Introduction

Abstract

This chapter explains the rationale and relevance of the edited volume. In general, the volume sees good reason to reinvigorate the governmentality debate in International Relations (IR). The volume draws attention to the importance of approaching governmentality in IR from the perspective of globality, and thereby highlights the need to consider both governmentality and globality as being entangled. Accordingly, instead of any scaling-up of governmentality, in this chapter we argue that globality cannot be equated with the international level and should rather be considered as a genuine context of its own requiring distinct consideration. As a starting point, the chapter deems it necessary to add some conceptual clarity to the governmentality debate in IR, as governmentality has become a buzzword which is often used without any necessary conceptualization. As a foundation for the contributions in this volume, this chapter provides a detailed overview over the governmentality debate in IR, pointing to its variations and contradictions. On this basis, the chapter engages with the concept of globality and elaborates how it can be utilized in the context of international governmentality studies.