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311. Bright Lines and Bailouts: To Bail or Not To Bail, That Is the Question

Author:
Vern McKinley and Gary Gegenheimer
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
A financial-institution bailout involves government intervention through a transaction or forbearance targeted to a financial institution or group of financial institutions. The action is preemptive as the financial institution does not fail and go out of business, but remains a going concern, benefiting creditors, shareholders, or counterparties. In the absence of a bailout, the financial institution would either be forced to go through receivership or bankruptcy in the prescribed legal form, or have its role in financial intermediation disrupted.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Political Economy, and Privatization
Political Geography:
United States

312. Delivering on Global Prosperity and Other Key Challenges

Author:
Richard Gowan
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The London Summit on 2 April marks a potential turning-point in making international institutions fit for the 21 st century – but it is not clear how farreaching its impact will be. The Summit affirms the status of the G20 as a forum to address institutional reform. While it may begin to lay the groundwork for an overhaul of the Bretton Woods institutions, it is far from guaranteed that even major reforms of the global financial framework will stimulate comparable progress in security cooperation, over climate change or on international law.
Topic:
Globalization, International Cooperation, International Organization, Non-Governmental Organization, and Political Economy

313. Trade and the Global Economic Crisis: Immediate Challenges and Long-term Threats

Author:
Jim Rollo and Peter Holmes
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The collapse of world trade is threatening to create a negative feedback loop to the global economy. Some countries have seen their trade fall by 30–50% in the year to February 2009, a bigger fall than between 1929 and 1930. Annual figures for world trade in 2008 show a big fall in the fourth quarter – a trend that has been accelerating. The world's trade ministers have failed to get the Doha Development Agenda back on track, despite direct instructions from the G20 leaders to do so quickly after the November summit in Washington, DC. This failure sends a very powerful negative signal about the G20's lack of policy coordination on even bigger issues. There is a two-way interaction between trade and the macro-economy at a national and global level. The current crisis is threatening countries that rely on export-led growth, a strategy that has led billions out of poverty. It is imperative for there to be recognition that the current shrinkage in global trade is a macro-economic problem requiring macro-economic solutions, and that the necessary actions must be coordinated.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Political Economy

314. West Africa: Governance and Security in a Changing Region

Author:
Abdel-Fatau Musah
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
This paper addresses the challenges to human and regional security in the territory covered by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It examines causal factors and their effects, profiles the actors shaping the security environment, and describes the nature and impacts of their interventions. Finally, it projects possible future scenarios based on the current security dynamics. The paper examines the geopolitical environment of West Africa, with emphasis on the strategic importance of the region and the vulnerabilities emanating from its location. Within this context, it discusses the roles of local, regional, and international actors in the evolving regional security architecture, sifting through their actions, motivations, and interventions. It analyzes the attempts by national, regional, and international institutions to transform the security environment, highlighting their roles, strengths, and weaknesses; and it projects various security scenarios, proposing policy options to meet the challenges that these scenarios present.
Topic:
Security, Development, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa

315. The Global Consequences of the Crisis, Session One in the Stephen C. Freidheim Symposium on Global Economics on Financial Turbulence and U.S. Power

Author:
Joseph S. Nye Jr and Philip D. Zelikow
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Stephen C. Freidheim Symposium on Global Economics Transcript: Joseph Nye, Philip Zelikow, Sebastian Mallaby, and Richard Medley discuss the global consequences of the financial crisis This session was part of the Stephen C. Freidheim Symposium on Global Economics: Financial Turbulence and U.S. Power, which was made possible through the generous support of Stephen C. Freidheim.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Globalization, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

316. How Are Markets Made?

Author:
Patrik Aspers
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the making of markets. The paper identifies two ideal-typical processes in which markets are made – organized making and spontaneous making – which are often combined in reality. Organized making is defined as a process in which at least two actors come together and decide on the order of the market. There are two ways of organized making of markets, called “state-governed market making” and “self-governed market making.” Spontaneous making is defined as a process in which the market is an unintended result of actors' activities. The attention sociologists have paid to the issue of market making has been directed largely at organized market making. This paper develops a sociological approach that integrates both spontaneous and organized market making, and identifies three phases of market making. This involves a discussion of empirical cases, and seven hypotheses are presented that make predictions for the two types of market making. The paper provides theoretical tools for studying the making of markets in history, as well as in our own time. Finally, a number of conditions are presented that must be in place if there is to be a market.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, Political Economy, and Political Theory

317. Pragmatismus und wirtschaftliches Handeln

Author:
Jens Beckert
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
What alternatives to rational choice theory do exist to explain economic phenomena? I argue that American pragmatism presents a viable alternative for the explanation of key economic incidences. First I illustrate the foundations of pragmatism using three problems regularly encountered in action theory. Then I show how innovation, institutional change, price formation and actors' preferences can be analyzed based on pragmatist premises. I conclude by reflecting on why pragmatism has found so little recognition in economics.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Political Economy, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United States and America

318. Soziologie kapitalistischer Dynamik

Author:
Christoph Deutschmann
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
I address the "growth miracle“(William Baumol) of modern capitalism. The central point is that the historically unique social dynamics of modern capitalism cannot be conceptualized satisfactorily by theories of “economic growth”; instead, the explanation requires a genuinely sociological approach. The first part of the paper gives a critical summary of the existing modernization-theoretical approaches and outlines an alternative theoretical perspective which is based largely on the interpretations of money by Simmel and Marx. The second part delivers a multi-level approach of capitalist dynamics which culminates in the construction of three growth scenarios, one positive and two negative ones. These scenarios could contribute to illuminating the background of the actual economic crisis.
Topic:
Economics, Political Economy, Political Theory, and Sociology

319. On Vital Systems Security

Author:
Stephen Collier and Andrew Lakoff
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper outlines some elements of the genealogy of vital systems security. Vital systems security is a way of “problematizing” threats to security that can be contrasted to the forms of sovereign state security and population security that Michel Foucault famously analyzed in his lectures on governmentality. Vital systems security takes up events that are uncertain and unpreventable but potentially catastrophic. Its object of protection is the complex of critical systems or networks on which modern economies and polities depend. Vital systems security is, thus, linked to the idea that the very success of industrial and social modernity in managing risks has in fact generated new risks.
Topic:
Security, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

320. 4-a-week: Changing food consumption in the UK to benefit people and planet

Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Food shopping may seem an innocent, even mundane, chore. But the food we buy every week can have huge impacts on people and environments seemingly worlds away from our regular dash round the shops. The futures of some of the world's poorest people and of the global environment are intimately linked to the contents of our shopping baskets.
Topic:
Environment, Political Economy, and Food
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe