The Shifting Tides of Global Governance — A Conversation with Michael Zürn

In our very first episode in our series Beyond Neo-liberalism, our host Hagen Schulz-Forberg sits down with political scientist Michael Zürn as they explore the intersections of global governance and international relations in the current political climate. The two discuss Zürn’s work with the analytical categories of NALFI (Normativity, Authority, Liberalism, Fragmentation, Inequality), democratic regression and the tensions between national democracy and transnational authorities.

Are we moving beyond our traditional understandings of Global Governance? Do transnational authorities have too big of a grasp on national democracies? Are we moving towards a post-democracy understanding of international relations? If so, what will happen?

Academic Reference:

Michael Zürn, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; The Shifting Tides of Global Governance—A Conversation with Michael Zürn. Global Perspectives 2 January 2026; 7 (1): 159010. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.159010

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

Transcript

Is Global Governance Dead?

[INTRODUCTION] 0:00

Welcome to Planetary Choices, a podcast produced by Center for New Critical Politics and Governance at Aarhus University. With this podcast, we invite you into our research lab where we explore the key questions of today. We bring together scholars, policymakers, and activists who are engaged in sustainable planetary stewardship. Thank you for joining us.

Hagen 0:27

Hello, welcome to Planetary Choices. Today I record the first episode with Michael Zürn for the new season on Global Governance Beyond Neoliberalism. Or basically this is the question of what will the world look like? Scenarios of new global order are emerging, but what's the prospect and what is the heritage that we bring from the old liberal script to the new world order? Michael is Professor of International Relations at Freie University Berlin and Director of the Global Governance Unit here at the Social Science Centre Berlin, where we're sitting. He is, I would dare say, one of the most established researchers and most busy researchers in the field of global governance. You've done a lot. So, who best to talk to start off the season of what the world may look like in five years or where we are right now when we look at the perspective of global governance. Michael, it's a pleasure to have you.

Michael 1:22

Thank you. It's good to be here.

Hagen 1:25

Great. I remember when we started to prepare for this or to get engaged in a conversation about recording a podcast, that we talked about a moment in which global governance supposedly died. I remember this very, very well that you told me, “Oh, global governance is dead.” So, what was that moment?

Michael 1:48

I would point to two events. One is, of course, J.D. Vance's talk at the Munich Security Conference when he was essentially not only saying, “Well, guys, Europe is your business,” talking to the European states, “Ukraine is your business. We don't care anymore.” Then afterwards not responding to questions but immediately walking to Frau Weidel in order to have a conversation with her. I mean, that are two fundamental moves that questioned the existing liberal international order, or the still, somehow, existing liberal international order at this point by doing two things. First of all, by saying, “Well, the U.S. is not anymore responsible for anything outside of their immediate interest.” And secondly, by saying, “Well, I don't care about the diplomatic rules,” because, of course, the diplomatic rules are, if you say something like that, you talk to the others and you do not walk to a way to talk to your friend. The second event, probably in terms of the meaning for the world as a whole, even more important, is probably the first visit of Zelensky in the White House, when J.D. Vance was around again and with Trump and then a sort of behavior, which was, first of all, in terms of hospitality, so deeply un-American. But that's not the point. The point is essentially that by saying to a more or less democratic state when he was attacked by an authoritarian state, “I don't care. It's your business. It's your mistake even.” That, of course, in a deeper sense, is so fundamentally violating one major principle of U.S. foreign policy after World War II, which was consistent across all presidents. And that is essentially: we do not want to have proliferation of nuclear weapons. If you essentially tell a guy who is attacked by an authoritarian state with nuclear weapons, “We don't care, we don't support you.” That, of course, is a call for South Korea, for Poland, for Japan, and many others in Asia to go for nuclear weapons, maybe even for more European states than only Poland. Because if you tell them, “We don't support you anymore,” what can they do if they are confronted with someone who at least threatens to have nuclear weapons, like North Korea?So, I mean, even not those liberal things, multilateralism, but this basic notion of this order that we should prevent to have proliferation of nuclear weapons was challenged by this event. So, I mean, those two events together led to something where I would say at least the liberal element of the world of this international order went astray in a way. I should add that, of course, some people would argue, “Well, I mean, yes, that was strong,” but we can see essentially the decline of this liberal international order for already some time. It happened before. To some extent it is true, but then again, I mean, many people working on international organizations, maybe not necessarily on global governance as the whole, but on specific international organizations. And looking at the formal side of global governance, they always make the point, well, they actually proved to be quite resilient, given all the attacks that happened in the last 10 years. So international organizations remained relatively stable. There were not more exits than before. The degree of contestation in public media did go up slightly, but not extremely strongly. So, in that sense, I mean, there was a sort of a resilience. But of course, it started already earlier that all the liberal components of this international order – that means the role of human rights and the importance of the human rights commission in supporting this idea of human rights – the basic idea that a legitimate member of the community should at least be on a democratic route. I mean, they should be on the way to democracy. A sense that open economic borders are unquestionable. All those kinds of things have happened before, but then this enormous acceleration with Trump too.

Hagen 6:19

Yes. So, you identified with the Trump administration that within a Western country or within what used to be a hegemonic liberal country in the liberal international order, suddenly there's an inverse term which tips the scale. I mean, it's a larger global phenomenon as well. It's not just within the Western block or within the European-U.S. relationships, but we also see it within the European Union, what you describe.

