the
112 C. BUSCH
Thus…
Each of these pillars has outlined how large-scale companies and social
enterprises are transitioning toward becoming impact-driven organiza-
tions that aim to integrate profit and purpose at scale. By working through
and combining practices from each of these pillars, they are creating
companies that are future-fit and adaptive. This allows organizations to
cope with the future and seize opportunities, and to make the best out of
the unexpected by “cultivating serendipity”.80
It is important to note that key challenges still exist for organiza-
tions at all scales in creating meaningful integration of purpose and
profit. First, while many organizations succeed well in one pillar or
another, there are as yet no case studies of organizations which perfectly
fulfill all areas. The internal challenges of integrating specific cases of
social impact demonstrate the pragmatic difficulty of a new way of
doing business. For example, Millington (2015) chronicles how learning
pathologies and overinvestment in insufficiently researched new initia-
tives hindered product development in India for a multinational manu-
facturing company.81 In a similar vein, Beuning (2019) outlines the
challenges for social intrapreneurs within organizations as they pursue,
sometimes single-mindedly, the issues they care about. Specifically, these
social intrapreneurs are granted or cultivate organizational autonomy
in their work—but sometimes this extends to a point where initia-
tives are launched without sufficient support or organizational feedback.
For example, one of the intrapreneurs studied worked on an ultra-
concentrated consumer detergent product developed to use significantly
less water, but detailed how lack of organizational support for marketing
and educating consumers meant that the product failed when it was
initially introduced to the market.82 These cases demonstrate the impor-
tance of integrating all pillars to create successful impact organizations.
Moreover, external challenges often arise, particularly for larger compa-
nies transitioning to impact organizations, around accusations of green-
washing or shareholder pushback. In addition, often understanding the
total impact of certain actions is difficult. For example, some companies
may find that their effort toward providing decent work could actu-
ally be detrimental to climate change. Arguably, this problem can even
5 TOWARD AN ENLIGHTENED FORM OF CAPITALISM … 113
Conclusion
While looking into the past is often a matter of perspective, projecting
into the future is a tricky business. This chapter has utilized history and
emergent trends to paint a picture of the changing role of the private
sector and reflected on some of the possible implications of this for society
and capitalism—but it does not pretend to have the answers. In fact,
there are ample opportunities for further research. First, researchers could
explore the full range of unintended consequences; for example, under
which circumstances do positive outputs (e.g., educating children) lead
to negative outcomes (e.g., resentment among the community toward
“the smart ones”)? Second, how does the increasing importance of data
and technology influence existing “rules of the game”? In a world in
which coders become “law-makers” by designing algorithms (that often
go unchecked), a new reality is being created that we cannot yet fully
capture. Third, what are the emerging initiatives that build on and expand
on initiatives such as Global Compact? Who will be in the driving seat?
Fourth, how do issues such as tax avoidance, “purpose-washing”, and
“green-washing” factor into the above conversation? Fifth, how can a
transition from informal to formal networks86 —or more broadly, away
from a “hidden” toward the “formal” economy—be facilitated?
116 C. BUSCH
Notes
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National Review, 17, 721–723.
2. Leaders on Purpose. (2019). The CEO Study: 2019. London, United
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3. Kahler, M. (1992). Multilateralism with small and large numbers. Inter-
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4. Derviş, K. (2018). A fragmented multilateralism? Retrieved from https://
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38. Mair, J., & Marti, I. (2006). Social entrepreneurship research: A source
of explanation, prediction, and delight. Journal of World Business, 41, 36–
44. Arguably, in more stakeholder (as opposed to shareholder) oriented
societies, the local community has often been at the core throughout
history. However, the explicit focus on solving (global) social problems
has changed.
39. Mitchell, A., Gottfried, J., Walker, M., Fedeli, S., & Stocking, G. (2019).
Many Americans say made-up news is a critical problem that needs to
be fixed. Retrieved from https://www.journalism.org/2019/06/05/
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40. Purpose at Work. (2016). Global purpose index. Retrieved from https://
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41. Harvard Business Review Analytics. (2015). The Business Case for
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42. Deloitte Insights. (2018). Global Human Capital Trends: The rise of the
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dam/insights/us/articles/HCTrends2018/2018-HCtrends_Rise-of-the-
social-enterprise.pdf.
43. Sen, S., Bhattacharya, C., & Korschun, B. (2006). The role of corporate
social responsibility in strengthening multiple stakeholder relationships:
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of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities on companies with bad
reputations. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 16(4), 377–390.
44. Becker-Olsen, Cudmore, & Hill. (2006). The impact of perceived
corporate social responsibility on consumer behavior. Journal of Business
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45. Maignan, I. (2001). Consumers’ perceptions of corporate social respon-
sibilities: A cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Business Ethics, 30(1),
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46. Godfrey, P., Merrill, C., & Hansen, J. (2009). The relationship between
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47. Cochran, P., & Wood, R. (1984). Corporate social responsibility and
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49. Ibid.
120 C. BUSCH
50. Porter, M., & Kramer, M. (2006). Strategy & society: The link between
competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. Harvard
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51. Ibid.
52. Branco, M., & Rodrigues, C. (2006). Corporate social responsibility and
resource-based perspectives. Journal of Business Ethics, 69(2), 111–132.
53. Austin J., Stevenson, H., & Wei-Skillern, J. (2006). Social and commer-
cial entrepreneurship: Same, different, or both? Entrepreneurship Theory
& Practice, 30, 1–22.
54. Santos, F.M. (2012). A positive theory of social entrepreneurship. Journal
of Business Ethics, 111(3), 335–351.
55. Busch, C., & Barkema, H.G. (2019). Social entrepreneurs as network
orchestrators. In: George, G., Tracey, P., Baker, T., & Havovi, J. (Eds.)
Handbook of Inclusive Innovation: 464–486. London: Edward Elgar
Publishing.
56. Toivonen, T. (2015). What is the social innovation community? Concep-
tualizing an emergent collaborative organization. Journal of Social
Entrepreneurship, 7(1), 49–73. https://www.globalshapers.org/impact/
skills-for-the-21st-century.
57. Singh, G. (2019). Community entrepreneurship: Solving problems and
weaving society back together. Retrieved from http://skoll.org/2019/
05/13/community-entrepreneurship-solving-problems-and-weaving-soc
iety-back-together/.
58. For a recent overview, see Busch, C., & Barkema, H.G. (2019). Social
entrepreneurs as network orchestrators. In: George, G., Tracey, P., Baker,
T. & Havovi, J. (Eds.) Handbook of Inclusive Innovation: 464–486.
London: Edward Elgar Publishing.
59. McKinsey. (2016). Scaling the impact of the social enterprise sector.
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insights/scaling-the-impact-of-the-social-enterprise-sector.
60. Groom, B. (2018). A third of start-ups aim for social good. Retrieved
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1efb74.
61. Leaders on Purpose. (2019). The CEO Study: 2019. London, United
Kingdom.
62. Ibid.; Busch, C. (2010). The impact organization. London School of
Economics working paper.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. Eden Project. (2019). Timeline. Retrieved from https://www.edenpr
oject.com/eden-story/eden-timeline.
66. Ibid.
5 TOWARD AN ENLIGHTENED FORM OF CAPITALISM … 121
67. Leaders on Purpose. (2019). The CEO Study: 2019. London, United
Kingdom.
68. Storbeck, O. (2018). Germany’s Mittelstand puts happy workers over
profits. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/68417a94-cb0f-
11e8-9fe5-24ad351828ab.
69. Wang, G. et al. (2011). Transformational leadership and performance
across criteria and levels: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of research.
Group & Organization Management, 36(2), 223–270.
70. Leaders on Purpose. (2019). The CEO Study: 2019. London, United
Kingdom.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
77. Busch, C. (2014). Substantiating social entrepreneurship research:
Exploring the potential of integrating social capital and networks
approaches. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 6(1),
69–84; Busch, C., & Barkema, H.G. (2019). Social entrepreneurs as
network orchestrators. In: George, G., Tracey, P., Baker, T. & Havovi,
J. (Eds.) Handbook of Inclusive Innovation: 464–486. London: Edward
Elgar Publishing.
78. Leaders on Purpose. (2019). The CEO Study: 2019. London, United
Kingdom.
79. Ibid.
80. Busch, C. (2020). The serendipity mindset. London/New York: Penguin
Random House; Busch, C., & Barkema, H. (2020). Planned luck: How
incubators can facilitate serendipity for nascent entrepreneurs through
fostering network embeddedness. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,
1042258720915798.
81. Millington, N. (2015). Ambisinisterity, success traps and the Base of the
Pyramid. London: London School of Economics.
82. Beuning, K. (2019). Work autonomy and social intrapreneurship: The
double-edged sword of identity-driven innovations. London: London
School of Economics.
83. The Economist. (2014). There’s an app for that. Retrieved from https://
www.economist.com/briefing/2014/12/30/theres-an-app-for-that; The
Economist. (2018). Worries about the rise of the gig economy are mostly
overblown. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/finance-and-
economics/2018/10/04/worries-about-the-rise-of-the-gig-economy-
are-mostly-overblown.
122 C. BUSCH
Further Reading
Busch, C. (2020). The serendipity mindset. London/New York: Penguin Random
House.
Busch, C., & Barkema, H.G. (2019). Social entrepreneurs as network orchestra-
tors. In: George, G., Tracey, P., Baker, T. & Havovi, J. (Eds.) Handbook of
Inclusive Innovation: 464–486. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Leaders on Purpose. (2019). The CEO Study: 2019. London, United Kingdom.
CHAPTER 6
Jennifer Trahan
J. Trahan (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: jt487@nyu.edu
Darfur situation) or the Prosecutor’s own initiation (as occurred with the
Kenya situation). When a State Party where the crimes occurred makes
the referral, presumably at least that state supports the ICC’s investiga-
tions and prosecutions, and will be fairly cooperative.5 When the other
methods are utilized there is no such guarantee, as the state where the
crimes occurred or whose nationals are involved has in no way invited the
Court’s work.6 Moreover, when the ICC’s investigation focuses on state
actors, the reaction from the state involved can be distinctly hostile. Such
was the case with the Darfur situation—once the Court issued a warrant
against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al Bashir,7 and the Kenya situ-
ation—once the Court issued summonses to appear against the persons
who became Kenya’s President and Deputy President, Uhuru Kenyatta
and William Ruto.8
The issuance of the Bashir and Kenyatta warrants ushered in a series
of attempts to derail the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) from
proceeding with those investigations and prosecutions.9 Kenya and the
African Union (AU) went to the Security Council to request that the
Kenya investigation be deferred,10 and the AU made a similar request on
behalf of Bashir.11 Kenya also ushered in an attempt to amend the ICC’s
Rome Statute to add head of state immunity from prosecution—an effort
that, as discussed below, ultimately failed. And, after a vitriolic public
relations campaign that included accusations of the ICC being “racist”
and “neo-colonialist,”12 Kenya succeeded in having other African leaders
join in a call by the AU for mass African withdrawals from the Rome
Statute.13 At that point in time, the Court actually did have an optics
problem in that all the Court’s active “investigations” involved African
states; however, this author rejects the accusation that the Court is, or
was, “racist” or “neo-colonialist.” Many of the African situations were
based on State Party referrals—that is, the countries at issue invited the
ICC’s work14 —and African victims and African members of civil society
have remained staunchly supportive of the Court.15 Of course, if there
were not mass atrocity crimes in Africa, the Court also would not be
focusing its attention on that continent, although there are mass atrocities
on other continents as well.
Calls for African States Parties to withdraw from the Rome Statute
(which is permitted),16 did result in the deposit of notices of with-
drawal in the fall of 2016 of South Africa, the Gambia, and Burundi.17
Yet, ultimately, only Burundi withdrew, with both South Africa and
the Gambia withdrawing their notices of withdrawal.18 Thus, mass
126 J. TRAHAN
African withdrawals did not materialize and the Court emerged from this
challenge relatively unscathed19 and perhaps also with a renewed commit-
ment to focusing its investigations additionally beyond Africa, which it
has since done.20 (The only other State Party to have withdrawn from
the Rome Statute since then is the Philippines.)21
was created, now that the Court finds itself facing a number of diffi-
cult situations, having convicted only a few individuals to date,42 suffered
from operational and management difficulties, and had at least one high-
level acquittal based on dubious reasoning of the Appeals Chamber,43
enthusiasm may be waning, or inconsistent at best.
Motivated by concern about the ICC, particularly in the face of
vitriolic statements by US government officials,44 as well as the earlier
dismissal of the Afghanistan investigation, four of the ASP’s past Presi-
dents wrote a blog post, dated April 24, 2019, expressing concerns for
the institution and the need to strengthen it through an independent
assessment process.45 This manifested in calls for a review process, with
agreement reached at the ASP in December 2019 for an Independent
Expert Review.46 In parallel, States Parties also saw the need to try to
strengthen other aspects of the Rome Statute system, such as the proce-
dure for the nomination and election of judges, which was viewed by
many as politicized and not designed to ensure the strongest nomina-
tions.47 Yet, already in the negotiations leading up to finalization of the
terms of reference for the review process some states were calling the
process a “reform” process, leading one to wonder whether all States
Parties actually were, and are, motivated to strengthen the ICC. Whether
the independent experts make sufficiently helpful recommendations that
are then implemented remains to be seen. And, whether any additional
efforts by States Parties are sufficiently helpful also remains to be seen.
Yet, in light of the numerous challenging situations facing it, the ICC does
very much need these review processes to strengthen the Court’s work as
well as the financial and political backing for the institution. Thus, while
the ICC has made some remarkable progress, it stands at a crucial junc-
ture: will it be able to successfully prosecute state actors? As a panel at
Leiden University poignantly asked regarding the ICC: has Icarus flown
too close to the sun?48
each situation may be somewhat ad hoc. While the future could bring
full-scale tribunals for Syria, ISIL crimes in Iraq, or crimes in Myanmar,
it is also possible that none of those outcomes will be politically feasible.
A key goal will be to ensure that whatever prosecutions do occur (partic-
ularly where the international community is involved), encompass crimes
by state actors,75 adhere to international standards of due process,76 and
do not implement the death penalty.
While the field of international justice is committed to ensuring prose-
cution of atrocity crimes, it is committed to doing so through fair trials
that implement due process protections. When trials lack such protection,
aside from the unfairness to the accused, the trial process cannot be said
to be truly reckoning with the past, can leave lingering concerns as to
whether the crimes occurred (or occurred in the way portrayed), fails to
establish an accurate historical record, and fails to demonstrate that the
rule of law is functioning. As to the death penalty, while not all countries
ban its use, the trend is toward its eventual universal abolition.77 The UN
system will not countenance its use, and, thus, any UN-created tribunal
will not permit imposition of the death penalty as a possible punish-
ment.78 While unfair domestic trials and/or ones that implement the
death penalty may also be significantly concerning (such as those occur-
ring in Iraq),79 the UN and the international community may be in less of
a position to influence those (although they should attempt to do so); the
UN, however, can specify the conditions under which the three investiga-
tive mechanisms turn over the information they gather to domestic courts
or other tribunals.
The terms of reference of each mechanism govern the conditions under
which each may furnish information to proceedings, whether before inter-
national or domestic courts. Thus, the IIIM is mandated “to collect,
consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of violations of international
humanitarian law and human rights violations and abuses and to prepare
files in order to facilitate and expedite fair and independent criminal
proceedings, in accordance with international law standards, in national,
regional or international courts or tribunals that have or may in the future
have jurisdiction over these crimes, in accordance with international
law.”80 The resolution creating UNITAD and the resolution creating
the IIMM contain similar requirements.81 The IIIM’s terms of reference
additionally provide that it will share its information only with jurisdic-
tions “where the application of the death penalty would not apply for the
6 INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL … 135
offences under consideration.”82 The IIMM also provides for this,83 but
UNITAD’s terms of reference lack that requirement.84
It is significantly concerning that UNITAD’s terms of reference do
not provide that it will not share information with jurisdictions where
the death penalty could be imposed; it is also difficult to imagine that
UN Member States would tolerate UN funding being used in a way that
helps facilitate executions. Admittedly, if UN best practices are adhered
to and none of the mechanisms furnishes its information to trials that
do not accord with internationally accepted fair trial standards or imple-
ment the death penalty that would limit where the mechanisms are able
to provide their information. This could present a challenge particularly
regarding UNITAD.85 Not only is there the issue of the death penalty,
but there is also a clear tension between UNITAD’s mandate to support
Iraqi domestic efforts and the requirement that its information only be
used “in fair and independent criminal proceedings, consistent with appli-
cable international law, conducted by competent national-level courts.”86
Because, according to various accounts, Iraqi courts are conducting brief
trials of accused ISIL members, without due process, and imposing the
death penalty,87 UNITAD would be violating the terms of the Security
Council resolution that created it (in terms of the fair trial requirement)
if it supplies information to, or otherwise furthers, such prosecutions.
Given that heavily flawed ISIL prosecutions are already occurring in Iraqi
domestic courts, it does leave it somewhat unresolved what UNITAD
will be able to do with the evidence it compiles, other than providing it
to European (or other) authorities pursuing isolated ISIL cases.88
Because large numbers of alleged ISIL perpetrators (including their
families) are being held in Iraq and Syria,89 and European countries
are reticent to take back their nationals who are alleged to have fought
for ISIL,90 there is a significant danger of these cases being summarily
resolved in the region (with or without UNITAD’s involvement). If
countries are going to develop another solution—e.g., a regional hybrid
tribunal or a hybrid tribunal sitting in Iraqi Kurdistan91 —they need to
do so promptly. European (and other) countries could also take back
their nationals and try them for war crimes or terrorism within their
domestic court systems, with UNITAD sharing information with them.
The deplorable situation of women and children being held in prisons
or camps, sometimes solely based on familial ties to ISIL fighters, also
136 J. TRAHAN
Conclusion
The field of international justice has made significant progress in the last
two and a half decades, yet some of that progress is now slowing due to a
political landscape that is less conducive to prosecuting—and sometimes
intent on disrupting the prosecution of—core atrocity crimes. One sees
this hostility manifest in disruptive and destructive pushback against the
work of the ICC, particularly where it tries to examine the conduct of
state actors. (For a discussion of the resurgence of the state, see Christo-
pher Ankersen’s chapter in this volume.) The ICC’s ASP faces a challenge
to counter this disruptive and destructive conduct, and perhaps the new
ICC Independent Expert Review process will be able to contribute to that
effort. With the growth of the field and the expectation that core atrocity
crimes must be prosecuted, one sees tremendous demand for justice
regarding crimes committed in Syria, Iraq (by ISIL), and Myanmar, but
the politics are such that the most direct routes to ensuring prosecu-
tions in each of those situations are blocked. Whereas in earlier decades,
6 INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL … 137
Notes
1. The ICC also has jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, although this
was only more recently activated, effective July 17, 2018.
2. Under the “complementarity” regime of the Rome Statute, the country
where the crimes occurred or whose nationals are involved has the first
opportunity to investigate and/or prosecute the crime. See Rome Statute,
July 17, 1998, Art. 17.
3. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (as amended), Art. 13,
July 17, 1998. Referral is different than jurisdiction. ICC jurisdiction over
genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes exists (1) as to crimes
committed on the territory of a State Party; (2) as to crimes committed
by nationals of a State Party; and (3) by UN Security Council referral.
Rome Statute, Arts. 12(2)(a), 12(2)(b), 13(b). See also ibid., Art. 12(3)
(declarations).
4. A State Party is a state that has joined the ICC’s Rome Statute through
ratification or accession.
5. A State Party also owes statutory obligations to cooperate. See Rome
Statute, Art. 86.
6. This problem also exists when other states (not ones where the crimes
occurred) make the referral, as happened when six States Parties
(excluding Venezuela) referred Venezuela.
7. See Pre-Trial Chamber I. 2009. Warrant of Arrest for Omar Hassan
Ahmad Al Bashir. ICC-02/05-01/09, March 4 (crimes against humanity
and war crimes); see also Pre-Trial Chamber I. 2010. Second Warrant of
Arrest for Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir. ICC-02/05-01/09, July 12
(genocide).
8. See Pre-Trial Chamber II. 2011. Decision on the Prosecutor’s Appli-
cation for Summonses to Appear for Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Uhuru
Muigai Kenyatta and Mohammed Hussein Ali. ICC-01/09-02/11,
March 8. https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2011_02586.PDF;
Pre-Trial Chamber II. 2011. Decision on the Prosecutor’s Application for
Summons to Appear for William Samoei Ruto, Henry Kiprono Kosgey
and Joshua Arap Sang. ICC-01/09-01/11-1, March 9, 2011. https://
www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/record.aspx?docNo=ICC-01/09-01/11-1.
6 INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL … 139
favorable to the ICC. See Mogeni, Lindah. 2016. Gambia May Not
Join Other African States in ICC Withdrawal. The Wire, December 9.
https://thewire.in/85747/gambia-icc-africa (Gambia’s new President,
Adama Barrow, has said there is no need for Gambia to leave the Court).
