Abstract:

A new concept has appeared in the field of international relations: that of global governance. Emerging in the wake of globalisation in the late 20th century, it is intended to bridge the gap between an increasingly unified global marketplace and a system of competing states. But the idea of global governance, if not the term, dates back to the first globalisation of the late 19th century, when this question of divide between marketplace and politics was posed for the first time, not only on the internal scale, but also the international scale. On four occasions during the last century, five authors attempted to close the gap: Norman Angel in the second decade, Hans Kelsen at the end of the Second World War, Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane in the 1970s and David Held in 1995. It is through the work of the precursors of the idea of global governance that are examined the origins of a concept which is the subject of two antagonistic interpretations, each as simplistic as the other: that of the extreme liberals and that of the defenders of sovereignty.

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