Global Governance Dimensions of Globally Networked Risks: The State of the Art in Social Science Research

Abstract

Global risks are now increasingly being perceived as networked, and likely to result in large‐scale, propagating failures and crises that transgress national boundaries and societal sectors. These so called “globally networked risks” pose fundamental challenges to global governance institutions. A growing literature explores the nature of these globally networked or “systemic” risks. While this research has taught us much about the anatomy of these risks, it has consistently failed to integrate insights from the wider social sciences. This is problematic since the prescriptions that result from these efforts flow from naїve assumptions about the way real‐world state and non‐state actors behave in the international arena. This leaves serious gaps in our understanding of whether networked environmental risks at all can be governed. The following essay brings together decades of research by different disciplines in the social sciences, and identifies five multi‐disciplinary key insights that can inform global approaches to governing these. These insights include the influence of international institutions; the dynamics and effect of international norms and legal mechanisms; the need for international institutions to cope with transboundary and cross‐sectoral crises; the role of innovation as a strategy to handle unpredictable global risks; and the necessity to address legitimacy issues.

Transnational corporations and the challenge of biosphere stewardship

“…Clearly, TNCs are central actors in the human-dominated world and possess the ability to influence critical functions of the biosphere. This global keystone actor dimension of TNCs 31 , whether producers, suppliers, or financial actors, should be recognized, accounted for and governed in efforts towards sustainability within planetary boundaries 38,39 .…”

Appropriate Governance Responses to Infectious Disease Threats: Developing Working Hypotheses

“…In recent studies of disaster management, network governance of crisis response has gained considerable attention (Christensen & Lægreid, ; Comfort, ; Comfort & Kapucu, ; Galaz et al, ; Huizer et al, ; Kapucu et al, ; Kapucu, Augustin, & Garayev, ; Magsino, ; Moynihan & Theory, ; Nowell & Steelman, ; Nowell et al, ). As noted previously, Nohrstedt et al () produced a systematic literature review on Managing Crisis Collaboratively , Kuipers and Welsh appealed, in their Taxonomy of Crisis and Disaster literature , for more attention to be paid to inter alia “Networked Crisis Management” (Kuipers & Welsh, , p. 280), while Boin et al (, p. 32) claim in The Crisis Approach that “In fact, the crisis response in modern society is best characterized in terms of a network.” The current consensus thus appears to favour network governance, which in turn leads to the question: what type of network governance?…”

“…In order to improve our capacity to respond to potentially catastrophic events, we need to move beyond this schism and ask ourselves the question which different, potentially effective options are available as crisis response arrangements. A rather recent and important argument in the crisis‐response literature is advancing the importance of “coordination.” This is not surprising, given the fact that crisis response, almost by definition, requires division of labour in which an assemblage of organizations collaborate (see Christensen & Lægreid, ; Galaz et al, ; Huizer, Kraaij‐Dirkzwager, Timen, Schuitmaker, & van Steenbergen, ; Kuipers & Welsh, ; Nohrstedt et al, ). Coordination is probably a good answer to a crisis threat but, from a contingency perspective, the question remains: what type of coordination is most appropriate for which type of threat?…”

On the social dynamics of moisture recycling

“…6, some of the most important conceptual system boundaries considered in water management research include (increasing in scale and complexity) watershed (Giordano and Shah, 2014), transboundary river basin (Giordano and Shah, 2014), nexus approach to account for synergies across sectors (Endo et al, 2015), and concepts of water footprint and virtual water that account for the trade of embedded water (Allan, 1997). The typical classical SES concept (Holling, 2001;Folke et al, 2004;Folke, 2006) and panarchy (Gunderson and Holling, 2002) has typically considered social dynamics more profoundly but has also mainly been limited to blue water (i.e., river flows, groundwater, lakes) (Gunderson et al, 2017).…”