Global Warming Could Stifle Economic, Political Stability

Benjamin Olken, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that global warming is not just going to devastate agriculture in developing countries, the link between “high temperatures and poor growth is much stronger than we’d realised.”

Olken said that his team’s study is the first to link climate change with economic growth, reports New Scientist.

The authors say that high temperatures could even undermine scientific productivity.

If global temperatures rise as predicted, the economic gap between rich and poor nations will have doubled a decade from now. In 50 years’ time the gap will have widened 12-fold.

For the study, the team looked at how temperatures affected economic growth in the past 50 years.

The researchers found that while rich economies seemed resilient to temperature rises, the GDP of poor countries dropped by 1 per cent in years when those temperatures rose 1 °C or more above the regional average.

They also found that the number of scientific papers – a measure of innovation – also fell in poor countries in hot years, as did economic investment in the region.

Breakdown in government was more likely, as were political coups.

Olken said his results are consistent with other studies showing that high temperatures increase civil unrest, and that drought can lead to political instability.

Hungary Like A Wolf for IMF Loans? Perhaps Not

European financial markets were in for a bit of a surprise Monday as Hungary was not able to agree with the EU and IMF on conditions for the release of another tranche of its EUR 20 billion standby agreement concluded in 2008. Current Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban of the right-of-centre Fidez party ousted the previous socialist leadership which negotiated the IMF deal. Orban had already been PM from 1998 to 2002, but lost at the polls in 2002 and 2006. As is often the case in politics, traditional notions of "left" and "right" do not always match when it comes to dealing with the IMF and other foreign interlopers. Whereas the previous government was obviously more amenable to making concessions--especially on the fiscal austerity front--the current government is not quite.

And so we have a populist backlash against the IMF. Ho-hum, where have we seen this movie before...

    Hungary's government said the International Monetary Fund and European Union are ignoring the economic risks of excessive austerity measures and that Budapest can't make deeper spending cuts now, despite a punishing reaction from markets after bailout-loan talks between the two sides broke off this weekend.

The Hungarian currency, the forint, on Monday fell to its lowest level against the euro in more than a year, and the cost of insuring Hungarian government bonds against default jumped sharply after the IMF and EU walked out of talks with Budapest on Saturday, saying the government wasn't doing enough to shrink its budget deficit...

The new populist government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is trying to push back, arguing that further budget cuts risk stifling the country's nascent economic recovery. Hungary's gross domestic product is forecast to grow by about 0.6% this year, after contracting 6.2% in 2009.

"We've been through more than four years of austerity and that's why we have lost our competitiveness," Hungary's economy minister, Gyorgy Matolcsy, said in television interview Monday. "We told our partners that further austerity packages were out of the question."

Mr. Matolcsy also said the government planned to go ahead with a hefty new tax on [Western--see below] financial institutions aimed at raising nearly $1 billion to boost government revenue this year, despite concern from the IMF and EU that the measure would constrain economic expansion. "The only alternative to the bank tax is austerity," Mr. Matolcsy said. And that "would dampen growth more..."

If the government fails to strike a deal with the IMF and EU, it won't be able to draw on the remaining funds in a €20 billion ($25.9 billion) rescue package obtained in 2008, when it was unable to raise money amid a global credit crunch. Hungary hasn't drawn any money from the standby loan so far in 2010, and doesn't need funds to finance itself for the rest of the year.

Aside from not needing the IMF loans just yet, there are other reasons why the Fidesz party is undertaking this gambit. With local elections upcoming, a populist backlash may be just the thing to win votes and solidify a government majority. What's more, this backlash is further enhanced with revenue generation plans aimed at big (read: Western) banks while sparing indigenous firms that are of more modest size. Reuters has a neat Q&A from which the following are taken:

    IS FIDESZ TRYING TO BUY TIME FOR LOCAL ELECTIONS?

Fidesz won a parliamentary election in April on the promise of generating growth and jobs through tax cuts, which appears to have been its only economic policy plan, analysts say. Global markets have taken a sour turn, however, and the government was forced to abandon its budget loosening policy. It has done so half-heartedly, and the programme it was forced to put forward in June reflects a resentment toward austerity.

Fidesz hopes to maximise popular support for the local elections on Oct. 3. Before ousting the Socialists from power in April, the party had won voters by campaigning against a series of austerity measures by the left. Coming out with such measures of their own would risk alienating swathes of the electorate. If they are to consolidate their power at the local level that will give Fidesz 3-1/2 years without an election, giving the government a freer hand.

Hungary's existing IMF/EU agreement will expire by October, giving Fidesz enough time to secure a safety net to fall back on. It remains to be seen whether the patience of markets will last another two months.

