Introduction 1 Freedom's Just Another Word  2 The Construction of Consent 3 The Neoliberal State 4 Uneven Geographical Developments 5 Neoliberalism with 'Chinese Characteristics' 6 Neoliberalism on Trial 7 Freedom's Prospect Notes Bibliography Index

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A Brief History of Neoliberalism

世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

The growing technical uncertainties and complexities of problems of global concern have made international policy coordination not only increasingly necessary but also increasingly difficult. If decision makers are unfamiliar with the technical aspects of a specific problem, how do they define state interests and develop viable solutions? What factors shape their behavior? Under conditions of uncertainty, what are the origins of international institutions? And how can we best study the processes through which international policy coordination and order emerge? While a variety of analytic approaches have been used to address the problems of international cooperation, the approaches have yielded only fragmentary insights. At its core, the study of policy coordination among states involves arguments about determinism versus free will and about the ways in which the international system is maintained and transformed. Among the overlapping topics of debate are whether national behavior is determined or broadly conditioned by system-level factors, unit-level factors, or some complex interplay between the two; whether state policymakers can identify national interests and behave independently of pressures from the social groups they nominally represent; and whether states respond consistently to opportunities to create, defend, or expand their own wealth and power, to enhance collective material benefits, or to promote nonmaterial values.' A related question of

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Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination

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

Advances in the science and observation of climate change are providing a clearer understanding of the inherent variability of Earth's climate system and its likely response to human and natural influences. The implications of climate change for the environment and society will depend not only on the response of the Earth system to changes in radiative forcings, but also on how humankind responds through changes in technology, economies, lifestyle and policy. Extensive uncertainties exist in future forcings of and responses to climate change, necessitating the use of scenarios of the future to explore the potential consequences of different response options. To date, such scenarios have not adequately examined crucial possibilities, such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, and have relied on research processes that slowed the exchange of information among physical, biological and social scientists. Here we describe a new process for creating plausible scenarios to investigate some of the most challenging and important questions about climate change confronting the global community.

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The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment

OVER THE YEARS, the Brookings Panel has focused overwhelmingly on the U.S. economy. That emphasis reflected the principal interests of its founders, Arthur Okun and George Perry. The United States is by far the largest economy in the world, accounting for a quarter to a third of global output, so understanding the U.S. economy is important. And this economy is rich in data. But that still leaves over two-thirds of the world economy. The Brookings Papers has made excursions into this area from time to time. At various points Europe, Japan, and most recently China have been addressed. There was a flurry of interest in the transition economies some years ago, in the international financial crises of the mid- to late 1990s, and more rarely in developing countries more broadly. The U.S. economy and the economies of the rest of the world intersect through international transactions. These have received more attention in the Brookings Papers, although again largely with a U.S. focus. I will address this intersection with respect to the large global imbalances that exist today, although I will deviate from the usual practice here by adopting a rest-of-the-world rather than a U.S. perspective. In this brief paper I want to cast doubt on two related propositions that are widely accepted as truths: that Americans save too little, and that the U.S. current account deficit is unsustainably large, risking a disorderly adjustment that would be damaging to the world economy in the relatively near (but usually unspecified) future. These remarks should not be treated as new truths, but as plausible alternative hypotheses about how the world works these days, how we reached our current circumstances, and what the future may bring. U.S. National Saving in Perspective I begin with U.S. saving because I will say less about it. The question of whether Americans save enough relates to the broader topic of global imbalances through the national accounts identity linking the current account deficit to the difference between domestic investment and national saving. A current account deficit cannot be reduced without reducing the excess of investment over saving. Few argue that the United States should invest less (except perhaps in housing during the housing boom, or in routers and fiberoptic cable in the technology boom), which implies that if the U.S. current account deficit, around 6 percent of GDP in recent years, is to be reduced, national saving--the sum of private and public saving--must be increased. If, as some analysts suggest, (1) the current account deficit should not exceed 3 percent of GDP, and if investment is to be protected, then saving must increase by 3 percent of GDP, or from 13 percent of GDP to 16 percent in terms of 2006 shares. I will refer to gross saving and investment throughout, as is appropriate in a world of rapid technological change. "Replacement" investment is typically technologically superior to its predecessor, and in any case a well-run firm will evaluate all large investments afresh, moving depreciation allowances into new activities if that is economically appropriate. Thus gross saving can be considered as available for new allocation. The U.S. current account deficit has grown over the last decade or so, from 1.5 percent of GDP in 1995 to 6.1 percent in 2005 and 2006. (2) Such growth implies a widening gap between saving and investment. Investment rose in the late 1990s, as did government saving as the federal budget moved into surplus; meanwhile private saving declined. In the early 2000s investment declined, but public saving declined even more, by an extraordinary 6 percent of GDP between 2000 and 2004, as a result of recession, federal tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, and increased expenditure for the military, for homeland security, and under other headings. Private saving recovered somewhat with the growth in corporate earnings from 2001 to 2005, despite a continued decline in recorded household saving. …

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Living with Global Imbalances

Three propositions have become conventional wisdom in Washington and elsewhere: Americans save too little. The US current account deficit is thus unsustainably large. The Chinese currency must appreciate significantly to bring the global economy into sustainable balance. All these separate but related propositions are highly questionable, the author says. He suggests that Americans save quite enough for future generations, that the startlingly large US current account deficit is not only sustainable but a natural feature of today's highly globalized economy, and that a revaluation of the Chinese currency, far from alleviating global imbalances, would run the risk of precipitating a financial crisis.

Living with Global Imbalances: A Contrarian View

The proposal discussed in this paper is to levy a common charge on all emissions of greenhouse gases, worldwide. All countries would be covered in principle, but the proposal could be implemented with a much smaller number of countries, provided they covered most of the emissions. While all greenhouse gases should in principle be covered, this paper will address mainly carbon dioxide, quantitatively the most important greenhouse gas; extensions to other greenhouse gases could be made with little or (in the case of methane) much difficulty. The charge would be internationally adjusted from time to time, and each country would collect and keep the revenue it generated. This paper will discuss in turn the motivation for such a proposal, how it would be implemented, its likely economic effects, the relationship to energy security, the possibility of mixing an emission charge with other schemes to limit emissions, especially “cap-and-trade” schemes, and the negotiability of such an agreement. The Case for Charges on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Richard N. Cooper Harvard University

Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy: The case for charges on greenhouse gas emissions

Freer Markets, More Rules: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries

The framework of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement for the world's rich countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, is deeply flawed. This paper explains why. The Protocol lacks essential country coverage, provides an inadequate basis for allocating emission rights, lacks provision for monitoring and enforcement, and implies politically unacceptable transfers among governments under a (necessary and desirable) arrangement for trading emission rights. In addition, it would by itself do little to limit climate change. An alternative approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions is suggested, focussing on international agreement on common actions to reduce emissions. And contingency plans for adaptation to climate change and for sequestration greenhouse gases are urged.

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Richard N. Cooper

Papers

Living with Global Imbalances

Living with Global Imbalances: A Contrarian View

Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy: The case for charges on greenhouse gas emissions

Freer Markets, More Rules: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries

The Kyoto Protocol: A Flawed Concept