Showing papers in "Review of International Political Economy in 2016"
TL;DR: The authors revisited two long-standing controversies: Has the policy content of IMF programs evolved to allow for more policy space? Do these programmes now allow for the protection of labour and social policies?
Abstract: In recent years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has re-emerged as a central actor in global economic governance. Its rhetoric and policies suggest that the organization has radically changed the ways in which it offers financial assistance to countries in economic trouble. We revisit two long-standing controversies: Has the policy content of IMF programmes evolved to allow for more policy space? Do these programmes now allow for the protection of labour and social policies? We collected relevant archival material on the IMF's lending operations and identified all policy conditionality in IMF loan agreements between 1985 and 2014, extracting 55,465 individual conditions across 131 countries in total. We find little evidence of a fundamental transformation of IMF conditionality. The organization's post-2008 programmes reincorporated many of the mandated reforms that the organization claims to no longer advocate and the number of conditions has been increasing. We also find that policies intro...
272 citations
TL;DR: The concept of the "repo trinity" was introduced by as mentioned in this paper, which captures a set of policy objectives that central banks outlined after the 1998 Russian crisis, the first systemic crisis of collateral-based finance, connecting financial stability with liquid government bond markets and free repo markets.
Abstract: In its capacity as debt issuer, the state has played a growing role in financial life over the last 30 years. To examine this role and connect it to shadow banking, the paper develops the concept of the ‘repo trinity’, which captures a set of policy objectives that central banks outlined after the 1998 Russian crisis, the first systemic crisis of collateral-based finance. The repo trinity connected financial stability with liquid government bond markets and free repo markets. It further reinforced the dominance of the US government bond market as institutional template for states adjusting to a world of independent central banks, market-based financing and global competition for liquidity. Central banks and the Financial Stability Board recognized the impossible nature of the trinity after 2008, attributing cyclical leverage (financial instability) and elusive liquidity in collateral markets to deregulated repo markets, markets systemic to shadow banking. The new approach triggered radical changes in crisis central banking but has not powered significant regulatory interventions in the absence of an alternative mode of organizing government bond markets.
141 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a wide variety of non-trade issues (NTIs) in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) is examined and it is shown that prominent explanations fall short of explaining this variation.
Abstract: Human rights, labour standards, and environmental protection standards are commonly linked to trade. Because these links come in different forms, the question arises: what accounts for such variation? An examination of the wide variety of non-trade issues (NTIs) in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) reveals that prominent explanations fall short of explaining this variation. I argue that domestic characteristics of trade partner countries trigger lobbying by interest groups and cause design changes. I hypothesize that strong import and wage pressure increases lobbying by social and environmental protection advocates. A large difference between member states regarding civil and political rights protection levels should trigger NGO activity, but only if at least one member complies at a very high level already. In order to test the argument, I rely on a novel dataset including newly coded data on NTIs design for 474 PTAs signed between 1990 and January 2016. The findings using multivariate regress...
121 citations
TL;DR: This article studied the role of monetary trust in the politics of central bank legitimacy which, for the first time in decades, appears fragile, and showed that central bankers willingly nourished the folk-theoretical notion of money as a quantity under the direct control of the central bank.
Abstract: Financial upheaval and unconventional monetary policies have made money a salient political issue. This provides a rare opportunity to study the under-appreciated role of monetary trust in the politics of central bank legitimacy which, for the first time in decades, appears fragile. While research on central bank communication with ‘the markets’ abounds, little is known about if and how central bankers speak to ‘the people.’ A closer look at the issue immediately reveals a paradox: while a central bank's legitimacy hinges on it being perceived as acting in line with the dominant folk theory of money, this theory accords poorly with how money actually works. How central banks cope with this ambiguity depends on the monetary situation. Using the Bundesbank and the European Central Bank as examples, this article shows that under inflationary macroeconomic conditions, central bankers willingly nourished the folk-theoretical notion of money as a quantity under the direct control of the central bank. By...
113 citations
TL;DR: The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations aim to create the world's most ambitious trade agreement between the two largest economies as discussed by the authors, but the politics associated with TTIP are different from those associated with previous trade negotiations and they diverge from the prevailing International Political Economy (IPE) account of trade policy.
