ARE NATION STATES STILL THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ACTORS IN GLOBAL POLITICS?

When the Nation state was established in 1648, it was the most significant global actor and remained so for some 300 years. A nation state is an autonomous (independent) political community bound together by citizenship and nationality, meaning that political and cultural identity coincide. 'Nation state' has been used as a synonym for 'state' or 'country' although this is not necessarily true. The first and second world wars were very much wars of and between nation states however by the end of WW2 and the start of the cold war, emerging globalisation and the rise of NGOs and TNCs have brought into question whether or not nation states are still the most significant actors in global politics.

The growing importance of global governance institutions such as the UN suggests that nation states are not as significant as they once were. The UN has 193 member states and is able to deploy peacekeepers to state territory after a conflict, in an attempt to maintain newly established peace. It's members (general assembly) and more significantly its security council and the P5 can approve or condemn invasions and wars - a recent example saw P5 members deciding to work together to defeat ISIS (another non state actor) which has ultimately led to airstrikes in Syria. The UN security council is also able to impose sanctions and embargoes on nation states if it feels they have acted 'illegally', as with Russia's annexing of the Ukraine.

However, the UN as well as other significant global governance institutions (the three sisters), are made up of nation states and so cannot exist without the pre established member states. If significant nations states withdrew their UN membership, the UN's legitimacy and authority as a global governance institution would be severely diminished. Additionally the UN has no real sovereignty or law making power (it cannot make laws that apply to all nation states, but it can pass resolutions which have power over member states only), whereas nation states have governments with full law making power and the authority to impose these laws. The UN had no say over the US' 2003 invasion of Iraq which it saw as an illegal war, implying the US as a nation state is more powerful than the UN.

Regional institutions like the EU and NAFTA are arguably more significant than nation state actors. While the EU is made up of nation states, its members pool their state sovereignty. This effectively results in the EU having more sovereignty than its combined members and being able to assert its opinions as an influential global actor. It is able to influence trade and even fishing regulations and so has influence over the economies of nation states. The EU could be seen as an erosion of state sovereignty but its members are able to opt out and so its power is limited.

The growth of TNCs (which have become supranational in some cases) has seen corporations having enormous wealth and as a result, power as actors on the world stage. Some companies have a GDP higher than that of a nation state  - Wal-mart, for example, has a higher GDP than Austria and South Africa. Moreover, TNCs create jobs wherever they decide to open stores or offices, and so the governments of nation states are forced to give them tax breaks to prevent them moving to an area which will make them more profit. TTIP, a trade deal which is currently being negotiated, would allow companies to sue national governments for imposing laws which do not allow them to optimise their profits, and would be a huge blow to state sovereignty. Additionally corporations are able to lobby governments as they have enormous wealth which can be used to influence lawmaking.

Nation states, however, provide the conditions of social order and security which TNCs need to operate so can be seen as significant actors in this way.

Informal forums like the G20 are also significant global actors, with the G20 influencing the world economy arguably more than any individual nation state would be able to. The G20 is made up of the governments of major economies (Finance Ministers) as well as Central Bank Governors and so is partly separate from the nation state.  It formulated the response to the 2007-9 financial crisis and as such can be seen as having a huge influence on global politics.

The rise of terrorist organisations like ISIS and Boko Haram is another factor which suggest nation states are no longer the most significant actors in global politics. ISIS has control over vast territories in Iraq and Syria, controlling areas with 2.8 million and 8 million people, despite not being a nation state. It has gathered huge wealth and economic power as a result, with nation states such as Turkey buying its cheap oil and essentially funding the operation. The lack of success of nation states such as the US, Russia and now the UK in taking down ISIS is a testament to its power as a global actor and has worrying implications for the fate of the nation state in global politics.

Has an effective system of global governance now become a reality?

Global governance is the management of global policies in the absence of a central government. States in a global governance system co operate because they see that it is in their interest to do so - global governance has therefore emerged out of an acceptance by states that in a growing number of policy areas, the problems they face cannot be solved by individual states acting alone. Global governance differs from global hegemony and world government in that each of these must have a supranational authority (authority higher than that of the nation state, that is capable of imposing its will on nation states) - it therefore implies that international anarchy can be overcome without founding a world government or having to endure a world hegemonic order.

The emergence of the Bretton Woods system in 1944 can be seen as the start of global (economic) governance.The Bretton Woods system is a good example of multilateralism which has become increasingly prominent post 1945. However it must be noted that the US heavily influenced the system  - it led the negotiation and effectively dictated some of the outcomes.

 While global governance encompasses a wide range of multilateral agreements, networks, norms and formal institutions, the three institutions set up in the wake of the Bretton Woods conference can be seen as the most important. They are: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and GATT, which was replaced by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1995.

The IMF is one institution which can be used to argue that an effective system of global governance is in place - initially it was successful in overseeing the system of fixed exchange rates put in place by the Bretton Woods system, and after this system was abandoned in favour of floating exchange rates in 1971 it took on a new role, increasingly lending to the developing world and transition countries after the 1990 collapse of communism. Its structural adjustment programmes, which impose neoliberal values such as (privatisation of industries and austerity) on countries that receive its loans, can be seen as part of an effective system of global governance as they ensure the spread of neoliberalism and the values of the Washington consensus as a global policy. It could be argued that this is less an example of global governance, however, and more an example of US hegemony and its spreading ideology. A criticism of the IMF has been that it is systematically biased in favour of developed countries in the global north, and has been used as an instrument of US policy.

The IMF and the World Bank both have similar weighted voting systems that take into account countries strength in the global economy, so cannot be considered the most democratic example of global governance. Through its IMF style structural readjustment policies and a stress on export led growth rather than protectionism, it has often seen an increase, rather than a reduction in poverty in developing countries. It could be argued that this is an example of an effective institution of global governance, if the aim of global governance was to widen development disparities and to disadvantage developing countries. However reform of the world bank has seen an additional seat allocated on its board of directors for sub-Saharan Africa, as well as an increase in the voting power of developing countries to 47%, making it far more democratic as an institution of global governance.

GATT's contribution to global governance was as a set of norms and rules, and while its role was limited as it fell short of becoming an institution, it was successful in reducing tariffs on manufactured good from 40% in 1947 to just 3% by 2000. This can be viewed as an example of global governance in that countries successfully negotiated an agreement that would benefit all. By comparison, the WTO has been far more successful, especially in settling disputes between trading partners - settlement judgements an only be rejected if they are opposed by all members of the dispute settlement body, to which all members states belong. This has effectively made the WTO the primary instrument of international law in terms of trade.  The WTO is also a far more democratic constitution than the IMF and the world bank in that decisions are made on a 'one country, one vote' basis, giving considerable weight to the views of developing countries which make up 2/3 of its members. However, developing countries are often disadvantaged as they have been excluded fro the club-like meetings held by developed countries and the bulk of unfair trading allegations are made against them - this has led to the WTO being labelled a 'rich man's club' and not a representative or effective means of global governance.

Lastly, while trading blocs like the EU and NAFTA can be seen as effective organisations of regional economic governance, the three main institutions of truly global governance have arguably been ineffective - they are usually unable to extend their influence to non member states and so are limited in their ability to 'govern' on a global scale. They are also unable to control the US, which has used its hegemonic status to tailor these institutions to impose its neoliberal ideology on the rest of the world. So while I would argue that an effective system of global governance is not a reality, I do think that a system of neoliberal values (the Washington consensus) is fast becoming a global norm.