Arguing Global Governance : Agency, Lifeworld, and Shared Reasoning

This book deals with the questions of how global governance can and ought to effectively address serious global problems, such as financial instability, military conflicts, distributive injustice and increasing concerns of ecological disasters.

Providing a unified theoretical framework, the contributors to this volume utilise argumentation research, broadening the concept by identifying the concerns about agency, lifeworld and shared reasoning that different strands of argumentation research have in common. Furthermore, they develop the concept of argumentative deontology in order to make sense of the processes through which argumentation comes to shape global governance.

Empirically, the book demonstrates how ideas define actors’ interests, shape their interactions with each other, and ground intentions for collective action. Normatively, it provides an excellent theoretical platform for unveiling less visible manifestations of power in global politics and thereby improves our understandings of the ethical implications of global ordering.

Addressing topical issues such as conflict and inter-civilizational dialogue, decision-making in international regimes and organizations, the World Social Forum, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and Tobin Tax, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of argumentation theory, globalization and global governance

Markus Kornprobst is Chair of International Relations at the Vienna School of International Studies, Diplomatische Akademie Wien.

Corneliu Bjola is University Lecturer and a Fellow of St. Cross College at the University of Oxford.