The Global Governance of Large Technical Systems
| Author | Michele Acuto,Maximilian Mayer |
| Published date | 01 January 2015 |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0305829814561540 |
| Subject Matter | Forum: Global Governance in the Interregnum |
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2015, Vol. 43(2) 660 –683
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829814561540
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MILLENNIUM
Journal of International Studies
The Global Governance of
Large Technical Systems
Maximilian Mayer
University of Bonn, Germany
Michele Acuto
University College London, UK
Abstract
The importance of technology in global affairs is visible to the naked and uninitiated eye. Yet
International Relations (IR) still lacks a more systematic and critical attention to the role of
technological infrastructures in contemporary global governance dynamics. Here, we seek to
prompt IR scholars to move ‘large technical systems’ (LTSs) from the contours of IR narratives
to a centre stage, as they hold the potential to respond to pressing challenges for IR scholarship.
Employing LTSs to respond to recent publications on the challenge that ‘global governance’ poses
to IR, we highlight that an STS-IR encounter can, first, revitalise ‘grand questions’ at the heart of
IR and, second, help coping with the complexity of global governance. While this encounter does
not offer a ready-tailored panacea for the troubles of IR, a more systematic inquiry into LTSs is a
powerful step beyond theoretical and methodological impasses, towards greater inter-disciplinary
collaboration.
Keywords
Global governance, large technical systems, science and technology studies, IR theory, grand
questions
Some Pretty Large ‘masses’ Missing from IR?
In Spring 2014, the headlines of major news outlets presented us with a suite of geopo-
litical challenges. On the global health front, continuing reports of a terrifying Ebola
outbreak in West African countries raised serious scepticism by non-governmental actors
as to the international community’s capacity to care for deadly infectious diseases in
Corresponding author:
Michele Acuto, University College London, 36-38 Fitzroy Square (2nd Floor), London, W1T 6EY, UK.
Email: m.acuto@ucl.ac.uk
561540MIL0010.1177/0305829814561540Millennium: Journal of International StudiesMayer and Acuto
research-article2014
Forum: Global Governance in the Interregnum
Mayer and Acuto 661
1. The death toll, as of September 2014, has risen to 1,552, making it the most severe of
such outbreaks since 1976 while the WHO expects up to 20,000 Ebola cases. See Lisa
O’Carroll, ‘Ebola Cases in West Africa Could Rise to 20,000 says WHO’. The Guardian,
28 August 2014. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/28/
ebola-cases-rise-20000-world-health-organisation-west-africa-death-toll
2. ‘West African Ebola Epidemic “out of control”’, Reuters, 23 June 2014. Available at: http://
www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/23/us-health-ebola-africa-idUSKBN0EY2JX20140623
3. Maria Cheng, ‘UN: Spread of Polio is a World Health Emergency’. The Huffington Post,
5 May 2014. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/polio-spread-
un_n_5266849.html
4. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/27/us-ukraine-crisis-eu-idUSKBN0F20N420140627
5. Tom Watkins and Chelsea J. Carter, ‘Search Intensifies for Malaysian Airliner and 239
People, Rescue Ships Head to Sea’. CNN, 8 March 2014. Available at: http://edition.cnn.
com/2014/03/07/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane-missing
6. Scott Neuman, ‘Search for Flight MH370 Reportedly Largest in History’. The Two-way. NPR,
17 March 2014. Available at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/17/290890377/
search-for-flight-mh370-reportedly-largest-in-history
7. Mathew Wald, ‘Assessing Fukushima Damage without Eyes on the Inside’, The New York
Times, 17 June 2014. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/world/asia/measur-
ing-damage-at-fukushima-without-eyes-on-the-inside.html
developing countries.1 Concerns voiced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that
the epidemic was ‘out of control’ spurred air traffic limitations, migration screening and
tense domestic politics in Sub-Saharan Africa.2 At the same time, the WHO identified the
mounting spread of polio as a ‘major worldwide emergency’ entrenched in the failures of
uncertain decision making over a highly complex vaccination and response mechanism.3
Growing global anxieties were also mounting on the global security front, where contin-
ued international tensions over the Ukrainian civil unrest. Having escalated to the separa-
tion and subsequent annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation, emerging warfare
in eastern parts of Ukraine remained of prime concern as international sanctions and IMF
loans solutions were sought to halt tensions.4 On the global communications and mobil-
ity front, then, the story of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Boeing 777 en route to Beijing
from Kuala Lumpur that disappeared over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on
board, occupied much of the headline reporting for March and April.5 Presumed to have
crashed into the Indian Ocean, the search for the airliner spurred one of the, if not the,
largest search and rescue mission ever conducted. Involving 14 countries, 43 ships, 58
aircrafts, the search for MH370 mobilised coordinated analysis by states, private deep-
sea exploration companies, the datasets of communications and satellites giant Inmarsat,
all to identify the still-uncertain location of the wreckage.6
Close by, the nearly overwhelming task of controlling the Daiichi nuclear power plant
in Fukushima elicited international discussions over safety measures, while plant opera-
tors experiment with radically novel technical solutions. Even three years since the 2011
Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, local conditions remained too dangerous to enter the
destroyed buildings, with still no data available about the situation in the crippled reac-
tors.7 Estimated clean-up costs and economic losses were ranging from $250 to $500
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