Dynamics of Global Governance: Building on What We Know

Abstract

It is hard to quarrel with Weiss and Wilkinson's argument that deeper investigation of global governance could have big payoffs, and the four “primary pursuits” or research tasks they sketch will interest many scholars in this field. My concern is that while Weiss and Wilkinson nicely describe the importance of these tasks, they offer only cursory suggestions about ways forward when they could do much more. Unlike Weiss and Wilkinson (hereafter W&W), I see a great deal of first rate work being done that speaks directly to issues they raise—how power is exercised globally,2 structures of global authority,3 increasing complexity,4 actor proliferation, and change. The problem, I would argue, is not that scholars are ignoring these issues, but that so much more could and should be done. In this short essay, I build on foundations laid by others to sketch more focused research agendas for global governance scholars in four areas to tackle some of the central questions W&W identify, with particular attention to their laudable interest in change.

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