Critical Perspectives on Global Governance

Global governance, the creation of global norms and regimes to regulate polities, economic and social actors, suggests and promotes ideals such as stable politics, democracy, human rights and individualism, with a strategy to create a more ordered and better world. This volume critically evaluates liberal global governance, policies which emphasise regulation through the market, and at the same time, civil rights and the individual. The authors move away from the traditional focus on elites, states and global institutions explore and analyse how liberal global governance is affecting ordinary people and how, in some cases, it has actually been an obstacle to development, citizenship, voice and inclusion. Paying particular attention to the global south, Asia and Latin America, the authors trace the development of liberal global governance. They then examine and provide detailed studies on how this regulation has spread from areas such as trade and investment, to development, labour, migration, children and the environment. This book will be an important for students and researchers of governance, development, sociology, anthropology and geography.

Author Biography

Jean Grugel is Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Nicola Piper was Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore during the research and drafting process of this book and has meanwhile taken up a Senior Lectureship in the Department of Geography at the University of Wales Swansea, UK.