Global Environmental Governance Reconsidered (Earth System Governance)

An examination of three major trends in global governance, exemplified by developments in transnational environmental rule-setting.

The notion of global governance is widely studied in academia and increasingly relevant to politics and policy making. Yet many of its fundamental elements remain unclear in both theory and practice. This book offers a fresh perspective by analyzing global governance in terms of three major trends, as exemplified by developments in global sustainability governance: the emergence of nonstate actors; new mechanisms of transnational cooperation; and increasingly segmented and overlapping layers of authority.

The book, which is the synthesis of a ten-year “Global Governance Project” carried out by thirteen leading European research institutions, first examines new nonstate actors, focusing on international bureaucracies, global corporations, and transnational networks of scientists; then investigates novel mechanisms of global governance, particularly transnational environmental regimes, public-private partnerships, and market-based arrangements; and, finally, looks at fragmentation of authority, both vertically among supranational, international, national, and subnational layers, and horizontally among different parallel rule-making systems.

The implications, potential, and realities of global environmental governance are defining questions for our generation. This book distills key insights from the past and outlines the most important research challenges for the future.

Frank Biermann is Research Professor of Global Sustainability Governance with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University and the author of Earth System Governance: World Politics in the Anthropocene (MIT Press).

Philipp Pattberg is Associate Professor of Transnational Governance in the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University.

Steinar Andresen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway.

Aarti Gupta is Associate Professor in the Environmental Policy Group of the Department of Social Sciences at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Bernd Siebenhüner is Professor of Ecological Economics at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany.

Wallenberg Research Fellow Department of Political Science Lund University Box 52 SE 221 00 Lund Sweden

Stacy D. VanDeveer is Professor in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance in the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the coeditor of Changing Climates in North American Politics: Institutions, Policymaking, and Multilevel Governance (MIT Press).

Frank Biermann is Research Professor of Global Sustainability Governance with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University and the author of Earth System Governance: World Politics in the Anthropocene (MIT Press).

Steinar Andresen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway.

Frank Biermann is Research Professor of Global Sustainability Governance with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University and the author of Earth System Governance: World Politics in the Anthropocene (MIT Press).

Philipp Pattberg is Associate Professor of Transnational Governance in the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University.

Aarti Gupta is Associate Professor in the Environmental Policy Group of the Department of Social Sciences at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Aarti Gupta is Associate Professor in the Environmental Policy Group of the Department of Social Sciences at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Frank Biermann is Research Professor of Global Sustainability Governance with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University and the author of Earth System Governance: World Politics in the Anthropocene (MIT Press).

Philipp Pattberg is Associate Professor of Transnational Governance in the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University.