Conceptualizing the Weaknesses of Global Governance: Beyond the Financial Crisis
How should we conceptualize the weaknesses in global governance associated with the recent global financial crisis ? We argue that global financial governance has been characterized by a complex overlapping system of communication and coordination. While there have been important successes in this system, its failings can be conceptualized both in terms of a lack of institutional capabilities on the one hand, and failures associated with accountability and representation on the other. These problems are however not unique to the domain of finance, and actually pervade other areas such as the security system and global environmental governance. As such, the failures in global financial governance can be seen as part of broader global governance challenges, with deeper roots and causes than most scholarship is prone to think.