Showing papers in "Review of International Political Economy in 2012"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the IPE of both food and finance and found that US domestic groups were able to boost their influence by allying with other domestic actors concerned about volatile energy prices and by linking their cause to the broader politics of financial reform in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Abstract: The global food crisis of 2007–08 triggered an important US-led initiative to tighten regulations over agricultural derivatives markets. The lead role of the US reflected its structural power in global finance and the influence of societal interests within the US concerned about the rapid growth of financial investment in agricultural derivatives markets over the past decade. Encouraged by market developments and deregulation in the United States, these investments represented a “financialization” of agriculture that was blamed for contributing for global food price volatility. In their push for tighter regulation, US domestic groups were able to boost their influence by allying with other domestic actors concerned about volatile energy prices and by linking their cause to the broader politics of financial reform in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. This episode has important lessons for the literatures analyzing the IPE of both food and finance.
171 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors empirically investigated the role of private sector influence in the creation of the Basel II Capital Accord and found that influence had the effect of increasing regulatory stringency, rather than weakening it.
Abstract: Since the global financial crisis, scholars of international political economy (IPE) have increasingly relied on the concept of ‘regulatory capture’ to explain the weakness of regulatory oversight and, hence, regulatory failures. Yet despite the widespread use of the concept of regulatory capture, its precise mechanisms are not well understood. This paper empirically investigates this hypothesis by examining one important institution of global financial governance that has been subjected to intense private sector lobbying at the transnational level: the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Using extensive archival material as well as interviews with participants in the generation of the Basel II Capital Accord, I argue that while private sector lobbyists had unprecedented access to the regulatory policymaking process, this access did not always translate into influence. Furthermore, when influence was present, it sometimes had the effect of increasing regulatory stringency, rather than weakeni...
149 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a theoretical framework which emphasizes the importance of timing and sequencing in determining the outcome of rule-making in global finance, and explain why Basel II failed to meet the Basel Committee's original objectives.
Abstract: It is now clear that Basel III, a much discussed set of proposals to govern the international banking system drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, has fallen far short of its creators’ aims. Even more puzzlingly, this is not without precedent. Eleven years ago, partly in response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Basel Committee attempted to overhaul global banking rules in order to enhance the stability of the global financial system. The culmination of its five-year efforts, the Basel II Accord, was abandoned by regulators before ever being fully implemented. In this paper, I ask why Basel II failed to meet the Basel Committee's original objectives and why Basel III has met a similar fate. Drawing on recent work on the politics of global regulation, I present a theoretical framework which emphasizes the importance of timing and sequencing in determining the outcome of rule-making in global finance. The success of this framework in explaining the failure of Basel II an...
130 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that certain nationalist policies are not only compatible with neoliberal values, but that these values may actually be dependent on some nationalist policies, and that neoliberal nationalism may be on the rise due to a shift among social democratic forces from a broad strategy of economic nationalism to one of social democratic multilateralism.
Abstract: In the IPE literature, neoliberalism and nationalism have generally been portrayed as anti-thetical to one another. More recently, scholars have sought to challenge this binary view by examining how nationalists have employed neoliberal policies for nationalist reasons. However, while showing how neoliberal policies can be compatible with nationalist values, these approaches have not examined whether the reverse might also be true, whether certain nationalist policies (and discourses) might be genuinely compatible with neoliberal values. To address this gap in the literature, this paper makes two arguments. The first is that certain nationalist policies are not only compatible with neoliberal values, but that these values may actually be dependent on certain nationalist policies. The second argument made is that neoliberal nationalism may be on the rise due to a shift among social democratic forces from a broad strategy of economic nationalism to one of social democratic multilateralism. To demon...
106 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the bank support plan should be viewed as a gift that members of the same elite group extended to each other in exchange for future, albeit still indeterminate, counter-gifts.
Abstract: France's plan de soutien bancaire was in many ways similar to other national rescue plans that were adopted in the context of the global financial crisis. Yet, the French plan stands out for its remarkably collective and conflict-free nature. In order to account for this distinctiveness, we highlight the role of an informal consortium among public and private actors in the French financial establishment. We argue that the bank support plan should be viewed as a gift that members of the same elite group extended to each other in exchange for future, albeit still indeterminate, counter-gifts. Thus, the presidential rhetoric of ‘rupture’, a hallmark of Nicolas Sarkozy's mandate (2007–2012), should not be taken at face value. Behind the scenes, a closed decision-making process brought together and strengthened a small group of high-powered public officials and bankers. The role of this consortium in shaping the bank rescue plan underscores its importance in France's evolving model of capitalism.
