Beyond Empty Spaces: Structure and Substance in the Implementation of Global Norms

Drawing on research on fair labor and sustainable forestry standards in Indonesia and China, this presentation will reveal the “on-the-ground” consequences of global norms and move toward a new theory of transnational governance. Norms about human rights, environmentalism, labor rights, and transparency have spread widely – as shown in research on transnational advocacy networks and world society – spawning a number of specific rule-making projects. Yet theories that can explain whether and how these rules are implemented remain rare. Some theories remain distant or formalistic, and others crudely portray global norms as filling essentially “empty spaces” in poor and middle-income countries. In contrast, the substantive theory of transnational governance developed here makes claims about the modal consequences of transnational rules, their intersections with existing forms of domestic governance, and some ways in which the content of rules matters