IS THERE A DANGER FIDESZ WILL RISK CONTINUED MARKET SELLOFF?

Yes, there is. Fidesz's popularity is rooted in a populist agenda that eschews austerity. To execute its agenda -- supporting families and small businesses at the expense of taxing banks and multinational firms -- Fidesz needs to control local governments. The breaking point will likely come soon after the local elections, which will coincide with writing next year's budget and the expiry of the current IMF/EU aid deal. If Fidesz does win local elections with a strong mandate, it can relax the populist agenda.

WHAT IS FIDESZ'S ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY?

The party has proposed legislation to lower the tax burden on households and companies and wants the financial sector -- mainly banks with west European parents -- to foot the bill...Fidesz, which wants to distance itself from leftist governments of the past 8 years, loathes the idea of austerity for fear of being branded the same as the Socialists.

Its efforts to meet the 3.8 percent of GDP budget deficit goal centre on a financial sector tax. Fidesz's reluctance to introduce harsher spending cuts and its insistence on the bank tax strengthened its populist image among investors.

Introduction to International Politics (POLS0400)

This course analyzes sources and patterns of conflict and cooperation in world politics. It focuses on realist, liberal, constructivist, feminist, and Marxist interpretations. The course considers global security and international political economy during the Cold War and beyond, concluding with an evaluation of efforts to prevent ethnic and civil conflict in contemporary world politics and to strengthen international cooperation in resolving common global issues.

Note: This introductory course is recommended for students in their first or second year of study at Brown, before they take most of the other required courses for the concentration. All IR concentrators must take POLS0400.

Global Political Economy: Theory and Practice (3rd edition)

This up-to-date book provides a balanced, in-depth background to main IPE theoretical approaches, examines IPE issues in historical perspective, and discusses domestic-international linkages.  Managing the Global Economy Since World War II: The Institutional Framework; The Realist Perspective; The Liberal Perspective; The Historical Structuralist Perspective; International Monetary Relations; Foreign Debt; Global Trade Relations; Regionalism and Global Trade Regime; Multinational Corporations and Global Production; International Development; Current Trends in the Global Political Economy.

Obama's $20B Oil Fund, Energy Policy and his "Lost" Year

President Obama's announcement of a $20 billion escrow fund to help pay for Gulf economic damages from the oil spill likely won't be enough to cover projected damages to the economy, environment and livelihoods in the region. Early this month, I've estimated those costs potentially to be in the $50-80 billion range, not including clean-up costs.

Ultimately, BP might not be able to afford the damages it is responsible for, as its North American unit has assets valued at about $50 billion. The US and Obama should look at other ways of balancing the ledger, by reducing U.S. oil and gas subsidies ($15-35 billion per year) and transferring those funds to Gulf clean-up, environmental and economic restoration while creating a true foundation for clean energy and alternative fuels development.

Obama called during his Tuesday White House address for a new energy economy: "For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we've talked and talked about the need to end America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels...Time and again, the path forward has been blocked--not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor."

This demand was also made at the beginning of his presidency when he kicked off numerous clean energy and alternative energy funding measures, mainly through ARRA funding to US Department of Energy programs.

In his early Oval Office days, Obama even went after sprawl, the energy inefficient, destructive and now economically bankrupt car-dependent form of development that has also dominated the United States "for decades," but that rarely is addressed by national policymakers in the executive or legislative branches of government.

Then came Spring 2009 to Spring 2010, a lost year for energy and sustainability policy, when all minds and actions at the White House were about health care reform. President Obama rarely mentioned cleantech or sustainability policy. His staff were up to their eyeballs in health care discussions, with one day a month dedicated to a staff meeting on "the environment" (with no regular meeting devoted to clean energy jobs or sustainable economic development).

Was it any wonder that comprehensive climate change and energy legislation have since floundered in the Senate? There has been little attempt to project statistically or show how more sustainable technologies--wind, solar, alternative fuels, green building and infrastructure, water conservation technologies--are fast becoming become one of the more dominant economic sectors globally.

Meanwhile, sprawl and its economic (foreclosure meltdown); health (obesity); environmental and energy consequences (import more oil or drill ever deeper domestically) are running rampant, with little "political courage and candor" in admitting that all the latest technologies will do little do overcome these deep-rooted structural and economic phenomena.

There are untold billions of dollars we will collectively save if the Obama Administration, Congress and our communities are willing to examine and reform the root causes of the BP disaster.

Damage from spewing Gulf oil is occurring to millions or billions of life forms in nature, from plankton, to plants, to fish and aquatic species, to mammals and humans.

