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Abstract:
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"The central issue facing human civilization at the end of the 20th century is governance: Who rules? Whose rules? What rules? What kind of rules? At what level? In what form? Who decides? On what basis? Given these questions, the notion of global 'management' has acquired increasing currency in some circles. This is especially true given that economic globalization seems to point toward a single world economy, in which the role of the sovereign state, 'at the controls,' is of decreasing relevance. Contrary to some expectations, however, globalization is not leading to integration. Rather, what we see is political fragmentation and the emergence of a multi-level and very diffuse system of governance, within which 'local' knowledge becomes increasingly important to coordination within political 'hierarchies' and among locales. I use the issue of environmental governance, in which these contrary trends are evident, to illustrate this proposition and to discuss the nature and role of knowledge in this process."
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