Concepts of Global Governance

The Concepts of Global Governance (CGG) Study Group is meant to develop a mutually comprehensible discourse on the basic questions of world order and global governance.  It brings together top global experts to address the meaning of sovereignty in the era of globalisation and the potential for inter-state cooperation and other modes of global governance to address global challenges.

Its members examine the relative roles of state and non-state actors and competing paradigms of international order as an inter-state system or an international society of states and non-state actors.

They explore the efficacy and legitimacy of a vast array of intermediate and long-term approaches to global governance: inter-state treaties, inter-governmental organisations, networks, the G-8 and other G-groups, global administrative law, public-private partnerships, transnational civil society networks, corporate social responsibility, and information disclosure as an approach to governance. 


• Concepts Study Group Research Agenda
• Concepts Study Group Members
• Concepts Study Group relevant readings

Modern civilisation is built upon unsustainable patterns of energy consumption. Climate change is the most prominent and perhaps most intractable of energy-related dilemmas, but the East-West dialogue on climate change is mired in unhelpful finger-pointing. Beyond climate, global energy policy raises profound questions of security, development, environmental degradation, even human rights.  There is no comprehensive system of institutions in place to deal with these issues or even have a broad discussion.

The Global Energy Governance (GEG) study group will explore whether it is possible to move forward by bringing together the security, environmental, development, and human rights aspects of energy in a grand bargain, and what institutional mechanisms can be reformed or developed to address the many dilemmas of energy policy. 

It will look to the project’s other study groups, particularly the Concepts Group, to explore which intermediate and / or long-term approaches to global governance do or could apply to global energy / climate change governance.

• GEG Study Group Research Agenda
• GEG Study Group Members
• GEG Study Group relevant readings

  Global Health Governance

Over the past several years, global health has risen rapidly on the agenda of global issues. Apart from traditional government and IGO action, non-state actors, from foundations to pharmaceutical corporations to NGOs, are actively experimenting with alternative ways to tackle global health challenges.

However, these initiatives are often driven by competing interests and values, uncoordinated at best and mutually undermining at worst.  The result is a cacophony of actors, largely unregulated, rarely transparent, and often acting at cross purposes. 

Despite all the new resources, domestic capacity to handle pandemics is weak or non-existent in most regions, leaving all parts of the world vulnerable to the next big outbreak.  Even the most obvious global governance steps, such as a reliable and comprehensive global reporting system, have yet to be taken. These institutional gaps and lack of strategic coherence reflect not just the difficulties of global collective action, but also important tensions between the norms, principles and ethics driving various global governance efforts.

A rising Asia brings to the table a new set of increasingly influential players with their own values and approaches to managing global issues, particularly on the notion of sovereignty. Thus, global health brings together all of the issues outlined for the Concepts Group.

• GHG Study Group Research Agenda
• GHG Study Group Members
• GHG Study Group relevant readings

  Global Economic Governance

If circumstances permit, the project may develop a fourth study group focused on rethinking global economic governance. 

The broad questions such a group would need to address are becoming clear as the global financial system teeters on the edge of collapse. Financial panics are hardly new, but the speed and scale of the current crisis draws attention to a broader question of how to govern a fundamentally altered financial landscape. How do we go about repairing the system of global economic governance? What are the governing principles for reform? Who should be included in the decision-making process?

• GEconG Study Group relevant readings