Poor people in rich countries: the roles of global governance

Abstract

Connections between global governance and poverty are usually made in relation to what are loosely called ‘poor countries’ of the ‘global south’. However, global governance also significantly shapes dynamics of impoverishment in ‘rich countries’ of the ‘global north’. These impacts become all the more apparent when global governance is understood to involve not only well-known intergovernmental agencies such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation, but also additional institutional forms such as transgovernmental networks and private regulatory mechanisms. This broad complex of global governance has often exacerbated poverty in the global north, for example through neglect of the issue, through marginalisation of the people affected, and through the promotion of neoliberal policy frames. At the same time, global governance has in other ways also promoted poverty alleviation in ‘high-income countries’, for example with rules that work in their structural favour, with policy learning, with rights discourses, and with some promotion of global-scale social democracy. Thus, the challenge for efforts to reduce poverty in the global north is, on the one hand, to counter the negative implications of global governance and, on the other hand, to nurture the positive forces. Global coalitions of anti-poverty campaigners – in particular across north–south lines – could especially serve these politics.