Global Governance Research Research Articles

Progress in adaptive governance research and hotspot analysis: a global scientometric visualization analysis

Adaptive governance has emerged as a prominent theoretical and methodological approach in environmental governance, recognized for its capacity to address evolving conditions and future uncertainties. Despite the extensive literature on adaptive governance since its inception in 2003, a comprehensive review of the literature spanning two decades remains to be conducted. This study addresses that gap by selecting 3274 articles from the Web of Science Core Collection and performing a global scientometric visualization analysis. Our analysis identifies the most productive institutions, authors, journals, publication trends, and research frontiers in adaptive governance research. The findings reveal that there has been a significant acceleration in global research on adaptive governance over the past two decades. Furthermore, the majority of contributions to the field of adaptive governance research have been made by scholars based in the United States, Australia, England, Canada, and the Netherlands. Additionally, existing studies in adaptive governance field focus mainly on subject categories of environmental studies, environmental sciences, and ecology. Finally, the concept of adaptive governance, environmental governance, social-ecological systems, climate change adaptation and social learning were identified as hot topics and emerging trends. This study provides researchers and practitioners with an extensive understanding of the salient research themes, trends, and patterns in global adaptive governance research in an intuitive manner.

Re-thinking Global Governance as Fuzzy: Multi-Scalar Boundaries of Responsibility in the Arctic

ABSTRACT The article reconsiders global governance as fuzzy and situated across multiple scales rather than multi-level. It revisits Global Governance research, whose introspective focus on opening “black boxes” has marginalized “in-between” approaches. The article highlights the value of “in-between” approaches for mid-range theorizing on global normative order using the Arctic as an example. It shows how sovereignty and “projects of belonging” unfold across diverse fora in designating “responsibility.” In legal, cultural, and epistemic contexts, boundary work by national and non-state actors demarcates jurisdiction and shields claims of responsibility to prevent others from gaining rights or access to the region. Through examples, the article demonstrates that normative boundary practices do not form a homogenous project of belonging. Instead, these practices blur the lines of where “all things Arctic” are negotiated, who holds legitimate voice to influence governance, and complicate long-term decision-making.

Navigating towards justice and sustainability? syncretic encounters and stakeholder-sourced solutions in Arctic cruise Tourism Governance

ABSTRACTCruise tourism has a dubious reputation for conspicuous consumption and associated environmental harm. Cruises to the Arctic promise passengers pristine landscapes and authentic and engaging experiences interacting with local and Indigenous communities. Yet, these very environments and communities are under existential threat amidst the climate crisis, provoking the question of how to reconcile the ever-expanding Arctic cruise industry’s conflict with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). To answer this question, the article proposes a novel approach that fuses concepts and methodologies from normative global governance research and critical tourism studies. Based on extensive empirical research in Norway, Canada and Iceland, the article presents stakeholder-sourced solutions that address a variety of justice conundrums associated with the expanding cruise tourism sector in the region. On the basis of the approach developed in the article, our research is able to inform public and policy discourse towards a just and sustainable transition of the polar cruise tourism industry in light of UN SDGs by highlighting the importance of creating ‘syncretic encounters’ based on four dimensions: authentic storytelling, decompressing spatial and temporal resources, just working conditions, and attention towards the built environment.

Research Status and Challenges of Global Digital Governance Based on Knowledge Graph Analysis

Digital governance is an important issue in the digital age, involving the interests of governments, enterprises, individuals, and other parties. It is a key factor in achieving modernization of national governance and has attracted widespread attention from countries around the world. In this study, a Knowledge Graph was plotted to combine the research framework of digital governance through a big data system. The basic characteristics of digital governance research, the forefront of global digital governance research, and the current governance challenges facing global digital governance are also explained in this paper. The co-occurrence clustering analysis of keywords identified that the forefront of global digital governance research mainly includes digital government governance, artificial intelligence governance, digital platform governance, digital currency governance, etc. The main problems faced by digital governance at present include monopolistic challenges, the constant evolution of the “digital divide,” data privacy protection, and artificial intelligence ethics. Solutions proposed to these problems include the deep application of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, the protection and enhancement of digital rights, and international cooperation and sharing, to address the governance challenges in the digital age.

