Transitional Governance in Increasingly Turbulent Times: Jim Muldoon’s Legacy

Rob van Tulder, Bob Reinalda, and Dennis Dijkzeul

The following short tribute elaborates and assesses the three central themes in the late James Muldoon’s scholarly work: 1) the nature and speed of transition, 2) the ins and outs of hybrid governance forms, and 3) new governance forms, such as cross-sector partnerships. Muldoon introduced his idea of transitional governance as an analytical approach to two developments that undermined the fate of the Westphalian sovereignty-based, international order: from above by supranational forces (globalization) and from below by sub-national trends (localization). The second theme Muldoon covers with his concept of transitional governance includes the bottom-up initiatives that have filled the void of international regulation. Muldoon was one of the first to cover the role of the Internet in terms of governance and institutional voids. He gave an account of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as a form of hybrid governance, including where it confirms realist assumptions about major states retaining ultimate authority. Muldoon showed that by jumping on the bandwagon of multi-stakeholder engagement, some IOs regained legitimacy. In particular the UN with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—established in September 2015 to set an agenda for the period until 2030—smartly used the long-term engagement of thousands of stakeholder representatives from civil society, corporations, and knowledge institutes.

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