Planetary climate change from burning oil, gasoline and other fossil fuels is accelerating, and some developing nations suffering the worst early effects are human equivalents to the innocent pelicans and sea turtles gasping at this very moment for their last breaths.

Who is setting up the escrow fund to repair global destruction from climate change? Costs have been estimated at $80 to $500 billion annually and these will be steadily rising as drought, desertification, heat waves and catastrophic flooding impacts become more severe.

This is a tough question for any entity or nation to answer. The longer we wait in the United States to even pose the question of climate change reparations, however, the more the oil wells, pipelines, tailpipes and smokestacks will be uncontrollably spewing with the meter running, reducing our options in times of future crisis.

We need to get creative now, and go beyond creating mere taxes, penalties and escrow funds, and restructure our assumptions about the role of government, business and economic development.

Globally down to the level of our communities and neighborhoods, we need to awaken to the realization that the time of crisis is now upon us. We must respond in a scale that is appropriate to ensuring that quality of life is an issue not just for elite nations or people, but also for the "small people," whether in the United States or in developing nations, as well as for the biological tapestry that sustains us and the global economy. 

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, an internationally active urban sustainability strategy consultancy. He is author of How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings and a Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute.

Global Context (Afghanistan) A Thousand Splendid Suns

Reviewed by: Bruce Riley Ashford

This series of posts deals with the global context in its historical, social, cultural, political, economic, demographic, and religious dimensions in particular. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.

Khaled Hosseini’s second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, is a splendid follow-up to his first novel The Kite Runner which has sold almost 5 million copies worldwide. Whereas the first story dealt with the lives of two young boys, the second gives the story of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila. The majority of the story takes place in Kabul, while moments of the story occur in Herat, Afghanistan and Murree, Pakistan.

Mariam is the illegitimate child of a wealthy man in Herat who keeps her at arms length. She struggles to understand why she cannot be like her father’s other children, and desperately wants her father’s attention. When she disgraces her father by visiting him in Herat, she returns home to find that her mother has committed suicide. As a result, Mariam’s father gives her in marriage to the much older Rasheed who takes her to Kabul. In the ensuing narrative, Mariam learns to cook and clean for her husband, wear a burqa, endure constant beatings and abusive sex, and deal with the pain of multiple miscarriages.

Eventually, Rasheed marries again, this time to Laila, who was raised in a good home with loving parents in Kabul. The ensuing narrative deals with the developing relationship of these two women who are married to the same man. The novel gives a colorful, and often sad, portrayal of Afghan society and culture, dealing with such themes as war, poverty, sexual abuse, and murder. Like The Kite Runner, it is an emotionally arresting book, as Hosseini’s well-crafted characters deal with the realities of turn-of-the-century Afghan life.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is recommended for its significance (1) as a well-written work of literature, (2) as a realistic and masterful portrayal of aspects of Afghan history and culture, spanning from the Soviet occupancy up until the recent post-Taliban era, and (3) as a reminder that there are countless thousands of women like Mariam and Laila, and men like Rasheed, who live mind-numbingly painful lives, and who have little or no access to the gospel.

Book: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Genre: Fiction
Region: Central Asia
Length: 372 pp.
Difficulty: Intermediate

Leadership and Global Mindset

In global companies, corporate leaders have to care and understand about the similarities and differences in the region or the country in terms of political, economic, legal, and cultural. Global leaders must try to work in different regions or countries and face a variety of economic conditions, political, social, and cultural. The global leader must always observe the global changes that occur so accustomed to change and uncertainty.

The global leader must understand the needs of local and international customers, varied needs of consumers become a source of corporate opportunities. According to Dekker, Jansen, and Vinkenbur there are four requirements that must be owned by a global leader:

    International work experience, the experience can help to understand the global perspective.
    Cross-cultural competence, the leader is able to accommodate all the needs of global customers and do joint relationship with diverse backgrounds.
    Leadership, global leader be professional and have the ability and knowledge that has been tested.
    Openness, a global leader must be open to the outside world. Leaders must consider themselves as part of the world as a whole, not just part of the region or country.

Global leaders believe that the market is not only limited in one region or country, but can penetrate the boundary region or country. The global leader must like traveling, the ability to share between private life and work, understand the diverse community, work effectively and have the ability to balance global strategy

American Empire and the Political Economy of Global Finance

This book analyzes America's unique role in the making and managing of global finance, setting it in the context of the historical, social and institutional interface between politics and finance.It is highly topical amidst the challenges of crises in globalized financial markets. It provides a distinctive and original theoretical approach which enlightens new imperialism debates and the developments in international and political economy. It offers a wide-ranging coverage of the key American and international institutions in global finance.In a lively critique of how international and comparative political economies misjudge the relationship between global markets and states, this book demonstrates the central place of the American state in today's world of globalized finance. The contributors set aside traditional emphasis on military intervention, looking instead to economics.

