Showing papers on "International political economy published in 1996"

The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy

Abstract: In April 1970, Susan Strange published an article in the Chatham House review which challenged the mutual exclusivity of international economics and international politics.(f.1) The consequence was a rebirth of the concept of political economy in international studies. She has continued consistently her liberation struggle from academic self-enclosure, disciplinary defensiveness, and turf wars. She insisted that the new international political economy be a broad church open to historians, geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and the whole range of humanistic studies, as well as economists and political scientists. In this, she echoed Fernand Braudel's appeal in 1958 for the integration of the human sciences in his famous essay on the longue duree. Her work never stood still. She moves forward in responding to her critics and, above all, by her acute perceptions of change in reality. She is not alone in perceiving that the field of international relations study (IR) is beset by an identity crisis.(f.2) The problem now is not just the need for a more ecumenical use of methods and approaches but also for a new ontology -- an updated view of the basic entities and relationships that constitute reality. This is what The Retreat of the State is all about. Susan Strange is a realist in the literal sense that she asks: Where does the power lie? What is the nature of the power? Who benefits? Who suffers? Conventional IR has said a priori that power lies with states. Susan Strange challenges the exclusivity of that assumption. Her enquiry into power and its workings contributes to a 'new realism' quite different from the 'neorealism' of established IR. It has, she writes, led her to a 'final parting of the ways from the discipline of international relations' (p xv). As a realist, Strange cuts through such currently fashionable euphemisms as 'regimes,'(f.3) 'interdependence,' 'globalization,' and 'global governance,' to demonstrate that these terms can act as ideological screens to obscure relations of dominance and subordination. Although she has been associated with the proposition that power is shifting from political authorities to markets,(f.4) in this book the classical notion of 'market' is also implicitly questioned. A market is no longer that abstractly defined infinity of buyers and sellers whose interactions are guided to a beneficent outcome by a providential unseen hand. There are many different markets, and they all need to be analysed as power systems. She illustrates with a few cases: telecoms, insurance, the big accountancy firms, and cartels. In all of these cases, the power systems work to strengthen big corporate translational business. On cartels, she asks why the subject of private protectionism seems to be taboo among liberal economists and concludes that 'while the rhetoric of free enterprise and open competition is necessary to a full integration of a world economy operating on a market principle, the rhetoric is often, in reality, empty of meaning' (p 60). The ontology of Strange's new realism includes a decline in the authority of states, an increase in the authority of big translational firms, a parcelling of authority downwards from states to smaller territorial entities, along with a general erosion of power based on territory and a rise in non-territorial power in economy, technology, and communications. Others have noted these tendencies; they give substance to Hedley Bull's vision of a new medievalism of overlapping authorities and loyalties.(f.5) While accepting this vision as foreshadowing present reality, Strange takes the next step and asks who governs in such circumstances. This must be the first question in reflecting upon the condition of the world and its future; and, of course, there is no clear answer to it. A conspiracy theory will not do. There is no effective conclave of big corporations with United States government power, though these forces do seem to be the predominate actors. A key word in this book is 'symbiosis. …

The Retreat of the state

Abstract: Adopting new and much more comprehensive concepts of both power and politics, The Retreat of the State develops a theoretical framework to show who really governs the world economy. It goes on to explore some of the non-state authorities, from mafias to the Big Six accounting firms and international bureaucrats, whose power over who gets what in the world encroaches on that of national governments. The book is a signpost, pointing to some promising new directions for the future development of research and teaching in international political economy. Its originality and scope make The Retreat of the State of great importance for scholars and students of international relations, business and management.

