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

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.

Keywords: transnational, networks, standards, standard-setting