Global governance - comparison grids - key concepts

The concepts

• Economic global governance (tap to reveal) - The organisations and rules that manage the global economy, such as the IMF and WTO.
• Global governance (tap to reveal) - The way the world tries to manage shared problems through international organisations and agreements, without having a single world government.
• Environmental governance (tap to reveal) - The system of rules, institutions and agreements at all levels that manage how the environment is protected, including international treaties and national agencies.
• Global commons (tap to reveal) - Areas and resources that no single country owns, such as the oceans, the atmosphere, and Antarctica.
• Accountability to public (tap to reveal) - The idea that leaders and organisations must answer to the people they affect.
• Agricultural protection (tap to reveal) - When governments use special rules to protect their farmers from foreign competition.
• Anthropocentrism (tap to reveal) - The idea that humans come first in moral thinking and that nature matters mainly because it is useful to people. Shallow ecologists take this view; deep ecologists reject it.Use it: Use in shallow vs deep ecology debates. Sustainable development and green capitalism are anthropocentric approaches; deep ecology/ecocentrism rejects this. Also links to Just War debates about whose lives count in humanitarian intervention (human-centred vs sovereignty-centred).
• Asian values (human rights debate) (tap to reveal) - The claim by some Asian governments that their cultures value the community over the individual, and that Western human rights ideas do not automatically apply to them. Critics say this is an excuse for authoritarianism.Use it: Use as key example of cultural relativism in human rights debate. Shows that universal human rights face challenge not just from state power but from competing philosophical frameworks. Link to Bangkok Declaration (E162) and difficulty of enforcing universal standards. Counter with Sen: Asian history contains strong traditions of tolerance and freedom too.
• Blair Doctrine / Liberal interventionism (tap to reveal) - Tony Blair's argument that the world community can and should send military forces into countries committing mass atrocities, because sovereignty is not a right to commit crimes against your own people.Use it: Use as the clearest liberal articulation of conditional sovereignty. Contrast with realist critique (states have no obligation to risk lives for strangers). Link to R2P as institutionalisation of same idea. Use legacy of Iraq 2003 to evaluate limits: doctrine discredited by strategic misuse and double standards.
• Brundtland definition (sustainable development) (tap to reveal) - Using resources today in a way that does not prevent future generations from meeting their own needs. Introduced by the 1987 Brundtland Report, it became the standard definition behind all global environmental agreements since Rio 1992.Use it: Use as the founding definition of sustainable development in all environmental governance questions. Note the tension between "weak sustainability" (growth is fine as long as it is sustainable) and "strong sustainability" (deep ecology: stop growth altogether). Link to Rio 1992, Kyoto, and Paris as implementation of Brundtland principles in international law.
• Carrying capacity (environmental) (tap to reveal) - The maximum number of people or organisms the Earth can support without permanently damaging the natural systems that life depends on.
• Common but differentiated responsibilities (tap to reveal) - The idea in climate diplomacy that all countries must help protect the environment, but richer countries that caused most of the damage must do more and help poorer countries to act.
• Common humanity (tap to reveal) - The idea that all human beings share the same basic nature and dignity, regardless of where they come from, forming the foundation for human rights.
• Common purpose (tap to reveal) - When countries agree on what they want to achieve and work together towards it.
• Common values (tap to reveal) - Widely shared principles like human rights and democracy that countries use as a basis for international rules.
• Consensus (tap to reveal) - When all countries in an organisation must agree before a decision can be made.
• Cultural relativism (human rights) (tap to reveal) - The idea that there are no universal human rights because what counts as a right depends on your culture. Different societies have different values, so Western human rights cannot be imposed on everyone.Use it: Use as the main counter to universalism in human rights debates. Link to Bangkok Declaration (Asian values), Islamic critiques, and the difficulty of enforcing UDHR in non-Western contexts. Counter with Sen's argument that all cultures have internal traditions of freedom and that cultural relativism is used by authoritarian governments to suppress dissent.
• Democratic legitimacy (tap to reveal) - The right to govern based on being chosen by the people through free elections.