This paper explores the implications of globalization for governance. It argues that the
contemporary large-scale and accelerated growth of transworld connectivity has rendered the
statist mode of governance unviable and encouraged the emergence of polycentric (multisited
and networked) regulation. States remain crucial nodes in this polycentric governance,
although globalization has spurred several important shifts in their attributes. Meanwhile,
globalization has opened considerable possibilities for substate (municipal and provincial)
authorities to engage directly with realms beyond their state. Inadequacies of the state as a
sole site for the governance of global relations have also promoted a growth of suprastate
(regional and transworld) sites of regulation. In addition, contemporary globalization and the
currently prevailing neoliberal policy framework have encouraged a major expansion of
private sites of governance. Civil society has followed the trend from statism to polycentrism
by shifting its focus from the state alone to a multi-layered and diffuse governance apparatus