糖心TV

My presentation focuses on the central problem of transnational private governance—the matter of governing 鈥渁t a distance鈥� through the market and producing change in local sites when such rule systems are not mandated or authorised by governments in these sites. Drawing on various literatures – the politics of scale, global production networks, and assemblage 鈥榯heory鈥�– and using the empirical case of sustainable palm oil, I argue that non-state regulatory entrepreneurs adopt globalising strategies that rescale key governance targets to sites more amenable to voluntary private governance away from the constraints imposed by national and multilateral governance. Global supply chains are crucial to rescaling governance to the transnational scale. However, fragmented supply chains and inadequate attention to segments of the supply chain deeply embedded in local sites of palm oil production create gaps in governance, requiring various corrective localising strategies. An important dynamic also seen in the palm oil case is the emergence of consultants and experts independent of the transnational governance scheme in question who help to enrol new participants into its ambit. Through technical and financial advisory and brokering services, these actors are part of the wider assemblage of actors whose work consolidates private governance, including by enrolling small farmers previously neglected by the globalising strategy but central to producing sustainable palm oil.