Friends and foes of international cooperation puzzle about how to explain order stability and predictability in a world without a central authority. How is the world governed in the absence of a world government? This probing yet accessible book examines global governance or the sum of the informal and formal values norms procedures and institutions that help states intergovernmental organizations civil society and transnational corporations identify understand and address trans-boundary problems. The chasm between the magnitude of a growing number of global threats - climate change proliferation of weapons of mass destruction terrorism financial instabilities pandemics to name a few - and the feeble contemporary political structures for international problem-solving provide compelling reasons to read this book. Fitful tactical and short-term local responses exist for a growing number of threats and challenges that require sustained strategic and longer-run global perspectives and action. Can the framework of global governance help us to better understand the reasons behind this fundamental disconnect as well as possible ways to attenuate its worst aspects? Thomas G. Weiss replies with a guardedly sanguine yes .