Review
‘Panitch and Konings do a marvellous job in bringing together a set of innovative and rigorous chapters that throw critical light on the obscure and complex nature of the American Empire and its role in shaping the landscape of contemporary capitalism. This book is essential reading in understanding how the world works.’ - Susanne Soederberg, Canada Research Chair, Global Development Studies, Queen’s University, Canada

‘This work, written by some of the world's finest scholars on the topic, breaks new ground by demonstrating how finance is anchored in the social structure of the United States in profound and often unique ways. This takes the book far beyond routine assessments of how a dominant political and economic power translates its superiority into financial clout; compared to Europe, let alone the rest of the world, American capitalism also connects a wide variety of interests directly into the financial system. If Gramsci once said that in the United States hegemony grows directly in the factory, this collection demonstrates that it is also directly translated into hegemony in the global financial system. Are we now witness to its demise? At a time of profound financial disturbance, no student of global political economy can afford to ignore this eminent collection.’ - Kees van der Pijl, Professor of International Relations, University of Sussex, UK, and author of Global Rivalries from the Cold War to Iraq

Lucia da Corta, "The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: Dinosaur or Phoenix?"

Lucia da Corta, The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: Dinosaur or Phoenix? "In The Comparative Political Economy of Development, Africa and South Asia, Edited by Barbara Harris - White and Judith Heyer. London, Routledge, 2010, pp. 18-46

Contributors: Noer Fauzi Rachman

Work da Corta is the text that is easily understood. He was able to dissect the critical approach to studies of chronic poverty (chronic poverty) are popular both in academia and in international development institutions for nearly two decades.

This script was originally published as one of the working paper series published by the Oxford Department of International (ODID), Oxford University in November 2008. Publicly recognize this as a working paper series QEH (Queen Elizabeth House) Working Paper Series refers to the name of an office building where ODID.

Well, writing this, da Corta show that the approach Political Economy of Agrarian Change (PEACH) capable of improving the quality of research around issues of transformation following chronic poverty in rural areas. According to the journey, the study of chronic poverty is itself actually originated from the concerns of the researchers on the length of the long process of creation and poverty - which is now done - is against the things that make people able to completely get out of poverty.

Indeed, in an attempt to understand chronic poverty, concern for the researchers met with concern the PEACH. The difference lies in the theory that is methodologically very individualistic. This theory was developed by researchers since the elimination of chronic poverty PEACH from the main arena of social science and policy of international development institutions in the 1990s.

Furthermore, this individualistic methodology into a separate debate. And even become mainstream in the study of poverty. Away from efforts to uncover the causes of chronic poverty are both structural and relational nature, researchers in the mainstream is prioritizing the investigation of processes of social exclusion and the characteristics and experiences of poor people live on from generation to generation.

Da Corta further indicate the limitations of the method of this individualism. According to him, the understanding of the poverty trap caused by the absence of the following assets is a business how to cope with an important and useful. However, "it's just a part of the whole story," he continued as well. He then indicated that "(t) anpa explanations include social relationships that's very unfair when poor people are bound, and the broad political economic situation, thus the analysis was superficial."

The contrast with the case itupula, "PEACH studies of vulnerability and ways to overcome poverty over the period of mass starvation and crisis associated with the seasons, showing how diverse groups of elites to take advantage, or even to engineer opportunities for wealth accumulation through expropriation of assets in the period of mass starvation and cumulation of food. This is done to stimulate price increases or exploit the opportunity to reinforce the bonds of long-term employment, which to all that makes the poor even more vulnerable in the face during the next mass starvation. " (Da Corta 2010:23)

Da Corta also shows how the next generation of studies about chronic poverty using a better perspective. This new generation began to consider how power works and what kinds of social relationships that militate-rintangi power to transform people into poverty. In addition, they also saw how the traps of poverty, low income and high vulnerability were formed by processes of political, social and cultural. Some researchers of this generation have written reports to chronic poverty research center (Chronic Poverty Research Centre / CPRC), which is managed by the University of Manchester, Manchester, England.

