According to Samovar et al. (2017), intercultural communication and global governance are now more important than ever because of the progressing globalization, demographic changes, and ecological and political issues. In demographic terms, the authors illustrate their point by a graph of the world’s population growth, demonstrating that the population of Earth currently grows one billion every 12 to 15 years.
This population does not remain stagnant – on the contrary, it migrates, creating intercultural marriages and communities. Managing climate change that is largely brought by industrial production requires international cooperation, as even the few dissenting countries may negate the efforts of their more environmentally conscious counterparts.
Finally, globalized society features an increased risk of conflicts as well, be that trade disputes or different approaches to human rights. Managing and solving all these issues requires cooperation between nations, which often relies on communication between cultures. One may agree with Samovar et al. that the existing problems require international cooperation and communication, but the authors’ coverage of global governance in the contemporary world suffers from insufficient attention to economic matters. This is partially understandable, as the authors point out that discussions of the topic usually focus “on economic benefits and the ramifications of interdependence”.
Thus, the book’s concentration on matters other than the economy may be an attempt to counter the over-emphasis on economic cooperation present in other publications. Still, it is no reason to omit that global governance in the post-WWII world has economic roots. A fitting example is the European Coal and Steel Community of 1952, specifically designed not to be controlled by any national government. By mostly omitting the economic foundation of global governance, the authors make their case for its importance less convincing than it could have been.