Michael Zurn is Professor of Political Science at Free University Berlin and Director of the research unit 'Transnational conflicts and international relations' at the Social Science Research Center, Berlin. He was founding Dean of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin (2004 2009) and is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science. Michael Zurn's research focuses on international institutions and organizations, and their repercussions for the foundations of political order. He is concerned especially with questions of the emergence of international regimes, as well as with issues related to the effectiveness of those regimes and compliance with the regulatory systems which they establish. Latest book publications include Handbook on Multi-Level Governance (co-edited with Hendrik Enderlein and Sonja Waltli; Edward Elgar Publishers 2010) and Rule of Law Dynamics In an Era of International and Transnational Governance (co-edited with Andre Noellkaemper and Randall Peerenboom, Cambridge University Press 2012).

Mathias Albert is Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany and a co-director of the Institute for World Society Studies.

Barry Buzan is a Senior Fellow at LSE IDEAS, Emeritus Professor in the London School of Economics Department of International Relations and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (2000, with Richard Little); Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (2003, with Ole Waever); From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation (Cambridge University Press, 2004); Does China Matter? (2004, coedited with Rosemary Foot); The United States and the Great Powers: World Politics in the Twenty-First Century (2004); International Society and the Middle East: English School Theory at the Regional Level (2009, coedited with Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez); and Non-Western International Relations Theory (2010, coedited with Amitav Acharya).