Given the increasing number of shared global problems and phenomena that cannot be covered by inter-state relations, we aim to research their dynamic process multi-disciplinarily while capturing their impact on the underlying stratum of individual societies, and seek a global problem-solving approach together with the possibility of the creation of global commons.

The global society of the 21st century has been affected by various global factors that go beyond the framework of the nation-state from the daily living environment, economic activities, and information to philosophy and ideology, the range of risks shared beyond state borders, such as environmental pollution, disease, food, and terrorism, has expanded remarkably. These risks, like the benefits, easily spread beyond borders through the diffusion of the goods, money, labor, and information that accompany global economic activities. Such risks are not solved by the individual response of a state. Thus, it is an urgent task to establish a new global approach that goes beyond traditional international relations, which use the state for their basic unit.

After reviewing the arguments that seem to be "a clash of civilizations" over norms and opposing norms by focusing upon sovereign states and democracy, which have been regarded as central in contemporary international politics, we study wide-area networks that have emerged with new norms at the citizen's level, connected with the globalization of the economy and the development of the information technology network, and analyze how they have responded to global risks, instead of the states, with a view to examining the possibility of creating a global commons. In this research, we will also consider environmental and ecological problems that are the deepest underlying layers of human life as an empirical case and examine how we can overcome the dilemma of a global commons.

In this study, we take a broad methodology from international political economy to Islamic social movements, civilization theory, civil society theory, cultural anthropology, and environmental agronomy. We develop our research based on two approaches: a social scientific approach on norms and institutions, and an area studies approach that investigates the micro-social dynamics of Asia and Africa, where global norms and global risks have materialized to an intense degree. In particular, we are trying to discover how to deal with global risks, including the natural environmental factors that cannot be covered by the humanities and social sciences, by including environmental agricultural experts.

As a concrete research method, regarding the historical process in which the concepts of sovereignty and democracy, originating in Western Europe, have been established as a global norm and the development of opposing concepts, such as Asian democracy and Islamic thought, we use the method of international political history and social movement theory. We use political science regarding the formation of new global norms and the process of formation and growth of a global civil society, which can constitute the formative foundation of a global commons. To analyze our findings, regarding the influence of the globalization of the economy on global risks, the formation of global norms, and the development of civil society networks, we use the methods of economics. Regarding the influence of the diffusion of global information technology on African social forms, we use the methods of cultural anthropology, and regarding the improvement of food security, the elimination of poverty in rural areas, the excessive burden on vulnerable environments / ecosystems, and related regional differences in agricultural systems, we use the methods of agricultural science.