Commissioned book review: Peter Chai, Global Governance under Fire: How International Organizations Resist the Populist Wave CarnegieAClarkR (2026). Global Governance under Fire: How International Organizations Resist the Populist Wave. Princeton University Press. 80 pp. $99.95 (hardcover). ISBN 9780691276205 (hardcover).

argues that international organizations (IOs) are not merely passive victims of anti-globalist backlash but rather strategic actors capable of adapting through practices such as adjusting loan conditionality, developing alternative information-sharing arrangements, and engaging domestic audiences.The book addresses a gap in the literature on populism and international cooperation, which has focused more on how populist leaders undermine international cooperation than on how these institutions respond.Combining theory with empirical analysis, it draws on international financial institutions alongside a broader range of cases to show how IOs actively deploy different strategies in response to populist challenges across diverse institutional and political contexts.The authors first reconceptualize IOs as agents with strategic capacity.Drawing on insights from organizational sociology, the authors argue that IOs possess a "defensive playbook" to respond to hostile member states.Chapter 2, "Theory," argues that populist leaders challenge IOs through tactics such as exit, funding cuts, information manipulation, and noncompliance.In response, IOs deploy four main strategies: sidelining or appeasing populist leaders and their domestic constituencies.