Is there such a thing as Global Governance?: Can it ever be effective?

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - Topic: Development Politics, University of Birmingham (Deprtament of Political Science and International Studies), course: International Political Economy, language: English, abstract: Due to the numerous changes, dynamics and developments in our world in the recent decades, the discussion about the existence, forms, processes, dynamics, actors and the effectiveness of global governance, beyond inter-state cooperation, has continuously intensified. Although there is almost no debate about the simple existence of global governance, there are widespread academic discussions about how to understand the relations between the variety of involved actors and the dynamics they create amongst different issue areas within the global system. This paper discusses the questions if there actually is such a thing as global governance and if it can ever be effective? Therefore, I will first take a short look at some basic definitions, the involved actors and their possible roles within global governance arrangements before I examine different approaches towards the existence, functioning, effectiveness and limitations of global governance. The main idea in this context is to give a brief introduction to current issues, questions and solutions in the actual global governance debate.