Introduction

The 21st century is characterized by rapid development, globalization, and technological progress. These forces reinforce each other in a virtuous cycle, where technological progress leads to globalization, which in turn fosters further technological advancements. In general, technological progress results in a more interconnected world, and globalization leads to greater efficiencies in the transfer of information and capital. (1) The cycle of progress has significantly changed the social institutions and constructs that form the basis of global society. Alongside these changes is a global self-reflexive inquiry into the nature of identity and meaning for individuals and groups. Ideas of gender, race, ethnicity, and caste, have all been reevaluated and are undergoing a period of intense scrutiny. These societal institutions have been caught up in the cycle of progress, as technology and globalization have attenuated the strength of their formerly meaningful distinctions that formed the basis of identity. Simultaneously, notions of sovereignty and citizenship have come under question as globalization and technological progress have accelerated. These evolutions in our understanding of social constructs coincide with the alarming growth of technological corporations’ influence and power. Countervailing forces, such as populist movements advocating for tradition, patriotism, and sovereignty, have also increased. It’s logical then that in a world experiencing a rapid whirlwind of countervailing forces, the institutions of today need to adopt a model that operates and thrives within this state of flux while simultaneously iterating on and improving itself. Global un-governance is that model. First presented by Desai and Lang in 2020, global governance ‘evinces a commitment both to pursue closure and to embrace its impossibility”. (2) This paper investigates the trends of globalism through 21st century works and applies Desai and Lang’s “global un-governance” framework in potentially addressing the paradoxes and uncertainty associated with this period of rapid technological progress and globalization.

I: Societal Institutions and Norms

In his paper “Nature and Character of Contemporary International Law: The Era of Global Imperialism,” Chimni presents a complex analysis of integrating class, gender, and race within communism’s mantra: “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Chimni discusses modern interjections of ‘gender,’ ‘race,’ and ‘caste’ alongside or in lieu of class as lenses for viewing societal struggle and emancipation. (3) He presents a view that explains the ongoing attempts at foregrounding “rival concepts of gender and race” as resulting from their nature as being ‘far more adaptable to purely liberal ideal solutions’. Chimni quotes Feminist scholar Ellen Meiskins Wood to illustrate the logic behind this view. Wood remarks, “Capitalism could survive the eradication of all oppressions specific to women as women – while it would not, by definition, survive the eradication of class exploitation.” She then states, “there is no specific structural necessity for, nor even a strong systemic disposition toward, gender oppression in capitalism.”

Chimni illustrates the disconnect in interests that seem to underpin the emergence of neoliberalism in the 20th century. Essentially he states that Capitalism is indifferent to other forms of oppression, and acts as a wholly self serving force. While a marxist might believe that capitalism inherently fuels all forms of oppresion, a neoliberal, while adopting similar social values, would fundamentally disagree. A neoliberal view would be one that embraces a future where capitalism remains, and the productivity and innovation of the free market lead to a future where economic liberation emancipates society. He also presents the opposing view that such a system simply replaces one form of exploitation for another. You can perform a similar analysis where the product of increased capitalism is simply a proxy for the virtuous cycle of globalism and technological progress. Effectively, it shows how there is a disconnect between interests in class consciousness and other societal institutions like race and gender. For example, the introduction of oral contraceptive birth control in the 20th century permanently altered women’s relationship to parenthood and child rearing. The consequence was a significant increase in women’s participation in the workforce and with it came an increase in global productivity.(4) The 21st century introduction of Oocyte cryopreservation or egg freezing has similarly allowed women to plan pregnancy’s later, and technology is continually being developed to extend the fertility window. (5) From a neoliberal perspective, these developments would be seen in positive light, they may point to the benefits of the technology in terms of providing women more freedom in family planning, and while a substantial portion of communists would agree, particularly harsh critics of capitalism would contend that this technology and progress has shifted the oppression of women from the realm of gender to the realm of capitalism. The argument goes that the popularization of such technology is a way extract more employment from women in the workplace, and to incentivize them to delay childbirth in order to focus on their careers and productivity.

