Beyond North and South: Constructing Global Governance for the 21st Century

As the millennium moves towards its third decade, we observe contradicting tendencies that call for new ways of thinking about governance - from the local to the global. In an unprecedented way, all categories of countries have agreed to a common set of Sustainable Development Goals, building on the significant achievements of the Millennium Development Goals. Global challenges, such as climate change and inequality, require global solutions and a unification of efforts. At the same time, the authorities designated to implement them, including states and international organizations, are challenged in multiple ways. This happens through, e.g., the upsurge of armed groups and non-conventional violence, large flows of people fleeing across state borders from to violence, poverty and the results of climate changes, and the increasingly evident unsustainability of the social order legitimizing current states. In this situation, research has a crucial role to play in rethinking governance. This must focus on how to create new platforms for consensus that move beyond distinctions between the North and the South, and bring in voices from beyond the western states in a dialogue about how to reach commonly agreed goals. However, global governance is dependent on the ability of nation states, local governments, companies, communities, social movements, families and a variety of other actors at the local levels to contribute to the production of private and common goods, distribute wealth, channel interests and resolve conflicts. To this conference we invite panels and individual paper proposals that seek to shed light on issues related to global governance and how to move forward in a joint pursuit for more inclusive and effective ways governing the globe at all levels. [See details in the attached Project description document.]