The Power of Specialization: NGO Advocacy in Global Conservation Governance

AbstractOrganizational ecology has attracted growing interest in global governance research in recent years. As a structural theory, however, organizational ecology has overlooked how organizations may shape the organizational environment by their own choices. Bridging the insights of organizational ecology and the study of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), I argue that the organizational choice of specialism (as opposed to generalism) increases the power of NGOs to influence an environmental condition—issue salience—by targeting a small but engaged segment of the public. Focusing on wildlife conservation governance, I collected new comprehensive data on NGOs and issue characteristics (2008–2015). My empirical analysis shows that specialist NGO density is strongly associated with issue salience. I further examined causal processes in the case of pangolin conservation advocacy, in which specialist NGOs first raised issue salience and generalist NGOs followed. The findings suggest a division of labor among NGOs and challenge a conventional view that the power of NGOs is concentrated in a small number of prominent organizations.

Our Common Agenda and its implementation: An introduction

AbstractThis paper provides an introduction to this Special Issue on the United Nations report Our Common Agenda. The report, for which the Secretary‐General consulted widely, contains around 90 proposals and recommendations, propagating solutions at the national, regional and global levels and across four broad areas: (i) renewed solidarity between peoples and future generations in order to strengthen social cohesion, (ii) a new social contract anchored in human rights; (iii) better management of critical global commons; and (iv) global public goods that deliver equitably and sustainably for all. With some exceptions, the Our Common Agenda report has been very well received both internationally and by UN Member States. The members of the Una Europa Global Governance Research Group wrote a number of brief articles commenting on diverse salient aspects of the Our Common Agenda OCA report and its implementation, and how these touch on a variety of issues of global governance, which are being presented in this Special Issue. This introduction provides an overview of the topics that are covered and their main findings.

Global Governance Research

Abstract Global governance has been widely embraced as an object of analysis and as a way of “seeing” world politics. Yet we still know little about how publishing has evolved. This article presents the first systematic exploration of these patterns. It uses an original dataset of global governance research to answer three first-order questions: How has publishing varied over time? What issues have scholars focused on? And who has been publishing in the field? The authors found that research has grown and become increasingly diverse—but selectively so. Some marginalized issues feature more prominently than in the rest of international relations, but there are blind spots too. Further, while research is less American and women have been comparatively more active relative to other areas, geographical diversity remains extremely limited. Scholars based in the Global South have been the first authors of less than 14 percent of all publications. To conclude, the article reflects on implications for the field.

Contouring ‘earth-space sustainability’

There have been increasing calls in transition research for a global view of sustainability challenges. We argue that this focus should be expanded from a concentration on the Earth's surface and stratosphere to include outer space. The substantial growth of the space sector over the past decade has seen huge increases in the number of rocket launches, the diversity of actors, and the availability of new essential services that depend on space-based infrastructure. In particular, the rise of satellite-based infrastructure could drive the need for inter-related multi-system transitions across a wide range of Earth-bound sectors. These developments, however, cause diverse new sustainability pressures, such as atmospheric pollution, increased energy consumption, and the accumulation of space debris. To address these challenges, this article proposes earth-space sustainability as a new frontier for sustainability transition research, requiring the expansion of conceptual and analytical tools at the interface of transition and global governance research.