Analyzing whether capitalism, and by extension prioritizing economic progress, can co-exist with oppression leads you to look at gender. The definition of gender as a category has evolved significantly over the years, and many aspects of what gender means has come into question, particularly as technology has progressed. Innovations in biotechnology have lead to better gender-affirming surgeries and transition pharmaceuticals, and in the form of innovative policy, nations have adopted the notion of nonbinary personhood.(6) While current institutions have yet to adapt, an un-governance framework that encourages institutions to “actively seek to encounter, produce, and harness, their own indeterminacy (or the experience and expression of it) as a generative principle” would be suited for such a landscape. An un-governance model for women’s rights institutions, for example, would embrace the evolving nature and meaning of gender while accommodating the struggles and virtues of women operating within systems such as gender apartheid in the Middle East. Altogether, what an un-governance model would achieve is that it would address both the societal and economic concerns. It would for example address the underlying class inequalities that are interspersed within gender issues, while advocating for the ways that economic progress can addresses gender inequality. Such a model would embrace its lack of ability to provide closure on these questions but nevertheless strive towards it.

II: Migration and Globalization

Migration has been significantly impacted by globalization and technological progress. Achiume’s article “Migration as Decolonization” presents international migration as the “defining problem of our time.” She views colonialism as having “initiated inequitable global interconnection” and suggests that “decolonization could be conceived of not as independence but as more equitable interconnection.” (7) Her view is ambivalent towards globalization as an emancipation force, focusing instead on the relative power distribution resulting from it. Achiume says, “Insofar as the First and Third Worlds remain bound, for those who are subordinated in this relationship, equality or decolonization may entail shifting power within the relationship, not outside of or beyond it. Indeed, such a reconceptualization is urgent as long as global interdependence and interconnection remain a fact.”

Migration has been significantly impacted by globalization and technological progress. Achiume’s article “Migration as Decolonization” presents international migration as the “defining problem of our time.” She posits that colonialism had “initiated inequitable global interconnection” and suggests that “decolonization could be conceived of not as independence but as more equitable interconnection.” (8) Her view is ambivalent towards globalization as an emancipation force, focusing instead on the relative power distribution resulting from it. Achiume espouses a view that “seeks to supplant the extant international legal fiction and logic of formally independent, autonomous nation-states (each with a right to exclude nonnationals as a matter of existential priority) with the logic and ethics of imperial interconnection (specifically, colonial and neocolonial interconnection) that actually exists today”. She proposes a system that seeks that supplant the fiction of sovereignty with a focus on the real dynamics that exist post colonialism. Her framework uses migration as a method to adjust this balance. Notable is that Achiume asserts that “This personal pursuit of enhanced self- determination (which asserts political equality with First World citizens) is thus decolonial; it is migration as decolonization.” In this way, migration is characterized as an act of resistance or opposition” and Achiume presents freedom of movement as instrumental in redistributing power post colonialism.

With globalization, the relevance and power of the nation-state are becoming blurred, Scholars like Achiume are calling for mechanisms that encourage equal redistribution of neo-colonial power through respect of individual autonomy. Her perspective accounts for the blurring of concepts like nationality, such as the rise of digital nomads migrating from country to country, raising questions about their citizenship and management. The runoff effects are significant; besides Achiume’s conception, institutions need to consider the economic impacts on the labor market and, crucially, the responses of indigenous populations. While migration can be viewed as decolonization, in some respects it might represent a different form of imperialism. Therefore, these countervailing concerns of encouraging freedom of movement, while simultaneously respecting the rights of indigenous people and balancing economic interests, seem to align with an un-governance framework that incorporates Achiume’s prescription while considering the issues that stem from globalization and technological progress.

