The liberal international order is being challenged and international organizations (IOs) are a main target of contestation. COVID-19 seems to exacerbate the situation with many states pursuing domestic strategies at the expense of multilateral cooperation. At the same time, IOs have traditionally benefited from cross-border crises. This article analyzes the policy responses of IOs to the exogenous

Over a third of the world’s countries have launched contact-tracing apps in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, generating much hype about the prospect of automating contact-tracing to manage outbreaks and to alleviate costly and labour-intensive ‘manual’ contact tracing. Despite the stringent scientific criteria applied to the development of vaccines and other biomedical countermeasures in responding

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning systems have given rise to a contemporary euphoria of progress. This commentary discusses the challenges posed by advances in artificial intelligence, or more precisely the increasing usage of algorithmic systems, in global health, sometimes carried forward by an almost blind faith in numbers and automation. Yet we share no common definition

International organizations (IOs) are perceived as increasingly important, yet also severely challenged actors in world politics. How authoritative are IOs, how do they exercise authority, and how has their authority evolved over time? The International Authority Database (IAD) offers a novel measure of IO authority built from several aspects of an IO’s institutional design. We provide systematic data

21st century capitalism undermines health outcomes in myriad ways. Structural economic changes have had negative effects on medical innovation and public health and are poorly aligned with social goals. Key features of the contemporary political economy include both monopoly capitalism, based upon stringent intellectual (IP) protection that suppresses economic competition, and Wall Street capitalism

Voluntary guidelines on ‘ethical practices’ have been the response by stakeholders to address the growing concern over harmful social consequences of artificial intelligence and digital technologies. Issued by dozens of actors from industry, government and professional associations, the guidelines are creating a consensus on core standards and principles for ethical design, development and deployment

Multilateral Bretton Woods institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO are increasingly challenged by a rising number of bilateral, regional and plurilateral organizations. The mandates of global and regional organizations overlap and intersect when trade is being regulated, financial crisis lending is being provided or development is being financed. In this special issue we examine the

The global trading regime is characterized by the co-existence of bilateral and multilateral politics. In this article, we offer a political economy explanation for this regime complex, by tracing public actors’ institutional choices back to political incentives for economic sectors and the firms active within them. First, we argue that product differentiation creates mixed motives on the part of firms

For a long time, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been seen as the privileged multilateral regime to regulate trade. However, given its slow progress in negotiating new trade rules, countries have increasingly shifted their focus to preferential trade agreements (PTAs) since the early 2000s. Focusing on a timely and increasingly important topic (digital trade), we explore how countries’ interactions

Overlap among international institutions affects the strategic options that are available to actors. Yet no existing approach fully explains who benefits from regime complexity. While some point to materially powerful actors, others highlight weaker challengers of the status quo. Drawing on historical institutionalism, I conceptualize two dimensions of complexity. I argue that depending on the mode

The global financial safety net (GFSN) has become a complex regime. Regional financial arrangements (RFAs) have emerged alongside established IMF structures. How relevant are RFAs and the IMF in moments of financial crisis? And more specifically: Do member countries resort to RFAs as complements or as substitutes to IMF lending? To answer these questions, we developed an original data-set on the GSFN

Building on previous research on the relations between the European Union (EU) and the World Bank, this paper contributes to the debate on the World Bank focality in the regime complex for multilateral development finance. Adopting a historical-institutionalist perspective, the analysis focuses on the determinants and mechanisms of micro-institutional changes that have occurred in the context of EU-World

Created to facilitate the transition of economies of Central and Eastern Europe towards democracy and the free market, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is a regional institution in the development finance regime complex. This article examines how the EBRD’s independent accountability mechanism (IAM) emerged and changed to demonstrate how policy norms filter through regime

How states of origin regulate the rights, obligations, and services they extend to their emigrants has remained mostly in the shadows of migration policy research. We have tackled this gap in the literature by advancing the Emigrant Policies Index (EMIX), which was designed for comparing the degree of adoption of emigrant policies – also called ‘diaspora-engagement policies’ – across countries in a

