This paper engages with the debates about new governance structures and global networks though developing a critical approach. It argues that the fundamental mistake of much of the literature is that it takes such developments to be transforming the international system whereas in fact such changes in governance represent the development of new strategies by which the existing structure and hierarchies of the international system are reproduced. Just as national state strategies are shifting from government to governance through deliberate devolution of state powers, so the dominant relations of power and authority in the international system are being renewed by means of a global governance agenda that ties states, governments and populations into a network of global regulation. In part a product of various contending strategies, in part a less conscious product of isomorphism and norm diffusion, these new global linkages nevertheless reproduce some very old power inequalities and subject poorer states and their populations to a ‘governmentalisation’ of their capacities. Focussing on the EU’s approach to humanitarian intervention it is argued that rather than representing the approach of a civilian actor or ‘special power’, in reality the EU’s approach is indistinguishable from other international organisations and is less about humanitarian assistance than reinforcing a system of global governance and monitoring. Looking at the current shift from statebuilding to resilience building projects, it is suggested that the emergence of a new discourse that emphasises global complexity, rather than reflecting actual changes taking place, is more likely to be a reflection of new strategies to defend existing distributions of power.