19. But see text accompanying note 28 infra.
20. See note 39 infra (open preliminary examinations and investigations).
21. ICC. 2019. President of the Assembly of States Parties Regrets With-
drawal from the Rome Statute by the Philippines, March 18. https://
www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=pr1443.
22. Secretariat of the Assembly of States Parties. 2015. Informal Compilation
of Proposals to Amend the Rome Statute, January 23. https://asp.
icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/asp_docs/Publications/WGA-Inf-Comp-RS-amendm
ents-ENG.pdf.
23. See Charter of the International Military Tribunal, annexed to the Agree-
ment for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of
the European Axis. August 8, 1945, Art. 7. 82 UNTS 251 (“The official
position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible offi-
cials in Government Departments, shall not be considered as freeing them
from responsibility ….”); Proclamation of the Supreme Commander for
the Allied Powers, Art. 6. January 19, 1946 (establishing an International
Military Tribunal for the Far East) (similar).
24. American NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court [hereafter,
“AMICC”], Assembly of States Parties Fifteenth Session. 2016. Final
Report (“the statements of a substantial majority of delegations made clear
that the dialogue absolutely must not include any change in the Court’s
mandate to try persons without regard to their immunity as senior officials
….”).
25. Appeals Chamber. 2019. Judgment in the Jordan Referral re Al-Bashir
Appeal, para. 117. ICC-02/05-01/09-397-Corr., May 6. https://www.
icc-cpi.int/Pages/record.aspx?docNo=ICC-02/05-01/09-397. Jordan is
far from the only State Party to which Bashir has travelled and not been
arrested.
26. Rome Statute, Art. 86.
27. See, e.g., Judgment in the Jordan Referral re Al-Bashir Appeal, supra note
25 (“There was no ground for Jordan not to execute the request for arrest
and surrender [of Al-Bashir] and … therefore it did not comply with its
obligation to cooperate with the Court pursuant to articles 86 et seq. of
the Statute.”).
28. The Prosecutor v. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta. ICC-01/09-02/11
(charges withdrawn); The Prosecutor v. William Samoei Ruto
and Joshua Arap Sang. ICC-01/09-01/11 (charges vacated). See
FIDH. 2016. Termination of Ruto and Sang Case at the ICC:
Witness Tampering Means Impunity Prevails Over Justice Again,
6 INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL … 141
April 5. https://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/kenya/termination-of-
ruto-and-sang-case-at-the-icc-witness-tampering-means; Leithead, Alas-
tair. 2016. Dismissal of Case Against Kenya’s Ruto Huge Blow to ICC.
BBC News, April 5. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35974172
(government refusal to hand over documents).
29. Pre-Trial Chamber III. 2017. Public Redacted Version of “Request for
Authorisation of an Investigation Pursuant to Article 15.” ICC-02/17-7-
Conf-Exp., November 20. https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2
017_06891.PDF.
30. Pre-Trial Chamber II. 2019. Decision Pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome
Statute on the Authorisation of an Investigation into the Situation in the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. ICC-02/17/33, April 12. https://www.
icc-cpi.int/Pages/record.aspx?docNo=ICC-02/17-33.
31. Ibid., paras. 44, 96 (emphasis added).
32. See Rome Statute, Art. 53(1)(c). The author served as an amicus curiae
on the Appeal. For further discussion of “the interests of justice,” see
Observations by Professor Jennifer Trahan as Amicus Curiae on the
appeal of Pre-Trial Chamber II’s “Decision Pursuant to Article 15 of
the Rome Statute on the Authorisation of an Investigation into the Situa-
tion in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.” ICC-02/17-109, November
15, 2019. https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/record.aspx?docNo=ICC-02/
17-109.
33. See Appeals Chamber. 2020. Judgment on the Appeal Against the Deci-
sion on the Authorisation of an Investigation into the Situation in the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. ICC-02/17 OA4, March 5. https://
www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2020_00828.PDF.
34. Executive Order on Blocking Property of Certain Persons Associated
with the International Criminal Court, June 11, 2020. https://www.whi
tehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-blocking-property-cer
tain-persons-associated-international-criminal-court/.
35. The OTP’s preliminary examination into the situation in the Philippines
relates to its “war on drugs” campaign, and the Burundi investigation
relates to violence by state agents.
36. The ASP consists of representatives of States Parties to the ICC’s Rome
Statute.
37. In neither of the two Security Council referred situations—Darfur and
Libya—has the Security Council provided follow-up assistance to the ICC.
38. For instance, at ASP 15 (in 2016), States Parties insisting on “zero
growth” were: Canada, Ecuador, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, UK,
and Venezuela. AMICC Report, supra note 24.
39. The Court has preliminary examinations open as to: Colombia, Guinea,
Iraq (UK), Nigeria, Palestine, Philippines, Ukraine, and Venezuela
(I & II). It has investigations open as to: DRC, Uganda, Darfur,
142 J. TRAHAN
CAR, Kenya, Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, CAR II, Georgia, Burundi,
Bangladesh/Myanmar, and Afghanistan. ICC. Situations and Cases.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/pages/situation.aspx.
40. The resolutions making the referrals provided that no UN funding would
accompany them. S/RES/1593, para. 7. 2005; S/RES/1970, para. 8.
2011.
41. Oral Remarks of Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, Launch of the Report on
Preliminary Examinations. 2019. The Hague, Netherlands, December 6.
42. There have been three convictions in main cases (Al Mahdi, Katanga,
and Lubanga) and five more if one includes offenses against the admin-
istration of justice. That the prosecution of Laurent Gbagbo and Charles
Blé Goudé ended with dismissal after the defense’s “no case to answer
motion” was granted, also was not a positive development, but is on
appeal.
43. Trahan, Jennifer. 2018. Bemba Acquittal Rests on Erroneous Application
of Appellate Review Standard. Opinio Juris, June 25. http://opinio
juris.org/2018/06/25/bemba-acquittal-rests-on-erroneous-application-
of-appellate-review-standard.
44. Human Rights Watch. 2018. Briefing Note for the Seventeenth Session
of the International Criminal Court Assembly of States Parties, at 2,
November 21. https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/11/21/human-rig
hts-watch-briefing-note-seventeenth-session-international-criminal-court
(threats by then US National Security Adviser John Bolton). Remarks by
President Trump to the 73rd Session, UN General Assembly, September
25, 2018. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-
president-trump-73rd-session-united-nations-general-assembly-new-yor
k-ny; Remarks by Secretary Pompeo at the German Marshall Fund,
December 4, 2018. https://ua.usembassy.gov/remarks-by-secretary-pom
peo-at-the-german-marshall-fund.
45. Prince Zeid Raad Al Hussein, Bruno Stagno Ugarte, Christian Wenaweser,
and Tiina Intelman. 2019. The International Criminal Court Needs
Fixing. New Atlanticist, April 24. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/
blogs/new-atlanticist/the-international-criminal-court-needs-fixing.
46. ASP 2019. Review of the International Criminal Court and the
Rome Statute System. Resolution ICC-ASP/18/Res.7, December
6. https://asp.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/asp_docs/ASP18/ICC-ASP-18-Res7-
ENG-ICC-Review-resolution-10Dec19-cln%20AM%201658.pdf.
47. See Open Society Justice Initiative. 2019. Raising the Bar: Improving the
Nomination and Selection of Judges at the International Criminal Court,
October 28.
48. Is Icarus Falling? Rethinking Ambitions and Critiques of International
Criminal Justice. 2019. Leiden University Panel. The Hague, June 20.
The reference is to the Greek myth where Icarus wanted wings to fly but
6 INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL … 143
flew too close to the sun, so the wax in his wings melted and he fell to
his death.
49. A “hybrid” tribunal is a “hybrid” between an international tribunal and a
domestic tribunal, containing features of both.
50. For reports of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on
the Syrian Arab Republic, see https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/
iicisyria/pages/independentinternationalcommission.aspx.
51. See Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry
on the Syrian Arab Republic. 2016. “They Came to Destroy”:
ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis. UN Doc. A/HRC/32/CRP.2,
June 15. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/
CoISyria/A_HRC_32_CRP.2_en.pdf.
52. SC Res. S/2014/348 (listing 65 states supporting the resolution).
53. SC Res. S/2014/348 (vetoed by the Russian Federation and China).
54. See, e.g., Galpin, Richard. 2012. Russian Arms Shipments Bolster Syria’s
Embattled Assad. BBC News, January 10. https://www.bbc.com/news/
world-middle-east-16797818.
55. GA Res. A/71/L.48. 2016.
56. European countries, as well as Argentina, appear the most active in
pursuing universal jurisdiction and similar cases. See, e.g., 2019. Germany:
“President Assad Officials” Charged with Torture in Syria. BBC News,
October. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50223602.
57. Vukusic, Iva. 2019. Accountability in Syria: What Are the Options? In
New Critical Spaces in Transitional Justice: Gender, Art, and Memory, eds.
Arnaud Kurze and Christopher K. Lamont, 202–222. Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press. There is also a possibility of a regional tribunal
to prosecute crimes committed in Syria that would sit within the region,
based on the consent of one or more Middle Eastern country.
58. S/RES/2379, September 21, 2017.
59. The Iraqi High Tribunal was a domestic Iraqi tribunal that sat in Baghdad
and received limited international assistance, mainly from the US’s Regime
Crimes Liaison Office (“RCLO”). See Law of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal
Tribunal (Law No. 10), Art. 14. 2005. Al-Waqa’l Al-Iraqiya [Official
Gazette of the Republic of Iraq], October 18. Its work was hampered
by serious due process failings. See Trahan, Jennifer. 2009. A Critical
Guide to the Iraqi High Tribunal’s Anfal Judgment: Genocide Against
The Kurds. Michigan Journal of International Law 30: 305–412.
60. The recent targeting of peaceful protesters by Iraqi authori-
ties is an example of why the government might be reticent
to create jurisdiction over its actions. See Amnesty International.
2019. Iraq Must End “Campaign of Terror” Targeting Protestors,
December 13. https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/iraq-must-
end-campaign-of-terror-targeting-protestors. A fully international or
144 J. TRAHAN
Further Reading
Appeals Chamber. 2020. Judgment on the Appeal Against the Decision on the
Authorisation of an Investigation into the Situation in the Islamic Republic
of Afghanistan, ICC-02/17 OA4. March 5. https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtR
ecords/CR2020_00828.PDF.
Elliott, Ingrid. 2017. A Meaningful Step towards Accountability? A View from
the Field on the United Nations International, Impartial and Independent
Mechanism for Syria. Journal of International Criminal Justice 15(2): 239–
256.
6 INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL … 147
Jalloh, Charles C., and Ilias Bantekas, eds. 2017. The International Criminal
Court and Africa. New York: Oxford University Press.
Observations by Professor Jennifer Trahan as Amicus Curiae on the Appeal of
Pre-Trial Chamber II’s “Decision Pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute
on the Authorisation of an Investigation into the Situation in the Islamic
Republic of Afghanistan.” ICC-02/17-109. November 15, 2019. https://
www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/record.aspx?docNo=ICC-02/17-109.
Trahan, Jennifer. Forthcoming in 2020. The Assembly Of States Parties. In The
Elgar Companion to the International Criminal Court, ed. Valerie Oosterveld
and Margaret M. deGuzman. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
CHAPTER 7
In February 2015, not long after declaring that Sweden was practicing
feminist foreign policy (FFP)—making it the first country explicitly to
do so—Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, in a speech to the Swedish
parliament, detailed religiously sanctioned abuses of women’s rights in
Saudi Arabia, and described the sentence of a thousand lashes for a
blogger who had criticized Islam as ‘medieval’.1 A month later she was
blocked at the last minute from delivering a long-planned speech on
women’s rights to the Arab League. The next day Sweden canceled
an agreement on arms sales to Saudi. Saudi immediately recalled its
ambassador and temporarily suspended business visas for Swedes. Arab
commentators condemned Wallstrom’s use of the word ‘medieval’ as a
slur reflecting deeper Islamophobia.2
The move also triggered a united howl of protest from the Swedish
business establishment. Thirty CEOs signed a letter claiming that her
move jeopardized Sweden’s standing as a trade partner. The Swedish
A. M. Goetz (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: amg22@nyu.edu
but also the authority of religious establishments and the social construc-
tion of sexuality and gender identity. Feminist social change projects can
be costly too. Economic systems built on women’s unpaid care work need
to be restructured so that the costs of childcare and eldercare are more
equally shared.
Because of limited political leverage, feminists have simultaneously
sought to institutionalize or mainstream gender equality within public
policy institutions, and to sustain external pressure through lobbying and
critique—working ‘in and against’ public authority.20
Compartmental Institutionalization
The practical project of making gender equality a core consideration,
and ideally an objective of the way states interact internationally, has
involved diluting the striking male dominance of public decision-making,
and bringing feminist principles to bear in problem identification, anal-
ysis, resource allocation, and operations. At the national level, feminists
have pursued a long-term project of ‘state feminism’,21 with the intention
of constitutionalizing laws and establishing social practices that punish
outright abuses of women’s rights, that create incentives for men to
engage in care work (for instance, through paid paternity leave), that
erode heteronormativity (for instance, through marriage equality), and
that do not force women to pay for childbearing (for instance, through
paid maternity leave or pensions for mothers).
State-level gender mainstreaming efforts have encountered plenty of
direct resistance, and are often characterized by the ghettoization of the
gender equality effort into an underfunded stand-alone government unit
like a small ministry (often connected to children’s issues, sports, culture).
To deflect resistance, gender mainstreaming is presented as a ‘win-win’
proposition, not a significant challenge to established politics and resource
allocation
Ghettoization has also characterized the institutionalization of gender
equality in international institutions. At the UN, the Commission on the
Status of Women (1946) tended to address social, not security or polit-
ical matters, following a long-established tradition of leaving the ‘low’
politics of social matters to women and elevating the ‘high’ politics of
diplomacy and security to male-dominated arenas such as the UN Secu-
rity Council.22 The eventual creation of four tiny and competing gender
equality promotion offices at the UN with overlapping mandates seemed
7 FEMINIST PRINCIPLES IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS: UNDIPLOMATIC PRACTICE 155
designed to fail, pitting feminist leaders against each other, rather than
against the patriarchy of the UN system.
The creation in 2010 of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and
Women’s Empowerment (UN Women) brought all four gender offices
under one umbrella, with responsibilities to coordinate gender equality
initiatives across the UN system. It was also awarded the same rank for
its chief—Under-Secretary-General—as enjoyed by other UN agencies,
and in a helpful move, the US, at the time of negotiating the details,
provided that the head of UN Women should also have a stand-alone seat
in the Secretary-General’s senior management team (in other words, UN
Women would not be cluster-represented, as are some other agencies, by
another, larger agency). The sting was that UN Women was to have virtu-
ally no core budget derived from mandatory member state payments—it
would have to generate its own operating budget from voluntary contri-
butions. It was not until 2019 that UN Women finally reached its initial
estimated annual budget target of $500 million.
Ironically—or providentially—UN Women was created at the very
moment that the extent of the backlash against women’s rights made itself
more apparent. In the 2012 meeting of the CSW, for instance, conserva-
tive states from Russia to Egypt to Indonesia worked together to prevent
consensus on the topic of violence against women.23 A few years later,
Belarus announced the creation of ‘The Group of Friends of the Family’,
about 25 former Soviet states, Muslim and Catholic-dominated states,
plus the Vatican, that coordinate to halt normative progress on reproduc-
tive rights and sexual orientation and gender identity. Attacks on women’s
rights agreements intensified after the Trump victory in the US, when US
representatives at UN forums began systematically objecting to references
to reproductive health, even contraceptive supply, started to request dele-
tion of the word ‘gender’ from UN documents, and even references to
former agreements such as the Beijing Platform for Action.24
UN Women’s appearance is providential only, however, if it sustains a
defense of feminist policies within and beyond the UN. Observers have
raised concerns that becoming mainstream has brought a shift from the
antagonistic politics of monitoring the UN’s performance to a conformist
project of cooperation.25 For instance, UN Women took no significant
action between 2010 and 2017 on the long-neglected goal (set in 1994)
of gender parity in UN staffing. That had to wait until the new Secretary-
General began his tenure in 2017 and personally accelerated the gender
parity effort. His efforts stalled in 2018 when the male-dominated field
156 A. M. GOETZ
Delgado is the spokesperson for the foreign policy because she is the only
woman among the Ministry’s top 11 positions.38 It is clear that its FFP
starting points will be a recruitment and promotion drive, an effort to
address sexual harassment, and of course its outward-facing commitment
to amplifying feminist civil society voices in global priority-setting, even
given the postponement of the 2020 Beijing+25 meetings.
Some observers suggest that it is ironic that Mexico, among the 25
countries with the highest rates of gender-based violence,39 is asserting
feminist global leadership. Excellent domestic performance on women’s
rights should not, however, be a requirement for the feminist foreign
policy effort—if it were, few countries would even contemplate it, and
practitioners of FFP would be held to impossible standards. Mexico is
not expected to boast success on the issue of violence against women,
but to approach it rather as the significant shared global emergency that
it is.
Mexico in fact was listed second to last on a list of 25 OECD coun-
tries (Turkey came last) in a 2017 initial attempt to develop an index
of FFP by Christine Alwan and S. Laurel Weldon.40 Alwan and Welden
assess the relative degree of feminism in a country’s foreign policy by
analyzing indicators regarding the size of the armed forces and the
importance of the arms trade, national ratification of global treaties on
women’s rights and race equality, the proportion of development assis-
tance dedicated to promoting gender equality, the proportion of defense,
trade, and aid leadership positions held by women, etc. While these are
sensible measures, they may not apply to countries without a significant
aid program (such as Mexico). They also do not include assessments of
potentially meaningful signals of feminist foreign policy such as the rela-
tive power of military leaders in national decision-making, or the extent
to which national foreign policy representatives defend women’s rights in
international spaces, such as multilateral negotiations.
An alternative approach is to assess FFP against a set of feminist stan-
dards. Lyric Thompson has extended Wallstrom’s ‘3 R’s’ framework,
adding ‘research and reporting’, and ‘reach’ to the promotion of equality
in rights, increases in resources for gender equality, and efforts to ensure
women’s representation—in internal processes and external outcomes.41
She lists expectations such as increased funding for women’s organi-
zations domestically and overseas, use of gender-responsive budgeting
methods, design of trading relationships to support industries that employ
7 FEMINIST PRINCIPLES IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS: UNDIPLOMATIC PRACTICE 159
Migration
Three of the countries practicing FFP have experienced destabilizing
effects from recent episodes of mass migration. Sweden and France
were destination countries for refugees from Syria and other conflicts in
the Europe’s 2015–2016 refugee crisis. Mexico is a transit country for
migrants fleeing criminal violence in Central America and heading for the
US. In the 2015–2016 European refugee crisis Sweden received 163,000
asylum seekers, an influx so significant that it changed gendered demo-
graphics (70 percent of these migrants were men).52 Several incidents of
violence against women triggered anti-Muslim sentiment, a tightening of
border controls and restrictions in family reunification provisions in order
to keep numbers of immigrants down. Restrictions on family reunification
had a negative impact on women, since female relatives were stranded
either in camps in the Mediterranean, or in dangerous situations in home
countries, notably Syria.53
Some countries with conservative governments have, in the context
of increased migration pressure in recent years, restricted gender-based
persecution asylum claims—as the Trump administration’s first Attorney
General Jeff Sessions did in 2018.54 All four of the countries practicing
FFP recognize gender (and sexuality)-based persecution as a valid basis
for refugee status. However, gender-specific asylum claims are dwarfed
by claims triggered by poverty, conflict, and climate change. Significant
increases in immigrant numbers raise domestic tensions between popular
expectations about the bounded character of the state, and in particular
162 A. M. GOETZ
notions of national identity and culture, and the inclusiveness and open-
ness—and also costs—that a feminist migration and refugee policy could
entail.
and behaviors are learned and not innate, conservative regimes across
the ideological spectrum are moving toward outlawing feminist thinking
itself, for instance in the 2018 banning of gender studies in Hungary.60
Such moves will more deeply entrench masculinized notions of what is
in the ‘national interest’. This makes international solidarity on gender
equality more urgent, and will require willingness from the defenders of
women’s rights to be more ‘undiplomatic’ and break international silence
about abuses.
Domestic solidarity is also needed, and is not a given. A feature of
foreign policy establishments, particularly those concerned with national
security, is that they are often somewhat isolated from, and even at
odds with, domestic decision-making bodies such as the legislature. This
distancing provides a degree of autonomy to foreign policy establishments
that can enable them to pursue policies that are not fully reflective of
national preferences, but it can also mean that other parts of govern-
ment will not meet feminist foreign policy objectives. This is clear from
challenges in ensuring women’s participation in peace negotiations. In
late 2018 Sweden hosted ceasefire and humanitarian access talks for
Yemen. France participated in ceasefire and conflict mitigation talks on
the Libya situation in November 2019 in Palermo. In both cases, negoti-
ating parties did not include women, and in both cases, only a last-minute
scramble generated tokenistic participation of several women who, added
as an afterthought, were not in a position to influence discussions. The
sustained participation of women in Track I and Track II conflict resolu-
tion efforts remains the least well-implemented feature of international
commitments to the Security Council’s ‘Women Peace and Security’
agenda. That two self-declared practitioners of FFP could engineer no
more than a token representation of women in Stockholm and Palermo
reduces FFP to superficial virtue signaling, of no use to women’s peace
and survival struggles.
more than it is shaped by them’, and she adds: ‘And we need to refocus
our advocacy for international peace and security on state power’ because
the ‘growth in arms expenditures and tax breaks for multinational business
relative to austerity in state budgets for public health and education’61
are indicative of the prioritization of private profit at home over welfare
and justice. She does not link this observation to the neoliberal economic
frameworks that now govern markets and distort state power, though
elsewhere she and other feminists have exposed the socially destructive
consequences of the hegemony of neoliberalism.62 The point is that FFP
must address economic and financial frameworks that have curbed state
capacities for constructive social engineering while expanding the coercive
capacities of the state—deployed increasingly in defense of capital, not
people.
