Redistributive Cooperation: Market Failure, Wealth Transfers, and the Basle Accord

1998 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Oatley ◽  
Robert Nabors

Theories of international cooperation rely on claims about joint gains to argue that governments create international institutions to mitigate information and enforcement problems and realize efficient solutions. We present a model in which politicians propose international institutions to resolve domestic political dilemmas and suggest that the international institutions they propose are sometimes intentionally redistributive. We apply both approaches to the Basle Accord and conclude that domestic politics rather than international market failure motivated American policymakers to propose international regulation, that through international regulation the United States sought to redistribute income from Japanese to American commercial banks, and that, therefore, the Basle Accord did not offer joint gains. Agreement was reached only after the United States used financial market power to eliminate the regulatory status quo. The Basle Accord is an instance of redistributive cooperation. The case suggests that domestic politics should supplant aggregate benefits in explanations of why governments propose and create international institutions.

1986 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Ross

The concepts of triangular structure and pattern of relations are useful in understanding conflict in U.S.-China relations, particularly over Taiwan, and in explaining the context in which Chinese domestic politics influences the P.R.C.'s policy toward the United States. Through their influence on relative bargaining strengths, shifting patterns of relations have determined Beijing's readiness either to push for change in U.S.-Taiwan relations or to accept the status quo until China's bargaining position improves. The pace of policy change within a particular pattern of relations has been influenced by the P.R.C.'s domestic politics, which has also compelled the leaders to protect their domestic position by issuing statements aimed at the domestic audience.


Author(s):  
Steven Hurst

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.


Author(s):  
Mary S. Barton

This is a book about terrorism, weapons, and diplomacy in the interwar years between the First and Second World Wars. It charts the convergence of the manufacture and trade of arms; diplomacy among the Great Powers and the domestic politics within them; the rise of national liberation and independence movements; and the burgeoning concept and early institutions of international counterterrorism. Key themes include: a transformation in meaning and practice of terrorism; the inability of Great Powers—namely, Great Britain, the United States, France—to harmonize perceptions of interest and the pursuit of common interests; the establishment of the tools and infrastructure of modern intelligence—including the U.S.-U.K. cooperation that would evolve into the Five Eyes intelligence alliance; and the nature of peacetime in the absence of major wars. Particular emphasis is given to British attempts to quell revolutionary nationalist movements in India and elsewhere in its empire, and to the Great Powers’ combined efforts to counter the activities of the Communist International. The facilitating roles of the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations are explored here, in the context of the Arms Traffic Convention of 1919, the Arms Traffic Conference of 1925, and the 1937 Terrorism Convention.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-459
Author(s):  
Kai He ◽  
T. V. Paul ◽  
Anders Wivel

The rise of “the rest,” especially China, has triggered an inevitable transformation of the so-called liberal international order. Rising powers have started to both challenge and push for the reform of existing multilateral institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and to create new ones, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The United States under the Trump administration, on the other hand, has retreated from the international institutions that the country once led or helped to create, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); the Paris Agreement; the Iran nuclear deal; the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty; the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The United States has also paralyzed the ability of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to settle trade disputes by blocking the appointment of judges to its appellate body. Moreover, in May 2020, President Trump announced his decision to quit the Open Skies Treaty, an arms control regime designed to promote transparency among its members regarding military activities. During the past decade or so, both Russia and the United States have been dismantling multilateral arms control treaties one by one while engaging in new nuclear buildups at home.


2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (07) ◽  
pp. 410-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Van Vliet

The members of the profession of audiology often express concern that the services and products that have been developed to provide benefit to the hearing impaired are not sought after or delivered to the majority of those diagnosed with hearing loss. A critical look at the status quo of hearing care delivery in the United States is needed to verify this assumption and to develop strategies to improve the situation. A key concern is the lack of a comprehensive high-quality scientific database upon which to build continuous improvements in the effectiveness of the services and products that are provided to the hearing impaired.


1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael T. Hatch

The United States chose an approach to global warming that came to be viewed by much of the international community as a barrier to effective action. In explaining why, this article analyzes the interaction of the domestic political process and international negotiations. It argues that—while external pressures brought to bear through the negotiations leading up to UNCED pushed the domestic agenda on global warming—the nature of the political process, in combination with the nature of the global warming issue itself, set the general limits for U.S. participation in cooperative international arrangements to manage global warming. That is, given the broad set of interests activated by global warming concerns and the ready access those interests had to decision-making bodies through a pluralist policy process, consensus on an approach to global warming proved impossible. The U.S., unwilling to accept international commitments that obligated it to domestic actions, thwarted efforts to get an international treaty containing firm targets and timetables.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 432-453
Author(s):  
Joel Alden Schlosser

Theories of citizenship have relied both explicitly and implicitly on the concept of “standing.” This article challenges “standing” as a metaphor of citizenship by contrasting it with that of “injury.” Examining Claudia Rankine’s Citizen elucidates a poetics of citizenship that both calls attention to what prevents many black citizens in the United States from standing and provides a basis for alternative practices of citizenship. Refusing a politics of ressentiment often tied to identification of social injury, Citizen prefigures a transformed citizenship of tarrying, listening, and transformative interruption of the racialized status quo.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (73) ◽  
pp. 405-416
Author(s):  
ANDRE PAGLIARINI

ABSTRACT This article surveys the ways that the global COVID-19 pandemic has effected higher education in the United States. After reviewing the effects of this critically important historical episode on colleges, particularly as it pertains to the humanities, I outline potential paths forward in the years to come. The fundamental tension I highlight is that between returning to a pre-COVID status quo or imagining an alternative model that is ultimately more sustainable for students and academics alike.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-214
Author(s):  
Judith Saunders

Abstract This article proposes revisiting Howard Brenton’s The Churchill Play (1974). I contend that the play offers pertinent insights into how authoritarian governments come into being through the implicit cooperation of people who, wittingly or unwittingly, enter into a “conspiracy of obedience.” Although inspired by political issues that were current in Britain in the 1970 s and 1980 s, the play’s illustration of the fragility of democracy resonates with today’s political atmosphere, especially that experienced in the United States. By anchoring my argument to the theories of Bertolt Brecht, I aim to clarify Brenton’s intent and encourage a more parabolic reading of the play – perceiving totalitarianism not as the usurpation of power by a single individual or group, but as the consequence of people’s complacent and self-serving tendencies to comply with the status quo.


Author(s):  
Amaney A. Jamal

This chapter focuses on Morocco, highlighting how citizens across the North African monarchy rationalize authoritarianism through the prism of strategic utility to U.S. (and EU) ties. Morocco includes one of the most progressive Islamic movements in the region, and citizens, while applauding the movement's moderation, remain wary of its foreign intentions. Enhancing ties with the United States and maintaining ties to Europe were often cited as key reasons why the status quo was preferable to increasing levels of democracy. It became apparent that although the Islamic Party for Justice and Development is considered moderate in terms of its internal Islamic agenda, many in the kingdom worried about the party's stance toward the United States.


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