On September 29, 2017, Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) held a special section on "Methods of studying global governance" within the framework of the XI Convention of the Russian International Studies Association (RISA).
The purpose of the session was to discuss methodological tools and analytical approaches to studying global changes and developing practical solutions for overcoming the crisis of global governance.
On September 29, 2017, Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) held a special section on "Methods of studying global governance" within the framework of the XI Convention of the Russian International Studies Association (RISA).
The purpose of the session was to discuss methodological tools and analytical approaches to studying global changes and developing practical solutions for overcoming the crisis of global governance.
The session was moderated by RIAC Deputy Program Director Timur Makhmutov who outlined the key trends in the growing crisis in all spheres of society - from the economy to managing global migration flows. He also underlined the decline of governance both at global and regional levels and even at the state one.
The session included presentations made by:
Igor Denisov, Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Studies of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations;
Elena Alekseenkova, RIAC Program Manager, Fellow at the Center for the Study of Global Problems of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations;
Andrei Kazantsev, Director of the Analytical Center of the Institute for International Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations;
Viktor Sergeev, Director of the Center for the Study of Global Problems of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations;
Kirill Petrov, Fellow at the Center for the Study of Global Problems of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations;
Vladimir Morozov, RIAC Program Coordinator.
Igor Denisov reported on the results of the discourse-analysis of the Chinese perspective on the modern global order and its role in it. In his opinion, this method is optimal and necessary in analysis of the China's global strategy because it is possible to identify the peculiarities of the world view and the perspectives on global governance only by studying the discourse in the national language. In this case, the discourse-analysis of texts translated into English does not provide us with a similar depth of analysis and does not allow finding the particularities of Chinese thinking.
Elena Alekseenkova presented the results of the analysis of the global migration management. In particular, despite the almost century-long history of the development of global migration governance (the first attempts were made back in the 1930s by the League of Nations), the EU member-states and the U.S. stay reluctant to absorb large flows of refugees and other types of migrants. Numerous recommendations for improving the migration situation in the world are being formulated at global conferences and forums, which are held at the government level and even under UN’s auspices. For several decades the largest international organizations - IOM, ILO, etc. - have been working on these issues. However, national governments are still not ready to follow the recommendations. States avoid accepting "binding" initiatives and support "non-binding" easily; they are not ready to transfer politically sensitive issues concerning national identity or the interests of the national labor market to the supranational level.
Viktor Sergeev, Andrey Kazantsev and Kirill Petrov presented the results of the collective analysis of party-political dynamics in Europe and the United States. The report discussed the emergence and crisis of the "mainstream" as a governance policy of a nation-state, formed on the basis of a symbiosis of right-wing and left-wing ideological approaches in democratic countries during the 1990s and the early 2000s. However, the deepening crisis of this policy by the middle of 2010 was due to the separation of both the "right" and the "left" wing of the “mainstream” from the respective traditional electoral groups, as well as the inability of the core of the "mainstream" to cope with the challenges posed by alternative political parties and movements that receive an ever-increasing percentage of votes in democratic elections in a "middle class" crisis. It is likely that the emergence of the "alternative" at the forefront of national states will soon affect the degree of controllability of the global order.
Vladimir Morozov presented the results of the analysis of modern approaches to forecasting in the international relations. The increasing complexity of the dynamics of international processes and the need to find answers to global challenges led to the fact that the popularity of the topic of forecasting in domestic and foreign socio-political discourses increased substantially. Analysis of 25 long-term forecasts of Russian and foreign analytical centers (including analytical subdivisions of private companies and international organizations) demonstrated that most of the studies (with the exception of highly specialized economic and financial forecasts) do not have a clearly defined methodology, demonstrate dependence on the current political and economic situation, as well as expert opinions and are often demonstrate linear extrapolation of current trends.
RIAC will continue a series of seminars and round tables devoted to the problem of the method in the international relations studies.