This is a paradox for feminists who have long been profoundly ambiva-
lent about state power in international space, seeking to limit the issues
over which states can claim sovereignty in order to expand the scope
of civil society and multilateral institutions to hold states to interna-
tional standards on women’s rights. States continue to protect patriarchal
privileges, to reproduce gender inequality through policies promoting
heteronormativity or normalizing women’s relegation to unpaid care
work. But states have also provided feminists with opportunities to make
social and economic policy to engineer changes in families and markets.
As such, states strong enough to promote social change can be allies for
the feminist project.
There is another reason why support for state social engineering
capacity is increasingly seen as a feminist priority: the hollowing out of
state welfare resources has contributed to the lurch toward illiberalism
in a number of developed and emerging economies including some of
the world’s largest democracies (USA, India, Brazil). In these contexts,
heightened economic inequality has ushered in right wing or market
populists with affinities for military leadership and violent responses to
social protest and dissent. These illiberal regimes scapegoat feminists,
immigrants, and homosexuals as causes of social ills. Feminist IR theo-
rists are reassessing former ambivalence about the state,63 considering the
progressive policies that have been possible through the liberal state with
social protection duties, and considering its enormous significance as a
political community that is accessible and meaningful to ordinary people
seeking accountability.
7 FEMINIST PRINCIPLES IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS: UNDIPLOMATIC PRACTICE 165
Notes
1. Nordberg, Jenny. 2015. ‘Who’s Afraid of a Feminist Foreign Policy?’, The
New Yorker, April 15. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/
swedens-feminist-foreign-minister. Accessed 24 February 2020.
2. Jawhar, Sabria S. 2015. ‘The Undiplomatic Diplomat’. Arab News, March
26. https://www.arabnews.com/columns/news/723291. Accessed 26
January 2020.
3. True, Jacqui. 2015. ‘Why We Need a Feminist Foreign Policy to Sop War’.
Open Democracy, April 20. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/
why-we-need-feminist-foreign-policy-to-stop-war/. Accessed 28 January
2020.
4. The Guardian. 2015. ‘The Guardian View on Margot Wallström: A
Splendidly Undiplomatic Diplomat’. The Guardian, March 29. https://
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/29/guardian-view-
on-margot-wallstrom-undiplomatic-diplomat. Accessed 30 January 2020.
5. Ridge, Alice, Caroline Lambert, Joanne Crawford, Rachel Clement, Lyric
Thompson, Anne Marie Goetz, and Sarah Gammage. 2019. ‘Feminist
Foreign Policy: Key Principles and Accountability Mechanisms: A Discus-
sion Summary’. Report of a CSW Workshop. New York: International
Center for Research on Women, International Women’s Development
Agency, and Center for Global Affairs.
6. Casale, Teresa, Lyric Thompson, Sarah Gammage, and Foluyinka Fakoya.
2020. Progress Stalled for Women’s Rights, Time for a Jumpstart. A
Report Card on the Secretary-General’s Third Year from the Feminist
UN Campaign. International Center for Research on Women, Wash-
ington, DC. https://n2r4h9b5.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/
2020/01/UN-reportcard_FINAL.pdf. Accessed 24 January 2020.
7. World Economic Forum. 2020. ‘Global Gender Gap Report 2020’. World
Economic Forum. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.
pdf. Accessed 29 January 2020.
8. Rogers, K. 2017. ‘NGOs Scramble to Safeguard Programs in Wake
of Trump’s Expanded “Global Gag Rule”’. Devex, January 25, 2017.
https://www.devex.com/news/sponsored/ngos-scramble-to-safeguard-
programs-in-wake-of-trump-s-expanded-global-gag-rule-89515. Accessed
21 January 2019.
9. Nechepurenko, I. 2017. ‘Russia Moves to Soften Domestic Violence
Law’. The New York Times, December 22. https://www.nytimes.com/
2017/01/25/world/europe/russia-domestic-violence.html. Accessed 30
June 2018.
10. Goetz, Anne Marie. 2019. ‘The Politics of Preserving Gender Inequality:
De-Institutionalization and Re-Privatization’. Oxford Development Studies
47.4 (published online).
168 A. M. GOETZ
11. Goetz, Anne Marie. 2015. ‘The New Cold War on Women’s Rights?’.
UNRISD Discussion Paper, Geneva. http://www.unrisd.org/beijing+20-
goetz. Accessed 22 February 2019.
12. Tickner, J. Ann. 1992. Gender in International Relations: Feminist
Perspectives on Achieving Global Security. New York: Columbia University
Press; Harrington, Mona. 1992. ‘What Exactly Is Wrong with the Liberal
State as an Agent of Change?’. In Gendered States: Feminist (re)Visions
of International Relations Theory, ed. V. Spike Peterson. Boulder: Lynne
Rienner Publishers; Duriesmith, David. 2018. ‘Manly States and Feminist
Foreign Policy: Revisiting the Liberal State as an Agent of Change’. In
Revisiting Gendered States: Feminist Imaginings of the State in Interna-
tional Relations, eds. Swati Parashar, J. Ann Tickner, and Jacqui True.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13. Hozic, Aida, and Jacqui True. 2016. Scandalous Economics: The Politics of
Gender and Financial Crises. New York: Oxford University Press.
14. Connell, Raewyn. 1990. ‘The State, Gender and Sexual Politics: Theory
and Appraisal’. Theory and Society 19: 508. For LGBTQ perspectives see:
Picq, Manuela Lavinas, and Markus Thiel, eds. 2015. Sexualities in World
Politics: How LGBTQ Claims Shape International Relations. London:
Routledge, 2015.
15. See for instance Narayan, Uma. 1997. Dislocating Cultures: Identities,
Traditions, and Third World Feminism. New York: Routledge.
16. Barnett, Michael N., and Martha Finnemore. 1999. ‘The Politics, Power,
and Pathologies of International Organizations’. International Organiza-
tion 53.4: 699–732.
17. Tripp, Aili Mari. 2006. ‘The Evolution of Transnational Feminisms:
Consensus, Conflict, and New Dynamics’. In Global Feminism: Transna-
tional Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, eds. Myra
Marx Ferree, and Aili Mari Trip. 32. New York: New York University
Press.
18. Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn Sikkink. 2018. ‘International Norm
Dynamics and Political Change’. International Affairs 94.2: 887–917;
Keck, Margaret, and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders:
Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univer-
sity Press; Çağlar, Gulay. 2018. ‘Constructivist Thought in Feminist
IPE: Tracking Gender Norms’. In Handbook on the International
Political Economy of Gender, eds. Juanita Elias and Adrienne Roberts.
Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar; World Economic Forum, The Global
Gender Gap Report 2020. Op. cit.
19. Kandiyoti, Deniz. 1988. ‘Bargaining with Patriarchy’. Gender and Society
2.3: 274–290.
20. London Edinburgh Weekend Return Group. 1979. In and Against the
State: Discussion Notes for Socialists. Self-published.
7 FEMINIST PRINCIPLES IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS: UNDIPLOMATIC PRACTICE 169
21. Hernes, Helga. 1987. Welfare State and Woman Power: Essays in State
Feminism. London: Norwegian University Press.
22. Balnchard, Eric. 2003. ‘Gender, International Relations, and the Devel-
opment of Feminist Security Theory’. Signs 28.4: 1289–1312. http://
www2.kobe-u.ac.jp/~alexroni/TR/2012/No.3/Gender,%20Internatio
nal%20Relations,%20and%20the%20Development%20of.pdf. Accessed 24
February 2020.
23. Goetz, ‘The New Cold War…’. Op. cit.
24. In 2019 negotiations over two Security Council resolutions on women,
peace and security (resolutions 2467 and 2493) the US threatened the
veto unless language on reproductive health was removed and signaled
reluctance to accept relevant past agreements including the Beijing
Platform for Action. O’Rourke, Catherine, and Aisling Swaine. 2019.
‘Heading to Twenty: Perils and Promises of UN Security Council Resolu-
tion 2493’. London School of Economics, November 12. https://blogs.
lse.ac.uk/wps/2019/11/12/heading-to-twenty-perils-and-promises-of-
wps-resolution-2493/. Accessed 24 February 2020.
25. Halley, Janet, Prabha Kotiswaran, Rachel Rebouché, and Hila Shamir.
2018. Governance Feminism: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
26. Goetz, Anne Marie, and Paige Arthur. 2019. ‘The UN’s Gender Parity
Goals: The Backlash Begins’. Passblue, January 23. https://www.pas
sblue.com/2019/01/23/the-uns-gender-parity-goals-the-backlash-beg
ins/. Accessed 12 December 2019.
27. Government of France, Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. 2019.
‘Feminist Foreign Policy. Op-Ed by Jean-Yves Le Drian and Marlène
Schiappa (8 March 2019)’. France Diplomate. https://www.diplomatie.
gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/human-rights/events/article/feminist-
foreign-policy-op-ed-by-jean-yves-le-drian-and-marlene-schiappa-08-03.
Accessed 31 January 2020.
28. Devex. 2020. ‘Mexico Becomes First Latin American Nation to Publish
Feminist Foreign Policy’. Devex, January 15. https://www.kff.org/
news-summary/mexico-becomes-first-latin-american-nation-to-publish-
feminist-foreign-policy/. Accessed 24 January 2020.
29. Champagne, François-Philippe. 2020. ‘Address by Minister of Foreign
Affairs to the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations’. Government of
Canada, Global Affairs Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/global-aff
airs/news/2020/02/address-by-minister-of-foreign-affairs-to-the-mon
treal-council-on-foreign-relations.html. Accessed 23 February 2020.
30. Peacewomen. 2017. ‘Canada Launches New Feminist International
Assistance Policy’. Peacewomen, June 9. https://www.peacewomen.org/
resource/canada-launches-new-feminist-international-assistance-policy.
Accessed 31 January 2020.
170 A. M. GOETZ
31. Reuters. 2017. ‘Dutch Commit $10 Million to Replace Lost U.S. Abor-
tion Funding’. Reuters, January 29. https://www.reuters.com/article/
us-usa-trump-dutch-abortion-idUSKBN15C0OW. Accessed 29 January
2020.
32. Nordberg, Jenny. 2015. ‘Who’s Afraid of Feminist Foreign Policy?’ The
New Yorker, April 15. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/
swedens-feminist-foreign-minister. Accessed 23 February 2020.
33. Wallstrom, Margot. 2015. ‘Speech by the Minister for Foreign Affairs
at the United States Institute for Peace’. Government Offices of Sweden,
January 29. https://www.government.se/speeches/2015/01/speech-by-
the-minister-for-foreign-affairs-at-the-unites-states-institute-for-peace/.
Accessed 23 February 2020.
34. Champagne, ‘Address by Minister of Foreign Affairs’. Op. cit.
35. Rajagopalan, Swarna. 2020. ‘When Feminism Meets Foreign Policy’. The
New Indian Express, February 6. https://www.newindianexpress.com/
opinions/2020/feb/06/when-feminism-meets-foreign-policy-2099689.
html. Accessed 23 February 2020.
36. The Conversation. 2019. ‘Mexican President López Obrador Has a
Woman Problem’. The Conversation, July 10. https://theconversation.
com/mexican-president-lopez-obrador-has-a-woman-problem-113529.
Accessed 23 January 2020.
37. Flores, Erika. 2020. ‘Feminist Foreign Policy Will Be a Pillar for Mexico:
Martha Delgado’. La Silla Rota, January 24. https://lasillarota.com/nac
ion/feminist-foreign-policy-will-be-a-pillar-for-mexico-martha-delgado-
martha-delgado/355774. Accessed 25 January 2020.
38. Arriozola, Sarai Aguilar. 2020. ‘Politica Exterior Feminista de Juguete’.
AFmedios, January 20. https://www.afmedios.com/2020/01/politica-
exterior-feminista-de-juguete/. Accessed 29 January 2020.
39. UN Women. 2017. ‘The Long Road to Justice, Prosecuting Femicide
in Mexico’. UN Women. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/
2017/11/feature-prosecuting-femicide-in-mexico. Accessed 23 February
2020.
40. Alwan, Christine, and S. Laurel Weldon. 2017. ‘What Is Feminist Foreign
Policy? An Explanatory Evaluation of Foreign Policy in OECD Coun-
tries’. Paper prepared for 2017 European Conference on Politics and
Gender, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
41. Thompson, Lyric. (Forthcoming). ‘Feminist Foreign Policy: A Frame-
work’. International Center for Research on Women. Washington DC.
42. Ibid.: 6.
43. Enloe, Cynthia. 2000. Maneuvers: The International Politics of
Militarizing Women’s Lives. University of California Press.
7 FEMINIST PRINCIPLES IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS: UNDIPLOMATIC PRACTICE 171
olded-after-foreign-affairs-minister-sent-tweet-rebuking-saudi-arabia-1.
4935735. Accessed 30 January 2020.
56. Ashifa Khassam. 2018. ‘“We Don’t Have a Single Friend”: Canada’s
Saudi Spat Reveals Country Is Alone’. The Guardian, August 11.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/11/canada-saudi-ara
bia-support-us. Accessed 30 January 2020.
57. Reuters. 2018. ‘Trump Abandons Canada in Saudi Human Rights
Fight’. Haaretz, August 13. https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-
news/trump-abandons-canada-in-saudi-human-rights-fight-1.6366171.
Accessed 30 January 2020.
58. Crouch, D. 2015. ‘Sweden’s Foreign Minister Unrepentant Over Saudi
Flogging Row’. The Guardian, June 8. https://www.theguardian.com/
world/2015/jun/08/swedens-foreign-minister-unrepentant-over-saudi-
flogging-row. Accessed December 2018.
59. Specia, Megan. 2019. ‘Saudi Anti-Extremist Force Names Feminists as
a Target. Briefly.’ The New York Times, November 13. https://www.nyt
imes.com/2019/11/13/world/middleeast/saudi-feminism-extremism-
video.html. Accessed 30 January 2020.
60. Goetz, ‘The Politics of Preserving Gender Inequality’. Op. cit.
61. True, ‘Why We Need a Feminist Foreign Policy’. Op. cit.
62. Cronin-Furman, Kate, Nimmi Gowrinathan, and Rafia Zakaria. 2017.
Emissaries of Empowerment. New York: Colin Powell School for Civic
and Global Leadership, City College of New York. http://www.deviar
chy.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/EMISSSARIES-OF-EMP
OWERMENT-2017.pdf. Accessed 2 February 2020.
63. See for instance the collection Parashar, Swathi, J. Ann Tickner, and
Jacqui True, eds. 2018. Revisiting Gendered States: Feminist Imaginings
of the State in International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
64. Goetz, Anne Marie. 2009. ‘Governing Women or Enabling Women
to Govern: Gender and the Good Governance Agenda’. In Governing
Women: Women’s Political Effectiveness in Contexts of Democratization
and Governance Reform, ed. Anne Marie Goetz. New York: Routledge.
65. Harrington, Mona. 1992. ‘What Exactly Is Wrong with the Liberal
State as an Agent of Change?’. In Gendered States: Feminist (re)Visions
of International Relations Theory, ed. V. Spike Peterson. 75. Boulder:
Lynne Rienner Publishers.
66. Note that in 2019 Mexico’s state of Oaxaca legalized abortion. See
Agren, David. 2019. ‘“We Have Made History”: Mexico’s Oaxaca State
Decriminalizes Abortion’. The Guardian, September 26. https://www.
theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/26/we-have-made-history-mexicos-
oaxaca-state-decriminalises-abortion. Accessed 5 February 2020.
67. Amnesty International. 2015. ‘Amnesty International Policy on State
Obligations to Respect, Protect and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex
7 FEMINIST PRINCIPLES IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS: UNDIPLOMATIC PRACTICE 173
Further Reading
Duriesmith, David. 2018. ‘Manly States and Feminist Foreign Policy: Revisiting
the Liberal State as an Agent of Change’, in Revisiting Gendered States: Femi-
nist Imaginings of the State in International Relations, Swati Parashar, J. Ann
Tickner, and Jacqui True, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eschle, Catherine, and Bice Maiguashca. 2014. ‘Reclaiming Feminist Futures:
Co-opted and Progressive Politics in a Neoliberal Age: Reclaiming Feminist
Futures’, Political Studies, 62.3: 634–651.
Graff, Agnieszka, Ratna Kapur, and Suzanna Danuta Walters. 2019. ‘Introduc-
tion: Gender and the Rise of the Global Right’, Signs, 44.3.
Hozic, Aida, and Jacqui True. 2016. Scandalous Economics: The Politics of Gender
and Financial Crises. New York: Oxford University Press.
Htun, Mala, and S. Laurel Weldon. 2010. ‘When Do Governments Promote
Women’s Rights? A Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Sex Equality
Policy’, Perspectives on Politics, 8.1: 207–216.
CHAPTER 8
Thomas Hill
T. Hill (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: th334@nyu.edu
… [G]iven the poor record of states and the interstate system, in assuring
either positive or negative peace for most of the inhabitants of the world, it
should not be necessary to argue that peace education should be provided
for as many adults as possible. This will enable them to be more effective
in pushing states toward positive and negative peace policies.22
Yet, more than 60 years since the field of peace education became
a formalized entity and the first academic college-level peace studies
program was founded, it seems important to ask whether the approaches
of peace education actually are serving to bring about the broad interna-
tional changes that it seeks to catalyze. War certainly has not disappeared
and, though it has diminished in frequency in recent years, it does not
appear to be disappearing. The 2019 Global Peace Index—which annu-
ally tracks levels of negative peace in 163 states and territories through
the measurement of 23 indicators—reports that the world became 3.78
percent less peaceful between 2008 and 2018.25 Whatever success peace
education may be achieving at the individual or local level, it would be
difficult to argue that it is having a major effect on the overall peaceful-
ness of modern society. Part of this failure can be attributed to a logical
flaw in the basic theory of change employed by peace education.
According to Harris, one of the foremost scholars of peace education,
the field is dependent upon an “important symbiotic relationship between
peace movements, peace research, and peace education.” Activists have
developed strategies to warn people about the dangers of violence,
whether it be wars between nations, environmental destruction, the threat
of nuclear holocaust, colonial aggression, cultural, domestic, or struc-
tural violence. Academics studying these developments further the field
of peace research. The activists, hoping to broaden their message, teach
others through informal community-based peace education activities,
such as holding forums, publishing newsletters, and sponsoring peace
demonstrations. Teachers observing these activities promote peace studies
courses and programs in schools and colleges to provide awareness of the
challenges of ecological sustainability, war, and peace.26
Harris’s account explains an educational system designed to develop
awareness about violence and strategies for ending it. By his reckoning,
activists and teachers share the knowledge developed by academics with
8 TAKING CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION EDUCATION SERIOUSLY 181
New intellectual understandings can arise out of the very act of appli-
cation—whether in medical diagnosis, serving clients in psychotherapy,
8 TAKING CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION EDUCATION SERIOUSLY 185
In this vein, CTE can operate within the contemporary university system.
It can and should consist of a blend of theoretical and skills-based
learning along with significant field research and practical experiences. As
mentioned earlier, conflict transformation is not a time-bound process;
in order for conflict dynamics to shift, sufficient time is needed for
stakeholders’ attitudes and behaviors to change. Similarly, CTE requires
sufficient time for participants to become fully self-reflective practitioners
and also to develop the hard and soft skills that will enable them to design
and implement conflict transformation processes that will facilitate needed
social, political, and/or economic changes. Thus, CTE must be conceived
of in terms of months and years, not days and weeks.
CTE must be an explicitly political project. However, this does not
mean it has to be politically insensitive. Instead, CTE must help its
participants understand local and national political processes and how
to navigate them individually and institutionally. It must not select or
promote a single mode of operation based on dogma. CTE can and
should prepare its participants to maneuver through political systems in
the most effective manner in order to achieve contextually appropriate
objectives related to conflict transformation and peacebuilding.
Using the example of Iraq’s 2019–2020 protests, CTE should prepare
societies broadly for managing such moments of historical disconti-
nuity, ensuring that both university students and leaders (most of whom,
presumably, are university graduates) have the necessary skills and mind-
sets to work through political, social, or economic crises without resorting
to violence and with a continued focus on developing and implementing
policies that will lead to higher levels of peacefulness.
