ÔThis volume provides a welcome overview of the diverse ways in which informal practices and norms shape policy in national states, the European Union, and international relations. The wide range of cases that feature in the volume point to the normative and substantive importance of informality. This volume is a valuable contribution to a fascinating and under-researched topic.Õ Ð Gary Marks, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, US and VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands Acknowledging that governance relies not only on formal rules and institutions but to a significant degree also on informal practices and arrangements, this unique Handbook examines and analyses a wide variety of theoretical, conceptual and normative perspectives on informal governance. The insights arising from this focus on informal governance are discussed from various disciplinary perspectives, within different policy domains, and in a number of regional and global contexts. This Handbook is an important contribution that will put informal governance firmly on the map of academic scholarship with its review of the range of the different uses and effects of informal arrangements across the globe. Bringing together multidisciplinary contributions on informal governance arrangements, this Handbook will appeal to postgraduate students in political science and scholars within the field of political science and global governance.

Global governance has come under increasing pressure since the end of the Cold War. In some issue areas, these pressures have led to significant changes in the architecture of governance institutions. In others, institutions have resisted pressures for change. This volume explores what accounts for this divergence in architecture by identifying three modes of governance: hierarchies, networks, and markets. The authors apply these ideal types to different issue areas in order to assess how global governance has changed and why. In most issue areas, hierarchical modes of governance, established after World War II, have given way to alternative forms of organization focused on market or network-based architectures. Each chapter explores whether these changes are likely to lead to more or less effective global governance across a wide range of issue areas. This provides a novel and coherent theoretical framework for analysing change in global governance. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The legal foundations of global governance are shifting. In addition to traditional instruments for resolving cross-border problems, such as treaties and formal international organizations, policy-makers are turning increasingly to informal agreements and organizations like the Group of Twenty, the Financial Stability Board, and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. A growing number of policy-makers view such weakly-legalized organizations as promising new tools of governance, arguing that informal bodies are faster and more flexible than their formal counterparts, and better-suited to the complex problems raised by deepening interdependence. Yet, equally, political scientists have puzzled over these international organizations. At present, we still know relatively little about these bodies, why they have become so important, and whether they are indeed capable of addressing the immense challenges faced by the global community. In The Origins of Informality, Charles Roger offers a new way of thinking about informal organizations, presents new data revealing their extraordinary growth over time and across regions, and advances a novel theory to explain these patterns. In contrast with existing approaches, he locates the drivers of informality within the internal politics of states, explaining how major shifts within the domestic political arenas of the great powers have projected outwards and reshaped the legal structure of the global system. Informal organizations have been embraced because they allow bureaucrats in powerful states to maintain autonomy over their activities, and can help politicians to circumvent domestic opponents of their foreign policies. Drawing on original quantitative data, interviews, and archival research, the book analyzes some of the most important institutions governing the global economy, showing how informality has helped domestic actors to achieve their narrow political goals-even when this comes at the expense of the institutions they eventually create. Ultimately, Roger claims, the shift towards informality has allowed the number of multilateral institutions to rapidly increase in response to global problems. But, at the same time, it has coincided with a decline in their quality, leaving us less prepared for the next global crisis.

Characterizes the three distinct types of informal governance and provides a normative assessment of them.

This open access book features various studies on democratization, transformation, political and economic development, and security issues in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) geographical region and beyond. Written by experts and academics in the fields of human rights, security, transformation and development, particularly in post-soviet and communist countries, it examines the status quo of regime development in various member states of the OSCE; their economic, security and human rights performance; institutional reforms and transformations and the challenges that these countries and their societies face, including the USA, Canada, Germany, Macedonia, Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia. This is the 2019 edition of this Compilation Series of the OSCE Academy. The OSCE works to promote Minority Protection, Security, Democratic Development and Human Rights guided by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), and to enhance securitization and development policies in Eurasia, Europe, Central Asia and North America. Since being founded in 1993, the OSCE and its agencies and departments have attracted a wealth of academic research in various fields and disciplines, ranging from economic development and election monitoring to enhancing global principles of human rights and securitization. About the OSCE Academy in Bishkek: Founded in 2004, the Academy offers post-Doc research fellowships and runs two Master Degrees, one in Economic Governance and Development and one in Politics and Security in Central Asia. The Academy"s regular academic programs and conference contributes to developing human professional capital in the sectors of particular importance for Central Asian states and societies. The Academy's graduates and visiting researchers contribute to economic development, governance and policy-making in Central Asia and beyond the OSCE region. Website: http://www.osce-academy.net/en/about/

This book provides the first analysis of the Trilateral Commission and its role in global governance and contemporary diplomacy. In 1973, David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski founded the Trilateral Commission. Involving highly influential people from business and politics in the US, Western Europe, and Japan, the Commission was soon preceived as constituting an embryonic or even shadow world government. As the first researcher to have accessed the Commission’s archives, the author argues that this study demonstrates that global governance and international diplomacy should be considered a product of overlapping elite networks that merge informal and formal spheres across national borders. This work has three immediate aims: to trace the background, origins, purposes, characteristics, and modus operandi of the Commission; to investigate the elite aspect of the Commission and how this related to democracy; and to demonstrate how the Commission contributed to diplomatic practices and policy-formulation at national and international levels. The overall purpose of this book is to evaluate the significance of the Trilateral Commission, with particular focus on the implications of its activities on the way we understand decision-making processes and diplomacy in modern, democratic societies. This book will be of much interest to students of the Cold War, US foreign policy, diplomacy studies, and IR in general

Friends and foes of international cooperation puzzle about how to explain order, stability, and predictability in a world without a central authority. How is the world governed in the absence of a world government? This probing yet accessible book examines "global governance" or the sum of the informal and formal values, norms, procedures, and institutions that help states, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, and transnational corporations identify, understand, and address trans-boundary problems. The chasm between the magnitude of a growing number of global threats - climate change, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, financial instabilities, pandemics, to name a few - and the feeble contemporary political structures for international problem-solving provide compelling reasons to read this book. Fitful, tactical, and short-term local responses exist for a growing number of threats and challenges that require sustained, strategic, and longer-run global perspectives and action. Can the framework of global governance help us to better understand the reasons behind this fundamental disconnect as well as possible ways to attenuate its worst aspects? Thomas G. Weiss replies with a guardedly sanguine "yes".