Thomas J. Biersteker 

Kenneth W. Abbott

Since the United Nations was founded in 1945, there has been a profound change in how the world is governed globally. During the decade that followed World War II, many new treaty-based, formal intergovernmental organizations were created. Much of our understanding of international organizations, global governance, and rules-based international order is based on an analysis of the operations of formal inter-governmental organizations (FIGOs). Since the mid-1990s, however, there has been a significant increase in the number of informal governance arrangements and institutional forms. Thomas Biersteker and Kenneth Abbott examine the UN against this backdrop.