The Limits of Transnational Private Governance

Abstract

This chapter aims to contribute to recent scholarship on the conceptual and normative underpinnings of the diffusion of authority in global governance. The logic of action and the potential for change embodied in non-state actors has become a core feature of new forms of authority in the global realm. By exploring what we call transnational private governance, it provides theoretical and empirical insights into the ability of non-state actors to cooperate across borders in order to establish rules and standards of behaviour accepted as legitimate by agents not involved in their definition. Non-state actors not only formulate norms, but often also have a key role in their enforcement. Accordingly, the current privatization of rule-making and enforcement goes much further than traditional lobbying by allowing private actors an active role in regulation itself. It involves a range of agencies far beyond Intergovernmental Organizations (IOs), conventional non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multinational enterprises. It moreover concerns issues whose scope is not only functional but which frequently impact upon contentious regulatory and distributive struggles. It furthermore covers a variety of mechanisms, from highly formal systems of power devolution to lax and informal platforms of interaction between private actors.