At the heart of such preparation must be a commitment to ensuring
that students of CTE are well-trained in communication skills needed
to engage in true dialogue, which Buber might define as “the art of
unmediated listening.”48
CTE must promote true dialogue and honest debate, and deeply prepare
its participants in developing understanding and appreciation of alterna-
tive points of view. It must build strong listening skills, patience, and
empathy. Yet it must not ever be patronizing in its approach or its tone.
Honest disagreements must be acknowledged openly and respectfully,
leaving all stakeholders with space to question, consider, and reorient their
own thinking over time.
CTE must seek to support participants in the act of building true
constituencies, involving stakeholders with differing viewpoints, experi-
ences, and worldviews. It must organize such constituencies around the
normative strength of nonviolence, but must be fully accepting of individ-
uals’ and institutions’ very different motivations and pathways that have
led them to seek CTE.
CTE must be interdisciplinary, in the truest sense of the word, resisting
the false god of hyper-specialization that addresses micro-problems
without acknowledging the interconnectedness of all aspects of modern
society. Similarly, CTE must discourage linear thinking and, instead, draw
from systems thinking. It must incorporate lessons about the dynamic
interplay between the behavioral, structural, and cultural dimensions of
peace that inspired Ricigliano to develop his model of peacebuilding.50
Examples of CTE
The Peace Research and Education Program (PREP) at the New York
University School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs has
been carrying out several projects that use CTE principles over the
past few years. They did not begin as efforts to utilize CTE, but over
time, project leaders and participants began to recognize opportunities to
leverage CTE thinking in order to increase the effectiveness and reach of
the interventions.
Iraq
PREP has been engaged with several universities in Iraq for more than
a decade (even preceding PREP’s formal establishment). Its longest
engagement has been with the University of Duhok (UoD), which as
of early 2020, boasted the only Department of Peace Studies and Human
Rights in Iraq as well as the only true research and practice center devoted
to the subject, the Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies
(CPCRS). Following are two examples of how PREP and UoD have
incorporated principles of CTE into their joint work:
had occupied the nearby city of Mosul and other parts of Iraq,
causing approximately 500,000 people to flee Mosul and relocate in
Duhok city and other nearby districts that were not under control
of Da’esh. Such an intensely disruptive moment ordinarily would
not have been viewed as an opportune moment for implementation
of a traditional peace education program. But PREP and CPCRS
decided together that moving toward the fire rather than away from
it was the proper course of action. By engaging in teaching and
dialogue about peace, diversity, different forms of violence, and the
importance of becoming community-level ambassadors for peace,
the 19 CPCRS trainers who implemented the program ensured that
it was not too apolitical, as Ben-Porath warns.
Long-term engagements of the sort that would be most likely
to foster true transformation were not possible to organize—mainly
because nearly half of the program participants were living in
displacement camps—but the three-day workshops were structured
so that students could begin to build community-level constituen-
cies, see themselves as community activists and utilize their creativity.
Each group of approximately 20 students participated in two days of
training and then was given time to develop small community-level
peacebuilding initiatives. When the trainers returned to visit with
them—an average of two months after the initial training sessions—
students reported out about their small projects and then were
challenged to locate themselves in a modified version of Ury’s Third
Side peacebuilding roles, which include: teacher, mediator, provider,
and bridge-builder.52
One participant from a Duhok high school said she and other
participants from her school had served as mediators in disputes
between students as well as between family members. “We are the
conflict resolution committee for the students,” she said.53
The CPE program also has shown some evidence of having
achieved Saloman’s “endurance of desired program effects.” In a
late 2018 SMS survey conducted with participants in the program’s
final event, a youth summit at the University of Duhok, 51 of 56
respondents reported that they had undergone changes in knowl-
edge, attitudes, or behavior almost two years after the end of CPE
workshops. The reported changes included both personal and social
changes. As one participant reported, “I learned how to co-exist
8 TAKING CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION EDUCATION SERIOUSLY 189
with other people and respect their opinion even when their opinion
contradicts mine.”54
2. PREP also supported CPCRS in efforts to help the University of
Mosul (UoM) establish peace and conflict studies in the aftermath
of the Da’esh occupation. CPCRS trainers conducted six workshops
for UoM students and two workshops for UoM faculty in early
2017, when many UoM students and faculty still were displaced
to Duhok. This was an explicitly political project. CPCRS aimed to
provide UoM faculty and staff with knowledge and skills they might
use to confront the deep divisions that were anticipated in Mosul
between those who had fled Mosul and those who had remained
in Mosul under Da’esh. CPCRS also understood the likelihood that
many of the displaced UoM faculty and students might not return
to Mosul at all, meaning that it was essential to begin building
stronger ties between the academic host community in Duhok and
the long-term visitors from Mosul. The project began to achieve
Saloman’s “ripple effect” when, in April 2017, two UoM faculty
participants in the CPCRS-led workshops conducted a symposium
in Duhok entitled “Reconciliation and Social Cohesion in Ninewa
after Da’esh.” The event featured: two UoD faculty and three
UoM faculty presenting together; a dialogue between UoD and
UoM students about tensions between the host community and
the displaced in Duhok, and; UoM faculty presenting “research on
social cohesion in Mosul.”55
Colombia
PREP’s work in Colombia has been conducted in cooperation with
the Escuela Superior de Administracion Publica (ESAP), Colombia’s
school of public administration. Together, PREP and ESAP twice have
conducted the Joint Research Seminar in Peacebuilding, which is an
intensive two-part course that facilitates student research partnerships and
the development and production of collaborative peace research.
The course, which consists of a three-week seminar in New York
followed by three weeks of field research in Colombia, meets the stan-
dard of being explicitly political because of the sensitive subject matter
it investigates. Its first iteration, in 2018–2019, explored the importance
of reparations as part of Colombia’s peace process following adoption of
the 2016 comprehensive peace agreement that brought an end to the
190 T. HILL
Kuwait
There is only one institutional example of CTE among PREP’s projects,
and it is an institution that, as of early 2020, did not even techni-
cally exist: Kuwait’s Al Salaam University (ASU), a private university
proposed as the world’s first higher education institution that would teach
traditional subject matter through a peacebuilding lens. ASU hopes to
develop a School of Business, a School of Law, a School of Engineering,
a School of Education, and a School of Graduate Studies by the time of its
planned opening in 2023. PREP works to help ASU’s founders develop
the university’s programs and curriculum, and eventually plans to provide
training to ASU faculty and staff. ASU grew out of:
With the support of PREP, ASU aims to embody the core principles of
CTE. ASU hopes to be:
Conclusions
Conflict Transformation Education (CTE) represents a new way forward
for preparing future generations to build peace at local, regional, and
global levels. Peace education has failed miserably in its efforts to shift
norms away from standard realist thinking that emphasizes the achieve-
ment of peace through the use of force (violence). CTE offers a fresh
approach that takes into account the primary reasons for peace educa-
tion’s failure and offers higher education institutions (and others) a set
of principles on which academic programs could be built that would
prepare students to work strategically and realistically to increase levels
of peacefulness. Such programs must: be explicitly political in their
approach; encourage and facilitate true dialogue; build diverse constituen-
cies for peacebuilding; emphasize interdisciplinary thought and action,
and; prepare students to become their most creative selves. Programs
based upon these principles of CTE could produce a strategically placed
network of actors well-prepared to work meaningfully across lines of
difference and to develop, promote, and implement popular policies
aimed at building peace.
Adopting and implementing CTE will require a major shift in global
affairs—away from an overly intellectualized approach that believes the
next generation of leaders can be educated in mostly the same way as the
previous generation. Of course, consistency and rigidity in education leads
only to consistency and rigidity of thought. Only a significant normative
transformation in how the field of global affairs prepares its next leaders—
with a new emphasis on understanding local politics, engaging in true
dialogue, and appreciating diversity of thought—can produce meaningful
change in how those future leaders approach and govern the world. CTE
can help them all do it more peacefully.
might change. What other reasons can you see for the failure of
peace education?;
2. Conflict Transformation Education (CTE) relies on the principle of
always engaging politically. Might this approach also pose a risk to
leaders of CTE or to the programs themselves? Can you provide any
examples that support your point of view?
3. The author offers three examples of CTE: one at the commu-
nity project level (Iraq); one at the level of an academic course or
research project (Colombia), and; one at the level of an institution
(Kuwait). Which of these examples do you feel would be the most
promising direction for university leaders who wanted to implement
a program in CTE? Why did you choose this example?
4. How might your existing institution benefit from a CTE program?
What would such a program look like? Who should be involved and
why?
Notes
1. Loveluck, Louisa, and Mustafa Salim. 2019. An Uprising in Iraq Is
the Broadest in Decades. It’s Posing an Alarming Threat to Baghdad
and Tehran. The Washington Post, November 7. https://www.washin
gtonpost.com/world/middle_east/an-uprising-in-iraq-is-the-broadest-in-
decades-its-posing-an-alarming-threat-to-baghdad-and-tehran/2019/11/
06/82c695a8-ff38-11e9-8341-cc3dce52e7de_story.html. Accessed 14
January 2020.
2. Kittleson, Shelly. 2020. Iraqi Protesters Decry Iranian and US Inter-
ference. Al-Monitor, January 11. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori
ginals/2020/01/iraq-iran-us-protests-1.html. Accessed 13 January 2020.
3. Saadoun, Mustafa. 2019. University Students, Religious Seminaries Keep
Flame of Iraq Protests Burning. Al-Monitor, December 6. https://
www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/12/iraq-protests-university-
hawza-students.html#ixzz6AxKwmGpH. Accessed 13 January 2020.
4. Human Rights Watch. 2012. Iraq: Intensifying Crackdown on Free
Speech, Protests. https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/22/iraq-intens
ifying-crackdown-free-speech-protests. Accessed 14 January 2020.
5. BBC News. 2013. Iraqi Sunni Protest Clashes in Hawija Leave
Many Dead. April 23. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-
22261422. Accessed 14 January 2020.
6. Al Jazeera. 2015. Iraqis Protest over Power Outages and Poor Services.
August 3.https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/iraq-electricity-ser
vices-protests-150803043651896.html. Accessed 14 January 2020.
8 TAKING CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION EDUCATION SERIOUSLY 195
Further Reading
Hill, Thomas. 2018. Could Conflict Transformation Education Serve as a Mech-
anism for Increasing Peacefulness in Colombia? Administración & Desarrollo
48 (1): 32–59.
Hill, Thomas, Alexander Munoz, and Katerina Siira, Katerina. 2019. University
to University Partnership: Building a Network of Effective Peacebuilders in
the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. In Locally led peacebuilding: Global Case Studies,
198 T. HILL
eds. Jessica Berns and Stacey Connaughton. Blue Ridge Summit: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Lederach, John Paul. 2003. The Little Book of Conflict Transformation: Clear
Articulations of the Guiding Principles by a Pioneer in the Field. New York:
Good Books.
Millican, Juliet, ed. 2018. Universities and Conflict: The Role of Higher Education
in Peacebuilding and Resistance. New York: Routledge.
CHAPTER 9
Jens Rudbeck
In 2015, the World Bank announced that it would eliminate the term
“developing countries” from its vocabulary. For more than four decades
it had served as an umbrella concept to differentiate a group of low-
and middle-income countries with access to World Bank loans from high-
income countries that were excluded from such financial services.1 While
the term “developing countries” had entered into everyday language and
was widely used by development agencies, it was becoming increasingly
clear to World Bank experts that the classification was no longer a mean-
ingful way to characterize two-thirds of the world’s countries. It was too
broad and failed to capture how an uneven integration into the global
economy created vast differences between the countries originally lumped
into the group. Mexico, for example, has a poverty rate of close to two
percent while more than two out of three people in Malawi live under
the international poverty line of $1.90 per day.2 To suggest that these
two countries belong to the same category gave a false impression of
similarity with respect to the development challenges the countries face.
J. Rudbeck (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: jr2723@nyu.edu
poor nations were in the same sinking boat where similarities outweighed
differences. The solution to the crisis was accordingly to follow a fairly
standardized set of interventions, often referred to as structural adjust-
ment programs. Key elements in these programs were to cut government
spending, privatize nationally owned industry, reduce trade barriers, and
devalue the local currency in order to boost the export sector. Privati-
zation, trade, and integration into the global economy were believed to
be the best tools to break the severe poverty traps that many developing
countries were caught in.
As the dire situation that characterized many low- and middle-income
countries dragged on critical voices began to challenge the conventional
practices that had determined development intervention since the 1960s.
If a region like Africa was measurably worse off after having received more
than $1 trillion in foreign aid over a period of 30 years, could it be that
the aid was not only ineffective but a contributing factor to the economic
failure? Some answered in the affirmative suggesting that overseas devel-
opment assistance had trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of
corruption, market distortion, and poverty leading to a dependency on
the continuation of aid to alleviate the negative economic consequences
that aid was causing in the first place.8 Some went even further in their
criticism and compared the policies guiding development interventions
to some of the most repressive and authoritarian ideologies in human
history. William Easterly, for example, argued that, “A dark ideological
specter is haunting the world. It is almost as deadly as the tired ideolo-
gies of the last century – communism, fascism, and socialism – that failed
so miserably. It feeds some of the most dangerous trends of our time,
including religious fundamentalism. It is the half-century-old ideology
of Developmentalism.”9 While it might seem hyperbolic to compare the
ideologies that led to World War II and Stalin’s Great Terror with the
development policies of the UN and World Bank the sad truth is that
poverty is the leading cause of death in developing countries. An esti-
mated five to six million children die every year before they reach the
age of five. They die from malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, and
inadequate health services.10 The mortality among children under five
that arise from poverty dwarfs the number of deaths that were caused by
wars and tyranny in the twentieth century.
It was against this background of economic crisis and growing
concerns over the effectiveness of development assistance, if not a direct
refutation of existing practices, that the international community adopted
9 A CHANGING AGENDA FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 203
Finally, some have argued that the MDG agenda had little direct impact
on development practices. A 2010 analysis found that only five out of 54
indicators accelerated after the MDGs were adopted, and the acceleration
only took place in half to two-thirds of the countries where the goals
were applied. China, for example, which pulled 28 million people out of
poverty every year between 1990 and 2008, barely participated in the
MDGs. In other words, the MDGs were not met because countries allo-
cated more resources to achieve the specific goals, they were met because
of dynamics that were set in motion before the goals were formulated.
Regardless of whether or not the MDGs should be considered a
success, an important outcome of the period from 2000–2015 was the
realization that poverty, hunger, and the lack of access to quality health-
care and education were no longer a common feature across all developing
countries. A major reason for this change was the success that many
populous countries—in particular China and India—had had in alleviating
poverty. When the Millennium Development Declaration was adopted,
three out of four of the world’s poor lived in one of the following
ten more populous countries: China, India, Nigeria, Indonesia, the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan,
Tanzania, and Ethiopia. Over the course of the MDG agenda, seven of
the ten countries cut the number of their poor by 70 percent or more,
thereby driving down the global poverty rate by more than 15 percent.
Only the three African nations Nigeria, the DRC, and Tanzania fell short
of that mark.17 As countries with large populations shrank poverty rates
to a point where there was little potential for further reduction, poverty
increasingly clustered in the countries that failed to meet the MDGs.
Most of them are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Forecasts predict that
Africa’s share of the world’s poor will increase from 60 percent in 2016,
to 80 percent in 2023, and by 2030 Africa is expected to host close
to 90 percent of the world’s poor unless decisive action is taken.18 A
common feature across the countries that will struggle to reduce poverty
rates are violent conflicts and fragile state institutions. Any attempt to
reach a deeper understanding of the dynamics that will impact future
development practices must address this context.
9 A CHANGING AGENDA FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 205
Development Challenges
in Fragile and War-Torn States
When the SDGs went into effect on 1 January 2016, it was against a back-
ground of 25 years of unprecedented success in fighting poverty at the
global level. Perhaps it was this historic accomplishment, which led to the
belief that, by 2030, it would be possible to “end poverty in all its forms
everywhere,” as stated in SDG 1. What this optimistic outlook failed to
take note of was the dramatic shift that had occurred in the composi-
tion of where poor people live. In 1990, the baseline year for the MDGs,
nearly 80 percent of the world’s poor lived in stable low-income coun-
tries, when the SDGs were launched, poverty was largely concentrated in
a number of nations facing serious institutional and systemic obstacles to
progress. Because most of the low hanging fruit had been picked during
the MDGs agenda, future reductions in poverty rates are likely to slow
down, and, in some places, could come close to a full stop. If current
trends in poverty alleviation continue into the foreseeable future, a signif-
icant number of these countries will fall far short of a poverty rate below
3 percent as envisioned by the SDGs. Africa, as a whole, is on track to
lift 45 million people out of poverty, but that will only lead to a decline
in the poverty rate from 33.5 percent in 2018 to 24 percent in 2030. In
absolute numbers approximately 377 million Africans will still live below
the poverty line.19
Accordingly, there is good reason to be skeptical about the prospects
for ending poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030. In fact, fore-
casts predict that, by 2030, 31 countries will have poverty rates above 20
percent of the population.20 Of these countries, 26 are located in sub-
Saharan Africa. Outside this region poverty in excess of 20 percent will
only be found in Haiti, Papua New Guinea, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and
North Korea. Though no country in Latin America is expected to have
a poverty rate above 20 percent by 2030 except for Haiti, five coun-
tries—Venezuela, Suriname, Bolivia, Guatemala, and Belize—are unlikely
to bring poverty rates below the 3 percent target of the SDGs. Put
together these 37 countries will be home to about half a billion poor
people. The number of poor people in these countries is closely associ-
ated with the lack of economic growth. A country like Madagascar, with
a poverty rate of 70 percent, has seen no increase in its GDP over the
past 20 years. During this period, the number of people living in poverty
206 J. RUDBECK
UN Human Rights Council “oil revenues, and income from other natural
resources such as illegal teak logging, have continued to fund the war,
enabling its continuation and the resulting human rights violations.”36 As
the hostilities continue South Sudan’s poverty rate is predicted to climb
from 82 percent in 2017 to above 90 percent in 2030 making South
Sudan the poorest country in the world.37
The negative effects that violent conflict has on economic performance
have led to growing concerns over foreign aid’s effectiveness in fragile and
conflict-affected states. If a country like South Sudan could receive more
than $11 billion in foreign aid and yet see the number of poor people go
up at an alarming rate, is it possible that development aid is wasted when
provided within the context of war? Collectively, fragile and conflict-
affected states receive about 30 percent, over $70 billion per year,38
of all official development assistance; yet most of them are off-track to
meet many of the SDGs. To address these concerns the g7+ group—
20 of the most fragile and conflict-affected states39 —adopted the New
Deal for Engagement in Fragile States in 2011. This New Deal sought
to strengthen the capacity of g7+ countries to meet the needs of their
citizens by fostering inclusive political settlements and conflict resolution;
establishing and strengthening people’s security; addressing injustices and
increasing people’s access to justice; generating employment and improve
livelihoods; and managing revenue and building capacity for accountable
and fair service delivery.40 By seeking to build capacity in these five areas
the 20 countries aimed to reestablish trust among donors that aid can be
a useful and effective tool in the fight against poverty despite the difficult
context. According to the g7+ group it was exactly the lack of trust in
the political leadership of fragile and conflict-affected states that had led
international donors to increasingly “bypass national interests and actors,
providing aid in overly technocratic ways that underestimate the impor-
tance of harmonizing with the national and local context.”41 This was
particularly problematic for the g7+ countries as they are considerably
more dependent on foreign aid than non-fragile developing nations. The
median fragile state relies on aid for 50 percent of its foreign capital, in
comparison foreign aid only accounts for 10 percent of foreign capital in
other developing countries.42
Since its inception, many countries and organizations have endorsed
the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States and supported closer
collaboration between aid donors and the g7+ countries. Despite this
support reluctance against stronger engagement remains in certain circles,
9 A CHANGING AGENDA FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 209
and is not just based on a belief that aid is ineffective. Angus Deaton,
the 2015 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, has argued that
when governments rely on foreign aid for its revenue, “such governments
need no contract with their citizens, no parliament, and no tax-collection
system. If they are accountable to anyone, it is to the donors; but even this
fails in practice, because the donors, under pressure from their own citi-
zens (who rightly want to help the poor), need to disburse money just as
much as poor-country governments need to receive it, if not more so.”43
In the absence of a social contract and due to the lack of accountability
the state will fragment, which increases fragility and undermine efforts to
eradicate poverty. Simply put, the use of foreign aid to strengthen fragile
states is counterproductive.
To overcome the choice between providing aid to inefficient and
fragile state systems or bypassing government institutions altogether,
Gertz and Kharas have suggested that donors should experiment with
new forms of shared ownership. As an example, they point to Liberia’s
Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP)
that, following the country’s prolonged conflict, became a framework
for common responsibility and oversight for improving core government
functions.44 Regardless of the potential of the Liberian model for building
stronger and more effective state institutions, basic governance transfor-
mations may take 20–40 years. It is therefore safe to say that, in the
foreseeable future, traditional development issues—poverty, malnutrition,
and access to education and healthcare—will increasingly be concentrated
in fragile and conflict-affected states.
