ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the benefits of a turn toward pluralism, but begins by collecting what we have learned about nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in global governance from more traditional perspectives. It includes primarily interested in the kinds of NGO–intergovernmental organizations engagement. Peter Willetts advocates for this reversal in primary agency by arguing that NGOs “constructed global governance” by changing communications systems and norms that permitted institutional change. Although the Dispute Settlement Understanding does not grant NGOs any participation opportunities, NGOs attempt to influence dispute settlement by submitting amicus briefs. Generally, however, the kinds of broad explanations were not as helpful for explaining variation across institutions as they might be for explaining an overall upward NGO participation trend. The primacy of the resource-exchange explanation for variation in participation rules echoes the dominance of rational-design scholarship in the broader study of global governance.