Michael 6:45

The U.S. is of course not only one Western state in this liberal international order, it's the most decisive state. And my line always was, when people after the Russian aggression against Ukraine said, “’Well, this is the end of the liberal international order,” or our chancellor was talking about zeitenwende. He meant it probably differently, but the old times over and the new times now coming, that it is always the case. A normative order is not falling apart if someone violates a norm.The norm is, I mean, not every murder is violating or is challenging the norm that you should kill others as long as it is sanctioned by the society. The moment when the norm is not anymore sanctioned by others and they don't care and there is some, "Oh, what can we do," behavior, then the norm dies. And therefore, this immediate move of the Trump administration as not only the leader, but to a significant extent the carrier of this old order. When that guy says, “Well, there might be a violation, but we don't care,” then this is, of course, much more significant in terms of the decline of the order than the attack as such.And of course, we see two developments undermining this liberal international order and both of those elements have something to do with the weakness of it, with a sort of a built-in problematic of this order. One is that it came across as a rule of law order, as an order in which similar cases are treated alike. Of course, especially the US, but in a sense, the Western world as a whole, had a certain tendency to say, “Well, the rules apply to the world, but not to us, not to us if we don't like.”I mean, take some of the actions in the US, the Iraq war, the Western world, not only the US, but of course, with Germany in a very important role regarding the war in Yugoslavia. So, I mean, they used essentially some rights without being backed by, in this case, the United Nations Security Council. There was always a tendency that the Western states can violate the WTO rules much more easily than the Global South. And of course, when it comes to monetary policy, the US had special rights that no other state in the world had. I mean, it was those – I mean Putin used his term very often and not everything that he is saying is wrong. He used the term "double standards" very often and double standards describes one problem. The problem became strong the moment when there were powers because they participated in the liberal international order, grew up and asked for the same rights than the Western states and did not get it. I mean, that is essentially the story of China, Brazil, India and others who wanted to say, “Well, I mean, we are now as strong as you and we participate as much as you, we want to have the same rights,” and they did not get the same rights. That is one thing and that is the challenge from the outside, from Russia, China and even Brazil after Bolsonaro, there is not a huge change in Brazil after da Silva a took over again.And the other challenge that is the one that you pointed to, that comes from the inside. And that has to do with the fact that I think many people say neoliberalism, it produced inequality and stuff like that. It's, I think, overall, in the aggregate it's wrong. If you look to the global distribution of wealth, it became much more equal than 30 years before. So, there is a decline in inequality with the rise of all of those dates in the Global South. That means if you look to the global level on the most aggregate level, it was a successful order in the sense that inequality declined and the Human Development Index went up as never before in history and of course, more than one billion people were moved out of absolute poverty. So, in that sense, it's enormous. But with a cost. And the cost is a growing inequality and a growing sense of alienation from the political system inside the western states and therefore a rise of authoritarian populist parties that have essentially one goal, which they have in common. And that is emphasizing sovereignty, emphasizing nationalism, rejecting international institutions. I mean, if you look to the commonality of all of those of authoritarian populists, it's not migration. Look at Erdoğan. I mean, he doesn't care about too much migration. But all have in common that they essentially challenge the EU and international organizations because that's essentially the symbol for this cosmopolitan class that rules the world of those IOs and some experts, of course.

The Rise of Authoritarian Populism and the Intricacies of The Rule of Law

Hagen 12:12

Yeah, that's right. Of course, the EU has this, still, this call of more universalist claim of values of fundamental values towards which countries should adapt their political orders. Right. And that's true. But I have a follow up question for this, and then I want to pick up on something you said about normativity, normative order and sovereignty, maybe in a second question there. Because something happens when these populist countries or these renegades, or they design themselves as renegades against an established order, when they become powerful. And in the case of Italy, we do see suddenly there's a fascist government that embraces the European Union or that puts a very different discourse out there, but that still suddenly embraces support for Ukraine and wants to be a good member of the European Union. How do you come to terms with that?

Michael 13:06

I mean, that's a big question. In general, let me just underline what you said. I mean, many of those authoritarian populist[s] started out as social movements, essentially. Look at Germany, PEGIDA, then they became a party. And then they became a strong party. Some of them were accepted to be junior partner in a government. And then when they, essentially, are able to run the government, there's a certain tendency that they, or, that they, at least most of them, try to change the political system and move it to an authoritarian political system. And then it's not anymore authoritarian populism. It is something like populist authoritarianism. And the populist element goes down over time, and the authoritarian gets stronger and stronger. I mean, if we would consider Putin's Russia as or Putin in Russia in the 1990s as the very first case of that movement, then you can see if you look at Russia right now, populism is almost zero, and it's only authoritarianism. So that happens. But you're right, there is variation. There is significant variation. I mean, without having a perfect answer where this variation comes from and all that, I would point out two things, two observations, which seems to me relevant here. There are two American political scientists who wrote a book about the assault on the state. That's [Jefferey] Kopstein and Stephen Hanson. And their argument essentially is, well, all those people who talk about democratic backsliding and democratic regression, they are missing something. They are missing that the decline of democracy is only a collateral problem in that sense, because they are still emphasizing majority. They are still emphasizing elections and stuff like that. What they actually are going after is the rule of law and the bureaucratic, Weberian state. So, it's in that sense, it's a deeply anti-modern movement because they want to go back before modernity, before the bureaucratic modern state. And we can see it very clearly now in the case of Trump, that they go after all those institutions which essentially guarantee something left for bureaucratic rationality, right? And in that sense, it's an attempt to go back to an order in which the state is more or less privatized and it is used essentially for private purposes and for private wealth and for private enrichment. So I mean...

