This paper analyzes interactions within standard-setting networks in the area of social and labor rights. We examine the shape of transnational business governance interactions (TBGI), pathways, and interaction mechanisms in three sectors: garments, toys and agriculture. Our comparative analysis of each of these sectors reveals meaningful differences in both the organization of regulation networks and the resulting level of competition among participants. Overall, we find that the creation of a more inclusive and more coherent standard in a whole business sector comes with the cost of weaker rules and less monitoring. These industry-specific observations provide a springboard for future studies of TBGI.

From agriculture to sport and from climate change to indigenous rights, transnational regulatory regimes and actors are multiplying and interacting with poorly understood effects. This interdisciplinary book investigates whether, how and by whom transnational business governance interactions (TBGIs) can be harnessed to improve the quality of transnational regulation and advance the interests of marginalized actors.

Non-governmental organizations, transnational business associations, private standard-setting bodies, public-private partnerships, and institutionalized incentive schemes now occupy a central place in the regulation and governance of transnational economic affairs alongside states and intergovernmental organizations. Much of the literature on these new and emerging patterns of governance has focused on the legal, political, and normative implications of this rapidly evolving landscape. The Handbook of Transnational Economic Governance Regimes expands on this scholarship by identifying, describing, and analysing more than 85 of the most significant actors in transnational governance. The Handbook examines the origins, evolution, structure, membership, financing, and strategies of key organizations and regulatory networks in almost every sphere of global economic activity, and analyses their role and influence in contemporary transnational economic governance.

"Regulation by public and private organizations can be hijacked by special interests or small groups of powerful firms, and nowhere is this easier than at the global level ... This is the first book to examine systematically how and why such hijacking or 'regulatory capture' happens, and how it can be averted."--P. [iv] of cover.

This volume explores a variety of forms of transnational private governance where non-state actors cooperate across borders to establish rules and standards accepted as legitimate by other agents. Transnational private governance is a core feature of the devolution of power that we observe in the global realm and that is bringing about new forms of authority. Transnational Private Governance provides theoretically and empirically informed insights into the interactions between states and non-state actors including domains beyond intergovernmental organizations, conventional non-governmental organizations, and multinational enterprises, covering a wide range of arrangements, from highly formal devolutions of power to lax and informal platforms of interaction between private actors. Contributing to the latest generation of globalization studies, the authors consider the relationship between states and markets as closely integrated and seek to broaden the scope of enquiry by including new patterns and agents of change on a transnational basis. This book will be of great interest to researchers and students of political science, international political economy, economics, business studies, globalisation and law.

This ambitious volume explores the politics of recent changes in corporate governance regulation and the transnational forces driving the process. Corporate governance has in the 1990s become a catchphrase of the global business community. The Enron collapse and other recent corporate scandals, as well as growing worries in Europe about the rise of Anglo-Saxon finance, have made issues of corporate governance the subject of political controversies and of public debate. The contributors argue that the regulation of corporate governance is an inherently political affair. Given the context of the deepening globalization of the corporate world, it is also increasingly a transnational phenomenon. In terms of the content of regulation the book shows an increasing reliance on the application of market mechanisms and a tendency for corporations themselves to become commodities. The emerging new mode of regulation is characterized by increasing informalization and by forms of private regulation. These changes in content and mode are driven by transnational actors, first of all the owners of internationally mobile financial capital and their functionaries such as coordination service firms, as well as by key public international agencies such as the European Commission. The Transnational Politics of Corporate Governance Regulation will be of interest to students and researchers of international political economy, politics, economics and corporate governance.

This book brings together a unique range of case studies focusing on networks in the context of business regulation. The case studies form the basis for an interdisciplinary dialogue on the meaning, value and the limits of the 'network concept' as a tool for understanding and critically evaluating the emergent transnational legal order.

The Role of Business in Global Governance offers an empirically rich analysis of the new political role of corporations in the co-performance of governance functions beyond the state. Within comparative case studies, potential explanations of the political role of transnational corporations are systematically tested.

Who controls how transnational issues are defined and treated? In recent decades professional coordination on a range of issues has been elevated to the transnational level. International organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and firms all make efforts to control these issues. This volume shifts focus away from looking at organizations and zooms in on how professional networks exert control in transnational governance. It contributes to research on professions and expertise, policy entrepreneurship, normative emergence, and change. The book provides a framework for understanding how professionals and organizations interact, and uses it to investigate a range of transnational cases. The volume also deploys a strong emphasis on methodological strategies to reveal who controls transnational issues, including network, sequence, field, and ethnographic approaches. Bringing together scholars from economic sociology, international relations, and organization studies, the book integrates insights from across fields to reveal how professionals obtain and manage control over transnational issues.