Who is governing the global plastics crisis? Mapping the global plastics governance landscape

Abstract As plastic pollution intensifies, questions arise about whether the global plastics crisis (GPC) is being governed, and by whom. While an array of international institutions is often assumed to address this issue, the scholarship has yet to systematically examine who governs plastics and plastic pollution in practice. This article provides an empirical mapping of the GPC governance landscape, finding that multilevel public, civil society, and hybrid institutions incidentally facilitate governance through information dissemination, operational activities, and standard-setting. It identifies focal points that shape the global agenda and powerbrokers that disseminate it, with the United Nations Environment Programme and the Basel Convention emerging as influential. Meanwhile, private actor involvement is limited to multistakeholder partnerships that enable business and industry to feign environmental action while pursuing expansive business-as-usual practices. This article thereby establishes an empirical baseline for understanding GPC governance in the absence of a global plastics treaty, demonstrating that legal and regime-based classifications of institutional relevance offer an incomplete account.