the quest for security, edited by joseph stiglit and mary kaldor

7/28/2019 The Quest for Security, edited by Joseph Stiglit and Mary Kaldor

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IntroductionTe Quest or Global Security

Protection Without Protectionism and the

Challenge of Global Governance

Mary Kaldor and Joseph e. stiglitz

In countries around the world, ordinary citizens eel under threat. As this

book goes to press, citizens in the advanced industrial countries worry

about their jobs and about their uture and that o their children. Will they

be able to retire in comort? Will governments be able to deliver on the re-

tirement benets they promised? Although those in many o the emerging

markets have never had things so good, they understand the precariousness

o their ortunes.

For those who see their way beyond the immediacy o the economic

crisis, there are more insecuritiesrom violence, whether the home-bred

domestic variety or that o terrorists rom abroad. And urther into theuture lie the risks posed by climate change.

In other parts o the world, this gradation o risk operates the other

way round. Te threats o violence and climate change are experienced as

immediate dangers. In zones o insecurity, people are killed, raped, robbed,

expelled rom their homes, kidnapped, or taken hostage. And in environ-

mentally vulnerable areas, they are the victims o excessive ooding or o

amine on an increasing scale. And beyond these immediate dangers, they

are oen extremely poor, living on less than a dollar a day, without accessto clean water and sanitation, healthcare, jobs, or even homes.

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t h e Q u e s t f o r g l o b a l s e c u r i t y

o be sure, individuals have always aced risks. Farmers were exposed

to the variability o weather. Tose in coastal areas worried about maraud-

ing pirates. Tere were always earthquakes, hurricanes, and droughts. But

todays risks are unpredictable, with what statisticians call at tails, smallprobabilities o very, very bad outcomes. In the global nancial crisis, ex-

ports o some countries ell by more than percent. In some countries,

youth unemployment has reached percent.

Moreover, many o these risks are global in nature. And this means

that they may be beyond the ability o individual countries coping capac-

ity. In traditional arming communities, the community provided a support

system or those who were temporarily acing hardship. As the nation-state

ormed, responsibility or social protection shied to the state and or goodreason. Some o the most important risks aected virtually everyone in the

community; the risks were highly correlated. Te nation-state had scal

resources that were greater than that o the individual or the market.

In some ways, today the small nation-state is like the small rural com-

munity. Many o the risks are national in charactersuch as a national

economic downturn. Small countries eel at the mercy o events beyond

their control, and they ace limited resources. Tere is little that Greece or

Ireland can do to restore their own economy. I the European and globaleconomies prosper, their economy will prosper; and i these economies do

not, neither will theirs.

Tere is, however, a dierence: Most o the risks acing arming com-

munities were rom acts o naturea ood or drought. Many o the risks

acing countries today are man-made. Policies at the national and global

level aect both the risks that individuals and countries ace and their ca-

pacity to respond.

Globalization has increased the scale and velocity o risk. A problem

anywhere in the system can move quickly across borders. We saw how thesubprime mortgage crisis in the United States quickly became a global

crisis. Avian u and SARS showed how diseases too could move quickly

around the world. errorismal-Qaedahas become global. rying to de-

prive it o a homeland in one country does little good; it quickly shis its

base o operations elsewhere.

Even though globalization has increased risks in these ways, it has

simultaneously decreased the ability o the nation-statethe political

unit that in the preceding decades had increasingly taken on the role oprotectionto perorm these roles. O course, the extent to which this

is true varies. Large nations such as the United States or China retain an



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t h e Q u e s t f o r g l o b a l s e c u r i t y 3independent capacity to act. Middle-ranking nations have oen ceded sov-

ereignty to larger entities such as the European Union (EU), while some

smaller states have become so weak that they are termed ragile or ailing

states. Globalization has undermined the states abilities in several ways.First it has, whether intentionally or not, reduced the power o taxation,

particularly o capital. As capital became more mobile, it could move more

easily rom any jurisdiction in which it was (in its view) excessively taxed

or regulated to another jurisdiction where it was more avorably treated.