Abstract: The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations aspire to create the world's most ambitious trade agreement between the world's two largest economies. The politics associated with TTIP are different from those associated with previous trade negotiations. Moreover, they diverge from the prevailing International Political Economy (IPE) account of trade policy. The politics of TTIP diverge from the conventional IPE account of trade politics in two particularly noteworthy ways. First, rather than being rivals, American and European business interests are allies, adopting common positions on what they want the agreement to look like. Second, opposition within both the USA and the EU comes not primarily from firms and workers fearing increased economic competition, but from less traditional trade actors – consumer and environmental groups and citizens – concerned about the erosion of valued regulations. I argue that the unusual politics is the product of two distinct, but related ...
112 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a new body of work called the "new interdependence" explains how these transformations are playing out, which stresses a structural vision of international politics based on rule overlap between different national jurisdictions, which leads to clashes over whose rules should apply when.
Abstract: Mainstream approaches to international political economy seek to explain the political transformations that have made more open trade relations possible. They stress how changing coalitions of interest groups within particular states and changing functional needs of states give rise to new international agreements. While these approaches remain valuable, they only imperfectly encompass a new set of important causal relations. We now live in the world that trade built – a world where greater interdependence has major consequences both for actors' interests and their ability to pursue those interests. A new body of work, which we have called the 'new interdependence' explains how these transformations are playing out. The new interdependence stresses a structural vision of international politics based on rule overlap between different national jurisdictions, which leads to clashes over whose rules should apply when. This not only generates tensions, but also opportunity structures that may help acto...
92 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the influence of academic economists in shadow banking regulation and found that academic economists' influence came from their credibility as arbitrageurs between several professional fields rather than their intellectual output.
Abstract: Who controls global policy debates on shadow banking regulation? We show how experts secured control over how issues in shadow banking regulation are treated by examining the policy recommendations of the Bank of International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Stability Board. The evidence suggests that IO experts embedded a bland reformism opposed to both strong and ‘light touch’ regulation at the core of the emerging regulatory regime. Technocrats reinforced each other's expertise, excluded some potential competitors (legal scholars), co-opted others (select Fed and elite academic economists), and deployed measurement, mandate, and status strategies to assert issue control. In the field of shadow banking regulation, academic economists’ influence came from their credibility as arbitrageurs between several professional fields rather than their intellectual output. The findings have important implications for how we study the relationship between IO technocrats and exp...
68 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the main features of the financialisation of the Portuguese economy and society by focusing on the relation between the Portuguese financial sector and both external and domestic economic agents.
Abstract: This paper presents the main features of the financialisation of the Portuguese economy and society by focusing on the relation between the Portuguese financial sector and both external and domestic economic agents. It underlines the role played by the insertion of domestic finance into international financial markets in the financialisation of the country. Based on the Portuguese case, it elaborates on the theoretical understanding of the context-specific nature of semi-peripheral financialisation aimed as a contribution to an emerging body of literature addressing this phase of capitalism.
50 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that China's state-led capitalism is an important form of patient capital, characterized by a longer term horizon, and argued that its rapid global expansion has transformed the traditional relationship between economic interdependence and national policy autonomy.
Abstract: Globalization scholars have long-debated to what extent economic integration, and, specifically, mobile private capital, constrains national policy-making. With Western capital reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, state-owned capital made inroads globally. China, as the world's largest saver, expanded its cross-border lending, funneling almost US$300 billion to developing countries since the crisis. What are the implications for debtor governments’ room to maneuver? I contend that China's state-led capitalism is an important form of patient capital, characterized by a longer term horizon. I argue that its rapid global expansion has transformed the traditional relationship between economic interdependence and national policy autonomy. Without the market's threat of short-term capital withdrawal, national governments have considerably more room to maneuver. Given the recent emergence of Chinese financing, I employ a comparative case study analysis of two of China's largest debtors – Brazil and Ve...
49 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that intra-industry trade in the postwar period has undermined traditional trade coalitions and created new opportunities for individual firms to become politically active, drawing on new trade theories from economics and firm heterogeneity and lobbying.
Abstract: Why are industries highly active in some battles over international trade policies, but in other instances, individual firms are highly active and industry groups are subdued? I argue that rising intra-industry trade in the postwar period has undermined traditional trade coalitions and created new opportunities for individual firms to become politically active. Drawing on new trade theories from economics, as well as work on firm heterogeneity and lobbying, I argue that industry associations become less active as intra-industry trade increases due to competing trade preferences among member firms. At the same time, individual firms become more politically active. My results suggest that firms lobby not only for protection, but liberalization. Using data on lobbying expenditures in the USA, my work takes recent analyses of intra-industry trade and lobbying a step further. I show how intra-industry trade redraws domestic political alignments and changes the composition of societal coalitions organiz...
