Understanding Global Governance : Institutional Choice and the Dynamics of Participation

Abstract

Global governance is essentially about governance. That is, it is about those mechanisms that make societal or global determinations. Comparative institutional analysis is by its nature focused on governance and governance mechanisms and understanding institutional behavior lies in the dynamics of participation– the bottom-up forces that determine who is influential and who is not. In turn, the dynamics of participation is dependent in turn on the costs and benefits of participation. The works in this book attempt to establish and grow comparative institutional analysis as a general analytical framework for organizing the issues of global governance. The first chapter exams the basic constitutional issues faced by global governance. The second expands these insights to a general framework to analyze global governance. The third explores global governance and the use of comparative institutional analysis in the context of environmental issues. The fourth explores the institutional choice issues raised by trade and more broadly global public goods. The fifth examines what comparative institutional analysis of various sorts tell us about globalization and the role of law. Although this book sets out few answers, it does propose a route to a common understanding of the problems and with it a way to reach meaningful answers.