The Rise of Transnational Governance as a Field of Study

What is it about?

This article surveys the literature on transnational governance (TNG) and makes the case that the field of international relations (IR) is underestimating its scholarly value. Three main charges are commonly leveled at TNG scholarship, which broadly analyzes the importance for global governance of rules and rulemaking to coordinate nonstate actors across borders: (1) That TNG scholarship is too descriptive and nontheoretical; (2) that TNG research lacks methodological rigor, and thus its claims and conclusions are unreliable; and (3) that TNG itself is peripheral to what really matters for understanding the power dynamics of world politics. These criticisms seemed largely true for much of the early TNG scholarship from the 1970s to the 1990s. Yet, as the authors argue and document, TNG scholarship since 2000 is converging around explaining three “stages” of TNG—rule emergence, selection, and adoption—and increasingly is theoretically innovative, methodologically rigorous, and speaks to concerns that are central to the larger field of IR. Given this, greater attention to TNG by IR scholars, textbooks, and courses offers many rewards.

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Why is it important?

As the authors argue and document, transnational governance scholarship since 2000 is converging around explaining three “stages” of TNG—rule emergence, selection, and adoption—and increasingly is theoretically innovative, methodologically rigorous, and speaks to concerns that are central to the larger field of IR. Given this, greater attention to TNG by IR scholars, textbooks, and courses offers many rewards.