This Paper aims at establishing a theoretical framework for the social construction of global problems by adapting social constructionist approaches on claims-making to a global governance perspective from International Relations (IR). The literature on global governance provides to a large extent an automated view of the process through which problems emerge; problems are treated to a large extent as natural. The sociological approach can offer theoretical and methodological tools that de-naturalise global problems and it is also particularly useful as an ontological lens which focuses on the role of power and conflict in international affairs. The article proceeds in two steps. First, it succinctly presents the potential contribution of the Symbolic interactionist and Social constructionist perspectives to the social construction of global problems. Second, it adapts the constructionist conceptual toolbox to IR by showing how claims-making activities on global problems at international and global venues will differ in relation to the agents of social construction and the content of the claims. The study of the problematicity of certain global issues and the non-problematicity of others shows how state and non-state actors make sense of a globalised world, and it sheds light on who is successful at persuading or imposing on others their own views on global social ills. While the article remains theoretical in scope, it provides relevant empirical examples from the field of public health. The Paper uses organ trafficking as an example of global crime governance to show how international organisations, such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the World Health Organisation, and international non-governmental organisations, such as The Transplantation Society, the International Society of Nephrology, as well as other state and non-state actors, collectively try to define transnational trafficking of human organs and the commercialisation of the human body as an issue for global governance.