80 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how the Chinese state reconfigures its institutional ensemble to integrate landlocked Yunnan Province into the transnational economy embodied in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).
Abstract: In the past five years, the Chinese state has made great effort to implement its ‘going-out’ strategy, i.e., the geographical expansion of Chinese capital and labor overseas. This paper explores how the Chinese state rescales to implement this going-out strategy and produce new spaces of development. Particularly, this paper examines how the Chinese state reconfigures its institutional ensemble to integrate landlocked Yunnan Province into the transnational economy embodied in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). The paper finds that the Chinese state deploys two spatial strategies – upward coordination with international organizations and GMS national governments, and downward implementation throughout Yunnan Province – to establish an interscalar regulatory regime. Through this regime the Chinese state aims to assemble capital, labor, and political clout to expand Chinese capital and labor in the GMS, and to develop Yunnan's economy to ease uneven domestic geographical development. This paper con...
68 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that not all forms of market embeddedness are created equal, and that the relationship between equality and efficiency can be both positive and negative, by examining how different ways of embedding economic activity in society through market regulation produce different combinations of efficiency and equality.
Abstract: Arthur Okun famously argued that “effciency is bought at the cost of inequalities in income and wealth”. Okun's trade-off represents the antithesis to Karl Polanyi's view of the relationship that the more embedded markets are in society, the better the social and economic outcomes they produce. This paper refines both these views. We argue that not all forms of market embeddedness are created equal, and that the relationship between equality and efficiency can be both positive and negative. We show this by examining how different ways of embedding economic activity in society through market regulation produce different combinations of efficiency and equality. We identify empirically three broad patterns: market liberal regulatory frameworks that promote competitive markets without decommodifying institutions; embedded liberal regulations that allow markets to work efficiently, but within the framework of decommodification and equality; and embedded illiberalism, where regulations hinder markets i...
61 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the conditions under which companies in the clothing industry choose private labour-standards regulation with more rather than less stringent regulation are explored, based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of clothing companies in Europe.
Abstract: Why do companies choose the private labour regulations that they do? Scholars know plenty about why companies might accept private regulators to oversee and protect labour standards. But they know very little about why companies choose one rather than another private regulatory approach when several are available, differing in terms of stringency. This paper explores the conditions under which companies in the clothing industry choose private labour-standards regulation with more rather than less stringent regulation. It does so based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of clothing companies in Europe. It argues that business preference for more stringent private labour regulation is positively affected by societal pressure, and that this societal pressure is predominantly orchestrated by activist groups. This not only entails campaigns, but also can be a combination of public and informal efforts to influence companies, together with pressures from consumers and media. This research also sh...
57 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that people who are more concerned about the environment tend to think that globalization has more negative than positive effects, more strongly support jobs-related protectionism and place more emphasis on aspects that go beyond price and quality when evaluating foreign products.
Abstract: A large literature in international political economy views individuals’ trade policy preferences as a function of the income effects of economic openness. We argue that the expected environmental consequences of free trade play a noteworthy role for protectionist attitudes that has not been noted so far. We use unique Swiss survey data that contain measures of individuals’ environmental concerns and different aspects of trade policy preferences to examine whether those who are more concerned about the environment also hold more protectionist trade policy preferences. Our results support this expectation. Individuals who are more concerned about the environment tend to think that globalization has more negative than positive effects, more strongly support jobs-related protectionism, and place more emphasis on aspects that go beyond price and quality when evaluating foreign products. Our results suggest that also the expected environmental consequences of free trade matter for trade policy prefere...
55 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the second face of neoliberalism is argued to have contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 by putting in place a set of opportunities and constraints that led to rapid growth in the market for asset-backe...
Abstract: This paper theorizes about the new international financial architecture as a manifestation of the ‘second face of neoliberalism’ – financial market reregulation through technocratic obfuscation and insularity from democratic political pressure. Using a more expansive definition of the new international financial architecture, one that includes the institutional nexus of international monetary management along with the rules and regulatory bodies governing capital, this argument is developed through an analysis of the origins and functions of two institutions comprising the new international financial architecture – the Basel Capital Accord and the diffusion of inflation targeting regimes across central banks. This paper excavates the neoliberal logic inscribed in these institutions and further shows how these new forms of institutional logic contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 by putting in place a set of opportunities and constraints that led to rapid growth in the market for asset-backe...
