It is no accident that the chapters in this book are coordinated around the common theme of international governance. For this is the second of a projected three volumes designed to promote theoretical inquiry into the dynamics of world politics. It follows logically from the first volume, Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990s (Lexington Books, 1989), which we co-edited and which was cast at a much higher level of abstraction than the present work as a means of identifying specific problem areas worthy of theoretical exploration. This expectation proved more sound than we anticipated: during the last session of the workshop that resulted in the initial volume, it was suggested that the next step was to probe systems of rule in world politics. The present volume is a direct consequence of that suggestion and the wide agreement it evoked among those present.

What follows logically, however, is not always easily implemented. The contributors to this volume met a number of times to discuss their perspectives on international governance and to evolve shared understandings of the key concepts inherent in the subject. These meetings extended across four years in a variety of settings and, consequently, drafts of the chapters were subjected to intense evaluations as they went through several iterations.