One of the key concepts proposed new generation of this chronic poverty studies such as the adverse social inclusion and exclusion (Francaise). According to the evaluation of da Corta, adverse to the concept of inclusion, researchers Francaise step forward because it advocated an approach that focused on social relationships and transformation. This is as told by its main proponent,

The concept of inclusion of this adverse ... capture the ways in which strategies may continue to live locally and inhibited by-hubugan relationship of economic, political and social continues to demonstrate its influence on various space and time, living in a long working period and in certain cycles, life in the local space to global. These relationships are driven by highly unequal power (Hickey and du Tois 2007, as cited by da Corta 2010:26)

Nevertheless, in this paper, da Corta indicate that users Francaise kekuarangna analytical tool to highlight the political economic processes that led to the binding of people into the market process that would make him trapped in chronic poverty, and re-establish their own explanation models. As a result, they are not able to fully (and avoid) describes the external causes of vulnerability and why poor people are trapped in poverty.

As a counter top methodological individualistic approach is critical realist approach that is open, holistic (micro and macro), composed of various social relations and other mutually binding and depend on each other (interdependencies), and it is plural and across the boundaries of the field science (post-disciplinary).

Da Corta promoting that,
"(K) eterbukaan of critical realist methodology is important for poverty analysis because of the open framework enables the analysis not only of how to study objects that escape the poverty trap, but also critically (open to) the empirical research that escape from the trap theory which simply equate poverty and social exclusion. Because penjelasnya framework is no longer closed, empirical research can investigate the possibility that poverty was the result of committed themselves to the processes of economic, social, political, meso and macro levels of "(da Corta 2010: 10).

Da Corta At this point shows the importance of the work of conceptual tools that have been developed previously by PEACH, such as: exploitation of patron-client relationships and decline, class differentiation, capital accumulation, state patronage, changes in ownership relations, and others. Moreover, da Corta also show that the character's perspective has made a caricature of PEACH adverse Incorporation proponents are shut down on the key concepts that have been developed by researchers on the basis of field research PEACH (village studies) and the depth and length academic debate that is open throughout the 1970s, peaked in the 1980s until their demise in the late 1990s.

At the end of this article, shows the importance for da Corta, no doubt, by combining PEACH Francaise, and left the methodological individualistic approach and replace it with a critical realist methodology. He concluded that,

Broadening the study of chronic poverty through the use of a plural PEACH approach allows a more in-depth causal analysis. And thus open the door more open in the range of choices and possible changes in policies that are more progressive and empowering. For example, when poverty theorized as a mere matter of risk and vulnerability, the solution offered is often a social security or social protection; when it was conceived as a bad result from tying themselves to the relationships and constraints of race, caste or gender, then the solution is action affirmative. However, if we understand poverty as a problem to bind themselves (Incorporation) in the normal workings of markets and capitalism (the normal workings of markets and of Capitalisms), then the policy will refer to the arrangement of the impoverishing effects of the capital, and empowerment through pro-labor policies and pro-poor rather than pro-capital development. That also means the inspection and review (and then followed by a re-negotiation) to companies nationally and globally with respect to their employment policies (da Corta 2010:40)

Phoenix dinosaurs or birds? Da Corta an interesting use of two reference symbols to provoke the reader in understanding the position of PEACH. In this case da Corta question: whether the match if PEACH described as a dinosaur extinct due to its failure to survive in the ecosystem has changed drastically due to a meteor fall to earth. Or, better suited described as a phoenix that has a life cycle prosper burn herself to death, and re-emerged from the ashes a new phoenix generation. Well, what do you think?

Note: Lucia da Corta is a freelance researcher who currently works for the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) in London and chaired the CPRC Comparative Life History Project. Da Corta intact manuscript can be downloaded here.

Gender in the Practice of International Political Economy and Global Security

The role of women in conflict areas encouraged the emergence of other issues that also implicate gender, that is associated with women's access to natural resources are limited. Conflict situations and natural disasters, for example, has led to disruption of activities of daily needs, including water as an essential requirement for life. In this situation, access to water has become a field "fight" for women separately.

Greening the Economic Bailout

Could the economic bailouts that seem to pour endlessly out of Washington become clean, green stimulus for our nation’s economy? Host Mike Tidwell discusses how these economic stimulus packages could put us on a path to fight global warming with Betsy Taylor, the founder of 1Sky and Heidi Garrett Peltier, an economist with the Political Economy Research Institute and a co-author of Green Recovery.

K.C. Golden, the policy director for Climate Solutions, discusses his recent editorial on the bailout of America’s big three automakers. Then we get a view from a different type of climate spectator, Bill O’Toole is the prognosticator for the J. Gruber’s Hagers-Town Town and Country Almanack.

