Enter the Fox - Lumping and Splitting in the Study of Transnational Networks: A Response to Stavros Gadinis

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2015

Journal Title

American Journal of International Law Unbound

ISSN

2398-7723

DOI

10.1017/S2398772300001100

Abstract

This brief essay responds to Professor Stavros Gadinis' article: "Three Pathways to Global Standards: Private, Regulator, and Ministry Networks," 109 American Journal of International Law 1 (2015). It praises the article, to begin, for its resistance to the common tendency of scholars to lump transnational regulatory networks together as a single phenomenon, and to engage them in strongly normative terms. In doing so, however, Gadinis creates something of a Humpty Dumpty problem: Once we recognize his point that networks vary widely in membership, form, and function – among other things – can we coherently collect them into smaller clusters? By reference to what criteria? Gadinis suggests some, though his analysis reveals important limitations of his resulting categories. With all that it accomplishes, however, "Three Pathways to Global Standards" helps to suggest important strands of a research agenda for scholars of transnational networks in the years ahead.

First Page

29

Last Page

33

Num Pages

5

Volume Number

109

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

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