48 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an analysis of the Cayman offshore financial center (OFC) and show that the United States is the largest counterparty in all segments with Japan playing an important role too.
Abstract: The Cayman Islands is a key node in contemporary global finance, yet it is severely under-researched. This paper compiles the first ‘anatomy’ of the Cayman offshore financial center (OFC), utilizing all sources of publicly available data about the three main segments: banking, direct investment, and portfolio investment. The analysis is performed both diachronically to see when large inflows occurred and geographically to determine what role certain countries play in different segments. This dissection of the Cayman OFC shows that the United States is the largest counterparty in all segments with Japan playing an important role too. In fact, when excluding long-term Treasuries, Cayman is the largest holder of US securities in the world. Hedge funds are the main factor for this strong Cayman-US link. About 60% of global hedge fund assets are legally domiciled in Cayman – an extraordinary spatial concentration in such a tiny jurisdiction. A novel contribution to the analysis of the Cayman OFC is the...
TL;DR: This article showed that the establishment of transnational soft law by regulatory networks at t1 creates policy templates that disrupt pre-existing internal (e.g. domestic) political contests at t2.
Abstract: Pre-crisis global governance of finance was marked by considerable preference alignment between the two regulatory great powers, the US and the EU. The article's explanation of this surprising pattern in regulatory preferences takes the institutional context of global finance seriously. It highlights the endogenous, temporal effects of inter-national institutions at the core of global economic governance: transnational regulatory networks and the soft law they produce. Transnational soft law is not simply an articulation of a focal point, we demonstrate, but also a political resource that may be employed by reform-minded agents dissatisfied with their domestic policy status quo. We label such feedback processes ‘templates-as-disruptors,’ meaning that the establishment of transnational soft law by regulatory networks at t1 creates policy templates that disrupt pre-existing internal (e.g. domestic) political contests at t2. In addition to improving an understanding of historical events and great pow...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a taxonomy of cooperative, co-optative, competitive, or conflictual relations between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international bureaucracies, showing how different mixes of resources and values help to explain why FAO bureaucrats have cycled through different relationships with NGOs.
Abstract: International bureaucrats employed in inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) have a stake in the solidification and expansion of traditional global governance structures. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often are thought to be threats to IGOs. But international bureaucracies regularly seek cooperation with NGOs that can help in ‘cross-national layering’: the creation of formal or informal international institutions that overlay domestic institutions, seeking to replace or subsume them over time. This article develops a ‘4Cs taxonomy’ in which shared/unshared resource bases and shared/unshared values translate into cooperative, co-optative, competitive, or conflictual relations between NGOs and international bureaucracies. It then examines the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) over a 70-year period, showing how different mixes of resources and values help to explain why FAO bureaucrats have cycled through different relationships with NGOs. This exemplifies themes of the New Interdepend...
TL;DR: Tax cooperation puts offshore centers worse off, as their compensation for forgone profits is a hard political sell, and unlikely to produce the same spillover effects on wages and employment as the attraction of foreign tax base as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Tax cooperation puts offshore centers worse off, as their compensation for forgone profits is a hard political sell, and unlikely to produce the same spillover effects on wages and employment as the attraction of foreign tax base. Coercion by a great power thus seems to be a prerequisite for successful international cooperation in tax matters. Great power status is based on internal market size. Governments become substantially more likely to use this power through sanction threats against tax havens when two factors coincide: (1) domestic constraints preventing a shift of the tax burden to labor and consumption and (2) scope for redistributive cooperation benefitting great power banks or multinationals. Hypotheses are tested in an analysis of tax negotiations at OECD level between 1996 and 2014.
TL;DR: When most political economists talk about finance, they mean the conventional banking sector that is subject to reserve requirements and other regulations but enjoying the safety nets offered by cen....
Abstract: When most political economists talk about finance they mean the conventional banking sector that is subject to reserve requirements and other regulations but enjoying the safety nets offered by cen...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors unpacked the mechanics of shadow banking and compared them to traditional banking, showing that shadow banks played a significant role in the rent-seeking behavior of the financial sector.
