Having, in Chapters 20 to 22, summarized our empirical findings about the actors, mechanisms and contests of principles involved in the globalization of business regulation, in this chapter we take our inductive approach to theory formulation to a higher level of abstraction. The first part builds on the conclusion that globalization of regulation is never due to the operation of any single mechanism of globalization nor because of the agency of any one or two types of actors invoking only one or two principles. It follows that realist international relations theory, which studies the actions of one type of actor (states) in terms of a single abstract mechanism (pursuit of interest) fails to offer a useful explanatory framework. To understand how an accomplishment as difficult as the globalization of regulation is institutionalized, we need to understand the operation of a whole web of influences. Strategic wisdom involves actors understanding which strand(s) to seek to tighten at which moment in order to tauten a web that floats in time and space.

In Chapter 17 and Chapter 15, there is a more extended treatment than in the other substantive chapters of how most single strands in global webs of regulatory controls are weak. Weak strands are shown to acquire strength through being tied to other weak strands. In Chapter 13, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) is shown to have weak coercive powers and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is shown to have weak capacities for dialogue and persuasion. Yet these two weak strands are tied together in such a way that the weaknesses of each are reinforced by some strengths of the other. In fact, one of INPO's principal architects recalled an aspiration for other ties to reinforce INPO's weaknesses: ‘We intended to tie together the INPO evaluations and insurance as an enforcement tool’ (Rees 1994: 94). INPO created a mutual insurance organization - Nuclear Electric Insurers - with the idea that it would give INPO the clout to revoke the insurance of a recalcitrant utility. In the end it was decided this tie would be overkill: ‘what the withdrawal of insurance would do to any utility, it would immediately affect their bond rating, their Wall Street situation. It could very well be financially catastrophic. It would be kind of like having a nuclear bomb in your arsenal’ (Rees 1994: 94).