55 citations
TL;DR: The authors discusses public sector reform in North America and Western Europe and argues that recent comparative literatures have yet to adequately consider governments themselves, and how changes to their budgeting, operation, and collective bargaining structures have affected jobs and income inequality.
Abstract: This article discusses public sector reform in North America and Western Europe. The argument is made that recent comparative literatures have yet to adequately consider governments themselves, and how changes to their budgeting, operation, and collective bargaining structures have affected jobs and income inequality. Drawing on a range of recent OECD and trade union statistics, as well as qualitative studies, it is claimed that governments converged substantially over period 1990–2005, introducing fiscal austerity measure and making substantive changes to public sector management and operation through privatization, marketization, and public-private partnerships. These substantially recast public sector industrial relations and led to job loss, labour market segmentation, and declining public sector labour power. This is the first study to report on comparative changes and qualitative reforms to fiscal policies, public sector services, and public sector labour forces in 13 OECD countries between...
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparative study of the ways in which transnational integration regimes (TIRs) shape the development of regulatory institutions in emerging market democracies is presented, where the ability of TIRs to alleviate the supply and demand problems of institutional change in these countries depends in large part on the ways they translate their purpose and power into institutional goals, assistance and monitoring.
Abstract: How does the transnationalization of markets shape institution building, particularly in those countries that have few options other than to incorporate the rules and norms promulgated by advanced industrialized countries? Building on recent advances in international and comparative political economy, we propose a framework for the comparative study of the ways in which transnational integration regimes (TIRs) shape the development of regulatory institutions in emerging market democracies. The ability of TIRs to alleviate the supply and demand problems of institutional change in these countries depends in large part on the ways in which TIRs translate their purpose and power into institutional goals, assistance and monitoring. Integration modes can be combined in different ways so as to empower or limit the participation of a variety of domestic public and private actors to pursue and contest alternative institutional experiments. We illustrate the use of our framework via a brief comparison of t...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that core features of the Korean model have been recombined in creative and unanticipated ways to meet the twin challenges of economic openness and knowledge-based industrialisation.
Abstract: In a world of rapid technological change and increasing interdependence between national and global networks, what institutions are necessary to facilitate the execution of a developmental project? An increasingly popular view expects the East Asian model of development to be ill-equipped to deal with the challenges involved in the information economy while the institutions of a ‘developmental network state’ are argued to be of greater utility. This paper tests this view in light of a dramatic shift in the business strategy of Korean firms in the telecommunications sector in the early years of the twenty-first century. I argue that core features of the Korean model have been recombined in creative and unanticipated ways to meet the twin challenges of economic openness and knowledge-based industrialisation. The argument is developed through an examination of the Korean government's promotion of a novel Korean-developed mobile broadcasting standard. I identify and trace the emergence of the institu...
TL;DR: The role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in British economic policy-making and the international political economy, focusing especially on the role of IMF in the 1960s, was examined in this article.
Abstract: This article reassesses the neo-liberal shift within British economic policy-making and the international political economy, focusing especially the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the 1960s. The IMF has always used the conditions attached to its lending to try and shape borrower's policy; here we explore the evolving content of that conditionality and the economic ideas underpinning it. Using recently released IMF records, as well as other archives, we argue that the negotiations between the IMF and the UK Government in the 1960s can be seen as part of the Fund's drive towards a crucial change from discretionary to rules-based approaches to macroeconomic policy making. This drive took place within a struggle over a specific policy instrument, domestic credit expansion (DCE), at that time regarded as an important measure of monetary policy. The article locates the IMF advocacy of DCE within an attempt by the Fund to constrain discretionary policy-making through increasingly specific and binding rules. In response, UK Government officials began to pre-empt and even deceive the Fund to avoid being tied down. Our analysis unpacks which neo-liberal economic ideas the Fund embraced, noting its rejection of monetarism. In the period charted here (1965–69), the rules-based regime remained compatible with Keynesianism. However, the UK Government's grudging acceptance of this approach provided a crucial condition of possibility for a significant qualitative shift in macroeconomic policy-making when rules later became infused with an increasingly neo-liberal character.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use a power theory of value approach to offer a preliminary assessment of whether this transition is likely given the entrenched power of the oil and gas sector in the economy.
