ABSTRACT
International organizations, despite their many problems and limitations, are essential building blocks of a global governance architecture. International organizations make up the core of the infrastructure of a global system, providing the institutional framework for an orderly transition from the "international" to the "global". The concept of global governance has been bundled up in the expansion of the system of sovereign nation-states and discussed as part of the notion of an international society or world polity. The concept of global governance involves three primary actors—governments, markets, and civil society—who operate within three basic governance domains—the political domain, the economic domain, and the socio-cultural domain. Thus they form three institutional pillars of global governance such as political, economic, and socio-cultural. Each pillar has distinct institutions and organizations on some different levels that support the system as a whole. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
