Transnational public‐private partnerships (PPPs) have become a popular theme in International Relations (IR) research. Such partnerships constitute a hybrid type of governance, in which nonstate actors co‐govern along with state actors for the provision of collective goods, and thereby adopt governance functions that have formerly been the sole authority of sovereign states. Their recent proliferation is an expression of the contemporary reconfiguration of authority in world politics that poses essential questions on the effectiveness and the legitimacy of global governance. In this article, we critically survey the literature on transnational PPPs with respect to three central issues: Why do transnational PPPs emerge, under what conditions are they effective, and under what conditions are they legitimate governance instruments? We point to weaknesses of current research on PPPs and suggest how these weaknesses can be addressed. We argue that the application of IR theories and compliance theories in particular opens up the possibility for systematic comparative research that is necessary to obtain conclusive knowledge about the emergence, effectiveness, and legitimacy of transnational PPPs. Furthermore, the article introduces the concept of complex performance to capture possible unintended side effects of PPPs and their implications on global governance.

Transnational public-private partnerships (PPPs) are new forms of governance that have caught the interest of researchers in recent years. While the literature tends to portray PPPs as loosely institutionalized forms of governance, we argue that PPPs' institutional design varies and matters for their eff ectiveness. We aim to demonstrate that a high degree of institutionalization (obligation, precision, delegation) is relevant in cases that involve collective action problems-that is, for those PPPs that have to deal with distributional confl ict, cheating, or free-riding. To substantiate our argument, we compare and analyze the performance of three transnational water partnerships (not to be confused with municipal for-profi t PPPs). Our results confi rm that a high degree of institutionalization tends to be important for those water partnerships that implement costly projects. It is less important for those that focus on the comparatively undemanding task of exchanging and disseminating knowledge and best practice in water management and governance.

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