scholarly journals Washington, Brussels, and Beijing Consensus

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
Balázs Kotosz

In the new world financial, economic and nowadays debt crisis, the role of international organizations is in focus again. The financial crisis opens the way for IMF credits and for thinking in the European Union. After the second millenary, a scientific dispute started about the credibility of the Washington Consensus in many parts of the world. A new school emerged around Bruno S. Sergi, Roberto Tamborini, and William T. Bagatelas, who has been speaking about a transition from Washington consensus towards Brussels consensus in the case of Eastern European countries. Sergi carefully and precisely calls for specific and active state directed policy that puts economic transition in Europe in a new dimension. By Bagatelas, specifically, under the EU dimension, development under the new "Brussels Consensus” consists of activist state policies based upon assumptions given the world by Keynes, Schumpeter and supply side beliefs. Empirical studies also proved this structural break in macroeconomic policy. Now, the debate on appropriate economic policy is very active again. As in times of recession, Keynes and Keynesian economics has become popular, but the role of the state (and the international organizations) is sorely ambiguous. Our paper is to compare the Washington and the Brussels consensus from a heterodox point of view, and to find the differences of the two conceptions. Finally, we sketch the controversial concept of Beijing Consensus.

IG ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 328-335
Author(s):  
Hartmut Marhold

The European Union (EU) invests huge resources in overcoming the pandemic crisis and does so as a learning system: The Union learned lessons from the previous, the financial, economic and state debt crisis after 2008, in many ways. The EU assumes now definitely the role of an active player in the economy, leaving behind the neoliberal doctrine; she suspends the restrictive budgetary policy, which prevented already in 2008 and the following years adequate solutions; she reshaped the control over its financial aid programmes so that harsh conflict between member states („troika“) are mitigated; the Union further refined the public private partnership mechanisms established unter the aegis of the European Investment Bank (EIB); the European Central Bank (ECB) assumes now a role still disputed after 2008; the flexibility clauses of the Lisbon Treaty, just put into force after 2008, are now extensively applied; and, more than anything else, the Union aims at a change of paradigm by putting the NextGenerationEU programme at the service of sustainable development (enshrined in the Green Deal).


Author(s):  
Antoine Vandemoorteele

This article analyzes the role of the European Union (EU) and Canada in the promotion of Security Sector Reforms (SSR) activities in two regional organizations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The concept of SSR seeks to address the effective governance of security in post-conflict environment by transforming the security institutions within a country in order for them to have more efficient, legitimate and democratic role in implementing security. Recent debates within the EU have led to the adoption of an SSR concept from the Council and a new strategy from the European Commission on the SSR activities. Within the framework of the ESDP, the EU has positioned itself as a leading actor, in this domain, including in its crisis management operations. On the other hand, Canada, through its whole-of government and human security programs has also been an important actor in the promotion of SSR activities. Yet, even though several international organizations (including the United Nations, the OSCE and NATO) are effectively doing SSR activities on the ground, there does not exist a common framework within any of these organizations despite the role of the EU and Canada. As such, it is surprising to found no global common policy for SSR while this approach is precisely holistic in its foundations. Taking these elements into consideration, this paper analyzes two specific aspects : a) the absence of a common policy framework within international organizations and b) the major differences between the approaches of the OSCE and NATO in the domain of SSR and the implications for the EU and Canada’ roles.   Full extt available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v3i2.186


Author(s):  
Carson H. Varner ◽  
Katrin C. Varner

This paper examines developing issues and attitudes that unite and divide the United States and the European Union as the discussion and regulation of agriculture evolves. While some terms, such as “organic,” are defined in law in both the United States and European Union, the increasingly used “sustainability” is an evolving concept. The main sustainability issue is how to provide food and fiber for a rapidly growing world population. In this context, the role of biotechnology is questioned. Americans tend to favor what are sometimes called genetically modified crops, while Europeans remain cautious. Europeans lean more toward organic farming, while Americans assert that much of the world will starve if organic methods are required. This paper reviews the directions that the discussion of these issues is taking and will show areas of agreement and where the two sides diverge.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Yoshiko Naiki

