The shifting structure of global governance

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The world is undergoing rapid change, but systems of governance have not kept up. Kishore Mahbubani notes that the United Nations remains the only institution with genuine global representation. Yet the West's long-standing efforts to weaken and constrain it, coupled with its reluctance to work with China on advancing the Global Governance Initiative, have made meaningful reform of the UN increasingly difficult. Martin Jacques argues that as power shifts toward Asia and the Global South, global politics is entering a period of heightened friction. The central question is not the shift in power itself, but whether existing frameworks of global governance can adapt to this transition, establish new institutional arrangements and prevent the international order from being torn apart by structural change.

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