Abstract: What is shadow banking and what is political about it? To address these questions, the paper first unpacks the mechanics of shadow banking and compares them to traditional banking. Based on this stylized explanation, it problematizes the use of the term ‘banking’. Indeed, shadow banks turn long-term liabilities into short-term financial instruments, effectively turning traditional banking on its head. Next, it draws on three political science frameworks to bring to the fore and develop the political content of mainstream economic expertise on shadow banks. First, it shows that shadow banks played a significant role in the rent-seeking behavior of the financial sector by extracting regulatory rents and subsidies. Second, in spite of this, the extension of public backstops to shadow banks has largely been treated as logical institutional adaptation to a changing financial landscape. Third, shadow banking emerged alongside and contributed to growing economic inequality. It did so by acting as a credi...
TL;DR: In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, there has been an understandable focus on the financial fragility and contagion aspects of shadow banking as discussed by the authors, and it has been well established that shadow banking permits the transformation of assets and financial claims.
Abstract: In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, there has been an understandable focus on the financial fragility and contagion aspects of shadow banking. This article argues that shadow banking is important for another set of reasons. It has been well established that shadow banking permits the transformation of assets and financial claims. It has also been established that fiscal and regulatory arbitrage occurs through shadow banking, and associated offshore financial activities. The article develops the argument that together these are transforming the times and spaces of modern finance, and directly challenging earlier spatio-temporal concepts of finance, and the regulatory/jurisdictional order built on them. The article suggests that the longer term significance of shadow banking may not just be its role in financial crisis, or even tax and regulatory arbitrage, but that it was here that innovative forms of capital were produced and generalised which transcended the spaces and times of earlier in...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the evolution of European actors' preferences was shaped by the layering of new crisis management rules into the machinery of the monetary union, which allowed political actors in favor of the status quo achieving their pre...
Abstract: The paper sets out to explain why the European Central Bank and the European Commission relaxed their opposition to debt restructuring and fiscal accommodation for Greece in the shift from the first to second adjustment program. Using the findings of the empirical analysis, the paper shows that EU institutions’ repositioning cannot easily be ascribed to the mechanisms that are typically at play in international negotiations, namely exogenous pressures and internalization of new beliefs through persuasion. Instead, the paper argues that a more nuanced and complete explanation of the relaxation of opposition to the change in the program strategy requires taking into account the institutional and temporal dimensions of the Troika negotiations. Specifically, the paper shows that the evolution of European actors’ preferences was shaped by the layering of new crisis management rules into the machinery of the monetary union. Layering allowed political actors in favor of the status quo achieving their pre...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the rise of the most important present taxes: the personal and corporate income tax, the general sales tax and the value-added tax, based on a self-coded dataset, and test the effect of trade liberalization on the probability to adopt hard-to-collect taxes.
Abstract: For a long time, governments relied heavily on trade taxes as the main source of public finance, and for some countries, mainly less developed ones, they still account for a large share of revenue. Yet, with trade liberalization, governments have been forced to abandon these easy-to-collect taxes and to adopt modern hard-to-collect taxes, mainly internal income and consumption taxes. Surprisingly, we know little about how governments across the world have addressed this common challenge. In this paper, we analyze the rise of the most important present taxes: the personal and corporate income tax, the general sales tax and the value-added tax. Based on a self-coded dataset, we provide a historical-descriptive outline of the expansion of modern taxes since 1842 and test the effect of trade liberalization on the probability to adopt hard(er)-to-collect taxes. While trade is an important determinant for the legislation of modern taxes, we find that its influence is not universal but depends on the tax...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that we know quite a lot about the tax effects of globalization, domestic and international, and argue that contemporary conditions create especially severe challenges for the pursuit of greater income equality and enhanced public goods provision in developing nations.
Abstract: Concomitant with globalization, neoliberal tax reforms have spread across the globe since the early 1980s. In many countries, statutory rates, the number of tax brackets, and the incidence of tax allowances have been reduced for income taxes; in the developing world, international liberalization has also been associated with reduced revenues from trade taxes and increased pressures for expansion of the value added tax and income tax revenue intake. Yet, competition for mobile assets and new opportunities for tax avoidance potentially constrains taxation of corporate and personal income. Thus, contemporary conditions create especially severe challenges for the pursuit of greater income equality and enhanced public goods provision in developing nations. The present paper situates this special issue's contributions within the theoretical and empirical literatures that seek to explain contemporary changes in taxation. I argue that we know quite a lot about the tax effects of globalization, domestic po...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors interviewed 263 local human rights organizations (LHROs) and key informants from 60 countries and conducted statistically representative surveys of 6180 respondents in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria.