Labor, or the most part, did not have that option o easy mobility. But at

least part o social protection is protecting the poor and the most vulner-

able, and these implicit restrictions on revenue-raising rom those most

able to contribute le many states bere o the unds required or an ad-equate social protection system.

Not only was the state potentially eviscerated through these limita-

tions in taxation, international rules and standards were established that

restricted the reedom o the state to act in ways that might protect its citi-

zens. Implicitly, more and more o the legislative power was delegated. Rules

or trade and nance were set, at least partially, in the international arena.

rade agreements, or instance, orced governments to substitute taris or

quotas; and although there are some advantages o tarifcation, the changealso exposed countries to more risk (Dasgupta and Stiglitz ). Until

recently, trade agreements and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

pushed countries toward capital and nancial market liberalizationthe

abolition o regulations that helped stabilize cross-border capital ows,

resulting in increasing macroeconomic volatility (Stiglitz et al. 2).

Globalization has also eroded the monopoly o violenceoen

regarded as the dening characteristic o what makes a state. Only a ew

large nations such as the United States, Russia, China, or India still retain

the capacity to use their military orces unilaterally, although even theyare theoretically bound by the UN charter that prohibits the use o orce

except in sel-deense or i authorized by the UN Security Council. For

most states, their orces are integrated into collective security arrangements

such as NAO or the EU, and their budgets are insufcient to nance all

but limited provision o security services. In many states, the capacity to

enorce law and order and to protect people even rom everyday crime

is also greatly weakened and reduced to their only having the capacity to

protect the ruling elites.O course, governments voluntarily ceded sovereignty, but especially

smaller countries elt they had little choice. I they didnt go along with the



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international agreements, they risked becoming pariahs, or at the very least

not partaking o the benets that would come rom global economic inte-

gration. Tey might console themselves that these were agreements made

among democratic governments, so that even i their own democratic insti-tutions had had little role in craing them, at least other democratic voices

had been heard. But that was only partially true. Economic agreements

were typically negotiated by ministries (such as that o trade and industry)

and usually more closely linked to special interests. In the United States,

trade agreements were approved on a ast-track basis, which meant that

Congress could only vote yes or no, without any say in the provisions that

went into them. Only when civil society groups mounted a concerted cam-

paign, or instance, to give poor countries some access to lie-saving drugs,was the power o the pharmaceutical companies to dictate the terms o the

intellectual property provisions eectively challenged.

In one way or another, the world has long been globalizedto which

colonialism and two world wars bear testimony. But globalization only

became a subject o controversyit only became visibleaer the end

o the Cold War. Te bipolar order had dominated the way we perceived

the world. Growing interconnectedness and the prevalence o new and old

risks were obscured by our preoccupation with the EastWest conict. Tebinary thinking to which we were habituated allowed the collapse o com-

munism to be interpreted as a victory or the United States. Tis interpreta-

tion was also a victory or a particular set o ideas that assumed increasing

ascendancy in the years aer the Cold War, a period that saw the United

States become the sole superpower. American-style capitalism, based on

notions that ree and unettered markets were the best orm o economic

organization, reigned supreme.2 Unbridled U.S. military power would as-

sure a Pax Americana. Americas military machine, triumphant rom its

victory in the Cold War, aced a slight downscaling under President Clin-ton, but still, the United States was spending close to percent o what the

entire world was spending on deense. Without any apparent enemies, the

amounts seemed disproportionate.

