Rule, Rules, and Relations: Towards a Synthetic Approach to Governance

In International Relations, the question of global governance has become a main issue that has given rise to numerous research programs and products on the question of how to govern. IR scholarship, however, has more or less been conducted according to the tradition of regime and institution studies, focusing on how rules govern and how institutions can promote cooperation by lowering transactional costs and reduce conflict by increasing predictability and decreasing uncertainty. In the IR discourse, rule-based governance seems to be the only model at international, regional, and global levels. There is little doubt that rule-based governance is an important approach both conspicuous and promising in its application, especially in Europe. It is, moreover, highly recommended and accepted by the Obama administration. Rule-based multilateralism, in contrast to the Bush administration’s unilateralism and resort to force, is a distinct feature and policy preference in several important blueprints for US