The scope and ambition of the SDG agenda unavoidably raises ques-
tions. Will the goals be met? And if not, why not? Since its launch,
the UN has kept close track of the 232 indicators incorporated into
the agenda, which has led to the publications of a number of reports
that provide tentative answers to these questions. The report Global
Responsibilities: Implementing the Goals —the first major stocking-taking
of progress on the SDGs—bluntly and pessimistically concluded that,
“the analysis shows that no country is on track to achieve all goals by
2030.” The report found that only three G-20 countries—Brazil, Mexico,
and Italy—had taken real action to achieve the goals by having SDG
strategies or coordination units within their governments. Of the G-20
countries, only India and Germany had undertaken an assessment of
investment needs, but none of the countries had fully aligned the SDGs
with their national budgets. Finally, according to the data, two of the
largest contributors to carbon emission—the United States and Russia—
had taken the least action on the implementation of the goals.46 In 2019,
a UN published report found that worsening inequalities and potentially
irreversible damage to the natural environment make it unlikely that the
SDGs will be achieved. While it is unlikely the SDGs will be met, it is not
impossible “but only if there is a fundamental—and urgent—change in
the relationship between people and nature.”47
The lack of urgency with which the agenda has been treated is far from
the only obstacle to its implementation. Closing the financing gap is of
vital importance for success. With a price tag of $2.5 trillion per year
for the developing countries alone,48 the agenda puts significant pres-
sure on government spending, especially for the low- and middle-income
countries. A study published by the IMF found that for 49 developing
countries achieving the SDGs in areas of health, education, water and
sanitation, roads, and electricity would cost $520 billion a year, which
constitutes an additional annual outlay of 14 percentage of GDP on
average.49 The lower middle-income countries, a group of 47 countries
with an average per capita income between $1026 and 3995, find them-
selves in a particularly difficult situation as they have a relatively small tax
base to generate revenue for investment in climate change adaption, urban
infrastructure, clean energy sources, universal health care, and secondary
and tertiary education, etc. Whereas upper middle-income countries have
much larger tax bases to draw upon, and low-income countries have
access to high levels of foreign aid, the lower middle-income countries are
caught somewhere in between. With restricted access to aid and limited
212 J. RUDBECK
Two of the more nefarious ways in which poor nations unwittingly are
supporting the economic wealth of rich countries are through offshore tax
havens and trade mis-invoicing by multinational companies. With respect
to offshore tax havens, the study found that “in 2011 tax haven hold-
ings of total developing country wealth were valued at US$4.4 trillion,”54
diverting billions of dollars into private pockets that would otherwise have
become government revenue. Between 2005 to 2011, at a time when
global oil prices were high, transfers from Sub-Saharan Africa into tax
shelters were increasing faster than for any other region, developed or
developing, which, “exacerbated inequality and undermined good gover-
nance and economic growth.”55 The other spurious, if not directly illegal,
way that wealth is transferred out of developing countries and into rich
countries is through trade mis-invoicing. Multinational companies can
move profits from one subsidiary in a country with higher taxation to
another in a country with a lower tax rate by selling goods and services
between various branches. Such trade mis-invoicing is hard to prove,
but qualified estimated puts the amounts at $700 billion per year, and
according to the report “these figures only cover theft through trade in
goods. If we add theft through trade in services to the mix, it brings total
net resource outflows to about $3 trillion per year.”56
In 2019, the UN Secretary-General’s report, Roadmap for Financing
the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 2019–2020, circled back to
the issue of how to finance the SDGs. The report struck a more somber
tone than the optimism that had oozed from the Addis Ababa Action
Agenda acknowledging that the global financial system has the capacity
to finance the SDGs, but it also recognized that, “available finance is
not channeled towards sustainable development at the scale and speed
required to achieve the SDGs… The financing gap to achieve the SDGs
in developing countries is estimated to be US$ 2.5–3 trillion per year.”
The report also pointed out that “global flows of foreign direct invest-
ment (FDI) have fallen by 23 per cent in 2017, and private investments
in SDG-related infrastructure in developing countries were lower in 2018
than in 2012”57 raising serious questions about the ability to meet many
of the SDGs. Private finance is needed particularly in the area of infras-
tructure because low public investment, especially in many municipalities
with growing populations, has become a bottleneck to further per capita
income growth and constrains the transformation of economies toward
lower carbon emission. The World Bank estimates that global infrastruc-
ture investment needs could amount to trillions of dollars a year and,
214 J. RUDBECK
Conclusion
When looking at what the tea leaves have to say about the future of
international development there is good and bad news to report. On the
positive side, it is undeniable that major strides have been taken in the
fight against poverty and malnutrition. Over the past two to three decades
hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out poverty and into the
middle class. Progress is likely to continue, but there is good reason to
believe that it will be at slower pace, and, due to high fertility rates, the
number of people below the poverty line is likely to increase in certain
countries, especially in Nigeria, the DRC, and Madagascar. Projection of
current trends suggests that by 2030 poverty will be concentrated in 31
countries characterized by fragile states and violent conflict, countries that
are home to more than 500 million people. High levels of poverty, fragile
states, and violent conflict are also good predictors of how countries well
will do on the SDGs. On the UN’s 2019 ranking of how countries score
on the SDG indicators, 19 of the 20 lowest ranked countries are also on
the list of the 31 countries that are predicted to have poverty rates above
20 percent by the year 2030.59 Only Djibouti is not on both lists.
While the 31 countries are seriously off-track to meet many of the
SDGs, not a single country is on track to meet all of them. As UN
Secretary-General António Guterres put it, “It is abundantly clear that a
much deeper, faster and more ambitious response is needed to unleash the
social and economic transformation needed to achieve our 2030 goals.”60
A major obstacle to meeting the SDGs is the lack of sufficient funding.
Most countries allocate around ten percent of GDP in public spending on
health, education, and social safety nets. In many low- and middle-income
9 A CHANGING AGENDA FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 215
countries, this might translate into $100–$200, per person per year, or 50
cents per person per day, well below the requirements needed to deliver
even a basic minimum package of services. Lack of public funding is only
half the problem. Private sector investment in SDG-related areas is also
falling well short of what is needed, especially against a backdrop of a
$2.5–3 trillion global annual financing gap. The World Bank has esti-
mated that between 2009 and 2014, private investment in infrastructure
in 77 low-income countries totaled less than $15 billion per year, equal
to merely one percent of the financing gap. The lack of commitment
of private capital will significantly hamper the potential for progress, but
what is perhaps the greatest obstacle to meeting the SDGs in developing
countries is the massive transfer of wealth from these countries to the rich
world. This problem is often overlooked and therefore rarely addressed
in SDG forums. GFI has provided convincing data that puts the loss of
capital that developing countries have suffered since 1980 at $16.3 trillion
dollars. The loss of resources on such a massive scale represent tremen-
dous social costs that have been borne by poor people around the globe.
Unless steps are taken to curb the greed of the rich and powerful by
reversing capital flows it is unlikely that the future of international devel-
opment will bring about the kind of transformative change that the SDGs
envision.
Notes
1. In 2020, any country with an average income per capita below
$12,376 would have access to World Bank loans and hence considered
a “developing country.” https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledge
base/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups. Accessed
19 January 2020.
2. Khokar, Tariq, and Umar Serajuddin. 2015. Should We Continue to Use
the Term “Developing World?” World Bank Blogs. http://blogs.wor
ldbank.org/opendata/should-we-continue-use-term-developing-world.
Accessed 19 January 2020.
3. Kharas, Homi. 2015. Keynote presentation “Sustainable Development
Goals: Remaining Gaps and Implementation” at workshop the “A
New Agenda for Development: The Post-2015 Sustainable Development
Goals”, New York University, March 27.
4. Gertz, Geoffrey, and Homi Kharas. 2018. Leave No Country Behind:
Ending Poverty in Tough Places. Working Paper 110. Global Economy
and Development at Brookings.
5. Financing for development: Breaking the bottlenecks of investment from
policy to impact. https://worldinvestmentforum.unctad.org/financing-
for-the-sdgs/. Accessed 19 January 2020.
6. Singer, HW. 1989. The 1980s: A Lost Decade—Development in Reverse?
In Growth and External Debt Management, eds. H. W. Singer and
Soumitra Sharma. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.
1007/978-1-349-10944-9.
7. Collier, Paul. 2008. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are
Failing and What Can Be Done About It. USA: Oxford University Press.
8. Moyo, Dambisa. 2009. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How
There Is a Better Way for Africa. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
9. Easterly, William. 2009. The Ideology of Development, Foreign Policy,
Oct. 13. https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/13/the-ideology-of-dev
elopment/. Accessed 19 January 2020.
10. United Nations Children’s Fund. 2019. Levels & Trends in Child
Mortality: Estimates Developed by the UN Inter-Agency Group
for Child Mortality Estimation. New York: United Nations Chil-
dren’s Fund. https://childmortality.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/
UN-IGME-Child-Mortality-Report-2019.pdf. Accessed 23 January 2020.
9 A CHANGING AGENDA FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 217
11. Sachs, Jeffrey. 2006. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our
Time. New York: Penguin Books.
12. MDGMonitor. 2017. MDG 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and
Hunger. https://www.mdgmonitor.org/mdg-1-eradicate-poverty-hun
ger/. Accessed 23 January 2020.
13. Childs, Anna. 2015. How the Millennium Development Goals Failed
the World’s Poorest Children. The Conversation. http://theconversation.
com/how-the-millennium-development-goals-failed-the-worlds-poorest-
children-44044. Accessed 23 January 2020.
14. United Nations. 2015. The Millennium Development Goals Report
2015. New York: United Nations. https://www.un.org/millenniumgo
als/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf.
Accessed 23 January 2020.
15. Easterly, William. 2009. How the Millennium Development Goals Are
Unfair to Africa. World Development, 37: 26–35. https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.worlddev.2008.02.009.
16. Pogge, Thomas. 2010. Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-poor
Rhetoric. Cambridge: Polity Press.
17. Gertz, Geoffrey, and Homi Kharas. 2018. The Road to Ending Poverty
Runs Through 31 Severely Off-Track Countries. Brookings. https://
www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2018/02/13/the-road-
to-ending-poverty-runs-through-31-severely-off-track-countries/#cancel.
Accessed 23 January 2020.
18. Naidoo, Prinesha. 2019. Africa May Have 90 Percent of the World’s
Poor in Next 10 Years, World Bank Says. Bloomberg. https://www.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-09/africa-may-have-90-of-the-
world-s-poor-by-2030-world-bank-says. Accessed 23 January 2020.
19. Hamel, Kristofer, Baldwin Tong, and Martin Hofer. 2019. Poverty in
Africa Is Now Falling—But Not Fast Enough. Brookings. https://www.
brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2019/03/28/poverty-in-afr
ica-is-now-falling-but-not-fast-enough/. Accessed 23 January 2020.
20. The 31 that will have a poverty rate above 20 percent by 2030
are Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Burundi, Central African Republic,
Chad, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho,
Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, North
Korea, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Congo, Solomon Islands,
Somalia, South Sudan, Swaziland, Timor-Leste, Togo, Yemen, Zambia,
and Zimbabwe.
21. Roser, Max. 2019. As the World’s Poorest Economies Are Stagnating
Half a Billion Are Expected to Be in Extreme Poverty in 2030. Global
Change Data Lab. University of Oxford. https://ourworldindata.org/ext
reme-poverty-projections. Accessed 23 January 2020.
218 J. RUDBECK
33. Pape, Utz, and Arden Finn. 2019. How Conflict and Economic Crises
Exacerbate Poverty in South Sudan. World Bank Blogs. http://blogs.
worldbank.org/africacan/how-conflict-and-economic-crises-exacerbate-
poverty-in-south-sudan. Accessed 23 January 2020.
34. UN News. 2017. Famine Declared in Region of South Sudan—
UN. https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/02/551812-famine-declared-
region-south-sudan-un. Accessed 23 January 2020.
35. Care. 2019. Humanitarian Crisis in South Sudan. https://www.care.org/
emergencies/south-sudan-humanitarian-crisis. Accessed 23 January 2020.
36. Sooka, Yasmin, and Andrew Clapham. 2019. Commission on Human
Rights in South Sudan: Statement to the Media, Nairobi/Geneva.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?
NewsID=24184&LangID=E. Accessed 23 January 2020.
37. Madden, Payce. 2019. Figures of the Week: Fragility and Extreme Poverty.
Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2019/
01/24/figures-of-the-week-fragility-and-extreme-poverty/. Accessed 23
January 2020.
38. Richardson, James L. 2019. America’s Interests in Fragile States:
Targeting Foreign Assistance for Strategic Prevention. https://www.state.
gov/americas-interests-in-fragile-states-targeting-foreign-assistance-for-str
ategic-prevention/. Accessed 23 January 2020.
39. The g7+ group consists of the following countries: Afghanistan, Burundi,
Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Guinea,
Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe,
Sierra Leone, Somalia, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Timor-Leste,
Togo, and Yemen.
40. International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding. A new
deal for engagement in fragile states. https://www.pbsbdialogue.org/
media/filer_public/07/69/07692de0-3557-494e-918e-18df00e9ef73/
the_new_deal.pdf.
41. Ibid.
42. Chandy, Laurence, Brina Seidel, and Christine Zhang. 2016. Aid Effec-
tiveness in Fragile States: How Bad Is It and How Can It Improve?
Brookings, Brooke Shearer Series, No.5. https://www.brookings.edu/res
earch/aid-effectiveness-in-fragile-states/#footnote-3. Accessed 23 January
2020.
43. Deaton Angus. 2015. Weak States, Poor Countries. Project Syndi-
cate. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/economic-dev
elopment-requires-effective-governments-by-angus-deaton?barrier=access
paylog. Accessed 23 January 2020.
220 J. RUDBECK
44. Gertz, Geoffrey, and Homi Kharas. 2018. Leave No Country Behind:
Ending Poverty in Tough Places. Working Paper 110. Global Economy
and Development at Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-con
tent/uploads/2018/02/leave_no_country_behind_working_paper.pdf.
Accessed 19 January 2020.
45. Kharas, Homi. 2015. Keynote presentation “Sustainable Development
Goals: Remaining Gaps and Implementation” at workshop the “A
New Agenda for Development: The post-2015 Sustainable Development
Goals”, New York University, March 27.
46. Sachs, J., G. Schmidt-Traub, C. Kroll, G. Lafortune, and G. Fuller. 2018.
Global. New York: Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development
Solutions Network. https://www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/resour
ces-and-publications/library/details/3344.
47. Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the Secretary-General.
2018. Global Sustainable Development Report 2019: The Future Is Now—
Science for Achieving Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations.
48. Financing for development: Breaking the bottlenecks of investment from
policy to impact. https://worldinvestmentforum.unctad.org/financing-
for-the-sdgs/. Accessed 19 January 2020.
49. Lagarde, C. 2018. Keynote Address at Secretary-General’s High-Level
Meeting on Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/09/24/sp092418-key
note-address-at-secretary-general-s-high-level-meeting. Accessed 23
January 2020.
50. Kharas, Homi. 2015. Keynote presentation “Sustainable Development
Goals: Remaining Gaps and Implementation” at workshop the “A
New Agenda for Development: The Post-2015 Sustainable Development
Goals”, New York University, March 27.
51. Financing for Development. 2015. Countries Reach Historic Agree-
ment to Generate Financing for New Sustainable Development
Agenda. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/07/
countries-adopt-addis-ababa-action-agenda/.
52. Global Financial Integrity. 2016. New Report on Unrecorded Capital
Flight Finds Developing Countries Are Net-Creditors to the Rest of the
World. https://gfintegrity.org/press-release/new-report-on-unrecorded-
capital-flight-finds-developing-countries-are-net-creditors-to-the-rest-of-
the-world/.
53. According to the New Climate Economy Commission: “Sustainable
infrastructure includes all major energy, transport, telecoms, water and
waste investments. It also covers the infrastructure required for effec-
tive land-use management. Infrastructure that meets key economic, social
(inclusive) and environmental (low-carbon, resilient) criteria is deemed to
be sustainable.”
9 A CHANGING AGENDA FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 221
Further Reading
Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins
of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown Business.
Angus, Deaton. 2015. The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of
Inequality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. 2011. Poor Economics: A Radical
Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. New York: Public Affairs.
Sachs, Jeffrey D. 2015. The Age of Sustainable Development. New York: Columbia
University Press.
CHAPTER 10
Pano Yannakogeorgos
This chapter offers an update and compression of some key themes found in
Jarmon, Jack and Pano Yannakogeorgos. 2018. The Cyber Threat and
Globalization. New York: Rowman Littlefield.
P. Yannakogeorgos (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: py16@nyu.edu
life. Even planned outages for upgrade are challenges to utility companies
because of the apprehension linked with unwanted downtime. Upgrades
can take months of advance planning, require suspension of operations,
and sometimes result in declining revenues and harm to corporate repu-
tation. Although preferable to a disaster event, these stoppages more
immediately effect the OT operators bottom-line than they do that of
an ICT focused entity, which regards such procedures as a cost of doing
business. In contrast to OT, downtime to upgrade software, install fire-
walls, or run system audits in IT environments is acceptable and routine.
Lost data can be restored or recreated. Product and supply cannot. A lost
transformer or downed production line is not the same as a failed email
server.
However, ICT and OT have converged. Pressures and calls for a more
integrated and holistic approach are mounting. Their integration across
developed, developing, and LDCs bedrock of future prosperity. As we
move on to smart power grids, smart manufacturing plants, smart water
distribution/sanitation systems, the encroaching connectivity of intelli-
gent devices will force a more robust dependence on ICT functions
within OT environments. These trending architectures rely on networks
of self-monitoring transformers, remote meters, and sophisticated sensor
systems.11 The emergent term that characterizes this convergence is
the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT). This is fundamentally the
convergence of the OT/IOT planes discussed next.
The Internet of Things (IOT) has been defined in by the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) as ubiquitous global infrastructure
enabling advanced services by connecting the physical world with the
information based on existing and evolving interoperable ICT.12 Also
known as ubiquitous computing, the IOT has been used to describe
the full universe of devices, that combined are drastically modifying the
way modern societies function. Smart building systems and soil moisture
sensing systems are examples of IOT. IOT is still in its infancy, which
makes it a good place to integrate some of the design solutions aiming to
remove vulnerability and assure reliability in cyberspace discussed in the
recommendations section of the paper. It is the network of objects such
as smart TVs, home security cameras, thermostats, alarm systems, and
medical devices and equipment. They contain embedded technology that
communicate, sense, or interact with their internal states or the external
environment. IOT is largely invisible to the general public. It consists
of, billions of data streams from a multitude of devices. It represents a
230 P. YANNAKOGEORGOS
paradigm shift from networked laptop and desktop in ICT, and large-scale
process control system managing industrial scale functions in OT. Instead,
it represents a paradigm of networked objects sensing their environments
and communicating what they see among themselves.
Aside from the growing ubiquity of such machines and expansive
usage, they are significant to achieving SDGs given that when combined
with machine learning and other automated analytics humans can identify
inefficiencies and manage scarce resources with greater care. The World
Economic Forum reports that “most current IoT projects can contribute
to achieving both the SDGs and the UN’s 2030 mission. An analysis
of more than 640 IoT deployments, conducted in collaboration with
IoT research firm IoT Analytics, showed that 84 percent of existing
IoT deployments can address the SDGs…75 percent of these projects
concentrate on five SDGs: #9 Industry, innovation, and infrastructure
(25 percent) #11 Smart cities and communities (19 percent) #7 Afford-
able and clean energy (19 percent) #3 Good health and well-being
(7 percent) #12 Responsible production and consumption (5 percent)”13
Through research collaborations, investment in low-cost sensor tech-
nology, and even the creation of “living labs,” IOT can address a set of
challenges, which range from improving the delivery of municipal services
to managing the effects of climate change. One example of the benefits of
IOT being utilized to achieve SDGs is in the management and control of
water resources in agricultural production. For example, a “dumb” agri-
cultural irrigation system is one that is being used, but is not recording
and distributing data about water resources. A “smart” irrigation system
has a real time data links sensing the environment and tracking tempera-
ture, rainfall and humidity, soil moisture level, and reporting water leaks.
Machines can talk to other machines in order to trigger actions such
as turning water supply on and off to meet irrigation needs. Farmers
utilizing such a system can achieve greater agricultural yields, while also
capturing data that could enable them to make forecasts for future crop
production. However, failure of IOT due to poor system design and
implementation or malicious actions could also result in famine. Thus,
there is a big impact of these tiny devices to human and global security.
The same factors driving changes across traditional ICT and OT envi-
ronments are also imposing historical transformation on civilian and
militaries platforms as well. This is the realm of PIT. PIT refers to ICT
or OT that is “physically part of, dedicated to, or essential in real time to
the mission performance of special purpose systems.”14 Special purpose
10 CYBER COMPETITION AND GLOBAL STABILITY 231
systems on the civilian side this includes controller area network bus
(CANBUS) on planes, ships, boats, trains, and automobiles. For militaries
it means the ICT, OT, and IOT adapted to the precision weaponry and
platforms of modern warfare. This includes targeting systems, ICS, micro-
electronics on military platforms.15 They include the global deployment
of unmanned operations, undersea warfare and supply, and extended air
operations.16 At the core of military modernization strategies are lethal
and nonlethal distributed systems.17 These systems will rely upon arti-
ficial intelligence technologies that support a global network of sensors,
refueling capabilities, and strike operations on aerial and marine platforms
reducing personnel costs and benefit of enhanced performance of military
forces. Thus, for the defense and national security community the impact
of the digital information revolution has been seismic.
