The Politics of Global Public Goods
GGN Debate
As the need for managing “global public goods” is increasingly understood, the questions regarding their provision and allocation cease to be mainly economic and financial and become political.
The range of what can be defined as public goods increases with the moving frontiers of globalization, as does the number of problems associated with their delivery and management. Furthermore, the increasing competition for and potential shortages of basic resources add a dimension of uncertainty to the definition of public goods, and the search for economic growth erases distinctions between economic needs and entitlements.
In striving for economic gain, states will pursue discriminatory access to markets to the detriment of global welfare and often to agreed regional objectives. But while national policy options become increasingly shaped by global forces, the nature of public goods makes individually-tailored solutions inefficient and problematic in the long term.
What are the new economic variables influencing the definition of global public goods? Can the concept encompass new forms of technological development, and new directions of the knowledge economy relevant to capital accumulation today? Can investments, technology and trade be incorporated in the discussion about global public goods? What are the possible political scenarios for negotiating their provision?