The Provision and Management of Global Public Goods

Problems and Issues

Statement of the problem

Global public goods refer to intangible goods made common by virtue of globalization. This originally academic concept emerged into the world of international negotiations in response to the governance challenges of globalization. In its current usage, the concept refers to the contours and operations of the global market, and to how it generates new public goods. Because the range of goods potentially classified as public increases with the moving frontiers of globalization, the concept has come to apply not only to goods, but also to problems influencing their allocation.

The political debate over global public goods is based on the assumption that the evident need for international cooperation in the allocation of those goods can move the international community away from the prospects of a “prisoner’s dilemma”.

This vision arises from the reasonable but partial premise that the awareness of systemic risks increases the political motivation for action, and may expand as well as sharpen the modalities of agreements which can be applied to the pursuit of public goods. It is also based on the idea that the “glocal” perception of the importance of public goods effectively operates as a voice in favor of a global governance agenda.