t r rk pm

Tat easy world has now been irrevocably disturbed. Te events o /brought home the point that all o that spending didnt sufce to protect

the United States rom a terrorist attack inside its own borders. Iraq showed



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t h e Q u e s t f o r g l o b a l s e c u r i t y 5that all o that spendingand much morecould not assure an easy vic-

tory against a ragmented and disorderly set o enemies. Western troops

will withdraw rom Aghanistan in 24, but it is unlikely that Aghanistan

will be any saer. Indeed, it is air to say that the United States is yet anothercountry in a long line (which included Russia and the United Kingdom)

to have to admit deeat in that mountainous terrain. Increasingly the War

on error has transmuted to a long-distance campaign o drone strikes,

which may be successul in killing the leaders o al-Qaeda but contributes

to a pervasive and disorderly sense o insecurity in those regions where the

campaigns are conducted. And this war, rather than containing the inse-

curity presented by al-Qaeda and terrorists, hasat least to some extent

spread it. It has now spilled over to Pakistan, Yemen, and parts o Arica.And Americas economic machine, on which all o its military and

other strengths rested, was shown to be more ragile than even its harsh-

est critics had suggested. Te economic crisis exposed a dysunctional

nancial system that enriched itsel at the expense o others by predatory

lending and by dishonest and anti-competitive practicesnot by eats o

economic wizardry that had led to an economy that was truly more pro-

ductive, as it had claimed. It showed a country where most citizens had

seen their income decline or more than a decade; a country that, to main-tain internal law and order, had to imprison a larger raction o its citizens

than any other; a country that, as it projected military strength abroad, was

marked by high levels o violence at home.

Tere is no longer condence in the ability o ree and unettered mar-

kets to assure economic security. And there is no longer condence in the

ability o the United States to assure the world o its military security, let

alone the security o the rest o the world.

In the absence o this security, inward retreat is a concern. In the

economic sphere, what such a retreat would mean is clear. It would al-most surely entail a high level o protectionism. In the security sphere,

this would result in another kind o protectionismwhere groups o in-

dividuals turn not to the state as the source o their physical security but

to their own devicesthat o the private security company in the gated

community, the ethnic militias in sectarian conicts, or the drug cartels

or the maa in many global cities. But the danger is that even when these

new privatized groups were originally intended to provide protection

against outside threats, they can easily turn against and/or exploit thevery people they were supposed to protect. Tis is what is increasingly

happening.



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6 t h e Q u e s t f o r g l o b a l s e c u r i t y

Globalization has brought with it problems, but it has also brought

with it benets. It has contributed to the spread o democracy and human

rights. And, when well-managed, globalization has even contributed to

economic prosperity. It has contributed to moving hundreds o millions opeople out o poverty in the developing world. Te worry is that mindless

protectionism will be costly to those very people who have gained rom

globalizationto those in the developing world who have beneted rom

the unprecedented global growth o the past hal century, as well as to those

in the developed world, who enjoy the bounty o inexpensive goods even as

jobs become threatened. Protectionism means the risk o losing all o this.

s p W pm

Tere is an alternative path, a reordering o the global economy and society,

which entails social protection without protectionism. By social protection,

we mean ar more than just an economic saety net or those at the very

bottom. Tats not good enough or those in the middle who see their lie-

style in jeopardy. Tey want some security against any signicant loss in

living standards.Te issue o protection o society, as we conceive it, goes ar beyond

economics. Citizens are worried about the environment and their physical

security. In the United States, they worry too about access to healthcare.

Everywhere, there are worries among all but the very rich about whether

citizens will be able to have a comortable retirement, and whether their

children will be able to live as well as their parents.

In many countries, citizens are being told that, although the market

may not provide the hoped or security, neither can government. We sim-

ply cant aord it. Te competition resulting rom globalization, it is said,orces us to be meaner and leaner, and that means we have to scale back

social protection. But there is a curious irony in such claims. Globaliza-

tion is deended as enriching living standards; yet, it is said, globalization

prevents society rom providing one o the essential things individuals care

aboutsecurity.

