全球治理或世界治理是跨國(guó)行動(dòng)者之間進(jìn)行政治合作的運(yùn)動(dòng)，旨在就影響多個(gè)國(guó)家或地區(qū)的問題進(jìn)行談判。全球治理機(jī)構(gòu)——聯(lián)合國(guó)、國(guó)際刑事法院、世界銀行等——往往擁有有限或劃界的權(quán)力來強(qiáng)制執(zhí)行合規(guī)。現(xiàn)代世界治理問題存在于全球化和權(quán)力制度全球化的背景下：政治、經(jīng)濟(jì)和文化。為了應(yīng)對(duì)人類社會(huì)之間以及人類與生物圈之間全球相互依賴的加速，“全球治理”一詞可以命名為旨在全球規(guī)模的法律、規(guī)則或法規(guī)的過程。全球治理不是一個(gè)單一的系統(tǒng)。沒有“世界政府”，但全球治理的許多不同制度確實(shí)具有共性：雖然當(dāng)代全球政治關(guān)系體系并不完整，但全球治理的各種制度之間的關(guān)系并不微不足道，而且這種制度具有共同的主導(dǎo)組織形式。今天組織的主導(dǎo)模式是官僚理性的規(guī)范化、法典化和理性化。這是所有現(xiàn)代政權(quán)的共同點(diǎn)，并構(gòu)成了從古典主權(quán)向大衛(wèi)所描述的第二個(gè)主權(quán)自由國(guó)際主權(quán)的過渡。

Global governance or world governance is a movement towards political cooperation among transnational actors, aimed at negotiating responses to problems that affect more than one state or region. Institutions of global governance—the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the World Bank, etc.—tend to have limited or demarcated power to enforce compliance. The modern question of world governance exists in the context of globalization and globalizing regimes of power: politically, economically and culturally. In response to the acceleration of worldwide interdependence, both between human societies and between humankind and the biosphere, the term "global governance" may name the process of designating laws, rules, or regulations intended for a global scale.Global governance is not a singular system. There is no "world government" but the many different regimes of global governance do have commonalities: While the contemporary system of global political relations is not integrated, the relation between the various regimes of global governance is not insignificant, and the system does have a common dominant organizational form. The dominant mode of organization today is bureaucratic rational—regularized, codified and rational. It is common to all modern regimes of political power and frames the transition from classical sovereignty to what David Held describes as the second regime of sovereignty—liberal international sovereignty.