Global partnerships have transformed international institutions by creating platforms for direct collaboration with NGOs, foundations, companies and local actors. They introduce a model of governance that is decentralized, networked and voluntary, and which melds public purpose with private practice. How can we account for such substantial institutional change in a system made by states and for states? Governance Entrepreneurs examines the rise and outcomes of global partnerships across multiple policy domains: human rights, health, environment, sustainable development and children. It argues that international organizations have played a central role as entrepreneurs of such governance innovation in coalition with pro-active states and non-state actors, yet this entrepreneurship is risky and success is not assured. This is the first study to leverage comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis that illuminates the variable politics and outcomes of public-private partnerships across multilateral institutions, including the UN Secretariat, the World Bank, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Author Biography

Liliana B. Andonova is Professor of International Relations and Political Science, and Academic Co-Director of the Center for International Environmental Studies at the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies, Geneva. She is the author of Transnational Politics of the Environment (2003); co-author of Transnational Climate Change Governance (Cambridge, 2014); and co-editor of a special issue on the Comparative Politics of Transnational Climate Governance of the journal International Interactions (2017).