Domestic Reform Research Articles

The role of China in the international financial system

AbstractChina’s interaction with the international financial system is driven by its growing economic importance in the world. However, China’s financial influence has been much under-presented compared with its economic power. This mismatch provides an opportunity for China to promote greater inclusiveness and better balance of power in global financial governance. The accelerated financial opening-up, exchange-rate flexibility, and deepened domestic reform also nourished the ambition of internationalization of the renminbi that would have impact on the global reserve currency system. This paper investigates the motivations behind China’s engagements with the international financial system, the approaches China adopted to achieve its goals, and the key domestic policies required for China to gain more weight in the global financial market.

Genuine Domestic Change or Fake Compliance? Political Pervasiveness in the Serbian Media

AbstractSince the election of Aleksandar Vučić and the Progressives, Serbia has witnessed a slow decline in media freedom, which scholars such as Subotić (2017) argue has been worse than in the 1990s. Although the government had adopted a package of three laws in August 2014 to bring the media landscape up to European standards, the implementation of the laws has been limited and marginal, with the Progressives engaging in fake compliance. The adoption of the new media strategy 2020–2025 in 2020 has not led to genuine domestic reform and compliance to EU conditionality. In fact, the EU Commission and journalists’ associations in Serbia have criticized the decline in Serbia’s media freedom, citing continued attacks on journalists and indirect political and economic control through advertising and project co-financing, which continue to be features of the Serbian media landscape. In the absence of clear and credible EU conditionality, the decline of media freedom is in the eye of the beholder, where the gap between public engagements with Serbian politicians and the critical stance of progress reports regarding the degradation of the media have enabled Serbian elites to exploit this ambiguity to continue their strategy of fake compliance vis-à-vis rule of law.

Foundering on fallacies: theorizing the Eurozone’s self-harming mercantilism

The Eurozone’s export-oriented policy regime and pursuit of trade surpluses remains thoroughly puzzling. Rooted in overly strict fiscal policies, inequality and underinvestment; undermining growth and contributing to trade tensions– it defies economic self-interest. This paper develops an analytical framework to confront this puzzle. It argues that these policies are self-harming, but are nonetheless pursued, because of three fallacies that obscure the cost-benefit calculus attached to them. These fallacies are rooted in the empirical problem of observational equivalence: the same observed surplus can be driven by different underlying processes, and its net benefit will depend on our assumptions about these drivers. The first fallacy is mistaking external enablers for domestic competitiveness—interpreting export success to be linked to domestic reform, when it was largely explained by better links to faster growing trading partners. The second fallacy is mistaking weak imports for strong exports—interpreting surpluses as ‘winning’, even when they are not driven by superior exports but sluggish imports. The third fallacy is mismeasuring multinational firms’ contributions to national exports—interpreting profit shifting and assets stashed in low tax jurisdictions as export performance. Germany and Ireland, as paradigmatic ‘success cases of austerity’, are used to expand the argument.

The Domestic Political Economy of Japan's New Geoeconomic Strategy

AbstractJapan has long strived to acquire a more influential voice in trade negotiations but failed because of the lack of decisiveness rooted in the resistance from those who have vested interests. However, a series of domestic reforms undertaken since the 1990s have made it possible for Japan to play a leadership role in the new rulemaking of international trade. After the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Japan took the initiative to conclude a new agreement called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. How have domestic factors pushed Japan to step up as a new leader in the rulemaking of international trade? How have the economic rise of China and the relative decline of US hegemonic power impacted Japanese domestic politics and economics? What implications do Japan's new roles have for the security and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region? By exploring empirical evidence drawn from five new books, we argue that the commitment to domestic economic reforms has enabled Japan to play a leadership role in the rulemaking of the international economic order.

Exploring the Role of International Organizations in the Development of Developing Countries, A Case Study of Vietnam

Vietnam is considered an important emerging economy in Southeast Asia. After its domestic reform in 1986 (Doi Moi), it continuously deepened its integration into the world economy and achieved great economic development. This paper takes neoliberalism and neorealism as theoretical approaches to analyze two international organizations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Specifically, the analysis focuses on how International Organizations (IOs) affect the course of development in Vietnam. This study aims to provide some references for Vietnam's future economic development and how to seek further development in international organizations. This study finds that by joining WTO, Vietnam achieved remarkable economic growth through trade liberalization. Most importantly, Vietnam gained the ability to negotiate problems on an equal basis with developed countries through the dispute settlement mechanism provided by WTO. The AIIB, on the other hand, gives Vietnam good access to infrastructure loans, but it also raises concerns about Vietnam's balance of power and security in the region. Due to the complexity of the impact of IOs on Vietnam's development, Vietnam needs to optimize its economic structure and relevant institutions rationally and make decisions to balance diverse interests to achieve long-term development and better face possible external crises. Further studies could be conducted on how Vietnam and other developing countries could balance their interests and promote development within IOs.

