ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the nineteenth-century origins of global governance and the later rise of the UN system. It outlines the more recent crises that led to the development of the term "global governance", and identifies the most fruitful ways the term has been used by activists and scholars. The Labor Association is typical of global governance in the inter-imperial world: Some of it was done by private international non-governmental organizations. Income inequality across countries increased as lenders imposed the new Western economic orthodoxy on much of the developing world. Many early analyses of the economic shift overlooked the degree to which a further internationalization of industrial capitalism underlay the observed crisis—a further internationalization supported by revolutions in communication, transportation, and industrial standards that had been fostered by global governance in the UN era. The chapter concludes with some questions to keep in mind when studying and reflecting on global governance.
