A joint publication of the Social Science Research council and New York University Press.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Craig Calhoum and Georgi Derluguian -- Ch. 1. Crises in parallel worlds: the governance of global risk in finance, security, and the environment / David Held and Kevin Young -- Ch. 2. Green social democracy or barbarism: climate change and the end of high modernism / William Barnes and Nils Gilman -- Ch. 3. Ecologies of rule: African environments and the climate of neoliberalism / Michael J. Watts -- Ch. 4. Economic crisis, nationalism and politicized ethnicity / Rogers Brubaker -- Ch. 5. War and economic crisis / Mary Kaldor -- Ch. 6. A less close Union? The European union's search for unity amid crisis / Vincent Della Sala -- Ch. 7. The paradox of faith: religion beyond secularization and desecularization / Arian Pabst -- Ch. 8. Global governance after the analog age: the world after media piracy / Ravi Sundaram -- Ch. 9. From full to selective secrecy: the offshore realm after the crisis / Vadim Volkov.

Response to financial meltdown is entangled with basic challenges to global governance. Environment, global security and ethnicity and nationalism are all global issues today. Focusing on the political and social dimensions of the crisis, contributors examine changes in relationships between the world's richer and poorer countries, efforts to strengthen global institutions, and difficulties facing states trying to create stability for their citizens.