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. In whose interest is the global economy being regulated? Under what conditions can global regulation be made to serve broader interests? This is the first book to examine systematically how and why such hijacking or "regulatory capture" happens, and how it can be averted. Walter Mattli and Ngaire Woods bring together leading experts to present an analytical framework to explain regulatory outcomes at the global level and offer a series of case studies that illustrate the challenges of a global economy in which many institutions are less transparent and are held much less accountable by the media and public officials than are domestic institutions. They explain when and how global regulation falls prey to regulatory capture, yet also shed light on the positive regulatory changes that have occurred in areas including human rights, shipping safety, and global finance. This book is a wake-up call to proponents of network governance, self-regulation, and the view that technocrats should be left to regulate with as little oversight as possible. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Kenneth W. Abbott, Samuel Barrows, Judith L. Goldstein, Eric Helleiner, Miles Kahler, David A. Lake, Kathryn Sikkink, Duncan Snidal, Richard H. Steinberg, and David Vogel.

"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.

Judicial politics has emerged as a central feature of the multilateral trading system alongside a steep decline in the World Trade Organization’s ability to deliver negotiated trade liberalization. This book advances innovative arguments and presents original evidence to shed light on the important and surprisingly under-researched question of whether, and how, judicial politics has affected the prospects for cooperation in the WTO through multilateral trade rounds.

The European and American economies are closely interlinked as mutually important investment and trading partners. The growing intensity of economic interdependence has spurred the transatlantic coordination of rules and standards that can lead to the formation of non-tariff barriers to transatlantic commerce. But despite impressive government-to-government efforts to eliminate market barriers, the E.U. and the U.S. have frequently clashed over each other's regulatory policies. The aim of this book is to explore the domestic sources of cooperation or conflict in transatlantic regulation. The book analyses the role of domestic factors through three theoretical lenses that are well-established in the study of multilevel systems: the principal-agent approach, the two-level game metaphor, and through a wider concept of institutionalism which emphasises the links between societal interests and regulatory ideas with institutional frameworks. The book states that domestic factors embody more obstacles than opportunities for horizontal coordination. It is argued that transatlantic relations will likely undergo a ‘double movement’ of being simultaneously shifted upwards to become part of the global governance architecture, and downwards towards broader involvement of legislators in regulatory matters. Hence, transatlantic regulation might in the near future be shaped more by political leaders, rent-seeking interest groups and legislators than by networks of technocrats. This book was published as a special issue of the Review of International Political Economy.

This authoritative book examines the power of multinational corporations (MNCs) to exert influence in global politics. Focusing on the actions and motivations of MNCs, it explores how they attempt to shape the political issues that affect them.

From climate change over shale gas to the race for the Arctic, energy makes headlines in international politics almost daily. Thijs Van de Graaf argues that energy is in dire need of global governance. He traces the history of international energy cooperation from the notorious 'Seven Sisters' oil-companies cartel to the recent creation of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). He analyses how international institutions have been created for securing oil rents, coordinating consumer-countries' energy security policies, promoting producer-consumer dialogue, managing regional gas markets, and dealing with energy-related environmental externalities. Drawing on the emerging regime complexity literature, he constructs a novel analytical framework to explain the fragmented architecture of global energy governance, and studies prospects for institutional reform at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the G8/G20.

Since the 1990s many of the assumptions that anchored the study of governance in international political economy (IPE) have been shaken loose. Reflecting on the intriguing and important processes of change that have occurred, and are occurring, Profess

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. As tariffs have fallen dramatically over the past decades, behind-the-border measures—such as technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures—have become increasingly important for international trade policy. To facilitate trade, governments sign trade agreements in which they agree to base such measures on international standards. But who actually develops these standards? This book takes a close look at the International Organization for Standardization and the Codex Alimentarius – two prominent standard-setting organizations in the area of TBT and SPS – to investigate how international standardization influences the design of international trade agreements, and vice versa.

We have long been told that corporations rule the world, their interests seemingly taking precedence over states and their citizens. Yet, while states, civil society, and international organizations are well drawn in terms of their institutions, ideologies, and functions, the world's global corporations are often more simply sketched as mechanisms of profit maximization. In this book, John Mikler re-casts global corporations as political actors with complex identities and strategies. Debunking the idea of global corporations as exclusively profit-driven entities, he shows how they seek not only to drive or modify the agendas of states but to govern in their own right. He also explains why we need to re-territorialize global corporations as political actors that reflect and project the political power of the states and regions from which they hail. We know the global corporations' names, we know where they are headquartered, and we know where they invest and operate. Economic processes are increasingly produced by the control they possess, the relationships they have, the leverage they employ, the strategic decisions they make, and the discourses they create to enhance acceptance of their interests. This book represents a call to study how they do so, rather than making assumptions based on theoretical abstractions.

Influential writers on international law and international relations explore the making, interpretation and enforcement of international law.