Trajectories of Transnational Governance

Sigrid Quack

 
This project starts from the assumption that the transnational sphere is fertile ground for studying how institutions emerge and evolve in the face of strategic uncertainty, polyarchy, and a multiplicity of actors with different goals. Given such common conditions, why do transnational governance fields display highly differentiated trajectories in terms of their organizational forms and relational actor configurations? Why are there such varying degrees of democratic participation, public accountability, and institutional effectiveness? The project aims to develop a theoretical framework that focuses on the initial design, contestation, and responsiveness of governance organizations as well as on their relation to other actors within a specific field of rule-making. This conceptual work builds on a comparison of longitudinal studies on four fields chosen to provide maximum variance in political salience and technical complexity: accounting standards, copyright rules, forest certification, and labor standards. The aim is to develop a theoretical typology of trajectories which are located on a continuum from monopolistic to pluralistic participation in governance. Project duration: April 2012 to March 2013.
 
Sigrid Quack, 2012: Regime Complexity and Expertise in Transnational Governance: Strategizing on Regulatory Uncertainty. Paper presented at the Onati Workshop on Law, Contestation, and Power in the Global Political Economy, 7-8 June 2012. Published on SSRN.
 
Malets, Olga/Sigrid Quack, 2012: Projecting the Local into the Global: Trajectories of Participation in Transnational Standard-Setting. Paper published on SSRN. Forthcoming 2013 in: Gili Drori/Markus Höllerer/Peter Walgenbach (eds.), Organizations and Managerial Ideas: Global Themes and Local Variations. London: Routledge.