Abstract: Local human rights organizations (LHROs) are key domestic and transnational actors, modifying, diffusing, and promoting liberal norms; mobilizing citizens; networking with the media and activists; and pressuring governments to implement international commitments. These groups, however, are reliant on international funds. This makes sense in politically repressive environments, where potential donors fear government retaliation, but is puzzling elsewhere. We interviewed 263 LHRO leaders and key informants from 60 countries, and conducted statistically representative surveys of 6180 respondents in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria. Based on these data, we believe LHRO funding in non-repressive environments is shaped by philanthropic logics of appropriateness. In the late 1990s, transnational activists successfully mainstreamed human rights throughout the international donor assistance community, freeing up development money for LHROs. Domestic activists in the global South have not promoted simila...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that tax incentive adoption in many developing countries leads to a race to the top among subnational governments and an oversupply of tax incentives in a country.
Abstract: Many developing countries use tax incentives to attract foreign direct investment, sacrificing immediate revenue from foreign capital, even though the effects of tax incentives on investment, growth, and revenue are empirically dubious. This leads to the puzzle of why states adopt tax incentives. Extant studies of tax incentive adoption overlook the fact that many countries have decentralized fiscal authority, allowing subnational governments to offer tax incentives. Public finance scholars argue that fiscal federalism intensifies tax competition among regions. Hence, drawing on the public finance scholarship, one may ask: Does fiscal decentralization lead to a race to the top among subnational governments and an oversupply of tax incentives in a country? This article argues that fiscal decentralization affects tax incentives in complex ways. When subnational governments are authorized to set tax policies, their politicians have economic and political incentives to engage in tax competition for mo...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors map trends of tax policy change in developing countries and transition economies since the 1980s, compare them to tax trends in the advanced Western democracies and review some of the explanations offered by the contributions to this volume.
Abstract: We map trends of tax policy change in developing countries and transition economies since the 1980s, compare them to tax trends in the advanced Western democracies and review some of the explanations offered by the contributions to this volume. We find that non-Western countries follow the lead of Western countries in some important respects but not in others. While non-Western countries brought their general revenues closer to Western levels and copied important features of Western consumption taxation including higher value added tax revenues and lower revenues from trade taxation, they failed to emulate the hallmark of 20th-century Western taxation: a strong and progressive personal income tax. The taxation trends are closely associated with socio-economic changes (as summarized by GDP per capita) and structural factors (as summarized by country size). Yet the impact of political institutions on taxation is non-linear and complex.
TL;DR: This paper developed a theoretical framework that outlines the central policy challenges facing late innovators and employed this framework to compare China and India's progress in this regard, finding that China has confronted the basic reform challenges more successfully, has more impressive innovation outputs, and has integrated into global networks more successfully.
Abstract: Despite growing interest in the phenomenon of ‘latecomer innovation,’ the nature of this challenge – and its relationship to globalization – remain poorly understood. This article develops a theoretical framework that outlines the central policy challenges facing late innovators. It maintains that globalization has not fundamentally altered these challenges, but rather underlined the importance of surmounting them successfully. The article then employs this framework to compare China and India's progress in this regard. It finds that China has confronted the basic reform challenges more successfully, has more impressive innovation outputs, and has integrated into global networks more successfully. Yet it also notes the weaknesses of China's approach and the potential for these to constrain its development in the future.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that not all small (large) countries have low (high) capital taxes, and that the reason why not all countries have high capital taxes is political.
Abstract: It pays to be a tax haven. Ireland has become rich that way. Why do not all countries cut their capital taxes to get wealthy? One reason is structural. As the standard model of tax competition explains, small countries gain from competitive tax cuts while large countries suffer. Yet not all small (large) countries have low (high) capital taxes. Why? The reason, we argue, is political. While the standard model assumes governments to be democratic, more than a third of countries worldwide are non-democratic. We explain theoretically why autocracies are less likely to adjust to competitive constraints and test our argument empirically against data on the corporate tax policy of 99 countries from 1999 to 2011.
