Many international relations scholars argue that private authority and private actors are playing increasingly prominent roles in global governance. This book focuses on the other side of the equation: the transformation of the public dimension of governance in the era of globalization. It analyses that transformation, advancing two major claims: first, that the public is beginning to play a more significant role in global governance, and, second, that it takes a rather different form than has traditionally been understood in international relations theory. The authors suggest that unless we transcend conventional wisdom about the public as a distinct sphere, separate from the private domain, we cannot understand the dynamics and consequences of its apparent return. Using examples drawn from international political economy, international security and environmental governance, they argue that 'the public' should be conceptualized as a collection of culturally-specific social practices.

'Defining Western public spheres as bundles of common concern is a nice way of capturing the phenomenon's emergence, and of identifying changing agents and agendas. The striking thing is how states so often effortlessly co-opt these agendas and go on to re-draw a new authoritative line between the public and the private.'

Iver Neumann - Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science