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Explores in detail the degree to which private sector firms are beginning to replace governments in "governing" some areas of international relations.
Governments today are too often unwilling to intervene in global commerce, and international organizations are too often unable to govern effectively. In their place, firms increasingly cooperate internationally to establish the rules and standards of behavior for themselves and for others, taking on the mantle of authority to govern specific issue areas. Are they stepping into the breach to supply needed collective goods? Or are they organizing themselves in order to prevent governments from interfering in their business? This book explores the meaning of this private international authority, both for theory and policy, through case studies of specific industries, associations, and issue areas in both contemporary and historical perspective.
[Contributors include Pamela Burke, Lynn Mytelka and Michel Delapierre, Liora Salter, Susan Sell, Timothy Sinclair, Deborah Spar, and Michael Webb.]
"The topic is both timely and significant. In my judgment the problem of private authority is connected to the erosion of state power and is central to the emerging and increasing deterritorialized world of global politics." — Richard W. Mansbach, Iowa State University
"The subject matter is pioneering and of enormous significance both for international relations theory and for a practical understanding of contemporary global politics. " — Yale H. Ferguson, Rutgers University-Newark
List of Tables and Figures
Preface
Part 1 Introduction
Chapter 1 Private Authority and International Affairs
A. Claire Cutler, Virginia Haufler, and Tony Porter
Part 2 Ruling Themselves—Interfirm Organizing in the Global Arena
Chapter 2 Lost in (Cyber)space: The Private Rules of Online Commerce
Debora L. Spar
Chapter 3 Private and Public Management of International Mineral Markets
Michael C. Webb
Chapter 4 The Standards Regime for Communication and Information Technologies
Liora Salter
Chapter 5 Strategic Partnerships, Knowledge-Based Networked Oligopolies, and the State
Lynn K. Mytelka and Michel Delapierre
Part 3 Ruling Others—The Effects of Private International Authority
Chapter 6 Bond-Rating Agencies and Coordination in the Global Political Economy
Timothy J. Sinclair
Chapter 7 Multinational Corporations as Agents of Change: The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights
Susan K. Sell
Chapter 8 Self-Regulation and Business Norms: Political Risk, Political Activism
Virginia Haufler
Chapter 9 Embedded Private Authority: Multinational Enterprises and the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples Movement in Ecuador
Pamela L. Burke
Part 4 The Evolution of Public and Private International Authority
Chapter 10 Hegemony and the Private Governance of International Industries
Tony Porter
Chapter 11 Private Authority in International Trade Relations: The Case of Maritime Transport
A. Claire Cutler
Part 5 Conclusion
Chapter 12 The Contours and Significance of Private Authority in International Affairs
A. Claire Cutler, Virginia Haufler, and Tony Porter
List of Contributors
Index