Political Leadership and Global Governance: Structural Power Versus Custodial Stewardship

This article examines the role of political leadership within the realm of global governance. Drawing upon relevant theories of political agency, particular attention is given to addressing the relationship between leadership and collective action. A two-level analysis of institution building in relation to maritime security and economic trade and investment reveals both strengths and weaknesses in practice. A review of the Law of the Sea Convention and the Multilateral Investment Agreement provides a salutary reminder that material power does not translate easily into dominating the rules of international conduct. The cases of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum and the Trans-Pacific Partnership further highlight the importance of mixed sources of political leadership in responding to economic challenges at the regional level. The policy implication for both the United States and China is that taking the lead in Global Governance, either jointly or multilaterally, will require a renewed focus upon custodial stewardship that aims to realign interests with long-term goals

A genome-wide association study identifies protein quantitative trait loci (pQTLs)

There is considerable evidence that human genetic variation influences gene expression. Genome-wide studies have revealed that mRNA levels are associated with genetic variation in or close to the gene coding for those mRNA transcripts - cis effects, and elsewhere in the genome - trans effects. The role of genetic variation in determining protein levels has not been systematically assessed. Using a genome-wide association approach we show that common genetic variation influences levels of clinically relevant proteins in human serum and plasma. We evaluated the role of 496,032 polymorphisms on levels of 42 proteins measured in 1200 fasting individuals from the population based InCHIANTI study. Proteins included insulin, several interleukins, adipokines, chemokines, and liver function markers that are implicated in many common diseases including metabolic, inflammatory, and infectious conditions. We identified eight Cis effects, including variants in or near the IL6R (p = 1.8×10 -57), CCL4L1 (p = 3.9×10-21), IL18 (p = 6.8×10-13), LPA (p = 4.4×10-10), GGT1 (p = 1.5×10-7), SHBG (p = 3.1×10-7), CRP (p = 6.4×10-6) and IL1RN (p = 7.3×10-6) genes, all associated with their respective protein products with effect sizes ranging from 0.19 to 0.69 standard deviations per allele. Mechanisms implicated include altered rates of cleavage of bound to unbound soluble receptor (IL6R), altered secretion rates of different sized proteins (LPA), variation in gene copy number (CCL4L1) and altered transcription (GGT1). We identified one novel trans effect that was an association between ABO blood group and tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) levels (p = 6.8×10-40), but this finding was not present when TNF-alpha was measured using a different assay , or in a second study, suggesting an assay-specific association. Our results show that protein levels share some of the features of the genetics of gene expression. These include the presence of strong genetic effects in cis locations. The identification of protein quantitative trait loci (pQTLs) may be a powerful complementary method of improving our understanding of disease pathways. © 2008 Melzer et al