Hagen 15:40

And friends to have a thousand people ballroom at the White House is an example of that.

Michael 15:45

Right, for example. It's an example of that. And I mean, if you look to the growth rates in wealth of the five or six richest Americans in the last six months, it's just enormous. I mean, they have up to 50% of their overall wealth they received in the last six to eight months. Paul Pearson had a presentation a few days ago where he pointed out to this. So I mean, there's a sort of privatization of the state going on. But then I would say, this is true for some of those. This is true for Trump, at least so far. It is, I would say, true for Orbán, for Putin. But if you look to some other cases, maybe even Poland, there you still...

Hagen 16:32

With their new president.

Michael 16:32

...see, well, it is more a sort of a nationalist, authoritarian project where there is some form, some understanding of what a common good is and some orientation to that understanding of the common good. I mean, it's not my understanding of the common good, no question. But there is something like this going on in that sense. I would probably say we should begin to think about the possibility that there are two different types of authoritarian populist movements. One which are trying to recreate, to use the term of Hanson and Kopstein, "the patrimonial state," and others which are more traditionally retrograde, maybe reactionary nationalist, but are not really challenging the bureaucratic rationality of the state. And then certainly, Meloni would fall into the second category. I mean, she's going even further than Poland. That's not a question. But Poland as well is, of course, supporting Ukraine. I mean, even under Kaczyński or Kaczyński does it. So I mean, there seem to be those two types. And so far, we do not understand very well those two different types. I mean, that should tell us also something about the idea that we should now prohibit those parties, “Parteienverbot” ("party ban”) as we discussed it in Germany and so on. I think we should find tools essentially to incentivize those parties to move into the Meloni direction instead of radicalizing them into the Trump direction. I mean, that'd be a potential support of 30% in all of the countries for those parties, for sure. So I mean, the wiser move would be probably to incentivize them to go into the Meloni direction. And that would tell me not to prohibit the party as a whole, but essentially to go after the radicals on the individual level and stuff like that. So, I'm just saying this as an addition. But the response to your question is, yes, you are right. I think we are talking about different types of authoritarian populist parties.

Hagen 18:45

But I would like to move on. So, there's a chaotic, very dynamic situation out there. Things change very fast. People get richer to such a degree in half a year. Conflicts abode and they're everywhere, seemingly possible. Recent polls also hinted that there's a growing acceptance that violence may be back as a political thing and that this is accepted. But no, so how do we study this and how do we make sense of it? And in some of your writings, you prepared a word which is "NALFI" or an analytical scheme. I know the movie Alfie, which is a great movie with Michael Caine, but you have a "NALFI" where what you talked about, the normative order questions of sovereignty, which are, I believe, very central to this, to the current situation in which we are. Over the last 20 years, it has accelerated. And of course, the concept of sovereignty is deeply discussed and reinterpreted. So, what is "NALFI"? If I may sum it up and do correct me if I'm wrong, if I can correct you. So, they stand for normative questions, questions of authority, or questions of liberalism, fragmentation and inequality. So, these five main categories, or let's say perspectives, on the complex issue that we have all interact and interweave in order to help us understand maybe where we are and to get a grip on things. So, could we go through this normative question maybe first?

Normative Questions, Questions of Authority, Questions of Liberalism, Fragmentation, and Inequality (NALFI) as a Conceptual Grib to Understand Contemporary Governance

Michael 20:21

Yeah. And let me only add one word. I mean, this basic idea of "NALFI" is of course, if we look at the debate about what is going on in the world and what kind of changes. We have all those terms, "multipolarity," "end of liberal order," "multiverse order," and all those things. And the basic idea at this point is if we talk about the change in the international order, we are talking about the change of the international political system. And we look at essentially the institutional framework with which the world is governed, that is global governance in a sense. And we should look for characteristics of this order. And this is of course driven by change in the distribution of power, by technological changes and all that. But that is outside of this institutional order, it is the drivers. I mean, as the economic development in a country is influencing the domestic political system, the distribution of power in the international system is influencing the political system. And then if you look at the political system and the outcomes, you may identify that there are some patterns, that some of those international orders in history proved to be more peaceful than others, and others have created more wars and stuff like that. So, I mean, it's an attempt to focus on this thing which is in between the fundamental changes and the outcomes, and that is this international political system. And that's essentially the idea of "NALFI.”So, to get out those debates about the distribution of power, about the rise of new powers and all that, because that often influences the international political system, but it's not necessarily that it changes the international political order. "NALFI" is a way to describe this international political order. And the first thing is, of course, the understanding of sovereignty. In IR, and I'm an IR person, therefore, I need to talk about it, even if some people think it's a little bit too abstract and not really the reality anymore. But I mean, there's a sort of basic understanding that the states and the borders of the states emerged essentially as an outcome of internal battles where essentially one guy prevailed and created a sort of a monopoly of forces. I mean, it's very much the Charles Tilly argument. And then they extended the territory to the extent that they were able to do it. And then at a certain point, they hit another of those military monopolists in a way, and that is the way borders were created between states. And in that sense, being a state is essentially an objective feature. I mean, if the territory that you control makes you to a state. And then there's another understanding, very much associated with the English School saying, "Well, now, states are not those who really control their territory. States are those guys who are recognized by other states as states." So I mean, it is a recognition.

