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Governance is about creating processes and structures that constrain and regulate behavior. There is a wide variety of global governance organizations. Global governance organizations have an impact on a vast number of lives, but they are not guided by the legal, political and organizational rules that govern democratic domestic governance organizations. Accountability in global governance is really about legitimacy. Global governance organizations need to be able to clarify why they can define global rules of the game? For global governance organizations, being accountable means one (or more) of five things: transparency, liability, controllability, responsibility and responsiveness. The combination of these expectations easily culminates in organizational tensions.

The demand for more accountable international relations is really a demand for greater legitimacy. While many transnational actors are highly accountable, they lack legitimacy because they are not democratically accountable. Recent innovations in the theory and practice of accountability suggest that accountability to democratic standards can provide greater legitimacy for transnational actors and international relations without requiring the replication of democratic mechanisms of accountability globally.

This chapter analyses the gender dimension of terrorism and counterterrorism efforts. It explores women’s roles as both supporters and preventers of terrorism. It tracks the increasing incorporation of gender in the counterterrorism strategy of the United Nations and the growing focus on the intersections between the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) and countering terrorism agendas. The chapter suggests that the WPS Agenda and the countering violent extremism program are convergent and complementary. At the same time, counterterrorism measures have had gendered collateral effects and continue to utilize gender stereotypes. The chapter provides suggestions for what a more gender-sensitive approach would mean for counterterrorism efforts.

This chapter analyses the political influences that shaped reform of healthcare service provision and financing during four decades of neoliberal capitalist dominance, with its emphasis on individualism, consumerism, competitiveness, and the capitalist market in determining social needs and healthcare priorities. New financing sources and market competition, which shaped adoption of reforms, are contrasted with earlier reform efforts that were premised on the socialisation of risk and the universalisation of healthcare provision on an equitable basis for all. Transformation of state forms promoted the market and substantially weakened capacities to provide for basic needs. Controversy over these outcomes has coincided with astounding increases in global inequality, particularly since the 2008 global financial meltdown, with devastating and unequal effects on the health of populations. The chapter concludes by returning to the quest for universal health coverage by reaffirming the “Health for All” principles of social justice and solidarity within a ‘post-Washington consensus’.

The participation of military personnel in health-related activities remains highly controversial. Drawing on four case studies that extend from peacetime to post-conflict situations, this chapter analyses where, and under what circumstances, military actors have previously engaged in providing health assistance. It also examines the controversies, criticisms, and perceived benefits that have accompanied that activity. The chapter advances an analytical framework for understanding the types of situations in which military actors have been called upon to assist, and what these signal for future health crises.

This chapter examines and critiques how diseases have come to be seen as national and international security threats, beginning with a brief look at the long history of disease as a threat to societies, then turning to deepening linkages between disease and national security in the post–Cold War era. It then examines four health threats that have entered Western security agendas since the 1990s: emerging infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, bioterrorism, and drug-resistant infections, focusing on how the public health and security communities have combined to construct these particular health problems as security threats. The chapter also examines some apparent benefits of framing diseases as security threats. The final section discusses critiques of the securitisation of health, noting that these point to the need for policymakers to grapple with deeply political trade-offs regarding how much “security” from health threats we want and what we will sacrifice to get it.