Institutions of International Economic Governance: Dynamics and Challenges

he contributions to this handbook are embracing an actor-centric and dynamic perspective to approach the way the transnational economic order is shaped. They highlight a set of dialectical relationships among alternative patterns of economic governance. First, comes the opposition between market and hierarchy. Second, is the articulation between private and public governance. Third, comes the interplay between regulation and enforcement. Fourth comes the contrast between decentralized vs. centralized adjustment processes. The articulation between organizations-supported and interpersonal-networks-based governance is the fifth one highlighted. Sixth, the long-term persistence of local pragmatic designs is highlighted. Lastly, the standard hierarchy of norms and authorities is contrasted with a more “biological“ approach of governance insisting on the multiple levels and principles of “regulation” of a complex ecosystem.