Normativity (N)

Michael 23:40 Hagen 23:40

Yes. It's a reciprocity.

Michael 23:42

It's a reciprocity thing. And in that sense, the first and basic question is, do we talk about the recognition of this norm in a normative way, or is it just a sort of a natural outcome of power struggles? In the world of Vladimir Putin, it seems to be to a significant extent the latter, right? I mean, he just has not recognized, Ukraine as an independent state. And therefore, if he has the power to extend its borders, he can extend it. But of course, the liberal international order that emerged in the 1990s in its purest form had a deep recognition of this basic normative principle that is recognizing states as states, and with that coming a set of rights like voting rights, like representation rights, and also the right, at least in principle, to have no intervention into domestic affairs. But here I should add already, there is one specificity of the liberal international order, that the criteria before you are accepted as a state by other states as state has extended. It's not anymore, “Are you able to govern a country?” It's also, “Do you fulfill certain civilizational standards?” I mean, maybe not the full set of human rights, but at least no human catastrophes, no killing of groups of the population in a country. And in that sense, at least in this liberal international order, where there was some rights responsibility to protect of the international institutions to intervene in domestic affairs if the state was not able to protect all of its own people. That meant essentially this sort of normativity even was filled, the basic normativity was filled up a little bit more than, in addition to being able to govern a country, it also meant you need to be able to protect all the people in your country. If not, then we will help you, meaning you will intervene.

Hagen 26:03

Yeah, but that is a different…So, all of those characteristics that maybe also had a high time, you know developing them in the 1990s when the European Union expanded and when these conditionalities were also developed in terms of what the Bretton Woods institutions, you know, would support and all that, you know. This is sometimes criticized as a neoliberal high time as well. But that's the normativity that comes with the package of being recognized as a state. Obviously, that is threatened right now or that is declining. No?

Michael 26:32

Yeah. I mean, the conditionality of the IMF and so on, this is something that I would put into the second category the "A." And that is, I mean, you can imagine an international system that is fully accepting this basic normativity with or without [these] additional civilizational requirements. But that does not mean that there are strong international institutions or international organizations who have some authority of their own, where authority is delegated essentially to them or pooled by other states. And that happens, essentially, when there is a possibility of an international organization to make a decision by majority. Because that means the majority decision produces a binding recommendation, a binding regulation, or that comes across, at least comes across, with the ambition to be binding that was voted for by a majority but not accepted at all. And in that sense, this basic principle of non-intervention that nothing can happen without the consent of all states is changed or violated. So, we have a rise of authority of those international organizations because of polling, which is majority right, and because of delegation. Because if you set up an international body, an international human rights body or an international dispute settlement body, in the case of the WTO, that can make decisions against one state and in favor of another state, that means also, of course, that this dispute settlement body has authority. So in that sense, one major feature of the liberal international order after 1990 is that so many international organizations extended their authority. I mean, there was an assignment of authority to international organizations. It's still an open question to which extent then states complied with those sort[s] of regulations, but they had the right to make the regulations, and they came with a normative ambition to be binding to all.And if you look to the graphs that we produce on the basis of an international authority database, you can see, yes, there's a significant rise in the authority of international organizations after 1945, but that leveled out in the 1960s then. And then suddenly in the 1990s, it goes up again extremely steeply. And in that sense, this is a second important feature of the international political system. How much authority do the international organizations have?

Authority (A)

Hagen 29:14

Okay, I see. So now we've covered the "A" as well. We may also agree that the "A" from the liberal international order has declined or has changing character, no?

Michael 29:25

It is, yeah.

Hagen 29:25

I mean, that's essentially also, I think, a very good way that you point out here to describe the struggle that is going on. It's like a semantic struggle over the meaning of sovereignty. Putin's Russia would say, Ukraine doesn't have sovereignty. This is a state run by Nazis who have captured the government, and we do not accept that. And these territories are old Russian territories. We're just going in there because they're Russian after all. We're protecting our people. The idea of the "Russkiy Mir" ("Russian World") and it's mobilized in order to legitimize all of that. So, they capture that net authority that you describe in order to act. Maybe even, as you said earlier, like the patrimonial state, even before the 19th century, still in the 19th century, which would of course include the right. So, the idea, the normative idea to not intervene, but also the idea that you can go to war.

Michael 30:18

Yeah, I mean, for me, this question of the authority of international organization is separate from this recognition of sovereignty idea. I mean, it is, of course, a means with which – because you brought up the term neoliberalism – with which neoliberalism, or those international organizations who had authority, at least partially, pursued a neoliberal agenda. And that is different from this, from the sovereignty issue. And…

Hagen 30:52

The liberal international order you described. Yeah, sure.

Michael 30:52

...because they had this authority. I mean, take the move from the GATT to the WTO. I mean, it is, I don't, we can still have a big discussion about it. It's neoliberal and so on, but it is a move towards liberalism. There was more power on the side of international organizations to fight through the principle of open borders with respect to trade and investment. And then, of course, the OECD had a significant extent of epistemic authority. They set up the PISA rankings, and that was not binding in a formal way. But of course, if you're ranked very low in the PISA ranking, it's a strong recommendation now change your education policy. And that was also very much on a sort of…

Hagen 31:42

That's true.

Michael 31:42

...a neoliberal line of doing schooling policies. So, there are many of those examples where you can see the monetary fund, which was probably the strongest element of neoliberalism with its conditionality in giving credits to countries that need credits to maintain their stability. That was a very much neoliberal agenda, also based on a strong authority because all decisions by the, by the role, by the IMF were made on the basis of voting and on the basis of majority, even against the background of uneven voting rights or of weighted voting rights. So, this authority of international organization is something that goes from the more polity side, from the more constitutional principles of the sovereignty issue is more of a constitutional principle to the issue of policies, concrete policies. And the liberal international order after 1990 was characterized by the highest level of authority that international organizations ever had and therefore, they were able to pursue a whole set of international policies.

Hagen 33:03

Right, but this is now changing. So, when we talk about the “L” in your “NALFI,” the liberal character of that international order, we both agree, is going through some deep changes.

Michael 33:15

It is, it is. I mean the specific feature of the liberal international order that emerged after 1990s that there was even a sort of a constitutional consistency, that there was a sort of a social purpose behind all of those separate individual international organizations, they followed essentially a sort of a constitutional design. And in that sense, there was a social purpose behind it. Maybe, the only international order that came close to that was the one that essentially Metternich created after 1815, but with a completely different social purpose. I mean, it was a negative social purpose. It was essentially states should keep peace in order to prevent revolutions in order to maintain the absolutist order. So, it was a sort of a negative social purpose, and he has the first time a positive social purpose following, essentially, liberal universalism, human rights, open borders, and a tendency for states to democratize. That was the social purpose that, essentially, brought together this underlying constitutional normative principles and the policies. They both followed the same social purpose or the out drove of the same social purpose and in that sense, I would argue the 1990s was special that there was a clearly and broadly recognized social purpose that is changing and also the authority of international organization is changing. But if we talk about the authority of international organization – since, I want just to repeat, there is currently or at least there was, so far as long as we have measures that go to 2022, 2023, something like this – there was a sort of a gap that formally, the authority remained. I mean, the United Nations Security Council still has, essentially, the authority to do responsibility, to protect, to intervene into domestic societies, if it is collectively authorized to do so. But even the blockade and so on, they don't do it anymore.

Liberalism (L)

Hagen 35:38

There are no blue helmets around in any of the conflicts.

Michael 35:41

They still are a lot, but, essentially, all those that have been decided in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Hagen 35:47

Yes. They're not discussed to be, at least, I would be very surprised to see if there ever is a Ukrainian-Russian peace agreement that the UN blue helmets would be the ones guarding it. I don't think that will happen.

Michael 36:01

Absolutely right. So I mean, there's a gap between de facto and de jure authority. The de jure authority remained. The de facto authority went down. I mean, WTO is just another case. There's no change in this international organization. There is still the dispute settlement party, but the US, essentially, undermines any attempt to make it workable by not appointing a successor and by preventing the appointment of other states.

Hagen 36:31

I think what you described maybe is something that reminds me of the, you know, the populist recipe to bring down the legitimacy of established democratic institutions. If you join the institutions and you make them dysfunctional and then you say, “Oh, they're dysfunctional” and you know, then you start to change them and you build up the legitimate discourse to bring them down or to change them. I mean, that's what's happening with the Security Council in a way, which is, you know, it's dysfunctional. But why do we need it? We need a UN reform. And then the US comes along and says the UN is a great idea as a nice platform where we can, where nations, can meet to discuss common problems, but take away exactly what you described earlier. All of this authority, which is maybe a transnational or a value based or norm-based authority from, let's say, above the skies of nation states and make it basically a club where we discuss our problems. And then, of course, inside that club, the one with the strongest muscles and the biggest interest possibility to defend the interests wins. I mean, that's kind of what I take from what you're saying.

Michael 37:33

Sure. Absolutely right. Yeah.

Hagen 37:34

All right.

Michael 37:34

It's very interesting parallel to see. It's a similar strategy, how to kill those kind[s] of institutions first by making them in dysfunctional and then saying, well, they are dysfunctional. Therefore, why do we need them?

Hagen 37:53

Yeah, let's have new ones or abolish them or yeah, or reform them. We also live in a time when the word “reform,” every time I read it, it makes me very nervous.Okay, so we've touched upon the "N," the "A," and the "L." What about the "F" and the "I"? The fragmentation and the inequality.

