Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Since the last decades of the twentieth century, globalisation has led to an emerging awareness of major environmental, economic and social issues at world scale (global warming, financial crisis, growing inequalities etc.). While some problems are global, the numerous and multifaceted actors of the global governance and their complex interrelationships often make the decision-making process ineffective. As a result, the emerging global society is still mainly based on the international system, in which States play the main role. Numerous academic studies analyse the shape and functioning of global governance. However, we can ask how much the world level is acceptable to the population in terms of public action. Indeed, the global level is often perceived as too complex and as a space on which we have no possibility of action. More, individuals are already embedded in different levels of territoriality, including the national level in which they place both most of their expectations in terms of public action and their feelings of belonging. In order to check how the World could be an acceptable level for public action, we conducted in 2018 a survey on a representative sample of the French population on this topic. The answer to this survey allows to explore how the world level is perceived compare to other level of public action (cities, regions, country, European Union); for which topic the world level could appear as relevant, and what form should global governance take. The answers are explained by socio-demographic characteristics of the people surveyed.