The political economy of communication : rethinking and renewal

Abstract: Introduction PART ONE: MAPPING THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COMMUNICATION What Is Political Economy? The Political Economy of Communication PART TWO: RETHINKING AND RENEWING THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COMMUNICATION Commodification Spatialization Structuration Challenges on the Borders Cultural Studies and Policy Studies

Phoenix Risen: The Resurrection of Global Finance

Abstract: Of all the many changes of the world economy since World War II, few have been nearly so dramatic as the resurrection of global finance. A review of five recent books suggests considerable diversity of opinion concerning both the causes and the consequences of financial globalization, leaving much room for further research. Competing historical interpretations, stressing the contrasting roles of market forces and government policies, need to be reexamined for dynamic linkages among the variables they identify. Likewise, impacts on state policy at both the macro and micro levels should be explored more systematically to understand not just whether constraints may be imposed on governments but also how and under what conditions, and what policymakers can do about them. Finally, questions are also raised about implications for the underlying paradigm conventionally used for the study of international political economy and international relations more generally.

Worlding Women: A Feminist International Politics

Abstract: IntroductionPart ITHE GENDERED POLITICS OF IDENTITIES1 Women, Gender and the State2 Women, Colonisation and Racism3 Women, Gender and Nationalism4 Women in Postcolonial and Postmigration Political IdentitiesPART IITHE GENDERED POLITICS OF PEACE AND WAR5 Men, Masculinities and War6 Women Making Peace7 Women in the WarsPART IIITHE INTERNATIONAL SEXUAL DIVISION OF LABOUR8 Women and Gender in the International Political Economy9 An International Political Economy of SexIndexBibliography

The political economy of financial internationalization in the developing world

Abstract: In the last decade a growing number of developing countries have opened their financial systems by liberalizing capital flows and the rules governing the international operations of financial intermediaries. One explanation of this rush toward greater financial internationalization is that increasing interdependence generates domestic and foreign political pressures for capital account liberalization. While we find evidence for that hypothesis, we find that the proximate cause in developing countries more frequently is found in balance of payments crises. Politicians perceive that financial openness in the face of crisis can increase capital inflows by indicating to foreign investors that they will be able to liquidate their investments and by signaling government intentions to maintain fiscal and monetary discipline. The argument is explored through case studies of Chile, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Korea.

From Prebendalism to Predation: the Political Economy of Decline in Nigeria

Abstract: Upon taking power in August 1985, General Ibrahim Babangida promised a decisive course of economic and political change for Nigeria. Alongside a phased transition to democratic rule, the new President outlined far-reaching reforms intended to alleviate major distortions in the economy, to resolve a lingering impasse with external creditors, and to reduce a mounting burden of debt. Within a year, a comprehensive structural adjustment programme (SAP) was launched, incorporating key policies advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and yielding significant early results in stabilising the economy and arresting decline.

Redistribution and compensation

Abstract: In a model where individual incomes depend on the agents' characteristics, we provide characterizations of several redistribution mechanisms. These mechanisms are designed to eliminate the effects of characteristics that are to be considered “irrelevant”, while preserving the influence of “relevant” characteristics on individual incomes. The mechanisms discussed here are egalitarian-equivalent and conditionally egalitarian mechanisms, as well as averaging versions of these rules.

Psychiatry as a political science: advanced liberalism and the administration of risk

Abstract: In London, at the end of 1992, a particular killing attracted considerable publicity a TV documentary by the wife of the dead man, public grilling of the Secretary of State for Health, questions in Parliament, massive press publicity, calls for urgent action. Jonathan Zito was stabbed to death on an underground station with a screwdriver by a stranger. The victim was young, white, newly married, aspiring to a career as a professional musician, at the start of what promised to be

Marx: Later Political Writings: ‘Preface’ to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

Abstract: I examine the system of bourgeois economy in the following order: capital, landed property, wage-labour; the state, foreign trade, the world market. Under the first three headings, I examine the economic conditions of existence of the three great classes into which modern bourgeois society is divided; the interconnection of the three other headings is obvious at a glance. The first section of the first book, which deals with capital, consists of the following chapters: 1) the commodity; 2) money or simple circulation; 3) capital in general. The present part consists of the first two chapters. All the material lies before me in the form of monographs, which were written at widely separated periods not for publication but for self-clarification, and reworking them coherently according to the plan I have indicated will depend upon external circumstances.

political economy of communication

Abstract: In this paper five major trends in the political economy of communication are addressed: the globalization of the field, the expansion of an enduring emphasis on historical research, the growth of research from alternative standpoints, especially feminism and labour, the shift from an emphasis on old to new media, and the growth of activism connected to the political economy tradition. None of these are brand new tendencies but rather build on existing ones, which were often submerged beneath dominant trends in the field. Nonetheless, the outcomes of specific struggles within each of these domains suggest that political economists have made significant contributions to the overall resurgence of activism around major communication issues.

