Strengthening International Regulation through Transnational New Governance: Overcoming the Orchestration Deficit (revised version)

Kenneth W. Abbott, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus
Duncan Snidal, University of Chicago

Abstract

A new kind of international regulatory system is spontaneously arising out of the failure of international “Old Governance” (treaties and intergovernmental organizations) to adequately regulate international business. NGOs, business firms and other actors, singly and in novel combinations, are creating innovative institutions to apply transnational norms to business. These institutions are predominantly private, and operate through voluntary standards. We depict the diversity of these new regulatory institutions on the “Governance Triangle,” based on the roles of different actors in their governance. To analyze this complex system, we adapt the domestic “New Governance” (NG) model of regulation to the international setting. “Transnational New Governance” (TNG) potentially provides many benefits of NG, and is particularly suitable for international regulation because it demands less of states and IGOs. TNG requires states and IGOs to act as orchestrators of the international regulatory system, however, and that system currently suffers from a significant orchestration deficit. If states and IGOs expanded “directive” and especially “facilitative” orchestration of TNG, they could strengthen high-quality private regulatory institutions, improve the international regulatory system and better achieve their own regulatory goals.