Global environmental architectures have the potential to reduce inequalities, however, legal, and political procedures and structures may also increase injustices and disempowerment. Multilateral environmental agreements create large regimes over some of the most expansive planetary systems. Contracting states list the purposes, motivations and considerations that led them to conclude legally binding

The paper examines the distributive and collective effects of the United Nations (UN) reform proposal by the Group of Four (G4) which envisions a 25-member Security Council with four additional non-permanent and six additional permanent members. Academic scholars and affected states have argued that adding more (veto) players to the Council would reduce the voting power of the five current permanent

This special section focuses on the analysis of migration policy and on how to measure the nature of these policies. It aims to take stock of previous studies and build on this knowledge to propose paths for further development.

Over the last twenty years, researchers have undertaken systematic comparison of migration policy by creating sets of policy indicators/indexes at the national level. These indicators are designed to analyse the differences and trends in migration policy and then be used by the research community to assess the determinants and effects of policy. This article aims to assess the comprehensiveness of

In this article, I present the second version of the Citizenship Regime Inclusiveness Index (CITRIX 2.0). It measures the inclusiveness of regulations for immigrants’ access to citizenship across 23 OECD countries from 1980 to 2019, zooming in on four essential policy components: conditions regarding (1) birthright; (2) residence; (3) renunciation; and (4) integration. While explaining the construction

In the last decade, the study of migration policy has increasingly made use of synthetic measures, such as indicators and indexes, to compare and evaluate states’ responses to international migration. But major research gaps exist in the assessment of integration policies targeting beneficiaries of international protection (BIPs). Comprehensive, comparative data on the subject are also lacking. How

The pandemic crisis will likely shift global trade into digital services. This turn is consistent with the broader picture in which the nature of globalization becomes increasingly based on the Internet, ideas, information, and data. That provides new trade opportunities for poorer countries to participate in digital services. To harness the benefits of this trend, policymakers around the globe should

This commentary concerns the significant opportunities which the global economy’s current nearshoring trend offers the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region owing to a US–China decoupling. Yet the region, generally, is woefully unprepared. The state of the LAC will make or break the peoples’ attempts to exploit the new potential to better themselves. Yet the short-termist myopia and public policy

The Earth’s orbital space is increasingly threatened by debris. It is frequently described as a common-pool resource vulnerable to a ‘tragedy of the commons’ scenario. Scholars have suggested ambitious policy proposals to tackle the tragedy of space debris and assure the sustainability of the Earth’s orbits. Their proposals can be classified into three categories: hierarchical regulations, economic

Digital health solutions offer tremendous potential to enhance the reach and quality of health services and population-level outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). While the number of programs reaching scale increases yearly, the long-term sustainability for most remains uncertain. In this article, as researchers and implementors, we draw on experiences of designing, implementing and

Both books successfully deconstruct common assumptions on modern terrorist groups. They show precisely how the support and adherence to such organisations cannot be explained only by the adherence to a Salafi‐jihadi ideology by their members and they demonstrate the reasons behind the rise of jihadi proto‐states, which are based on very pragmatic reasons.

Since its formation, with a few notable exceptions, WTO members have not been able to negotiate new rules on policies that generate negative international spillovers. The Doha Development Agenda negotiations, launched in 2001, became deadlocked in 2008. Problems extend beyond negotiations – other functions of the WTO are also not performing well. The dispute settlement mechanism, long perceived as

This paper reports on the results of an expert survey to solicit views on what WTO members and the international trade community consider the most important attributes of the Director‐General of the WTO and the substantive policy and institutional reform priorities confronting the WTO. The results suggest strong support for a leader with managerial and political experience, and a professional network

The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) have played an important role in creating a predictable framework for companies conducting business internationally. Business leaders continue to express support for the institution in surveys but, privately, trade policymakers and opinion leaders in Geneva have questioned the commitment of business leaders to

At the end of 2017 different groups of WTO members decided to launch talks on four subjects, setting aside the WTO consensus working practice. This paper argues that these ‘joint statement initiatives’ (JSIs) should seek to establish open plurilateral agreements (OPAs) even in instances where the outcome can be incorporated into existing schedules of commitments of participating WTO members. Designing

