Can Globalization Be Governed?

To advocates like Tom Friedman, "Globalization" is a wonderful and natural process to which people need to adjust. To some critics, it is a dangerous pattern that needs to be resisted through public authority. And to others it is a process that is not natural at all, but encouraged by public policy that serves some interests at the expense of others.
If globalization were governed, how would that work, and in whose interest? Are there, in fact, efforts to govern aspects of globalization, such as international finance or global environmental threats, now? If so, how do or can they work, in the absence of world government? Tony Porter is one of the world's leading scholars of business regulation and global governance, especially financial regulation and processes of hybrid public/private rule-making that cross international borders. Some of his recent research has studied creation of transnational rules produced by business associations and international standard-setting bodies; the Financial Stability Board created to coordinate central banks and national financial regulators in the wake of the financial crisis; and influences on international elites from processes such as OECD peer reviews of "best practices" in national governance. Professor Porter's newest edited volume, Transnational Financial Regulation after the Crisis (Routledge), includes a chapter by our own Professor Lavelle and will be released shortly before his visit to CWRU.
This program was made possible by the generosity of Ms. Eloise Briskin.
Tony Porter is a professor of political science and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research for the Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University. He conducts research on business regulation and global governance, including especially financial regulation, private and hybrid public/private rule-making, the organizational effects in governance of technologies, and safety and environmental standards in the automobile industry. Professor Porter is the author of Globalization and Finance (Polity Press, 2005), Technology, Governance and Political Conflict in International Industries, (Routledge, 2002), and States, Markets, and Regimes in Global Finance, (Macmillan, 1993). He co-edited The Challenges of Global Business Authority: Democratic Renewal, Stalemate or Decay? (SUNY Press, 2010) with Kirsten Ronit, and Private Authority in International Affairs (SUNY Press, 1999) with A. Claire Cutler and Virginia Haufler. His most recent works include a new book with Heather McKeen-Edwards, Transnational Financial Associations and the Governance of Global Finance: Assembling Wealth and Power (Routledge 2013), and an edited volume on Transnational Financial Regulation after the Crisis (Routledge, release scheduled for February 2014).