Transnational transformations: From government-centric interstate regimes to cross-sectoral multi-level networks of global governance

Much scholarly and public policy attention has focused on the contestation around older intergovernmental agencies such as the United Nations, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, as well as newer ones such as the World Trade Organization and the International Criminal Court (Woods 1999 and 2002).1 But far too few of these, even scholarly versions, examine the relations between these organizations and the broader underlying insti-tutional arrangements, that is interstate regimes, let alone perhaps a world society, of which they are constitutive elements, central actors, and core symbols (Rittberger 1995).