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1. How to Negotiate Over Trade: A Summary of New Research for Developing Countries

Author:
John S. Odell and Antonio Ortiz Mena L.N.
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
Developing country governments frequently negotiate with other governments over trade issues. Most developing countries are now members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and many of the rest are negotiating to join it. In the Doha Development Agenda, members find themselves facing multilateral talks of daunting complexity. The issues range from established ones such as market access, to the revision of WTO rules on antidumping, subsidies, and dispute settlement, to controversies over proposed new rules on investment and competition policies. Sometimes governments also negotiate to settle legal disputes about members' compliance with existing rules. Many are simultaneously negotiating new regional and bilateral pacts as well. This paper provides an advance summary of a research project developed by a group of scholars in 2003 to address the need of many developing countries to improve their capacity to participate effectively in trade negotiations.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance

2. Las bases internas de la política exterior: realidades y retos de la apertura económica y la democracia

Author:
Guadalupe González González
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the links between economic liberalization, democratization and foreign policy using the Mexican experience as a case study. The paper revolves around three major concerns: a) the change in the role and place of foreign policy in the context of an open economy and a democratic regime, compared with the previous period of a closed economy and an authoritarian regime; b) the impact of economic liberalization and democratization on the formulation, agenda and orientation of foreign policy; c) the effects of the new economic, political and social internal configuration on the international position of Mexico and its negotiating capacity vis a vis the world. This work documents an increase in the level of activity and interest shown by numerous social, governmental and bureaucratic actors in foreign policy issues as a consequence of economic openness and democratization of the political regime, which leads towards a greater politization of the issue area. The main argument is that the deficits in economic and social development, democratic consolidation and governability, negatively affect the country's credibility and its negotiating capacity vis a vis the world.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Mexico

3. Tendencias y patrones de la cooperación internacional para el desarrollo económico

Author:
Arturo C. Sotomayor
Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This paper provides a literature review and explores the evolution of official development aid (ODA) in the past decade. The main empirical puzzles that guide this research are: how has foreign development aid or ODA evolved historically within the broader framework of international cooperation? Who are the main ODA contributors? What countries provide more foreign aid in terms of their gross domestic product? What motivations drive ODA contributions? Which developing countries benefit the most from foreign aid?
Topic:
Development, Economics, Humanitarian Aid, and Politics

4. Getting to “No”: Defending Against Demands in NAFTA Energy Negotiations

Author:
Antonio Ortiz Mena L.N.
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
How can a developing country defend itself against unwanted demands in international economic negotiations, especially when the demandeur is a stronger state? Such defense can be a necessary component of any strategy, not only a distributive one but also a mixed strategy aimed at a wider agreement that benefits both sides. Sometimes what looks like an unwelcome demand turns out, after exploration and exchanges of concessions, to be an acceptable element in a beneficial package deal. But some demands are unwelcome in the stronger sense that one's government places an infinite reservation value on that particular issue. The government would prefer no agreement. In the case of a deal breaker, the delegation can walk away from the entire negotiation, but this could have large costs in opportunities foregone and even possible penalties imposed. What are the alternatives short of walking away? Mexico's negotiators faced such situation in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations with the United States and Canada (1990-1992), specifically in the energy sector. In general the three states sought a mutual-gains agreement, and in general each employed a mixed strategy. In energy, however, Washington made demands--regarding investment and supply commitments--which Mexico found unacceptable. At the end of the day the Mexican team managed to attain its main offensive negotiation aims in NAFTA (significantly improved market access, faster tariff reductions in the U.S. and Canada than in Mexico, and an effective dispute settlement mechanism), as well as the main defensive ones in energy. How did they do it? Structural conditions, such as being a neighbor of the U.S., gives Mexico certain leverage in negotiations, for the U.S. will typically take into account non-economic considerations when negotiating over economic issues. Nonetheless, many lessons derived from Mexico's negotiation strategy in energy negotiations during NAFTA can be applied across a range of cases.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Energy Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, Canada, North America, and Mexico

5. What Role for Learning? The Diffusion of Privatisation in the OECD and Latin American Countries

Author:
Covadonga Meseguer
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
In this paper, I enquire whether 37 governments in industrial and in Latin American countries privatised as a result of learning from experience. Using a rational updating model, I examine whether the decision in the 1980s and 1990s to streamline the public sector was the outcome of a revision of beliefs about the effectiveness of privatisation or whether, alternatively, it was triggered by international pressures or mimicry. The results suggest that rational learning and especially emulation were two important factors in the decision to privatise. International pressures, here proxied by the presence or absence of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund and by European Union membership, are irrelevant to explanations of the decision to privatise. Finally, domestic political conditions appear relevant to the decision to launch privatisation but only when the analysis is carried out for each of the regional sub-samples. In the OECD countries, centre-left governments were more likely to privatise whereas in Latin American more repressive regimes were more willing to divest.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Latin America

