Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

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International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

WHEN T H E BROOKINGS Panel on Economic Activity began in 1970, the world economy roughly accorded with the idea of three distinct economic systems: a capitalist first world, a socialist second world, and a developing third world which aimed for a middle way between the first two. The third world was characterized not only by its low levels of per capita GDP, but also by a distinctive economic system that assigned the state sector the predominant role in industrialization, although not the monopoly on industrial ownership as in the socialist economies. The years between 1970 and 1995, and especially the last decade, have witnessed the most remarkable institutional harmonization and economic integration among nations in world history. While economic integration was increasing throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the extent of integration has come sharply into focus only since the collapse of communism in 1989. In 1995 one dominant global economic system is emerging. The common set of institutions is exemplified by the new World Trade Organization (WTO), which was established by agreement of more than 120 economies, with almost all the rest eager to join as rapidly as possible. Part of the new trade agreement involves a codification of basic principles governing trade in goods and services. Similarly, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) now boasts nearly universal membership, with member countries pledged to basic principles of currency convertibility. Most programs of economic reform now underway in the developing world and in the post-communist world have as their strategic aim the

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Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration

Maddison's 1870-1979 data are analyzed, showing the historically unprecedented growth in productivity, GDP per capita and exports and the remarkable convergence of productivities of industrialized market economies, with convergence apparently shared by planned economies but not less developed countries. Productivity lag's relation to "deindustrialization," unemployment and balance of payments is examined. The data confirm that U.S. productivity growth fell behind its extraordinary postwar peak but probably not below its long term level. It is also shown that more rapid productivity growth of other countries may only be a normal concommitant of convergence. Copyright 1986 by American Economic Association.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Productivity Growth, Convergence and Welfare: What the Long Run Data Show

Maddison's 1870-1979 data are analyzed, showing the historically unprecedented growth in productivity, gross domestic product per capita and exports and the remarkable convergence of productivities of industrialized market economies, with convergence apparently shared by planned economies but not less developed countries. Productivity lag's relation to "deindustrialization," unemployment, and balance of payments is examined. The data are shown to suggest a tempered view of the slowdown in U.S. productivity growth and its lag behind other countries.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1816469.pdf

Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: What the Long-Run Data Show

The history of international political orders is written in terms of continuity and change in domestic and international political relations. As a step toward understanding such continuity and change, we explore some ideas drawn from an institutional perspective. An institutional perspective is characterized in terms of two grand issues that divide students of international relations and other organized systems. The first issue concerns the basic logic of action by which human behavior is shaped. On the one side are those who see action as driven by a logic of anticipated consequences and prior preferences. On the other side are those who see action as driven by a logic of appropriateness and a sense of identity. The second issue concerns the efficiency of history. On the one side are those who see history as efficient in the sense that it follows a course leading to a unique equilibrium dictated by exogenously determined interests, identities, and resources. On the other side are those who see history as inefficient in the sense that it follows a meandering, path-dependent course distinguished by multiple equilibria and endogenous transformations of interests, identities, and resources. We argue that the tendency of students of international political order to emphasize efficient histories and consequential bases for action leads them to underestimate the significance of rule- and identity-based action and inefficient histories. We illustrate such an institutional perspective by considering some features of the coevolution of politics and institutions, particularly the ways in which engagement in political activities affects the definition and elaboration of political identities and the development of competence in politics and the capabilities of political institutions.

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The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders

A DECADE OR SO ago, when the twin concerns about the balance of payments of the United States and the functioning of the international monetary system began to impinge on the consciousness of a public theretofore indifferent o such esoterica, the opinions of those who were already paying attention fell into a neat dichotomy. Government officials and "men of affairs," on the one hand, insisted that the continued health of international trade, investment, and the world economy required the maintenance of the Bretton Woods system of pegged exchange rates, under which changes in rates were made infrequently and as a last resort. Academic experts, on the other hand, were nearly unanimous in pressing the advantages of greater flexibility of exchange rates, with many urging that governments abstain altogether from intervention and allow exchange rates to be determined by the interplay of supply and demand in the market-

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Global Monetarism and the Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments

The Australian Economy: A View from the North

European economic integration and the United States

This study re-examines some of the issues, challenges and policy options facing the Singapore economy in the light of the 1985-86 recession. Particular attention is paid towards reappraising the role of the government as an entrepreneur in economic activity, in macro-economic management, in savings and investment, and in the labour market. This is done in the context of and alongside an assessment of Singapore's linkages with the global economy and its future comparative advantage in a dynamic international environment.

Lawrence B. Krause

Papers

Global Monetarism and the Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments

The Australian Economy: A View from the North

European economic integration and the United States

The Singapore economy reconsidered

Worldwide Inflation: Theory and Recent Experience