E pluribus pluribum? Global governance in an era of nonstate actors

This dissertation asks a question central to the study of global governance: why are some multilateral institutions better suited to their constituents---and thus more effective---than others? Most studies focus on what these institutions do to solve collective action problems; I focus on what they are as parts of an evolving global polity. My study argues that different actors promote their own internal governance models as exemplars for global governance. Consequently, the existential challenge facing multilateral institutions today is whether they can reconcile increasingly heterogeneous notions of what a proper polity should look like. The study's empirical analysis tests my central hypothesis that actors' 'governance preferences' help shape multilateral economic rules. It analyzes overtime change in multilateral agreements in three case studies---regimes for trade, debt, and investment---showing that their content tends to reflect prevailing governance preferences among participating state and nonstate actors. Its main empirical conclusion is that actors' concern for the integrity of their internal governance overrides incentives for rule-based cooperation, making convergence on internal governance forms a precondition for effective global governance. Theoretically, the study breaks new ground by creating a unified model of state and nonstate actors' preference formation and relational power, opening new avenues for research on global governance in an era of proliferating nonstate actors.