Populism, Globalization, and the Prospects for Restoring the WTO

This article sets out to identify a constructionist framework for a new and expanded “embedded liberalism” and WTO reforms in the global trading system. Globalization and populism led the Trump administration to attack the WTO system by introducing unilateral protectionist measures and undermining its rules and norms. US populist trade policies have persisted under President Biden. Necessary steps to restore the WTO system include (a) domestic reforms by WTO members to improve economic adjustment, labor mobility, and social safety nets; (b) WTO reforms to allow for additional domestic policy space, new negotiated rules to address contentious issues, and a relaxation of the consensus rule; and (c) US restoration of its commitment to multilateral trade rules. Renewed global leadership will be required to pursue these steps. If the current WTO agreement proves to be incapable of resolving these issues, countries will turn increasingly to the alternative of regional trade agreements, which may be able to re-create the conditions for a return to a rules-based global trading system. Yet populism, anti-globalization pressures, and geopolitical tensions present the danger of a continued unwillingness to cooperate among major countries.

What Is Behind The Stunning Economic Success Of The Netherlands? The Dutch Economic Miracle: A Strategic Perspective

Purpose of the study: This paper examines the main factors and prerequisites for the intensive economic development of the Netherlands by taking into account the contribution of tourism, logistics, industry, and agriculture to the economic miracle. Methodology: In this work, the historical methods, as well as the theory of relative advantages and the general methods of scientific research, were used. Main findings: The preconditions for the rapid growth of the Dutch economy include successful domestic reforms carried out by the Government at the end of the 1990-is; a favorable trade regime focused on the freedom to exercise an economic or commercial activity; as well as deep integration of the country with the European Union that allows it to take full advantage of the European single market and remain one of the economic leaders within this Community. Research limitations/implications: In this study, authors propose a roadmap for those countries that are struggling because of the lack of well-thought national planning policy. They also hope that their information may be useful for Ukraine in the process of post-war reconstruction in the future. Novelty/Originality of this study: This article represents an attempt to create a comprehensive picture of the Dutch economic miracle that includes export performance, logistical activities of Rotterdam Port, Schiphol, and Eindhoven International Airports, and the functioning of the highly efficient tourism industry that encompasses the Netherlands and the region of the Dutch Caribbean. In the article, both authors combine historical knowledge

The Politics of Islam: The Muslim Brothers and the State in the Arab Gulf

The Politics of Islam: The Muslim Brothers and the State in the Arab Gulf

Looking for advice: The politics of consulting services procurement in the World Bank

Scholarship on development aid investigates how donors’ and recipients’ political and economic interests interact to weaken effectiveness of aid. These influences have been traced at various stages of the aid cycle – from aid commitment and disbursement to impact evaluation. Yet, development assistance programs provide not only financial resources for recipient countries, but also human capital. Specifically, development aid agencies often rely on experts’ and consulting firms’ knowledge to enable project development and implementation. Such knowledge can increase recipients’ capacity to implement domestic reforms, thereby spurring economic and social development. However, transfers of human capital may experience similar pressures that influence flows of financial capital and reduce their effectiveness. This article aims to investigate whether donors’ and recipients’ interests sway the flow of human capital provided through development programs. I focus on the procurement process for consulting services funded by World Bank development aid, and show that formal institutional requirements for consultant selection leave room for recipient governments to pursue domestic and foreign benefits from procurement decisions. In addition, my analyses show that governments’ pursuit of such benefits has tangible consequences for aid effectiveness: when recipients favor domestic consulting firms, projects take more time to complete and tend to receive lower outcome evaluations.

유길준의 관료주도형 군주입헌제 구상과 그 특징

The argument of Constitutional Monarchy only circulated in Korea after the opening of the country’s ports (in 1876), and before Joseon’s sovereignty was stripped and the Korean peninsula was annexed by the Japanese imperialism in 1910. It was an argument that captures the very essence of Korean modern discourse on political reforms.BR Examined in this article is the argument of Constitutional Monarchy by Yu Kil-chun, who supported the idea of enlightenment and led political changes during the Gabo-year Reform, using recently found sources of information, and with the concept of “Monarchical-Constitutional System” in mind. One of the newly found sources is the Houses of Parliament Act(院法), which he designed based on his ideas regarding the National Assembly, that he had developed during his asylum in Japan when he honed his own plans for Korean domestic reforms. And the other is Kilsa-weon Regulations(吉士院規則), which was a set of rules for the Kilsa-weon chamber. Meanwhile, the aforementioned “Monarchical-Constitutional System” is an idea inspired by recent European constitutional historical studies, which chose to conceptualize the constitutionalism of certain 19th century European states, where the monarch was equipped with more power than the national assembly and took the lead in governance, as Monarchical-Constitutionalism.BR Examination of the Houses of Parliament Act(院法) and the Kilsa-weon Regulations(吉士院規則) revealed that Yu Kil-chun was designing a Monarchical Constitutional System in which the monarch would have full control of the government and the government could restrict the National assembly’s autonomous functions. This was a vision different from similar cases either seen in Preussen or Japan, as both countries were Monarchical Constitutional States in the 19th century’s latter half, but constitutionally separated the Government and Assembly from each other. Then again, compared to those two cases, Yu Kil-chun’s idea was to have the king wield lesser power in his governance, but the government on the contrary maintain a higher status, which I believe was his own way to put both the monarch and the national assembly in check in an overlapping fashion. In such circumstances, where the monarch and assembly are both checked, national governance would have to be helmed by governmental officials, in other words the bureaucrats. It seems Yu Kil-chun was designing a Monarchical Constitutional system led by officials of the government.