6. What is New in the Study of Policy Diffusion? A Critical Review

Author:
Fabricio Gilardi and Convadonga Meseguer
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This paper surveys what is new in the study of the international diffusion of policies and institutions. We critically review the most recent contributions on the topic, trying to identify the substantive and methodological novelties in this literature. Regarding mechanisms, we argue that whereas there is acknowledgement that they overlap, there is hardly any attention to the way in which they interact (either with other mechanisms of diffusion or with domestic factors). More generally, mechanisms are studied separately and are not integrated into a coherent model of diffusion. Regarding empirics, we argue that existing studies have concentrated on policies that seem to have diffused in an explosive way despite the fact that both theory and methods are appropriate to study any type of diffusion. We argue that new empirical work should tackle the difficult issue of how to better operationalize alternative diffusion mechanisms. More attention should also be given to modeling diffusion processes to account for the fact that causal patterns may be highly heterogeneous in time and space. Finally, we show that the last wave of studies on diffusion may have had the unintended consequence of opening up new questions. Some of these questions are about the mechanisms that initiate vs. accelerate the diffusion of policies and institutions, why policies diffuse in clusters rather than globally, why some policies diffuse faster than others and why some policies do not diffuse at all.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Development

7. Policy Learning, Policy Diffusion and the Making of a New Order

Author:
Covadonga Meseguer
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This chapter surveys the role of learning as mechanism of policy diffusion in the context of the creation of a new political order. I discuss policy learning against the background of recent research on the diffusion of deregulatory and regulatory policies, and attempt to distinguish learning from other mechanisms of diffusion. I then survey the challenges entailed in testing this mechanism and set out my particular approach: a rational version of learning. I also report the results of preliminary efforts to test learning as applied to the diffusion of regulatory policies. I conclude that learning cannot be rejected as a plausible mechanism of the diffusion of policies, although it shares its explanatory role with less rational mechanisms of diffusion, in particular policy emulation. Further research and analysis is needed to test learning in either its rational or its bounded version, and in doing so to delve into the politics of learning.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, and Politics

8. Elementos de una aproximación interpretativa a las ciencias sociales

Author:
Farid Kahhat
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
Statesmen address security concerns based on their understanding of the issues at stake. Such a truism becomes problematic, though, once we realize that no fact or event does inherently pose a threat to a state's security. Threats can only be identified by silhouetting them against the background of an interpretive framework: only after we know what could count as a security threat can we recognize certain facts or events as particular instances of that general phenomena. Therefore, different frameworks of interpretation will elicit different meanings from the same facts and events, and suggest different courses of action in response to them.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Development, and Government

9. Las relaciones económicas internacionales de México hacia el siglo XXI: retos y oportunidades. Reporte.

Author:
Antonio Ortiz Mena L.N. and Ninfa Fuentes
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
On December 2002, the Division of International Studies (DEI) at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) organized the forum “The International Economic Relations of Mexico: Challenges and Opportunities” with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The forum approached the international economic relationships of Mexico, from the regional and multilateral perspectives. The objective of the forum and of this document is to evaluate the relationships that Mexico maintains with each one of the regions and countries approached in the forum, highlighting the challenges and the opportunities that each one of them presents. We live an opportune moment to design a prospective and coherent vision of the international economic relationships of Mexico in the XXI Century among government's organs in order to avoid arriving to a point in which Mexico would have a reduced maneuver margin. The participants who took part in the forum and a list of acronyms are included at the beginning of the document. The conference agenda can be found as well. This document intends to reproduce the essence of the forum discussions and the participants' presentations. It is our intention to reflect in a clear and honest manner the participants' statements in this paper. Any lack of precision is not intentional and is exclusively our responsibility.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Central America and Mexico

10. La política exterior de las entidades federativas: un estudio comparado

Author:
Jorge A. Schiavon
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This working paper analyses the causes of the increased international activity of federated states' units, and the way and intensity in which this activity takes place. First, it explains that the growing participation of federal entities in foreign policy is a product, on one hand, of increasing globalization and interdependence in the international system, and, on the other, of the internal processes of liberalization, democratization, and decentralization. Second, using the Mexican case as an example, it explains how the legal rules in the Constitution establish the limits of international participation of the states of the federation; then, it analyses how the institutional configuration, the division of power, and the division of purpose in the system influence the degree of intensity of participation of these federal units in foreign policy issues, within the constitutional limitations. Likewise, it considers economic capacity and geographical location of the states as variables that also seem to influence their degree of activity. Then, it briefly explores how Mexican federal entities have participated in the internacional arena. Finally, it describes the relationships, in terms of foreign policy, between different orders of government in other federal systems, such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, and contrasts these relationships with those in Mexico.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, Switzerland, and Mexico