Crisis Governance and Institutional Diversity: Interactions Between Formal and Informal Institutions in Transboundary Crises

How do different international institutions interact when transboundary crises demand rapid collective action and policy adjustment? This paper develops a power-based framework to explain how major powers make strategic use of diverse institutional forms in crisis governance. It conceptualizes the relationship between Formal Intergovernmental Organizations (FIGOs) and informal institutions, understood as a category encompassing different institutional designs including Informal Intergovernmental Organizations (IIGOs) and Transnational Public-Private Partnerships (TPPPs). The paper argues that crises amplify uncertainty and coordination needs, triggering the use of and dynamic exchanges between formal and informal institutions. While FIGOs possess administrative capacities and expertise to propose policy solutions, major powers rely on informal institutions to selectively endorse, modify, or block those proposals in ways that align with their own economic and political interests. The paper illustrates this framework through three comparative case studies, analyzing institutional interactions in the World Food Crisis, the European Sovereign Debt Crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In each case, FIGOs mobilized policy ideas, drawing on existing expertise and organizational mandates. At the same time, informal institutions such as the G20, the Eurogroup, and the COVAX initiative, became key venues where major powers coordinated positions and determined which policy options would be implemented. The analysis shows that crises often strengthen inter-institutional linkages rather than produce isolated institutional change. It also reveals that while informal institutions enhance flexibility and reduce decision-making costs, they are frequently appropriated by powerful states to steer collective outcomes, undermining equitable or effective responses. By tracing these interactions, the paper contributes to research on global governance complexity and crisis management. It demonstrates that FIGOs are more responsive under uncertainty than commonly assumed, whereas informal institutions’ advantages of flexibility and low cost can equally serve to entrench asymmetric power relations rather than to foster inclusive problem-solving.