Leading specialists from Europe and Japan examine the institutional mechanisms of governance at the global level and provide concrete evidence of the role Japan plays in these institutions. An excellent introduction to the concept of global governance, the volume analyzes how global governance actually works through the global institutional mechanisms of governance. It provides an up-to-date and contemporary analysis of the six most important global institutions, namely: the Group of 7/8 the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development the World Bank the International Monetary Fund the World Trade Organization the United Nations. Written clearly and concisely, the book provides a thorough and accessible discussion on Japan’s role within these institutions and uses supporting case studies to ask whether Japan is reactively or proactively involved in trying to shape these institutions in order to promote its own interests. As such, it will be a valuable resource for undergraduates and scholars with an interest in global governance, Japanese politics and political economy.

This timely book explores the relationship between Japan and the European Union as they work increasingly closely together in many areas of global governance. It discusses the most salient areas of such cooperation from a range of perspectives, while examining not just convergences but also differences, in light of the recent EU–Japan Economic Partnership Agreement and Strategic Partnership Agreement.

Contested Governance in Japan extends the analysis of governance in contemporary Japan by exploring both the sites and issues of governance above and below the state as well as within it. This volume discusses the contested nature of governance in Japan and the ways in which a range of actors are involved in different sites and issues of governance at home, in the region and the globe. It includes chapters on global governance, local policy-making, democracy, environmental governance, the Japanese financial system, corruption, the family and corporate governance.

This book explores two dimensions of contemporary global governance. The first part looks at the relationship between multipolarity and global governance. Thus the position of major players in global governance - namely China, Russia, the Trilateral Dialogue Forum of India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA), Japan and the EU - is examined. The second part takes a look at particular discourses that inform the debate about global governance. In this context, the book investigates issues such as the relationship between global governance and democracy, global governance and security thinking, and the way international institutions influence national policy. This volume builds on research activities within the network REGIMEN (Research Network on International Governance, Globalization and the Transformation of the State).

This volume is the first detailed study of the emergence of regular and frequent heads of government meetings (summits), covering the period from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s. Summit meetings of heads of government have become 'banal' in today's world. Yet they are a relatively recent practice that took off only in the mid-1970s. The aim of the book is to explore the origins of this new feature of global governance in its historical context. Why did heads of Western governments decide to regularly meet up in the European Council and the G7? What were they aiming at? How were these meetings run and what consequences did they have? How did other actors of international relations – states as well as non-state and/or transnational actors - react to this transformation? Based on newly released archival material, International Summitry and Global Governance investigates the rise of regular international summitry and its impact on international relations. The volume brings together the best specialists of this new field of historical enquiry in order to explore those features of global governance in their historical context, and open up an interdisciplinary dialogue with social scientists who have studied summits from their own disciplinary perspectives. This book will be of much interest to students of international history, Cold War studies, global governance, foreign policy and IR in general.

The world currently faces a number of challenges that no single country can solve. Whether it is managing a crisis-prone global economy, maintaining peace and stability, or trying to do something about climate change, there are some problems that necessitate collective action on the part of states and other actors. Global governance would seem functionally necessary and normatively desirable, but it is proving increasingly difficult to provide. This accessible introduction to, and analysis of, contemporary global governance explains what it is and the obstacles to its realization. Paying particular attention to the possible decline of American influence and the rise of China and a number of other actors, Mark Beeson explains why cooperation is proving difficult, despite its obvious need and desirability. This is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying global governance or international organizations, and is also important reading for those working on political economy, international development and globalization.

Patent offices around the world have granted millions of patents to multinational companies. Patent offices are rarely studied and yet they are crucial agents in the global knowledge economy. Based on a study of forty-five rich and poor countries that takes in the world's largest and smallest offices, Peter Drahos argues that patent offices have become part of a globally integrated private governance network, which serves the interests of multinational companies, and that the Trilateral Offices of Europe, the USA and Japan make developing country patent offices part of the network through the strategic fostering of technocratic trust. By analysing the obligations of patent offices under the patent social contract and drawing on a theory of nodal governance, the author proposes innovative approaches to patent office administration that would allow developed and developing countries to recapture the public spirit of the patent social contract.

This book provides the first analysis of the Trilateral Commission and its role in global governance and contemporary diplomacy. In 1973, David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski founded the Trilateral Commission. Involving highly influential people from business and politics in the US, Western Europe, and Japan, the Commission was soon preceived as constituting an embryonic or even shadow world government. As the first researcher to have accessed the Commission’s archives, the author argues that this study demonstrates that global governance and international diplomacy should be considered a product of overlapping elite networks that merge informal and formal spheres across national borders. This work has three immediate aims: to trace the background, origins, purposes, characteristics, and modus operandi of the Commission; to investigate the elite aspect of the Commission and how this related to democracy; and to demonstrate how the Commission contributed to diplomatic practices and policy-formulation at national and international levels. The overall purpose of this book is to evaluate the significance of the Trilateral Commission, with particular focus on the implications of its activities on the way we understand decision-making processes and diplomacy in modern, democratic societies. This book will be of much interest to students of the Cold War, US foreign policy, diplomacy studies, and IR in general

What are the major political, economic, technological, environmental, and social changes confronting the world today, and what risks do they pose? Given what we know about these changes and risks, what adjustments will have to be undertaken to make the world as peaceful and stable as possible? Drawing on over 30 years' research, the eminent European scholar Mihaly Simai combines a global systems approach with a hard-headed appreciation of political realities as he seeks answers to these two overarching questions. This volume is at once richly informative and profoundly challenging. Unflinching in its diagnosis of the past failures and present inadequacies of global governance, pragmatic in its prescriptions for more effective multilateral cooperation, Simai's work dissects the dimensions and dangers of a world in transition.