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1552. Poland at the Crossroads Between Authoritarianism and Democracy
- Author:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies
- Publication Date:
- 01-2016
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Symbolic ensembles that are often displayed in the public sphere by right-wing populists are “thick” in this sense. They include many inter-locked symbols that – in combination – allow for a narrower range of possible interpretations and thus attract a smaller, in this case right wing leaning group of people. They constitute the symbolic base of Polish thick populism, an exclusionary and polarizing political-cultural formation, that at the moment is supported by well over one third of the Polish population, controls the government, and slowly dismantles Polish liberal democracy.
- Topic:
- Authoritarianism, Democracy, and Domestic politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Eastern Europe, and Poland
1553. CETA Without Blinders: How Cutting ‘Trade Costs and More’ Will Cause Unemployment, Inequality and Welfare Losses
- Author:
- Pierre Kohler and Servaas Storm
- Publication Date:
- 10-2016
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Proponents of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) emphasize its prospective economic benefits, with economic growth increasing due to rising trade volumes and investment. Widely cited official projections suggest modest GDP gains after about a decade, varying from between 0.003% to 0.08% in the European Union and between 0.03% to 0.76% in Canada. However, all these quantitative projections stem from the same trade model, which assumes full employment and neutral (if not constant) income distribution in all countries, excluding from the outset any of the major risks of deeper liberalization. This lack of intellectual diversity and of realism shrouding the debate around CETA’s alleged economic benefits calls for an alternative assessment grounded in more realistic modeling premises. In this paper, we provide alternative projections of CETA’s economic effects using the United Nations Global Policy Model (GPM). Allowing for changes in employment and income distribution, we obtain very different results. In contrast to positive outcomes projected with full-employment models, we find CETA will lead to intra-EU trade diversion. More importantly, in the current context of tepid economic growth, competitive pressures induced by CETA will cause unemployment, inequality and welfare losses. At a minimum, this shows that official studies do not offer a solid basis for an informed decision on CETA.
- Topic:
- International Trade and Finance, European Union, GDP, and Diversity
- Political Geography:
- Europe
1554. ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’? Resilience and UK Security Policies
- Author:
- Sarah Ponesch
- Publication Date:
- 12-2016
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP)
- Abstract:
- In the UK context of National Security Strategies and Critical National Infrastructure Protection, resilience is understood as a result of, or an answer to, an ever changing, complex and interconnected world in which even a tiny event can have a huge impact. Resilience incorporates the need to adapt to an almost infinite variety of hazards and risks and could therefore be called an all-hazards approach in the wider realm of security. However, an analysis of UK security policy documents and qualitative in-depth interviews with a variety of stakeholders shows it is more than that. Resilience is framed as a means to address change in general. It includes not only the negative aspects of globalisation but also its opportunities. Moreover, resilience is understood as a whole-of-government, if not whole-of-nation attempt to ‘connect the dots’ and overcome the ‘silo thinking’ in order to see the ‘bigger picture’. Therefore, resilience, in the UK, is often understood as a form of culture rather than a tool, instrument, concept or approach. In order for it to ‘function’, resilience has to overcome and reach beyond simple top-down or bottom-up approaches. It has to be lived.
- Topic:
- Security, Globalization, and Resilience
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom and Europe
1555. Getting tough with the dragon? The comparative correlates of foreign policy attitudes toward China in the United States and UK
- Author:
- Thomas J. Scotto and Jason Reifler
- Publication Date:
- 06-2016
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- A large body of research suggests mass publics are capable of thinking coherently about international relations. We extend this body of research to show that domain relevant postures – in our case, more abstract beliefs about foreign policy – are related to how tough of a line representative samples of US and UK respondents want their governments to take toward China. More specifically, we utilize a unique comparative survey of American and British foreign policy attitudes to show broad support for toughness toward China. Beliefs about the use of the military and attitudes regarding globalization help explain preferences for tough economic and military policies toward China. In the two countries, the relationship between general foreign policy outlooks and the positions citizens take is robust to the addition of a general mediator that controls for the general affect those surveyed have toward China. Finally, the strength of the relationship between these abstract postures and specific preferences for a China policy are different across the countries.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Military Affairs, Political Science, and Economic Policy
- Political Geography:
- China, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, North America, and United States of America
1556. Hebrew Sources in the Doctrine of the Law of Nature and Nations in Early Modern Europe
- Author:
- Charles Leben
- Publication Date:
- 01-2016
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article sets out to re-examine Hebrew sources in the doctrine of the law of nations of the 17th century, from Gentili’s De Jure Belli Libri Tres (although it strictly belongs to the 16th century since it was first published in 1598) to Pufendorf’s De Jure Naturae et Gentium (1672). It incontrovertibly confirms the importance of Jewish sources in the general intellectual education of the founding fathers of international law and in their general political philosophy while limiting their role with respect to the construction of international law in the strict and contemporaneous sense of the term.