Cyberspace is the core of modern military systems where electronic
medium is a target for adversaries. Military instability and the resultant
breaches of peace and threat to global security may result from miscal-
culations resulting from nations seeking to gain military advantage by
exploiting vulnerabilities within large-scale weapons environments. The
expansion of military cyber and spectrum warfare units across the global
indicates the intent to utilize this space to achieve affects. The risks to
strategic stability are many, and have been covered in depth elsewhere.18
The interconnection, automation, and connectivity of all these tech-
nical planes resulted in the emergence of the digital information age. The
purpose of cyberspace is to allow humans to achieve specific goals. Each
system has functionality that is designed to achieve the purpose of its
organizers. Although these four environments share some commonality,
they historically remain separate domains and are managed as independent
silos within organizations.19 Not only are they distinct in their function-
ally, the communities that design and develop in their respective physical
and logical layers have cultural and strategic differences as well. Tradi-
tionally, commercial enterprises view ICT as a cost center and a support
unit, while OT more directly aligns with the core business and return
on assets and investment. PIT and IOT are essentially the convergence of
ICT, OT, and IOT by integrating them on military and civilian platforms.
To further illustrate this point, consider a business system designed by a
major credit card corporation and fielded to merchants across the world
to accept payments via credit cards. Such an ICT system has its compo-
nents arranged according to different requirements than those of a system
that is designed to process grades in an institution of higher education.
232 P. YANNAKOGEORGOS
Both were designed with very different functions that aligned with the
mission of an organization. Not all functions are created equal. A mom
and pop shop being hacked might be devastating at an individual level.
Likewise, a company may go bankrupt as a result of intellectual property
theft. However, there are cyber components whose functionality is crit-
ical to national survival. The US Department of Homeland Security has
termed these as national critical functions (NCF) which are: “the func-
tions of government and the private sector so vital to the United States
that their disruption, corruption, or dysfunction would have a debilitating
effect on security, national economic security, national public health or
safety, or any combination thereof.”20 When these systems fail, people
die and property is damaged or destroyed.
Thus, the integration of all components of cyberspace for the purpose
of achieving SDGs presents risks to societies around the world. All the
technology mentioned above is a double-edged sword. These resources
can be used for either empowerment or in exploitation of one group over
another. However, in its current state of systemic vulnerability, there is
great potential for the domain to allow for remote operations to cause
damage as we adopt technology to conduct business, facilitate commu-
nications, and deliver NCF. The complexities of the interdependent
technical systems leave them susceptible to malfunction and sabotage.
As the world’s dependency on cyberspace grows, evolves and is more
tightly integrated across humans and machines—so too grows the expo-
sure to risk as exploitation or introduction of vulnerabilities contained
throughout the technical substrate spreads. Understanding vulnerabili-
ties, and designing new technologies with more attention paid to secure
design, manufacturing, coding practices is the only way to decrease the
risks associated with societal cyber integration. All too often the focus is
on threats, rather than the root cause of cyber exploitation: vulnerabilities.
compete politically and economically with the United States and continue
to prosecute the remains of a conflict born from the previous era, but with
variation in mission and rationale adapted to the realities of the post-Cold
War period.
Trends are now developing and events unfolding at a historic pace.
The targeting of OT by nation-state actors has been one of the most
troublesome. Patterns of nation-state rivalry in the domain shift signal
the emergence of a new perilous world. The reorientation in national
security portends an era of global instability. Disorienting features of the
new arena of cyber conflict are the unfamiliar objectives that dominate a
new strategy of warfare and competition by state and non-state actors. In
these new wars, mass disruption rather than destruction can be accept-
able goals. The preference of endless conflict over final victory is another
strategic objective that forces a reshaping of the accepted wisdom on the
transforming nature of war itself.
Conclusion
The arena of cybercrime and competition provides a glimpse of a future
of discontinuity, disruption, and destruction if the cyber status quo
continues at its current pace. Already economically underdeveloped coun-
tries see promise in the utilization of new technology to improve the
human condition and empower vulnerable populations within their coun-
tries. However, as a result of the proliferation of vulnerabilities, these
countries open themselves up to guaranteed harm. Aggressors in the cyber
domain will only look to exploit countries that may not have the same
expensive and expansive robust cyber security controls in place that the
entire world has. LDCs may not have neither the strategic, technical,
or legal capacity to manage cyber systems securely, and develop plans to
mitigate vulnerabilities and counter cyber threats. Nor do they have the
financial resources required to develop these capabilities. This capacity and
utilizing best practices and lessons learned in the developed world will be
critical to increasing costs to attackers and reduce reducing harm to those
crossing over the digital divide.
10 CYBER COMPETITION AND GLOBAL STABILITY 243
Notes
1. United Nations General Assembly. 2015. Transforming Our World: The
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development A/RES/70/1.
2. Ferguson, Yale H., and Richard W. Mansbach. 2012. Globalization: The
Return of Borders to a Borderless World? New York: Routledge: 110.
3. Kramer, F. D., S. H. Starr, and L. K. Wentz, eds. 2009. Cyberpower and
National Security. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc.: 4.
4. United States Department of Commerce. National Insitute of Stan-
dards and Technology. 2013. Security and Privacy Controls for Federal
Information Systems and Organizations. Special Publication 800-53 Revi-
sion 4. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.
800-53r4.pdf. Accessed 25 January 2020.
5. I am indebted to William Young and Clinton Mixon for the many discus-
sions we have had over the years as we developed and promoted this this
framework and conceptualization of cyberspace across the US Air Force
and US Department of Defense.
6. Hauben, Michael, and Ronda Hauben. 1998. Behind the Net: The
Untold Story of the ARPANET and Computer Science (Chapter 7). First
Monday. 3. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v3i8.612.
7. International Telecommunications Union. Statistics. https://www.itu.int/
en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx.
8. International Telecommunications Union, ICT Prices 2017 (Geneva,
Switzerland). https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/
publications/misr2017/IPB2017_E.pdf.
9. United States Department of Commerce. National Institute for Standards
and Technology. 2015. Guide to Industrial Control Systems. Special Publi-
cation 800-82. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/
NIST.SP.800-82r2.pdf. Accessed 25 January 2020.
10. Weiss, J. 2010. Protecting Industrial Control Systems from Electronic
Threats. New York: Momentum Press.
11. Ibid.
12. International Telecommunications Union. Overview of the Internet of
Things Recommendation ITU-T Y.2060.
13. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/effect-technology-sustai
nability-sdgs-internet-things-iot/.
14. Computer Security Resource Center “Platform IT”. https://csrc.nist.
gov/glossary/term/platform-IT.
10 CYBER COMPETITION AND GLOBAL STABILITY 245
31. United Nations Office on Drug and Crime. 2013. Comprehensive Study
on Cybercrime, February: xi.
32. Ponemon Institute. 2017. Cost of Data Breach Study. https://www.ibm.
com/downloads/cas/ZYKLN2E3.
33. Evans, M. 2017. Cyber Crime: One in 10 People Now Victim of Fraud
or Online Offences Figures Show. The Telegraph, January 19. https://
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/19/fraud-cyber-crime-now-cou
ntrys-common-offences/. Accessed 25 January 2020.
34. Berr, J. 2017. ‘WannaCry’ Ransomware Attack Losses Could Reach $4
Billion. CBS News, 16.
35. Lewis, J., and S. Baker. 2014. Net Losses: Estimating the Global Cost of
Cybercrime. Washington: McAfee, Inc. and the Center for Strategic and
International Studies: 15. https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-pub
lic/legacy_files/files/attachments/140609_rp_economic_impact_cyberc
rime_report.pdf. Accessed 25 January 2020.
Further Reading
Bucanan, B. (2020). The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New
Normal of Geopolitics. Harvard University Press.
Jarmon, J. A., & Yannakogeorgos, P. A. (2018). The Cyber Threat and Global-
ization: The Impact on US National and International Security. Rowman &
Littlefield.
Libicki, M. C. (2009). Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar. Rand Corporation.
Yannakogeorgos, P. A., & Lowther, A. B. (Eds.). (2013). Conflict and Coopera-
tion in Cyberspace: The Challenge to National Security. CRC Press.
CHAPTER 11
Carolyn Kissane
C. Kissane (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: carolyn.kissane@nyu.edu
After spending most of two decades below $30, in 2004 crude oil prices
started rising and by late 2007 they had reached $99. By the summer of
2008, they soared above $100 and peaked at $145.31 in July 2008 in
the biggest zoom ever recorded – and then abruptly crashed back to $33
in less than six months. Prices rebounded to around $100 in 2011 and
averaged about $95 over the following three and a half years. But from
June 2014 to February 2016, prices crashed once more, from $107 to $26
– a bust of over 75 percent.2
Simultaneously there was a shift in oil and gas production, which proved
to be both a disruption to supply dynamics and a radical discontinuity
in the geopolitics of energy. The hydrocarbon narrative today no longer
mentions peak oil supply, but rather peak oil demand and the slew of
considerations and effects it will bring with it. Not only is oil supply no
longer a concern, in fact, the new uncertainty is over peak demand. Tech-
nological advances allow energy to be economically generated, and the
shale revolution illustrates this in action. As a result of US shale produc-
tion and advances in renewable energy, the world finds itself in a paradigm
shift.
The geopolitics of energy is experiencing a period of discontinuity.
Demands for deep decarbonization and climate change mitigation and
adaptation are driving new policies and practices. The outsized influ-
ence, once wielded by a handful of countries, mostly comprised of Oil
Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) member states, is waning.
In the short term, that influence is blunted by the tremendous output
of American unconventional oil. Looking forward, we can anticipate that
the proverbial energy deck of cards is sure to be reshuffled and new hands
will allow different states to wield outsized influence in geopolitics.
To understand the geopolitical implications, an examination of the
rise of the United States as an energy superpower is necessary. First, US
energy dominance means historic relationships in the Middle East driven
by the necessity of securing oil has changed; the United States is stepping
back from its long-standing position of securing Middle Eastern energy
supplies. Second, the United States new energy position has altered the
power and influence of OPEC; the organization’s ability to move markets
has diminished, and Saudi Arabia no longer holds the hand of swing
producer of last resort. The United States—though unable to increase
production by one or two million barrels a day on short notice—is now
in a position within the global energy world to provide a supply cushion,
11 THE UPENDING OF THE GEOPOLITICS OF ENERGY … 249
which has altered OPEC’s market hand. Third, Russia is a petro-state and
oil and gas are not only vital strategic resources, but also serve as polit-
ical and economic weapons in its foreign policy. Fourth, China remains
the challenge and the opportunity for global energy. Over the last twenty
years China has emerged as the largest consumer of imported oil and is
second to only Japan in global gas consumption. China’s energy policy
is an all of the above strategy: it needs all kinds of energy, and securing
resources, hydrocarbons and renewables, are an integral part of domestic
and foreign policy.
Understanding these changes requires an examination of how we got
here. This chapter will address the drivers of the energy transition, and
who will be the winners and losers as the world moves from hydrocar-
bons to new sources of cleaner and more sustainable energy systems. The
questions are many; today’s energy transition represents what some view
as the most urgent action we have to take. This chapter explores the last
two decades of energy shifts, examining oil and gas, the role of energy
in the strategic outlook of the US, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, and future
disruptions caused by changes in energy use and demand, with particular
attention on the energy future of China. Finally, the chapter will look
at the impact of stricter climate policies and new calls for action around
environmental justice in the energy transition to cleaner energy.
Fig. 11.1 Estimated petroleum and natural gas production in selected countries
(Source U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on International Energy
Statistics. Note Petroleum includes crude oil, condensate, and natural gas plant
liquids)
252 C. KISSANE
During this time many American frackers did indeed close up shop, but
Saudi Arabia ended up doing more damage to itself.16 The problem that
traditional producers face is that they’re not competing against a large
NOC or a handful of IOCs but thousands of nimble small entrepreneurs
operating in one of the most liquid and dynamic capital markets in the
world (the United States) which allows them to respond rapidly and easily
to changes in global market demand. More to the point, shale wells can
be more easily turned on and off, compared to conventional wells.
Today as the 3rd largest producer Saudi Arabia is less able to unilater-
ally direct global oil markets. The rise of American shale has changed the
face of OPEC, necessitating the formation of an alliance that has prac-
tically superseded OPEC. Though known as OPEC+, a loose grouping
of OPEC and non-OPEC producers, Saudi Arabia and Russia are the
two most important de facto leaders of this alliance. The formation of
OPEC+ was an implicit admission that their previous go-it-alone strategy
had failed. This move was a recognition that the fundamentals of oil
geopolitics had changed and going forward, the Saudis, Russians, and
other large producers would need to work together to confront the chal-
lenges presented by American oil dominance. Many have raised questions
as to future of OPEC and whether we have heard its final death knell.
Looking toward the future, the IEA projects that American production
will account for 85 percent17 of all new oil growth and reach a staggering
20.5 mbd by 2025.18
In many ways energy trade is so critical that it transcends traditional
politics. That is not to say the rules are different but that many states are
willing to overlook traditional obstacles or interstate conflicts in order to
ensure access to energy resources. Russia has long had contentious rela-
tionships with much of Europe but continues to be the primary supplier
of natural gas. And herein lies the heart of energy geopolitics. States like
Germany and Poland, which rely on Russian gas for heat in the winter and
electricity all year round, may think twice before responding to Russian
policy or actions for fear that Moscow may cut off critical supplies. Russia
like many other energy producers has a long history of leveraging its
energy resources to ensure more favorable political outcomes.19
Russia---Petro-Politics at Work
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia entered a nine-
year period of dislocation and disruption. The last years of the Soviet
Union exposed pillage from within, or as Steven Solnick described it,
11 THE UPENDING OF THE GEOPOLITICS OF ENERGY … 255
“stealing the state.”20 The dirt cheap sell-off of state-run enterprises led
to the rise of the Russian oligarch that illustrated one slice of Russia’s very
dysfunctional economy of the 1990s. Its economy was battered and there
was little in the way of hope in the aftermath of 1991. Yeltsin was not
the leader to revive an ailing Russia. Russians viewed him as a drunk and
an idiot. Russia’s superpower status evaporated, and the country was on
its knees. To better understand the dramatic shift that transpired consider
this: there were regions of Russia threatening to break away from the
federation, and oil production collapsed from 12 mbd in the 1980s to
just over six mbd in 1998. The price of a barrel averaged $16 during
Yeltsin’s term and, to make the bad even worse, the default of domestic
debt and the collapse of the ruble in August 1998 wiped out whatever
savings people had in banks and under mattresses.
It was Putin who ushered in the turnaround, with an almost overnight
rebranding of Russia from one of failure to one of strength.21 By 2000,
Putin was firmly and comfortably entrenched in the Moscow White
House and a new era for Russia was in the making. Putin’s timing was
superb. Shortly after he took office, oil prices started to climb, and with
that, Russian oil production. A few years into Putin’s first term and
the country was producing almost 10 mbd, and the narrative of decline
turned into one of miraculous transformation.22
However, it’s been downhill since. In 2008, Russia went into Georgia,
and in 2014 annexed Crimea and invaded Ukraine. They didn’t pay much
of a price and believed then as they do now, that might makes them right.
The West decided against military action and instead used what is now a
common form of economic statecraft, sanctions. Sanctions were meant to
slow Russia’s future energy growth, specifically around developing new oil
and gas fields, which required Western expertise and technology but sanc-
tions have now been in place for more than five years and Russia manages
to get by, and—Putin would argue—thrive. Oil production reached over
11 mbd in 2016 and the first half of 2017, almost surpassing the all-time
high of 11.7 set in 1987.
As Russia looks to the future, its energy strategy is very much a contin-
uation of previous policies. Its economy will remain heavily dependent on
resource extraction. As of 2018 more than 80 percent of Russian exported
goods relied on mineral extraction, including petroleum products, coal,
lumber, and metals.23 Russia very much envisions and demands a slower
transition to a decarbonized future than that foreseen by their North
American and European counterparts. Their current investments suggest
256 C. KISSANE
oil and gas have a market in China via Siberian pipelines. Conversely,
Putin’s Russia’s will continue to develop its far east through the continued
development of its hydrocarbon reserves. And the development of the
region’s energy resources thrusts Moscow and Russian power back onto
the map from Irkutsk to Vladivostok. China recognizes the abundant
hydrocarbon potential that Russia’s east has to offer to its energy thirsty
northeastern rust belt.
Australia, and China.37 Cobalt and coltan, another set of crucial elements
are produced primarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo,38 which
has recently declared Cobalt a Strategic Element 39 in an effort to increase
domestic revenues. As states recognize the increasing value that these
minerals have to the global economy, what actions will they take? Similar
questions from the geopolitics of oil and gas re-emerge with critical
minerals; will producer countries cooperate to act in a cartel-like fashion
a la OPEC? Or will they demand concessions from other states or the
private sector? There are no clear answers as it is still early in the rare earth
and critical resource energy transition, but it is fair to say, geopolitics will
continue to be with us.
While we are unquestionably at the beginnings of an energy transi-
tion, it is important to note that there are multiple possible pathways to
achieving low emission or emission-free generation, none of which have
been firmly decided upon by most stakeholders. In the short term, natural
gas producers like the U.S., Russia, and Qatar will continue to leverage
their gas resources in the global energy trade. Most forecasts project an
eventual decline in natural gas consumption as well. It is widely assumed
that most electricity demand (which will likely include terrestrial trans-
portation) will be met by emission-free electricity. This includes nuclear
as well as renewable energy. While much of Europe stresses a renew-
able powered and energy efficient future, other states see a large role for
nuclear. As the West, steps back from nuclear energy proliferation, Russia
and China continue to export their nuclear energy expertise filling the
rapidly expanding gap left by previous leaders like the United States and
France.40
Today, electricity is already sold between states. Examples include
the frequent electricity trade between the United States and Canada
or Norway and Germany. But that requires the development of suffi-
cient transmission capacity, and amicable geopolitical relations. Imagine a
future where electricity trade is no longer constrained by physical infras-
tructure. While renewable resources exist everywhere on the planet, it is
clear that their abundance differs widely. In recent years there has been
talk of building super grids across Asia and Europe, but, more intrigu-
ingly, there has been talk of imagined trade relationships between say
Algeria and the United Kingdom (UK) for example, wherein solar PV
energy from the Sahara is stored in chemical batteries and shipped to the
UK where it can power street lamps and electric vehicles. Much of what
we see today was unimaginable a decade ago, and the pace of disruption
262 C. KISSANE
is happening faster and faster. With it, there is more uncertainty on the
impact of these developments on the global energy systems. Deepening
electrification may bring broader globalization of energy.
due to its abundance and lower cost. For China it’s a coal to gas to renew-
ables story but some countries are pushing back against natural gas since
it is still a carbon emitting source of energy.
For many, the pace of the global energy transition is not fast enough.
The 2015 Paris Agreement was viewed as a success by many; but years
later, emissions continue to rise and countries are moving away from the
commitments and action plans they submitted at Conference of Parties
(COP) 21. China and the United States agreed to ambitious carbon
reduction targets, and every country submitted nationally determined
contributions (NDC) outlining their actions to reduce carbon emissions
by 2030. As a non-binding agreement the results, as of 2020, remain
lackluster and most analysts argue countries are not on track to meet the
NDCs they agreed to at COP 21 in Paris in 2015. What this inaction has
resulted in is a rise in social movements targeting the impacts of climate
change. Across Europe there have been Extinction Rebellion protests,
and in 2017 a young school girl decided it was time to take individual
action. Greta Thunberg, became the face of the climate change move-
ment, and in a few short years is now a globally recognized advocate
and voice for climate change action. In March 2019, 1.5 million children
across 112 countries protested against climate change. Today, the leader
of School Strike, Greta Thunberg, is now not only a household name,
but has appeared at Davos, the UN, and around the world calling on
governments and corporations to do more and to stop carbon emissions
from rising. Her message in 2019 to Davos participants: “I don’t want
you to be hopeful, I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel
every day and then I want you to act.”42 For all of these movements,
climate change is a global emergency threatening human existence and
survival as we know it. A 2019 paper by Jem Bendell, “Deep Adapta-
tion: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy,” argues that “starvation,
destruction, migration, disease and war,” await the world if action is now
taken.43
The emergence of EVs, more advanced battery storage technologies,
cheaper production and use of renewable energy, enhanced energy effi-
ciencies, and a growing awareness around the need to reduce fossil fuel
energy consumption are all part of what’s happening and will continue to
drive peak demand. With the world looking to decarbonize and new tech-
nologies emerging to challenge the supremacy of oil and gas, the question
is not if but when demand peaks. There is disagreement over when it will
happen; some forecast as early as 2025, while Exxon Mobil and the IEA
264 C. KISSANE
Conclusion
Though renewables can be produced in every locality around the world
the decline of fossil fuel generation does not spell the end of energy
geopolitics. What is clear is the world is shifting, and the influence
of traditional energy powers—like Russia and Saudi Arabia—will wane,
though not immediately. The United States has emerged as a new energy
super power as a result of its oil and gas windfall, and the resulting supply
11 THE UPENDING OF THE GEOPOLITICS OF ENERGY … 265
provides a demand cushion against energy insecurity. But for how long
will the world be able to consume hydrocarbons at its current pace? The
world continues to be hungry for fossil fuels, consuming more than a 100
mbd and uncertainty surrounds the demand picture for Asia. China’s poli-
cies, and those of India, will determine the direction of energy geopolitics
from the demand side. What is almost certain is demand will need to be
curtailed; substitution is on the horizon, and the energy world of the last
half century is sure to look different in the decades ahead.
