Cybersecurity, Global Commerce, and International Organizations

2021 ◽  
pp. 496-513
Author(s):  
David Fidler

As private-sector enterprises became dependent on Internet-enabled technologies, cybersecurity threats developed into serious problems in international political economy. This chapter analyses how states use international organizations to address these threats. The chapter explains why international organizations were not prominent in the Internet’s emergence and impact on transnational trade and investment. It examines the main threats companies face, including cybercrime, economic cyber espionage, government surveillance and hacking, innovation in digital technologies, and poor corporate cyber defences. International organizations have been most involved in fighting cybercrime, but these efforts have not been successful. International organizations do not play significant roles in countering other cybersecurity threats in global commerce. The chapter argues that international organizations are unlikely to become more important in the future because geopolitics and shifts in domestic politics in democracies will make collective action on cybersecurity in global commerce more difficult.

Author(s):  
Eugénia C. Heldt ◽  
Laura C. Mahrenbach

Abstract Recent scholarship has highlighted the role of domestic pressures in determining state preferences toward the reform of international organizations (IO s). This article adds a new dimension by examining how partisanship and ministerial control affect state preferences toward IO empowerment. The article derives two expectations from the existing literature. First, partisan position will determine preferences toward IO empowerment. Second, when a government is constituted by multiple parties, the position of the party with the IO’s ministerial portfolio will determine the government’s position toward IO empowerment. The article illustrates this argument by examining the positions of four net donors (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and two net recipients (Brazil and India) during the World Bank’s reforms. By bringing domestic politics back in, this article complements existing studies on the politics of IO reform and weighs in on central debates in comparative politics and international political economy.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haiyan Wang

Abstract This article develops Karl Mannheim’s theory of generations as a tool to analyze the profound changes that journalism is experiencing in the mainland of China. The article begins with a discussion of generational theory. It demonstrates that the development of critical journalism that occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s was the result of a unique combination of circumstances. A range of factors, including the introduction of digital technologies and shifts in the political atmosphere, have restricted that kind of journalism. Young people entering journalism today confront different circumstances and their resultant views, as well as their journalistic activities, are significantly different, and less engaged, than those of their seniors. The article concludes by discussing the theoretical modifications which are essential to make the original theory more suitable for contemporary conditions.


1979 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Kurth

What explains the continuing stagnation in the industrial economies of the West? What will be the impact of such stagnation upon domestic politics and upon international relations? Are there domestic and foreign policies which the state can undertake to bring about a return to sustained economic prosperity and a recapitulation of that lost golden age of 1948–1973? These are now the central questions for scholars in the emerging field of international political economy. A recent special issue of International Organization, edited by Peter Katzenstein, has presented some of the most useful and sophisticated approaches to these questions and analyses of the international political economy of the West during the period of the last thirty years.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.N. Popova ◽  
A.I. Potapkina

The article highlights the importance of the youth movement and international organizations as one of the practical areas of implementation of youth diplomacy. The authors describe the development of the International Youth Model of the UN in the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Special attention is paid to the transformation of the traditional modeling algorithm in the context of the development of digital technologies. The development of a new stage of the youth model movement in the fi eld of international relations — digital modeling of the United Nations-was announced.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 127-160
Author(s):  
Jenny D. Balboa

Abstract Since the Philippines elected President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, the country’s foreign policy seems to have become more uncertain. President Duterte’s mercurial personality and antagonistic tirades against the country’s traditional Western allies, including the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), and his statements of building closer ties with China and Russia, had changed the political and diplomatic tone of the Philippines overall. Certainly, the political relationship between the Philippines and the West has been changed by Duterte’s strong remarks against the US and EU. Has this change spilled over to the economy? The paper presents an international political economy framework in examining the impact of Duterte’s foreign policy pivot to the country’s foreign economic relations, focusing on trade and investment. The paper argues that Duterte’s foreign policy shift is mainly shaped by Duterte’s “politics of survival”. Not firmly anchored in any idea, norms, or interest that can clearly benefit the country, Duterte is unable to provide coherent guidance and leadership on the foreign policy pivot, particularly on the economy. Duterte’s lack of guidance provided the technocrats with the policy space to continue the policies from the previous administration and not to divert radically from previous economic policies. The stability of the economic institutions provided a refuge in the period of uncertainty. As a result, the foreign economic relations of the Philippines has not radically shifted. The trade and investment situation of the Philippines remained stable, and economic relations with traditional partners are maintained.


