The Politics of Global Regulation

Walter Mattli, Ngaire Woods, Walter Mattli, Ngaire Woods

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780691139616, 9780691139609
• eBook ISBN: 9781400830732
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Economics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Introduction
• Chapter One In Whose Benefit? Explaining Regulatory Change in Global Politics
• Chapter Two The Governance Triangle: Regulatory Standards Institutions and the Shadow of the State
• Chapter Three Filling a Hole in Global Financial Governance? The Politics of Regulating Sovereign Debt Restructuring
• Chapter Four From State Responsibility to Individual Criminal Accountability: A New Regulatory Model for Core Human Rights Violations
• Chapter Five The Private Regulation of Global Corporate Conduct
• Chapter Six Racing to the Top . . . at Last: The Regulation of Safety in Shipping
• Chapter Seven Regulatory Shift: The Rise of Judicial Liberalization at the WTO
• Chapter Eight Economic Integration and Global Governance: Why So Little Supranationalism?
• List of Contributors
• Index