Runaway Globalization Without Governance (Global INSIGHTS)
By Global Governance
- Release Date: 2008-04-01
- Genre: Politics & Current Events
Description
Globalization has been with us since the dawn of history, but the notion of trying to govern the interconnections that it has produced is a more recent phenomenon. Governance has thus developed slowly, lagging far behind the trade, travel, and interaction wrought by globalization. Although the gap between globalization and governance has caused problems and resulted in conflict, it was less serious a problem than it is now. As the world has become intimately integrated, the failure of globalization's major players, especially the United States, to develop global rules risks turning globalization in a harmfull direction. In a longue duree historical perspective, globalization has been growing ever since homo sapiens settled into sedentary cultures in river valleys. Connections that began as short forays for trading, exploration, evangelism, and imperial expansion have accelerated over the millennia. As I argue in my book Bound Together, traders, preachers, adventurers, and warriors have continually connected dispersed human communities and civilizations, gradually creating the interconnected society we now label globalized.