A Handbook of International Trade in Services

International trade and investment in services are an increasingly important part of global commerce. Advances in information and telecommunication technologies have expanded the scope of services that can be traded cross-border. Many countries now allow foreign investment in newly privatized and competitive markets for key infrastructure services, such as energy, telecommunications, and transport. More and more people are travelling abroad to consume tourism, education, and medical services, and to supply services ranging from construction to software development. In fact, services are the fastest growing components of the global economy, and trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) in services have grown faster than in goods over the past decade and a half. International transactions, however, continue to be impeded by policy barriers, especially to foreign investment and the movement of service-providing individuals. Developing countries in particular are likely to benefit significantly from further domestic liberalization and the elimination of barriers to their exports. In many instances, income gains from a reduction in protection to services may be far greater than from trade liberalization in goods. In light of the increasing importance of international trade in services and the inclusion of services issues on the agendas of the multilateral, regional and bilateral trade negotiations, there is an obvious need to understand the economic implications of services trade and liberalization. A Handbook of International Trade in Services provides a comprehensive introduction to the subject, making it an essential reference for trade officials, policy advisors, analysts, academics, and students. Beginning with an overview on the key issues in trade in services and discussion of the GATS, the book then looks at trade negotiations in the service sector, the barriers to trade in services, and concludes by looking at a number of specific service sectors, such as financial services, e-commerce, health services, and the temporary movement of workers.

Índice:
PART I. THE FRAMEWORK OF TRADE IN SERVICES; 1. Overview; 2. The GATS; 3. The Basic Economics of Services Trade; PART II. ANALYZING TRADE IN SERVICES; 4. Measuring Trade in Services; 5. Empirical Analysis of Barriers to International Services Transactions and the Consequences of Liberalization; 6. Regionalism in Services Trade; PART III. SECTORAL AND MODAL ANALYSIS; 7. Financial Services and International Trade Agreements: The Development Dimension; 8. Trade in Infrastructure Services: A Conceptual Framework; 9. Transport Services; 10. Trade in Telecommunications Services; 11. Trade in Health Services and the GATS; 12. E-Commerce Regulation: New Game, New Rules?; 13. The Temporary Movement of Workers to Provide Services (GATS Mode 4); APPENDIX. A GUIDE TO SERVICES NEGOTIATIONS

Professor of Global Political Economy in the Department of Political Science and the Center for Global Change and Governance

Abridged résumé, December 2007

Philip G. Cerny was born in New York City. He is Professor of Global Political Economy in the Division of Global Affairs and Department of Political Science, Rutgers University-Newark (New Jersey, U.S.A). He studied at Kenyon College (Ohio) and the Institut d’Études Politiques (Paris), and received his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester (United Kingdom). He has previously taught in the U.K. at the Universities of York, Leeds and Manchester, and has also been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at Harvard University (Center for European Studies), the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (Paris), Dartmouth College, New York University, the Brookings Institution, and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Cologne, Germany).

He is the author of The Politics of Grandeur: Ideological Aspects of de Gaulle’s Foreign Policy (Cambridge U.P, 1980; French edition, Flammarion, 1986) and The Changing Architecture of Politics: Structure, Agency and the Future of the State (Sage, 1990). He edited or co-edited four books in the 1980s on various aspects of French politics. More recently he is editor of Finance and World Politics: Markets, Regimes and States in the Post-Hegemonic Era (Edward Elgar, 1993), and co-editor of Power in Contemporary Politics: Theories, Practices, Globalizations (with Henri Goverde, Mark Haugaard and Howard H. Lentner) (Sage, 2000) and Internalizing Globalization: The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Erosion of National Models of Capitalism (with Susanne Soederberg and Georg Menz) (Palgrave, 2005).

His article “Globalization and the Changing Logic of Collective Action”, which originally appeared in International Organization (Autumn 1995), has been reprinted in Charles Lipson and Benjamin J. Cohen, eds., Theory and Structure in International Political Economy (MIT Press, 1999) and Jeffry A. Frieden and David A. Lake, eds., International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Power and Wealth (Routledge, 4th Edition, 2000).

More recently he has published a wide range of journal articles and book chapters, including:

    “Neoliberalism and Place: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Borders”, forthcoming in Bas Arts, Henk van Houtum and Arnoud Lagendijk, eds., State, Place, Governance: Shifts in Territoriality, Governmentality and Policy Practices (Berlin: Springer, 2008)
    “Embedding Neoliberalism: The Evolution of a Hegemonic Paradigm”, forthcoming in the Journal of International Trade and Diplomacy (Spring 2008)
    “The Governmentalization of World Politics”, forthcoming in Elinore Kofman and Gillian Youngs, eds., Globalization: Theory and Practice (London: Continuum, 3rd edition 2008), pp 221-236
    “Restructuring the State in a Globalizing World: Capital Accumulation, Tangled Hierarchies and the Search for a New Spatio-Temporal Fix”, review article, Review of International Political Economy, vol. 13, no. 4 (October 2006), pp. 679-695
    “Dilemmas of Operationalizing Hegemony”, in Mark Haugaard and Howard H. Lentner, eds., Hegemony and Power: Consensus and Coercion in Contemporary Politics (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books on behalf of the International Political Science Association, Research Committee No. 36 [Political Power], 2006), pp. 67-87

