Twenty years ago, in the pages of the, Journal of Common Market Studies, Hedley Bull launched a searing critique of the European Community's "civilian power" in international affairs. Since that time the increasing role of the European Union (EU) in areas of security and defence policy has led to a seductiveness in adopting the notion of "military power Europe". In contrast, I will attempt to argue that by thinking beyond traditional conceptions of the EU's international role and examining the case study of its international pursuit of the abolition of the death penalty, we may best conceive of the EU as a "normative power Europe".

Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

From the Publisher:
What determines the flow of labor and capital in this new global information economy? Who has the capacity to coordinate this new system, to create a measure of order? And what happens to territoriality and sovereignty, two fundamental principles of the modern state? Losing Control? is a major addition to our understanding of these questions. Examining the rise of private transnational legal codes and supranational institutions such as the World Trade Organization and universal human rights covenants, Saskia Sassen argues that sovereignty remains an important feature of the international system, but that it is no longer confined to the nation-state. Sassen argues that a profound transformation is taking place, a partial denationalizing of national territory seen in such agreements as NAFTA and the European Union. Two arenas stand out in the new spatial and economic order: the global capital market and the series of codes and institutions that have mushroomed into an international human rights regime. As Sassen shows, these two quasi-legal realms now have the power and legitimacy to demand accountability from national governments, with the ironic twist that both depend upon the state to enforce their goals.

Losing Control?: Sovereignty in the Age of Globalization

Enclosed is a copy of the Board of Governors’ Semiannual Agenda of Regulations for the period August 1, 1980 through February 1, 1981. The Semiannual Agenda provides you with information on those regulatory matters that the Board now has under consideration or anticipates considering over the next six months, and is divided into three parts: (1) regulatory matters that the Board had considered during the previous six months on which final action has been taken; (2) regulatory matters that have been proposed for public comment and that require further Board consideration; and (3) regulatory matters that the Board may consider over the next six months.

Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorkの制定せる財務諸表様式について

Este articulo es, a dia de hoy, una de las piezas clasicas y fundamentales para la posibilidad de estudiar las relaciones globales de poder a partir de las herramientas conceptuales desarrolladas por Gramsci a lo largo de su obra. Cox, contribuye de esta forma a las corrientes criticas de las Relaciones Internacionales al discutir varios conceptos gramscianos y cuales serian las implicaciones para estudiar las relaciones internacionales en distintos periodos de hegemonia y contrahegemonia. De igual forma, el autor planteo la cuestion –en su momento novedosa– de la relevancia de tomar en cuenta los procesos internos de construccion de bloques historicos contrahegemonicos como aquellos que podrian tener un efecto revolucionario en las estructuras y organizaciones internacionales, asi como ruptura con la hegemonia plasmada como una clase perteneciente a un orden economico universal transnacional.  This article is a classic and fundamental for approaching global power relations with the conceptual tools developed by Gramsci. Cox contributes to critical thought in International Relations by discussing various gramscian concepts and what their implications are for the study of different historical forms of hegemony and counter-hegemony. Also, the author draws our attention –novel at the time of its publicaction– to the relevance of taking into account the construction of domestic counter-hegemonic historic blocs. He suggests that these could have a revolutionary effect on international structures and organizations, as well as rupture with the hegemony performed by the transnational economic order.

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Gramsci, hegemonía y relaciones internacionales: Un ensayo sobre el método | Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method

Part I. Overviews: 1. Beyond international relations theory: Robert W. Cox and approaches to world order Timothy J. Sinclair 2. Influences and commitments Part II. Theory: 3. The idea of international labour regulation 4. Realism, positivism 5. On thinking about future world order 6. Social forces, states and world orders 7. Gramsci, hegemony and international relations: an essay in method 8. Towards a post-hegemonic conceptualisation of world-order: reflections on the relevancy of Ibn Khaldun 9. 'Take six eggs': theory, finance, and the real economy in the work of Susan Strange Part III. Interpretations: 10. The global political economy and social choice 11. 'Real socialism' in historical perspective 12. Structural issues of global governance: implications for Europe 13. Middlepowermanship, Japan, and future world order 14. Production and security 15. Global perestroika Part IV. Multilateralism: 16. The executive head: an essay on leadership in international organisation 17. Decision making with Harold K. Jacobsen 18. Ideologies and the new international economic order: reflection on some recent literature 19. Labour and hegemony 20. Labour and hegemony: a reply 21. Multilateralism and world order 22. Globalisation, multilateralism and democracy.

Approaches to world order

In The New Masters of Capital, Timothy J. Sinclair examines a key aspect of the global economy-the rating agencies. In the global economy, trust is formalized in the daily operations of such firms as Moody's and Standard & Poor's, which continuously monitor the financial health of bond-issuers ranging from private corporations to local and national governments. Their judgments affect unimaginably large sums, approximately $30 trillion in outstanding debt issues, according to a recent Moody's estimate. The difference between an AA and a BB rating may cost millions of dollars in interest payments or determine if a corporation or government can even issue bonds.Without bond rating agencies, there would be no standard means to compare risks in the global economy, and international investment would be problematic. Most observers assume that the agencies are neutral and scientific, and that they interpret their role in narrowly economic terms. But these agencies, by their nature, wield extraordinary power and exert massive influence over public policy. Sinclair offers a highly accessible account of these institutions, their origins, and the rating processes they use to judge creditworthiness. Illustrated with a wide range of cases, this book offers a fresh assessment of the role of an often-overlooked institution in the dynamics of modern global capitalism.

The New Masters of Capital: American Bond Rating Agencies and the Politics of Creditworthiness

This article argues that certain knowledge-producing institutions located in the American financial industry- debt security or bond rating agencies -are significant forces in the creation and extension of the new, open global political economy and therefore deserve the attention of international political economists as mechanisms of 'governance without government'. Rating agencies are hypothesized to possess leverage, based on their unique gate-keeping role with regard to investment funds sought by corporations and governments. The article examines trends in capital markets, the processes leading to bond rating judgements, assesses the form and extent of the agencies' governance powers, and contemplates the implications of these judgements for further extension of the global political economy and the form of the emerging world order.

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Passing judgement: Credit rating processes as regulatory mechanisms of governance in the emerging world order

Approaches to Global Governance Theory

This article rejects the atomistic conception of international capital mobility as individual, uncoordinated decision-making. It argues that non-state institutions exist in the global political economy which condition the thoughts and actions that comprise the investment process. Because these structure investment, such institutions can be understood as private makers of global public policy. Credit rating agencies are used as an example of these mechanisms. The article examines transformations in the organization of capital markets which underpin the greater influence of these agencies. Functional accounts of rating institutions are evaluated, and their scope for transcending a strict agency role with regard to investors is assessed, based on their possession of specialized forms of knowledge from which they derive control. Some description of the agencies, their international growth and the ratings process is provided. Three arguments about the pressures on the economic and financial structures identified by Zysman (1983) generated by rating agencies are considered. Rating institutions create pressures for fundamental analyss of investment, for a particular view of appropriate management forms and policy lines along new constitutionalist lines, and contribute to a more abstract investment process which is likely to have the effect of transforming social relationships within the dominant alliances of social forces. The article concludes with some consideration of the implications of these hybrid forms of authority and policy for world order.

Timothy J. Sinclair

Papers

Approaches to world order

The New Masters of Capital: American Bond Rating Agencies and the Politics of Creditworthiness

Passing judgement: Credit rating processes as regulatory mechanisms of governance in the emerging world order

Approaches to Global Governance Theory

Between state and market: Hegemony and institutions of collective action under conditions of international capital mobility