The Return of the Public in Global Governance

After decades of neoliberalism, the public is back - but in ways that challenge conventional wisdom about the public/private divide.

Jacqueline Best (Edited by), Alexandra Gheciu (Edited by)

9781107052956, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 February 2014

273 pages, 1 b/w illus. 3 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.9 cm, 0.54 kg

'Defining Western public spheres as bundles of common concern is a nice way of capturing the phenomenon's emergence, and of identifying changing agents and agendas. The striking thing is how states so often effortlessly co-opt these agendas and go on to re-draw a new authoritative line between the public and the private.' Iver Neumann, Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science

Many international relations scholars argue that private authority and private actors are playing increasingly prominent roles in global governance. This book focuses on the other side of the equation: the transformation of the public dimension of governance in the era of globalization. It analyses that transformation, advancing two major claims: first, that the public is beginning to play a more significant role in global governance, and, second, that it takes a rather different form than has traditionally been understood in international relations theory. The authors suggest that unless we transcend conventional wisdom about the public as a distinct sphere, separate from the private domain, we cannot understand the dynamics and consequences of its apparent return. Using examples drawn from international political economy, international security and environmental governance, they argue that 'the public' should be conceptualized as a collection of culturally-specific social practices.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Introduction Jacqueline Best and Alexandra Gheciu
2. Theorizing the public as practices: transformations of the public in historical context Jacqueline Best and Alexandra Gheciu
Part II. Transformations of the Public in Historical Context: 3. The dynamics of 'private' security strategies and their public consequences: transnational organizations in historical perspective Deborah Avant and Virginia Haufler
4. Out from the shadows: governing OTC derivatives after the 2007–8 financial crisis Eric Helleiner
Part III. Reconstituting the Global Public Today: 5. The 'demand side' of good governance: the return of the public in World Bank policy Jacqueline Best
6. The publicness of non-state global environmental and social governance Steven Bernstein
7. Climate re-public: practising public space in conditions of extreme complexity Matthew Paterson
8. Transforming the logic of security provision in post-Communist Europe Alexandra Gheciu
9. Understanding US national intelligence: analyzing practices to capture the chimera Anna Leander
Part IV. Conceptualizing the Public as Practices: Theoretical Implications: 10. Constitutive public practices in a world of changing boundaries Tony Porter
11. Publics, practices, and power Rita Abrahamsen and Michael C. Williams.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Politics & government [JP], Sociology [JHB]