ABSTRACT
James N. Rosenau1 Introduction The primary purpose of a global governance perspective is its attempt to understand change within our global system. This is one reason why international relations scholars have invoked the use of this analytical perspective over recent years. The decade of the 1990s was certainly one that was wrought with global change. One primary, but certainly not exclusive, event that perpetuated this change was the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the world’s bipolar system.2 Among the profound changes that have come about during the past fifteen years are the following: a continued and intensified process of globalization, a rise in intra-state conflicts, an increased number of non-state actors possessing an increased amount of authority, and the formation of a plethora of new intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) to deal with the world’s growing number of transnational problems. All of these events, and many more not mentioned, have led international relations scholars to question the dominant paradigms of the Cold War era. As Yale Ferguson tells us:
There is an urgent need for a postinternational revolution in the study of global politics, broadly conceived as a take-no-prisoners campaign waged by all those from various disciplines who are non-state-centric and yet empirical in their approach(es)…Realists,
1 Rosenau, “Governance, Order and Change,” 1.
