Governing through Standards Origins, Drivers and Limitations

The authors show how and why standards are used as governance tools. They follow the historical development of standards and their new forms and roles, across the substantive areas of industrial and organizational "quality," the financial sector, environment, and labor.

STEFANO PONTE is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark. His recent work includes Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (with Lisa Ann Richey), Global Agro-Food Trade and Standards (co-edited with Peter Gibbon and Evelyne Lazaro) and The Coffee Paradox: Commodity Trade and the Elusive Promise of Development (with Benoit Daviron).

PETER GIBBON is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark. His publications include Trading Down: Africa, Value Chains and The Global Economy (with Stefano Ponte).

JAKOB VESTERGAARD is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, Denmark. He is the author of More Heat than Light: On the Regulation of International Finance and Discipline in the Global Economy: International Finance and the End of Liberalism.

Governing through Standards: An Introduction; S.Ponte, P.Gibbon& J. Vestergaard
The Rise of Banking Standards and Their Limits; K.Young
The New Standard in Banking Regulation -From Basel II to Basel III; M.Højland& J.Vestergaard
Reforming Global Banking Standards: Back to the Future?; R.Lall
Moving Beyond Nuts and Bolts: The Complexities of Governing a Global Profession through International Standards; C.Humphrey& A.Loft
On the Pre-history of ISO 9000: The Making of a Neo-liberal Standard; P.Gibbon& L.Henriksen
ISO 26000, Alternative Standards, and the 'Social Movement of Engineers' Involved with Standard-Setting; C.N.Murphy& J.Yates
Standard-setting, Certifying and Benchmarking: A Governmentality Approach to Sustainability Standards in the Agro-Food Sector; M.Djama,E.Fouilleux& I.Vagneron
Multi-stakeholder Initiatives for Sustainable Agriculture: The Limits of the 'Inclusiveness' Paradigm; E.Cheyns
Competition, 'Best Practices' and Exclusion in the Market for Social and Environmental Standards; S.Ponte& L.Riisgaard
The Local Instrumentality of Global Standards: How Mexican Indigenous Communities Use FSC Certification to Foster a Furniture Production Network; D.Klooster
Conclusion: The Current Status, Limits and Future of 'Governing through Standards'; S.Ponte, P.Gibbon & J.Vestergaard