Private Actors in Multi-level Governance: GLOBALG.A.P Standard-setting for Agricultural and Food Products

Abstract

One aspect of governance and regulation that tends to be persistently overlooked is the role of private actors, particularly as standard-setting agencies. Historically, industry bodies have traditionally set standards in specific fields (Schepel 2005: 145). In recent years, however, private standards have taken on significance as regulatory tools. While much has been written about the implications of private standards and standardisation (e.g. Marx et al. 2012; Casey 2009; Henson and Humphrey 2009; Havinga 2006), very little has been written about how standards become such regulatory tools. Unpacking the ‘black box’ of standardisation to see how it works is a neglected field of inquiry. This chapter makes a contribution to redressing this situation. We do so by applying the work of regulatory scholars, Julia Black, John Braithwaite and Ian Ayres, to a transnational, private standard-setting organisation, GLOBALG.A.P. We use Black’s (2001) work on ‘decentred regulation’ and Ayres and Braithwaite’s (1992) work on ‘responsive regulation’ to account for private actors as regulators in a multi-level governance structure.