The evolution of global governance research

Charles Roger, Adam Holesch, Jacint Jordana and Lewin Schmitt

Chapter 2 in Institutions of Global Governance, 2025, pp 21-42 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: At the start of the 1990s, global governance was hardly spoken of by either scholars or policymakers. Today, it is widely embraced as an object of study and as a way of ‘seeing’ world politics that highlights new institutional forms and transnational processes. In this chapter, we examine the evolution of global governance research and the characteristics of work done at different stages. We do so using a novel dataset of academic articles on the topic to track major trends across three important periods: a) a first, formative stage, where a vague term slowly coalesced into a more concrete idea that was increasingly juxtaposed to a more ‘“traditional” international relations perspective’; b) a second period, where concepts were unevenly transposed into a variety of literatures and national contexts; and c) a third, more recent, period where research has become increasingly rigorous methodologically and focused on complex inter-institutional relations. Across each period, we document major developments and the gaps that have motivated work by later researchers. Reflecting on the current state of the literature, we then outline theoretical, methodological, and institutional priorities for future research.

Keywords: Global governance; World order; Research; Scholarship; History; Database (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035302574
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