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Global Governance by Manual: The Transitional Justice Toolkit and the Standardization of a Field

Line Engbo Gissel

International Studies Quarterly2026https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqag004article
AJG 4ABDC A
Weight
0.50

Abstract

Guidelines, manuals, and toolkits are a ubiquitous yet overlooked prop in contemporary global governance. Produced by regional and global organizations and NGOs to guide national policymakers and practitioners, they proliferate in every field of international regulation from democratization and education to accounting and health. Yet they are rarely analyzed or theorized as a phenomenon of global governance. This article approaches manuals and toolkits as a technology of international standardization, investigating the transitional justice (TJ) toolkit as an expression of the empirical phenomenon of global governance standardization. Through an in-depth content analysis of 30 instructional booklets, it demonstrates how the field of TJ is being standardized: The manuals “generify” TJ by constructing a generic, technical model; build the model’s authority and evidence base through exemplars and causal claims; and legitimize the model by stressing contextualization and portraying the national realm as fundamentally deficient and an object of capacity building. Thereby the manuals emphasize yet undermine the field’s central trope of rejecting one-size-fits-all solutions. This paradox of explicitly dismissing but implicitly imposing a universalizing model reflects a tension inherent in global order: between particularism and self-determination, on the one hand, and global goals and intervention on the other.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqag004

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@article{line2026,
  title        = {{Global Governance by Manual: The Transitional Justice Toolkit and the Standardization of a Field}},
  author       = {Line Engbo Gissel},
  journal      = {International Studies Quarterly},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqag004},
}

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.