The 21st century is marked by a variety of crises – the polycrisis. This refers to the causal entanglement of crises. The war in Ukraine is a prime example of such a polycrisis with a broad range of crises unfolding after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Global governance in its current state is however not equipped to handle different crises across different issue areas and governance levels, suggesting that it needs to adapt. Through an empirical case study of the polycrisis in Ukraine and a combined theoretical approach of decentered governance and regime complexity, this paper argues that the polycrisis leads to a variety of transformations within global governance, in particular what new patterns of behavior arise. The study finds that global governance ultimately adapts through actor proliferation, forum substitution, internal regime transformation, governance shifts on a governance and structural level.
