The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance or Economics of the Trade Union

The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance

Author: Rodney Bruce Hall

The emergence of private authority is now a feature of the post-Cold War world. The contributors to this volume examine the implications of the erosion of the state's power in global governance. They analyze financial institutions, multinational corporations, religious terrorists and organized crime operations. Relating directly to debates concerning globalization and the role of international law, this study is of interest to scholars and students of international relations, politics, sociology and law.

Foreign Affairs

States have historically been the dominant source of authority in international relations thanks to monopoly on the legitimate use of force. As this evocative book points out, however, authority has begun to take root in nonstate societal and transnational spheres — particularly in the global economy, where private transnational regimes have been devised by banks and firms to regulate transactions. Centuries-old traditions of self-regulatory merchant law have grown into a highly institutionalized semiprivate commercial legal order in which states participate only indirectly to provide enforcement. Other chapters explore the moral authority of transnational religious movements and nongovernmental organizations, and the final chapters examine the authority exercised today by influential nontraditional private actors such as mafias and mercenary armies. Relations between authorities are multifaceted and difficult to pin down — and, indeed, the privatization of specific jobs is now often promoted or welcomed by the state. Nonetheless, the authors succeed in illuminating the many dimensions and shifting terrain of state and nonstate authority, even if the extent and consequences of private governance remain ambiguous.

Table of Contents:

	List of figures
	List of tables
	List of contributors
	Preface and acknowledgements
Pt. I	Introduction: theorizing private authority
1	The emergence of private authority in the international system	3
2	Private international regimes and interfirm cooperation	23
Pt. II	Market authority: globalization and "globaloney"
3	Economic governance in an electronically networked global economy	43
4	Global finance, political authority, and the problem of legitimation	76
5	The state and globalization	91
Pt. III	Moral authority: global civil society and transnational religious movements
6	"Regulation for the rest of us?" Global civil society and the privatization of transnational regulation	115
7	The global dimensions of religious terrorism	141
Pt. IV	Illicit authority: mafias and mercenaries
8	Transnational organized crime and the state	161
9	The return of the dogs of war? The privatization of security in Africa	183
Pt. V	Conclusions and directions
10	Private authority as global governance	203
	Bibliography	223
	Index	241

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Economics of the Trade Union

Author: Alison L Booth

This book analyzes the crucial features of unionized labor markets in industrialized countries, with particular emphasis on Britain and the United States. The techniques used by economists to model unionized labor markets are carefully explained. The connection between theoretical modeling and empirical testing of the theories is also emphasized. The book is directed to undergraduate economics students studying labor economics and to masters students in economics or industrial relations, but it is also accessible to general readers with a quantitative background.