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While going through a revival in sociology and business studies, the concept of communities, as used in those disciplines, appears to confront, in an unresolved tension, the development of differentiated and transnationally interconnected modern societies. We argue that there is a need not only to “rediscover” but in fact also to “renew” the notion of community. Building on insights from classical sociology, we propose a definition of transnational communities as social groups emerging from mutual interaction across national boundaries, oriented around a common project or “imagined” identity. Transnational communities are not static structures but fluid and dynamic processes. They are constructed through symbolic or “imagined” proximity rather than through physical propinquity. More often than not, they are “communities of limited liability” rather than the expression of permanent ascriptive markers. Finally, transnational communities go well beyond the provision of local protection and solidarities as they engage in different kinds of transnational activism. This chapter compares bottom-up and top-down patterns of transnational community development, exploring in both cases the role of those communities in the dynamics of transnational governance. We propose that transnational communities impact cross-border governance in at least six different ways. They contribute to the framing of a governance problem space. They allow the mobilization of collective action while also serving as public arenas. They foster preference transformation. They directly participate in rule-setting while also playing a key role when it comes to monitoring and control. In conclusion, we identify key directions for further research.

This paper aims to propose a legal characterisation of the recent proliferation, across the broad range of global environmental good governance initiatives and practices, of a diverse mix of regulatory environmental standards, many of which are informal in origin insofar as they are neither State-driven nor State-centred. It examines the novel conception of legal order posited by Twinning and Walker, to determine whether it encompasses the myriad rules and standards emerging in the field of environmental governance.

Surveying the rapidly developing montage of formal and informal rules and standards associated with global environmental governance, this paper uses the analytical framework provided by scholars of “global administrative law” to reconcile the complementary roles of formal and informal sources of legal rules, and to explain their increasing convergence around a set of good governance principles and standards commonly used in national administrative law systems.

The paper concludes that the emerging regulatory framework for global environmental governance comprises an almost endless variety of forms of novel transnational regulatory activity, many succeeding in having a profound impact on environmental outcomes. Yet all appear to be founded upon and guided by a discrete set of good governance standards and principles of an administrative law character – including transparency, participation, legality, rationality, proportionality, reviewability and accountability – which serve to enhance the credibility and legitimacy of each regulatory mechanism.

It appears that new and informal forms of environmental regulatory activity enjoy a complex symbiotic relationship with formal systems of environmental law. In addition to filling lacunae and addressing deficiencies in such systems, owing, for example, to the transnational character of much of today’s trade, informal regulatory systems are increasingly influencing the evolution of formal legal frameworks and, in so doing, are improving the responsiveness, flexibility and accessibility of this new environmental “legal order”.

At a practical level, viewing the wide range of new forms of environmental regulatory activity through the prism of global administrative law (or global environmental law) brings unity to this diverse field and, in so doing, makes available to all the actors involved in this “community of practice” a wealth of established practice and principle which can help to inform the elaboration and interpretation of rules and standards of environmental governance through a process of cross fertilisation of ideas and approaches.

Recognition of the legal character and significant role of the wide range of novel forms of environmental regulatory activity lends further credibility and legitimacy to such mechanisms, which often comprise the only truly relevant and applicable environmental controls or truly accessible mode of redress and accountability. The challenges of realising sustainability are immense and, as one leading commentator has noted, “all normative means are useful to this end”.

This paper attempts to characterise the legal nature of the range of novel forms of environmental regulation which (can) play such an important role in modifying the behaviour of many of the key environmental actors globally – actors who have largely been unaffected by more formal legal frameworks. For this reason, it seeks to encourage a fundamental shift in the way we think about environmental law and legal authority.

This chapter is a commentary on Kobrin's essay on the current transition to the transnational era where there is a shift in the balance of power from sovereign states to non-state stakeholders and what role the multinational corporation (MNC) plays in this transition. It celebrates Kobrin's long-established scholarship and discusses his recent thinking regarding the new reconceptualization of space, the fragmentation of political authority and the intermingling of public and private spheres, in the context of transnational governance. In his essay, Kobrin raises many interesting questions and opens new avenues for inter-disciplinary research on the MNC in the up-and-coming transnational era.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of inclusive human development and military expenditure in modulating the effect of terrorism on governance.