Abstract: Liberal capitalist polities are being held up as the ultimate civilizational achievement precisely at a point in time when the energy-demanding built environments and growth imperatives of these societies are threatened by global climate change and the coming end of cheap and abundant carbon energy. Throughout the twentieth century, this pattern of energy-intensive social reproduction was largely shaped by the oil and gas sector creating what I call a petro-market civilization. However, given the challenges presented by peak oil and global warming, transitioning to a low-carbon or green energy future has gathered increasing attention and investment. In this paper, I use a power theory of value approach to offer a preliminary assessment of whether this transition is likely given the entrenched power of the oil and gas sector in the economy. Although the twenty-first century may bear witness to a renewable and sustainable energy paradigm, current evidence suggests that investors are continuing to c...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the puzzle of missing cases of least-developed countries initiating WTO dispute settlement procedures and argue that the absence of cases is not necessarily bad news and shows how the weakest actors can use the dispute settlement system in a lighter version.
Abstract: The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the most judicialized dispute settlement systems in international politics. While a general appreciation has developed that the system has worked quite well, research has not paid sufficient attention to the weakest actors in the system. This paper addresses the puzzle of missing cases of least-developed countries initiating WTO dispute settlement procedures. It challenges the existing literature on developing countries in WTO dispute settlement which predominantly focuses on legal capacity and economic interests. The paper provides an argument that the small universe of ‘actionable cases’, the option of free riding and the assessment of the perceived opportunity costs related to other foreign policy priorities better explain the absence of cases. In addition (and somewhat counterintuitively), we argue that the absence of cases is not necessarily bad news and shows how the weakest actors can use the dispute settlement system in a ‘lighter version’ or i...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose an analytical framework that challenges the dominant full-information factor-endowment approach to public opinion on free trade, which assumes informed individuals who relate expectations about how free trade will affect them to their work skills.
Abstract: In less developed countries, the higher individuals’ labor skills are, the more they support free trade. This recurrent statistical finding is problematic for extant analytical models used to explain and interpret people's positions on free trade. This article proposes an analytical framework that challenges the dominant full-information factor-endowment approach to public opinion on free trade. The dominant approach assumes informed individuals who relate expectations about how free trade will affect them to their work skills. We propose that most individuals lack information and that their positions reflect the influence of information, frames, economic vulnerability, and political endorsements. We test this alternative approach with a Spanish survey conducted in May 2009 and the ISSP survey conducted in 2003 in a large number of less developed and more developed countries. The Spanish data demonstrate that the population is largely uninformed and that their ideas about the consequences of free...
TL;DR: In this article, a cognitive-based constructivist argument is combined with a neo-developmental state structuralist one to present a new understanding of the role of the state in the Irish miracle that explains not only its success and failures but its internal dissonances.
Abstract: This paper advances an argument about the need to take into account two components of state-industry relations if we are to fully understand economic development and policy trajectory, as well as industry-state co-evolution. The first component, the specific structure of the bureaucracy and state-industry relations, has been the focus of intense research. However, the second, the particular industrial economic ideology defining the correct role of the state in industry and industry in a state, is at least as important, if under-researched. In order to do empirically advance the argument the paper merges a cognitive-based constructivist argument with a neo-developmental state structuralist one, to present a new understanding of the role of the state in the Irish miracle that explains not only its success and failures but its internal dissonances, such as the continuous discrimination of the local, Irish-owned, industry in favor of foreign-owned MNCs. The paper illustrates how a particular industri...
TL;DR: The authors compare responses to the crisis in the United States and in the European Union and show that good governance institutions are in crisis in US while it has been a good crisis for governance so far in the EU.
Abstract: The crisis since August 2007 provides an opportunity to observe the workings of good governance institutions under an extreme stress test and in radically different political settings. Institutions such as independent central banks, fiscal rules and regulatory oversight of public finances were meant to depoliticize macroeconomic stabilization. The comparison of responses to the crisis in the United States and in the European Union shows that good governance institutions are in crisis in the US while it has been a good crisis for governance so far in the EU. Levels of fiscal stimulus and monetary easing are surprisingly similar between the EU and the US, yet the ECB has maintained its independence and member states have been restrained from inserting protectionist elements in their stimulus measures. By contrast, the boundaries between economic stabilization and distributive politics have been wiped out in the US because neither the political forces in the states nor the economic forces in the financial sector erected many defences. In the EU, the boundaries as drawn are inimical to joint stabilization efforts but this is exactly why they are politically self-enforcing.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a method to solve the problem of the "missing link" problem in the context of data augmentation, and proposed a solution.Author to supply.
