Services sans frontières: the power of standards in the governance of the global service economy

Abstract

This talk presents results of a project recently published as an edited volume (“Services sans frontières: Mondialisation, normalisation et regulation de l’économie des services” – Presses de science po, 2013). The project examines the role of technical standards in the regulation of services at the international level. It brings together scholarship in international political economy, French regulation theory, and economic sociology in order to discuss the following questions: Which services are most likely to be internationalised and what actors are the most concerned by the phenomenon? What is the relationship between the internationalisation of services and their institutional environment? What is more particularly the role of technical standards in delivering and using services? After an overview of cutting edge research on these questions, the talk explores how technical standards shape new forms of collective action and transnational authority, and present a new research agenda for understanding service offshoring.