ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the institutions that explicitly and implicitly govern, or attempt to organize, our economic, political, and social lives. It considers governance in the broadest of terms. Governance can occur explicitly in the form of formal agreements like trade pacts, or institutional arrangements that states enter into, such as the United Nations, World Bank, or International Monetary Fund. Global governance includes the institutions, rules, and norms that provide guidance and restraint in the global order. Peacekeepers took on complex tasks relating to sustainable development, such as building meaningful institutions of governance; monitoring human rights; and disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating former combatants. International institutions engage in governance, setting expectations that identify common goals and appropriate means to reach those goals. International institutions, such as the United Nations or the Bretton Woods institutions, have little power to constrain state behavior and are largely irrelevant in the face of the interests of powerful countries.