We believe that such a conclusion is wrong. Globalization is supposed

to have increased GDP, and i so, it should have increased the resources

we have available. We have choices about what to do with those resources.We can (as the United States has been doing) devote large amounts to the

military and incarceration. We could, alternatively, devote more resources



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t h e Q u e s t f o r g l o b a l s e c u r i t y 7to social protection. I we ail to pursue policies that result in most citizens

being better o as a result o globalization, there is likely to be a retreat

toward protectionism.

We subtitle this book Protection Without Protectionism and the Chal-lenge o Global Governance because the retreat in economics to protec-

tionism is a metaphor or what could happen in these other arenasin the

ction that by retreating into their own shells, countries can insulate them-

selves rom these risks coming rom outside their boundaries. Likewise, the

protectionism o local strongmen and private guards can never be more

than temporary and will only exacerbate a growing market in violence. Te

gated communities with their high walls are symbolic o such attempts

and reect the act that even though the orces giving rise to insecurity maybe global, the impacts and responses are oen local.

t n g r

Local and national responses will never be ully adequate in dealing

with these global problems. Tis is most evident in the arena o global

warmingmaintaining the global environment is called a global public

good. Everyone, regardless o where they live, is aected by the increase

in carbon concentration in the atmosphere, or the emergence o ozone

holes. I the global consensus in the scientic community proves correct,

Americas carbon emissions will have devastating eects on araway places,

rom island states that within a century will no longer exist, to a third o

Bangladesh that will be submerged. Economists ocus on incentives, and

under current arrangements, those in the United States do not bear the

costs o the externalities that their actions have on others, and so they

have little incentive to reduce their emissions. Tere would be large globalsocietal benets rom having individuals and rms in the United States

(and other polluting countries) bear the ull costs o their actions. Such

disparities between social and private benets and costs provide part o the

traditional rationale or collective action.

Sometimes, the eects o the externalities (or the benets o public

goods) are elt only locally. (In the case o public goods, these are reerred

to as local public goods.) In that case, the natural locus o collective action

is local. Sometimes, the eects are elt nationally, and the natural locus ocollective action is national. But increasingly, externalities and public goods

have a global reach, and so collective action should occur at the global level.



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Otherwise, there is the risk o a ree rider. I all countries but the United

States were to restrict their emissions enough, the world might avoid at

least the worst risks o global warming, yet the United States would be able

to continue to enjoy its energy- and its emissions-proigate liestyle. Otherswill, o course, view this as unair, and their citizens might reuse to support

emissions reductions. Without a global agreementa global social con-

tract, a new covenantat best there will be too many emissions; at worst,

there will be no agreement at all or emissions reductions.

t iq c am

Te approach pushed by the United Stateswhere each country announces

its own targets or emission reductions, and there is a global agreement on

transparency to see that countries live up to their own targetsis likely to

prove inadequate. It does not address the ree rider problem at all. Worse

still, it encourages countries to be modest in their targetsi the locus o

criticism is on ailing to live up to ones targets, then the easiest way to avoid

criticism is to set low targets. Tis is especially true in a context where

there are not even agreed-upon norms. o the developing world (and evenamong many in the developed world), the only air set o targets would

be those where each country has (per capita) the same rights to atmo-

spheric carbon space. For example, i the aggregate amount o emissions

that the world could absorb rom, say, 2when the problem o global

warming was ormally recognized by the international community

onward in order or global warming o more than two degrees centigrade

to be avoided with a probability o percent is so much, then each coun-

try should have a share o that space in proportion to what its population

was in 2. Tis means that because the United States has used up mucho its carbon space in the two decades o unrestrained emissions, it should

reduce its annual emissions by ar more than percent in the uture. I

it reduces its emissions slowly, then it will have to reduce its emissions in

the uture even more. But to many Americans, the relevant norm is emis-

sions per dollar o GDPand in these terms, the United States is better

than China. With such disparities in how each country conceives o what

its air contribution to reducing emissions should be, and with such

perverse incentives in announcing targets, an approach where it is le toeach country to announce its own commitments or emission reductions

is unlikely to work.



