Research Proposal on "Global Governmentality"

Research Proposal 6 pages (1679 words) Sources: 0 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces by Wendy Larner and William Walters

Counting a total of 262 pages, Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces was published in 2004 under the aegis of Routledge printing company and it deals with a series of novel concepts of global politics. The book is interesting in numerous ways, commencing with the innovative stands it takes relative to various issues, as well as the writing style which makes it a valuable reading and addition to the library of any politics specialist, as well as a novice or a simple individual looking to enhance his knowledge of the world.

The book commences with an introductory part written by Wendy Larner and William Walters and is then organized in two parts and twelve chapters as follows: Part One: Rethinking Key Concepts, with the adjacent chapters: (1) Liberalism -- what's in a name? By Barry Hindess, (2) Nomos and the politics of world order by Mitchell Dean, (3) Global Networks, international networks, actor networks, by Gavin Kendall and (4) The security of governance by Michael Dillon.

The second part of the work is entitled Problems, practices, assemblages, regimes and commences with chapter (5) Governing through the social: representations of poverty and global governmentality by Cristina Rojas to continue with chapters (6) The international government of refugees by Robyn Lui, (7) The clash of governmentalities: displacement and return in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Gearroid O. Tuathail and Carl Dahlman, (8) The political responsibility of European integration by William Walters, (9) Forms of governance, governmentality and the EU's Open Method of Coordination by Roger Dale, (10) Ethic Capitalism by Andrew Barry, (11) Global benchmarking: participating 'at a distance' in the globalization economy by Wendy Larner and Richard Le Heron and finally, chapter (12) Insecurity and the dream of targeted governance by Mariana Valverde and Michael Mopas.

A single look at the contents of the Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces will reveal that the book is not as integrant as one might have initially believed, but that in fact it represents a collection of stories from global situations, global perspectives and presented from various standpoints. While this structure might make the book seem less naturally flowing and may make it difficult for the reader to link the information in a chapter written by one author to the information in a following chapter written by a different author, or even authors, it does have the benefit of presenting the issues of interest from various angles and allowing as such the reader to make an informed and objective opinion based on the works of various researchers.

Before the actual preamble of the book, the authors found it would be useful and ethical to mention all those who contributed to the writing of the volume. All the editors are specialized researchers and the first pages offer valuable details on their education specialties, current occupations and previous works they have published. Wendy Larner is for instance a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Auckland, with specialties in globalization, gender and governance. At time, she is working on a book entitled After Neoliberalism? And her previous works include primarily articles featured in various specialized journals. William Walters is an Associate Professor at the Carleton University in Ottawa, with his most reputable previous publication being Unemployment and Government: Genealogies of the Social. Walters is best specialized in issues of the integration in the European Union, with special focus on citizenship, borders, mobility and immobility within the EU.

The introductory part reveals the issues that are to be discussed in the following chapters and argues that the volume is novel in its approach in the meaning that all contributors share the commonality of a focus on the concept of governmentality, introduced in 1991 by Michael Foucault. "Each chapter seeks to demonstrate how concepts and themes drawn from what has now become a wide-ranging debate on governmentality, often in combination with theories from other intellectual trajectories, offer new perspectives on the governing of international spaces" (Larner and Walters, 2004).

Also at this stage of the book, the authors explain the concept in its dual understanding -- first, at a generic level, governmentality is understood as the involvement of representations, knowledge and expertise in the governing process. The second and more specific understanding of governmentality translates the concept into a "new way of thinking about exercising power" (Larner and Walters). The authors then move on to an assessment of how the term has been used by the members of the specialized field. Their findings are complex and lead to the conclusion that despite the existence of elements of commonality, the understating and presentation of the concept may vary from one source to the next.

As the first part of the book commences, the authors take some time before introducing the reader to the first actual chapter. Throughout these pages introducing the reader to the first chapter, Larsen and Walters discuss the need for a novel approach to issues of global governance by pointing out some changes in the environment that need to be answered, the most notable of them being the emerging forces of globalization. The first chapter commences with an interesting analogy to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to reveal the strong connection between the essence of an element and its given name. Extrapolating the ideas of the feminine character, author Barry Hindess finds that there is a direct linkage between the name of the trend liberalism and its international applications in history, politics, economy and relations -- the cosmopolitanism of liberalism. Yet, to achieve this goal, it was necessary to first identify the relationship between liberalism and governance in the meaning of identifying the governmental role of liberalism. Throughout the discussion, the author comes to conflicting findings, mostly summarized in the belief that one element will exclude the next. In other words, if one regards liberalism as a supra-state force in its cosmopolite abilities, he will find it difficult to see the same concept as having a role in the mundane governance of the contemporaneous society.

In Nomos and the politics of world order, Mitchell Dean argues that the idea of world order is an appealing concept regardless of political appurtenance. He makes historical references to the world wars which made it seem impossible to establish global peace, the sense that followed the end of the wars and the ongoing instability that its today fueled by wars in various global regions, as well as the universal threat of terrorism, which emerges in all corners of the globe and similarly, affects all inhabited regions.

This context becomes completed with politicians who promote different, and even conflicting, interests, stage at which Dean finds it necessary to introduce the necessity for a comprehension of double standards. He argues that these standards are generally common in inter-state relations, in situations in which the countries that interact are differentiated by various elements. On the other hand, the double standards are less common within intra-state relationships, as the parties which interact are guided by the same principles and subject to the same standards. Given such a status quo then, the issue of global peace and order raises numerous questions that Dean strives to answer through analogies.

Still in the field of globalization and governance, Gavin Kendall discusses the issues of Global networks, international networks [and] actor networks. He first discusses the issues of power and a quest for dominance imposed by the Western imperialists and colonialists. He argues that the values which dominated the desire for power have transformed into the values which guide the modern society. Yet, the author of the chapter argues that a mistake has been recurrent in the specialized literature in that other researcher have often given too much power to the forces of globalization on their own. Otherwise put, Kendall believes… READ MORE

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