In his Käte Hamburger Lecture Alexandru Grigorescu questioned predominant conceptualizations of global institutions and their linkage to the evolution and changes of global governance as a whole.
In almost all of the global governance literature, it is assumed that the distinction between intergovernmental and nongovernmental actors is clear-cut, consequential, and self-evident. Yet, as constant changes in the architecture of global governance have occurred over the past century and a half, the corresponding international institutions and regulatory bodies may be better understood when assessed on an “intergovernmental-nongovernmental continuum”. By overcoming the conventional dichotomous classification and focusing on a continuum perspective instead, Grigorescu argues that we can better conceive of the many subtleties characterizing global governance in different issue areas. By looking at global health, labor, and technical standards regimes, he suggested that the link between domestic and global preferences of the most powerful states serves to best explain the variation in global governance arrangements across different policy fields over time.
With Dr Alexandru Grigorescu, Professor of Political Science and Chair at the Political Science Department, Loyola University Chicago
Comment: Dr Jens Steffek, Professor of Transnational Governance at the Technical University of Darmstadt
Moderator: Dr Katja Freistein, Senior Researcher and Research Group Leader at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE)