TL;DR: In this article, the impact on international monetary power of the size and nature of the US's international financial assets and liabilities has been examined, focusing on sources of valuation, sensitivity and vulnerability of US economy to these changes and implications for US ability to use monetary statecraft.
Abstract: We address the impact on international monetary power of the size and nature of the US's international financial assets and liabilities. Financial globalization makes critical a focus on a nation's international financial assets and liabilities, its ‘external balance sheet’. We suggest an expansion of Cohen's existing framework of international monetary power to include the implications of valuation changes in these external balance sheets, focusing on sources of valuation, sensitivity and vulnerability of the US economy to these changes and implications for US ability to use monetary statecraft. By focusing on developments since 2007 and on events over the financial crisis period, we show that the increased size and nature of the US's external balance sheet has reduced US autonomy and monetary power. Underpinning the changes in the US's external balance sheet are activities of private financial market actors whose influence in international monetary affairs has grown markedly.
TL;DR: In this paper, the conditions under which international financial institutions (IFIs) successfully assist developing countries with recovering the lost revenue from trade liberalization by implementing various domestic tax reforms are investigated.
Abstract: Developing countries are being confronted with severe fiscal challenges in the global economy. Over the last two decades, governments have been accepting significant reductions in trade taxes to support trade liberalization. This is particularly problematic for developing economies because trade taxes have been a key source of government revenues. In this paper, we investigate the conditions under which international financial institutions (IFIs) successfully assist developing countries with recovering the lost revenue from trade liberalization by implementing various domestic tax reforms. We argue that regime type mediates the effectiveness of IFI assistance in developing economies, after trade reforms have been adopted. More specifically, IFIs will be more effective at assisting authoritarian regimes with domestic tax reforms as a substitute for trade taxes than they will be in poor democracies. Democratically elected leaders inadvertently undermine multilateral assistance with tax reforms becau...
TL;DR: The New Interdependence Approach (NIA) as mentioned in this paper is a model of cross-border complex governance, which is defined by the disruption of the dominant role of national governments in global and regional governance.
Abstract: Existing models that aim to explain the effects of economic interdependence on global politics do not adequately capture transnational politics and the production of new modes of governance. The new interdependence approach (NIA), defined and illustrated in this symposium, exemplifies new modes of cross-border complex governance. Complex governance is defined by its disruption of the dominant role of national governments in global and regional governance. National governments have become only one set of actors in among a heterogeneous group of participants in global governance, agents who collaborate across type to produce more informal and less legalized governance outcomes. Complex governance and the NIA approach appear to have both functional limits (more apparent in issue-areas new to the global agenda) and spatial limits (gradually extending beyond the industrialized countries to the developing world). National governments and politics remain influential in a world of complex governance. A fi...
TL;DR: The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety as discussed by the authors was a product of European governments' responses to public concerns over the potential environmental and health impacts of GMOs in an unregulated global economy.
Abstract: This paper draws on the work of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi in analyzing the consequences of legal regimes that regulate genetically modified foods. Against the tide of neoliberalism, a binding, precautionary agreement over trade in genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has emerged through the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. This Protocol exemplifies what Polanyi termed the ‘self-protection of society,’ the second phase of his double movement. The Protocol's final form was a product of European governments’ responses to public concerns over the potential environmental and health impacts of GMOs in an unregulated global economy. This ‘self-protective’ turn has been manifest at regional and national scales, including in Australia. Drawing on Gramsci, I argue that this unlikely turn emerged in the context of shifting public opinion, effective anti-GMO activism, and alternative discursive framings. It took hold with European publics and governments, generating the relations of force needed to be...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the role of an informal transnational network in the shifting of the policies of national governments and international organizations in the absence of formal action to do so.
Abstract: A well-known approach to modeling international relations treats them as a two-level game played by national governments and international organizations, in which they negotiate with one another while coping with internal constraints on their action posed by domestic politics or organizational governance. Officials in these organizations can play a different two-level game, arising from their simultaneous negotiations within their personal transnational networks and their official duties in their host organizations. In each domain, they can act in ways that improves their outcomes in the other one – informal understandings facilitate subsequent formal agreement, while actions taken within their organizations implement and cement what had been negotiated informally. Multi-organizational innovation can thus be coordinated even in the absence of formal action to do so. This process is illustrated through an examination of the role of an informal transnational network in the shifting of the policies o...