New Polity and Sovereignty

Will ours be a world of countries, regions, cities or other polities?

The proliferation of actors under International relations has been a reality, mainly since the second half of the XX century and even more in the XXI century. Indeed, the main goal in the post-WWII world was investing in the development of international organizations, including the United Nations or the World Bank. The purpose of this world was to make countries more interdependent and create a logistical and political framework within which states, including those which are weaker ones, are recognized as sovereign and provided with assistance by the international community. Interdependence has therefore been key through a complex structure of financial assistance, controls, norms, and sovereignty mechanisms limited by the transfer of competences to other entities or polities, such as the European Union, a super international regional organisation which can create norms directly applicable within the states. The notion of personality is therefore revisited and regions and proximity of polities gain weight as substructures able to develop more mechanisms of influence within particular areas of geographic or economic interests, such as in finance or the construction of a common market, or in the perspective of climate change.

How will the future global governance architecture look like?

The shape of global governance is constantly evolving, and there are many possible different outcomes. If there is something that is permanent is the fact that there will be change and we need to adapt to this change. For this, it is necessary to consider different scenarios in order to explore in a scientific manner the possible outcomes of global governance. This way of thinking is the only manner to anticipate how to proceed for policy makers, or for civil society or even for multinationals and corporations to test out their strategies. These scenarios should help policymakers to understand which policies may or may not work in the diverse possible futures. Many have discussed that we are in a challenging situation for global governance, even seeing a regression and a return towards traditional global intergovernmentalism. The diversity of actors, the digital divide, the uneven impact of foreign policies and states influences may create a fragmentation of the global governance , with even lateral “global architectures” with different speeds, including areas in which there is a stronger level of commitment and cooperation and others where minimal engagement is fragile.

How will governance structures accommodate the rise of non-state actors?

Global politics and governance are, as said before, in a constant process of profound change. Up till the end of the XX century, States were fundamental to global governance, as well as intergovernmental institutions. However, global governance has been steadily including since the nineties a growing number of non-state actors, which have made governance increasingly transnationalised and diversified, meaning that it operates at different levels, from the local to the regional and global. Some of the fey factors include economic globalisation, technological change, the growing imbalance in

information held by state and non-state actors, and the evolving notion of governance and what it implies, both in terms of regulations as well as follow up.