Global Governance Systems Review (GGSR) publishes research explaining how governance arrangements are established, how they operate, and why their consequences differ across institutions, societies, and policy domains. The journal examines the exercise of public authority and the coordination of collective action at international, regional, national, and local levels, including the relationships between these levels.

GGSR connects scholarship in international relations, political science, public administration, public policy, public law, and political economy. Its central concern is the relationship between institutional design and governance in practice: who makes decisions, whose interests are represented, how decisions are implemented, and how authority can be held accountable.

Research priorities

• International organizations, multilateral cooperation, regime complexity, and the changing architecture of global governance.
• Public institutions, administrative capacity, policy coordination, implementation, and institutional reform.
• Accountability, legitimacy, participation, representation, and the distribution of power within governance systems.
• Transnational regulation, public–private arrangements, standards, networks, and non-state authority.
• Comparative and multilevel governance, including the interaction of domestic institutions with international rules and regional arrangements.
• Governance responses to climate change, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, development, security, and other collective problems.

What constitutes a contribution

A submission should develop a clear research question and explain how its findings change an existing understanding of governance. Contributions may identify a previously overlooked mechanism, reassess a theoretical claim, compare institutional arrangements, evaluate a policy intervention, or introduce evidence that changes an established debate. A study of a single country, organization, or policy is welcome when it explains the broader analytical significance of that setting.

Policy relevance should follow from the analysis. Authors should distinguish evidence about institutional performance from recommendations about how institutions ought to be designed, and explain the conditions under which a recommendation could apply elsewhere.

Methods and evidence

The journal welcomes quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, historical, experimental, computational, legal, and conceptual approaches. Methods should fit the question. Empirical papers must explain their sources, selection decisions, analytical procedures, and limitations; conceptual papers must define their terms and sustain their reasoning through engagement with relevant scholarship. Transparent reporting and responsible treatment of participants and sensitive evidence are expected across approaches.

Submission suitability

Descriptive accounts, institutional profiles, or advocacy essays require a developed scholarly argument to be suitable for consideration. Studies of corporate or organizational governance should establish a substantive connection to public authority, regulation, or collective governance. Authors should consult Article Types and Author Guidelines before preparing a submission.