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To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2005.04.022 Byline: David Graham, Ngaire Woods Keywords: global; multinational corporations; environment; human rights; regulation; NGOs Abstract: Self-regulation by multinational corporations of social/environmental impacts has been advocated as a solution to the regulatory capacity problems faced by developing states. Market pressures can provide incentives for firms to implement codes and standards, and also rely on widely available information about corporate behavior. Voluntary schemes attempt to provide reliable, standardized reporting of information. But government action -- in the North and South -- remains vital to effective regulation, by setting social goals and upholding the freedom of civil society actors to organize and mobilize. International organizations and legal instruments may be able to assist developing country governments in fulfilling these roles. Author Affiliation: University of Oxford, UK Article History: Accepted 20 April 2005

Over the last decade, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have embraced 'good governance' as a set of principles to guide their objectives in member countries. Both institutions now face pressures to apply some similar standards of transparency, accountability and participation to themselves. This paper examines the challenges this poses for the organizations, beyond the steps they have already undertaken to disseminate more information and to enhance their relations with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The paper argues that if 'good governance' is to be furthered within the IMF and the World Bank, then changes in their constitutional rules, their balancing of stakeholders' rights, their decision-making rules and practices, and their staffing and expertise need to be considered.

Across the world, the public sector was increasingly called upon to ball out the private sector in the late 1990s. Is it finally time to set out the exact roles [...]

As governments in many industrialised countries slash aid budgets, so too they face growing scepticism about how effective foreign development assistance can be. Yet the sceptics and budget-slashers tend to [...]

Presents the need for investigating the substance of economic ideas in international relations. Critique of existing rationalist approaches to economic ideas; Preliminary research agenda.