    “Plurality, Pluralism, and Power: Elements of Pluralist Analysis in an Age of Globalization”, in Rainer Eisfeld, ed., Pluralism: Developments in the Theory and Practice of Democracy (Opladen: Barbara Budrich on behalf of the International Political Science Association, Research Committee No. 16 [Socio-Political Pluralism], 2006), pp. 81-111
    “Different Roads to Globalization: Neoliberalism, the Competition State, and Politics in a More Open World” (jointly authored with Georg Menz and Susanne Soederberg), in Susanne Soederberg, Georg Menz and P.G. Cerny, eds., Internalizing Globalization: The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Erosion of National Models of Capitalism (Palgrave, 2005), pp. 1-30, and “Capturing  Benefits,  Avoiding  Losses: The United States, Japan and the Politics of Constraint”, in ibid., pp. 123-148
    “Political Globalization and the Competition State”, in Richard  Stubbs  and Geoffrey R. D. Underhill, eds., The Political Economy of the Changing Global Order (Oxford University Press, 3rd edn. 2005), pp. 376-386
    “Power, Markets and Authority: The Development of Multi-Level Governance in International Finance”, in Andrew Baker, Alan Hudson and Richard Woodward, eds., Governing Financial Globalization (Routledge, 2005)
    “Governance, Globalization and the Japanese Financial System: Resistance or Restructuring?”, in Glenn Hook, ed., Contested Governance in Japan (Routledge, 2005)
    “Terrorism and the New Security Dilemma”, U.S. Naval War College Review (Winter 2005)
    “Political Economy and the Japanese Model in Flux: Phoenix or Quagmire?”, New Political Economy, review article, vol. 9, no. 1 (March 2004), pp. 101-111
    “Globalisation and Public Policy Under New Labour” (with Mark Evans), Policy Studies (January 2004)
    “Globalisation and Social Policy” (with Mark Evans), in Nick Ellison and Chris Pierson, eds., New Developments in British Social Policy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
    “Globalization and Other Stories: Paradigmatic Selection in International Politics”, in Axel Hülsemeyer, ed., Globalization in the 21st Century: Convergence and Divergence (London: Palgrave), pp. 51-66, and “The Uneven Pluralization of World Politics”, in ibid., pp. 173-175
    “Webs of Governance and the Privatization of Transnational Regulation”, in David M. Andrews, C. Randall Henning and Louis W. Pauly, eds., Governing the World’s Money (Cornell University Press, 2002)
    “From ‘Iron Triangles’ to ‘Golden Pentangles’? Globalizing the Policy Process”, Global Governance (October 2001)
    “Structuring the Political Arena: Public Goods, States and Governance in a Globalizing World”, in Ronen Palan, ed., Contemporary Theories in the Global Political Economy:  Emerging Debates, Methodologies and Approaches (Routledge, 2000)
    “Globalisation and the Restructuring of the Political Arena: Paradoxes of the Competition State”, in Randall Germain, ed., Globalization and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000)
    “Political Agency in a Globalizing World: Toward a Structurational Approach”, European Journal of International Relations (December 2000)
    “The New Security Dilemma: Divisibility, Defection and Disorder in the Global Era”, Review of International Studies (October 2000)
    “Globalisation and the Erosion of Democracy”, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 36, no. 1 (August 1999), pp. 1-26
    “Globalization, Governance, and Complexity”, in Aseem Prakash and Jeffrey A. Hart, eds., Globalization and Governance (Routledge, 1999), pp. 184-208
    “Globalizing the Political and Politicizing the Global: International Political Economy as a Vocation”, New Political Economy, vol. 4, no. 1 (January1999), pp. 147-62
    “Neomedievalism, Civil War and the New Security Dilemma: Globalisation as Durable Disorder”, Civil Wars, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring), pp. 36-64



He is currently working on chapters for the Handbook of Power (Sage Publications for the IPSA Research Committee on Political Power) and the RIPE Handbook on International Political Economy, as well on a book project provisionally entitled Multi-Nodal Politics: Political Dynamics of a Globalizing World which is intended to develop the application of pluralist and neopluralist approaches – especially the concept of “political process” and the role of agency – to the study of globalization.