The emerging picture is one of discontinuity from the past to a new
energy reality in light of climate change. We are in the beginning stages
of what will be a shift of power as historic oil, gas, and coal producers see
their previous export markets begin to dry up and a concurrent decline in
their ability to leverage their natural resources to effect policy. Kingsmill
Bond from Carbon Tracker sums up the enormity of the tasks at hand
as the world moves from a hydrocarbon centric system to a decarbonized
one. “The whole of human prosperity and wealth has been based on our
exploitation of oil and other fossil fuels, so it is an almighty undertaking.
To just remove them from our energy system within a decade or two is
completely fanciful.”46 Energy security considerations are not new, and
though sources of energy may change, achieving and maintaining energy
security will be a central focus on the ongoing global energy transition,
disruptions, and discontinuity will continue to be the new normal.
Notes
1. Kissane, C. (2015). China, the United States, and the Future of Central
Asia. Ed. David B. Denoon. New York University Press.
2. McNally, Robert (2017). Crude Volatility: The History and the Future of
Boom-Bust Oil Prices. Columbia University Press.
3. Yergin, Daniel (1998). The Prize, 67.
4. O’Sullivan, Meghan (2013). “The Entanglement of Energy, Grand
Strategy, and International Security.” In The Handbook of Global Energy
Policy. Ed. Andreas Goldthau, First Edition.
5. “Spot Prices for Crude Oil and Petroleum Products.” U.S. Energy Infor-
mation Administration, January 15, 2020. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/
pet/pet_pri_spt_s1_d.htm.
6. “Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” Energy.gov. Office of Fossil Energy, U.S.
Department of Energy. Accessed January 17, 2020. https://www.energy.
gov/fe/strategic-petroleum-reserve-0.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. “Oil: Crude and Petroleum Products Explained.” U.S. Energy Informa-
tion Administration, October 3, 2019. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplai
ned/oil-and-petroleum-products/use-of-oil.php.
10. “Short-Term Energy Outlook.” U.S. Energy Information Adminis-
tration—EIA—Independent Statistics and Analysis, January 14, 2020.
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/.
11. “Shale Research & Development.” Energy.gov. U.S. Department of
Energy. Accessed January 18, 2020. https://www.energy.gov/fe/science-
innovation/oil-gas-research/shale-gas-rd.
12. Ibid.
13. Alessi, Christopher. “Second Wave of U.S. Shale Revolution Is Coming,
Says IEA.” The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, March
11, 2019. https://www.wsj.com/articles/second-wave-of-u-s-shale-rev
olution-is-coming-says-iea-11552291237.
14. O’Sullivan, Megan (2017). Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance
Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America’s Power. Simon and
Schuster.
15. Wethe, David. “Quicktake—The Shale Revolution.” Bloomberg.com.
Bloomberg News, December 27, 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/
quicktake/fracking.
16. Ibid.
17. Smith, Grant. “IEA Predicts Global Oil Demand Will Level Off Around
2030.” World Oil—Upstream News, November 13, 2019. https://www.
worldoil.com/news/2019/11/13/iea-predicts-global-oil-demand-will-
level-off-around-2030.
11 THE UPENDING OF THE GEOPOLITICS OF ENERGY … 267
18. Ibid.
19. Collins, Gabriel. “Russia’s Use of the ‘Energy Weapon’ in Europe,” Rice
University Baker Institute for Public Policy, July 18, 2017. https://www.
bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/ac785a2b/BI-Brief-071817-CES_
Russia1.pdf.
20. Solnick, Steven (1998). Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet
Institutions. Harvard University Press.
21. To understand Russia’s Vladimir Putin, you need to know what drives
him. CNBC.com, July 13, 2017. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/13/
to-understand-russias-vladimir-putin-you-need-to-know-what-drives-him-
commentary.html.
22. Kissane, Ibid.
23. “Products Exported by Russia (2017).” The Observatory of Economic
Complexity—Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019. https://oec.
world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/rus/all/show/2017/.
24. Hudson Institute Events Podcast, March 22, 2016. https://www.hud
son.org/events/1319-a-new-global-energy-order-the-geopolitics-of-ame
rica-s-shale-revolution32016.
25. “Which Countries Have the Highest Coal Reserves in the World?”
Mining Technology|Mining News and Views Updated Daily, January
8, 2020. https://www.mining-technology.com/features/feature-the-wor
lds-biggest-coal-reserves-by-country/.
26. “China—Countries & Regions.” International Energy Agency, June 12,
2019. https://www.iea.org/countries/china.
27. The EIA says China has the most shale gas in the world. The problem with
China’s shale gas is producing it. The United States has been successful in
shale gas extraction because of a mix of factors, small independents took
the lead in developing shale gas extraction techniques and production and
US property rights and ability to lease private land for gas production also
played a significant role. If China really wants to produce its shale gas
potential it will, but not as easily as the US.
28. “Country Comparison > Natural Gas—Consumption > TOP 10.” Natural
Gas—Consumption—Country Comparison—TOP 10, January 1, 2019.
https://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=10&v=137.
29. Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, December 23, 2019. https://kle
inmanenergy.upenn.edu/energy-policy-now/power-siberia-pipeline-str
engthens-russia-china-ties.
30. Ibid.
31. “Russia Leads the World at Nuclear-Reactor Exports.” The Economist,
August 7, 2018. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/08/
07/russia-leads-the-world-at-nuclear-reactor-exports.
268 C. KISSANE
Further Reading
Gold, Russell (2019) Super Power: One Man’s Quest to Transform American
Energy. Simon and Schuster.
McNally, Robert (2017). Crude Volatility: The History and the Future of Oil
Boom Bust Cycles. Columbia University Press.
O’Sullivan, Megan (2017). Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends
Global Politics and Strengthens America’s Power. Simon and Schuster.
CHAPTER 12
Michael Shank
M. Shank (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: michael.shank@nyu.edu
$85 billion.15 The IPCC warns16 that if urgent action is not taken to limit
greenhouse gas emissions and keep global warming within 1.5 degrees
Celsius (above pre-industrial temperatures), life on this planet becomes
untenable.
are a starting point for transforming cities and their carbon footprint.
Now, a quick dive into each.
Adopting a Zero-Emissions Standard for New Buildings. In many major
cities, buildings—and the energy required for heating, cooling, lighting,
and appliances—represent the largest carbon footprint. By adopting a
zero-emissions standard for all new buildings—which requires that new
buildings be highly efficient and use only renewable energy—cities have
an opportunity to send a strong message regarding how they want
their future to look. Fortunately for cities, super-efficient buildings
are becoming less expensive to build. While this game changer does
not address existing building stock, which requires heavy retrofitting,
zero-emissions building standards critically shape the direction of future
building stock and set a new precedent for more sustainable design,
function, and operation.
Building a Ubiquitous Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure. In
order to get people to stop driving petrol and diesel vehicles, it needs
to be easier for them to drive, and charge, the electric alternative. In
many cities, it is still quite difficult to reliably depend on charging infras-
tructure, but that’s changing. There are at least 1.5 million chargers
installed globally, with China leading the way on EV infrastructure with
the total number of charge points and strong buildouts in Shanghai,
Beijing, Shenzhen, and Qingdao.
The market is shifting quickly and electric vehicles are here to stay,
according to the International Council on Clean Transportation.31 Cities
are doubling down on their EV commitments. Amsterdam and Oslo,
for example, are committing to zero-emissions transport over the next
decade, while cities like Shenzhen, which boasts the world’s first fully elec-
tric bus fleet, and Tianjin are rolling out tens of thousands of new energy
vehicles (i.e., plug-ins and hybrids). These efforts are outpacing national
government initiatives on zero-carbon transportation and illustrate what
is possible when cities act fast.
Mandating the Recovery of Organic Material. Most recoverable organic
material is going to the landfill and, as it decomposes there, emits harmful
methane, which is approximately 28 times32 more powerful than CO2
in its global warming capacity over a 100-year timeframe (and over 80
times more powerful over a 20-year timeframe). By recovering it and
turning it into compost, cities avoid these landfill-based methane emis-
sions, while absorbing carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. This
is exciting new territory for cities. Soil’s ability to sequester carbon is the
278 M. SHANK
harness clean renewable energy for heating, cooking, cooling and more—
but a health opportunity (the reduction of polluting cook stoves) and a
socio-economic development opportunity (independence from autocratic,
government-run energy utilities).
Setting a Climate Budget to Drive Decarbonization. Using a climate
budget to achieve decarbonization goals represents a whole-systems
approach because every city department calculates climate impacts—from
labor and health departments, to energy, waste, and transportation. Every
department has a role in making systems more efficient and sustain-
able, less carbon-intensive and more renewable. By developing carbon
budgets for every department, the city can better measure its envi-
ronmental impact and spend its carbon wisely and within budget. A
climate budget “establishes a maximum greenhouse gas emissions level
for the budget year, based on the city’s emissions goal,” and “details the
city’s proposed short-term emissions-reduction actions to stay within the
maximum amount, their projected impact, and cost”.33 As Oslo’s vice
mayor noted when the city rolled out the world’s first climate budget, a
climate budget allows them to “count carbon dioxide the same way as we
count money”,34 a helpful way to understand climate budgeting locally
and its role within the emissions reduction agenda.
All seven game changers do two things. First, they make a substantial
contribution to the decarbonization of a city, irrespective of a national
government’s real or perceived inaction on climate change. Second, they
send a message to the public that the city is serious about climate action.
This, in turn, helps motivate and mobilize constituencies to take action
and change behavior.
There are more game changers that cities can pursue, including the less
technical and narratively focused climate emergency declarations. Over
1700 local governments in 30 countries, representing over 800 million
citizens, have declared a climate emergency.35 While this is not a structural
game changer, this discourse elevates the way in which the climate crisis
is discussed by sub-national actors. These emergency narratives by cities
send an important message to the public. It notifies them of an escalating
threat and encourages a behavioral response that is commensurate with
that threat. That cities are resorting to emergency declarations indicates
a lesson-learned from similar threat situations (e.g., health pandemics,
natural disasters, or terrorism attacks). This is a new focus within the
climate movement, and it moves away from simpler behavior change asks,
such as changing lightbulbs, recycling, or walking, and doubles down
280 M. SHANK
This is often outside the comfort zone of city staff since many received
professional training in the hard sciences necessary for running city
climate, sustainability, and resilience offices. This social science work was
not likely part of the sustainability training, but the ways in which cities
now need to win the hearts and minds of their carbon-consuming publics
are increasingly on their agenda.
Movements and Mobilization. This is a new priority among cities and
an important development since people often feel alone or impotent
in the fight against global warming. Eco-anxiety is emerging, where
climate change is held responsible for generating post-traumatic stress
disorder, anxiety, and depression. Cities, consequently, are exploring new
and socio-economically sensitive ways to mirror back the movement
happening in their communities so that residents realize two things: first,
that they are not alone and there is a movement in their community, and
second, that the city is positively reaffirming and featuring the sustainable
behavior needed.
As cities lead this movement building, officials are realizing the impor-
tance of leading by example and serving as change agents within their
contexts. Walking the sustainability talk is now more critical than ever
as citizens look to their leaders on more than just basic environmental
behaviors—recycling, changing lightbulbs, riding mass transit, etc.—and
expect leaders to walk the talk in all aspects of life including flying less
and going carless, scaling-up solar and heat pumps, pursuing sustainable
diets and slow fashion and even talking about having smaller families.
This walking of the talk is essential in leading local movements as
people are drawn to leaders, their stories and their journeys. A failure to
walk the talk in the climate space runs the risk of derailing a city’s climate
initiative as critics often look for holes to poke and inconsistencies to call
out when attempting to undermine climate action.
Moment-Making. Other work that is helpful when building a move-
ment is to stay nimble and respond to news moments when they occur. A
bushfire in Australia, a flood in New York City, a heat wave in Europe, or
the Amazon burning in South America. All of these events are moments in
the news cycle that city leaders should take advantage of when messaging
on climate change. Miss these moments and the city loses an opportu-
nity to contextualize the news within a climate frame. Every time extreme
weather emerges, provided it has a global warming connection, cities have
an opportunity to frame for the public this connection. The more the
public sees the climate connection reiterated, the more familiar the science
will become.
288 M. SHANK
One way of seizing the extreme weather news cycle is for cities to
show, not tell, what is happening. For example, a mayor could host a
press conference from within the flood zone, with fishing waders on,
requiring the press to follow the mayor throughout the impacted area.
The optics here are important. It places the climate message in the middle
of the extreme weather impact zone. This goes for heat waves, wild-
fire, droughts, floods, and more. Reporters are tired of traditional press
releases and sterile press conferences. They are looking for a story to tell,
for something surprising to hook readers. It is up to local leaders to help
the press tell that story and provide that visual.
Mirroring and Mimicry. When capturing the public’s attention, keep in
mind they are consuming content that is primarily visual, fast paced, light
on text, and entertaining. The most shared social media content gener-
ates feelings of happiness, surprise, and admiration, so cities will want to
rethink how they engage the public on climate impacts and solutions.
Too often a city’s website is text-heavy and plan-heavy for good reason:
to establish targets and timelines for a city, to be accountable to a city
council, and to be transparent that a plan exists and is on track.
This is not what the public is eager to consume. By mirroring the
kind of content that the public is sharing on social networks, it will move
cities toward visual and video storytelling and require cities to integrate
content that conjures feelings of happiness, surprise, and/or admiration.
It takes creativity, but it is possible. When the Maldives government’s
cabinet ministers held an underwater press conference to raise awareness
on how sea level rise will consume their country, it got the world’s atten-
tion. It was an excellent example of creative climate messaging that evoked
surprise and admiration.
Moreover, if cities want to mimic how the public talks with each other
and takes action within their communities, it will require that cities meet
the community where they are at, listen, and be mindful of preferred
modes of communication and action. Appreciative inquiry is helpful here.
When mirroring back and mimicking the kinds of climate behaviors cities
want to scale up, this work should be done carefully, mindful of power
structures and cultural representation, and equitably co-created with the
community.
This focus on individual behavior change is a much more involved role
that is now being asked of city leaders. But if climate policy is going
to transform quickly enough to save humanity from climate chaos, then
cities need to expand their portfolio to include behavior change. Given
12 THE FUTURE OF CLIMATE ACTION … 289
Conclusion
This chapter assumes a transformation in how climate action evolves over
the next few decades, discontinuing a reliance on national actions—given
the inadequate action to avert climate destruction—toward a more diver-
sified and disruptive portfolio of sub-national actions, with an increasing
reliance on cities as change agents in local communities.
Climate action will benefit from an application of the behavioral science
principles identified above, as individual action offers substantial opportu-
nities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If every car-driving individual
in the United States, for example, switched immediately to an electric
car, the country’s emissions would drop by over 8 percent.44 That is
a sizable reduction for one of the biggest emitters globally. And while
national government support for charging infrastructure will be critical in
furthering this kind of behavior change, social science is equally useful in
understanding the attitudes that will expedite this shift and disrupt the
status quo.
Cities in the global north and south offer a meaningful opportunity to
message more local behavior change, since the majority of the world’s
population, energy use, carbon emissions, and climate impacts are in
metropolitan areas. Cities are where the climate story should be told, by
local leaders and within local communities. Since cities around the world
are already leading on systems-wide game changers in the climate space,
it is now up to these same cities to lead on the behavioral game change
front.
Notes
1. Herrando-Pérez, Salvador, Corey J.A. Bradshaw, Stephan Lewandowsky,
and David R. Vieites. 2019. Statistical Language Backs Conservatism in
Climate-Change Assessments. BioScience 69 (3): 209–219. https://doi.
org/10.1093/biosci/biz004.
2. NOAA. 2020. Rise of Carbon Dioxide Unabated. NOAA. https://res
earch.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2636/Rise-of-carbon-
dioxide-unabated. Accessed 28 August 2020.
3. Hansen, J., Mki Sato, P. Kharecha, D. Beerling, R. Berner, V. Masson-
Delmotte, M. Pagani, M. Raymo, D.L. Royer, and J.C. Zachos.
2008. Target Atmospheric CO2 : Where Should Humanity Aim? Open
Atmosphere Science Journal 2, 217–231. https://doi.org/10.2174/187
4282300802010217.
4. NOAA. 2019. Science on a Sphere: Ocean-Atmosphere CO2 Exchange.
https://sos.noaa.gov/datasets/ocean-atmosphere-co2-exchange/.
Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
5. Smithsonian Institution. 2018. Ocean Acidification. https://ocean.si.
edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/ocean-acidification. Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
6. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. 2019. Tempera-
ture Change and Carbon Dioxide Change. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
global-warming/temperature-change. Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
7. Climate Central. 2019. The Ten Hottest Global Years on Record.
https://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/the-10-hottest-global-
years-on-record. Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
8. Carrington, Damian. 2019. Why the Guardian Is Changing the Language
It Uses About the Environment. The Guardian. May 17.
9. Gerretsen, Isabelle. 2019. Himalayan Glaciers Are Melting Twice as Fast
as Last Century. CNN . https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/19/world/
himalayan-glaciers-melting-climate-change-scn-intl/index.html. Accessed
2 Jan 2020.
10. Nace, Trevor. 2019. Greenland Lost 4 Trillion Pounds of Ice in Just 1
Day. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/06/18/
12 THE FUTURE OF CLIMATE ACTION … 291
greenland-lost-4-trillion-pounds-of-ice-in-just-1-day/#37294650f9a5.
Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
11. Leary, Stephen. 2019. Greenland’s Ice Is Melting Four Times Faster
Than Thought—What It Means. National Geographic. https://www.nat
ionalgeographic.com/environment/2019/01/greeland-ice-melting-four-
times-faster-than-thought-raising-sea-level/. Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
12. Chow, Denise. 2020. Earth’s Oceans Are Hotter Than Ever—And
Getting Warmer Faster. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/sci
ence/environment/earth-s-oceans-are-hotter-ever-getting-warmer-faster-
n1114811. Accessed 14 Jan 2020.
13. Bamber, Jonathan L., et al. 2019. Ice Sheet Contributions to Future Sea-
Level Rise from Structured Expert Judgment. PNAS 116 (23): 11195–
11200.
14. World Health Organization. 2014. 7 Million Premature Deaths Annu-
ally Linked to Air Pollution. https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/
releases/2014/air-pollution/en/. Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
15. Banis, Davide. 2018. 10 Worst Climate-Driven Disasters of 2018 Cost
$85 Billion. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidebanis/2018/
12/28/10-worst-climate-driven-disasters-of-2018-cost-us-85-billion/#
a997fed2680b. Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
16. Watts, Jonathan. 2018. We Have 12 Years to Limit Climate Change
Catastrophe, Warns UN. The Guardian. October 8.
17. Hall, Michael P., Neil A. Lewis Jr., and Phoebe C. Ellsworth. 2018.
Believing in Climate Change, but Not Behaving Sustainably: Evidence
from a One-Year Longitudinal Study. Journal of Environmental Psychology
56, 55–62.
18. Poushter, Jacob, and Christine Huang. 2019. Climate Change Still Seen
as the Top Global Threat, but Cyberattacks a Rising Concern. Pew
Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/10/
climate-change-still-seen-as-the-top-global-threat-but-cyberattacks-a-ris
ing-concern/. Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
19. World Economic Forum. 2020. The Global Risks Report 2020.
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.
pdf. Accessed 25 Jan 2020.
20. Clayton, S., C.M. Manning, K. Krygsman, and M. Speiser. 2017. Mental
Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance.
American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica. https://www.apa.
org/news/press/releases/2017/03/mental-health-climate.pdf. Accessed
2 Jan 2020.
21. UN Environment Programme. 2019. Emissions Gap Report 2019.
https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2019.
Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
292 M. SHANK
Further Reading
Boykoff, Maxwell. 2019. Creative (Climate) Communications. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Eisenstein, Charles. 2018. Climate—A New Story. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic
Books.
294 M. SHANK
Hawken, Paul. 2017. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to
Reverse Global Warming. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Klein, Naomi. 2015. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. New
York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Russell, James. 2011. The Agile City—Building Well-being and Wealth in an Era
of Climate Change. Washington, DC: Island Press.
