This paper argues that the space for politics has shrunk at the global level since the early 20th century. This perspective challenges the conventional wisdom, which portrays global governance as ever-expanding. The analysis focuses on the institutional environment of global governance, examining how the consolidation of state multilateralism created barriers to transnational mobilisation.

Using the cases of racial justice and minority rights movements, it demonstrates how certain issues were initially conceived as global political concerns and organised through the institutional form of world congresses. However, with the founding of the United Nations, states used international organisations to shift these politics away from transnational contention. Institutional closure and capture, it is argued, led to a relative dilution of radical political demands at the global level.

This analysis helps to explain why some issues remain central to global politics, while others are domesticated and largely absent from global governance frameworks.