CHAPTER TWO. The Governance Triangle: Regulatory Standards Institutions and the Shadow of the State

The Transnational Regime Complex for Climate Change

“…(6) The placement of an organization is determined by judging each actor group's approximate 'share' in its creation, governance, and operations: the greater the role played (2) Some institutions in the Bulkeley et al (2012) Abbott and Snidal (2009a;2009b). In this paper and in Bulkeley et al (2012) a few schemes are implicitly 'coded' differently: I focus on the actors involved in the governance of a scheme, whereas Bulkeley et al consider all the actors that participate in a scheme's programs.…”

“…However, while many transnational organizations possess some form of authority, few are authorized to adopt legally binding rules. Instead, most transnational rule-making schemes engage in what Snidal and I (Abbott and Snidal, 2009a;2009b; call 'regulatory standard setting' (RSS)-such rule making is 'regulatory' because it establishes norms of conduct in situations with Prisoner's Dilemma or externality incentives (the normal realm of mandatory regulation); but like technical product or interconnectivity standards, its norms are voluntary, are created largely by nonstate actors, and address nonstate actors rather than states. (3) They should be considered institutions of governance, moreover, even though many of them engage primarily in information sharing, fi nancing, or developing pilot projects or other operational activities rather than standard setting.…”

Who Governs and How? Non-State Actors and Transnational Governance in Southeast Asia

“…Ruggie (2004, 503) points out that non-state actors have, in fact, now carved out "non-territorial spaces and management systems" in which they directly regulate business on sustainability, human rights or labour standards. This form of transnational governance, sometimes termed transnational private governance or transnational private regulation, depicts the crossborder networked forms of co-ordination in which a variety of actors, but especially private or non-state actors, provide standards, rules and practices that other actors, often corporations, voluntarily adopt, in areas such as the environment, labour practices, industrial safety, accounting, banking and finance, and telecommunications to name a few (Hall and Biersteker 2002;Graz and Nolke 2008;Abbott and Snidal 2009;Avant, Finnemore, and Sell 2010;Ruggie 2014;Roger and Dauvergne 2016). Non-state actors that have taken on key governance roles in these processes include multinational corporations (MNCs), other business firms, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), industry associations, philanthropic foundations, and experts.…”

“…Within this category, partnership through delegation is rather common whereby state actors, who are the principals who retain decisionmaking authority and control over the setting of rules and standards as well as enforcement, formally delegate to non-state agents tasks like monitoring outcomes or undertaking service delivery in the issue area concerned (see Green 2014). A second variant of public-private partnership sees state actors formally deemed equal partners with non-state actors (Abbott and Snidal 2009). Another fast-growing category of transnational governance is the purely private governance scheme in which non-state actors either singly or jointly with other non-state actors initiate and enforce standards and rules to regulate the actions of other actors, usually corporations (Abbott and Snidal 2009).…”

“…A second variant of public-private partnership sees state actors formally deemed equal partners with non-state actors (Abbott and Snidal 2009). Another fast-growing category of transnational governance is the purely private governance scheme in which non-state actors either singly or jointly with other non-state actors initiate and enforce standards and rules to regulate the actions of other actors, usually corporations (Abbott and Snidal 2009).…”