CHAPTER 13
W. P. S. Sidhu (B)
Center for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University,
New York, NY, USA
e-mail: wpssidhu@nyu.edu
the climate crisis; and dealing with the opportunities and threats of
cyberspace, emerging technologies, and revolution in information and
telecommunication.
Against this backdrop, the chapter begins with a review of some of
the salient norms, principles, practices, and institutions established in the
UN related to peace and security, development, and human rights in the
twenty-first century. As a corollary, it will assess the role of new non-state
and sub-state actors in the creation of these norms.5 The chapter then
examines the implementation and operationalization of these norms to
assess their effectiveness, or lack of it. The following section argues that
despite the apathy or indeed the hostility toward the UN, especially by
the dominant and emerging powers, the UN is likely to remain a primary
(but not necessarily the only) arena for the development of norms, espe-
cially if it can engage new actors and device processes that can circumvent
great power indifference or intimidation. The conclusion considers three
possible scenarios of the UN’s role in shaping global norms over the next
decade.
UNSCR 1540
Passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and the dominant narrative of
the link between Iraq and WMDs, this resolution is a rare instance where
the Council has donned the role of a legislative body; 1540 mandates
all UN members to pass appropriate domestic laws to ensure that non-
state actors, including terrorist groups, are unable to attain weapons of
mass destruction or the necessary material and expertise to build them.
Passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, 1540 also empowers the
Council to enforce the mandate. As a sop, the 1540 Committee has
followed a more cooperative and collegiate approach to encouraging UN
300 W. P. S. SIDHU
Development
The end of the Cold War saw the scope for multilateral development open
significantly. This was evidenced by the creation of the Human Devel-
opment Report (HDR), the related Human Development Index (HDI)
in 1990, and, more significantly, their acceptance by UN members.25
The HDR/HDI was a more holistic way of measuring development
as compared to the unidimensional Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
measure. The 1992 Rio “Earth Summit,” where Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs) and civil society actors played a prominent role,
soon thereafter set the stage for serious deliberations on sustainability,
climate change, and development. This momentum culminated in the
top-down and relatively modest eight MDGs in 2000. The MDGs served
to put a “spotlight on the issue” even if they ignored “important elements
of the development enterprise, such as freedom and technological innova-
tion, while framing a mostly basic needs agenda.”26 This is unsurprising
given that the MDGs were prescribed exclusively for countries of the
global South by, as one UN insider put it, “a bunch of mostly men
from the global North who dreamed up the goals while sitting in a
basement with little consultation with the target countries.”27 Perhaps
the singular contribution of the MDGs was to pave the way for the
13 THE UNITED NATIONS: MANAGING UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS 303
uber-ambitious SDGs in 2015. The SDGs, along with the Paris climate
change agreement, are probably the two most significant achievements
in the development arena in particular and the UN universe in general.
Consequently, their impact will be examined in some detail.
from countries and regional funds of the South. Similarly, the BICs
have emerged as the largest donors outside the OECD.32 Consequently,
increased South–South cooperation—even as North–South cooperation
stagnates or recedes—is likely to be a key factor in achieving the SDG
targets.
Climate Change
The 21st meeting of the Conference of Parties (or simply COP21) to
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held
in Paris witnessed initiatives to tackle one of the biggest challenges
confronting humanity; and on 12 December 2015 the gathering reached
a landmark agreement to combat climate change, and to accelerate and
intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low-carbon
future.
COP21 can be seen as an interesting departure from the usual UN
process. The 1991 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
306 W. P. S. SIDHU
Human Rights
In the sphere of human rights most advocates might assert that the
UN’s efforts have either stalled or, worse, retreated, especially in the
308 W. P. S. SIDHU
United Kingdom, and the United States, which provided weapons to one
side in the conflict) of “possible war crimes.”51 Similarly after a detailed
six-month investigation, Agnes Callamard, the Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions presented a damning report
that held Saudi Arabia responsible for the “premeditated execution”
of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The report asserted that Saudi Arabia’s
actions violated at least six tenets of international law and “constitutes
an international crime over which other States should claim universal
jurisdiction.”52 While this report clearly establishes the norm against this
practice, it leaves it to the will of states to act against offenders.
Separately, the creation—by the General Assembly—of the Interna-
tional, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Inves-
tigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious
Crimes under International Law committed in the Syrian Arab Republic
Since March 2011 (IIIM-Syria) and the Independent Investigative Mech-
anism for Myanmar (IIMM), to gather evidence of crimes are noteworthy
initiatives (for details of the IIIM-Syria and IIMM see Jennifer Trahan’s
chapter in this volume).
Similarly, even UN Security Council resolution 2286 of May 2016,
while reiterating the boilerplate “need to promote and ensure respect for
the principles and rules of international humanitarian law” significantly
urged states “to ensure that violations of international humanitarian law
related to the protection of the wounded and sick, medical personnel
and humanitarian personnel exclusively engaged in medical duties, their
means of transport and equipment, as well as hospitals and other medical
facilities in armed conflicts do not remain unpunished.”53
its role as an arena (although in some cases, such as cyber space, other
venues were preferred by some of the key actors), less effective in its role
as an agent, and, perhaps, the least influential as an implementing actor.
This was partly on account of limited consensus among the key powers
on specific issues (especially those related to cyber security) and partly on
account of the greater role played by new actors, such as civil society,
NGOs, and even the corporate world in creating these norms. This in
turn has led to unrealistic expectations that either having established these
norms, or having the norms thrust upon it, the UN is now in a position
to implement them.
On the contrary, these norms, coupled with the deterioration in great
power relations and rising geopolitical contestations, have on the one
hand raised expectations of the UN’s abilities to deliver (especially among
its relatively new non-state constituencies) while on the other the same
geopolitical competition and great power rivalry is likely to stymie the
UN from doing so. This, clearly, poses a dilemma for the UN: will it be
able to manage these unrealistic expectations or will it be able to carve
out a role to deliver, despite the far from conducive global scenario?
Against this backdrop, there are three possible scenarios for the future
role of the UN. The first scenario is the continued centrality and relevance
of the UN-centered global governance system. However, this scenario
would require several conditions to manifest. First, there would have to
be P5 convergence, if not rapprochement, especially on key peace &
security issues. In particular, this would depend on the United States
rededicating itself to the UN though enlightened leadership. Additionally,
the UN system would have to undergo drastic systemic and procedural
reforms to accommodate emerging state powers on one hand and non-
state actors—especially civil society and corporate sector—on the other.
While the latter process is in evidence, the former is still not discernible.
Under this scenario the UN might embrace a multi-stakeholder approach
rather than a traditional multilateral approach, especially in areas, such
as international development, climate change, and digital cooperation,
where it might be more useful.
If the UN is unable to undertake this critical transformation, then the
second likely scenario might be the growing irrelevance or even demise of
an unreformed UN-centered global governance system. Such a scenario
might unfold in different ways. While seemingly far-fetched, the most
dramatic would be a great power global nuclear conflict that could destroy
earth, along with the UN. Equally, the inability to prevent planetary
312 W. P. S. SIDHU
Notes
1. Hammarskjöld, Dag. 1954. Address at University of California Convo-
cation. Berkeley, CA, 13 May. UN Press Release SG/382, 13 May
1954.
2. Indeed, while there has been a long tradition of UN-bashing by avid
opponents of multilateralism (see, for instance, Gardiner, Nile. 2007.
The Decline and Fall of the United Nations: Why the U.N. Has Failed
and How It Can Be Reformed, 7 February. The Heritage Foundation.
https://www.heritage.org/report/the-decline-and-fall-the-united-nat
ions-why-the-un-has-failed-and-how-it-can-be-reformed. Accessed 10
January 2020; @realDonaldTrump. 2016. The United Nations has such
great potential but right now it is just a club for people to get together,
talk and have a good time. So sad! Twitter, 26 December. https://
twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/813500123053490176. Accessed
20 March 2020; and Rhodan, Maya. 2017. Here Are All the Times
Donald Trump Bashed the United Nations Before Speaking There. Time.
https://time.com/4946276/donald-trump-united-nations-general-ass
embly/. Accessed 10 January 2020) even strong proponents of UN-
centered multilateralism are now sounding the alarm. See, for example,
Stewart, Patrick. 2015. World Weary. Foreign Affairs, 20 October; von
Einsiedel, Sebastian et al. 2015. The UN Security Council in an Age
of Great Power Rivalry. UNU Working Paper 04; Ross, Carne. 2016.
The UN Is Failing: Is It Heading the Way of the League of Nations?
The Guardian, 10 March; Weiss, Thomas G. and Daws, Sam. 2018. The
United Nations: Continuity and Change. The Oxford Handbook on the
United Nations, edited by Weiss, Thomas G. and Daws, Sam. New York:
Oxford University Press; and Mantovani, Cecile and Farge, Emma. 2019.
Lights Out for Multilateralism? Alarm as U.N. Faces Cash Squeeze.
Reuters, 19 December. https://reut.rs/399sHTC. Accessed 10 January
2020.
314 W. P. S. SIDHU
3. For a more detailed discussion on the UN’s various roles, see Karlsrud,
John. 2016. Norm Change in International Relations: Linked Ecologies
in UN Peacekeeping Operations, pp. 36–38. London: Routledge, and
Andreev, Alexander. 2007. To What Extent are International Organiza-
tions (IOs) Autonomous Actors in World Politics? Opticon1826. https://
www.ucl.ac.uk/opticon1826/archive/issue2/VfPS_HS_International_
Organisations.pdf. Accessed 10 January 2020.
4. See von Einsiedel, Sebastian et al. 2015. The UN Security Council in
an Age of Great Power Rivalry. UNU Working Paper 04, and Gowan,
Richard. 2019. Three Troubling Trends at the UN Security Council.
ICG Commentary.
5. Norms are ‘a standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a given
identity’, according to Katzenstein, Peter J. 1996. The Culture of National
Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, p. 5. New York: Columbia
University Press. Katzenstein and other constructivist theorists suggest
that norms evolve through four stages: first, norm entrepreneurs—
whether state or civil society actors—initiate and promote specific ideas
or norms of behavior, such as the ending slavery or abolishing the death
penalty. Second, depending on the endorsement that norm entrepreneurs
can garner from influential actors in the global system, there is a diffusion
of these norms and they are said to emerge. Third, these norms then
spread or cascade through a process of socialization either on their own
or with the support of key actors. Finally, the norms are internalized
and institutionalized by everyone and become common practice. The
UN, clearly, is instrumental as arena, agent or actor, in the creation and
establishment of norms. For details of norm creation, see McDonald,
Matt. 2018. Constructivism, pp. 50–51. Security Studies: An Introduction,
edited by Williams, Paul D. and McDonald, Matt. London: Routledge;
Finnemore, Martha and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. International Norm
Dynamic and Political Change. International Organizations, vol. 52, no.
4, pp. 887–917; and Florini, Ann. 1996. The Evolution of International
Norms. International Studies Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 363–389.
6. See United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/1. 2005 World
Summit Outcome. A/RES/60/1, 24 October 2005, p. 3. https://bit.
ly/2PxLwrD. Accessed 20 March 2020.
7. Ibid, p. 2.
8. Ibid, p. 30.
9. Ibid, p. 38.
10. Ibid, p. 30.
11. United Nations General Assembly. 2000. Report of the Panel on United
Nations Peace Operations. A/55/305–S/2000/809, 21 August 2000.
https://undocs.org/A/55/305.
13 THE UNITED NATIONS: MANAGING UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS 315
12. For a cogent critique see Pugh, Michael. 2008. Peace Enforcement. The
Oxford Handbook on the United Nations, edited by Weiss, Thomas G.
and Daws, Sam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13. See United Nations General Assembly. 2015. Uniting our strengths
for peace: politics, partnership and people: report of the High-level
Independent Panel on Peace Operations. A/70/95–S/2015/446, 17
June 2015. https://undocs.org/A/70/95‚ and Sidhu, W.P.S. 2015.
Keeping Peace Among Peacekeepers. Mint, 22 June. https://www.liv
emint.com/. Accessed 10 January 2020.
14. Bellamy, Alex J. and Williams, Paul D. 2015. Trends in Peacekeeping
Operations, 1947–2013. The Oxford Handbook of United Nations
Peacekeeping Operations, edited by Koops, Joachim A., Tardy, Thierry,
MacQueen, Norrie, and Williams, Paul D. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, p. 10.
15. See UN Women. https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/about-
un-women and United Nations Security Council resolution 1325.
S/Res/1325, 31 October 2000. https://undocs.org/S/RES/132
5(2000).
16. See United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee.
https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/ and United Nations Security Council
resolution 1373. S/Res/1373, 28 September 2001. https://undocs.
org/S/RES/1373(2001).
17. See United Nations Security Council 1540 Committee. https://www.un.
org/en/sc/1540/ and United Nations Security Council resolution 1540.
S/Res/1540, 28 April 2004. https://undocs.org/S/RES/1540(2004).
18. See Arms Trade Treaty at a Glance. 2016. Arms Control Association,
January. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/arms_trade_treaty and
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at a Glance. 2017.
Arms Control Association, September. https://www.armscontrol.org/fac
tsheets/nuclearprohibition. Accessed 20 March 2020.
19. Sidhu, Waheguru Pal Singh. 2015. Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Managing Proliferation. The UN Security Council: From the Cold War to
the 21st Century, edited by Malone, David, von Einsiedel, Sebastian, and
Ugarte, Bruno Stagno. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
20. United Nations Security Council resolution 2118. S/RES/2118, 27
September 2013, para. 14. https://undocs.org/S/RES/2118(2013).
21. ICAN, which was launched ion 2007 grew to include nearly 500 non-
governmental and civil society organizations in 101 countries by 2017.
http://www.icanw.org/.
22. United Nations General Assembly resolution 70/33. Taking Forward
Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations. A/RES/70/33, 11
December 2015. https://www.undocs.org/A/RES/70/33.
316 W. P. S. SIDHU
23. For details see, Sidhu, Waheguru Pal Singh, Associate Professor, Center
for Global Affairs, New York University. 2017. The Nonproliferation
Review, vol. 24, nos. 5–6, pp. 485–493.
24. See the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017. https://www.nobelprize.org/pri
zes/peace/2017/press-release/. Accessed 20 March 2020.
25. For the origins of HDR and HDI see Sen, Amartya. 1990. Development
as Capability Expansion. Human Development and the International
Development Strategy for the 1990s, edited by Griffin, Keith and Knight
John. London: Macmillan; Haq, Mahbub ul. 1995. Reflections on Human
Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Stanton, Elizabeth A.
2007. The Human Development Index: A History. Political Economy
Research Institute, Working Paper Series 127; and Jolly, Richard. 2018.
Human Development. The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations,
edited by Weiss, Thomas G. and Daws, Sam. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
26. See Malone, David M. and Medhora, Rohinton P. 2016. Development.
The Oxford Handbook of International Organizations, edited by Katz,
Jacob, Hurd, Ian, and Johnstone, Ian. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
27. UN Development Programme officials. Personal interview, July 2019.
28. See United Nations Foundation, Sustainable Development Goals.
https://unfoundation.org/what-we-do/issues/sustainable-development-
goals/. Although the antagonism between the global North and global
South on one hand, as well as the top-down approach (mostly by states)
and the bottom-up approach (primarily by civil society actors) on the
other, made the negotiations contentious, the process was truly global
and democratic.
29. For details see Dodds, Felix, Ambassador Donoghue, David, Leiva
Jimena Roesch. 2017. Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals: A
Transformational Agenda for an Insecure World. New York: Routledge,
and Khan, Farrukh. 2016. The SDG Story: An Insider Account of How
It All Came About. Impakter. https://impakter.com/sdg-story-insider-
account-came/. Accessed 10 January 2020.
30. Sidhu, W.P.S. 2015. Another Development Task for India. Mint, 16
September. https://bit.ly/2PAezeh. Accessed 10 January 2020.
31. United Nations Development Programme. 2013. The Rise of the South:
Human Progress in a Diverse World, pp. 12–13. Human Development
Report 2013. New York: United Nations Development Programme.
The global South is generally understood to be countries that do not
belong to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD), with one or two notable exceptions, such as Chile.
32. Sidhu, W.P.S. 2013. India and the Ascendency of the Global South.
Yojna, pp. 10–13.
13 THE UNITED NATIONS: MANAGING UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS 317
33. United Nations. 2019. SDG Progress Reports 2019: Are We on Track to
Achieve the Global Goals? https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/
news/sustainable/sdg-progress-reports-2019.html. Accessed 10 January
2020.
34. Crossette, Barbara. 2019. As the SDGs Falter, the UN Turns to the Rich
and Famous. PassBlue. https://www.passblue.com/2019/07/23/as-the-
sdgs-falter-the-un-turns-to-the-rich-and-famous/. Accessed 10 January
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318 W. P. S. SIDHU
Further Reading
Independent Commission on Multilateralism. 2016. Pulling Together: The Multi-
lateral System and Its Future. New York: International Peace Institute.
Mingst, Karen A., Karns, Margaret P., and Lyon, Alynna J. 2017. The United
Nations in the 21st Century: Dilemmas in World Politics. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Weiss, Thomas G., and Daws, Sam (eds.). 2018. The Oxford Handbook on the
United Nations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Index
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 321
license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
C. Ankersen and W. P. S. Sidhu (eds.), The Future of Global Affairs,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56470-4
322 INDEX
experiments, 73, 74, 85, 94, 115, globalization, 3, 13, 14, 23–30, 36,
209, 286 37, 40, 41, 53, 54, 60, 68,
98–100, 102, 210, 225, 241,
243, 262
F global South, 9, 53, 152, 302, 304,
Facebook, 9, 10 316
fallacy, 76, 77 global supply chain, 28, 40, 41
fascism, 13 global warming, 2, 14, 24, 41, 42,
feminist foreign policy (FFP), 16, 74, 273, 275, 277, 285, 287
149–152, 156–161, 163–166 Google, 9, 10
financing development, 216, 220 great powers, 13, 14, 24, 30–32,
Fischer, Klaus, 109 37–39, 61, 297, 311
Five-Star Movement, 99 Greece, 55
foreign direct investment (FDI), 28, greenhouse gas emissions, 19, 42,
40, 41, 213, 304 273–275, 277–280, 289
fragile states, 200, 204, 206–209, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 28,
214, 215 33, 61, 99, 101, 102, 205–207,
France, 36, 58, 141, 151, 152, 156, 211, 212, 214, 302, 304
157, 159–161, 163, 165, 169, g7+, 208, 210, 219
261, 301, 304, 309 G77, 306
Free and Open Indo-Pacific, 59 G-20, 58, 210, 211, 214
Freedom House, 5, 35, 36, 309 Guatemala, 205
Friedman, Milton, 97, 103, 116 Guinea, 141
Fuller, J.F.C., 59 Guterres, Antonio, 66, 69, 151, 214,
308
G H
Gambia, 125, 133 Haftar, Khalifa, 159, 161
Gates, Bill, 10, 306, 317 Haier, 110
gender, 8 Haiti, 9, 205, 218, 219
gender equality, 150–156, 158, Hammarskjold, Dag, 313
161–163, 165, 166, 179, 303, Harrington, Mona, 165, 168, 172
305 hegemony, 5, 14, 23, 24, 26, 32, 43,
genocide, 124, 131–133, 138, 144, 57, 150, 164
298 He, Jiankui, 4
geopolitics, 18, 19, 248, 249, 252, higher education, 17, 175, 184, 191,
254, 256, 258, 261, 264, 265 193, 231
Georgia, 128, 142 high-level independent panel on peace
Germany, 36, 38, 211, 254, 256, operations (HIPPO), 299
261, 304 high-level political forum (HLPF),
Global Compact, 115 305
global heating, 271, 272, 276, 283 Holmes, Sherlock, 84
INDEX 325
vulnerability, 18, 223–225, 228, 229, World Economic Forum, 101, 106,
231–239, 242, 243 167, 168, 210, 230, 291, 305
World Health Organization, 47, 272,
291
W
world order, 5, 15, 20, 49, 52, 58,
Wallstrom, Margot, 149, 150, 156,
59, 61, 301, 302
158, 161, 165, 170
World Summit Outcome Document,
Waltz, Kenneth, 14
2005, 297, 314
WannaCry virus, 241
war, 2–4, 8, 12, 14, 24, 28–32, 38, World Trade Organization (WTO), 5,
39, 51, 90, 131, 178, 180, 202, 27, 28, 45, 57, 60
206, 207, 237, 242, 250
war crimes, 124, 127, 131, 135, 137,
138, 144, 298, 310 Y
Washington Consensus, 24 Yazidis, 131
weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Yemen, 2, 63, 69, 163, 217–219,
298–301 299, 308, 309
Weiss, Linda, 53, 65 Yergin, Daniel, 249
Weldon, S. Laurel, 158, 170 Yugoslavia, 38, 124, 128, 130
whataboutism, 75 Yunus, Mohammad, 106
women’s rights, 16, 17, 149, 151–
Yusufzai, Malala, 10
155, 157, 158, 160, 162–164,
166
World Bank, vii, 9, 40, 62, 199, 200,
202, 206, 212, 213, 215, 236, Z
307 zero-sum, 28, 38, 176