Those supplying private regulation in the global economy face two fundamental challenges if they are to ameliorate the problems for which they create these systems: targets must conform to, while demanders must have proof of, regulatory compliance. This paper explores an important area absent from assessments as to whether, when, and how, private regulatory bodies are successful in improving behavior and rewarding compliant firms: the role of technological innovations. Employing an inductive, comparative case study analysis, we offer an analytical framework that distinguishes technological innovations that improve tracking mechanisms from innovations that directly improve on-the-ground performance. We illustrate the utility of the analytical framework through an assessment of technological innovations in shaping “non-state market driven” global certification programs governing forestry, fisheries, coffee, e-waste, and climate.

In recent years, International Political Economy literature on “politics beyond state” has emphasized the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in broader policy processes, both national and international. In addition to their impact on states, NGOs influence the policies of non-state actors such as firms via public and private politics. Dissatisfied with the progress firms have made in response to public regulation, NGOs have sponsored private authority regimes in several issue areas and pushed firms to participate in them. Across the world, the contest between NGOs and firms has provoked substantial behavioral and programmatic change'including widespread participation in these private authority regimes'among firms seeking to escape NGO pressures. Using firm-level data, this paper examines why direct targeting has not led firms in the U.S. forest products sector to participate in an NGO-sponsored private authority regime, the Forest Stewardship Council. This global regime has been adopted widely in Europe, but U.S.-based forestry firms have tended to favor a domestic industry-sponsored regime, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. Our analysis suggests that the desire of firms to maintain control over their institutional environment in light of hostile relations with NGOs has led US-based firms to favor the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.

In recent years a range of public policy (Howlett 2000) and international relations (Cutler et al., 1999; Hurd, 1999; Haufler, 2001) scholars have devoted attention to the emergence of voluntary (Kernaghan 1999; Prakash 1999), market-based, and “private” regulatory regimes that have emerged to address matters of concern to global civil society that previously were largely addressed through state-centered public policy instruments and processes.

The work on ‘regime complexes’ – loosely coupled regimes linked through non-hierarchical relationships – provides a lens for understanding the increasing density of international rules and institutions. However, the role of private authority in the regime complex – situations where non-state actors set rules or standards that other actors adopt – has only recently received academic attention. In this article, we ‘unbundle’ the concept of the regime complex in two novel ways. Firstly, we argue that an accurate depiction of any regime complex must also include private authority. Secondly, using examples from environmental governance, we carefully elaborate four specific mechanisms through which public and private authority interact, demonstrating the ways in which private authority can improve the problem-solving capacity of regime complexes. In short, a full understanding of the contributions of private authority to solving environmental problems requires examining its interactions with public rules and institutions.

There is seldom a lack of new studies of Isaiah. In this article I want to mention some aspects of a few recently published studies which direct our attention in different ways to the book of Isaiah, rather than to Isaiah of Jerusalem (or the so-called ‘second Isaiah’) as an individual with an historical role. Not that I am not concerned with the historical Isaiah of Jerusalem: in fact the concern is greater than the following reviews might suggest. Positively I am insisting that our quest for him must start from the book of Isaiah in all its variety and complexity, and not from its few familiar and congenially informative prose sections. Then the more negative suggestion that Isaiah may not have been a ‘prophet’ (at least in the sense that tradition came to regard him) is an attempt to clear the ground for a better point of view.