"Jessica Green's ambitious and thoughtful new book shows that private actors—NGOs and firms—often hold the keys to successful governance. In some settings, governments delegate important functions to these actors, but even more interesting is when private actors innovate new forms of governance on their own. Her study, which develops these ideas by focusing on environmental cooperation, is a big step forward in explaining how governance really works."
—David G. Victor, University of California, San DiegoWinner of the 2015 Lynton Keith Caldwell Prize, Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics Section of the American Political Science Association
Winner of the 2014-2015 Harold and Margaret Sprout Award, Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association
[Green] offer[s] novel and insightful empirical descriptions of the operation of private authority in contemporary global governance.---Elizabeth Acorn, Global Law Books
"This book is an important contribution to our understanding of private authority in global governance. Conceptually, Green clarifies the forms that private authority takes; empirically, she provides valuable new data on the operation of private authority over time; and theoretically, she introduces a compelling supply-and-demand account of when particular forms of private authority are likely to appear. Her analysis reveals many of the strengths and weaknesses of private rule making and its complex relationship with state authority."—Kenneth W. Abbott, Arizona State University
"The most important book yet written on private authority in world politics. Conceptually rich, carefully argued, and provocative, Rethinking Private Authority goes far beyond its title to provide a significant new foundation for the study of global governance."—David A. Lake, University of California, San Diego
Offer[s] a persuasive framework for identifying and analyzing private authority at the international level. The usefulness of the framework is illustrated here by extended empirical studies.---Kathryn Hochstetler, Perspectives on Politics
Winner of the 2015 Levine Prize, International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on the Structure and Organization of Government
"Rethinking Private Authority makes a significant contribution to the growing literature on private governance. Green develops a novel theoretical account of private authority, specifically through the distinction between delegated and entrepreneurial authority, and elaborates for the first time the quantitative extent of private authority in global environmental politics."—Matthew Paterson, coauthor of Climate Capitalism: Global Warming and the Transformation of the Global Economy
The author has to be acclaimed for her ability to wade through hundreds if not thousands of documents, verify their authenticity and reach conclusions on the variety of measures taken by the private sector in cooperation with governments, international organisations or independently, to discharge their responsibility toward containing emissions.---Madras Sivaraman, International Journal of Environmental Studies
"Green provides persuasive empirical evidence that private authority is not displacing public authority—instead, governance in general has been increasing, and private and public authority have expanded together, and not in competition with each other. She also contributes an important distinction between types of private authority—delegated or entrepreneurial—and their relationship to public authority."—Virginia Haufler, author of A Public Role for the Private Sector: Industry Self-Regulation in a Global Economy
In this pioneering work, Green explores how governmental and private actors can work together to institute regulations to address global environmental problems. . . . [I]ts conclusions have implications for the entire field of international relations. The work is carefully argued, clearly written, and supported by an extensive bibliography.
