Why do states choose informal organizations to govern global challenges? Using the global development regime as a piloting case, this article argues that different informal organizations serve different purposes. Informal intergovernmental organizations generate “club benefits” for member states, which arise from executive policy coordination behind closed doors. In contrast, transnational governance initiatives allow states to reap “risk-sharing benefits” in the production of global public goods by involving stakeholders. Using regression analysis for a set of development-related institutions, the analysis demonstrates that the two types of organizations are driven by different motivations. Complementary evidence is provided through case studies of two institutions: The IBSA Dialogue Forum (an informal intergovernmental organization) and the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (a transnational public-private partnership). The findings inform conceptual discussions of the informality of institutions while contributing to a better understanding of the design determinants of informal organizations.

Chapter 5 examines the patronage type found most consistently across Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines: meso-particularism (commonly called pork, club goods, or local public goods). This involves distribution of patronage to groups. The chapter distinguishes groups targeted with such patronage: networks of affect orient around religious, cultural, or other social purposes; networks of benefit are tied to income-generating, employment, or other material needs. The chapter explains when and how community-level elected officials act as key brokers in these exchanges. It identifies four reasons why candidates adopt meso-particularism: (1) it is less costly than dispensing cash or other individual patronage to voters; (2) it carries less social and legal stigma; (3) it allows politicians to provide benefits throughout the electoral cycle; (4) it promotes monitoring by focusing on groups rather than individuals. The chapter shows that meso-particularism rarely involves a clear quid pro quo; its value is in building a brand, buying credibility, and protecting turf. It involves contingent patronage only when candidates deal with group leaders able reliably to deliver followers’ votes.

This chapter develops the closure thesis—a theoretical framework for understanding the inter-related dynamics of political equality and inequality in the international system based on joining the neo-Weberian concept of social closure and the economic idea of club goods. The closure thesis consists of a constitutive and a causal logic that together contribute an explanation for the reproduction and transformation of political inequalities, understood as the distribution of participatory and procedural rights. The closure thesis makes a constitutive and a causal argument: first, that institutions create rules of closure that over time have narrowed—rather than expanded—the type of political actors considered legitimate participants, thereby constituting members as categorical equals and non-members as categorical unequals; second, that as institutions respond to normative or functional pressures to be include more, and more diverse, states, incumbents face strong incentives to respond by protecting their privileges through institutional designs—such as assimilative multilateralism, hierarchical multilateralism, and exclusive multilateralism—that distribute procedural rights unequally. The closure thesis thus contests the view that the globalization of the international system has been a process of greater inclusiveness of formerly marginalized actors accompanied by a more egalitarian and even democratic multilateral institutional order.

This chapter introduces the governance of the frontiers, with a special focus on cybersecurity and Internet governance, by first exploring the application of commons principles to these unique environments. This examination begins by defining key concepts such as “commons,” “pseudo commons,” “public goods,” “club goods,” and “common-pool resources,” before moving on to analyze commons governance through the lens of the economics, political science, and legal literatures. Specifically, the chapter discusses the applicability of law and economics concepts such as property rights, use rights, and transaction costs to the traditional global commons (including the deep seabed, Antarctica, outer space, and the atmosphere) as well as to cyberspace. The evolution of sovereignty in these areas is also summarized with a particular emphasis on how cyberspace is distinct from other commons spaces and what that portends for management. Finally, the field of polycentric institutional analysis is introduced along with its application to cyberspace. It is the purview of Chapter 1 to provide an introduction both to the primary characteristics involved in the governance of the managed and unmanaged global commons and to how these concepts apply (and do not apply) to cyberspace.