Selected Publications

Book JacketThe United Nations Development Programme: A Better Way?

"The United Nations Development Programme is the central network co-ordinating the work of the United Nations in over 160 developing countries. This 2006 book provides the first authoritative and accessible history of the Programme and its predecessors. Based on the findings of hundreds of interviews and archives in more than two dozen countries, Craig Murphy traces the history of the UNDP's organizational structure and mission, its relationship to the multilateral financial institutions, and the development of its doctrines. He argues that the principles on which the UNDP was founded remain as relevant in a world divided by terrorism as they were in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, as are the fundamental problems that have plagued the Programme from its origin, including the opposition of traditionally isolationist forces in the industrialized world."

Chadwick F. Alger Prize, International Studies Association 2007 - Winner

Book JacketThe International Organization For Standardization (iso): Global Governance Through Voluntary Consensus

"The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is the first full-length study of the largest nongovernmental, global regulatory network whose scope and influence rivals that of the UN system.

Much of the interest in the successes and failures of global governance focuses around high profile organisations such as the United Nations, World Bank and World Trade Organisation. This volume is one of few books that explore both the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) role as a facilitator of essential economic infrastructure and the implication of ISO techniques for a much wider realm of global governance.

Through detailing the initial rationale behind the ISO and a systematic discussion of how this low profile organization has developed, Murphy and Yates provide a comprehensive survey of the ISO as a powerful force on the way commerce is conducted in a changing and increasingly globalized world."