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2.1: What is Global Governance?

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    292356
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    Global governance refers to the collection of institutions, rules, norms, and processes that manage issues transcending national borders (Held & McGrew, 2002). It’s not “world government”—there’s no single authority running the planet. Instead, it’s about cooperation and coordination to tackle shared problems, from climate change to trade disputes to pandemics.

    Key features of global governance include:

    • Multilevel decision-making: Local, national, regional, and global actors interact.

    • Multiple stakeholders: States, corporations, NGOs, activists, and even you as an individual citizen.

    • Shared problems, uneven power: Global rules affect everyone, but not everyone has equal influence.

    Take the Paris Climate Agreement (2015). Nearly every country agreed to limit greenhouse gas emissions, but the commitments were voluntary and enforcement weak. The deal reflected both the power of global cooperation and the limits of governance without a central authority (Falkner, 2016).


    2.1: What is Global Governance? is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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