Outline of the chapters

development initiatives underway across Africa, South America and the

Caribbean, and greater recognition of the role that regional blocs can play in realising the SDGs (Yeates, 2017). • The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, which triggered a whole-of-society shock to all countries worldwide, highlighting the threat to human health that unsustainable development poses, and exposing nationalism as an impediment to greater global social solidarity (Gostin et al, 2020). The gaping global inequalities in access to COVID-19 vaccines and the enduring weakness of many countries’ health systems posed distinct challenges for global health governance and global health security (Gostin et al, 2020; Legge, 2020), among other things.

These ‘new’ and ongoing developments inform each of the chapters, and find concrete expression to different degrees. Chapter authors place different emphases in their approach to their topics in ways that reflect their personal intellectual and/or discipline-specific perspective. However, all chapters address the core tenets of GSP from the perspective of how these global imperatives and forces, governance structures and policy actors are (re)making GSP in practice.

Outline of the chapters

Each chapter in this book surveys and illuminates the nature of contemporary GSP-making in relation to specific areas, issues, populations or sectors. Collectively, they illustrate the breadth and richness of GSP as a field of academic study and research and as a set of ‘living’ political ideas. Each discusses in tangible and illuminating ways the nature of social issues with which contemporary GSP is grappling, how global policy responses are, in turn, addressing them, and the challenges that lie ahead.

The book is divided into three main parts. Part One examines ‘Institutions, actors and theories’ and comprises five chapters. The main institutions of global social governance and the key actors in GSP are introduced first to provide a foundation on which later chapters build, and a lexicon that will familiarise readers with key terms and concepts in GSP. Sophie Mackinder, Chris Holden and Nicola Yeates (Chapter 2) introduce the actors and institutions that between them constitute global and regional social governance. Central to this governance is a multiplicity of IGOs, although non-state actors also play an important role. The different forms taken by IGOs relevant to GSP are examined, as are their overlapping mandates and different capacities to influence social policy and outcomes. Chris Holden (Chapter 3) focuses on global economic governance, trade and welfare. He discusses the changing nature of international trade agreements, the main forms that global economic governance takes, and the role of national welfare states within a liberalised world economy. Given recent shifts in the politics of trade, the chapter draws out ‘behind the border’ issues, such as

regulatory cooperation and investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS), and relates them to GSP. Kevin Farnsworth and Robert O’Brien (Chapter 4) turn their attention to the role of business and labour actors in GSP, and why and how IGOs involve them in GSP-making. They discuss global initiatives to better regulate business globally and promote labour rights, and address the extent to which GSP can be understood as pro-business or pro-labour, and how this balance may be said to have shifted over time. With the key institutions and actors of GSP introduced, the remaining two chapters focus on GSP theory. Nicola Yeates and Chris Holden (Chapter 5) examine two different approaches to theorising GSP – on the one hand, ‘globalising’ theories of national welfare state development to take account of the different forms and circumstances of GSP, and on the other hand, ‘welfarising’ globalist social theories to incorporate the academic concerns of GSP scholars. Both approaches are reviewed and exemplars of each are briefly set out. The chapter also makes some suggestions for future work on theorising GSP. Finally, Theo Papaionnou (Chapter 6) discusses different schools of thought about how to ‘globalise’ social justice. Their differing normative claims are examined, as are how such claims can be operationalised to bring about meaningful pro-justice social change.

Part Two focuses on GSP issues and populations that cut across specific policy areas or domains, and comprises five chapters. Carolyn Snell (Chapter 7) considers climate change and environmental policy as a GSP issue of the first order. She uses the concept of climate justice to highlight how the harmful effects of climate change tend to be felt most by communities, countries and populations that have contributed the least to global environmental problems. Chris Holden (Chapter 8) focuses on global poverty and inequality. He considers the implications of global measures of poverty and inequality for the politics of GSP, the role of the World Bank in influencing knowledge and discourse about poverty, and the relevance of Agenda 2030 (SDGs) for the global politics of poverty and inequality. Nicola Yeates and Nicola Piper (Chapter 9) focus on GSP in relation to international migration. They emphasise how global migration governance is subject to gradual, yet intensified, institutionalisation, and how key developments in recent efforts to arrive at a global framework are marked by conflicting interests and politics. They also identify GSP issues raised by international migration and distinguish between GSP for migrants and GSP by migrants. Rianne Mahon (Chapter 10) discusses ways of thinking about where and how gender is embedded within GSP, and how it could better incorporate a gender-sensitive/equality lens. She focuses on the ILO’s standardsetting work; women’s social reproductive work via unpaid care and the broader care economy; and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Finally, Ross Fergusson (Chapter 11) examines how young people have been incorporated into GSP. He shows the main focus of GSPs has been on education and employment, but also extends to crime and juvenile justice, and participation