Wanted: A Third Generation of Global Governance Research

Abstract

A first generation of global governance research, principally in international relations (IR), has focused almost exclusively on formal mechanisms of interstate relations within public multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations and the World Bank. With these structures apparently in gridlock, many observers now regard global governance to be in crisis. However, a second generation of disparate scholarship spanning IR, European Union Public Policy (EPP) and International Law (IL) has begun to investigate new forms of public and private global governance as a response to the limitations faced by states in tackling pressing transboundary challenges. IR itself epitomizes this rebellion against old orthodoxies, having decisively shifted away in recent years from international relations to world politics, defined not simply by anarchic system structures, but also by an infrastructure built on liberal principles, and the presence of diverse social forces. This commentary proposes a research agenda which seeks to integrate insights across this theoretically and empirically-rich second generation of scholarship to ground a powerful third generation of global governance research, distinguished by a concern for the complexity and dynamism of global public policy-making and delivery in the 21st century.