Private Authority on the Rise: A Century of delegation in multilateral environmental agreements.

As globalization has increased the interdependence among states, the flows of goods and people across borders and the organization and reach of civil society, some scholars and policymakers have argued that the result is a waning in the power of the state. A dozen years ago, Susan Strange went so far as to proclaim a "retreat of the state" and challenge the relevance of "state-centricity" of modern international relations (1996). Although Strange's argument is probably overstated, the intuition is certainly correct: the role of the state is changing. This paper aims to understand when and how non-state actors are undertaking governance activities. I am uninterested in contributing to an "either/or" debate about whether the state is in retreat. Rather, I am interested in the changing nature of the relationship between state and non-state actors, and specifically, the ways in which non-state actors govern in international environmental politics. The nature of this relationship represents a relatively new area of research, and is little understood. This analysis contributes to the study of non-state actorsâ??and therefore, debates on private authority and the role of the stateâ??by conducting a careful historical analysis of delegation to non-state actors in multilateral environmental agreements. I look closely at one governance role assumed by private actors: the extent to which they are selected as agents by states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]