This chapter problematises the notion of resilience as continuation with adaptability, suggesting that it requires specifying in advance the essential attributes of a global governance body, which would have to remain largely intact for adaptation to changing circumstance to count as resilience. The chapter therefore identifies those essential attributes for the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC). The chapter then theorises resilience of a private rule-making body as a function of its capacity and capability for autonomous agency in pursuit of its organizational self-interest, the embeddedness of the rule-making body among its stakeholders, and its leadership’s ambition to ensure the organisation’s survival. It shows that these characteristics helped the IEC to achieve resilience in the face of numerous and diverse challenges from technological changes, the emergence of competing SDOs and geopolitical changes accompanied by power transitions in the world economy, including the rise of China. The unresolved challenges of meaningful consumer participation and better gender balance in international standardization suggests, however, that past resilience is only partially predictive of future resilience.

From European integration to domestic politics to the development of the global economy, technocracy and private ordering have shaped economic behaviour. Such transformative private-driven forces of economic activity flourished through the promulgation of voluntary standards. In view of the ever-increasing powers that are transferred to private actors and their relative power as a de facto pillar of global regulatory making, it is surprising that their dominance remains largely unaffected by regulatory shocks that they partly cause. Rather, in practice, crises (broadly defined as disruptive disturbances) appear to empower such forces or generate new ones, whereas existing checks and balances fail their initial purpose. In emphasising the role of the innate traits, fabric of interactions and dynamics in times of crises within private rule-making bodies, the present article analyses the foundations for a new, evidence-based theory to explain the resilience of private collective action and establishes a research agenda.