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For much of the last decade the EU has been involved in protracted and controversial negotiations with the ACP group of countries with the aim of establishing a series of 'WTO-compatible' Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). In this paper, we locate the EPAs within the context of the wider shift in EU trade policy towards bilateralism. In doing so, we eschew much of the existing literature within EU Studies and, instead, turn to recent work in IPE emphasising the 'domestic-societal' and 'systemic' drivers of preferential liberalisation. Recent strands of this literature have drawn particular attention to the prominence of the so-called 'Singapore Issues' in driving developed countries to compete for preferential access in developing country markets. Although neither domestic-societal nor systemic pressures are sufficient to explain the EPAs - or indeed EU trade policy more generally - drawing attention to the above features allows us to account for why they have gone beyond the original remit of 'WTO compatibility' and why aspects of the emerging agreements bear close similarity to the EU's supposedly more commercially-oriented bilateral agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did corruption, the paramount riddle of good governance, come to be addressed globally? The curbing of corruption appears to mobilize support across diverging groups, from anti-globalization activists to liberalization reformers and may offer a new platform for consensus on global governance. While the international anti-corruption regime, largely taken for granted in the literature, and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 have both received considerable attention, the link between the two has remained obscure. The anti-corruption regime at the global level originated and spread from a nation state's attempt to protect its multinational companies from the adverse effect on their competitiveness caused by a domestic anti-corruption act. This paper will trace the emergence of the anti-corruption regime from the US FCPA to the OECD Convention of 1997 and the subsequent appropriations of anti-corruption policies in the framework of the EU, UN, the IMF, and other international organizations. Since the anti-corruption regime sprang from the inability of a nation state to preserve democratic norms in its domestic jurisdiction without exporting these norms to the global level it presents a convincing example of how the tools of global governance came from the toolbox of the nation state itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine the causes and motives for normalized relations between the United States and Libya. After two decades of rogue state status in terms of American foreign policy, Libya became an ally. I will investigate why Washington repeatedly shunned Tripoli's early rapprochement efforts and how 9/11 impacted the normalization process. I will demonstrate how 9/11 was not the true impetus for normalized relations; but only served to accelerate the normalization process. Economic conditions in Libya reveal the need for economic growth as a key motive for Tripoli's rapprochement efforts with Washington. The Libyan Government's desire to join the international market has compelled it to secure its alliance with the United States and continue its market liberalization initiatives. Looking beyond state level motives demonstrates how the international world order also compelled Libya to seek a cooperative relationship with the US. Libya's international political and economic isolation forced the Libyan Government to work towards amicable relations with the global hegemon. American incentives to normalize relations with Libya were economic, geopolitical and strategic. I will examine these incentives and why US foreign policy towards Libya slowly engaged the rouge state's normalization efforts. The causes and dynamics of renewed relations between the US and Libya serve as an important study. Libya gradually positioned itself to claim its place in the world market as a key oil producer bolstered by the largest proven oil reserves in Africa. Meanwhile, the US has renewed its interest in North Africa in terms of its economic agenda and its global war on terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norway, a leading aid donor and peacemaker is held in great esteem by the international community as a pioneer in conflict resolution and global development. Yet, radical critics argue that Norway is an agent of the west 'recolonising' the global south to advance economic liberalization and the dismemberment of states. There is a relative lack of objective research to fully evaluate these competing perspectives. This paper seeks to understand the operation of what is known as the 'Norwegian Model' focusing on its core feature, the extensive use of NGOs in peace processes and conflict resolution. The paper considers the close partnership between the Norwegian state and NGOs, generous state funding and the creation of knowledge networks. These processes are illustrated with empirical materials drawn from Norwegian peacemaking in Guatemala, the Middle East, Sudan and Sri Lanka. Providing a political economy approach, the paper places the Norwegian Model and NGO led peacemaking in the broader contexts of economic liberalization, economic inequality and militarism. The paper seeks to contribute to the global discourse on NGOs, conflict resolution and global governance and to greater effectiveness and accountability of NGO peacemaking and the 'Norwegian Model'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial liberalization is often blamed for banking crises, and although fragility is mitigated when accompanied by robust banking supervision, there has been little discussion regarding how political factors contribute to the structure and operation of banking supervision. This study investigates the relationships between political institutional factors, financial sector supervision, and the probability of banking crises in 65 countries from 1973 to 2005. We demonstrate that with stronger banking supervision, increasing globalization of finance significantly reduces the likelihood of banking crises. Moreover, controlling for both economic and other political influences such as ideology, our results suggest that conditional upon the degree of financial liberalization, countries with a larger number of veto players in their policymaking process assert significantly more effective supervision. Our findings imply that policymakers respond with stronger supervision as the costs of liberalization rise for voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU-Russian energy relations lead to an interesting case which reflects the difficulty of harmonizing national priorities with supra-national regulations. This paper indicates national and trans-national issues which are effective in the EU-Russian energy relations and points to idiosyncratic characteristics, and certain discrepancies, which cannot be fully conceived through the main stream theories. It therefore challenges a simple, yet a common, statement that the EU's position is based on a policy of market liberalization stemming from neo-functionalism, while Russia pursues an opposing strategy of increased state control based on a