Reuven Cohen & Oren Perez
Over the past fifteen years the global environmental governance system has undergone significant changes: from a system governed primarily by treaty-based instruments and their associated international organizations ( IGOs ) the system has evolved into a hybrid field that includes a plethora of private mechanisms (private transnational instruments, PTIs ) that interact in various ways with the classic treaty based instruments. In part, the current system remains a work in progress: there are still many question marks about the efficacy of particular private regimes (e.g., the greenwash charge) and the overall functionality of the network as a whole (synergy/ dysergy).
The paper seeks to advance our understanding of the new hybrid system, by developing a better understanding of the private domain, focusing on the field of corporate social responsibility codes ( CSR-Codes ). We develop a new theoretical framework that draws on two ideas - ensemble regulation and distributed authority and support this framework by a holistic empirical strategy that draws on social network analysis. Our approach seeks to respond to shortcomings in the approach of the literature the theoretical and empirical challenges created by the current hybrid system. Three themes emerged as particularly prominent in the literature that sought to cope with this challenge: ‘regime complexes’, ‘transnational networks’ and
‘experimental transnational governance’ (Gehring & Faude, 2013; Newman & Zaring,
2013; Orsini, Morin, & Young, 2013; Raustiala & Victor, 2004; Slaughter & Zaring,
2006) (Overdevest & Zeitlin, 2012; Sabel & Zeitlin, 2011; Zeitlin, 2011). There are several problems in the way in which these research strands have dealt with this challenge. First, most of the literature on regime complexes and transnational networks has focused on the interactions between distinct treaty regimes and on the interrelations between national regulators (Gehring & Faude, 2013; Keohane &
Victor, 2011) (Slaughter, 2002; Slaughter & Zaring, 2006)). Not enough attention was given to the role of private instruments in these regime complexes and networks
(Perez, 2012), leaving the question of the network structure of the field of CSR-Codes underexplored. A second blind spot in the current literature concerns the (relative) disregard of the literature on social network analysis ( SNA ) (Faure, De Smedt, &
Stas, 2015; Slaughter & Zaring, 2006). This omission is troubling because SNA provides a wealth of theoretical and methodological insights that are directly relevant to the study of transnational regulation (Stephen P Borgatti, Jones, & Everett, 1998;
Stephen P. Borgatti, Mehra, Brass, & Labianca, 2009; Easley & Kleinberg, 2010). A more refined understanding of the structure of the CSR-Codes field and the in which it interacts with public regimes is critical for understanding its efficacy. It is thus also critical within a framework of experimentalism, because learning is not possible without a reliable model that allows us to interpret feedbacks.
The final problem is empirical. A major drawback of the contemporary research on
PTIs – CSR Codes constitute a prominent example - is its fragmentary structure. The

study of transnational CSR-codes for example is dominated by a piecemeal study of different sectors or on single codes. Because of the fragmentary nature of these studies, they have generally been unable to expose the structure and dynamics of the
PTI field as a whole.
The paper seeks to respond to the foregoing critique by developing a new theoretical framework that is supported by social network analysis. First , we develop the ideas of ensemble regulation and distributed authority. Ensemble regulation refers to a network of autonomous regulatory schemes, sharing a common core of basic principles, and exhibiting positive enforcement and normative externalities. These positive externalities enhance the regulatory power and legitimacy of the network as a whole. The idea of distributed authority indicates that different elements of this network may play different roles and have different capacities. Second , we intend to conduct empirical analysis of the global CSR-Codes network drawing on unique database that consists of information on 55 CSR-codes. The database includes information on the governance structure of the CSR-codes and their members (or certificate-holders as applicable). This unique data enables us to apply a holistic empirical strategy. We intend to use a multifaceted empirical strategy that combines
SNA with institutional analysis. We analyze the CSR-codes system as a bi-partite
(affiliation) network involving firms and codes, drawing both on topological analysis of the network structure and a dynamical analysis based on historical data regarding firms' certification patterns. The institutional analysis will focus on the relationship between the codes’ governing bodies.
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