The contrast between globalization and national sovereignty was always center-stage in debates dedicated to organize mechanisms for international cooperation.
Both when the League of Nations emerged, at the end of the First World War and when the United Nations were created, the search for a balance between the need to cooperate to overcome common problems and the preservation of the margins for national decision and autonomy were the main problem to solve.
Paradoxically, when the future of our way of life and progress depends more and more crucially on international cooperation to give a human face to globalization, frustration and disenchantment with it, on the part of many citizens – who protest by electing governments with disruptive agendas – makes this cooperation more difficult.
There is no doubt that countries have the right to privilege their internal social contracts. However, when this right opposed the requirements of global dynamics, it is more difficult to find mechanisms to stabilize interactions and avoid conflicts.
This balance becomes even more difficult due to the complexity of an international agenda requiring certain minimum levels of global consensus, and the undeniable fact that globalization – which includes a huge range of non-state actors, from corporations and civil society spontaneous expressions to complex political phenomena, such as mass migrations and the actions of terrorist groups – can profoundly affect States.
Globalization has been an extraordinary advance of humanity. It brought with it a substantive reduction of extreme poverty, universal access to sources of information and knowledge, a considerable empowerment of citizens and minorities and the international defense of human rights throughout the planet.
But at the same time, disruptive technological changes, amplified by market integration, cause anxiety in large sectors of the middle classes in the most advanced economies. The same happen in Emerging Economies. Many blame their problems on globalization.
Like it or not, an international society in the process of integration must be able to generate a reference framework that allows the management of global public goods.
That is to say, that help us to find common solutions for the problems that we have to face together.