Abstract: ABSTRACT Author to supply.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the different incentives among producer, consumer and transit states and how insights into the economic and institutional dimensions of bargaining shape the value, risks and capacity of the parties to forge and uphold pipeline agreements.
Abstract: The resurgence of Russia's energy diplomacy animates debate among realists, who regard pipelines as instruments of competitive resource nationalism, and their critics, who treat them either as mechanisms for strengthening cooperation or reflecting ‘obsolescing bargains’ that empower transit states upon construction and operation. Yet, this debate conspicuously overlooks the variable record of the arbitrary disruption of Eurasian energy transit. This article addresses these oversights by explicating pipeline politics as an international ‘credible commitment’ problem. It focuses specifically on the different incentives among producer, consumer and transit states and on how insights into the economic and institutional dimensions of bargaining shape the value, risks and capacity of the parties to forge and uphold pipeline agreements. Accordingly, arbitrary disruption is more likely under conditions in which the primary stakeholders are not preoccupied by recouping returns on investment and face incen...
TL;DR: The authors argued that Euro-enthusiasts are wrong because they overestimate the amount of "give" in Europe's domestic politics, and the euro will neither fail nor succeed.
Abstract: After three years of recurrent crisis, what is the future of the euro? For some skeptical observers, mounting tensions in the euro zone are fast approaching a breaking point. Europe's daring monetary experiment, we are told, is doomed to end in spectacular failure. For others, by contrast, the outcome ultimately will be not less union but “more Europe” – an even tighter merger of national economic sovereignty. Tested by adversity, the euro will emerge more successful than ever. Who is right? The correct answer is: Neither. Skeptics are wrong because they underestimate Europe's deep political commitment to the euro's survival, in some form or other. Euro-enthusiasts are wrong because they overestimate the amount of “give” in Europe's domestic politics. The euro will neither fail nor succeed. Defective but defended, it will simply endure.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the role of transnational actors in the global diffusion of social policy ideas in Sub-Saharan Africa and showed that the ILO has proved more influential than the World Bank.
Abstract: Drawing on recent scholarship on transnational actors and on the role of ideas in policy change, this paper analyzes the regional context of the pension reform debate in Sub-Saharan Africa, and shows that, at least since the 1980s, there was significant attention to pension reforms in Africa by global policy actors, including the World Bank. However, unlike in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, where the World Bank proved dominant, the regional environment of pension reform in Sub-Saharan Africa was characterized by a fierce competition between the World Bank and the International Labour Organization (ILO), with each institution promoting different policy preferences. As demonstrated, in Sub-Saharan Africa pension reform, the ILO has proved more influential than the World Bank. Theoretically, the paper stresses the role of transnational actors in the global diffusion of social policy ideas. Recognizing the need to explore the interactions between national and transnational actors, as w...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider three approaches to scientization in world politics: the world polity approach, the world-systems approach and the political sociology of science, and they show that scientization can formalize existing power inequalities given the uneven historical terrain of research legacies.
Abstract: Science has been institutionalized as a legitimate basis for decision-making at the World Trade Organization (WTO). This raises a critical question: how does the scientization of decision-making shape the construction of new governance arrangements? Using the case of negotiations between the Chinese state and the US state over the harmonization of cotton quality classification, I consider three approaches to scientization in world politics: the world polity approach, the world-systems approach and the political sociology of science. Evidence from the case demonstrates the need to largely reject the world polity approach while integrating the world-systems approach with the finer-grained analyses of the political sociology of science. This analysis yields two key arguments regarding the implications of science-based decision-making as an institutionalized global norm. First, scientization can formalize existing power inequalities given the uneven historical terrain of research legacies. Second, as...
TL;DR: The authors argue that the interaction of distributional concerns, cognitive limitations, time-consistency problems, and institutional structures can keep governments from implementing the economically optimal policy response when faced with speculative pressure on their currencies.
