This book explores the roles of national actors within international organizations, with particular emphasis on the collaborative approach adopted by Nordic governments and associations. Analyzing Nordic regional cooperation within international organizations, this volume seeks to shed light on the politics of alignment and distinct macro-regional identity-building in international arenas. Exploring the middle ground between the national and the international, contributors discuss how Nordic governments and associations have successfully created and used the image of a distinct group within the international system and where they have failed. Presenting a richer picture of international and transnational relations, the volume’s features include: a key focus on the ‘Nordic model’ with its schism in regard to the EU studies on cooperation between governments and within civil society, including trade unions and anti-EU movements contributions from Nordic and international experts highly respected in their fields Seeking to move beyond neo-realist and cosmopolitan approaches in international studies, Regional Cooperation and International Organizations will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, regionalism, Nordic studies, and Transnationalism.

Global policy making is unfurling in distinctive ways above traditional nation-state policy processes. New practices of transnational administration are emerging inside international organizations but also alongside the trans-governmental networks of regulators and inside global public private partnerships. Mainstream policy and public administration studies have tended to analyse the capacity of public sector hierarchies to globalize national policies. By contrast, this Handbook investigates new public spaces of transnational policy-making, the design and delivery of global public goods and services, and the interdependent roles of transnational administrators who move between business bodies, government agencies, international organizations, and professional associations. This Handbook is novel in taking the concepts and theories of public administration and policy studies to get inside the black box of global governance. Transnational administration is a multi-actor and multi-scalar endeavour having manifestations, depending on the policy issue or problems, at the local, urban, sub-regional, sub-national, regional, national, supranational, supra-regional, transnational, international, and global scales. These scales of 'local' and 'global' are not neatly bounded and nested spaces but are articulated together in complex patterns of policy activity. These transnational patterns represent a reinvigoration of public administration and policy studies as the Handbook authors advance their analysis beyond the methodological nationalism of the nation-state.

Analyzing the role and impact of Diaspora Organizations (DOs) in International Relations (IR), this interdisciplinary volume provides empirical accounts of their work across Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East. Over the last three decades, DOs have increased in number, spread to new regions, and addressed an ever-widening array of global problems, yet they have not received sufficient attention in IR in spite of the inter- and transnational nature of their involvements. Contributions explore important topics such as: The role of DOs in cooperation and conflict and in change and stability; DOs as transnational organizations and their degree of autonomy and power within the networks in which they operate; and The changing roles of DOs vis-à-vis states, regimes, and international organizations, when dealing with issues as diverse as peace, conflict, migration, integration, development, humanitarian action, human rights, religion, and economic growth. Demonstrating how IR can benefit from a stronger focus on DOs, this book will also help other disciplines gain insights into DOs and will prove useful to those in the fields of international relations, sociology, geography and anthropology.

International Organizations (IOs) are important actors within global social governance. They provide forums for exchange, contention and cooperation about social policies. Our knowledge about the involvement of IOs varies significantly by policy fields, and we know comparatively little about the specific roles of IOs in social policies. This volume enhances and systematizes our understanding of IOs in global social governance. It provides studies on a variety of social policy fields in which different, but also the same, IOs operate. The chapters shed light on IO involvement in a particular social policy field by describing the population of participating IOs; exploring how a particular global social policy field is constituted as a whole, and which dominant IOs set the trends. The contributors also examine the discourse within, and between, these IOs on the respective social policies. As such, this first-of-its kind book contributes to research on social policy and international relations, both in terms of theoretical substantiation and empirical scope.

This edited volume advances existing research on the production and use of expert knowledge by international bureaucracies. Given the complexity, technicality and apparent apolitical character of the issues dealt with in global governance arenas, ‘evidence-based’ policy-making has imposed itself as the best way to evaluate the risks and consequences of political action in global arenas. In the absence of alternative, democratic modes of legitimation, international organizations have adopted this approach to policy-making. By treating international bureaucracies as strategic actors, this volume address novel questions: why and how do international bureaucrats deploy knowledge in policy-making? Where does the knowledge they use come from, and how can we retrace pathways between the origins of certain ideas and their adoption by international administrations? What kind of evidence do international bureaucrats resort to, and with what implications? Which types of knowledge are seen as authoritative, and why? This volume makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of the way global policy agendas are shaped and propagated. It will be of great interest to scholars, policy-makers and practitioners in the fields of public policy, international relations, global governance and international organizations.

The role of business in global governance is now widely recognized, but exploration of its role in global financial governance has been more haphazard than systematic. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the role of transnational financial associations (TFAs) in the organization of global finance. This book develops three theoretical themes of assemblage, functionality, and power as enrolment. These themes challenge approaches that treat financial power as emanating from a single location or force. Whilst existing approaches tend to treat TFAs as irrelevant or as merely transmitting power originating elsewhere, this book argues that power must be created by painstakingly assembling actors, networks, and objects that are often quite autonomous and working at cross purposes to one another—a process in which TFAs play a central role. The book explores these themes in chapters examining the roles of TFAs in interacting with public authorities, constructing global financial markets, and creating financial communities. The authors additionally analyse the roles of TFAs in the European Union, in the Global South, and in promoting goals other than profitability, including Islamic finance, microfinancing, savings banks and cooperatives. Making a distinctive contribution to our understanding of global finance and global governance, Transnational Financial Associations and the Governance of Global Finance is an important book for students and scholars of international political economy, finance, global governance and international relations.