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This project theorizes patterns of international public authority and translates them into a data model that is suitable for the analysis of how various types of international institutions govern national and international politics. The project is motivated by a qualitative shift in international relations: the phenomenon that international institutions, and especially International Organizations (IOs), gain in public authority and profoundly influence internal affairs of states by reducing their room of maneuver. As a result, the principle of national sovereignty is transformed and loses its significance and structuring quality for international and domestic politics.

In International Institutions in Hard Times. A Theory of Global Governance present blockades and norm violations are interpreted as an expression of the institutional deficits of Global Governance. The crisis of European integration, the unilateralism of the USA, growing opposition against international organizations, and the insistence on national sovereignty of emerging countries such as China or India are therefore resulting from deficits in world order. The theory of Global Governance is devoted to questions regarding the emergence, function, and effect of world order. Moreover, it aims to explain current blockades in international politics, as well as the parallel deepening of international institutions.