- Topic:
- International Law, Religion, Political Theory, History, Law, and Judaism
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Mediterranean
1557. The problem with ‘embedded liberalism’: the World Bank and the myth of Bretton Woods
- Author:
- Samuel Appleton
- Publication Date:
- 10-2016
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex
- Abstract:
- The Bretton Woods conference is conventionally understood as a radical break between the laissez faire order and its ‘embedded liberal’ successor, in which finance was suppressed in the interest of trade and productive growth. The new institutions, particularly the IBRD are often considered emblematic of this. In response to this, the paper argues that the Bretton Woods order required the enlistment, not repression, of private American finance. Firstly, laissez-faire era proposals for international financial institutions provided important precedents for the Bretton Woods institutions. Second, these were predicated on the uniquely deep liquidity of American financial markets following upon Progressive-era reforms, in the legacy of which the Roosevelt administration sought to locate the New Deal. Thirdly, they found new relevance in the 1940s as the IBRD turned by necessity to American financial markets for operating capital. Negotiating the imperative of commercial creditworthiness had two important consequences. First, it entailed the structural and procedural transformation of the IBRD, and allowed management to carve out a proprietary terrain in which its agency was decisive. Second, this suggests that US agendas were mediated by the Bank’s institutional imperatives – and that finance was no more ‘embedded’ during the Bretton Woods era than its predecessor.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, World Bank, Global Markets, International Development, and Global Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Latin America
1558. Shifting Sands: Power, Uncertainty and the Form of International Legal Cooperation
- Author:
- Timothy Meyer
- Publication Date:
- 01-2016
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article argues that the form of international agreements – binding hard law agreements versus non-binding soft law agreements – can be partially explained by states’ interests in promoting renegotiation in the presence of uncertainty and shifting power. I make this argument in three steps. First, I explain that states regularly use unilateral non-compliance as a renegotiation strategy. Second, I argue that making an agreement soft facilitates this use of unilateral non-compliance. Third, I analyse the conditions – uncertainty characterized by common interests (but not uncertainty characterized by distributive concerns) and shifting power – under which facilitating renegotiation through soft law will appeal to states. In particular, I argue that in the presence of these conditions preventing renegotiation creates long-term costs for states that can inhibit short-term cooperation. In effect, under these conditions the shadow of the future can inhibit cooperation rather than support it, as is conventionally thought. These conditions are common to many major contemporary subjects of international cooperation in a way they were not during the latter half of the 20th century, partially explaining the increased importance of soft law to contemporary international governance.
- Topic:
- International Relations, International Law, International Trade and Finance, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Europe, United Nations, and Global Focus
1559. Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa: Causes and Consequences
- Author:
- Karen J. Alter, James T. Gathii, and Laurence R. Helfer
- Publication Date:
- 01-2016
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article discusses three credible attempts by African governments to restrict the jurisdiction of three similarly situated sub-regional courts in response to politically controversial rulings. In West Africa, when the Court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) upheld allegations of torture by opposition journalists in Gambia, that country’s political leaders sought to restrict the Court’s power to review human rights complaints. The other member states ultimately defeated Gambia’s proposal. In East Africa, Kenya failed in its efforts to eliminate the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) and to remove some of its judges after a decision challenging an election to a sub-regional legislature. However, the member states agreed to restructure the EACJ in ways that have significantly affected the Court’s subsequent trajectory. In Southern Africa, after the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal ruled in favour of white farmers in disputes over land seizures, Zimbabwe prevailed upon SADC member states to suspend the Tribunal and strip its power to review complaints from private litigants. Variations in the mobilization efforts of community secretariats, civil society groups and sub-regional parliaments explain why efforts to eliminate the three courts or narrow their jurisdiction were defeated in ECOWAS, scaled back in the EACJ and largely succeeded in the SADC.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Human Rights, International Law, and Courts
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, Africa, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Gambia
1560. Shifting Sands: Power, Uncertainty and the Form of International Legal Cooperation
- Author:
- Timothy Meyer
- Publication Date:
- 01-2016
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article argues that the form of international agreements – binding hard law agreements versus non-binding soft law agreements – can be partially explained by states’ interests in promoting renegotiation in the presence of uncertainty and shifting power. I make this argument in three steps. First, I explain that states regularly use unilateral non-compliance as a renegotiation strategy. Second, I argue that making an agreement soft facilitates this use of unilateral non-compliance. Third, I analyse the conditions – uncertainty characterized by common interests (but not uncertainty characterized by distributive concerns) and shifting power – under which facilitating renegotiation through soft law will appeal to states. In particular, I argue that in the presence of these conditions preventing renegotiation creates long-term costs for states that can inhibit short-term cooperation. In effect, under these conditions the shadow of the future can inhibit cooperation rather than support it, as is conventionally thought. These conditions are common to many major contemporary subjects of international cooperation in a way they were not during the latter half of the 20th century, partially explaining the increased importance of soft law to contemporary international governance.
- Topic:
- International Law, International Trade and Finance, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Europe, United Nations, and Global Focus