Bahá'í Chair Symposium Focuses on Frontiers of Globalization and Governance

The Bahá'í Chair for World Peace was honored to host Professors Amitav Acharya of American University (AU) and Virginia Haufler of UMD for its first symposium in a series on Frontiers of Globalization and Governance. Dr. Acharya presented “Global Governance in a Multiplex World,” and Dr. Haufler discussed “Private Authority in Global Governance.”

The Bahá'í Chair was pleased to cosponsor this event with the Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) and the Global Communities Living-Learning Program.

Dr. Acharya is the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance and is Professor of International Relations at the School of International Service at AU. Acharya’s talk is based on his book The End of American World Order, and he discussed the fate of the emerging world order as a multiplex one. A multiplex world is defined by actors that include not only great powers but regional powers, global and regional institutions, corporations, social movements, and transnational criminal and terrorist organizations as well. Dr. Acharya covered the growing trend toward inter-regionalism, which paves the way for a new, multiplex, global governance structure.

Dr. Acharya is the author of numerous other works on contemporary international relations, including: Rethinking Power, Institutions and Ideas in World Politics; Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order; and Whose Ideas Matter: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism. His essays have been published in the world’s top academic and policy journals, such as International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, World Politics, Foreign Affairs, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Asian Studies, Survival andWashington Quarterly.

Dr. Haufler is Director of the Global Communities Living-Learning program at UMD, and is a long-time professor in the Department of Government and Politics. She is also an associate of CIDCM. Her research and publications have explored issues of governance that arise with uneven globalization. Dr. Haufler’s talk focused on the many problems that globalization creates, problems which cross trans-national boundaries and escape the oversight of traditional governments.

Dr. Haufler has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Irvine; a Visiting Non-Resident Fellow at the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California; and a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She currently serves as an advisor to the non-profit OEF Foundation, Women in International Security, the Principles for Responsible Investment, and the Business4Peace Platform of the UN. She serves on the editorial board of Global Governance and International Studies Review. In 2013-14 she was selected as an ADVANCE Leadership Fellow at the University. She earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Government at Cornell University, and Dual B.A. degrees in Foreign Service and International Affairs, and Russian Language and Literature at Pennsylvania State University.

The purpose of the series is to examine how globalization is reshaping the international order and is challenging the previous institutions of governance. The holder of the Bahá'í Chair, Professor Hoda Mahmoudi, said, “We were very pleased that this symposium launched the series on Frontiers of Globalization and Governance.”

The Bahá'í Chair is a renowned academic program within the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. It utilizes interdisciplinary discourse to examine the way social actors and institutions effect social change and transform society. The Bahá'í Chair’s series on Frontiers of Globalization and Governance invites all students, teachers, administrators and attendees to explore and discuss the approaches necessary to govern a multiplex world that encompasses the power of multiple actors and authorities.

Published on Mon, Apr 27, 2015 - 3:35PM