Core Literature Flashcards
Martin (1999)
States are self-interested: interests clash, poor information undermines reciprocity, IOs assist states in cooperation dilemma, IOs allow states to reach pareto frontier, IOs satisfy states demand for monitoring and reliable information about other states behaviour-> IOs make actions of other states more predictable
Krasner (1991)
Pareto optimum analysis ignore power differences, cooperational problems with distributional consequences lead to differences on the pareto frontier,
Distributional conflicts can be resolved by exercising power:
1.Power to determine who plays the game
2.Power to dictate rules of the game
3.Power to change payoff matrix (issue linkages)
Shadlen (2009)
There are “makers, takers and breakers” of int. institutions
Rationalist (resources) vs institutionalist (rules) perspective on Post-Uruguay WTO negotiations.
1. Uruguay: Single undertaking made DCs agree to rules on IP and Investment to gain market access
2. Uruguay:
- TRIPS: DCs exploited differences between Europe, US and Japan to exclude some restrictions, but had to agree to most
- TRIMS: Same, but US wanted strong and broad investment agreement, DCs resisted successfully to limit to trade-related through deadlocking negotiations
3. Doha: Investment negotiations on basis of positive list
- “like-minded group” (led by India and Malaysia) succeeds in establishing ‘explicit consensus’ rules in investment.
-consensus rules aloud developing countries to secure a clarifying statement that clarified dcs right to issue compulsory licenses
4. Cancun: DCs interpreted explicit consensus to start negotiations, Developed countries as explicit consensus about modalities-> DCs effectively blocked negotiation on the basis of explicit consensus
-> Therefore, rules empowered resource-poor countries to block more deepness (Investment) and clarified rules they were originally strongly opoosed to-> DCs have blocking power
-> this was not possible during Uruguay round because of single undertaking in combination with withdrawal of EC and US from GATT 1947 immidiately upon joining GATT 1994 (Gruber: Go it alone power)
Babb (2013)
The Consensus was a transnational policy paradigm, shaped by both scholarly and political forces (Hall, 1993). At the core of the Consensus was the international financial institutions’ practice of conditionality – making loans to governments in exchange for policy reforms. The Consensus was subsequently weakened by its own unintended consequences, by political forces both within Washington and worldwide and by intellectual changes in the field of economics. However, the Consensus has yet to encounter any serious rivals.
Oenis & Senses (2005)
the PWC, in so far as it influences the actual practice of key Bretton Woods institutions, provides an improvement over the Washington Consensus. Yet, at the same time, they draw attention to the failure of the PWC, as reflected in current policy practice, to provide a sufficiently broad framework for dealing with key and pressing development issues such as income distribution, poverty and self-sustained growth
Callaghy (2001)
In conjunction with elements of an epistemic community, the NGO translocal networks have shaped the amplitude and sway of the international debt regime in important ways.
The three “genetic” strands of the triple helix – the institutions of the international debt regime, the NGO debt networks, and the epistemic community – has powerfully affected the way a number of African and other states function; it has intervened in the day-to-day operation of these states in very detailed ways. In their interaction with the international debt regime, the epistemic and NGO strands of the triple helix have helped to create new forms of governance at both the national and international levels.
The international debt regime strand of the triple helix can be characterized as an international arena. With its widely amplified norms and discourses, it constitutes an international public sphere made up primarily of states and international financial institutions.
Not all creditor countries resisted more debt relief, and some of those that did, did not do it all the time; sometimes they changed their minds. Over time the two major Bretton Woods institutions had quite varied views and played quite different roles in regard to debt issues. Not all NGOs supported HIPC I and HIPC II; many have refused to support them because of the very tight link to the often harsh and intrusive conditionalities of structural adjustment. Another lesson is that the NGOs with the best understanding of the international debt regime and the economics epistemic community were able to bring about the most change.
Chin (2012)
- China has revolved into a net donor in the last fifteen years, surge has been catalysed by rise as an economic power and promoted by party leadership. (Brasil, and SA also net donors now), but china probably third largest donor in the world
- China rose economically but continued to self-identify with south by redirecting part of wealth and technical expertise to Global South; at the same time China is receiving aid from traditional donors
- Aid recipients press China for more sustainability of aid relationship and transparency of processes and results (concerns over data)
Pettifor (2003)
International financial system leads to crises, those who caused them (small number of OECD countries who set up the system) should bear responsibility for the costs of debt crises.
Boorman (2003)
A formal mechanism is needed (SDRM).
Porzecanski (2003)
If anything, international efforts should make enforcement of debt contracts against ‘irresponsible governments’ easier
Palley (2003)
Two assessment criteria for every proposal:
- Procedural fairness
- Price and supply of credit for debtors
Helleiner (2005)
Three political problems for SDRM:
- collective action problems on both the side of sovereign debtors and that of private foreign creditors:
- it is in common interest to back regime that prevents exit in the lead up to a crises, but in the absence of collective commitment it is in each creditors interest to exit before others do
- collective interest to restructure, but individual interest to demand full payment and free ride on other creditors restructuring
- collective interest for debtors to create SDRM, but individual country faces reputational problems if it indicates support - basic distributional conflicts embodied in any debt restructuring effort: Even if debtors and creditors agree about SDRM being beneficial, the specific rules can tilt the balance towards one or the other-> hard to find agreeable solution
- the uncertain behaviour of the private creditors’ home states:
- incentives of private credors’ home states are driven by a wide number of economic, political and strategic factors making it difficult to resolve the collective action problems through state actions
Gallagher (2013)
Sovereign debt often covered under IIAs, Creditors can use BITs to reclaim the full value off their bonds through ISDS, US has included SDR exemptions in some of its BITs (but they do not permit SDR to violate NT-> inadequate, because domestic interests need to be treated differently in a crises
Gagné (2000)
Strengthened WTO dispute settlement procedures enhance the authority of international institution over world trade and to tackle potential conflicts among states. Even though state cooperation between powerful states remains essential to ensure viability of international rules, the WTO’s and Uruguay rounds extensive provisions are both eloquent testimonies to states commitment and to the legitimacy of those provisions. These factors, coupled with the ever-increasing impact of globalisation make it constantly harder both in economic and political terms not to observe international trade obligations.
Shaffer (2015)
Four dimensions of regulatory change catalysed by the WTO with which legal compliance is synergistically linked:
(i) changes in the boundary between the market and the state (involving concomitantly market liberalization and growth of the administrative state); (ii) changes in the relative authority of institutions within the state (promoting bureaucratized and judicialized governance); (iii) changes in professional expertise engaging with state regulation (such as the role of lawyers); and (iv) changes in normative frames and accountability mechanisms for national regulation (which are trade liberal and transnational in scope)
It shows how nation states are reshaped in the process of their engagement with WTO law, demonstrating how professions, normative frames, and domestic institutions are central to these processes.
Poor developing countries are the least engaged in WTO processes because they trade less and are unlikely to have robust administrative states in the first place, giving rise to what Phillips (2006) calls “regulation without a regulatory state,” with government departments beset by low regulatory capacity, capture, and corruption.