Who Put You in Charge? Private Entrepreneurial Authority in World Politics

Abstract

This paper presents a new conceptual framework for the study of private authority. I introduce the concept of private entrepreneurial authority where private actors are able to induce deference from others, without ex-ante permission from states to do so. I argue that entrepreneurial authority expands the conceptual and empirical formulation of the role of private actors in world politics, and helps bridge the gap between legalistic approaches to authority that focus on delegation and sociological approaches that focus on legitimacy. This theoretical contribution is critical to understanding the range of variation of private authority. I also present a new longitudinal dataset in the area of environment to describe entrepreneurial authority. I operationalize the concept of entrepreneurial authority by looking specifically at environmental certification schemes, such as “dolphin-safe” tuna or “sustainably harvested” timber. There is a considerable body of literature arguing that private authority is on the rise, yet there is little, if any quantitative data to substantiate this claim. This new dataset, which covers five decades of privately-created environmental standards, is able to engage directly with these arguments using quantitative data rather than single cases. The paper presents findings from these data, and develops hypotheses based on cross-sectoral variation.