Stephen Gill

This volume provides forward-looking, critical perspectives on the crisis of global governance. Featuring new, original and imaginative reflections, world leaders in law, sociology, politics, economics and international studies, interrogate global governance as it is and as it ought to be. It asks: What are the principal forces, structures, movements and ideas shaping global governance under conditions of global crisis? And what are the likely prospects for transformations in the theory and practice of global governance? The contributors highlight alternative imaginaries and social forces harnessing new organizational and political forms to counter and displace dominant strategies of rule. In so doing, they suggest that to meaningfully address intensifying economic, ecological and ethical crises of the early 21st century in ways more consistent with greater social justice, democracy and the integrity biosphere will require far more effective, legitimate and far-sighted forms of global governance.

This groundbreaking collection on global leadership features innovative and critical perspectives by scholars from international relations, political economy, medicine, law and philosophy, from North and South. The book's novel theorization of global leadership is situated historically within the classics of modern political theory and sociology, relating it to the crisis of global capitalism today. Contributors reflect on the multiple political, economic, social, ecological and ethical crises that constitute our current global predicament. The book suggests that there is an overarching condition of global organic crisis, which shapes the political and organizational responses of the dominant global leadership and of various subaltern forces. Contributors argue that to meaningfully address the challenges of the global crisis will require far more effective, inclusive and legitimate forms of global leadership and global governance than have characterized the neoliberal era.