Race, Nutrition and Empire: Domestic Reform and Japanese Immigrants in Territorial‐Era Hawaiʻi

AbstractThe article examines the rise of domestic science in territorial‐era Hawaiʻi. At the dawn of the twentieth century, as the Pacific became a new frontier, ‘manifest domesticity’ emerged as a prominent dynamic, and home economics became linked to empire‐building. At the centre of this phenomenon was Carey D. Miller, a self‐proclaimed ‘pioneer’ whose pursuit of nutritional research and reform was inseparable from American expansionism. The Pacific was complex terrain, however. Japan also was asserting influence in the region, dispatching emigrant workers and pursuing its own ambitions of settler colonialism in which the home and homemaking, including dietary reform, also assumed exceptional significance.

Premier Japonii Abe Shinzō jako światowy przywódca Wolnego i Otwartego Indo-Pacyfiku

Prime Minister of Japan, as the global leader of Free and Open Indo-Pacific This article attempts to summarize the debate on the legacy of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō (1954–2022) and to assess his impact on state policy, with a particular focus on foreign policy. Abe was assassinated on July 8, 2022, during an electoral campaign two days before the elections to the lower house of parliament. His death helped to secure the majority for the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party, but also sent a wave of shock and disbelief, as Japan is one of the safest countries in the world, while Abe was one of the most prominent and influential politicians. But the former prime minister was also a controversial figure due to both his decisive style of leadership as well the scope and depth of policy initiatives that he undertook during the two terms in office in 2006–2007 and 2012–2020, which often crossed the boundaries of what is acceptable in Japanese political discourse. Many of these reforms had been initiated much earlier, but it was Abe who gave them catchy names and interpretative frameworks, including, for example, Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). The article concludes that while the assessments of the domestic reforms are divided, the evaluations of his achievements in the field of foreign policy and political leadership receive, generally, the highest scores. Moreover, the article suggests that the political vacuum left by Abe’s death constitutes both an opportunity and a challenge for the incumbent Prime Minister Kishida Fumio.

Battered by Geopolitical Winds, Bulgaria Struggles to Restart Much Needed Reforms

Battered by Geopolitical Winds, Bulgaria Struggles to Restart Much Needed Reforms

An Analysis of Australia’s Foreign Policy through its Domestic Factors to Combat Child Sex Tourism in Project Childhood

2010 was the year Australia initiated and signed Project Childhood, a grant and partnership to protect children from sexual exploitation due to travel and tourism. Four countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, are in a sub-region where child sex tourism occurs a lot. The phenomenon of transnational borders will involve sending country as the country of traveling child sex offenders, and receiving country for victims coordinates to make serious law enforcement regarding this issue. In formulating foreign policy, domestic factors are one way of looking at why Australia provides funding, assistance, and initiate international cooperation to combat child sex tourism in GMS. Through this research, the authors will explain the domestic factors that influence Australia in initiating Project Childhood as its foreign policy, using domestic determinants as the level of analysis. Then, it will be divided into 3 sub-determinants, they are; highly stable, demonstrating an Australian responsibility for TCSO originating in the country. This is related to one of the demographic components that cause migration problems. Moderately stable, in relation to the domestic reforms that are actively being carried out in the context of enforcing the extraterritoriality. The last, unstable, the factor of public opinion which also has played an important role so that the government gives attention to this phenomenon

Digital currencies and great power rivalry: China as a disseminator in the digital age

ABSTRACT The United States reign as global hegemon has been empowered by massive structural power over key international economic, technological and ideological networks. As chief disseminator during the era of emerging computer technology and communications, the U.S. became a rules-maker, empowered to shape international governance in its favour. However, a new era of digitalized assets, transactions and networks will provide an opportunity for Central Bank Digital Currencies (‘CBDCs’) to constitute the technological-financial-business bones of the developing digitalized global economy. CBDCs will exert massive influence on the international economic, technological and ideological orders. Moreover, all of these impacts are inextricably connected to the hegemonic rivalry between the United States and China. Astutely, China has been developing the digital Yuan and is the first major economy to distribute a CBDC. If China's CBDC successfully migrates to external usage, and depending upon the degree of crucial Chinese domestic reforms, the digital Yuan may offer an opportunity for China to be a disseminator in the digital age. Chinese influence over global networks and governance frameworks would vest China with advantageous structural power in the economic, technological and ideological spheres – the fulcrums of the U.S.-China hegemonic rivalry.

