Suchergebnisse

Roland Czada fordert in seinem Leviathan-Beitrag, dem (neo)-realistischen Paradigma in den Internationalen Beziehungen den ihm zustehenden Raum zu geben. Der "normative Institutionalismus" - so der Name des imaginierten Gegners - beruhe auf naiven Annahmen und führe die Politik in die Irre. Wenn man die Lakatos-Kriterien für ein progressives Forschungsprogramm heranzieht, ergibt sich ein anderes Bild. Das (neo-)realistische Forschungsprogramm erklärt den russischen Angriff auf die Ukraine kaum, hat Schwierigkeiten, die Reaktionen auf diesen Krieg zu verstehen, und bleibt bei vielen anderen wichtigen Fragen der Weltpolitik seltsam leise. Auch kann man nicht darauf bauen, dass eine (neo-)realistisch angeleitete Politik klüger wäre, weil die Verbindung von Theorie und ihren realen politischen Empfehlungen nur sehr lose ist.

Why did we witness such a strong growth of anti-liberal forces twenty-five years after the triumph of liberalism? The answer is twofold. First, authoritarian populism has not sneaked into a given political space but is co-constitutive of a new cleavage in most modern societies. Authoritarian populists speak to the issues of this cleavage. Second, the rise of this new cleavage and authoritarian populists cannot be reduced to one of the two well-known explanations, namely the economic insecurity perspective and cultural backlash perspective. This current paper develops a political explanation that integrates struggles over policies with a focus on endogenous dynamics of political institutions in and beyond democracies. In this account, it is the historical compromise between labor and capital that has triggered a dynamic in which the rise of so-called non-majoritarian institutions (NMIs)—such as central banks, constitutional courts, and international organizations (IOs)—have locked in liberal policies in most consolidated democracies. This explanation brings together the party cartelization thesis with the observation that NMIs are a major target of contemporary populism. The explanatory model is probed by translating it into descriptive propositions and by showing step by step how the sequence unfolded in electoral democracies.

Compelling visions of how political institutions can be effective and democratic in handling globalization problems is one of our most important predicaments. Political institutions always were deficient in that they were hardly fully effective and democratic. During the prime of liberal democracies, their problem-solving capacity was limited, and the process of making decisions approached democratic ideals at best. Yet the current predicament goes deeper. We lack a compelling vision of ideal political institutions for handling global problems such as climate change. In order to develop this argument, first two criteria for a compelling vision of ideal political institutions are identified. In a second step it is argued that the two currently most crucial institutional visions do not provide convincing accounts for fulfilling these criteria. The paper concludes by suggesting that these weaknesses of both sides of the debate contribute to polarization, thus making the predicament worse.

AbstractThis response to my critics discusses four claims that are central forA Theory of Global Governance. The first claim is that observing a high level of conflict and contestation in world politics is not proof of the unimportance of global governance, since many of the current conflicts and contestations are about international institutions. The second claim is that the 1990s saw a rise of trans- and international authority beyond the nation-state that is essential for the rise of a global political system. Third, a global system of loosely coupled spheres of authority relies on 'critical deference' (reflexive authority) but also contains numerous elements of coercion. And fourth, a technocratic legitimation of intrusive international authorities cannot build on emotions or a sense of belonging. This deficit creates a political opportunity structure that allows for the rise of a myriad of dissenters. The relative importance of them depends on the availability of resources for mobilization and not on the quality of reasons for resistance.

One of the most important features of the multi-level governance research programme is the parallel conceptualisation of the vertical and the horizontal relationships within multi-level governance systems. Different systems of multi-level governance are characterised by the relationships between political institutions on the same level (Are there many task-specific organisations?) and by the relationship between different levels (On which level do we see political communities?). By conceptualising scale and community in a substitutive way as Hooghe and Marks in tendency do, some of the potentials are lost. I put forward the suggestion that treating the two dimensions as independent would allow for an even fuller picture of the dynamics of politics in multi-level governance systems.

AbstractThe omnipresence of radical uncertainty asks for a concept of causality that moves beyond the notion of predicted probabilities. Protean power is a most important contribution to move International Relations research in this direction. Yet, some of the key components need further grounding in existing concepts and debates. First, protean power should include the notion of directionality in order to be power. Second, it should allow for an analysis of the different forms of relation between protean power and different types of uncertainties. And it should focus on features of the power relationship instead of the context in which it takes place to be able to transfer it to contexts other than uncertainty.

