‘Global’ in the 21st Century is a far more nuanced term than ever: the 19th Century version revolved around the foreign policy of the ‘great powers, all of them European, with their colonies as appendages; in the 20th Century, those colonies had largely acquired independence, but in the sea of changes, the most dramatic development was the replacement of those European great powers by two ‘superpowers’ from elsewhere, the Soviet Union and the United States. In today’s 21st Century, the global stage is filled with an unknown variety of players: as ‘superpowers’ lose steam and ‘great powers’ still insist they remain great, emergent, lesser, and non-powers, as well as non-state actors and unspecified exploding issues, demand greater attention. ‘Nationalism’ is being challenged by ‘globalism’, triggering conflicts: religious forces, environmental pressures, population flows, illegal
trade, and illegitimate organizations all seem to be ganging up on the state, individually or in combination. Grappling with these has become a more intricate task. In the 19th Century, diplomats and armies were mobilized to find solutions, to be joined in the 20th by agency representatives and business executives. The 21st Century requires the ‘local’ (grassroots, national)and ‘global’ (international, multinational, transnational, supranational) to jointly govern problems/crises, creating a new ‘global’ context’.. ‘Global Studies &Governance’ (GSG) Program was introduced at Independent University, in Bangladesh, to evaluate such paradigms. As discipline-based academic training becomes increasingly inadequate to feed job markets requiring multi-tasking candidates, the GSG Program, with its inter-disciplinary and multidisciplinary agenda, which mixes cultural, economic, political, and social issues, stakes its claim to reshape the curricular landscape. This introductory course cultivates that holistic and multidimensional approach to governance. Hitherto addressed from a ‘business’/‘environmental’/‘security’ angle, governance in this course will be scrutinized from multiple (a) country-specific viewpoints; (b) culture-specific reflections; (c) issues; (d) negotiation styles and procedures; and (e) possible outcomes.