The Swiss National Science Foundation recently announced its decision to award funding to a research project headed by Professor Liliana Andonova entitled “Governance Entrepreneurs. International Organisations and Public-Private Partnerships”.

The project aims to produce a book-length work that will document and explain the rise of global public-private partnerships in the multilateral system and their impact on global governance objectives.

According to Professor Andonova, previous studies on public-private partnerships have emphasised primarily external factors such as globalisation and the influence of transnational actors to account for public-private collaboration. For her, this is only part of the story. She said that this project aims to highlight the critical role of international organisations as entrepreneurs rather than just takers of institutional change.

“Governance Entrepreneurs” will contribute to the study of international organisations and change in global governance, Professor Andonova said. “It does so by providing an encompassing and theoretically-informed analysis of global public-private partnerships and the interplay between intergovernmental institutions and transnational governance networks”. The project will also entail the creation of a database of global partnerships across several international organisations: the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations secretariat. According to the project description, the database will provide a basis for additional research and social scientific inquiry on the governance dynamics and effects of public-private collaboration.
 
Professor Andonova and the project’s Research Assistant, Manoela Louise Assayag de Magalhães Souza, who is pursuing a PhD in International Relations/Political Science at the Institute, intend to use the Swiss National Science Foundation grant to complete the project by 2013.

Professor Liliana Andonova is also Programme Director for the Institute’s Centre for International Environmental Studies. She has been a faculty member since 2008 and was previously a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, Italy, and Assistant Professor in Government and Environmental Studies at Colby College, USA. She is the author of Transnational Politics of the Environment and EU Integration and Environmental Policy in Eastern Europe (2004) as well as numerous articles. Her current research focuses on institutional change and public-private partnerships, European integration, transnational governance, and climate cooperation.