Der Artikel trägt zur Diskussion bei, die Floris Biskamp, Michael Hartmann und Carsten Nickel angestoßen haben. In einem ersten Schritt begründe ich die Wahl der Begriffe Kommunitarismus und Kosmopolitismus zur Kennzeichnung der neuen gesellschaftlichen Konfliktlinie. Der entscheidende Punkt ist dabei, dass die neue Konfliktlinie nicht, wie alle bisherigen »cleavages« der Moderne, innerhalb des Gehäuses nationaler Gesellschaften auftritt, sondern es genau um die Grenzen zwischen den Gesellschaften geht. Im zweiten Schritt möchte ich die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von sozio-kulturellen und sozio-ökonomischen Determinanten der neuen Konfliktlinie thematisieren. Dabei ist zum einen mit Hartmann zu unterstreichen, wie eng die entsprechenden Dimensionen zusammenhängen. Zum anderen sollte aber auch die sozio-politische Dimension nicht aus dem Auge verloren werden. Dies führt zum dritten Punkt. Die Suche nach einer Lösung des sozialdemokratischen Dilemmas muss aus dem Käfig der Suche nach den richtigen nationalen Politiken heraustreten. In einer denationalisierten Welt sind nämlich zum einen sozialintegrative Politiken auf der nationalen Ebene immer zugleich exkludierend, und zum anderen geht es nicht nur um die Wahl der richtigen policy, sondern auch um die der richtigen politischen Ebene (der richtigen polity). Das birgt ein sozialdemokratisches Dilemma, das eigentlich nur überwunden werden kann, wenn ein internationaler Rahmen angestrebt wird, der sozialintegrative Politiken möglich macht. Die moderne Sozialdemokratie muss also aus dem Container (Ulrich Beck) nationalstaatlicher Politik heraustreten.

The G20 has two distinctive features that make it a unique forum in global politics. First, it is one of the few existing global platforms where different international institutions and regional organisations can coordinate across a vast array of issue areas and emergent policy fields. Second, it is an institution that brings together heads of government which control roughly 80\% of world GDP. Despite these features, the G20 lacks constitutive authority of its own, bound by a consensus principle which sharply delimits its scope of action. Notwithstanding its circumspect authority, no recent international body has garnered more attention from transnational civil society groups and advocacy networks than the G20. Most of this attention is critical and points to legitimacy problems. We argue that these legitimacy problems derive from a perception of untapped potential and undue privilege for great powers. Against this backdrop, we submit that a more active and institutionalised forum - with clear decision-making procedures for exercising authority - could help mitigate resistance and contribute to a more legitimate global governance system overall.

AbstractThis article aims to contribute to the third generation of global governance research by unfolding the concept of a global governance system consisting of normative principles and patterns of authority relationships and legitimation. The goal is to formulate a positive theory that goes beyond the negative descriptions of global governance as post‐internationalist and helps to move global governance beyond its embryonic state. The major theoretical claim is that the features of the current global governance system have endogenously produced the politicization and counter‐institutionalization of international authorities. Internal tensions of the system fuel legitimation problems and demands for change, which in the end lead – in some cases – to the decline of global governance arrangements or – in other cases – to its deepening via appropriate institutional responses.

This article develops a reason-based social foundation of new forms of authority, which often are liquid and sectorally limited. The recognition of authority hinges, in this view, on reflexive actors who are aware of their own limits of rationality regarding the lack of either information or a perspective that allows for the pursuit of common goods. In such a reflexive concept of authority, authority takers tend to monitor the authorities closely, and the internalization of the subordinate role is not a necessary part of it. Reflexive authority is embedded in the acceptance of a knowledge order that reproduces the authority relationship. In spite of a tendency toward institutionalization, reflexive authority often comes in a liquid state of aggregation, and almost always with a restricted functional scope. Moreover, this new set-up of authority creates social dynamics that add to liquidity. First, the encompassing constitutionalized rule with majoritarian decision making as major source of legitimacy is increasingly undermined by loosely coupled spheres of specialized authorities, which are most often justified on the basis of expertise. We can observe both the rise of international authorities in the absence of coordination between them, and the rise of similar authorities within the nation state that escape control of the democratic core institutions. As a result, authority gets fragmented and different authorities need to adjust to each other. The second implication of the argument is that democratic legitimation narratives become rare, leading to an ongoing legitimatory contestation of authorities. Both these processes make authority even more liquid.