Michael 38:14

Yeah. I mean, the fragmentation is essentially the point that you're still, it's still not, in spite of all the things that I said, and in spite of the fact there's a sort of a diversification of different international organizations, it is it is very much built from below and not from the top. And that means essentially, if you just look at the field of climate policy in its heyday in the in the 2000s, I mean, there were 47 different transnational and international organizations working in this field and it was not always clear what the division of labor between those things. So, I mean, we are talking always about this issue of fragmentation and, essentially, it comes down to the issue that even if there's a lot of authority on the side of international organizations, there's little meta-authority. Not the one place that decides, “Well in this case we follow the Ministry of Energy and in this case, we follow the Ministry of Environment.” So, this sort of meta-authority, which is in the constitutional Western state, even the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, or in the case of the UK, the Parliament, or de facto in many cases, the public opinion. This is missing, even in this sort, or this was missing, and even in this sort of international order after 1990.And then, they'd see that the "I" in institutionalized inequality stands for the question that yes, even if those rules and regulations comes across as rules, as all rules do by seeing similar cases should be treated alike, there was always a clear understanding that it is a level of institutionalized inequality in favor of the powerful states that would be not accepted by any constitutional court within a political system. That you privilege some actors institutionally, not because they are more intelligent because they have more power, more resources, more wealth or something like this, but institutionally in the institution, as it was of course in the case for the nuclear powers in the Security Council, or the economic powers in the Bretton Woods institutions. So in that sense, there was an element of institutionalized inequality. That the basic principle of sovereign equality existed, on the one hand, on this deeper normative sense, but the way those institutions worked and worked essentially accepted by all states was that there was a clear hierarchy between states. And that is what is meant by institutionalized inequality. And, probably, one would argue or could argue, as an IR person: if you look to the different international orders that were had in the international system, the stronger the international order was, the more effective the international order was, the more it also institutionalized inequality. If you don't institutionalize inequality, it's very hard to have an effective international order. So that is one of the downsides and that speaks to one of its weaknesses. That there was a lot of international authority, but it was really not legitimated by the equality of all states and that leads exactly to this kind of situation. Those who are not in a privileged position and grow up in power, they of course then want to have this privileged position and if they don't get it, then they go against this order, even if they have benefited more than any other state from this order as in the case of China probably.

Inequality (I)

Hagen 42:24

Yeah. I remember when I always try to paraphrase this, as what Chakrabarty calls, the “waiting room of history.” Somebody is always ahead and you're told, “Well sure, if you follow our recipe, you will be just like us,” but no. This of course, there is a hierarchy in there and then the inequality and the hierarchy and that inflicts a certain power relationship as well.

Michael 42:49

But even if the waiting room is accepted, and I think it was accepted at least to some extent in the 1990s, it breaks down the moment if you fulfill the criteria and you are still not let in or let out of the waiting room. And that is essentially what happened with countries like India, South Africa, Brazil, China.

Hagen 43:11

Yes. Okay. Well, I think we've done the tour of "NALFI" but it leaves us with, now, in a situation where we talk about today. And let's start to think about what may happen or where we are right now. And I would like to pose a question here, which has formed in my mind as we were talking, which seems to be that there are two fields – or let me start there, pick your brain and then I'll see what you tell me; this is just me now listening to you and bringing my own ideas here to this question. You mentioned the climate movement. So, there's been a whole discussion and a large discourse on environmental change that is necessary, planetary ideas, which would inflict that we have governance systems that are different from only states. That we have transnational regions, biospheres. So, we would need to have something else than a classic IR state-based order only, but we would need to have some kind of governance to govern the globe that has transnational levels. And on the other hand, ironically, you also have a similar thing happening with geoeconomics and the geopolitical sphere, which is also, of course, very state-based and power driven, but at the same time, geoeconomics is transnational. And we are bearing on what is happening right now. The changes we see right now and will we find a way to have a kind of peaceful settlement of a global governance order. What do you make of that?

Can We Move Beyond the Traditional Understandings of IR/Global Governance?

Michael 44:48

In the most recent version of "NALFI," I extended it to a six feature and that is essentially the role of non-state actors. And if you look at the 1990s, I think it was clear, it was an opening towards non-state actors in the beginning, especially towards those that we would probably consider as progressive. I mean, the human rights movement, Amnesty International, the environmental movement with Greenpeace and so on, and all those transnational organizations which increasingly played a role during international negotiations and stuff like that. And the climate issue at the climate summits is of course the extreme example of that with, sometimes, many, many hundred-thousands of participants all coming from a world society.So, there was an opening towards those civil society non-state actors and also an increased participation by those actors with global protests, with the Battle of Seattle and stuff like that. So in that sense, the system opened to [these] actors. And at the same time, it left room, especially for business actors to do without big support of the states, to do their own standards. I mean, industrial standards, standards for digital software and stuff like that. I mean, that was developed in sort of silent, backroom meetings of representatives of big business actors, and they essentially said, “Well, I mean, this is coordination, there is no distribution involved. We do it and then you can be sure that your system runs smoothly,” even if you have it from two different companies. That was very strong, but of course it also had distributive effects. I mean, there's nothing that you can do without having, in the end, some form of distributive effects, but it was done very much by non-state actors.So I mean, there was this double opening. And now I think both of those things are going down in importance. But at the same time, there's an enormous rise, especially, especially…Let me go back. One important actor in setting those standards was of course also the finance industry, the finance capital in the 1990s. And that was essentially when we were talking about transnational capital, we were thinking about the finance capital. But now we are talking about the digital giants. I mean, that has changed. And the role of the digital giants is somewhat [different.] They do some standard setting. There's no question. But at the same time, they are very, very decisive players in this geoeconomics. And because they are [such] decisive players in this geoeconomics, something is not taking place that happened 100 years ago. I mean, the emerging monopolies or quasi-monopolies or oligopolies at the end of the 19th century as a result of the first industrialization, they were just destroyed by their respective nation states a little bit later in Germany. After World War II, in the US, it was already at the end of the 19th, in the beginning of the 20th century. Rockefeller was sort of a monopoly at a certain point. But then they cut it small into different parts. And now, of course, those digital giants, both in the US and in China, are...

Hagen 48:25

They're monopolists.

Michael 48:27

The monopolists are the most important resources in the geoeconomics. Therefore, there is no national interest anymore in destroying them. So, they go on. And that's sort of a very, very new situation, very dangerous situation. So I mean, speaking now institutionally, what we probably would need very much on the international level, given that we have a globalized economy, is an international monopoly commission. But of course, we don't have this. It's still national, and the national monopoly commissions do not have any interest to destroy their biggest player in the geoeconomics game.

