Stephen Gill, ed, Critical Perspectives on the Crisis of Global Governance: Reimagining the Future, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. ISBN 978-1-137-44139-3 hbk. Pp. xix + 246.
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RATING: 40
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The focus of the book is on 'global governance as it is, and as it ought to be, at a crucial historical conjuncture', but does not set out to offer 'a single perspective or voice on these questions' (1). That in itself is not a problem, but as it comes hot on the heels of Global Crises and the Crisis of Global Leadership, covers similar themes, and features a similarly off-hand editorial stance, it is hard to discern any driving purpose behind it. Global governance today, Gill contends, reflects an 'imperial system' premised on the primacy of capital, the world market and US geopolitical power, and one that 'also encompasses many of the affluent regions of the world in ways that are predicated upon the maintenance and potentially the expansion of fossil-fuel intensive "market civilization"' (9). But while the introduction dwells at some length on a global organic crisis in which issues of food security, public health, biodiversity and climate change loom large, the same issues are only intermittently addressed directly in the chapters that follow. Instead, Richard Falk argues at a very general level for 'persons of benevolent intention throughout the planet' to unite to achieve 'a global democracy as an operative political framework that transcends the workings of state-centric world order', while Janine Brodie offers a competent survey of three decades of neoliberalism capped by austerity politics, and identifies hopeful signs of change from within UNCTAD, the OECD, and the IMF, which Gill would presumably class among the ruling institutions of the global status quo against which the volume is aimed. Saskia Sassen covers similar ground in an account of transition from Keynesian 'incorporation' to neoliberal 'expulsion', in what is a nice taster for her 2014 monograph, Expulsions. Her argument - that 'more traditional capitalist economies are being destroyed to expand the operational space of advanced capitalism' (75) - parallels others on adverse incorporation (see 85-6), and brings a welcome focus on forms of labour in the world market. In separate chapters, Claire Cutler and Scott Sinclair argue convincingly that global trade and investment regimes constrain democracy, sovereignty, and progressive policy-making; Cutler sees some limited hope for modest improvements through the reform of such regimes, while Scott documents 'a significant and growing worldwide backlash against the excesses of investment protection treaties and investor-state dispute settlement' (12). Unforgivably, though, in Scott's case, there is, I estimate, a 75 per cent word-for-word overlap with his chapter in Gill and Cutler (eds) New Constitutionalism and World Order (2014, pp. 179-96). Isabella Bakker has a chapter on gendered global economic governance which invokes unpaid work and the economy of daily life, but drifts too much in and out of focus to make the contribution to the collection that it should, while Upendra Baxi delivers an uncharacteristically perverse essay which barely meshes with the stated theme of the volume. Gill's conclusion, like the introduction, barely engages with the other contributions, only two of which are mentioned in passing. And where he turns to the notion of the 'postmodern Prince' in order to explore the potential for transformative politics, it is painfully clear that the concept is overdue for both empirical and theoretical renewal.
A good collection need not feature original empirical or theoretical work to generate added value, if it is carefully structured, tightly edited, focused on a sharply defined set of issues, and clear in its conclusions. This volume has none of these features. At a scant 200 pages of text (supplemented by a 34-page bibliography), it short-changes the reader, especially in view of the high level of duplication, redundancy and digression. The combination of disparate contributions and perfunctory editing makes its added value as a collection negligible.
A good collection need not feature original empirical or theoretical work to generate added value, if it is carefully structured, tightly edited, focused on a sharply defined set of issues, and clear in its conclusions. This volume has none of these features. At a scant 200 pages of text (supplemented by a 34-page bibliography), it short-changes the reader, especially in view of the high level of duplication, redundancy and digression. The combination of disparate contributions and perfunctory editing makes its added value as a collection negligible.