It is based on 53 African countries for the period 1998–2012 and interactive generalised method of moments is employed. Six governance indicators from the World Bank and two terrorism variables are used, namely, domestic and transnational terrorism dynamics.

The following main findings are established. There is a negative net effect on governance (regulation quality and corruption-control) when inclusive human development is used to reduce terrorism. There is a positive net impact on governance (voice and accountability and rule of law) when military expenditure is used to reduce domestic terrorism.

The authors have complemented the sparse literature on the use of policy variables to mitigate the effect of policy syndromes on macroeconomic outcomes.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the changing role of business in a globalized society, focusing on transnational corporations as private authorities which have gained power in global governance. The paper will aim to address the following issues: the development of CSR as a voluntary framework based on self‐regulation instruments through which corporations can manage their social and environmental impacts; corporations' exercise of power and authority in developing CSR standards globally through inter‐firm cooperation; and CSR as a mechanism to transform business culture through the development of co‐regulatory instruments between corporations and their stakeholders.

This paper describes the emergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a new governance framework, essentially created by the pressure of global civil society on corporations. The research focuses on the analysis of new forms of business political activities: self‐regulation and co‐regulation.

The findings describe how transnational corporations have become private authorities, competing or collaborating with global civil society or public authorities to develop a new framework of social and environmental regulations to manage their responsibilities and exercise their global power.

This paper highlights the need for regulatory tools to transform global governance. CSR requires the development of public accountability mechanisms for private authorities, an issue that can be resolved by developing global governance networks between public and private actors.

This paper explains why CSR has taken shape through the creation of self‐regulation management standards and co‐regulating norms and instruments where transnational corporations are a major driving force.

The last four decades have seen the rise of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) as the core locus of transnational accounting regulation. Initial steps of associational cooperation were superseded by establishing a standard setting organization that heavily draws on consultation procedures. The purpose of this paper is to focus on recent changes in governance and accountability of IASB in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Emphasis is given to the organizational configuration, the ambivalence of consultation procedures and reactions to mounting criticism after the crisis. The paper proposes that IASB is the heart of a new transnational regulatory constellation in accounting.

The material and analysis presented in the paper derives from an extensive review of official reports, consultation documents and related responses and a range of additional information available on IASB's web page.

The paper analyzes how IASB uses legitimation strategies to defend its position as a transnational standard setter. From analysis of recent changes, the paper reveals a growing reliance on – and domination through – consultation procedures. The paper also shows the IASB’S swift action to counter substantial criticism emerging with the financial crisis.

By highlighting developments surrounding IASB, its governance structure and the emphasis on consultation, the paper establishes the importance for public policy of further study and debate the operation of IASB. It could also contribute to re-politicize accounting regulation at the transnational level.

IASB is an integral player in global financial governance processes and is only recently receiving substantial academic accounting research. This paper seeks to provide an introduction and critical account of the organization's development.

The accounting regulation literature has recently devoted a significant degree of attention to delineating the roles of accounting firms as key professional actors in the transnational policy arena. Such a heightened level of scholarly engagement with firms seems to have shifted the focus away from the roles of the national professional institutes. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of not losing sight of the national professional bodies as important players on the transnational governance scene.

The accounting regulation literature has recently devoted a significant degree of attention to delineating the roles of accounting firms as key professional actors in the transnational policy arena. Such a heightened level of scholarly engagement with firms seems to have shifted the focus away from the roles of the national professional institutes. The aim with this paper is to demonstrate the importance of not losing sight of the national professional bodies as important players on the transnational governance scene.

The paper provides empirical illustrations and discussion of the transforming agendas and strategies of influence pursued by various national professional bodies as they attempt to reinvent themselves to face up to the challenges of the changing regulatory landscape. Specifically, the paper analyses a range of activities where such bodies are seen to be competing with each other as well as partaking in a variety of collaborative initiatives in their quest to gain/maintain the status of a global/regional professional thought leader.

The paper is designed to encourage renewed academic debate on the roles and strategies of national professional institutes and highlight opportunities and venues for future research. The paper is also suggestive of the need to refine conceptual perspectives on professionalization processes operational in transnational settings.