He is a past Chair of the International Political Economy Section of the International Studies Association and past member of the I.S.A.’s Long-Range Planning Committee, and has been a member of the Executive Committees of the British International Studies Association and the Political Studies Association of the U.K. He is on the editorial boards of the European Journal of International Relations, the Review of International Studies, the International Studies Quarterly, Civil Wars, the Journal of International Trade and Diplomacy and the Political Research Quarterly. He is a member of the Executive Boards of two Research Committees of the International Political Science Association—R.C. 16 (Socio-Political Pluralism) and R.C. 36 (Political Power).

Phil Cerny is also an interpreter of the traditional folk music of North America and the British Isles. His CD “Atlantic Passages” was released in 2004 by Hudson Records (U.S.A.) and Circuit Music (U.K.).

Global Political Ekonomi

INTRODUCTION

A ground swell of Global protesters including labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, human rights activists and anarchists disrupts and aborts the World Trade Conference in Seattle in 1999.

The passage of a bill imposing heavy tariffs or import restrictions on a commodity in one country  affects  the economy and even the stability of the government of another country.

A rebellion in a province producing a scarce raw material in one country  disrupts the supply for the industry of another country, causing lay-offs and social disruption.

The decision by a government to make its currency not convertible on the international exchange market devalues its currency, making foreign goods expensive and causing inflation, but discourages foreign investment and protects local industry.

These are the kind of issues addressed on this site.

This site deals with intertwined global economic and political issues. The emphasis on intertwined refers to the Complex Approach which is the method of inquiry used on this site as distinct from the “systems approach” which is commonly used for social, economic and political analyses.

The field is also called "international political economy."  But that term does not meet the complex approach criteria.  Global political economy goes beyond relations between nations, i.e., nation-states.  For example, drug trafficking, illegal arms deals, smuggling goods and people, and laundering their financial products, which are estimated to amount to a trillion dollars annually, are not taking place in the framework of relations between nation-states.

Free Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order ebook

Author:Robert Gilpin Date:20100808  DS:75 ISBN:

This book is the eagerly awaited successor to Robert Gilpin's 1987 The Political Economy of International Relations, the classic statement of the field of international political economy that continues to command the attention of students, researchers, and policymakers. The world economy and political system have changed dramatically since the 1987 book was published. The end of the Cold War has unleashed new economic and political forces, and new regionalisms have emerged. Computing power is increasingly an impetus to the world economy, and technological developments have changed and are changing almost every aspect of contemporary economic affairs. Gilpin's Global Political Economy considers each of these developments. Reflecting a lifetime of scholarship, it offers a masterful survey of the approaches that have been used to understand international economic relations and the problems faced in the new economy. Gilpin focuses on the powerful economic, political, and technological forces that have transformed the world. He gives particular attention to economic globalization, its real and alleged implications for economic affairs, and the degree to which its nature, extent, and significance have been exaggerated and misunderstood. Moreover, he demonstrates that national policies and domestic economies remain the most critical determinants of economic affairs. The book also stresses the importance of economic regionalism, multinational corporations, and financial upheavals. Gilpin integrates economic and political analysis in his discussion of "global political economy." He employs the conventional theory of international trade, insights from the theory ofindustrial organization, and endogenous growth theory. In addition, ideas from political science, history, and other disciplines are employed to enrich understanding of the new international economic order. This wide-ranging book is destined to become a landmark in the field. More Reviews and Recommendations

Biotechnology in the Global Political Economy

Abstract v. 3-15-04 (9002 words)

New lead industries have been important elements in the rise and prolongation of economic hegemonies in the past. For example, British cotton textile manufacturers were able to make profits exporting their goods all over the world in the early nineteenth century.  As other countries developed cotton textile manufacturing and the profits declined, the British economy managed to stay ahead of the game by exporting the machinery that made cotton textiles, and then by moving into other capital goods sectors such as railroads and steamships.  Similarly, U.S. economic hegemony after World War II was first fueled by automobile exports.  After greater international competition emerged, the U.S. continued to garner technological rents by inventing, producing and exporting new products including nuclear energy equipment, military technology and information technology. Now many believe that U.S. advantages in biotechnology could substantially contribute to a new round of U.S. economic hegemony within the next two decades.  This is report of an on-going research project being carried out at the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California-Riverside. Our research is evaluating this contention by examining the spatio-temporal patterns of biotechnology research, development and commercialization in the world economy since 1980, as well as patterns of consumer and political resistance to some of the products of biotechnology. It is hypothesized that consumer and political resistance will affect some subsectors of the biotechnology industries differently from others. We are estimating the sizes of effects under different conditions in order to parameterize models of alternative future scenarios. Our research on historical comparisons and the quantitative nature of recent trends will allow us to estimate the probabilities of these future scenarios.