Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 76-07(E), Section: A.

Adviser: Benjamin Cashore.

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Over the last two decades, many sectors and issue areas have witnessed the emergence and proliferation of a form of global governance that is in essence private in character. Such transnational private governance takes the form of voluntary standards that are developed by non-state actors, and which are used to make claims about the environmental and/or social impact of production processes and supply chains. While private governance has emerged and developed without much direct state intervention, it does not operate in a regulatory or jurisdictional vacuum. On the contrary, it can be considered to always operate in the shadow of public sovereign authority. Public authorities can intervene with private governance in many ways, and they have indeed done so.

This dissertation examines interactions between public and private governance by addressing the following research question: Why has the European Union (EU) intervened with private governance to different degrees in different issue areas? I measure the dependent variable--the degree of the EU's intervention with private governance--by assessing the EU's intervention with four key features pertaining to the functioning of private governance: standard setting, procedural aspects, compliance incentives, and the use of labels. By historically tracing the co-evolution of private governance and EU policy making in four issue areas--biofuels production, organic agriculture, fair trade, and fisheries--this dissertation proposes that, in order to explain the various degrees to which the EU has intervened with private governance, three variables are important: domestic interests, the structure of the market for private governance, and the institutional fit between public and private governance.

First, the cases suggest that the degree of EU intervention is at least partly driven by the potential to support domestic economic opportunities for producers. The EU can engage in market-creating behavior and assist in making sustainably produced goods more visible in the market. It can thereby support those operators already engaged in sustainable production, or encourage others to get engaged. Alternatively, the EU can decide to abstain from intervening when the expected adjustment costs for operators to get involved in more sustainable production are too high.

Second, this research finds that when the market for private governance is more fragmented, the degree of EU intervention is likely to be higher. There are two main reasons for this. First, while private governance has initially been established, at least partly, to address information asymmetry problems between producers and consumers regarding sustainable production behavior, a proliferation of such initiatives can result in second-order information asymmetries. These occur when it is unclear to actors in the supply chain how the different private governance schemes compare to each other in terms of stringency and scope of standards, stakeholder participation, or compliance verification. This can cause confusion, problems of legitimacy, and undermine the credibility of all private initiatives. Second, a fragmentation of private governance can result in intra-EU trade barriers, and thereby create obstacles in the overall effort to harmonize the EU market. A particularly prominent type of trade barrier results from a lack of mutual recognition among private governance schemes.

Third, the cases suggest that the institutional fit between public and private governance also at least partly explains the degree of EU intervention. Private governance schemes--as governing institutions--have developed independent governing authority prior to the EU's intervention. When confronted with a proposed intervention by the EU, they will defend their own organizational interests in this regard, and aim to retain sufficient "governance space," i.e., the autonomy to govern their regulatory targets and organize their governance approach as they see fit.

This dissertation contributes to the nascent research on the interaction between public and private governance, and on the role of non-state actors in politics more broadly. Furthermore, this dissertation generates policy relevant knowledge on the complementarity between public and private policy instruments. By increasing our understanding of the ways in which public policy interacts with private governance, it will also generate useful knowledge for initiators of private governance schemes regarding their design and functioning.