realist understanding of international relations. The paper compares European and Russian literature on energy relations. It then focuses on legal and policy based characteristics of Europe's supply and Russia's demand security. The paper finally underlines how this case deviates from the existing literature, and therefore necessitates a further elaboration from an inter-disciplinary theoretical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of the WTO was accompanied by a commitment to achieve greater coherence and accountability in global economic governance and to establish mechanisms by which institutions can address each other. In this paper, we map institutional cooperation and attempts to build greater coherence and mutual accountability in global economic governance as well as in ostensibly non-trade areas such as environment, food, health, and development. We address two questions. First, where do the rules of the WTO overlap or compete with those of other institutions? Second, what explains coherence and incoherence, on the one hand, and, on the other, mutual accountability or unaccountability between the WTO and other international institutions? The paper argues that while the WTO's Coherence Mandate has produced some progress on coherence and accountability among the major international economic institutions, the scope of that success has been largely limited to policies that directly facilitate trade liberalization and development, not macroeconomic policy. Moreover, the complexities of the international trade regime, imbalances in institutional power, and persistent, though shifting, structural asymmetries between North and South in combination explain why the WTO is normatively and legally constrained in its attempts to build greater coherence in non-traditional areas. The legitimacy and accountability of global economic governance is increasingly at risk if the WTO is unable to navigate these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the teleological end-point of post-conflict statebuilding processes has been based on a dual Wilsonian-Weberian blueprint: enforcing Western-type statehood along with political and economic liberalization policies. This classical statebuilding paradigm has proved problematic since it has reinforced a reductionist view of post-conflict regimes and raised unrealistic expectations of post-conflict statebuilding processes. This paper suggests an alternative sframework of analysis that is less biased by Weberian-Wilsonian ideal-type considerations. It proceeds in three steps: First, the main assumptions and techniques behind the classical statebuilding paradigm are presented and confronted with common points of criticism. In particular, it is argued that the dominance of the classical statebuilding paradigm has led to narrow and misguided conceptualizations of post-conflict situations and has thereby reinforced the implementation of inadequate statebuilding policies. In a second step, an alternative framework for analyzing post-conflict situations in a less state-centric and biased manner is devised. Finally, this framework is applied to two cases - Liberia and Mozambique - for illustrating its potential. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops a comparative analysis of the changes in domestic politics facilitated by the forces of globalization and the process of liberalization. It focuses on two interesting cases: Mexico and Turkey where two conservative parties came to powe ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of neoliberalism, concerns for justice have lost salience in international trade negotiations. Whereas trade talks explicitly included appeals to justice and equity in the 1960s, these issues seem marginal in contemporary deliberations where the primary objective is the continued liberalizing of world trade. This is particularly problematic from the perspective of small developing states. They are scheduled to be treated as equal players in the neoliberal trading system. But vulnerabilities associated with size, location, history and governance circumscribe the way in which these states can participate: They are not equal players - they are different. In recognition of this, debates rage as to whether the removal of special and differential treatment for small developing states at the urging of the larger and more powerful states will benefit the former. My work will shed new light on these debates. Current critiques of WTO negotiations predominantly are from a political economy perspective and tend to be grounded in development and institutional economics. In contrast, empirically I draw on interviews with key trade negotiators representing small developing states which refocus attention from global economic structures to the injustice of rules produced in international trade negotiations when viewed from a perspective sensitive to the characteristics and positioning of such states. And normatively, I theorize that justice in international trade may be critically re-conceptualized to account for such difference. I thus seek recognition of particularity versus the universalism of neoliberal trade. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last two decades, economic liberalization emphasis on regionalism has been a prime concern for wider sectors of civil society around the world. Over and over, these groups are presented in the mass media as opponents to these policy options. Less has been said about the alternatives they have put forward and how some of these have been incorporated into official policies. Moreover, for some of these groups if regionalism aims to benefit marginalized sectors of society in the Global South, then trade and services liberalization policies need to be abandoned in favour of gender sensitive, community based and environmentally sustainable regionalisms. This position has raised key issues of power and resistance in the international political economy and has stirred heated debates among scholars, practitioners and members of civil society. To date, few systematic attempts have been done to map these debates and to develop a comparative analysis of them, despite of the relevance that these could have for the long-term sustainability of regionalism. This paper aims at contributing to fill this gap as part of a larger research agenda that develops a systematic and comparative analysis of the specific proposals put forward as alternatives to overcome socio-economic deficits embedded in contemporary regionalisms; and the practices of governance that are emerging and are proposed for the implementation of these alternatives (how are these alternatives been implemented, by whom and for whom). More specifically, this paper focuses on concrete cases of cross-border civic activism in which the notion of citizenship as a struggle proves to be crucial in the discursive framing of alternative forms of regionalisms, including the specific proposals and the mechanisms that are foreseen for their implementation. In particular, these case studies display the relevance that a meaningful enforcement of formally granted citizenship rights in national and local arenas and/or the extension of these rights across borders have for urban and rural women organizations to contest highly unaccountable regional governance mechanisms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has