Abstract The rise and proliferation of private standards have been recognized in international trade law, and various concerns have been raised. Existing literature analyses how the World Trade Organization (WTO), particularly the SPS (Sanitary and Phytosanitary) Committee and the TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) Committee, have responded (or cannot respond) to the proliferation of private standards. This paper goes one step further by focusing specifically on the meta-regulatory function performed by regional and international organizations other than the WTO. This paper sheds light on three types of governance techniques that can serve as meta-regulatory activities in relation to private standards by regional and international organizations: (1) governance by delegation; (2) governance by information; and (3) governance by soft law. This paper analyses features of these governance techniques and considers the relation between these governance techniques and the WTO's approach.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 883-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Reichel

One of the reasons for introducing a “Union” citizenship in the 1993 Maastricht Treaty was to provide a direct channel between the citizens of the Member States and the EU. In contrast to many other international organizations, the role of the individual has been central to the European project since its inception. In its famous 1962 judgment given inVan Gend en Loos,1 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) underscored the importance of the “vigilance of individuals concerned” seeking to protect their European rights in the new legal order through judicial control.2 The right to directly vote on the representatives of the European Parliament had already been introduced in the 1970s. The citizens of the Member States were thus equipped with two classic forms of political participation even prior to the introduction of Union citizenship: law making and the legal adjudication of individual cases. Nonetheless, whether these channels are sufficient to guarantee the citizens effective democratic means to influence legislation and exercise control of EU institutions in the rather complex multilevel legal system of the EU has been continuously debated.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-281
Author(s):  
Jan Klabbers

This article addresses the ecology and functioning of the World Health Organization in a time of crisis, zooming in on the pressures on both the organization and its leadership generated by the circumstance that the organization cannot avoid allocating costs and benefits when taking decisions. The article argues that the covid-19 crisis illustrates how international organizations generally and the who in particular are subjected to conflicting demands, and how this impacts on the role of decision-makers. The latter, it transpires, need to display considerable practical wisdom.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 865-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Hall ◽  
Ngaire Woods

International Relations scholars have long neglected the question of leadership in international organizations. The structural turn in International Relations led to an aversion to analysing or theorizing the impact of individuals. Yet, empirical studies suggest that different leaders affect the extent to which international organizations facilitate cooperation among states and/or the capacity of a global agency to deliver public goods. It is difficult to study how and under what conditions leaders have an impact due to the challenges of attributing outcomes to a particular leader and great variation in their powers and operating context. We offer a starting point for overcoming these challenges. We identify three different types of constraints that executive heads face: legal-political, resource and bureaucratic. We argue that leaders can navigate and push back on each of these constraints and provide illustrations of this, drawing on existing literature and interviews with executive heads and senior management of international organizations. Executive heads of international organizations may operate in a constrained environment but this should not stop scholars from studying their impact.


The peace process in Northern Ireland is associated with the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement, the arduous and lengthy implementation of this Agreement, and the continuing sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Despite the numerous and various studies about this case, no collection of scholarly analysis to date has attempted to assess a wide variety of theories prominent in International Relations (IR) that relate directly to the conflict in Northern Ireland, the peace process, and the challenges to consolidating peace after an agreement. IR scholars have recently written about and debated issues related to paradigms, border settlement and peace, the need to provide security and disarm combatants, the role of agents and ideas, gender and security, transnational movements and actors, the role of religions and religious institutions, the role of regional international organizations, private sector promotion of peace processes, economic aid and peacebuilding, the emergence of complex cooperation even in the world of egoists, and the need for reconciliation in conflict torn societies. How do the theories associated with these issues apply in the context of Northern Ireland’s peace process? Theories of International Relations and Northern Ireland explores primarily middle-range theories of International Relations and examines these theories in the context of the important case of Northern Ireland.


2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Mälksoo ◽  
Margarita Šešelgytė

This article examines the self-positioning of the three Baltic states in international politics in relation to the major structural pressures challenging the status quo of the transatlantic security configuration. The constitutive role of the Russia-Georgia war of 2008, the global economic recession, the debt crisis in the eurozone, and the shifting policy preferences and force projection of the United States towards Asia are explored as the key sources of the emerging Baltic security predicament. The empirical conclusions of the poststructuralist discourse analysis conducted for this study demonstrate how the Baltic states, in particular Estonia, have recently come to redefine the contents of ‘new’ Europe, thereby shifting the extant fault lines within the European Union.


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