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t h e Q u e s t f o r g l o b a l s e c u r i t y 9Te problems conronting the international community in dealing

with global warming are illustrative o those that appear in so many other

areas. Globalization allowed products produced by one countrys nancial

markets to be sold reely elsewhere. America polluted the world with itstoxic mortgages. Inside the United States, there is a principle in environ-

mental economics that says that polluters should pay or the damage that

they create. It is called the polluter pays principle. It is a matter not just o

equity but also o efciency. I polluters do not bear the consequences o

their actions, they have incentives to pollute too much. Tis principle is

the basis o U.S. laws on the clean-up o toxic waste dumps. But America

bore none o the costs o cleaning up the consequences o the toxic assets

that it dumped around the world. Its bankers made prots; those elsewherebore the losses. I global rules allow the United States to continue to sell

its deective products elsewhere without bearing the consequencesand i

buyers elsewhere continue to buy these productsthen there is no reason

either or American rms not to sell these products or or American regu-

lators to curb its rms. o the contrary, there can be a race to the bottom.

Te jurisdiction with the least onerous regulations and taxation may garner

or itsel the most business. Interestingly, in the recent debate on nancial

regulation (and in particular in discussions on a global bank levy to helppay or the costs imposed by banks on the rest o society), the United States

took the same position that it took in climate change: Tere should be no

global rules. Each country (in the position o the American administration)

should set its own levies. But that cannot be the basis o standard setting in

a world with global competition and ree capital mobilitywhere the race

to the bottom results in such adverse eects.

And the same argument can be applied in the security sphere. Amer-

icas wars in Iraq and Aghanistan against al-Qaeda have had the opposite

eect o recruiting more young men to the Islamist cause, and the victimshave been primarily Aghans and Iraqis but also, o course, Spaniards, In-

donesians, Londoners, and Americans as well. Te use o military orce in

areas where everyday social protection (against violence and material de-

privation) is lacking only makes things worseescalating a range o cross-

border risks such as terrorism and organized crime.

Tere are, o course, realists who say this normative approach is

irrelevant; all that really matters is power. Power resides in the nation-state

and, in the international arena, in the most powerul o the nation-states.Te United States uses international institutions and preaches the gospel

o globalization when it is convenientwhen that policy advances its own



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interests. Tus, the global institutions are mainly instruments or the pro-

jection and continuation o existing power relationships. Consider, or in-

stance, the issue o development. Te UN may be a democratic talk shop,

but real power lies in the IMF and the World Bank, still eectively con-trolled by the advanced industrial countries.

Much o the international discussion over global governance ts within

such a mold. In the East Asia crisis, the United States resisted Japans

proposaland oer o $ billionor the creation o an Asian monetary

und, which arguably could have led to a shorter and shallower downturn

in the region and enhanced regional stability going orward. It did so pre-

sumably out o ear that it would diminish U.S. inuence, its hegemony, and

that o the IMF, where it had veto power.4,More recently, the G2 endorsed the idea that the heads o the inter-

national organizations be chosen on the basis o merit, rather than the cur-

rent system, where the head o the World Bank is always an American, and

the head o the IMF is always a European. But even key heads o oreign

governments who pushed the idea were concerned about why the United

States may have gone along. Te IMF was more central to U.S. interests

than the World Bank, and the new agreement may simply have been paving

the way or the World Bank to be headed by someone rom the develop-ing world and the IMF to be headed by an American. But in the rst two

appointments made aer the G2 agreement (at the IMF and the World

Bank, respectively), the status quo was maintained. A European was chosen

to head the IMF and an American to head the World Bankeven though,

in the latter case, excellent candidates rom the developing worldwith ar

more relevant experience than the American candidatewere nominated.

Te global economy is changing rapidly, but global governance is changing

ar more slowly.