Hagen 49:34

So, we get "NALFI-N." Right? So, there's another "N." And you, importantly, group not only civil society organizations, but also businesses under non-state actors here. Interesting is, of course, how those tech giants, particularly, but even civil society organizations, I think, from what I recall, you know, much of the literature interpreted those social movements as inherently progressive. And there was also a time when Google and other tech giants would come across and they would vote for diversity and they would have these progressive values. But there's a shift in there. Those non-state actors have left much of the language that they have developed from the late 90s and late 2010s, they've thrown it overboard. So, there's also talks back to the very normativity that is, you know, that is living in these networks and in these governance institutions to a strong degree.

Michael 50:36

I know, I agree fully. I agree fully. There is, I mean, that's part of why we have now all those documentaries and this enormous interest in people like Peter Thiel, because I think the whole Silicon Valley movement always had, essentially, two groups. One was a sort of a technocratic monster vision of society and the other was very much anarchic. Now we can, essentially, get away from any form of dominance institutions and rules if we develop this sort of technology. And I probably would argue they are still both there. But the opportunity costs have changed enormously with the Trump administration and most of those guys turned out to be not following their ideology, but, essentially, following what needs to be done in order to increase the profits. And in that sense, they adapted to the Trump government and followed them. I mean, there are some which are more careful in that respect. I would probably say Microsoft and Bill Gates [are] still a little bit away and one can see very clearly that with Apple and Tim Cook, it's pure opportunism. There's no conviction behind it. But then, of course, if you look to the to the Musks and probably also – what is the name of the Amazon guy, the Bezos, the...

Hagen 52:10

Jeff Bezos.

Michael 52:10

Jeff Bezos, and so on there. I mean, they seem to be more on the Thiel side.

Hagen 52:15

Definitely. Yeah. So, let's move to some of your scenarios. So, what do we make of this? What do you, what kind of, let's say, two, three versions of the future, do you think will be our experience in the next couple of years?

Michael 52:32

I see three options. And if you, you mentioned in the beginning, I think five years and I think nothing will be decided in five years. So, we are talking about longer term developments. I mean, one would be a sort of a of a relatively optimistic one saying, “Well, it may be not that bad.” The functional requirements, the functional needs, for international regulation, for [a] international political system, are so strong. There's obviously an absolute need for an open economy for Western Europe, China and the US to maintain its level of wealth and probably, the US least of the three, which makes them in that respect so dangerous. But then there's also climate. There's a number of objective functional needs, sometimes not recognized and sometimes not acknowledged. But the functional needs are just there for a strong international regulation. And if the liberal international order is that, it could be still a sort of a truncated international liberal, international order. I say international order because the truncation would be, essentially, the liberal. I mean, it would be one without human rights expectations. It would be one without democracy expectation. It would be one where, essentially, with strong international institutions, there will be climate policies. There will be policies for an open economy. And that is very much the idea of China with the same rights as the United States in those institutions. And I still would think it is a possibility, probably not with the current president. But I do think it is a possibility. And there may be dynamics that bring the US in that direction. I mean, if the US goes on the way they do right now, I mean, functionally speaking, there would be so much logic in a sort of a Europe[an]-Asian open market that pursue exactly those things. And China would, essentially, accept some European wishes for probably not changing their subsidies, but for voluntary export controls as it was done with Japan in the 1980s.

1) International Regulation and Open Economy

Hagen 55:03

Europe may have to say, “Okay, agree that maybe the human rights across the whole value chain is not really...”

Michael 55:11

Yeah, right. I mean, that sort of change. And if that happens, of course, there would be an enormous pressure for the United States to come in because otherwise they would lose out in the hegemonic competition with China.

Hagen 55:21

Okay, so that's one.

Michael 55:23

That's one. A second one is, essentially, that we go back to the age of the East-West conflict, of the systemic conflict, and where we have a battle of two segments. Two segments of the world, a more democratic one and a more authoritarian one, and especially after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and the developments moved into this direction. I mean, there was, von der Leyen was talking again about a systemic conflict. Joe Biden was always talking about the juxtaposition of the free democratic states versus the authoritarian states in the West. But the East then responded with the Xi Jinping-Putin meetings showing solidarity, and we are standing against these imperial powers. So that very much looked like something that we knew already, right? And if that is the starting point for this sort of development, it's relatively easy to imagine how it could look like, because we had the East-West conflict between socialist and the capitalist world. I mean, it would mean that we have strong institutions, but mainly on the regional level, it would mean that well, over time, those two opponents may develop some common rules. And it would be, of course, an order that is very much based on military deterrence between two camps, and at least in the earlier systemic conflict.

2) Repetition of East-West Conflict

Hagen 57:04

So, who would be those two camps? Would you say that this would be the, what is now the BRICS+? Or is it the China dominated?