Reviewing Global Relational Governance Research from 2002 to 2020

Purpose Relational governance has been attracting more and more attention in this century. Current research in relational governance field mainly discusses the impact of relational governance on exchange performance, the interrelation between relational and formal governance, etc. However, the limitation of the existing research in relational governance research subfield is that fewer studies have conducted a review-based study to assess global relational governance research. In other words, an attempt at research looking backward, the status quo, as well as looking forward toward research frontiers and openings for future research on global relational governance is almost nonexistent. To attempt to fill this opening, this study aims to review the global relational governance research from 2000 to 2020 combining quantitative analysis (bibliometric analysis) with qualitative analysis (content analysis). The objective of this study is as follows: 1) to look backward to discern the status quo of relational governance research from 2000 to 2020; and 2) to attempt look forward the research frontiers and opening s for future research; 3) to derive and propose a basic framework in this field.Methodology As a literature review based on the bibliometric methods, it is important to look back at papers which have been published in the past by presenting and analyzing the massive literature data. Furthermore, it is critical to propose trends that are emerging in this research field. That’s to say, both forward looking and backward looking are necessary. Accordingly, we adopted a four-step workflow consisting of data collection, descriptive analysis, quantitative analysis, and qualitative analysis complementing the results of quantitative analysis. That is to say, this paper in lock step manner combines quantitative analysis with qualitative analysis to look backward uncovering status quo of global relational governance research from 2000 to 2020, and to attempt to look identifying research frontiers and openings for future research. Especially, in quantitative analysis section, by using the tool of CitespaceV, we can objectively look backward the research hot topics and look forward research trends and frontiers initially. Subsequently, the qualitative analysis complementing the results of quantitative analysis, aims to further look backward the research topics which are important but ignored in the quantitative analysis and look forward research openings in relational governance research field. By this mean, we can draw a relatively objective and comprehensive conclusion on global relational governance research.Findings Using the data gathered from the WOS core collection database, we looked backward the status quo, and looked forward the research openings on global relational governance research. As for the status quo, the influential countries and institutions, pivotal scholars, key documents, hot topics, research trends, and frontiers were identified. With regard to the journals, Industrial Marketing Management and Journal of Business Research were the most influential journals in relational governance research field. The performance of Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing was also excellent. As for the academic performances of different stakeholders, countries such as England, USA, Spain, Australia, and China made great academic contributions to relational governance research. Institutions consisting of University of London, City University of Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong and University of Wisconsin System had the prominent influence. In term of authors, Laura Poppo and Kevin Zheng Zhou had the prominent impact in this research field. Through document co-citation analysis in quantitative analysis, top 3 literatures in terms of the importance of degree of all the literatures were found. As for research hot topics, ten research topics were identified by the quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis: the integration research combining formal governance with relational governance, the impactful factors of relational governance, the effect of relational governance, the norm and dimension of relational governance, supplier-manufacturer relationships/supply chain management, IT/outsourcing, (complex) projects, China, alliance, and commitment. With regard to research frontiers, three research frontiers including behavior, complementarity, and absorptive capacity were detected by quantitative analysis. Additionally, three stages of relational governance research were concluded by comprehensive induction: the first phase (2002–2008) covering the norm and the effect of relational governance, and the second phase (2009–2013) extending of research scope and objective, and the last phase (2014–2020) representing the research frontiers of relational governance research. Furthermore, three research opening s lacking of investigation and required further research were identified, including concerning how and when relational and formal governance are related, the “dark sides” of the relational governance and the research from the perspective of psychology.Originality The present research is the first that investigates the global relational governance research status quo and offers researchers a comprehensive and deeper understanding in relational governance research field. The findings can offer a more comprehensive and deeper understanding on the research status quo, “hot” topics, research trends and frontiers of global relational governance research from 2000 to 2020 and research opening for future research. Consequently, the present research represents a contribution in business marketing theory development and inter-organizational relationship management.

No common position! European arms export control in crisis

The European arms export control system is facing a dual crisis: An ongoing crisis of effectiveness has led to a crisis of legitimacy. In many ways, that crisis is a permanent one, where collective efforts to regulate a policy field and implement agreed-upon norms and rules fail to succeed. To explain the different layers of the European arms export control crisis, we draw on global governance research of International Relations and legalisation approaches of international law. The lack of effectiveness of the European Union Common Position on arms exports has become particularly visible in the two review processes where member states failed to agree on meaningful revisions. The Europeanisation of arms production adds additional pressure to the system, as member states differ in their national arms export licensing policy practices. In sum, these developments have led non-governmental organisations and civil society to protest and file successful court cases against arms export practices violating international humanitarian law and human rights law. The article also focuses on possible means of alleviating the crisis of European arms export control.

Massive Institutional Structures in Global Governance

Abstract Global governance consists of elementary regimes that form regime complexes, which in turn give rise to what we call superclusters around broad policy domains. In recent years, scholars have explored what these macroscopic structures look like and how they evolve over time. Yet the complex ways in which entire governance superclusters interact and coevolve, and what might emerge through this process, have not received much attention. In this article, we expand the ontological frontier of global governance research by offering a first bird’s-eye view on supercluster-level institutional interaction with an empirical focus on trade and environment. We constructed and analyzed a dynamic network-of-networks model, revealing a supercluster complex, a massive institutional structure in global governance consisting of two or more interlocking superclusters that exert a measurable influence on each other’s course of development. We theorize that the supercluster complex serves as an institutional fabric that enables the degree of self-organized coordination observed between the trade and environment policy domains. Our preliminary findings warrant more research on supercluster complexes as an important but little-noticed phenomenon in global governance.

Pragmatic ordering: Informality, experimentation, and the maritime security agenda

AbstractThe question of when and how international orders change remains a pertinent issue of International Relations theory. This article develops the model of pragmatic ordering to conceptualise change. The model of pragmatic ordering synthesises recent theoretical arguments for a focus on ordering advanced in-practice theory, pragmatist philosophy, and related approaches. It also integrates evidence from recent global governance research. We propose a five-stage model. According to the model, once a new problem emerges (problematisation), informality allows for experimenting with new practices and developing new knowledge (informalisation and experimentation). Once these experimental practices become codified, and survive contestation, they increasingly settle (codification) and are spread through learning and translation processes (consolidation). We draw on the rise of the maritime security agenda as a paradigmatic case and examine developments in the Western Indian Ocean region to illustrate each of these stages. The article draws attention to the substantial reorganisation of maritime space occurring over the past decade and offers an innovative approach for the study of orders and change.

