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Global partnerships have transformed international institutions by creating platforms for direct collaboration with NGOs, foundations, companies and local actors. They introduce a model of governance that is decentralized, networked and voluntary, and which melds public purpose with private practice. How can we account for such substantial institutional change in a system made by states and for states? Governance Entrepreneurs examines the rise and outcomes of global partnerships across multiple policy domains: human rights, health, environment, sustainable development and children. It argues that international organizations have played a central role as entrepreneurs of such governance innovation in coalition with pro-active states and non-state actors, yet this entrepreneurship is risky and success is not assured. This is the first study to leverage comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis that illuminates the variable politics and outcomes of public-private partnerships across multilateral institutions, including the UN Secretariat, the World Bank, UNEP, the WHO and UNICEF.

A study of the effect of EU membership on Central and Eastern European environmental policy and the interplay of political incentives and industry behavior that determines policy In Transnational Politics of the Environment, Liliana Andonova examines the effect of the Europen Union (EU) on the environmental policies of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Poland. Compliance with EU environmental regulations is especially onerous for Central and Eastern European countries because of the costs involved and the legacy of pollution from communist-era industries. But Andonova argues that EU integration has a positive impact on environmental policies in these countries by exerting a strong influence on the environmental interests of regulated industries. With her empirical study of chemical safety and air pollution policies from 1990 to 2000, she shows that export-competitive industries such as the chemical industry that would benefit from economic integration have an incentive to adopt EU norms. By contrast, industries such as electric utilities that primarily serve the domestic market remain opposed to EU environmental standards and must be prodded by their own governments to implement environmental-protection measures. These differences in domestic interests greatly influence the course of reforms and the adoption of EU standards.Transnational Politics of the Environment challenges the current focus on intergovernmental cooperation between East and West by highlighting the roles of industries, transnational norms, and domestic institutions in promoting change in environmental regulation. It offers a generalizable framework for understanding the politics of environmental regulation in emerging market economies, and helps bridge the divide between the study of domestic and international environmental politics.

This article examines under what conditions states engage in transnational public-private partnerships for the environment. While there is hardly a disagreement in the literature on the rise of transnational actors and new modes of collaborative governance, their interaction with and impact on state institutions remain debated and insufficiently illuminated by empirical research. Some scholars of globalization interpret transnational partnerships as evidence of state insufficiency and retreat, others emphasize the continued primacy of state power in manipulating old and new institutional arenas, still other scholars anticipate the 'rearticulation' of the state to partake in new governance. This study is one of the first to examine theoretically and empirically, using a sample of some 230 partnerships, how domestic capacity, the constituencies of transnational actors, as well as international donors and institutions shape the variable rearticulation of the state to partake in partnerships. A comparative case study of Brazil and Russia provides further detail on the political dynamics that enable or constrain state-society collaborations for the environment. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

This article examines under what conditions states engage in transnational public–private partnerships for the environment. While there is hardly a disagreement in the literature on the rise of transnational actors and new modes of collaborative governance, their interaction with and impact on state institutions remain debated and insufficiently illuminated by empirical research. Some scholars of globalization interpret transnational partnerships as evidence of state insufficiency and retreat, others emphasize the continued primacy of state power in manipulating old and new institutional arenas, still other scholars anticipate the "rearticulation" of the state to partake in new governance. This study is one of the first to examine theoretically and empirically, using a sample of some 230 partnerships, how domestic capacity, the constituencies of transnational actors, as well as international donors and institutions shape the variable rearticulation of the state to partake in partnerships. A comparative case study of Brazil and Russia provides further detail on the political dynamics that enable or constrain state-society collaborations for the environment.

The article examines the politics and patterns of public-private partnerships for the environment in the multilateral system. It argues that two kinds of dynamics have contributed to the hybridization of environmental authority at the global level. On one hand, the fragmentation of environmental regimes and the parallel growth of non-state actors have resulted in structural pressures and opportunities for public-private collaboration. More significantly, however, international organizations have responded to the pluralization of global environmental politics selectively and acted as entrepreneurs of collaborative governance. The analysis uses a principal-agent perspective of international organizations to specify the conditions for organizational entrepreneurship of public-private partnerships. The theoretical propositions inform the comparative analysis of three "meta" partnership programs in the multilateral system: the Small Grants Program, the Prototype Carbon Fund, and the environmental portfolio of the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships. The study demonstrates that public-private partnerships represent neither a radical "powershift" from established institutions, nor are partnerships a marginal governance fad. The three partnership programs examined here emerged out of the mandates and expertise of their lead organizations and partners, but established and diffused new niches of environmental governance, particularly around community-based biodiversity management and climate-change related technology diffusion.

The article uses firm-level data to test the hypothesis that the opening of central and east European economies to international trade and capital provides an impetus for environmental improvements in industrial enterprises. The analysis reveals that although export-oriented firms adopt clean technologies faster, foreign investment is not necessarily associated with higher rates of clean-technology adoption. Moreover, even the significance of trade in promoting cleaner technology can be overshadowed by domestic factors such as regulatory enforcement. Multinational enterprises introduce more readily formal environmental management practices that respond to public pressures. These findings challenge claims that international capital and trade are likely to be the leading stimulus for clean-technology diffusion in transition countries. The analysis contributes to the political economy literature by testing the linkage between openness and firm-level environmental strategies and specifying conditions for a positive relationship between markets and environmental performance.