The Politics of Global Regulation

As the world seems poised to recalibrate significantly the respective roles of markets and authority, The Politics of Global Regulation offers timely analytical and experiential guidance about what works, what doesn't, and why. Combining keen general observations with informative cases drawn from international finance, human rights, corporate social responsibility, maritime safety, and international trade, this excellent volume should be required reading for anyone interested in the subject--and these days, that excludes few among us. -- John Gerard Ruggie, Harvard University This is an important book. The financial crisis that began in 2007/2008 is the worst since the 1930s and the failure of global regulation is all too apparent. Already ten years ago when the East Asian financial crisis erupted it was clear that better rules and institutions were required at the global level. Powerful vested interests on Wall Street and in the financial sector prevented reform--a classic case of regulatory capture. This book explains systematically the conditions that make global regulatory capture possible and demonstrates through a wide range of case studies how it might be averted. -- Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist As the world contemplates a new Bretton Woods system that will surely not look anything like the top-down U.S.-Britain system created after World War II, this excellent collection sheds important light on the demand for and supply of global regulation. The analytic framework Mattli and Woods lay out should give hope that the next epoch of global economic regulation will escape capture by self-interested financial institutions and further the common interest in stable and equitable economic growth and development. -- Geoffrey Garrett, University of Sydney The editors have put together an outstanding set of contributors to tackle a critical and often under-explored feature of the global political economy--international regulation. This book is a needed theoretical contribution. I believe it will have wide appeal to those interested in international relations, international business, and global public policy more generally. -- Abraham L. Newman, Georgetown University Mattli and Wood's volume is a timely collective examination of an important topic. Global regulation has received insufficient academic attention, because it is complex and doesn't sit easily with the traditional intellectual categories of international political economy. The essays collected in this book break ground in mapping out the new politics of regulation and helping us to understand how it is changing domestic and international economies. -- Henry Farrell, George Washington University

Presents an analytical framework to explain regulatory outcomes at the global level. This book offers 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.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.