Beyond institutionalism: toward a transformed global governance theory

Prompted by both promises and pitfalls in Michael's Zürn's A Theory of Global Governance, this paper reflects on challenges going forward beyond liberal institutionalism in the study of world politics. Six suggestions are particularly highlighted for future theorizing of global governance: (a) further distance from state-centrism; (b) greater attention to transscalar qualities of global governing; (c) more incorporation of social-structural aspects of global regulation; (d) trilateral integration of individual, institutional, and structural sources of legitimacy in global governance; (e) more synthesis of positive and normative analysis; and (f) transcendence of Euro-centrism. Together these six shifts would generate a transformed global governance theory – and possibly practice as well.