Still, institutions, once created, take on a lie o their own, whateverthe motives o those who were instrumental in their creation. Te United

States may have seen the World rade Organization (WO) as a way o

getting other countries to open their markets, but the international rule

o lawawed as it may behas provided a check on U.S. protectionism.

Americas cotton subsidies have been declared to be WO-illegal. And yet,

things didnt work out the way that most thought. Rather than eliminating

its subsidies, the United States bribed Brazil to accept its subsidies. Brazil

was compensated, but the ar poorer people in Arica remain victims o thelower cotton prices brought on by Americas cotton subsidies.



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t h e Q u e s t f o r g l o b a l s e c u r i t y 11So too, the euro has taken on a lie o its own. Te European Union

and the eurozone can be viewed as an experiment in economic integra-

tion. Tings have not gone as predicted. Tis has been especially clear as

the eurozone crisis has unolded, with Spain and Greece in deep depres-sion and no end in sight. Te construction o the euro was atally awed

a monetary union was established without a scal, banking, or political

union. Now there are ears that the euro will collapse, leaving a trail o

beggar-thy-neighbor policies that will reduce economic prosperity and

contribute to pervasive insecurity not just in Europe but worldwide. Te

euro will only be saved i European states are ready to cede much more

power to collective institutions, a sort o model o global governance.

g gv W g gvm

oday we have a system o global governance without global government

an array o institutions and agreements (global, regional, bilateral) aect-

ing every aspect o lie. It is an imperect system, one which, as we have

seen, imperectly addresses many o the key areas where there is a need

or global collective action. Yet in many areas it has been moving in theright direction. Global norms have been or are being established, such as

those concerning human rights and civil liberties. In the Great Recession

o 28, even though many countries (including the United States) resorted

to protectionism, they did so to a ar less extent than they did in the Great

Depression, partly because o restraints imposed by the WO and global

pressure brought to bear by the G2.

Te silo-like nature o global governance in practice with trade min-

isters, or instance, negotiating with trade ministersinhibits the ability

to take systemic perspectives and provides excessive scope or special in-terests to exercise their inuence. One result is that we sometimes impose

standards where we shouldnt, and we dont have them where we should;

and oen the standards that are imposed are more reective o corporate

interests than o general interests.

Another major limitation on global governance is the inadequacy o

enorcement mechanisms. Yet even here, there has been some progress.

Te Montreal convention restricting ozone-destroying gases was eective,

partly because o the threat o trade sanctions against any country violatingthe agreement.



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Countries have been granted the right to impose taris in the interests

o global environmental public goods (in the shrimpturtle appellate deci-

sion). European courts have barred extradition to the United States when

U.S. punishments are out o line with international norms.Part o the reason or progress in global governance is the growing

recognition that many o the problems are beyond the ability o any single

stateeven the most powerul and the richestto solve, especially when it

is constrained by new norms, such as on the uses and abuses o that power.

Financial constraints too have played a role. I the United States believes

that it is providing a global public good in its ght against terrorism, it is

no surprise that it should expect others to make a contribution to the costs

o this war. Te United States has turned to its allies to help in the war inAghanistan. But it has ailed to understand that global cooperation, in a

world without global government, is built on trust and on shared under-

standing. I the United States reuses to respond to concerns, say, o Euro-

pean countries on issues that they view as vitalsuch as climate changeit

will inevitably be more difcult or the United States to elicit support in

areas that it views o vital concern to itsel, such as in Aghanistan. And

i it seeks nancial support, the United States must also realize that it will

not get that support without ceding some control over decision-making.For instance, many other countries are skeptical that terrorism can be ad-

dressed through military orce; they ear that the War on error is creating

terrorists. A move toward global governance must entail a public global

discussion about the best ways to deal with the risks and dangers o our

contemporary world.

