Global Governance and Biopolitics: Regulating human security

Description

This seminal work is the first fully to engage human security with power in the international system. It presents global governance not as impartial institutionalism, but as the calculated mismanagement of life, directing biopolitical neoliberal ideology through global networks, undermining the human security of millions. The book responds to recent critiques of the human security concept as incoherent by identifying and prioritizing transnational human populations facing life-ending contingencies en mass. Furthermore, it proposes a realignment of World Bank practices towards mobilizing indigenous provision of water and sanitation in areas with the highest rates of avoidable child mortality. Roberts demonstrates that mainstream IR's nihilistic domination of security thinking is directly responsible for blocking the realization of greater human security for countless people worldwide, whilst its assumptions and attendant policies perpetuate the dystopia its proponents claim is inevitable. Yet this book presents a viable means of achieving a form of human security so far denied to the most vulnerable people in the world. Prelims About the author Table and figures Table 1.1 Comparative global deaths from war and diseases, direct and indirect violence, 2002–05 Figure 3.1 Facilitators and inhibitors for engagement with neoliberalism Figure 3.2 How poverty and ill health prevent engagement with neoliberalismand maintain the status quo Figure 5.1 Regulating the U5MR – the potential impact of externally assisted indigenous entrepreneurialism in water and sanitation provision Figure 6.1 Schematic outlining paths of pressure invoked by norms entrepreneurs and the ‘downstream’ effect on global governance, biopolitical management and human security Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction 1 | Humanizing Security? The state and security Table 1.1 Comparative global deaths from war and diseases, direct and indirect violence, 2002–05 The human and security Populations and security A definition Conclusion 2 | Global Governance or Global Hegemony? Introduction Global governance as benign Global governance as asymmetrical power Global governance and hegemony Global governmentality, transnational populations and biopolitics Biopolitics for human security? Conclusion 3 | A New 'Nebuleuse'? Introduction A new nebuleuse? Medical science and human security Poor health, weak growth? Figure 3.1 Facilitators and inhibitors for engagement with neoliberalism Figure 3.2 How poverty and ill health prevent engagement with neoliberalismand maintain the status quo Good health, strong growth The European experience Medical science and human security: a way forward? 4 | Neoliberalism, Water and Sanitation Neoliberalism and privatization Critical International Political Economy Critical IPE and the Post-Washington Consensus Global social policy What kind of social provision? For whom? Conclusion 5 | Social Reconstruction and World Bank Policy Legal influence on World Bank policy Political influence on World Bank policy Thinking about change Mobilizing local capacity A human security, sector-wide approach (SWAp) Generating Bank compliance Conclusion Figure 5.1 Regulating the U5MR – the potential impact of externally assisted indigenous entrepreneurialism in water and sanitation provision 6 | Norms and Change Introduction Norms change Figure 6.1 Schematic outlining paths of pressure invoked by norms entrepreneurs and the ‘downstream’ effect on global governance, biopolitical management and human security Conclusion Conclusion Bibliography Index