Abstract
Global Governance Under Fire: How Inter-national Organizations Resist the Populist Wave by Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark argues that international organizations (IOs) are not merely passive victims of anti-globalist backlash but rather strategic actors capable of adapting through practices such as adjusting loan conditionality, developing alternative information-sharing arrangements, and engaging domestic audiences. The book addresses a gap in the literature on populism and international cooperation, which has focused more on how populist leaders undermine international cooperation than on how these institutions respond. Combining theory with empirical analysis, it draws on international financial institutions alongside a broader range of cases to show how IOs actively deploy different strategies in response to populist challenges across diverse institutional and political contexts.
The authors first reconceptualize IOs as agents with strategic capacity. Drawing on insights from organizational sociology, the authors argue that IOs possess a “defensive playbook” to respond to hostile member states. Chapter 2, “Theory,” argues that populist leaders challenge IOs through tactics such as exit, funding cuts, information manipulation, and noncompliance. In response, IOs deploy four main strategies: sidelining or appeasing populist leaders and their domestic constituencies. By identifying these mechanisms, the book distinguishes between strategies targeting member-state leaders and those targeting domestic constituencies. This analytical framework also addresses debates on IO agency, challenging views that treat institutions as constrained by powerful member states or as largely reactive. By contrast, IOs are presented as actors that navigate internal dissent and adapt to changing political environments.
Building on this reconceptualization of IOs as strategic actors, the authors examine how IOs respond to populist leaders in practice. Chapter 4, “Sidelining Populist Leaders,” focuses on information as a key resource in global governance and shows how IOs reduce their dependence on uncooperative member states by expanding information-sharing networks and developing alternative channels for acquiring information. Drawing on evidence from development organizations and information-sharing agreements, the chapter demonstrates how institutions preserve operational capacity even when governments engage in information withholding or manipulation. In doing so, the chapter highlights the importance of informational autonomy in preserving operational capacity amid political contestation.
Chapter 5, “Appeasing Populist Leaders,” analyzes how IOs make concessions to maintain engagement. Focusing on international financial institutions, the authors show that organizations such as the IMF and World Bank may adjust loan conditionality to accommodate populist governments, for instance, by softening or delaying policy requirements that impose immediate domestic political costs. Rather than treating such concessions as weakness, the chapter frames them as strategies to preserve cooperation. In this way, flexibility supports continued engagement while raising questions about the consistency of conditionality, perceptions of impartiality, and the longer-term implications for institutional credibility.
The authors also examine the role of domestic constituencies, demonstrating how IOs engage with domestic audiences to counter populist narratives. In Chapter 6, “Sidelining Populists’ Constituents,” the authors analyze covert forms of engagement, such as indirect or low-profile cooperation, that allow leaders to cooperate with IOs while limiting domestic backlash. Chapter 7, “Appeasing Populists’ Constituents,” explores more visible strategies, including the use of social media, to appeal directly to the public. The analysis of Twitter engagement and an experiment on public responses adds methodological diversity to the study. Read together, these chapters suggest that IOs operate within a communicative environment shaped by public opinion, rather than solely state-to-state interaction, thereby connecting the study of IOs to discussions in comparative politics on public opinion and political communication.
The strength of the book lies in its diverse case studies, which highlight variation in IO responses across institutional and political contexts. Drawing on examples such as the EU and Viktor Orbán, NATO and Turkey, and multiple organizations’ responses to the Trump administration, the book shows how institutions combine different approaches, including sidelining and appeasement, directed at both leaders and constituencies, depending on their resources, institutional rules, and member states’ behavior. The discussion of the EU illustrates how consensus-based institutional rules can both constrain and enable responses to populist member states, while the NATO cases highlight the difficulties of managing strategically important members whose cooperation remains necessary despite political tensions. The discussion of the Trump administration further demonstrates how organizations such as the WHO, WTO, and the Paris Agreement adapted to funding cuts, noncooperation, and withdrawal threats through strategies ranging from institutional workarounds and procedural adjustments to coalition-building and public communication. Together, these cases reinforce the point that IOs rarely rely on a single approach, instead deploying a mix of tactics tailored to specific contexts.
However, some limitations are worth noting. The focus on strategic adaptation leaves less room for considering the structural constraints that shape IO behavior. For instance, factors such as institutional design and decision-making rules receive relatively limited attention. As a result, it is somewhat difficult to assess how far the conceptual framework applies to weaker or less visible organizations. In addition, the emphasis on IO agency, while analytically useful, at times understates the continuing role of state power, including the ability of major powers to shape institutional strategies through funding decisions or rule-setting. Finally, although the book addresses some unintended consequences of IO strategies, such as potential effects on legitimacy and transparency, these are not explored in depth, particularly regarding how strategies such as secrecy or selective engagement may affect long-term institutional trust.
Overall, Global Governance Under Fire makes an original contribution to the study of international relations and global governance by developing a conceptual framework for examining how international organizations respond to populist challenges. By shifting the focus from vulnerabilities to adaptive capacities, the book offers a more balanced account of IOs. Its argument that IOs are neither static nor powerless but rather capable of strategic adaptation informs discussions about the future of the liberal international order. The effective integration of theory and empirical analysis, alongside careful attention to institutional and domestic political processes, makes the book particularly relevant to researchers and students of global governance, international organizations, and institutional behavior. It would also be a valuable addition to courses on globalization and populism.