Role of Chinese Correspondents in the East Asian Cold War - A Case Study of a Former Reporter of Xinhua News Agency in Japan

The study attempts to shed light on the role of Chinese correspondents in Sino-Japanese relations during a period of the Cold War. It examines the triple role of Chinese correspondents as reporters, political agents and China's modernizers. The Sino-Japanese journalist exchange of 1964 is one of important parts in promoting the normalization of China and Japan diplomatic relations. As a former Chinese correspondent stationed in Japan, Wu Xuewen witnessed and experienced some milestones in the development of Sino-Japanese relations in the East Asian Cold War. Drawing on the historical materials of archival documents, journalists’ memoirs and diaries and news articles, the study summarizes the Chinese correspondents played role in terms of China’s international relations and China’s domestic reform with “motherland consciousness”. Specifically, Chinese correspondents brought opportunities for an improved relationship between China and Japan in the cold war era. Meanwhile, the Chinese correspondents promoted China's social and economic development by introducing advanced experience of Japan. Their reporting practices were affected by the guidance from the media organization as well as the government.

China's strategy of free trade area and economic regionalism

AbstractChina's FTA strategy and its efforts in economic regionalism in the Pacific region are providing new impetus to deepening economic interdependence with its partners and domestic reform to sustain the country's economic growth. The FTAs in the Pacific region provide China and its economic partners with convenient access to their mutual markets, investment destinations and resources, expanding their economic cooperation and trade. China is increasingly able to obtain economic benefits from the regional network of FTAs while intensifying its economic and, by extension, political relations with its partners. In the face of the enormous economic benefits, China's partners, particularly those without geopolitical competition and territorial disputes with China, may view China's rise as an “opportunity” for their economic growth and accept its concept of “peaceful rise.” In this sense, China's FTA strategy and the regional network of FTAs may help China reap not only economic but also geopolitical interest, accelerating its rise at the systemic (global) and subsystemic (regional) levels.

China in international digital economy governance

ABSTRACT China ranks prominently in terms of capacity to engage in and benefit from the data-driven world economy. But China is more restrictive than many other countries on digital service imports, in addition to being passive in negotiations towards universal digital economic governance rules at the World Trade Organization. The world’s digital economy is getting more geopolitical, with practices of digital sovereignty and signs of a splinternet on the rise. However, with its application to join regional-free trade arrangements like the RCEP and CPTPP, China is internationalizing its digital economy governance. China’s domestic legislations and policy reforms, meanwhile, are increasingly aligning with those in Europe, in addition to industry-level interoperability with the United States. This provides a basis for further harmonization of digital economy governance with the rest of the world.

Haiti and the Pitfalls of Sharing Police Powers

ABSTRACT This article examines the benefits and pitfalls of international policing in Haiti over the past quarter century. It shows the importance of the political foundations for joint policing arrangements. Haiti's experience illustrates that international personnel can provide useful stopgap policing services when the interests of national and international partners converge around public order crises. However, the Haitian case also shows how weak political commitment on one or both sides can lead to vague mandates, poor cooperation in the field, weak police accountability, and stalled domestic reforms. These problems have undermined the performance of international personnel and the Haitian National Police, eroding public trust in both. Ultimately, international intervention has failed to yield a capable, trusted, and apolitical Haitian police force or a notably stronger rule of law. Haiti thus offers a cautionary tale for international policing.

Trade liberalization, domestic reforms, and income inequality: Evidence from Taiwan

AbstractThis paper estimates the effects of trade liberalization on household income inequality and investigates whether trade liberalization or domestic reforms are the main factors influencing increasing inequality in Taiwan, a middle‐income open economy. We construct an empirical model by decomposing the sources of household disposable income in the quintile ratio and separate trade partners into OECD (Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development) and non‐OECD countries. Using time‐series data to estimate the long‐run effect, we find that net exports to OECD countries increase inequality, whereas net exports to non‐OECD countries insignificantly decrease inequality. This finding diverges from the prediction based on the Stolper–Samuelson theorem. Overall, trade liberalization increases income inequality, and the effect is mainly attributed to net exports to OECD countries. Moreover, we provide evidence that domestic reforms, particularly technological progress in favor of skilled labor and industrial structural change, rather than trade liberalization, are the main driving forces of income inequality.