Стан та тенденції досліджень корпоративного управління за останні 5 років: статистичний та візуальний аналіз заснований на CiteSpace

Corporate governance is not only one of the important issues of modern enterprise management, but also a hot topic in academic research. Bibliometric analysis of the current status of global corporate governance research in the past five years can help researchers and decision-makers grasp the main trends in corporate governance at present and in the future. The purpose of this research is to analyze the current status, hot spots and trends of corporate governance research in the past five years. Using the core collection of the WOS database as the data source, we searched English language journals related to corporate governance and obtained 607 literature search results. We utilize bibliometric methods and use CiteSpace to conduct statistical analysis and visual analysis. Through statistical literature publication year, country (region), author and literature citation situation, draw keyword co-occurrence map, research hotspot map, clustering map, burst hotspot map, systematically show the corporate governance research field in the past 5 years Basic information, research hotspots and development trends.The research results show that the number of corporate governance-related documents has continued to increase in the past five years. The United States, the United Kingdom, China, Spain, and Australia are the five countries with the largest number of corporate governance studies. The top 5 most cited authors are M.C. Jensen, A. Shleifer, E.F. Fama, R.La. Porta and P. Gompers. Among the top 10 most cited documents, the most cited are 178 words and the least cited 65 times. Research hotspots in corporate governance include agency theory, emerging market, capital structure, family firms, and real earnings management. Future research trends include merger, ownership concentration, equity and institution.

Exploring links between national climate strategies and non-state and subnational climate action in nationally determined contributions (NDCs)

ABSTRACTNon-state and sub-national actors (e.g. companies, civil society, cities and regions, collectively referred to as ‘NSAs’) could bridge the ambition gap left by insufficiently ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Increasing effective non-state and sub-national contributions could both support NDCs’ implementation and spur ambitious updates to these national climate action plans. The impact of NSAs depends partly on whether and how national climate strategies recognize them. Yet, systematic knowledge about the extent to which national governments envisage a role for non-state and sub-national climate action is scarce. How do governments refer to NSAs in their NDCs; and what capacities, functions, and in which sectors do they envisage non-state contributions? We apply structural topic modelling (STM), an efficient quantitative text analysis technique seldom used in global climate governance research, to 147 NDCs to explore whether and how national governments incorporate non-state and subnational contributions into their international climate commitments. Using this method, we identify key topics for non-state and subnational engagement in NDCs, including vulnerability and adaptation, monitoring, general and sector-specific collaboration, and policy support. We find that developing countries overwhelmingly reference NSAs more frequently than developed countries. We also find predominantly negative trade-offs in how countries link to NSAs, suggesting countries tend to mention NSAs’ contributions in specific roles rather than across multiple sectors. Our findings suggest there is scope for countries to broaden their linkage to NSAs in their updated NDCs to further catalyze engagement.Key policy insightsLinkages to NSA initiatives (including cities, regions, businesses or civil society) in NDCs under the Paris Agreement are mostly made by developing countries.Developing countries describe NSAs primarily in the context of vulnerability and adaptation policy implementation, while developed countries mainly describe these actors’ role as collaborators across a range of functions.Closer coordination between NSAs and national governments, to fully leverage NSA contributions to NDCs, can be achieved by explicitly outlining NSAs’ contributions in future updates of NDCs.

Building Global Genomics Initiatives and Enabling Data Sharing: Insights from Multiple Case Studies.

This genomics global governance research study presents the dynamics and the evolving nature of salient challenges that global genomics initiatives encounter in designing new models for data management, exchange, and collaboration across disciplines, sectors, and countries. Using a multiple case study approach, we assessed and compared organizational responses across diverse genomics initiatives. The richness of a comparative qualitative analysis clearly shows the complexity addressed by genomics initiatives and, importantly, expands current studies by moving beyond an open versus property regime dichotomy. Although we identify some common themes, fundamental differences emerge in the way genomics initiatives set goals, manage heterogeneity, define resources, devise governance, and enable data sharing. Such differences demonstrate the ongoing processes of adapting governance structures, management processes, and organizational design solutions that are implemented in response to different social, technical, and policy environments. We find that genomics initiatives largely benefit from and are shaped by the engagement with large communities of scientists to rethink and design shared rules and guidelines for data exchange and use. Our study provides direct guidance to future global genomics initiatives, but it also offers a benchmark for research in the omics field broadly, both in terms of design and methodological approaches to understand the emerging forms of scientific governance and innovation ecosystems.