Abstract: When faced with speculative pressure on their currencies, policymakers often delay devaluations by spending billions of dollars in defense of a given exchange rate peg, only to succumb and devalue their currency later on. Using a political economy approach we argue that the interaction of distributional concerns, cognitive limitations, time-consistency problems, and institutional structures can keep governments from implementing the economically optimal policy response. We argue that distributional concerns often lead to a ‘bias’ in favor of currency defense as long as market pressures are mild. The political incentives to initially delay devaluations can be exacerbated by institutions that either increase the size of interest groups vulnerable to depreciation or give policymakers incentives to adopt a short time-horizon. Once market pressure becomes strong, however, the politically salient alternative to not depreciating becomes raising interest rates rather than just running down reserves. This...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors outline and explore some of the conditions necessary for International Organizations (IOs) to perform in a public interest fashion through a case study of the Principles of corporate governance formulated by the OECD.
Abstract: This article seeks to outline and explore some of the conditions necessary for International Organizations (IOs) to perform in a public interest fashion through a case study of the Principles of corporate governance formulated by the OECD. Rather than the more commonly documented pathological and dysfunctional behavioural forms of IOs, the case of the Principles, both in their formulation by the OECD, and in their assessment by the World Bank through the ROSC process, represent an episode of IO agency protecting and promoting a wider public interest. In exercising their agency, IO staff, have made the Principles more agreeable to a wider range of interested parties, giving them a general interest orientation, in accordance with a proceduralist definition of public interest. This case should therefore encourage IPE scholars to consider carefully and systematically the sets of circumstances and conditions, which might be required for IO agency to take more socially useful forms. In the final sectio...
TL;DR: In this article, the power relations between international organisations (created by select states to manage and direct the global economy) and the non-member jurisdictions that are, in turn, subjected to their guidance are discussed.
Abstract: While the end of the Bretton Woods system led to deregulation and increased international capital flows, the trend over the past two decades has been toward increased international financial supervision. Aspects for an emerging structure of global governance are congealing into a form of ‘financial governmentality’ as a means to secure society and to isolate criminal and terrorist money. Efforts to defend society from organised crime and transnational terrorism extend into financial services and introduce increased levels of surveillance over all forms of financial exchange. The paper begins with an explication for the power relations between international organisations (created by select states to manage and direct the global economy) and the non-member jurisdictions that are, in turn, subjected to their guidance. The experience of the Philippines with the international campaign against money laundering directed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is presented as a case study for the gover...
TL;DR: Some five years on from the onset of a wide-ranging and deep-seated crisis in the international organization of the world's banking and financial system, scholarly research into the political econo...
Abstract: Some five years on from the onset of a wide-ranging and deep-seated crisis in the international organization of the world's banking and financial system, scholarly research into the political econo...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for a pluralist, integrative, and post-Washington consensus view of an East Asian financial architecture in the post-global crisis world What are the key architectural problems and how might such problems be resolved? The article aims to address these general questions and to develop a policy-applicable theory about a post-crisis regional financial architecture by focusing on the case of East Asia.
Abstract: This article argues for a pluralist, integrative, ‘post-Washington Consensus’ view of an East Asian financial architecture in the post-global crisis world What are the key architectural problems and how might such problems be resolved? The article aims to address these general questions and to develop a policy-applicable theory about a post-crisis regional financial architecture by focusing on the case of East Asia The generic problems identified in the study include sovereignty, power struggles, structural diversity, collective action problems and weak regional identity and norms Herein, I present a conceptual model of logically possible solutions to such problems, which comprises principled minimalism and host regulation, decomposition and issue linkage, and informal intermediaries The proposed solutions reflect and reinforce the normative fragmentation and decentralization of global financial governance in the twenty-first century
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the recent evolution of North American economic and security relations within the context of broader debates in international political economy concerning globalization and its effects on the state in the international system.
Abstract: This paper traces the recent evolution of North American economic and security relations within the context of broader debates in international political economy (IPE) concerning globalization and its effects on the state in the international system. Borrowing from David Lake's discussion of hierarchical sovereignty, this paper argues that efforts to meld security to economics in an integrated North American market devoid of institutions have made sovereignty more hierarchical. It presents an approach to looking at North American integration, which can assist in understanding recent developments that are suggestive of new areas of research and policy development for both practitioners and theoreticians.