This article considers the issue of public accountability of transnational corporations (TNCs) in the light of the experiences of the past 30 years. It discusses the problem of accountability of corporations in general and examines the accountability gaps that are particularly severe as a result of the global reach and power of TNCs, notably those related to the collusion between government officials and TNCs, to regulatory competition, to state weakness and breakdown, and to political subversion. Then existing attempts to close those gaps are assessed, including intergovernmental cooperation, business ‘self‐regulation’ and initiatives that involve nongovernmental organizations and supranational agencies in defining standards of conduct for companies and monitoring their compliance.

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The editors of this volume highlight the role of intermediaries, alongside regulators and targets, as a way to better understand the outcomes of regulatory processes. Here, we explore the benefits of distinguishing a fourth category of actors: the groups whose interests the rules are meant to protect: the (intended) beneficiaries. We apply that framework to nonstate regulation of labor conditions, where the primary intended beneficiaries are workers and their families, especially in poorer countries. We first outline the different ways in which beneficiaries can relate to regulators, intermediaries, and targets; we then develop conjectures about the effect of different relationships on regulatory impacts and democratic legitimacy in relation to corporate power structures, specifically those embedded in the governance of global supply chains. We illustrate these conjectures primarily with examples from three initiatives-Rugmark, the Fair Labor Association, and the Fairtrade system. We conclude that it matters whether and how beneficiaries are included in the regulatory process.

Transnational non‐state governance arrangements (NGAs) are increasingly common in areas such as labor standards and environmental sustainability, often presenting themselves as innovative means through which the lives of marginalized communities in developing countries can be improved. Yet in some cases, the policy interventions adopted by the managers of these NGAs appear not to be welcomed by their supposed beneficiaries. This article accounts for this predicament by examining the effects of different configurations of accountability within NGAs promoting labor rights. Most labor‐rights NGAs incorporate “proxy accountability” arrangements, in which consumers and activists hold decision makers accountable “on behalf” of the putative beneficiaries of the NGAs: workers and affected communities in poorer countries. The article shows how and why different combinations of proxy versus beneficiary accountability influence the choice of policy instruments used by NGAs, and applies the argument to three prominent non‐state initiatives in the domain of labor standards.

Scepticism about the possibility of a democratically governed global polity is often rooted in beliefs about 'necessary conditions'. Some democracy scholars consider a transition to global democracy to be incompatible with necessary conditions for democratic governance, while some international relations scholars consider it to be incompatible with necessary conditions for international structural change. This article assesses hypotheses and evidence about democratic transitions within states and transformations in the interaction among states, and concludes that arguments based on necessary conditions are not compelling. This suggests that global democracy may be unlikely but it is not impossible.

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In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have used the concept of "accountability" to describe and assess relationships among actors who are primarily based in different state jurisdictions, or involving actors transcending state jurisdictions.Is there something inherently distinctive about accountability in transnational spaces as compared to the more familiar instances of accountability observed in domestic contexts? This article examines the distinctiveness of transnational accountability in relation to: (1) its general meaning and specific forms; (2) its aims and importance; (3) its empirical existence and the relative frequency of its forms; (4) its causes; and (5) its effects. The article cautiously concludes that on most of these dimensions the similarities outweigh the differences and that it would be unfruitful for research on transnational accountability to develop separately from that on domestic accountability.2

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