5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

In an attempt to govern problems that do not have an addressee, organizations, and networks have evolved that seek to address, negotiate, and find solutions to major societal challenges. Global governance has become a popular term for institutions, rules, norms, and methods to guide and facilitate action. While ambitions for problem-solving and development may be high, enforcement mechanisms are few. One example illustrating this dilemma is global food security: There is enough food if production, distribution, and allocation are just. Although the international community has worked for global food security for eight decades, the goal seems far off. The crises of recent decades have made us aware of the need for self-sufficiency, shorter value chains, independent suppliers, and the importance of small food producers. Concurrently the concentration of power in the system accelerates with support in the same crisis scenario. Policies enable the exploitation of people and resources to gain access to inputs such as feed, or cheap precarious labor for seasonal work and also overlook the extreme concentration of power in supply chains and food trade. Similar dilemmas face the governance of oceans, energy, and climate change. This session critically engages in how global governance systems might more efficiently address sustainable development that protects social and biophysical environments in the Anthropocene, for the health and wellbeing of the present and future generations. The session welcomes theoretical, conceptual, and empirical papers, that engage in the concepts of global governance, institutions, collective action, private/public (nations) collaboration, epistemic communities, and knowledge construction.