This edited volume provides critical reflections on the interplay between politics and law in an increasingly transnationalized global political economy. It focuses specifically on the emergence and operation of new forms of governance that are developing through a variety of transnational contractual practices, institutions, and laws in multiple sectors and areas of economic activity.

Interdisciplinary in nature, the volume includes contributions from law, political science, sociology, and international politics, with the focus on the political foundations of transnational contract being both original and path-breaking. Placing power at the center of the analysis, the volume reveals the heterogeneous landscape of contemporary law-making and the different kinds of politics giving rise to this form of global ordering. As the contributors note, this new form of governance requires a different type of political theory and legal theory, with the volume advancing understanding of the analytical, theoretical and normative dimensions of private transnational governance by contract, making a valuable contribution to new theory in law and politics.

It will be of great interest to students and academics in law, political science, international relations, international political economy and sociology, as well as international commercial arbitration lawyers, trade and investment lawyers, and legal firms.

This book provides critical reflections on the interplay between politics and law in an increasingly transnationalized global political economy. It focuses on the emergence and operation of new forms of governance that are developing through a variety of transnational contractual practices, institutions, and laws in multiple sectors and areas of economic activity. The expert contributors advance the understanding of the analytical, theoretical and normative dimensions of private transnational governance by contract, making a valuable contribution to new theory in law and politics. The volume interest students, academics and professionals of law, political science, IR, international political economy and sociology.

'Cutler and Dietz have brought together a diverse set of authors who together give us a brilliant critical interrogation of the rise of private sector experts in domains concerned with public interests. This has become an increasingly important and alarming issue. A must read.' - Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, USA, author of Expulsions 'In this path-breaking interdisciplinary volume of political scientists, sociologists, and legal scholars, the authors not only demonstrate that non-hierarchical "governance by contract" dominates both state and private regulations in the global political economy but they also elaborate the power dimension of these arrangements. A must read for anybody interested in knowing how the global economy ticks!' - Thomas Risse, Professor of International Politics, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany