Institutions in global governance

Abstract

In their book,Gridlock: why global cooperation is failing when we need it most, Hale, Held, and Young argue persuasively why post-World War II institutions delivered the global cooperation anticipated but ended up creating other serious problems for international society. They explain how the successes of earlier cooperation efforts produced greater multipolarity, institutional inertia, institutional fragmentation, and some difficult problems that, in turn, paved the pathways through which the governance gap between the multilateral system and global needs became wide. However, their book, whose thesis revolves around the nature and functions of global institutions, fails to define the term ‘institution’. This essay argues that had the authors elaborated institutions, their argument would have been much stronger.