This article examines whether and how the informalisation of negotiations within international organisations (IOs) affects the effectiveness of particular negotiation agendas. Moving beyond broad-brush diagnoses of multilateral gridlock, it develops a differentiated account of how pockets of effectiveness can be maintained under conditions of intensifying geopolitical contestation. Studying the World Trade Organization (WTO), the article demonstrates how the process of informalisation within IOs can secure some degree of effectiveness on selected issues. Based on 42 interviews with diplomats, WTO officials and trade experts and official documentation of negotiation processes and outcomes, we trace negotiation dynamics across three agendas in the WTO: trade and environment, development and inclusiveness. We find that informal negotiation processes, often linked to deliberation and knowledge exchange, can offer pathways to effectiveness in terms of policy output when formal negotiation channels remain deadlocked. This is particularly evident in the negotiations on trade and environment. Informalisation thus offers one, but not the only, pathway to sustaining 'selective effectiveness' under geopolitical pressure. Yet, we also find limits, as policy output often remains non-binding and informal processes may become contested. Our findings contribute to the existing literature on global governance by linking informalisation processes within IOs to debates on effectiveness.
Today's global climate policy suffers from a mismatch between governance demand and supply. The practice of climate governance showcases serious shortcomings. Globally, climate targets are agreed but not implemented. At the regional level, especially African stakeholders feel that, by global comparison, their continent is suffering more from climate change, yet they do not receive enough financial support for climate change mitigation and adaptation. At the subnational level, most frustration is coming from cities and regions that are responsible for 60% of climate adaptation. But they neither have a strong voice at the COP negotiation table nor do they receive stable and independent financial support. At grass-roots level, across the globe, actors no longer operate at the periphery but increasingly shape global climate decisions. The key to providing solutions for effective climate policy is therefore to strengthen its multilevel and multi-stakeholder character. There is mounting pressure to include local and regional authorities (LRAs) for transformational change in climate governance. LRAs ought to progress from the margins of climate governance to the epicentre of decision-making, giving regions and cities their rightful place at the COP negotiation table. This year's COP in Antalya would be a good place to start.
ABSTRACT Even as the legitimacy of states appears to derive ever more explicitly from nationalist claims, nation‐states and national economies remain deeply entangled. In the face of border‐spanning risks, governments face both rising pressures for self‐centered policies and demands for more extensive transnational collaboration. Well‐established insurance principles and practices clarify the trade‐offs implied by that tension. They can also guide the search for feasible policies aimed at governing global risks. Creative policymakers can use them to explain and justify constructive choices in the context of unavoidable political enmeshment. In fact, experiments informed by such principles and practices and combining public as well as private underwriting capacities are already underway in policy arenas ranging from nuclear energy production to capital market stability and public health. It is nevertheless true that the underlying logic of risk pooling, diversification, and burden sharing confronts profound constraints when it comes to complex and long‐term threats such as those posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and artificial general intelligence. But even in such cases, metaphors drawn from the history of insurance can help rationalize and make feasible new forms of collaboration across national policy arenas that ultimately cannot be disentangled.
ABSTRACT China and the United States are competing over economic and political influence in the Global South. However, little is known about whether citizens prefer alignment with one power over the other and what drives these preferences. Drawing on original survey data from Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa ( N = 8319), we compare citizens' general, economic, and political alignment preferences toward these two centers of power. We find that citizens across the four countries broadly support deepening relations with both China and the United States, indicating a pattern of societal polyalignment rather than exclusive alignment. Preferences vary by country: Kenya and Nigeria lean modestly toward the United States, South Africa is largely indifferent, and Ethiopia stands out with markedly stronger support for China. Beyond material considerations such as economic support, perceptions of respectful behavior and responsiveness to local needs emerge as key drivers of alignment preferences. These findings carry important implications in the context of intensifying China–United States competition, suggesting that China's pragmatic and responsive approach may be perceived as a compelling complement—or alternative—to traditional Western engagement models.
ABSTRACT Global tax governance appeared to reach a breakthrough in 2021, when the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework agreed a global minimum tax promising effective coordination against tax avoidance and tax competition. We show how that promise has since come under strain. First, the United States' repeated threats to withdraw and its successful push for exemptions, culminating in the 2025 Side‐by‐Side Package, undermine the reform from above. Second, many jurisdictions are hollowing it out from within: adopting only its domestic revenue floor without its enforcement arms, or redesigning tax incentives so that competitive positions are preserved inside formally qualified rules. Third, the regime's long‐standing participation gap, sharpened by these developments, has driven a forum shift towards the United Nations, where negotiations on a Framework Convention are advancing in a less contentious manner than expected. Drawing on 18 elite interviews and documentary analysis, we argue that global tax governance stands at a crossroads: neither forum yet offers a model that is both effective and broadly acceptable.
