In recent years transnational private regulators have emerged and multiplied. In this book, experts from various academic disciplines offer empirically grounded case studies and theoretical insights into the evolution and resilience of these bodies through crises. Transnational private regulators display considerable flexibility if compared to public institutions both in exercising their rule-making functions and adapting and transforming in light of endogenous or exogenous crises events calling for change. The contributors identify such events and reflect on their impact on transnational private rule-makers. This edited volume covers important areas of global production and finance that are associated with private rule-making and delves into procedural, substantive and practical elements of private rule-making processes. At a policy level, the book provides comparisons among practices of private bodies in various areas, allowing for important lessons to be drawn for all public and private stakeholders active in, or affected by, private and public rule-making. This title is Open Access.

"Beyond academia, the book will become an essential reference for regulators, policy-makers, officers in private rule-making bodies, practitioners and advanced students. It covers key areas in global production and finance and delves into procedural, substantive and practical elements of private rule-making processes"--

In recent years transnational private regulators have emerged and multiplied. In this book, experts from various academic disciplines offer empirically grounded case studies and theoretical insights into the evolution and resilience of these bodies through crises. Transnational private regulators display considerable flexibility if compared to public institutions both in exercising their rule-making functions and adapting and transforming in light of endogenous or exogenous crises events calling for change. The contributors identify such events and reflect on their impact on transnational private rule-makers. This edited volume covers important areas of global production and finance that are associated with private rule-making and delves into procedural, substantive and practical elements of private rule-making processes. At a policy level, the book provides comparisons among practices of private bodies in various areas, allowing for important lessons to be drawn for all public and private stakeholders active in, or affected by, private and public rule-making. This title is Open Access.

A celebrated social psychologist offers a radical new perspective on cultural differences that reveals why some countries, cultures, and individuals take rules more seriously and how following the rules influences the way we think and act. In Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, Michele Gelfand, “an engaging writer with intellectual range” (The New York Times Book Review), takes us on an epic journey through human cultures, offering a startling new view of the world and ourselves. With a mix of brilliantly conceived studies and surprising on-the-ground discoveries, she shows that much of the diversity in the way we think and act derives from a key difference—how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms. Just as DNA affects everything from eye color to height, our tight-loose social coding influences much of what we do. Why are clocks in Germany so accurate while those in Brazil are frequently wrong? Why do New Zealand’s women have the highest number of sexual partners? Why are red and blue states really so divided? Why was the Daimler-Chrysler merger ill-fated from the start? Why is the driver of a Jaguar more likely to run a red light than the driver of a plumber’s van? Why does one spouse prize running a tight ship while the other refuses to sweat the small stuff? In search of a common answer, Gelfand spent two decades conducting research in more than fifty countries. Across all age groups, family variations, social classes, businesses, states, and nationalities, she has identified a primal pattern that can trigger cooperation or conflict. Her fascinating conclusion: behavior is highly influenced by the perception of threat. “A useful and engaging take on human behavior” (Kirkus Reviews) with an approach that is consistently riveting, Rule Makers, Ruler Breakers thrusts many of the puzzling attitudes and actions we observe into sudden and surprising clarity.

All over the world, companies play an important role in the economy. Different types of stakeholders hold the reins in these companies. An important class are the shareholders that finance the activities of these companies. In return, stakeholders have a say on how these companies should be organized and structure their activities. This is primarily done through voting and engaging. These mechanisms of voting and engaging allow the shareholders to decide significant aspects of the company structure, from who governs it to how much directors are paid. However, how shareholders vote and engage and how far their rights stretch are organized differently in different countries. This pioneering book provides insights into what rights these shareholders have and how the shareholders of companies in nineteen different jurisdictions participate in corporate life through voting and engaging. Comparative and international in scope, it pays particular attention to how jurisdictions align and differ around the world.

We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations – a focus on ‘austerity’ and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on ‘financial crisis’ and democratic regulation of finance – are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.

This volume offers a series of short and highly self-reflective essays by leading international lawyers on the relation between international law and crises. It particularly shows that international law shapes the crises that it addresses as much as it is shaped by them. It critically evaluates the modes of intervention of international law in the problems of the world. Together these essays provide a unique stocktaking about the role, limits, and potential of international law as well as the worlds that are imagined through international lawyers’ vocabularies.