Nothing has done more to shake confidence in the World Trade Organization, and create uncertainty in rules‐based international trade, than the demise of the WTO’s Appellate Body (AB). Given the design of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), in the absence of a functioning Appellate Body, members cannot have confidence in the finality or enforceability of panel rulings. Thus, a fundamental

The WTO Secretariat plays an important role in supporting the activities of the WTO membership. This extends to dispute settlement. This paper addresses the question whether the Secretariat may have contributed, directly or indirectly, to the current crisis in the WTO dispute settlement system as has been suggested by some observers. The role of the WTO Secretariat in WTO disputes cannot be underestimated

Drawing on empirically rich and theoretically grounded case studies, the articles in this issue explore ways in which global governmental processes affect mobility and, similarly, how seemingly local movements impact upon global processes.

This commentary offers a review of the article by Dr. Jutta Bakonyi “The Political Economy of Displacement: Rent Seeking, Dispossessions and Precarious Mobility in Somali Cities” (Global Policy 2020). It adds to the questions investigated by Dr. Bakonyi on spaces of exception, informal governance, accountability and how they play out in the political economy of informal settlements, and in relation

This commentary reviews ‘The ‘Badlands’ of the ‘Balkan Route’: policy and spatial effects on urban refugee housing’, by Gemma Bird, Jelena Obradovic‐Wochnik, Amanda Beattie and Patrycja Rozbicka; ‘Walking in Jozi: Guided Tours, Insecurity and Urban Regeneration in Inner City Johannesburg’ by Lena Opfermann, and ‘Curating (im)mobility: Peri‐urban agency in the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum’ by Stefanie

Mobility is a multifaceted concept with social, economic and political implications. This article reflects on the role of mobility and its relation to precarity in the emergence of protests in both Quito (Ecuador) and Santiago (Chile) in 2019 by examining the interplay between mobility and inequality. It argues that the announced increases in transport and fuel costs in Chile and Ecuador exposed obstacles

Despite the sizeable economic clout of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the academic literature on the PIF is relatively nascent. How do domestic and international political considerations shape the PIF’s investment policies? This article contends that the PIF’s current domestic investments constitute the latest incarnation of an historic pattern of development policies in Saudi Arabia

COVID‐19 has pulled back the curtain on health system fragility to expose persistent and deepening inequities worldwide. The limited capacity of low‐ and lower‐middle income countries (LMICs) to respond to the pandemic and its impact on the health of populations – particularly the most vulnerable – presents a marked challenge. In this context, countries face the enormous task of rethinking the way

Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge‐traditions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet

If the United Nations system is to remain relevant, or even survive, the thinking to re‐imagine and redesign contemporary global governance will come from the Third UN. This article focuses on the ecology of supportive non‐state actors – intellectuals, scholars, consultants, think tanks, NGOs, the for‐profit private sector, and the media – that interacts with the intergovernmental machinery of the

The institutions and instruments of the Global Financial Safety Net (GFSN) represent the part of the global financial architecture that is responsible for providing an anti‐crisis and stabilization support to the countries in need. We argue that the standard understanding of the GFSN as a system consisting of four layers – national reserves, bilateral swaps, regional financing arrangements and the

The use and testing of nuclear weapons caused transnational and catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences. Legacies of more than 2,000 nuclear detonations in the territories of 15 states persist today, with serious implications for human rights and sustainable development. There is an inadequate global policy architecture for addressing the humanitarian and environmental consequences

The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) not only bans nuclear weapons, it obligates its states parties to engage in assisting victims and remediating contaminated environments (Articles 6 and 7). As states and civil society consider the best methods to implement these provisions, it is important to take stock and review existing policy approaches addressing the ongoing humanitarian

Between 1957 and 1962, the UK and USA conducted 33 atmospheric nuclear weapons test detonations at or close to Malden and Kiritimati (Christmas) Islands (total yield 31 megatons), formerly British colonial territories in the central Pacific region, now part of the Republic of Kiribati. Some 40,000 British, Fijian, New Zealand and US civilian and military personnel participated in the test program and

