The development of private transnational regulations: Shift in governance or shifty governance

This thesis sets out to explore the changing nature of corporate global governance. Where once states and state-based international organizations and regimes were the exclusive actors in creating and maintaining structures of governance, we have since witnessed an evolution in the area of global governance, and with it the emergence of new constellation of actors. Increasingly, private economic actors and members of the global civil society are now active participants in a complex, multilayered system of governance. Not only does this thesis account for the role these non-state actors have come to play, but it also describes what can be viewed as a progression of in 'private global governance' strategies of which they are a part. Using the UN Global Compact and the Forest Stewardship Council, as representative case studies, a spectrum of private regulation is developed and discussed.