Author(s):  
Nina Hall ◽  
Hans Peter Schmitz ◽  
J Michael Dedmon

AbstractInternational relations (IR) scholars have recognized the importance of technology in enabling nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to build transnational networks and enhance their influence. However, IR scholars have typically focused on elite networks across NGOs, states, and international organizations. This article considers how digital technologies generate new types of networked power between NGOs and their members. Digital tools allow for fast feedback from supporters, rapid surges in mobilization, and more decentralized campaigns. Importantly, in the digital era, NGOs must decide not only which digital platforms to use, but also whether to devolve decision-making to their supporters. Two questions arise: First, do NGO staff or supporters primarily define and produce advocacy content? Second, is the goal of digital activism to broaden or intensify participation? Answers to these questions generate four digital strategies: proselytizing, testing, conversing, and facilitating. These strategies change advocacy practices, but only facilitating strategies open up new forms of networked power based on supporter-to-supporter connections. Digital strategies have profound ramifications for individual organizations, the nature of the advocacy sector, and its power in relation to states, corporations, and other nonstate actors. Digital adoption patterns shape how NGOs choose campaigns, how they legitimate their claims, and what strategies they rely on.


Author(s):  
Alison Johnston

The 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and subsequent European Debt Crisis had wide-sweeping consequences for global economic and political stability. Yet while these twin crises have prompted soul searching within the economics profession, international political economy (IPE) has been relatively ineffective in accounting for variation in crisis exposure across the developed world. The GFC and European Debt Crisis present the opportunity to link IPE and comparative political economy (CPE) together in the study of international economic and financial turmoil. While the GFC was prompted by the inter-connectedness of global financial markets, its instigators were largely domestic in nature and were reflective of negative externalities that stemmed from unsustainable national policies, especially those related to financial regulation and household debt accumulation. Many in IPE take an “outward looking in” approach to the examination of international economic developments and domestic politics; analysis rests on how the former impacts the latter. The GFC and European Debt Crisis, however, demonstrate the importance of a (CPE-based) “inward looking out” approach, analyzing how unique policy and political features (and failures) of individual nation states can unleash economic and financial instability at the global level amidst deepened economic and financial integration. IPE not only needs to grant greater attention to variation in domestic politics and policies in a time of closely integrated financial markets, but also should acknowledge the impact of a wider array of actors beyond banks and financial institutions (specifically more domestically rooted actors like households) on cross-national variation in the consumption of foreign credit.


Politics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 396-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan A Schirm

Domestic politics theories of international political economy and the recent disruptions in international cooperation and trade apparently induced by domestic discontent have shown the crucial role domestic forces play in influencing governmental preferences. This article contributes to this theoretical school, first, by assessing seminal works on the ideational, material, and institutional dimensions of domestic politics, and second, by conceptualising the ‘societal approach’ to fill a major gap in domestic politics theorising. The societal approach asks under which conditions value-based societal ideas, domestic institutions, and material interests matter in shaping governmental preferences. When do ideas prevail over interests and vice versa? How do they interact with each other and with domestic institutions? The societal approach includes all three domestic variables as potential driving forces for governmental preferences and conceives them both as individual and as interacting forces. Most importantly, it complements domestic politics theories by proposing hypotheses on the conditions for the influence of each variable on governmental preferences. The article brings together previously conceived parts of the societal approach and considerably expands it.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 3-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
André W.M. Gerrits

This article explores the relevance of disinformation in international relations. It discusses the nature of information manipulation, ways to counter disinformation, and possibilities for international organizations, including the osce, to initiate confidence-building measures. The article suggests that although disinformation becomes an increasingly salient aspect of global politics, its security impact should not be overstated. As in domestic politics, international disinformation parasites on existing divisions and concerns, which it exploits rather than creates. This should not be trivialized. Disinformation is disruptive and it further deteriorates the overall international context. But as yet it is not a significant security challenge, and it does not change the international balance of power.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloe Thurston ◽  
Kathryn Bowen

The articles in this special issue of Business and Politics weigh in on the domestic political dynamics that continue to shape the international political economy, with a focus on the United States case. In this issue, Richard Carney discusses the role of New Deal–era farmers in shaping modern global financial standards, Daniel Kono analyzes the relationship between social policy and support for freer trade, and Kathleen Rehbein and Douglas Schuler examine the characteristics of business firms that are most likely to gain legislative and executive branch access in the area of trade policy. The two final articles provide insights into critical issues in ongoing policy debates. Irja Vormedal discusses the role of business strategies and “tipping points” in determining the support and failure of federal environmental regulation from 1990 through 2010, while Emily Yixuan Cao, Yong Cao, Rashmi Prasad, and Zhengping Shen argue that domestic politics continues (and will continue) to influence the character of U.S.-China exchange rate negotiations. This introduction to the special issue summarizes the contributions of these five articles and also situates them in relation to other contemporary political science debates.


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