Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark, "Global Governance Under Fire: How International Organizations Resist the Populist Wave" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Mar 2, 2026

Allison Carnegie, Columbia professor of international institutions, and Richard Clark, Notre Dame political scientist, discuss their book on how international organizations push back against populist attacks. They outline four defensive strategies, show methods behind their findings, and weigh unintended costs for legitimacy. The conversation explores practical steps IOs can take to adapt and survive in a populist age.

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INSIGHT

IOs Act With Real Bureaucratic Agency

International organizations are autonomous bureaucratic actors with real discretion and incentives to survive.
Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark report staffers have distance from member states and can pursue preferences even when powerful states oppose them.

INSIGHT

Study Changes Not Just Survival

The research asks how IOs are changing, not merely whether they survive or die.
Carnegie and Clark focus on adaptive transformations of global governance under populist pressure rather than binary survival claims.

ADVICE

Use Multiple Defensive Strategies Together

IOs use four defensive strategies: appease leaders, appease publics, sideline leaders, and sideline publics.
The NATO case on Sweden and Finland illustrates using all four: legal changes, diplomatic isolation, public Twitter messaging, and closed meetings.

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Populist leaders around the world increasingly reject international organizations, decrying them as constraints on state power and rallying followers against the “global elite” who run them. These institutions—painstakingly built through decades of negotiation and multilateral cooperation—are often seen as passive bystanders, unable or unwilling to push back. In Global Governance Under Fire: How International Organizations Resist the Populist Wave (Princeton UP, 2026) Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark challenge this view, arguing that international organizations are, in fact, strategic agents with the tools to resist populist pressures. Offering fresh theoretical insights and original empirical analysis, they investigate how these institutions fight back and how their defensive strategies are reshaping global governance.
Using a multimethod approach that draws on novel data and qualitative evidence, Carnegie and Clark identify four key strategies that international organizations employ to both appease and sideline populists and their constituents. They find that while these strategies help fortify global governance against populist opposition, they may also produce unintended consequences, potentially eroding institutional legitimacy and fueling further resistance. A timely and compelling account, the book provides a crucial roadmap for understanding—and safeguarding—the global order.

Our guests are Professor Allison Carnegie, a professor of political science at Columbia University. and Professor Richard Clark, who is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame

Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).

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