To develop an effective and responsive global policy framework for addressing the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons, survivors and communities affected by nuclear weapons use and testing, and their perspectives and expertise on what is needed, must be included. Testimony from survivors was crucial to the global effort for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

With the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) having entered into force on 22 January 2021, the time has come for states parties to start operationalizing its obligations. The TPNW not only bans nuclear weapons but also includes provisions designed to reduce the ‘unacceptable suffering’ caused by past use and testing. These positive obligations require states parties to assist victims

In 2015, as part of the University of Sheffield's strategic commitment to innovation in its approaches to internationalization, as well as recognition of both the importance of student employability and growing opportunities in student‐led research, the Faculty of Social Sciences established a unique learning and research initiative in the shape of the Global Leadership Initiative as part of the Global

The authors propose a holistic approach to life and living after the coronavirus crisis of 2020 has become history. Their method is to postulate studied reconsideration of the true needs of the human species, new know‐how for all, novel codes of behavior, and drastic change to how we treat nature. Their findings name humanity's ballooning population as problem Number One. Without reverting to former

Extended reality (XR) has the potential to be a game‐changer for SMEs. It can enhance competitiveness while supporting sustainable development and labour safety. The outbreak of COVID‐19 has further forced businesses to reflect on how technology might spur creativity and how innovation can affect their future survival. XR can facilitate product development, training, marketing and problem‐solving.

The incrementalism of carbon pricing, which includes carbon taxes and emissions trading, has led us astray. It has been proffered as a key component of climate policy, yet evidence clearly shows that its effects are marginal. It provides limited emissions reductions and has provoked considerable political controversy in key large-emitting countries. More importantly, pricing carbon means viewing climate

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with the scope to shift the world on to a resilient path focused on promoting sustainable development leaving no one behind. Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, academic research on the topic has blossomed. However, most academic research has focused on specific topics within the Agenda, with

Dahrendorf´s Quandary, an early formulation of the Rodrik Trilemma, stipulates that maintaining economic competitiveness requires countries either to adopt measures detrimental to the cohesion of civil society, or to restrict civil liberties and political participation. The global financial and economic crisis of 2008–09 offers a test case for the applicability of the Quandary. We do so by examining

Partnerships have long been presented as transformative and effective mechanisms to overcome challenges linked to the global governance of development. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and SDG 17 call for intensified involvement and engagement of partnerships in sustainable development, formalizing a role specifically for multi‐stakeholder partnerships (MSPs). In this context, transnational

Targeted geoengineering aims to tackle a global scale impact of climate warming by addressing local or regional systemic interventions. We consider three examples: conserving the West Antarctic ice sheet by limiting rates of ice discharge or increasing snow accumulation, thereby reducing global sea level rise; transforming the Arctic permafrost zone into steppe grassland; raising the albedo of Arctic

The recent proliferation of digital technologies for development has led to a new paradigm of state‐citizen relations in which technology mediates the citizens' interactions with the agencies of government. The use of digital technologies has enabled the state to effectively distinguish between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor, so as to parse the digital subject that is worthy of the state’s

This article explores the potential contribution of the development of a code of conduct to serve as a near‐term governance instrument to guide the responsible conduct of geoengineering research. This idea is grounded in the observation that geoengineering research and development processes are emerging within a polycentric governance landscape. A key feature of such systems is the recognition of an

The COVID‐19 pandemic, which has brought the world economy to an unprecedented synchronized recession, makes for a profound collective global experience It should urge us to reshape our collective actions

One of the authors, Luke Kemp, was generally funded through the support of a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.

This contribution draws on rhythmanalysis and the political economy of assemblage to provide a framework for understanding the productive spatio‐temporal effects of physical violence on urban rhythms. The paper explores how Buenaventura, Colombia's biggest port city, is transformed both by the growth in container turnover, and through recurring, spatial and temporal practices of violence. What role