The emerging practice of social impact assessment (SIA) faces a number of difficult methodological and operational questions. One way of addressing them is to look to the experience of the more developed field of evaluation research (ER). The convergences with and extensions of ER by SIA pose...

Recently, 'new modes of governance' based on voluntary performance standards, rather than compulsory regulation, have gained salience in European Union governance. Can these 'new modes of governance' offer a credible solution to the challenges faced by EU policy making? We argue that a critical...

New modes of governance based on voluntary performance standards, rather than compulsory regulation, have gained salience in the European Union (EU). Can these new modes of governance offer a credible solution to the current challenges faced by EU policy-making? In this article, we assess the...

We examine why international actors—including states, firms, and activists—seek different types of legalized arrangements to solve political and substantive problems. We show how particular forms of legalization provide superior institutional solutions in different circumstances. We begin by...

We develop an empirically based conception of international legalization to show how law and politics are intertwined across a wide range of institutional forms and to frame the analytic and empirical articles that follow in this volume. International legalization is a form of...

States use formal international organizations (IOs) to manage both their everyday interactions and more dramatic episodes, including international conflicts. Yet, contemporary international theory does not explain the existence or form of IOs. This article addresses the question of why states...