Tus, there are deep contradictions in our current system o global

governance that reect and sometimes conceal the large imbalances in

economic, political, and military power and inconsistencies in underlying

ideologies. We speak o democracy, and yet ew in the advanced industrialcountries would support a global system based on one man, one vote. Te

advanced countries are even reluctant to cede power to those rom the

emerging markets, even as they seek their nancial assistance and even as

they recognize the enormous changes in the global balance o economic

power that have occurred in recent years. We speak o open markets,

and yet we worry about being ooded by products rom low-wage coun-

tries. We may cover up our distrust o open markets by talking about air

trade, but surely we must understand that changing global comparativeadvantages will put the wages o highly paid workers in the advanced in-

dustrial countries in jeopardy. We speak o human equality, yet the lives



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t h e Q u e s t f o r g l o b a l s e c u r i t y 13o Aghans and Iraqis or Somalis matter less than the lives o Americans

or citizens o NAO countries.

ex tm

Tese are exceptional times. Te world is acing a series o cataclysmic

eventsthe nancial crisis o 28, the current euro crisis, the Fuku-

shima nuclear accident, the revolutions in the Middle East. Exceptional

times are times that allow us to see new patterns and that open up new

ways o understanding the world. Tey are moments when marginalized

groups are able to introduce their ideas into public opinion. A sizeablebody o citizenry in the United States and other countries has become

cosmopolitanseeing the world through a lens o global social justice. Te

activists involved in the Arab awakening and the Occupy movement in

Europe and the Americas are widening this lens to a broader population.

Tey are challenging the prevailing orthodoxies and developing a critique

o the way in which national political elites are more responsive to global

corporate and banking interests than to their own electorates. Even i these

movements have not (or a variety o reasons) brought about the politi-cal changes that many hoped, it is clear that the current wave o popular

mobilization is striking a chord with the mainstream. Tis is a new global

generation that takes interconnectedness and communication across the

world or granted. Tey represent a possible starting point or a new global

debate.

Ideas matter, and ideas about what a air and just worldand a air

and democratic system o global governancemight look like are shap-

ing debates about globalization and about how it could be managed better.

Even in comparison with the moment when we organized our conerence,we believe that the arguments and proposals in this book are becoming

increasingly relevant or any systematic analysis o current global risks and

problems. We hope that the ideas presented here will help in articulating

the questions that we should be asking and providing at least the begin-

nings o answers.

Tis book is part o a rapidly developing new eld o globalization and

global governance that ocuses on the global community and global col-

lective action. It is distinct rom international relations, which ocuses onrelations among nation-states. Nation-states are key actors in globalization,

but they are not the sole actors. Tere is no global government, but there is,



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as we have noted, a complex system o global governance. At the center,

o course, are international institutions, such as the IMF, WO, the World

Bank, and a host o international conventions and treaties, helping to create

a global legal ramework. International NGOs and social movements helpshape global policy. And increasingly, the reach o global law extends down

below the level o the nation-state to that o the individual and is reected

in the establishment o the International Criminal Court and the UN agree-

ment on the responsibility to protect.

Tis book looks at what has traditionally been one o the central respon-

sibilities o the nation-stateproviding security to its citizens, protecting

them against risks posed, or instance, by the threat o violence, economic

disorder, or environmental hazards. As we have noted, today many o therisks come rom beyond the nation-state and have to be addressed glob-

ally. Tis book is unusual in bringing together discussions o three arenas

that are typically covered by scholars rom distinct elds. Security experts,

environmentalists, political scientists, sociologists, and economists seldom

break bread together, let alone engage in analytic discussions or in policy

debates. We brought these disparate scholars together partly because we

believe that there are strong parallels between what is going on in each

o these areasa study in one arena may provide insights into the others.But there is an even more proound reason why these topics need to be

addressed together. Tey are inextricably intertwined. Te ailure to pro-

vide a modicum o economic security is giving rise to extremism, which

may maniest itsel in violence and physical insecurity. Violence, in turn,

impedes growth and leads to economic insecurity. oday, in many parts o

the world, climate change is bringing droughts, oods, and unparalleled

levels o economic insecurity. And i the consequences o this economic

insecurity in places such as Pakistan are not addressed better than they

have been, there is more than a little risk that already high levels o violencewill worsen.