Mexico's approach to achieving economic liberalization and political democracy shown consistent success over time? Mexico has managed a sustained evolution of its institutions towards economic liberalization and democracy, and the preferences of each of Mexico's presidents since Miguel de la Madrid have determined the pathway taken. Each of the last four presidents set policy agendas based on improving social capital, adopting policies of economic liberalization, eventual commitment to democracy, transparency, and a firm determination to reform and uphold the rule of law. This paper focuses on measuring the changes in Mexico's formal institutions: electoral success by opposition parties, the interaction of mixed party participation in the legislature with the size of the executive's winning coalition, and changes in economic policies that led to greater economic participation. Leadership preferences, which initially chose economic liberalization, produced political liberalization as an outcome of the policies dictated by those preferences. The long-run result is that Mexico's slow and steady approach led it down a path of sustained economic and political liberalization, leading to a sustainable democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States have followed various strategies to manage the tide of Islamist activism in opposition to their power. Some have chosen to repress, while others have strategically used accommodative tactics. This paper explores the effect of government accommodation on Islamist movement strategies. I argue that states have followed two kinds of accommodative policies towards Islamist movements -- Islamization and liberalization. Using a social movement theory lens, I hypothesize that these policies have different effects on the targeted movements. Counter intuitively, Islamization leads to an increase in regime opposition while liberalization decreases opposition among Islamist movements. The argument is found to hold true in the two cases explored: Pakistan under General Zia (1977-1989), where Islamization policies were followed creating greater opposition from Jama'at-i-Islam and Jordan (1989-1999), where liberalization policies were followed creating lower levels of regime opposition from the Muslim Brotherhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the socio-economic transformation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the role of intergovernmental regional institutions in the creation of peace and stability in North-East Asia. It states that the socio-economic development of DPRK has been characterized by the process of marketization without liberalization. It also notes the need for an East Asian initiative for peace, prosperity and stability that is designed to direct change in North-East Asia.

This paper discusses the importance of institutions for successful international economic integration comparing the EU with NAFTA and en passant some other regional integration schemes. Taking the point of departure in neo-liberal institutionalist theories of international regimes and rational theories of international integration, especially the contributions by Moravcsik and Mattli, the respective institutional designs of EU and NAFTA are compared. The question is asked: Can both 'supranational' institutions à la EU and less supranational and more intergovernmental institutions à la NAFTA create 'credible' commitments'? The answer seems to be yes, but a brief comparison with other integration schemes such as APEC suggests that a certain legal formalization is necessary to 'lock-in' liberalization and limit defection. Further, it is noted that the EU has moved much beyond a free trade area (FTA) to create an internal market, an Economic and Monetarty Uino (EMU) and a number of common policies. These common policies, especially the Structural Funds allow for some redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological advances, along with political democratization andsocio-economic liberalization of some Arab societies, have created anew transnational media environment. The rise of Al-Jazeera and Al-Hayat newspaper exemplify these trends. Aside from m ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some scholars argue that foreign capital liberalization fosters development by providing the needed capital and knowledge and technology transfers for industrial development. Others argue that foreign portfolio and direct investment export gains abroad r ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How and why China implemented liberal policies toward foreign direct investment (FDI) in the 1980s? Why was FDI liberalization sustainable in China? These questions are posed in the context of developmental state literature in East Asia. The article exami ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Without doubt, the WTO negotiations are in trouble. But can the rapid proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) supplant multilateral liberalization, as many policymakers suggest? This paper focuses on the implications of PTAs for developing countries, analyzing how their position in networks of trade agreements affects their trade profiles. Using a variety of centrality measures developed in social network analysis, the study employs a gravity model framework to estimate the trade effects of multiple PTA ties. The data is drawn from a new database of exports disaggregated by production stages.The findings suggest that for some developing countries, signing enough PTAs to assume a central position in the global network of trade agreements has greater benefits than the additive effect of individual deals. Centrally located countries tend to trade more in goods that are higher in the value chain. For these countries, signing many PTAs could be an effective development strategy.But other developing countries that are less successful at signing preferential agreements, in particular in Africa and the Middle East, are even more disadvantaged as a result. Their isolated position in the network of trade institutions hinders their progress beyond the export of primary goods. While multilateralism in principle allowed equal participation in the global trade regime, the proliferation of PTAs divides developing countries into an upwardly-mobile group and a disadvantaged group that is left behind. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interacting dimensions of the regionalist process that are currently being developed in Europe the Americas. Hereby, it is argued that two tendencies currently exist. The first is strategic regionalism that is result of an alliance between some nation states and Multinational Firms. The objective of this modality of integration is the radical liberalization of markets and regulation of "trade related issues". The second approach is "social regionalism" that goes beyond the liberalization of markets and proposes the productive integration and a regional social policy. In the paper is examined the extent to which these approaches have influenced in the process of creation and development of the EU, NAFTA and Mercosur. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David P. Rapkin & Tina Mueller?Whither the World Economy? Reconciling Liberal and Illiberal Tendencies?This paper aims to explore a series of linked developments in the evolution of the world economy that, combined, appear to jeopardize its sustainability:1.Several decades of liberalization and market-oriented reforms have promoted growth in the world economy, but at the same time have increased volatility in certain key parameters, especially in exchange rates and in international finance. As evidenced by the 1997-98 East Asian financial crisis, developing countries are vulnerable to fluctuations in these parameters.2.In order to buffer themselves against such instabilities, developing countries, especially in Asia, have resorted to export-led growth strategies based on maintaining undervalued exchange rates pegged to the US dollar. The resulting trade surpluses have accumulated in the form of large stocks of reserve currencies, mainly dollars, that are deemed necessary in order to intervene in currency markets to protect the peg and to prevent the need to resort to the IMF and submit to its neoliberal disciplines should another financial crisis arise.3.It appears then that the instabilities that have accompanied a liberalized world economy have induced illiberal national strategies. But, as realized in the case of Japan in the 1980s, such strategies suffer from a fallacy of composition: while they may be followed with good results by one or a few countries, they cannot be employed simultaneously by all, or even many, national economies. Because of the simple mathematical constraint, writ large, that all participants in the world economy cannot register surpluses concurrently, the success of export-led strategies undergirded by pegged exchange rates depends on others operating on other, more open, principles. Another problem arises in so far as these strategies tend to result in overcapacity.4.These problems have to date been ameliorated by the willingness of the US to fill the role of ?consumer of last resort,? acting in effect as a kind of de facto global Keynesian state that maintains effective demand. The corollary of this role, however, is the US as profligate consumer, running large and growing budget and current account deficits that require borrowing ? from the same surplus states described in no. 2 above ? of over $2 billion daily. The resulting dissymmetric interdependence, as exemplified in US-China relations, means that both parties are interdependent and vulnerable but each has very different stakes at play. This situation, which also involves perverse, poor-to-rich capital flows, is widely regarded as unsustainable and a potential source of systemic crisis.5.Another trend, which pulls in the opposite direction of those discussed in no. 2 above, stems from the continued pressures to liberalize placed on developing countries. As Robert Wade has forcefully argued, these pressures are shrinking the available space within which development strategies must operate, bringing about a kind of convergence of policies and institutions toward the neoliberal model. In a manner parallel to the loss of biodiversity, this trend detracts from the diversity of national forms of capitalism and lessens the variety of policy innovations and experimentation it brings.6.One potential solution lies in what has been termed ?revived? Bretton Woods arrangements, in which some developing countries maintain their exchange rate pegs, while continuing to pile up surpluses and to finance American consumption. Some proponents contend that such an arrangement could work in stable fashion for another decade or two... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I attempt to integrate the study of citizenship into debates in comparative politics, in two different ways. First, I justify the real-world importance of the topic, and thereby encourage other scholars to grapple with its manifestations and implications. Second, I present some suggestive evidence, based on the 15 ?older? countries of the European Union (EU). The findings not only illustrate the extent of cross-national variation in citizenship policies at two different time periods, but they help to demonstrate the applicability of comparative analysis to categorizing and explaining both long-lasting cross-national differences and more recent change in some countries. In explaining the historical variation within the EU, I consider whether or not a country had a prior experience as a colonial power, as well as whether it became a democracy in the 19th century. In accounting for continuity or change over the last few decades, I argue that while various international and domestic pressures have led to liberalization in a number of countries, these usually occurred in the absence of public discussion and involvement. In contrast, when public opinion gets mobilized and engaged--usually by a well-organized far right party, but also sometimes by a referendum or petition campaign--on issues related to citizenship reform, liberalization is usually blocked, or further restrictions are introduced. This finding raises important, paradoxical, and troubling questions about the connection between democratic processes and liberal outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of pro-market reforms argued that the main difference between the development strategies of Spain and many countries in Latin America is the degree of involvement of the state in the economy: too much involvement in Latin America since the 1930s led to the crisis of the 1980s, while in Spain the liberalization of the Spanish economy after 1975 facilitated the expansion of the economy. Taking Argentina and Spain as case studies, the author argues that the difference is not one of states vs markets, but of the kind of partnership between the state and the market. Both the Spanish and the Argentinean developmental states picked a number of "winners" and liberalized their sectors gradually as the firms operating in these sectors became more competitive. However, they also sheltered some "losers", thus undermining the overall competitiveness of the firms in some of the main industries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces out the history of the relations between the Iranian state and the oil industry from the beginnings in the late nineteenth into the twenty-first century. Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, these relations were influenced by the conflicting demands for economic rationality, economic justice, and nationalism. This caused a series of revisions and renegotiations between the state and the oil companies. With each of these renegotiations, the state has tried to bring the oil industry further under its control. In turn, this led to efforts to mitigate against the dictates of market efficient behavior that maximized profitability and replace them with those designed to maximize regime longevity. This paper argues that since the late 1990s, Iran has experienced yet another revision in the relationship between the state and the oil sector. Under pressure from the IMF and World Bank to begin economic liberalization, Iran took limited steps to loosen control over the oil sector in a way that allowed senior NIOC officials to capture key elements of this previously state-owned enterprise. This engendered broad resentment among the Iranian public sensitive to any hint that their nation?s resources being plundered for private gain while Iran?s economy as a whole remained stagnant. This paper demonstrates, however, that the period of state-capture, when new oligarchs bought-up privatized state-assets, gave way to a period of state revenge, when the entrenched elite used a combination of enticements and veiled threats to bring the oligarchs back into the state?s orbit. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes trade policymaking in India in the context of the ongoing negotiations on trade in agriculture at the WTO. During the past decade, the overall direction of India's trade policy has become more liberal. However, India's position on liberalization of trade in agriculture at multilateral trade negotiations is dominated by its defensive/protectionist interests expressed in terms of a focus on livelihood security rather than its aggressive/liberal interests in gaining market access. This presents a puzzle for existing trade theory which would expect India's farm trade policy to be more liberal, given that about 80% of India's farm prices are globally competitive. This paper adopts an institutional perspective, and argues that the policy is ultimately a product of the existing domestic agricultural policies and the new consultative trade policy-making apparatus. Reform of existing policies has proved difficult and the Ministry of Agriculture resists liberalization because it sees itself primarily as a protector of farmers' interests. At the same time, the government has changed the institutions for making trade policy since 1998, giving the protectionist Ministry of Agriculture greater voice in decisions at the expense of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The former has often vetoed more liberal positions advocated by the Commerce Ministry. The Parliament, unlike in the west, plays a minor role in setting the tone of the policy since its ratification is not required. Moreover, although in India's federal system state governments could have used their power to shape policy, they have not organized politically to press for liberalization, instead supporting the protectionist views espoused by the agriculture ministry.This paper also shows that conventional institution-based explanations of trade policy, mainly based on the US and West European experience, need to be modified when being applied to developing countries like India. For example, institutional theories suggest an association between democracies and liberal trade policies, but this case shows that democracies can sometimes be more protectionist. Discussions of the role of bureaucracies focus on the relation between bureaucratic autonomy and trade liberalization. However, some relevant bureaucracies are not autonomous, and some autonomous bureaucracies may not support liberalization. This research suggests that bureaucracies should not be treated as unitary actors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the underlying factors that explain the success and failure of firms that entered Latin America since the wave of deregulation and liberalization in 1991. The authors begin by isolating the country level and firm level factors that have been shown to affect a firm's entry decision. Then a comprehensive definition of success and failure is proposed. The authors hypothesize that the probability of success increases with increases in degree of control and firm size, and decreases with increases in economic distance, political risk, regulatory hurdles, and cultural distance. Finally, using a uniquely compiled archival dataset the authors correlate the degree of success to firm level and country level factors that affect entry decisions. Our preliminary findings show directional support for the effect of firm size, economic distance and regulatory hurdles on the success of firms entering Latin America. The findings of the paper will serve researchers in international business, practitioners, and policy makers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, for the first time at the International Studies Association Convention, there were three sessions on labour issues. The lack of a voice for labour in international studies is striking. Even in studies of social movements, there is a muted acknowledgement of the role of trade unions. The socio-economic security of labour has a significant impact on security concerns, yet it is not widely recognised academically. However, there are signs that multi-lateral agencies are beginning to recognise the importance of labour standards. The International Finance Corporation recently introduced core labour standards for companies receiving its loans. This paper will analyse and reflect on a research programme, which was a partnership between the International Labour Office and an international trade union, Public Services International. This set out to examine the impact of policies of liberalisation and privatisation on public sector workers. The paper looks at the process of gathering and analysing data, the involvement of trade unions in this process and the responsibilities and issues that have emerged. The results contribute to a growing body of evidence on how international policies impact on workers.Written from the perspective of the researcher, who is both part-funded by Public Services International and is also employed within a university, this paper will also discuss some of the wider issues involved in the process of raising the voice of labour within international studies and ultimately in shaping international policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now a massive literature debating linkages between International Financial Institution (IFI) sponsored policies of economic reform and ethnic conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. . In the existing literature causal linkages between economic reform and violent ethnic conflict are universally linked to undesirable reform outcomes such as increases in poverty, unemployment, inequality, land scarcity or other assumed triggers of violence. My own study based on an analysis of conflicts between acephalous 'minorities' and cephalous majorities in Northern Ghana demonstrates that very negative social outcomes i.e. ethnic conflict may be systematically related to the positive economic results of reform. Increased inter ethnic equality, economic growth, and poverty reduction may also generate conflict. This is especially likely in stratified ethnic systems. The methodology employed in this analysis involved extensive fieldwork in Nanumba district of northern Ghana and entailed structured and unstructured interviews with belligerents and mediators. The analysis radically contradicts the literature linking this aspect of globalization (economic liberalization) to ethnic conflict. It further demonstrates the value of case study for the illumination of institutional and structural variables that act to translate positive economic outcomes into violent ethnic conflict. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much global attention has been focused on the Doha Round of negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and in particular, on the negotiations for agriculture. However, trade in services is already three times that of the value of trade in agriculture, its value increased by 16% in both 2003 and 2004, and continued growth is expected. Increased trade in services reflects the dynamic role that services plays in the maturation of economies, with the service sector accounting for 64 percent of US gross national product, and 54 percent in Brazil. This paper will explore the political economy of liberalization of trade in services, and discusses differences and similarities between the United States and Brazil. This contrast is expected to be instructive due to the important but critically different roles that these two countries play in negotiations for the Doha Round. The political economy of trade liberalization in services differs markedly from that of agriculture. Agricultural interests are clearly defined and very well organized, with a long history of seeking domestic subsidies and, over the past twenty years, of defending these and other protective measures in trade negotiations. WTO service sectors include business, communication, construction and engineering, distribution, education, environment, financial, health, tourism and travel, recreation, cultural and sporting, and transportation. Players are diverse. Interests regarding trade in services vary greatly within a countries and subsectors. Domestic protection differs between countries and the sector as a whole does not to adopt common postures at trade negotiations. The issues differ as well. Transnational corporations play a pivotal role. One mode of service delivery is through the establishment of commercial presence, and so concerns over foreign direct investment, and its attendant regulation, become intertwined. Natural monopolies or oligopolies are common, and so issues of market power can be relevant as well.Substantial investments into understanding and publicizing both the benefits and the potential downfalls of agricultural liberalization have been made in the last ten years. On the contrary, relatively little effort has been devoted to understanding and publicizing the consequences of liberalization of trade in services. The introduction of new and more efficient services into an economy can be pivotal in increasing the efficiency and the well being of the entire economy ? particularly for agriculture in LDCs and small farmers. However, trade in services and the consequences of liberalization are challenging to adapt to the kind of empirical models used to assess trade liberalization in manufactured goods or agriculture.Finally, the dynamics of how service negotiations are conducted will be essential for understanding outcomes. In the General Agreement on Trade in Services, commitments are specified on positive lists, with specific exceptions to market access and national treatment being noted in a country?s commitments. In services, the plurilateral negotiations are conducted by demanduers making collective and specific requests from other WTO members. This form of negotiations can be likened to how tariff reductions were negotiated in early GATT rounds. The level of control over concessions by national governments, and the bilateral tit for tat may be factors contributing to the success that has been experienced. Given its increasing importance, the political economy of service trade liberalization is key to understand and measure the success of the Doha Round and further developments of the WTO regime. An analysis of the issues associated with service trade liberalization, its history and players, concerns of the public and non-governmental organizations, the format of the negotiations and the size of potential economic gains and losses are all relevant in an assessment of what is at stake... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portfolio investments are considered by many as one of the most important driving forces of the globalization of economic liberalization. The "race to the bottom" logic, i.e., global mobility of factors of production (and above all, of finance) puts competitive pressure on each country and results in their efforts of creating more and more "business-friendly" domestic economic environment to be more "attractive" to international financial investors, is based on an assumption that international financial flows are actually more likely to move towards those economies characterized by economic liberalism such as smaller government spending, lower level of corporate taxation, and stable monetary policies. However, this assumption has never been vigorously tested in empirical analysis,largely because of unavailable data of cross-country bilateral money flows.The newly published data for bilateral portfolio investment flows from IMF's Portfolio Investment: Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS) Data, cover four types of portfolio investments fom 71 countries: equity securities, total debt securities, long-term debt securities, short-term debt securities, and also the sum of these four categories---total portfolio investment, for year 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. Using these dyadic data, for the first time, the networks of portfolio investments can be constructed, demonstrated, and more importantly, modelled as functions of: 1), domestic/national characteristics of senders (sources of the money flow) and receivers (countries that receive portfolio investments) of portfolio investments such as levels of social welfare spending and the ratio of corporate to consumer taxation; 2), other important international networks such as that of trade and of international organizations. Long-time debated questions---have governmental efforts such as cutting social spending and decreasing corporate taxation really been awarded by international financial investors? Do portfolio investments follow trade? Do IGO network facilitate international money flows---could be answered by this research. A Bayesian hierarchical general bilinear mixed-effects model (Hoff 2005; Hoff \& Ward 2004) will be usedfor data analysis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the process and challenge of financial market opening in the People?s Republic of China. It will investigate particularly China?s progress in financial liberalization as well as liberalization?s potential costs and benefits. Since joining the WTO, China has integrated into the global economy and has enjoyed remarkable economic success. Under the WTO negotiations, China expects to deregulate restrictions for foreign financial institutions and liberalize its financial market. However, the legacy of the old state-planned economy?s restrictions and strict financial repression may hamper financial sector development, posing a serious challenge to establish a more market-oriented financial system. This paper argues that financial liberalization should be implemented carefully since haphazard liberalization tends to encourage financial instability, as many emerging economies have experienced. Successful financial market reforms that would guarantee sustained strong economic growth and avoid instability will depend on how well China implements economic reforms. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications for regional security of International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionality and its outcomes. The common wisdom among neoliberals is that a liberal economic system and the intervention of international organizations promote peace in the international system. Economic liberalization and political liberalization are considered to promote both domestic and international stability. However, research has shown that IMF conditionality, which is based on the notion of economic liberalization, has done little to promote domestic stabilization, and has frequently been the source of destabilization. In fact, in many cases IMF structural adjustment programs have posed serious security risks for developing countries in the form of IMF riots. As a result, economic liberalization has often come at the expense of political liberalization, as states have reversed democratic gains in the name of security. The case of Jordan provides a focus for examining this issue. While regional political tensions were in part responsible for Jordan's requesting loans from the IMF in the early 1990s, the severity of the conditions imposed by the Fund also led to political destabilization in Jordan that could have created overt hostility between Jordan and Iraq and drawn the surrounding states into the conflict. In conclusion, this paper proposes changes to Fund policy and its implementation that could possibly avoid such a situation in the future and that could strengthen, rather than undermine, regional security efforts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the service liberalization in the GATS has been hailed as one of the foremost priorities of the new WTO round, most of the activity of services negotiations does not take place in multilateral negotiations, but in the domain of preferential agreements across the North-South Divide. This paper analyzes the interests of multinational firms in the service sector in such preferential agreements, focusing on the banking and telecommunications industries. It argues that for MNCs, preferential agreements can help create "captive markets". Imperfectly competitive market structures interact with the weakness of multilateral rules to allow such outcomes. The paper concludes that in analogy to a revision of GATT Art 24, GATS Art V needs to be strengthened to prevent the capture of markets in less developed countries by a few MNCs and to prevent a transfer of rents from consumers in these markets to a handful of firms from the North. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liberalization of the rules that govern the entry and operation of foreign direct investors was one of the key public policy changes implemented by neoliberal governments in Latin America in the early 1990s. Recent changes to the taxation of foreign investors in Venezuela and Chile, renegotiation of public service contracts in Argentina, and threats of nationalization of extractive industries in Bolivia and Peru suggest a major shift in public policy towards foreign investors by some new left governments proclaiming a post-Washington Consensus era. However, these same governments find themselves constrained by domestic political lobbies, pressure from capital-exporting countries and international investment treaties. This paper examines the extent of the change in policy towards foreign investorsin the countries cited above. It seeks to explain why some new left governments have pursued a more radical revision of the rules on investment, while others continue to accept the broad neoliberal framework exemplified by the Washington Consensus. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A complete explanation for Spain's economic performance vis-à-vis that of Latin American economies must take into account the institutional frameworks in which decision-makers were allowed (or not) to carry out liberalization. This study examines whether post-Franco Spain "inherited" certain institutional frameworks that still centralized economic policy and allowed decision-makers to enact economic liberalization policies. Other Latin American countries with a similar institutional heritage, like Chile and Brazil, are then compared to underperforming Latin American economies to see if institutional heritage after dictatorships allows for easier enactment and enforcement of liberalization. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents and examines the historical development of the debate over water resources and the waning influence of countries of the North over water liberalization. The paper argues that countries of the North have been less able to influence and shape the regulation of water in Latin America, and indeed in the entire South, in recent years. This contrasts with the 1980s and 1990s, when water regimes were increasingly liberalized and water increasingly treated as a purely tradable commodity, a result of the North?s ability to influence the water debate in the South. This mirrored the trend towards liberalization taking place around the world, part of the overall process of globalization. However, recent years have witnessed the willingness of Latin American governments, and other governments of the South, to increasingly intervene in the water debate in terms of creating new and stronger domestic institutions to protect water and other resources, and by the South?s calling for greater global governance of water resources through new global institutions. The current trend reflects a general growth in the clout of countries of the South in the international system and likely may lead to a noticeably lesser impact of the North in shaping the global water debate. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Middle East and North Africa have not yet experienced the democratic revolutions that have swept Latin American, Eastern Europe and a number of countries in other parts of Africa and Asia in recent years, there are still signs of political liberalization and an emerging civil society. While supporters of the Bush administration credit the U.S. invasion of Iraq and other U.S. policies for such change, critics note that many of these developments pre-date or were unrelated to this recent U.S. emphasis on advancing freedom in the region. Furthermore, critics note that the United States remains the primary military backer of the region's autocratic regimes and occupation armies and that the destruction wrought upon Iraq by the U.S. invasion and occupation and the ongoing U.S. influence in the country does not serve a model many others would seek to emulate. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the linkage between financial liberalization and financial crisis in Mexico and South Korea from a comparative international political economy perspective. Both countries shared various features in the pattern and process of financial liberalization and on the road to financial crisis. Before their financial crises, these two countries experienced international financial capital surges following liberalization in domestic financial markets and their opening to foreign investors, as well as capital account liberalization. These countries also shared similar circumstances: each had presidential elections and entered into the OECD near the years of financial crisis, and both had their policy autonomy strongly affected by foreign pressure favoring financial liberalization. This paper answers explains the political economic background that proceeded financial market opening, and how it encouraged the macroeconomic imbalances and financial crisis in both countries, while providing a research framework to analyze recurrent financial crises in other successful emerging market economies. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an effort empirically to test the effects of economic liberalization on the stability of peace in countries emerging from civil war. It also serves as a quantitative test of Roland Paris's thesis that efforts by the international community to promote liberal economic policies in post-civil war countries produce renewed competition and violence (2004). Consistent with Paris's expectation, we find a strong association between policies of economic liberalization and post-civil war violence. We consider the policy implications that might be drawn from this finding for both scholars and policymakers concerned with encouraging stability in states emerging from civil war. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the reasons for divergent national achievements in automotive industrialization by six East Asian countries: South Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Despite common ambitions to develop local automotive production within the global automotive value chain, these countries have varied in areas such as the shift from assembly to the local manufacture of OEM parts and components; the shift from OEM to ODM or OBM; and the degree to which these shifts involve indigenous firms and workers. Our approach builds on but goes beyond comparative institutional frameworks such as new institutional economics and ?varieties of capitalism.? First, we aim to integrate domestic comparative institutional analysis with work on global industries by exploring the ways in which the global automotive value chain itself influences national institutions and their political bases. Second, we draw an explicit distinction among development tasks that allows us to assess the kinds of institutional and political capacities required for different kinds of automotive performance. We are especially interested in local innovation-related areas such as technical training and standards development. Such challenges pose different kinds of difficulties than does, say, tariff liberalization. Finally, we assess national cases that do not exhibit the kinds of complementary institutional "packages" emphasized by the varieties of capitalism approach. Like most developing countries, our cases tend to be more hybrid arrangements in which non-market institutions in one area, say finance, coexist with market or arms-length arrangements in others, such as wages and skills. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article begins with a concise introduction to the nexus between labor migration and development, referring to the literature that emphasizes the potential dividends for developing countries from greater international liberalization of the movement of people. After a brief discussion of GATS Mode 4 in the context of labor migration, the article continues with a focused theoretical discussion of the international political economy of labor migration, identifying a convergence of interests between developing and developed countries in the area of temporary, low-skilled labor migration, that would predict the emergence of liberalization in this field, absent domestic policy-making obstacles and international cooperation problems to the contrary. On this background the article then presents basic elements of contemporary Austrian immigration policy and GATS Mode 4 commitments as contradictory to this prediction and surveys the national and regional political economy factors that produce this result. In conclusion, the article briefly outlines the structure of the collective action problem underlying international labor migration with reference to the domestic obstacles analyzed in the case of Austria, and draws attention to some reasons for the disutility of the GATS model in providing a solution to this problem. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mexico, Turkey, and Post-Financial Crisis Banking ReformBanking liberalization and financialization in the global South has become an enormously important feature of the global market and has received wider attention given periodic financial crises (Langley 2002; Panitch and Gindin 2004; Soederberg 2004). In the cases of Turkey and Mexico, the aftermath of crisis has witnessed visible institutional changes and substantial redistributions of economic and political power. Although there is a growing literature on this topic, the bulk of mainstream approaches are either highly normative and economistic and/or focused on governance practices at the level of institutions alone (Lukauskas and Arvid 2000; Eder 2001, Öniş and Aysan 2000). In contrast, this paper explains bank (de)regulation and liberalization in Turkey and Mexico at interrelated levels and seeks to determine why Turkey alone has diverged and re-experienced crisis again in 2001 despite a convergence of banking practices.Many developing countries have liberalized banking due to advice given by IFIs, mainstream views of financial liberalization benefits, and crisis itself. Having liberalized, these developing countries have been unable to protect themselves from the huge and rapid flows of funds whose volumes have expanded dramatically in the past two decades via new financial instruments and emerging speculative institutional investors (Khor 2001; Soederberg 2004). Moreover, whereas bank regulation used to be more of a national affair, it is now increasingly an area subject to both public and private regulation in multiple arenas. Of these arenas, three are immensely important and closely interrelated. First, policy pressure from IFIs in the area of banking (de)regulation affects and grafts itself onto national financial systems that have unique historical diversities, without entirely replacing them. Second, like many emerging markets, Turkey and Mexico are exposed to the multiple, and partially conflicting, demands of regional blocs when developing their banking regulations. Finally, Turkey and Mexico do not operate in a vacuum but rather in a global market context where they also have to negotiate their choices with private banks and large institutional investors, which are mostly foreign and located in advanced industrialized states. Through these interrelations, I explain the historic transformations of Turkish and Mexican banking regulation and their differentiated experiences despite convergent regulatory processes. Filing a gap in the Turkey-Mexico literature, my analytical framework combines the strong explanatory potential in terms of world market structural forces and power relations with the empirical focus on institutional forms, while accounting for the importance of domestic agents and groups (Coates 2005; Albo 2005). ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is intuitively believed that the MFN principle promotes the liberalization of trade among countries, while some insist that the deviation form it (PTAs etc.) make the world trade order more open. Using computer simulation, I test these arguements. Based on simple model of exchange of concessions, this paper constructs an agent-based simulation model of trade negotiation between countries, and analyzes the effects of the MFN principle(and deviation from it) on the global tariff cut, the incentives of agents to adopt such principles in dynamic settings. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]