The Quest for Security: Protection Without Protectionism and the Challenge of Global Governance

by Joseph E. Stiglitz (Editor), Mary Kaldor (Editor)

Overview

The essays in this collection boldly confront the quest for security arising from the social, economic, environmental, and political crises and transformations of our century. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Mary Kaldor begin with an expansive, balanced analysis of the global landscape and the factors contributing to the growth of insecurity. Whereas earlier studies have touched on how globalization has increased economic insecurity and how geopolitical changes may have contributed to military insecurity, this volume looks for some common threads: in a globalized world without a global government, with a system of global governance not up to the task, how do we achieve security without looking inward and stepping back from globalization?

In each of their areas of expertise, contributors seek answers to questions about how we achieve protection of those people who are most insecure without resorting to economic, military, or mafia protectionism. Some have suggested that the turmoil in the Eurozone "proves" the deficiencies in the welfare state. This book argues that the superior performance of Scandinavian countries arises from their superior systems of social protection, which allow their citizens to undertake greater risk and more actively participate in globalization. Some suggest that we can address terrorism or transnational crimes through the strengthening of borders or long-distance wars. This book develops the proposition that such approaches have the opposite effect and that only through spreading the human security experienced in well-ordered societies can these dangers be managed.

This book also examines how these global changes play out, not only in the relations among countries and the management of globalization, but at every level of our society, especially in our cities. It explores the potential for cities to ensure personal security, promote political participation, and protect the environment in the face of increasing urbanization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231527651
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	04/23/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, former chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank, and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton. His books include Making Globalization Work; Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy; The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future; Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development (with Andrew Charlton); and Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress (with Bruce C. Greenwald). In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.

Mary Kaldor is professor of global governance and director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at the London School of Economics. She is the author of The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace (with Shannon D. Beebe); New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era; and Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Kaldor was a founding member of European Nuclear Disarmament and of the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly. She is also convener of the Human Security Study Group, which reported to Javier Solana.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Editors' Note
Introduction
Mary Kaldor and Joseph E. Stiglitz
Part 1: Social Protection Without Protectionism
Introduction
1. Social Protection Without Protectionism, by Joseph E. Stiglitz
2. Scandinavian Equality: A Prime Example of Protection Without Protectionism, by Karl Ove Moene
3. Further Considerations on Social Protection, by Kemal Dervis, Leif Pagrotsky, George Soros
Part 2: Protection from Violence
Introduction
4. Global Security Cooperation in the Twenty-First Century, by G. John Ikenberry
5. Restructuring Global Security for the Twenty-First Century, by Mary Kaldor
6. Recent Developments in Global Criminal Industries, by Misha Glenny
Part 3: Environmental Protection
Introduction
7. Sharing the Burden of Saving the Planet: Global Social Justice for Sustainable Development
Lessons from the Theory of Public Finance, by Joseph E. Stiglitz
Appendixes to Chapter 7
8. Designing the Post-Kyoto Climate Regime, by Joseph E. Aldy and Robert N. Stavins
Part 4: Urbanizing the Challenges of Global Governance
Introduction
9. A Focus on Cities Takes Us Beyond Existing Governance Frameworks, by Saskia Sassen
10. Violence in the City: Challenges of Global Governance, by Sophie Body-Gendrot
11. Cities and Conflict Resolution, by Tony Travers
12. Cities and Global Climate Governance: From Passive Implementers to Active Co-Decision-Makers, by Kristine Kern and Arthur P. J. Mol
Part 5: Global Governance
Introduction
13. Rethinking Global Economic and Social Governance, by José Antonio Ocampo
14. The G20 and Global Governance, by Ngaire Woods
15. Transforming Global Governance? Structural Deficits and Recent Developments in Security and Finance, by David Held and Kevin Young
Contributors' Notes

Editorial Reviews

This is a near-perfect text for contemporary graduate courses outside any disciplinary 'box.'

Journal of Global Faultlines

The Quest for Security is one of the most comprehensive assessments of globalization's challenges published to date. From mounting income inequality to the destructive power of climate change to the threat of terrorist attacks, this timely compilation of expert insight deftly exposes where global governance has failed and offers pragmatic solutions for building a secure, sustainable, and just post-crisis world.

George Papandreou

This important book offers new thinking for exceptional times. It draws fascinating parallels between what is happening in the fields of economics, security, and the environment and demonstrates why and how global solutions are the answer to the current interlinked crises.

Javier Solana

At a time when most initiatives to reinvigorate the multilateral system and its provision of global public goods are failing, it is encouraging to read the analyses and proposals contained in this volume. The key message of this excellent collection is reassuring: that the governance predicaments posed by globalization are solvable after all; the intellectual battle is not lost and it is still possible, with workable propositions, to win the political one in order to build a better international system. With strong conviction, I buy the argument.

Ernesto Zedillo

Our interdependent but uncoordinated world, in which we are often at loggerheads with each other, generates many different problems. In an insightful collection of contributions led by Mary Kaldor and Joseph E. Stiglitz, this wonderful book offers constructive ways of avoiding disaster with the help of global cooperation. A great book for our time.

Amartya Sen

This book takes the many and varied challenges facing the world, from the financial crisis to global warming, and explores how new forms of governance and cooperation can be developed to solve some of them or at least mitigate their effects. This book is original and pathbreaking, and its contributors are at the forefront of thinking about these questions.

Andrew Gamble

The Quest for Security makes for a fascinating read, made all the more timely by the current outcry--across the country and beyond--over the unequal distribution of the pains and gains from the economic changes of recent years. The book examines globalization as the multidimensional phenomenon that it is, without complexifying it to the point where the key issues become obscured. It is an important book that offers both an introduction to key issues in global governance to a general audience and advances the debate among expert scholars and policymakers with serious, constructive proposals for making economic globalization politically sustainable by improving average citizens' economic, physical, and environmental security.

Tim Buthe

Somebody should do something about the world’s problems, argues this dreary collection of academic papers. The assembled professors and think-tankers, with George Soros inevitably weighing in, rummage through a grab bag of insecurities that transcend national boundaries—financial crises and trade-induced economic disruptions, greenhouse gases, terrorism, epidemics, “shifting, diffuse and uncertain threats and catastrophes”—and mull half proposals to revamp the U.N., the G20, international conventions, and unspecified cooperative institutions. A few essays stand out, especially Karl Ove Moene’s stimulating analysis of how Scandinavian social democracies embrace global trade while protecting workers; Nobel economist Stiglitz (Making Globalization Work) contributes useful thoughts on climate change—let’s pay people to preserve forests instead of clear-cutting them to grow biofuels. Unfortunately, most of the articles serve up truisms wrapped in droning rumination. Indifferently written, these essays present the mushrooming field of globalization studies in an uninspired light. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Our interdependent but uncoordinated world, in which we are often at loggerheads with each other, generates many different problems. In an insightful collection of contributions led by Mary Kaldor and Joseph E. Stiglitz, this wonderful book offers constructive ways of avoiding disaster with the help of global cooperation. A great book for our time.

Amartya Sen