III: Technology and Corporate Power

“Corporate Power and Global Order” by Danielsen explores the role of corporate power in international affairs in the 21st century.9 He portrays the corporation as an increasingly potent actor on the global stage. He notes, “when corporations create or shape the content, interpretation, efficacy or enforcement of legal regimes, and in so doing, product effects on social welfare similar to the effects resulting from rulemaking and enforcement by government, corporate actors are engage in governance.” He elucidates the corporation’s role in governance and potential responses. He then presents two competing views, one view advocates for the “development of national firms through the use of tariff and subsidy programmes, antitrust law, etc..” and the other is “strict neo-liberal prescription for economic development [that] would encourage early opening of developing country markets to global competition through the abolition of trade barriers…”

Years later, Danielsen’s comments appear all the more relevant. Transnational corporations, particularly technology corporations are increasing in their reach and number. Alongside their increase in influence, corporations have buttressed their dominion over access to information and knowledge generally. Corporate control over knowledge is of profound importance for the future. On a global and micro scale, knowledge and power are interchangeable as means for effecting change (since they are effectively the same force operating in coincidence). (10) As tech corporations develop artificial intelligence, their domain has extended from information to cognition as well, encompassing the two essential elements of knowledge.

Danielsen concludes his piece by suggesting that transnational scholars should view the “decentralized and non-harmonized complexity of the global governance regime as a terrain filled not only with obstacles and pitfalls but also with benefits and opportunities for the pursuit of our political and social welfare purposes.” His proposal essentially aligns with the un- governance model. We need regimes that realistically recognize the role of corporations on the global stage and shape them without adhering strictly to a neo-liberal or conservative approach. Ultimately, the global regime needs to confront (not necessarily resolve) these questions. As the world evolves, global law must be adaptable to experiment with new paradigms, such as universal basic income, and utilize the entire spectrum of governance mechanisms from governments, NGOs, and corporations.

Conclusion

Un-Governance, and this paper more broadly, are intentionally theoretical. Un-Governance is a method for addressing the tensions between “universality” and “closure.” It is prepared to tackle global issues through “reflexive rather than essentially mystifying epistemic practices” importantly involving “reflections on their own inevitable failure to know much about the institutional problems at hand”.11 Un-Governance embraces paradox, meta-cognition, and self- criticism. It is equipped to manage the logical inconsistencies and countervailing interests arising from globalism and technological progress. It is suited for creating institutions that can simultaneously encourage the inclusion of women and form institutions to deal with the entire gamut of issues regarding gender as a source of identity. For migration, we require standards to encourage people’s freedom of movement and a framework for dealing with digital nomads and stateless world citizens, while considering the right to exclusion and the rights of indigenous peoples. Corporations and their power also need to be analyzed critically, and we need systems that can use them as tools to effect positive social change, without providing them with too much power. The un-governance model is thus means to address these challenges, focusing reflexively and adaptively on inclusivity, class, the right to self-determination, and the critical analysis of corporate influence, while recognizing the inevitability of change and the limits of existing knowledge.

Bibliography:

  1. Narula, Rajneesh. Globalization and Technology: Interdependence, Innovation Systems and Industrial Policy. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
  2. Desai, Deval, and Andrew Lang. “Introduction: Global Un-governance.” Transnational Legal Theory 11, no. 3 (2020): 219-243.
  3. Chimni, B.S. International Law and World Order: A Critique of Contemporary Approaches. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
  4. H.M. Prescott & L.M. Thompson, A Right to Ourselves: Women’s Suffrage and the Birth Control Movement, 19 J. Gilded Age & Progressive Era 542 (2020).
  5. McGowan, M.L. “Participation in Investigational Fertility Preservation Research: A Feminist Research Ethics Approach.” In Oncofertility: Ethical, Legal, Social, and Medical Perspectives, 209-221. 2010.
  6. Zurada, A., Salandy, S., Roberts, W., Gielecki, J., Schober, J., & Loukas, M. “The Evolution of Transgender Surgery.” Clinical Anatomy 31, no. 6 (2018): 878-886.
  7. Achiume, Tendayi. “Migration as Decolonization.” Stanford Law Review 71 (June 2019): 1509.
  8. Dan Danielsen, “Local Rules and a Global Economy: An Economic Policy Perspective,” 1 Transnational Legal Theory 49 (2010).
  9. Michel Foucault, The Body of the Condemned, in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison 1 (1979).