How do multi-stakeholder governance initiatives form? What drives or impedes cross-sector cooperation? And when are multi-stakeholder approaches most effective?
Solving pressing global challenges requires cross-sector collaboration between states and various non-state actors (NSAs), including international organizations, nonprofit organizations and industry. Trends associated with globalization have empowered non-state actors in a range of issue areas, including human rights and civil conflict, infectious disease and climate change, cybersecurity and outer space. They are transforming governance processes and outcomes, sometimes in concert with states and sometimes independently.
Despite the growing importance of multi-stakeholder approaches to global problem-solving, our understanding of how these interactions occur and how they affect policy outcomes is embryonic. The term “global governance” has been in vogue since the 1990s, but scholars and practitioners do not agree about what that term means, how it functions, and when it matters.
Project Details
CISSM researchers are examining issue areas where NSAs have played important roles for decades, as well as ones, like arms control and nonproliferation, that have historically been controlled by national governments but now include initiatives driven by industry, civil society and nongovernmental organizations. CISSM personnel have decades of experience conducting inter-disciplinary research and developing policy recommendations to reduce nuclear risks, manage challenges associated with emerging technologies and promote international cooperation on other important security problems. Adding a focus on governance increases attention to the processes determining whether or not cooperative agreements in these issue areas can be made, ratified, implemented, and expanded over time.