This work posits that, over the past two centuries, democratic norms have spread from domestic politics to intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Grigorescu explores how norms shaped IGO decision-making rules such as those driving state participation, voting, access to information, and the role of NGOs and transnational parliaments. The study emphasizes the role of 'normative pressures' (the interaction between norm strength and the degree to which the status quo strays from norm prescriptions). Using primary and secondary sources to assess the plausibility of its arguments across two centuries and two dozen IGOs, the study focuses on developments in the League of Nations, the International Labor Organization, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization.

The Ebb and Flow of Global Governance challenges the traditionally dichotomous distinction between international intergovernmental organizations and international nongovernmental organizations. Alexandru Grigorescu argues that international organizations are best understood as falling on an 'intergovernmental-nongovernmental continuum'. The placement of organizations on this continuum is determined by how much government involvement factors into their decision-making, financing, and deliberations. Using this fine-grained conceptualization, Grigorescu uncovers numerous changes in the intergovernmental versus nongovernmental nature of global governance over the past century and a half. These changes are due primarily to ideological and institutional domestic shifts in powerful states. The Ebb and Flow of Global Governance assesses the plausibility of these arguments through archival research on a dozen organizations from the global health, labor, and technical standards realms. Grigorescu concludes that there has been a continuous ebb and flow in world politics, rather than an inexorable movement towards greater roles for nongovernmental actors, as existing literature argues.

The Ebb and Flow of Global Governance challenges the traditionally dichotomous distinction between international intergovernmental organizations and international nongovernmental organizations. Alexandru Grigorescu argues that international organizations are best understood as falling on an 'intergovernmental-nongovernmental continuum'. The placement of organizations on this continuum is determined by how much government involvement factors into their decision-making, financing, and deliberations. Using this fine-grained conceptualization, Grigorescu uncovers numerous changes in the intergovernmental versus nongovernmental nature of global governance over the past century and a half. These changes are due primarily to ideological and institutional domestic shifts in powerful states. The Ebb and Flow of Global Governance assesses the plausibility of these arguments through archival research on a dozen organizations from the global health, labor, and technical standards realms. Grigorescu concludes that there has been a continuous ebb and flow in world politics, rather than an inexorable movement towards greater roles for nongovernmental actors, as existing literature argues.

This work posits that, over the past two centuries, democratic norms have spread from domestic politics to intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Grigorescu explores how norms shaped IGO decision-making rules such as those driving state participation, voting, access to information, and the role of NGOs and transnational parliaments. The study emphasizes the role of 'normative pressures' (the interaction between norm strength and the degree to which the status quo strays from norm prescriptions). Using primary and secondary sources to assess the plausibility of its arguments across two centuries and two dozen IGOs, the study focuses on developments in the League of Nations, the International Labor Organization, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization.