Tim Bartley is Professor in the Earth Commons and Department of Sociology at Georgetown University.
His research has focused largely on transnational governance, private regulation, social movements, and corporate responsibility and sustainability initiatives. He has published articles in the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Socio-Economic Review, Social Forces, Social Problems, Annual Review of Law & Social Science, and other journals. His first book, Looking behind the Label: Global Industries and the Conscientious Consumer (Indiana University Press, 2015), examined consumer behavior and the practical influence of standards for sustainable and/or fair production of food, forest products, apparel, and electronics. His second book, Rules without Rights: Land, Labor, and Private Authority in the Global Economy (Oxford University Press, 2018), examines the implementation of fair labor and sustainable forestry standards in Indonesia and China.
He is a former editor of the journal Regulation & Governance and has been a visiting scholar at Princeton, MIT, Sun Yat-sen University, and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.