Allison Carnegie

How international organizations can combat populist opposition—and the implications for institutional resilience, legitimacy, and accountabilityPopulist leaders around the world increasingly reject international organizations, decrying them as constraints on state power and rallying followers against the “global elite” who run them. These instituions—painstakingly built through decades of negotiation and multilateral cooperation—are often seen as passive bystanders, unable or unwilling to push back. In Global Governance Under Fire, Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark challenge this view, arguing that international organizations are, in fact, strategic agents with the tools to resist populist pressures. Offering fresh theoretical insights and original empirical analysis, they investigate how these institutions fight back and how their defensive strategies are reshaping global governance.Using a multimethod approach that draws on novel data and qualitative evidence, Carnegie and Clark identify four key strategies that international organizations employ—appeasing and sidelining populists and their constituents. They find that while these strategies help fortify global governance against populist opposition, they may also carry unintended consequences, potentially eroding institutional legitimacy and fueling further resistance. A timely and compelling account, the book provides a crucial roadmap for understanding—and safeguarding—the global order.

How international organizations can combat populist opposition—and the implications for institutional resilience, legitimacy, and accountabilityPopulist leaders around the world increasingly reject international organizations, decrying them as constraints on state power and rallying followers against the “global elite” who run them. These instituions—painstakingly built through decades of negotiation and multilateral cooperation—are often seen as passive bystanders, unable or unwilling to push back. In Global Governance Under Fire, Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark challenge this view, arguing that international organizations are, in fact, strategic agents with the tools to resist populist pressures. Offering fresh theoretical insights and original empirical analysis, they investigate how these institutions fight back and how their defensive strategies are reshaping global governance.Using a multimethod approach that draws on novel data and qualitative evidence, Carnegie and Clark identify four key strategies that international organizations employ—appeasing and sidelining populists and their constituents. They find that while these strategies help fortify global governance against populist opposition, they may also carry unintended consequences, potentially eroding institutional legitimacy and fueling further resistance. A timely and compelling account, the book provides a crucial roadmap for understanding—and safeguarding—the global order.

Scholars have long argued that transparency makes international rule violations more visible and improves outcomes. Secrets in Global Governance revises this claim to show how equipping international organizations (IOs) with secrecy can be a critical tool for eliciting sensitive information and increasing cooperation. States are often deterred from disclosing information about violations of international rules by concerns of revealing commercially sensitive economic information or the sources and methods used to collect intelligence. IOs equipped with effective confidentiality systems can analyze and act on sensitive information while preventing its wide release. Carnegie and Carson use statistical analyses of new data, elite interviews, and archival research to test this argument in domains across international relations, including nuclear proliferation, international trade, justice for war crimes, and foreign direct investment. Secrets in Global Governance brings a groundbreaking new perspective to the literature of international relations.

Scholars have long argued that transparency makes international rule violations more visible and improves outcomes. Secrets in Global Governance revises this claim to show how equipping international organizations (IOs) with secrecy can be a critical tool for eliciting sensitive information and increasing cooperation. States are often deterred from disclosing information about violations of international rules by concerns of revealing commercially sensitive economic information or the sources and methods used to collect intelligence. IOs equipped with effective confidentiality systems can analyze and act on sensitive information while preventing its wide release. Carnegie and Carson use statistical analyses of new data, elite interviews, and archival research to test this argument in domains across international relations, including nuclear proliferation, international trade, justice for war crimes, and foreign direct investment. Secrets in Global Governance brings a groundbreaking new perspective to the literature of international relations.

Coercive diplomacy - the use of threats and assurances to alter another state's behavior - is indispensable to international relations. Most scholarship has focused on whether and when states are able to use coercive methods to achieve their desired results. However, employing game-theoretic tools, statistical modeling, and detailed case study analysis, Power Plays builds and tests a theory that explains how states develop strategies of coercive diplomacy, how their targets shield themselves from these efforts, and the implications for interstate relations. Focusing on the World Trade Organization, Power Plays argues that coercive diplomacy often precludes cooperation due to fears of exploitation, but that international institutions can solve these problems by convincing states to eschew certain tools for coercive purposes.