The accounting literature is lacking in terms of contemporary study of national professional bodies as active institutions with global ambition and strategies of influence. This paper addresses such a shortcoming by analysing the strategic intent and actions of a range of such bodies (revealing, in the process, a quite fascinating complex of activity, competition and cooperation) and calling for a renewed focus on national professional bodies as a way of enhancing contemporary understanding of the workings of the “global accounting profession”.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the basis for, and ramifications of, applying relevant human rights norms – such as the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights – to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). In doing so, the paper seeks to contribute to scholarship on the political legitimisation of the IASB’s structure and activities under prevailing global governance conditions.

The paper explores three distinct argumentative logics regarding responsibilities for justice and human rights vis-à-vis the IASB. First, the authors explore the basis for applying human rights responsibilities to the IASB through reasoning based on the analysis of “public power” (Macdonald, 2008) and public authorisation. Second, the authors develop the reasoning with reference to recent attempts by legal scholars and practitioners to apply human rights obligations to other non-state and transnational institutions. Finally, the authors develop reasoning based on Thomas Pogge’s (1992b) ideas about institutional harms and corresponding responsibilities.

The three distinct argumentative logic rest on differing assumptions – the goal is not to reconcile or synthesise these approaches, but to propose that these approaches offer alternative and in some ways complementary insights, each of which contributes to answering questions about how human rights obligations of the IASB should be defined, and how such a responsibility could be “actually proceduralised”.

The analysis provides an important starting point for beginning to think about how responsibilities for human rights might be applied to the operation of the IASB.

This paper aims to analyze the relevance of private meta-governance for multi-stakeholder partnerships. The authors assume that meta-governance, defined as higher level rules that shall guide partnerships’ governance activities, could build on and institutionalize lessons learned about partnerships’ success conditions and, in doing so, may render partnerships’ work more effective in the future.

The research paper investigates a case of non-state meta-governance in the standard-setting arena. It explores how actors assess the interaction of the meta-governance efforts of the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling (ISEAL) Alliance (mainly in the form of their three Codes of Good Practice) and the Alliance for Water Stewardship’s efforts when setting and implementing their International Water Stewardship Standard. For this, a combination of research methods is applied: a literature review for deriving propositions on success conditions; document analysis, participatory observation and semi-structured interviews for gathering empirical evidence on the interaction between meta-governance and the partnership’s work.

Respondents praise the benefits of ISEAL’s enabling meta-governance measures to strengthen their standard, structures and processes, as well as from ensuring activities, as these also improve their internal governance system while simultaneously providing credibility. In this context, they confirm the relevance of three success factors mentioned in the literature on voluntary standards: an inclusive process, a locally adapted design of the standard and institutionalized compliance management.

Instead of reinventing the wheel with every new multi-stakeholder partnership, meta-governance frameworks should be used to enable partnership staff and members, policymakers and stakeholders to learn from experience.

The authors’ analysis generates unique insights into perceptions of partnerships’ staff and stakeholders regarding lessons learned and private meta-governance. The present study on these actors’ perspectives provides a starting-point for further research on how meta-governance could help institutionalize success factors to scale-up and improve the impact of standard-setting partnerships.

The purpose of this study is to examine the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)’s response to criticism and political pressure at the time of the global financial crisis through the lens of legitimacy theory.

This study constructs a thick description about a causal mechanism between social crisis and organizational change using a process-tracing approach that combines a historical narrative and a theoretical consideration.

The IASB faced criticism of its accounting standards for financial instruments and its governance structure during the financial crisis. This criticism represented the crises of pragmatic and cultural legitimacy. Facing these legitimacy crises, the IASB adopted such legitimation strategies as normalization and restructuring to repair its legitimacy. Additionally, in these repairing processes, the IASB, as a bonus, became institutionally embedded itself in the global political arena and succeeded to strengthen its legitimacy.

The study suggests that the financial crisis had a significant impact on the standardization of transnational accounting. Indeed, the crisis was an important turning point of the IASB’s work on revising its accounting standards to reduce complexity and altering its Constitution. Moreover, the authors bridge the gaps in the literature on accounting and legitimacy by examining how the IASB used particular legitimacy repair strategies when facing its legitimacy crises