State Strategies in the Global Political Economy

Abstract: State Strategies in the Global Political Economy, Palan, Abbott and Deans argue that the state is not about to decline or ‘wither away’, but must restructure and evolve in response to forces of transnationalization. The state may be besieged but it can fight back and reorganize itself. The nature of this reorganization, the alleged shift from the welfare state to the ‘competition state’ is as much a response to changing global circumstances as it is an instrument of further change. The authors examine the plethora of competitive strategies adopted by the modern state: from the exclusive hegemonic strategies of the most powerful states to the parasitical strategies of the mini-states that serve as tax havens and flags of convenience; from the egalitarianism of the welfare policies of the Shielders to the repressed and exploited labour forces of ‘downworldly mobile’ Third World states; from the emerging continental economies of NAFTA and the EU to the utter dispair of collapsed states structurally unable to compete in the world economy. By investigating these strategic responses, the authors present a comprehensive study of the tactics and strategies employed by states to achieve greater stability and strength within the global political economy.

Political economy and archaeology: Perspectives on exchange and production

Abstract: Traditional approaches to the study of political economy are flawed in two respects. First, traditional approaches have submerged political economy within a discussion of political development and the evolution of complex society. Second, they have emphasized single dimensions of the economy such as production or distribution of resources as being the basis for political power. Current research has demonstrated that political economies are a mix of many different resource mobilization strategies that crosscut the production, service, and distribution sectors of the society. Archaeologists must attempt to identify this mix of strategies as a first step in reconstructing the structure of prehistoric political economy. Elites strive to control and mobilize resources from as many different sources as possible and invoke a common set of principles in doing so. These principles or components of the political economy are the accumulation, context, matrix control, and ideology principles. They are identified here as common mechanisms of resource creation, manipulation, and expropriation that can be applied to societies at different times and at different levels of organization.

Globalization and West European Welfare States: a Critical Review of Recent Debates:

Abstract: West European political economies are cur rently experiencing a tumultuous process of change. Although it is still unclear exactly how far and in what ways this will affect welfare states, it is increasingly evident that they will not emerge unscathed. Understanding what is happening is far from easy, given the inability of much analysis to grasp the multifaceted nature of contemporary developments. Gradually we are beginning to get a clearer idea of the challenges and contradictions internal to the operation of west European welfare states. At the same time, innovations in the expanding discipline of international political economy are providing new insights into the changing nature of the world econ omy. Thus far, however, attempts to explore the relationship between the national and the global in the welfare arena have been partial, incompletely theorized, empirically limited and fragmented by discipline. As argued by Garrett and Lange (1995) the solution is to span the divide between international rel...

Utilities, preferences, and substantive goods

Abstract: People’s utility levels are meant to be measures of their well-being. Early utilitarians defined them in terms of people’s happiness. Modern economics defines them in terms of people’s actual preferences. But in ethics they have to be defined in terms of people’s informed preferences. I shall discuss the relationship between people’s desires and preferences, and that between their reasoned and unreasoned preferences. I shall argue that people’s basic desires are much the same, whereas their preferences are often very different. Finally, I shall argue, contrary to Scanlon’s theory, that the things that are good for us are beneficial to us ultimately because they satisfy our biological and psychological needs and our personal interests.

