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Abstract
Transnational policy networks (TPNs) are attracting greater scholarly interest given their impact on the contemporary conduct of international affairs. While this has been a welcome development for International Relations scholars and provided some preliminary insights, there is a need for more scholarly studies of TPNs that delve into specific issue-areas on a comparative basis. The paper addresses the above need by providing analyses of the role of European Union (EU)-based actors – the European Commission, member states, civil society organizations, and firms – in regulatory frameworks on conflict-prone natural resources such as oil, diamonds, coltan, tin, tungsten, and gold. To that end, the paper draws upon participant observations, interviews with state and non-state actors, and access to primary documents in order to provide a comparative examination of EU-based state and non-state actors within the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and draft EU legislation that seeks to prevent the trade of conflict-prone minerals.
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of the article were presented at the 87th annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, in Ottawa, Canada, on 4 June 2015, and the inaugural meeting of the European Studies Association of Sub-Saharan Africa, in Pretoria, South Africa, on 5 June 2015. The authors thank Stephen Kingah, Vivien Schmidt, Wang Yong, David Black, Andrew Sherriff, John Kotsopoulos, Philippe Darmuzey, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. The views presented in the article belong to the authors and do not reflect those of the above individuals or the below funding institutions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Centre for International Governance Innovation's Africa Initiative, and Queen's University (via a Senate Advisory Research Committee grant) provided funding for this work.
Notes
1. See also March and Olsen (Citation1998).
2. This section draws upon in-person interviews with EITI country-level representatives as well as EITI participants from industry and civil society conducted from 2012 to 2013.
3. The EITI supporting countries that are EU member states are Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK.