Global Governance and Certification. Assessing the Impact of Non-State Market Governance

During the last three decades one can observe the emergence and development of private global governance regimes which regulate internationally manufactured and traded products. These private regulatory initiatives develop specific social and/or ecological standards. When products, organizations or production processes meet these standards they receive a certificate. Certification is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and startling institutional designs of the past 50 years (Cashore et al. 2004) Consequently, extensive sociological and political science research has been conducted on this new non-state market governance initiative. Less attention has been paid so far to the impact or effectiveness of these systems and how we might explain possible variations in effectiveness. The current PhD-thesis focuses on analysing the impact of two leading third-party certification systems, namely the Forest Stewarship Council and the Fair Labour Association. The former certifies the sustainable management of forests and forest products and is generally regarded as the leading natural resources certification system which inspired many new initiatives. The latter certifies labour conditions in clothing and footwear manufacturing industry. Both operate on a global scale. The effectiveness or impact of certification systems is operationalised in terms of uptake of these initiatives by organisational actors (ie firms and states). The PhD-thesis shows that the uptake of certification is limited. This limitation is related to structural factors which inhibit the uptake of certification. As a result, the PhD-thesis identifies a stuck-at-the-bottom problem which excludes certain actors from the certification process. In analyzing the impact of these systems the PhD-thesis makes use of a recent and innovative research methodology named Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in order to explain variation in effectiveness. This methodology, and the results it generates, is in a separate chapter tested on its reliability. As a result the PhD-thesis aims to contribute on the one hand to the policy and theoretical debate of certification systems and its potential and limitations as a global governance tool. On the other hand, the PhD-thesis aims to contribute to the further development of a new research methodology which is relevant for several types of social scientific research.status: publishe