Open-Economy Politics: The Political Economy of the World Coffee Trade

Abstract: Coffee is traded in one of the few international markets ever subject to effective political regulation. This book explores the origins, operations and collapse of the International Coffee Organization, an international "government of coffee" that was formed in the 1960s. In doing so, it addresses key issues in international political economy and comparative politics, and analyzes the creation of political institutions and their impact on markets. Drawing upon field work in East Africa, Colombia and Brazil, the text explores the domestic sources of international politics within a theoretical framework that blends game theoretic and more established approaches to the study of politics.

Evolutionary economics and the new international political economy

Abstract: Section 1. Introduction and general problematique. Global re-sructuring as an evolutionary process, John de la Mothe and Gilles Paquet. Section 2. Evolutionary theories of trade and innovation. Innovation, Stan Metcalfe, PREST, University of Manchester. Trade and international economics, Luc Soete, MERIT, University of Limburg. Institutional change and government / business relations, John de la Mothe and Gilles Paquet. Economic growth, Peter Howitt, President of the Canadian Economics Association, University of Toronto. Section 3. Key issues facing evolutionary economies. The new innovation, Roy Rothwell, SPRU, University of Sussex. Innovation networks and technology flows, Jorge Noisi, CREDIT, Universite de Quebec a Montreal. Financial and investment flows, Graham Vickery, DSTI, OECD. Shifts in international business, John Stopford, London Business School. Shifts in government / business relations strategies, John de la Mothe and Gilles Paquet. Section 4. Cases In evolution. Italy, Georgio Sirilli et al, NRC, Rome. Sweden, Bo Carlson, Case Western Reserve University. The Netherlands, Bart Varspagen, MERIT, University of Limburg. Canada, John Baldwin. US clusters, Zoltan Acs, University of Baltimore. European clusters, Roger Voyer, NGL Consulting and Carleton University. Latin America and Asia's 4 Tigers, Chris Freeman and Carlota Perez, SPRU, University of Sussex. Section 5. Evolutionary directions, conclusions and implications. Evolutionary economics and the international political economy, John de la Mothe and Gilles Paquet.

A Global Political Economy Approach to AIDS: Ideology, Interests and Implications

Abstract: Given the global spread of infection, and the global nature of the response, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is of clear relevance to scholars of international relations and international political economy. The bulk of initial research on AIDS in the early 1980s was devoted to understanding its occurrence and presentation within and across populations. This chapter argues that a global political economy approach offers further insights for understanding and responding to the disease. AIDS is a complex of symptoms and signs in infected individuals, ultimately culminating in the fatal depression of the immune response system. The main shortfall of the neoliberal discourse has been the legitimation of economic other criteria in the allocation of resources for AIDS. National and international policy makers were initially slow to respond to AIDS as a public health issue. Both the biomedical and neoliberal discourses have framed AIDS debate in apolitical terms, legitimised by the claim that they are confined to non-normative issues.

The environment and international relations.

Abstract: 1.Introduction, The Environment in International Relations: Legacies and Contentions 2. Environment and Security as a Universal Value: Implications for International Theory 3. International Political Economy and Global Environmental Change 4. IR Theory: Neo-Realism, Neo-Institutionalism and the Climate Change Convention 5. Inernational Relations, Social Ecology and the Globalisation of Environmental Change 6. Gender and Environmental Change: Are Women the Key to Safe-Guarding the Planet? 7. Who Cares About the Environment? 8. The Environment and the United Nations 9. Between the Devil and the Law of the Sea: The Generation of Global Environmental Norms 10. The International Research Enterprise and Global Enviornmental Change: Climate Change Policy as Research Process 11. Environmental Regimes: Effectiveness and Implementation Review 12. Hegemonic Ideology and the International Timber Association

Ordoliberalism and the social market: Classical political economy from Germany

Abstract: (1996). Ordoliberalism and the social market: Classical political economy from Germany. New Political Economy: Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 233-257.

Foundations for environmental political economy: The search for homo ecologicus?

Abstract: (1996). Foundations for environmental political economy: The search for homo ecologicus?. New Political Economy: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 27-40.