ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 contains the core intellectual building blocks that inform this book. It assembles insight from scholarly work in international relations, law, sociology, and political economy to situate the emergence of the regulatory state and the rise of government networks in the larger process of structural transformation that is globalization. The chapter then compares the institutional design of government networks to that of traditional intergovernmental organizations, outlining key concepts that help explain the power of government networks in the realm of 21st century global economic governance. After showing, in theory and in practice, how a government network can exert power, the chapter turns to its limiting factors. It develops a theoretical perspective on why legislators as bureaucratic actors have an incentive to curb the power of government networks. The subsequent section then draws from the international political economy literature to distill five competing explanations for FSB performance. The final part of the chapter looks at two other tricky areas of global governance from an institutional design perspective. Focusing on climate change and artificial intelligence, it assesses the benefits and drawbacks of government networks as an institutional blueprint to address the massive challenges humanity is facing in each area.
