Private standards are ubiquitous with virtually all packaging labelled with logos indicating products are certified under sets of rules relating to quality or environmental practices. These types of standards have long existed in commerce and trade. They prescribe technical requirements that firms, industry associations, and non-governmental organizations use to solve coordination problems such as ensuring conformity through supply chains, and information problems, such as signaling quality of products to consumers.

Since the 1980s these private actors have experimented with designing standards to address two additional types of problems. First, collaboration problems, for example, to ensure that all firms within an industry adopt similar voluntary environmental regulations. Second, to mitigate negative social externalities such as emissions from production, poor labor practices, or environmental degradation.

My research seeks to understand what motivates actors to pursue these arrangements, their effects on policymaking, and the extent they contribute to effective governance.

Work In Progress

“Standards as Strategies: Using Transnational Private Standards to Lobby Governments."

"Transnational Private Standards in Regulation: Pursuing Protectionism or Promoting Sustainability?"

"Opposing or Supporting Stronger Environmental Regulation? Industry Preferences and Lobbying on Transnational Private Standards in Regulation"

"Averting Costly Regulation Under Conditions of Uncertainty: Industry Lobbying for Private Transnational Standards in US and EU Laundry Pod Regulation"

"Bypassing Students’ Hostility to Discussing Justice: Creating Distance by Using Simulations and Upscaling the Unit of Analysis"

"The Ostrom-Young Debate: To What Extent Can Elinor Ostrom’s Design Principles be Upscaled to International Environmental Problems?"

Future Projects

Project 1: Lobbying and Transnational Private Standards in Other Issue-Areas

"The Enforcement of Labor Standards in Preferential Trade Agreements as Protectionism: How Textile Industries in the US and EU Have Used Private Labor Standards to Protect Their Markets"

"Creating Demand and Supply: How Private Greenhouse Gas Accounting Standards Averted Carbon Taxes"

Project 2: The Effectiveness of Transnational Private Regulation

"The Effectiveness of Private Governance in the Forestry Sector: Impact of Transnational Private Standards on Deforestation"

"Are Governments Needed? Comparing the Effectiveness of Public-Private and Private Regulation in Environmental Management System Standards"

Project 3: Explaining the Diffusion of Transnational Private Regulation

"Using Time-Series Network Analysis to Identify Diffusion Patterns: Literature Review and Proposed Methodology"

"Contagious Procurement Policies: Explaining the Diffusion of Sustainable Timber Requirements in Mid- and High-Income Countries"

Other Publications

“Methodological Guide on Tariffs, Taxes and Transfers in the European Water Sector,” with Manuel Lago, Jennifer Möller-Gulland, Julian Leem Gerardo Anzaldua, Isabelle Turcotte, Johanna von der Weppen, Felipe Gaitan, and Benjamin Boteler, EUREAU, 2011.

“Literature Review & Research Survey,” with Andreas Graf, Haran Bar-On, Ralph Piotrowski, Anneke von Raggamby, and Sarah Lang, InContext Project: Supportive environments for sustainable living, 2011.

Conference & Workshop Presentations

2019

“Using Transnational Private Standards as Non‐Tariff Barriers: Industry Lobbying and Forestry Standards in Australia, Canada and the UK,” International Studies Association Annual Conference, Toronto, ON.

“Transnational Private Standards to Avert Government Regulation: Comparing EU and US Laundry Pod Regulation,” International Studies Association Annual Conference, Toronto, ON.

2018

“A Tale of Two Lobbies: Laundry Pod Regulation in the US and EU,” Northeastern Political Association Annual Conference, Montreal, QC.

“Self-Regulation and Scientific Uncertainty: EU and US Laundry Pod Regulation,” American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Boston, MA

2017

"Bypassing Students’ Hostility to Discussing Justice: Creating Distance by Using Simulations and Upscaling the Unit of Analysis," American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA.

2016

“Forestry Standards as Firm Political Strategies,” American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.

"Standards as Strategies: How Firms Adopt Transnational Private Standards for Leverage in Regulatory Policymaking,” 24th World Congress of Political Science, International Political Science Association, Poznań, Poland,

"Standards as Strategies: How Firms Adopt Transnational Private Standards for Leverage in Regulatory Policymaking,” Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.

“Private Forestry Standards and Procurement Policies,” International Studies Association Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA.

“The Influence of Transnational Corporate Private Regimes on Domestic Policies,” International Studies Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA.

2015

“Adopting Transnational Standards, Preempting Stringent Regulations,” Duck Family Graduate Workshop on Environmental Politics and Governance, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

2014

“The Diffusion of Feed-In Tariff Policies,” International Studies Association Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada.

2013

“Upscaling Elinor Ostrom's Design Principles Illustrated by Long-Enduring Common-Pool Resource Institutions: Quantitative Analysis Using International Regimes Database,” International Studies Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA.

2012

“From Climate Change to Conflict? Human vs. State Security Concerns in the Arctic,” International Studies Association-Western Division, Pasadena, CA.

2010

“The Arctic Environment as a Common-Pool Resource,” Continents Under Climate Change Conference, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.