Book

At a time of significant concerns about the sustainability of the global economy, businesses are eager to display their responsible corporate practices. While rulemaking for these practices was once the prerogative of states, businesses and civil society actors are increasingly engaged in creating private rulemaking instruments, such as eco-labeling and certification schemes, to govern corporate behavior. When does a public authority intervene in such private governance and reassert the primacy of public policy? Private Governance and Public Authority develops a new theory of public-private regulatory interactions and argues that when and how a public authority intervenes in private governance depends on the economic benefits to domestic producers that such intervention generates and the degree of fragmentation of private governance schemes. Drawing on European Union policymaking on organic agriculture, biofuels, fisheries, and fair trade, the book exposes the political-economic conflicts between private and public rule makers and the strategic nature of regulating sustainability in a global economy.

"an exceptionally well researched book that [...] offers an elegantly stated and highly original theoretical argument combined with careful and detailed empirical work.”

IPE Best Book Award Committee - International Studies Association 

"This book demonstrates why Stefan Renckens has quickly become one of the significant scholars in the arena of global governance. [...] He includes a novel treatment of private governance systems as actors that lobby for their own interests. [...] This book deepens our understanding of the relationship between private and public governance in global markets."

Virginia Haufler - Associate Professor, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland