ABSTRACT
Civic, corporate and state-based governance initiatives that seek to promote norms of social or global ‘justice’ are achieving steadily rising levels of reach and influence in the global economy. More seem to be emerging every day, and their legitimacy as mechanisms of local, national and transnational regulation is achieving increasing acceptance in many quarters. They perform a range of functions – from delivering social services and facilitating economic redistribution and poverty reduction, to establishing, monitoring and enforcing social and labour standards within global production systems across large parts of the industrialized and developing worlds. Although the patterns of their diffusion are still limited and highly uneven, it is important to understand the forces that drive them, the mechanisms and actors through which they operate, and the factors that condition their success or failure.