Te problems are intertwined but so too may be the solutions. Insur-

gencies may be arrested through providing greater economic protection.

Te attempt to reduce carbon emissions can create new jobs that will be an

engine o growth or the global economy or years to come.

We stand at a halway point. Te nation-state still remains at the

center, but it is not up to the task o adequately protecting citizens rom the

threatseconomic, physical, environmental, and healththat arise romoutside its borders. Te international community is not yet at the stage o

providing protection or even o adequately mitigating the risks. In some



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t h e Q u e s t f o r g l o b a l s e c u r i t y 15cases, the international institutions that have been created are so awed that

they may even be exacerbating the risks. Yet, there is a beginning. Tere are

nascent institutions; there is a promise that they will rise to the task ahead,

or at least do better than they have in the past. Te chapters in this volumeare descriptive and prescriptive. Tey describe where we are in global gov-

ernance today and point to what needs to be done in the uture.

Te chapters in this volume provide a convincing case that the world

can provide protection without protectionism in each o the arenas that

we examine: Tat economic, physical, and environmental security can

be enhanced best by global cooperation, ar better than can be achieved

by withdrawing behind closed doors. Tat this is the better way is clear.

Whether it is the path the world will take is less so.Tis volume is divided into ve parts. Te rst three parts discuss key

areas in which insecurity has maniested itsel: economic insecurity, physi-

cal insecurity, and climate insecurity. But although the threats that arise in

each o these areas can only be addressed through the lens o globalization,

they play out at every level. Indeed, it is oen at the most local level, within

cities, that we see their ull eects and also the potential that cities oer or

implementing global policies. Tis is analyzed in the ourth section. Part 4

examines some o the challenges posed to local communities. Finally, part discusses the implications or our evolving system o global governance.

n

. Although the enorcement capability o the UN may be limited, increasingly

citizens within countries eel reluctant to engage in war without the sanction o the UN.

2. At the same time, Americas dominance o the international scene meant that it

no longer had to compete or the hearts and minds o those in the Tird World. It could

now impose its interests (or more accurately, its corporate and nancial interests) on

those elsewhere, cloaking them with a ree-market rhetoric.

. In 2, U.S. military expenditure was 4 percent o world military expenditure

in current U.S. dollar reerence (World Development Indicators, World Bank, 2).

4. Even i the United States had not opposed this initiative, it might not have been

brought to ruition, but U.S. opposition ensured its ailure.

. So too, the United States opposed the UKs proposal or the creation o a strong

Financial Stability Board (FSB) that would help create stronger nancial regulatory

standardso the kind that might have avoided the crisis ten years laterbecause that

would cede power to a body that might be pushing in a direction that was the oppositeo the dangerous deregulatory agenda that the U.S. reasury was pursuing. (Instead,

a much weaker FSB was created, which helped codiy the deregulatory standards.



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o be air, even i a stronger regulatory body had been created, it is unlikely that stron-

ger standards would have been adopted, with the opposition o the Bush administration

wedded to a deregulatory philosophy.)

. See, or instance, the discussion in chapter o J. E. Stiglitz, Making Globaliza-tion Work (2).

r

Dasgupta, P. and J. E. Stiglitz, , aris Versus Quotas As Revenue Raising Devices

Under Uncertainty,American Economic Review, 67():8.

Stiglitz, J. E., 2, Making Globalization Work, New York: W. W. Norton.

Stiglitz, J. E., J. A. Ocampo, S. Spiegel, R. French-Davis, and Deepak Nayyar, 2,Stability with Growth, Oxord: Oxord University Press.

World Bank, 2, World Development Indicators2, available at http://data.

worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators/wdi-2 (accessed

November , 22).


the quest for security, edited by joseph stiglit and mary kaldor

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