Explaining New Models of Global Voluntary Regulation: What Can Organisational Studies Contribute?

AbstractGlobal governance in its myriad forms and actor constellations has decisively demonstrated the potential for rule‐making above the nation state to be liberated from the ‘iron cage’ of traditional intergovernmental forums and multilateral bureaucracy. To further investigate an increasingly complex global reality, we propose drawing on organisational theories and methods for penetrating the internal dynamics of global governance processes and outcomes. This article begins by mapping out the current use of organisational theories in global governance research. It then turns to exploring the potential for other areas of organisational theory and conceptual development to shed light on the governance dynamics and performance of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS), a significant site of transnational rule‐making and experimentation by private actors. We highlight a paradigmatic shift from ‘arms‐length’ to ‘embedded’ models of VSS monitoring and regulation, reflected in new modes of engagement and interaction between rule‐makers and rule‐takers. This new generation of embedded VSS governance is distinguishable by enhanced information provision, learning and knowledge creation. The implications of embedded governance for VSS monitoring and performance are explored with reference to the experience of the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF).

Towards a Third Generation of Global Governance Scholarship

AbstractGlobal governance is widely viewed as in crisis. Deepening interdependence of cross‐border activity belies the relative absence of governance mechanisms capable of effectively tackling major global policy challenges. Scholars have an important role to play in understanding blockages and ways through. A first generation of global governance research made visible an increasingly complex and globalising reality beyond the interstate domain. A varied second generation of scholarship, spanning diverse subfields, has built upon this ‘signpost scholarship’ to generate insight into efforts to manage, bypass and even – potentially – transcend multilateral gridlock to address pressing transboundary problems. This article plots a course towards a ‘third generation’ of global governance research, serving to also introduce a special section which brings together leading scholars in the field of global governance, working across theoretical, analytical and issue‐area boundaries. This collaborative endeavour proposes to advance a convergence, already underway, across a theoretically and empirically rich existing scholarship, distinguished by a concern for the complexity of global public policy delivery.

Contested Global Governance

AbstractThis article aims to contribute to the third generation of global governance research by unfolding the concept of a global governance system consisting of normative principles and patterns of authority relationships and legitimation. The goal is to formulate a positive theory that goes beyond the negative descriptions of global governance as post‐internationalist and helps to move global governance beyond its embryonic state. The major theoretical claim is that the features of the current global governance system have endogenously produced the politicization and counter‐institutionalization of international authorities. Internal tensions of the system fuel legitimation problems and demands for change, which in the end lead – in some cases – to the decline of global governance arrangements or – in other cases – to its deepening via appropriate institutional responses.

Territory, authority, expertise: Global governance and the counter-piracy assemblage

This article presents an empirical study that aims to draw out core elements of an assemblage theory of global governance. Situating assemblage theory in the third, practice-oriented generation of global governance research, I argue that it provides us with a feature-rich toolbox sensitive to the routine matters of international cooperation, the role of artefacts and the vitality of territories of governance. To showcase the advantages of an assemblage approach, I study a paradigmatic case: the organization of the international community’s fight against piracy off the coast of Somalia. This effort has not only been very successful, with no major piracy incident reported from 2012 to 2016, but also a ‘miracle’ that can be explained by the close cooperation of all actors involved. I zoom in on one of the core components of this cooperation, the so-called Best Management Practices, which organize state–industry relations. I present a detailed study of the making of the Best Management Practices and the territory of authority and expertise that it established, and show how it became a core tool of governance. The case study documents the analytical power of assemblage theory for understanding global governance.

The ‘Black Box’ problem of orchestration: how to evaluate the performance of the Lima-Paris Action Agenda

ABSTRACTThe Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA), launched in 2014 to mobilize non-state and subnational climate action in the run-up to the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is conceptualized as an orchestration attempt where the French COP21 and Peruvian COP20 presidencies together with the United Nation Secretary General’s office and the UNFCCC Secretariat enlisted non-state and subnational actors to influence states. Using a method seldom used in global governance research to reconstruct the intervention theory of the LPAA, the assumptions and expectations underpinning its performance are unveiled, suggesting a series of micro-steps between input, output and outcome that the evaluator must link causally to understand the LPAA’s performance. This contributes insights for orchestration theory and global climate policy, suggesting that leadership and institutional environment were conducive for the LPAA’s creation. The benefits and challenges of reconstructing intervention theory in global governance research are also discussed.