The Global Governance Of Knowledge

Patent offices around the world have granted millions of patents to multinational companies. Patent offices are rarely studied and yet they are crucial agents in the global knowledge economy. Based on a study of forty-five rich and poor countries that takes in the world's largest and smallest offices, Peter Drahos argues that patent offices have become part of a globally integrated private governance network, which serves the interests of multinational companies, and that the Trilateral Offices of Europe, the USA and Japan make developing country patent offices part of the network through the strategic fostering of technocratic trust. By analysing the obligations of patent offices under the patent social contract and drawing on a theory of nodal governance, the author proposes innovative approaches to patent office administration that would allow developed and developing countries to recapture the public spirit of the patent social contract.

There is an increasing scientific and political sensibility for questions regarding the "governance of a knowledge society" and the societal benefits and problems of a "knowledge economy". The Global Governance of Knowledge provides a survey and analysis of international agreements and institutions, global and regional, which regulate the creation and dissemination of knowledge. The volume utilises case studies and a comparative country / thematic approach to prove a comprehensive survey of the regulation and governance of knowledge flow, research and innovation. By identifying activities creating new knowledge, such as education and migration, it demonstrates how knowledge regulation and diffusion works in practice and policy. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, international relations and policy regulation.

This edited volume examines power in its different dimensions in global governance. Scholars tend to underestimate the importance of power in international relations because of a failure to see its multiple forms. To expand the conceptual aperture, this book presents and employs a taxonomy that alerts scholars to the different kinds of power that are present in world politics. A team of international scholars demonstrate how these different forms connect and intersect in global governance in a range of different issue areas. Bringing together a variety of theoretical perspectives, this volume invites scholars to reconsider their conceptualization of power in world politics and how such a move can enliven and enrich their understanding of global governance.

This book argues that the current international intellectual property rights regime, led by the World Trade Organization (WTO), has evolved over the past three decades toward overemphasizing private interests and seriously hampering public interests in access to knowledge and innovation diffusion. This approach concentrates on tangible and codified knowledge creation and diffusion in research and development (R&D) that can be protected via patents and other intellectual property rules and regulations. In terms of global policy initiatives, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that the WTO in particular is mostly a conflict-resolution facility rather than a global governance body able to generate cooperation and steer international coordinated policy action. At the same time, rent extraction and profits streaming from legal hyperprotection have become pervasively important for firm strategies to compete in a globalized marketplace. “Knowledge Governance: Reasserting the Public Interest” offers a novel approach – knowledge governance – in order to move beyond the current regime.

In the 21st century, the world is faced with threats of global scale that cannot be confronted without collective action. Although global government as such does not exist, formal and informal institutions, practices, and initiatives—together forming "global governance"—bring a greater measure of predictability, stability, and order to trans-border issues than might be expected. Yet, there are significant gaps between many current global problems and available solutions. Thomas G. Weiss and Ramesh Thakur analyze the UN's role in addressing such knowledge, normative, policy, institutional, and compliance lapses. The UN's relationship to these five global governance gaps is explored through case studies of some of the most burning problems of our age, including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, humanitarian crises, development aid, climate change, human rights, and HIV/AIDS.

Offers a different perspective on global governance from the vantage point of a global knowledge society. Employing a case study of the global financial system and an analysis of several governance regimes, this work contends that markets, legal systems, and morality must evolve to cope with uncertainty, build capacities, and achieve resilience.

Diane Stone addresses the network alliances or partnerships of international organisations with knowledge organisations and networks. Moving beyond more common studies of industrial public-private partnerships, she addresses how, and why, international organisations and global policy actors need to incorporate ideas, expertise and scientific opinion into their 'global programmes'. Rather than assuming that the encouragement for 'evidence-informed policy' in global and regional institutions of governance is an indisputable public good, she queries the influence of expert actors in the growing number of part-private or semi-public policy networks.

Friends and foes of international cooperation puzzle about how to explain order, stability, and predictability in a world without a central authority. How is the world governed in the absence of a world government? This probing yet accessible book examines "global governance" or the sum of the informal and formal values, norms, procedures, and institutions that help states, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, and transnational corporations identify, understand, and address trans-boundary problems. The chasm between the magnitude of a growing number of global threats - climate change, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, financial instabilities, pandemics, to name a few - and the feeble contemporary political structures for international problem-solving provide compelling reasons to read this book. Fitful, tactical, and short-term local responses exist for a growing number of threats and challenges that require sustained, strategic, and longer-run global perspectives and action. Can the framework of global governance help us to better understand the reasons behind this fundamental disconnect as well as possible ways to attenuate its worst aspects? Thomas G. Weiss replies with a guardedly sanguine "yes".

`This primer on the global politics of social policy ... is essential reading for students as well as others seriously interested in improving the human condition. Nuanced and critical, Deacon′s book offers a much needed and constructive guide to the complex supra-national debates over rights, regulation and redistribution impinging on social welfare all over the world′ - Jomo K.S., United Nations Assistant, Secretary-General for Economic Development `This book is very timely and addresses many issues that are en vogue at the moment. It relates social policy studies to other fields such as global governance and development studies and thus opens up new discussions in the subject area′ - Dr Antje Vetterlein, University of Oxford Global Social Policy and Governance offers an authoritative understanding of the way social policies at national and supra-national level are shaped in the context of globalisation. The book: " evaluates national social policies advanced by international organisations. " examines policies addressing global social redistribution, regulation and rights. " highlights the roles of global actors, including INGOs, consultants, think tanks, task forces and global policy advocacy coalitions. " explores the political obstacles to reforms in global social governance, " outlines the growing importance of global social movements. " presents arguments for more effective global and regional social policies. " is illustrated by case studies, further reading sections and a glossary. Global Social Policy and Governance will be an essential text for students of social policy, development studies and international relations. It will also be invaluable reading for those shaping social policies in international organisations and those in social movements seeking to influence them. Bob Deacon is Professor of International Social Policy at the University of Sheffield.

Through theoretical discussions and case studies, this volume explores how processes of contestation about knowledge, norms, and governance processes shape efforts to promote sustainability through international environmental governance. The epistemic communities literature of the 1990s highlighted the importance of expert consensus on scientific knowledge for problem definition and solution specification in international environmental agreements. This book addresses a gap in this literature – insufficient attention to the multiple forms of contestation that also inform international environmental governance. These forms include within-discipline contestation that helps forge expert consensus, inter-disciplinary contestation regarding the types of expert knowledge needed for effective response to environmental problems, normative and practical arguments about the proper roles of experts and laypersons, and contestation over how to combine globally developed norms and scientific knowledge with locally prevalent norms and traditional knowledge in ways ensuring effective implementation of environmental policies. This collection advances understanding of the conditions under which contestation facilitates or hinders the development of effective global environmental governance. The contributors examine how attempts to incorporate more than one stream of expert knowledge and to include lay knowledge alongside it have played out in efforts to create and maintain multilateral agreements relating to environmental concerns. It will interest scholars and graduate students of political science, global governance, international environmental politics, and global policy making. Policy analysts should also find it useful.