Join us for a book launch and panel discussion to take place at the Blavatnik School on Tuesday 21st May.

Why is global governance stalling when we need it most? A new book argues that the problem is gridlock—a set of trends hampering multilateral cooperation across all areas of global politics. New powers have brought a more diverse range of interests to the negotiating table, while the problems requiring collective action have grown more numerous and complex. At the same time, existing institutions have locked-in outmoded decision-making procedures and created a fragmented governance patchwork that slows action. Ironically, many of these problems stem from the previous successes of international cooperation over the postwar period. Those successes allowed globalization to advance to a point at which the very same institutions now struggle to manage the interdependence they helped create.

The panel will examine multilateral gridlock and its implications around the world. Chaired by world renowned political scientist Robert Keohane, the panel will feature Gridlock author Dr Thomas Hale of the Blavatnik School and four distinguished alumni of the Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellowship programme: Dr Bo Qu of the China Foreign Affairs University, Dr George Gray Molina of UNDP, Dr Leany Lemos of the Brazilian Senate, and Dr Arunabha Ghosh of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (India). 

This event is co-hosted by the Blavatnik School of Government, the Global Economic Governance Programme and the Centre for International Studies at the University of Oxford.

About the book

Gridlock: Why Global Cooperation Is Failing When We Need It Most

by Thomas Hale, David Held, Kevin Young 

(Polity Press)