The urgently increasing need of global governance is evident because of rapid globalization in a world of 200 coexisting sovereign states and much more participants, such as multinational enterprises and non governmental organizations, without a global authority. Thus the study of international institutions and global governance has to play a central role in the study of international “political” economy. For this reason the Centre for the Study of International Institutions (CSI) was founded in 2000 at the University of Innsbruck to carry out independent research and to provide teaching programs on international institutions to the students of social and economic sciences.