Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.11, 2015

 

Global Governance toward a Public Management Paradigm: An Analysis Based on a “Issue-Agency-Mechanism” Framework

(Abstract)

 

Xue Lan and Yu Hanzhi

 

The concept of global governance originated in the research field of theory of international politics, but its model of theoretical exploration divorced from real problems needs some rethinking. The 21st century has seen a new trend of global governance research orientated toward real-world problems, but this has not received due attention from Chinese academia. Using the perspective of public management studies to construct an analytical framework of “issue-agency-mechanism” and placing global governance practice since WWII under the old model of global governance, we can analyze governance issues and changes in governance agencies that have arisen from global change over the past two or three decades, as well as the dysfunctionality and defects in the traditional governance mechanism caused by such changes. Such an analysis shows that the global governance system is going through a structural transformation. In the new paradigm of global governance, the issues, agents and mechanisms of governance and their relationships are all highly complex, so we need to change our conceptions about the world accordingly. A new research agenda is thus urgently needed.