The interregnum: Governance in the new world disorder
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020221143277 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essay |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2022, Vol. 77(3) 485–502
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020221143277
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The interregnum: Governance
in the new world disorder
W Andy Knight
Political Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Abstract
There is a crisis of global governance at this moment in our history –a moment being
labeled as ’the interregnum –a moment of transition from one world order to another.
The turbulence and disequilibrium of this moment in our history have triggered intense
and growing interest in the concept and practice of governance at all levels. This is not a
reflexive moment; it is a time for serious reflection and contemplation; a time for
reconceptualizing ‘global governance’; an auspicious moment for constructing a new
global governance paradigm. To assist in this introspective exercise, it may be im-
portant to shift from ’problem-solving’theorizing to a ’critical theory’approach that
stands outside prevailing understandings of what global governance has come to mean
and discard the oversimplified state-centric vision of world order; replacing it with the
more nuanced ’summative’global governance - a concept that is more sophisticated
and flexible than previous ones and may provide the needed space and time for us to
transform the practice of global governance.
Keywords
interregnum, global governance, multilateralism, reform, transformation, United
Nations
For scholars and observers of international relations who have been following geo-
political and socio-economic trends, particularly since the end of the Cold War, our
world appears increasingly ungovernable. The post–Cold War period has been marked
Corresponding author:
W Andy Knight, Political Science, University of Alberta, 11-25 Tory Building, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H4,
Canada.
Email: andy.knight@ualberta.ca
by the intensification of globalization, with all its attendant negative effects, and by
deglobalization—an inevitable counterresponse to hyper-globalization. This period is
also characterized as an era ushering in a “new world disorder.”Yetwe hav e institutions
of global governance like the United Nations (UN) that are supposed to manage and
address the global problems we face and steer us into a future that is more peaceful,
stable, equitable, just, sustainable, and prosperous.
The targets set for the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the
concomitant 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (with its seventeen sustainable
development goals and its 169 targets) certainly offer a normative desire and
strengthened global solidarity among the member states of the UN system to establish
some semblance of global governance via the institutions and agencies of this seventy-
seven-year-old organization.
I argue here that the extant institutions of global governance, including but not
limited to the UN system, are more or less “decisions frozen in time,”created at an
historical juncture when sovereignty-bound entities reigned supreme. Today those
institutions are being forced to operate in a complex, turbulent, interdependent, and
“intermestic”era in which sovereignty-free and sovereignty-bound actors jostle for
position on the global stage. Under the ellipsoidal glare of the spotlight at this critical
juncture in our history, post–World War II institutions of global governance are re-
vealing themselves to be severely defective, inefficient, ineffective, and largely
irrelevant.
The crisis of global governance at this moment in our history has triggered an intense
and growing interest in governance at all levels. This is not a reflexive, knee-jerk
reaction moment; it is a time for silent reflection and contemplation; a time for rec-
onceptualizing global governance; a propitious moment for constructing a new global
governance paradigm. To assist in this introspective exercise, we may need to shift from
problem-solving theorizing to the embrace of a critical theory approach that stands
outside prevailing understandings of what global governance has come to mean. In
Gramscian and Coxian terms, this would require empirical examination of the
patchwork concoction that we have labelled as the global governance architecture for us
to see clearly and describe accurately the post-Cold War “fragmegrative”
1
and complex
interdependent
2
environment within which that architecture is being constructed.
Such an exercise is important if our normative goal is to ensure that extant mul-
tilateral institutions like the UN system are truly “fit for purpose.”
3
To be fit for purpose
1. James Rosenau used the term “fragmegrative”to describe the paradoxical trend, during a period of intense
globalization and the unravelling of world order, of clashes between forces of fragmentationand those of
integration. See James N. Rosenau, Distant Proximities: Dynamics beyond Globalization (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2003).
2. On complex interdependence, see Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye Jr., Power and Interdependence
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1977).
3. George Mitchell, “George Mitchell: The UN is no longer fit for purpose,”The Press and Journal
EveningExpress 7 May 2022, https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/lifestyle/4232852/george-mitchell-
the-un-is-no-longer-fit-for-purpose/ (accessed 3 August 2022).
486 International Journal 77(3)
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