Understanding Multilateral Institutions in Easy and Hard Times

Abstract

In my scholarly work, I have sought to understand institutionalized multilateral cooperation in world politics, and the context of such cooperation: extensive economic interdependence, or globalization. What are the political implications of economic interdependence? Under what conditions are states facing globalization willing to share their authority with multilateral organizations over whose policies they exert only indirect and collective influence? I have developed interpretive frameworks and some theory to address these issues. In other work, I have helped to develop precepts for qualitative research design, and I have explored some normative issues associated with institutional accountability and legitimacy. My work on multilateral institutions, which was done in a period of increasing multilateral cooperation, is challenged by increasing inequality in capitalist democracies, financial crisis, and nationalist forms of populism. I am now seeking to understand the international and comparative politics of climate change, which I regard as an existential crisis.