Michael 57:18

It would be the authoritarian states. It would be both, Russia, China. I mean, including the authoritarian populists like India in this case, would then probably move to the other side, to the democratic states. It's very much an order that is based between two camps, and the two camps are divided by their domestic political system, by ideology. And in that sense, it would be a sort of a repetition of the East-West conflict. And the second similarity is that the power struggle and the ideological struggle are in a sense intertwined, because the hegemonic conflict would be between the leader of the authoritarian block, China, and the leader of the democratic block, the US. So, there is a hegemonic struggle, also, as we saw it after World War II, again. But it then evolves into two camps, which essentially intertwine this ideological and this power dimension of the struggle. As I said, many things pointed into this direction after the war in Ukraine and with Biden as President of the United States. Now something [has] happened. And that is, essentially, that the current president says, “I don't care about this sort of dividing line. Why should I support the Europeans? They are not my camp, my camp is America, America first. I only do what we consider as necessary to foster our national interest. And if we give, as a result of this, China tariffs Europe, then that's fine.”

Hagen 58:57

“That's it.”

Michael 58:57

So then, that's it. In that sense, there is a movement of the major democratic state to the authoritarian camp. And at the same time, we see, of course, that the authoritarian camp is divided between something that may be labeled bureaucratic authoritarianism, like China, where again, you see a sort of a of a common good that still is important for governing the country. That is mainly getting as many people out of absolute poverty, increasing wealth, creating consumption. There are other states in Asia that to some extent follow this route. Vietnam is probably the best example. Some of those Asian states that do very well would fall into this camp. But then there's a sort of a populist authoritarian camp. And in a sense, Putin and Trump would be in the same camp then together with Orbán, with Modi and many others. And that would create a sort of an extremely strange order where you have still ...

Hagen 1:00:14

We can take some of the Latin Americans, I guess, in there.

Michael 1:00:17

As well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would create a situation [where] we have one element [that] are still the pro democracies, but probably the weakest in terms of military and maybe also, in terms of economic capability. So, I mean, it would be the still liberal states in Western Europe, it would be Canada, it would be Australia, it would be Japan. And so, all of those states that have problems with growth and with the most recent technologies, to some extent, and of course all those states who have decided to build not up a strong military force because they relied on the US.

Hagen 1:01:00

That's right.

Michael 1:01:00

So that would be the liberal democratic camp, a relatively weak one. Then there would be the authoritarian populist camp, you pointed out some of the Latin American states, especially India, Russia and the US and militarily, probably, or not probably, clearly the most powerful then. And then there would be this third camp and there still would be, clearly, there is an ongoing, in a sense, almost unavoidable hegemonic struggle between China and the US. I mean, unavoidable as long as they do not belong to the same camp, ideologically. And that would still go on, but it would be embedded in a sort of a triadic, an ideational struggle and that would create very strange dynamics. I mentioned one: what happens if suddenly China goes with Europe in terms of markets?

Hagen 1:01:57

Well, there's this climate idea.

Michael 1:01:59

There's a common climate idea. Indeed, if you talk about international order, in this case, there would be no more commonalities between the bureaucratic-authoritarian camp and the liberal-democratic camp, then between the authoritarian – bureaucratic-authoritarian – and populist- authoritarian camp. The commonalities would be stronger regarding international order between liberal democracies and China. That would create very interesting, intellectually interesting, dynamics which are very, very hard to predict.But currently, it seems to me to be moving, to some extent, in that direction. I mean, there was some time when one felt the US is still recalling even under Trump that maybe NATO is not that bad an idea and maybe, “yes, we should prevent that Russia gets stronger.” But then it moves back so quickly again and you wonder, is it ideologically driven? Is it really that the US policy is now trying to build a world in which [there] is essentially very little normativity, even on the sovereignty side and where everything is, essentially, a question of a deal between the big boys? Is it really the ideological purpose? Then you're asking, “Well, is there something going on with private information on the side of Putin with which he can control Trump?” I mean, [there are] so many open questions.

Hagen 1:03:34

There's a lot of mystery. That's true.

Michael 1:03:37

There's a lot of mystery. But one thing could be that we have, essentially, the development of this triadic ideological structure and that would be very hard to understand and something completely new, essentially, if a sort of a bilateral hegemonic struggle is embedded in a triadic, ideational struggle.

Hagen 1:04:00

Okay, let's talk about the third. I hope it's optimistic.

Michael 1:04:03

No, no, no. I think it's clearly the worst one of all of them.

Hagen 1:04:07

Why did I know that?

Michael 1:04:08

Yeah, I mean, it is. If everything depends on agreements between the big boys and, in those kind of talks, everyone can be moved around because there are no really normative non-go areas. It means, essentially, war would become a regular mean with the attempt to avoid nuclear war between the great powers, but it would be an instrument in playing out those sort of struggles, always with the enormous danger of escalation. It would mean that we will have three blocks also economically with a huge loss of wealth because three blocks cannot produce as much wealth as an open, globalized block. It would mean that there's almost no chance for a good climate policy. In that sense, I think it would be quite horrible and it would create sort of the deals that we are now observing in Ukraine, where you just, from a normative point of view, can drive crazy if you see it, that it is argued, “Well, of course, Putin gets what he conquered already” and then we also have a discussion, “What does he get beyond?” I mean, it is such a sort of incentivizing of aggression that would speak very much in favor of further aggression in this world order.

3) Warfare, Economic Crashes, and Environmental Crises

Hagen 1:05:48

It would be a precedent, yes, definitely, towards that third version of yours. Well, Michael, I think we could talk for many more hours, but let's make a break here. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing your latest ideas and your insights and visions. And while they're not very optimistic, I think they're very possible. Let's get back to this maybe sometime later. Thank you so much.

Michael 1:06:32

Thank you so much. Thank you very much. It was great. It was great to be here. This podcast.

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