• Publication date: 02/2009
  • Volume: 28
  • Issue: 2
Foreword

In 2009 the global economic crisis and the looming threat of climate change demonstrate how much we live in an era of global crises that require global action. States can no longer isolate themselves. Actions taken in one state regularly affect many others. Throughout 2009 the newly anointed G20 group of leaders and the International Monetary Fund have sought solutions to the global economic crisis that spread around the world from the United States of America. Solutions are also sought to the pressing problem of climate change as attempts are made to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto protocol at the Copenhagen conference. These solutions will not be implemented by a world government, but by national governments within state borders. The changing dynamics of the international system may require a more robust system of global governance but this requirement conflicts with the reality of our current state-based system. This edition of Social Alternatives will examine some of the changes occurring in the international system, the developing regimes of global governance and the role and performance of some major global institutions.

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