Economic Self-interest Research Articles

Building a More Effective Global Climate Regime Through a Bottom-Up Approach

This Article presents an innovative institutional strategy for global climate protection, quite distinct from, but ultimately complementary to and supportive of the currently stalled UNFCCC climate treaty negotiations. The bottom-up strategy relies on a variety of smallerscale transnational cooperative arrangements, involving not only states but sub-national jurisdictions, firms, and CSOs, to undertake activities whose primary goal is not climate mitigation but which will achieve greenhouse gas reductions as an inherent byproduct. This strategy avoids the inherent problems in securing an enforceable treaty to secure the global public good of climate protection by mobilizing other incentives - including economic self-interest, energy security, cleaner air, and furtherance of international development - to motivate such actors to cooperate on actions that will also benefit the climate. These bottom-up regimes will contribute to global climate action not only by achieving emissions reductions in the short-term, but also by linking the bottom-up regimes to the UNFCCC system through greenhouse gas monitoring and reporting systems. In these ways, the bottom-up strategy will help secure eventual agreement on a global climate treaty.

Comparing the effectiveness of monetary versus moral motives in environmental campaigning

Environmental campaigns often promote energy conservation by appealing to economic (for example, lower electricity bills) rather than biospheric concerns (for example, reduced carbon emissions), assuming that people are primarily motivated by economic self-interest. However, people also care about maintaining a favourable view of themselves (they want to maintain a ‘positive self-concept’), and may prefer to see themselves as ‘green’ rather than ‘greedy’. Consequently, people may find economic appeals less attractive than biospheric appeals. Across two studies, participants indicated feeling better about biospheric (‘Want to protect the environment? Check your car’s tire pressure’) than economic (‘Want to save money? Check your car’s tire pressure’) tyre-check appeals. In a field experiment, we found that an economic tyre-check appeal (‘Do you care about your finances? Get a free tire check’) elicited significantly less compliance than parallel biospheric and neutral appeals. Together, these studies discredit the conventional wisdom that appealing to economic self-interest is the best way to secure behaviour change. At least in some cases, our studies suggest, this strategy is not effective.

Building Blocks for Global Climate Protection

The paper presents an innovative institutional strategy for global climate protection, quite distinct from, but ultimately complementary to the stalled UNFCCC climate treaty negotiations. The building blocks strategy relies on a variety of smaller-scale transnational cooperative arrangements, involving not only states but sub-national jurisdictions, firms, and NGOs, to undertake activities whose primary goal is not climate mitigation but which will achieve greenhouse gas reductions as an inherent byproduct. This strategy avoids the inherent problems in securing an enforceable treaty to secure the global public good of climate protection by mobilizing other incentives — including economic self-interest, energy security, cleaner air, and furtherance of international development — to motivate such actors to cooperate on actions that will also benefit the climate. The paper outlines three specific models of regime formation (club, linkage and dominant actor models) which draws on economics, international relations, and organizational behavior to create transnational regimes that are generally self-enforcing and sustainable, avoiding the free rider and compliance problems that are endemic in a climate treaty. These regimes will contribute to global climate action not only by achieving emissions reductions in the short-term, but also by creating global webs of cooperation and trust, and by linking the building block regimes to the UNFCCC system through greenhouse gas monitoring and reporting systems. In these ways, the building blocks regimes will help secure eventual agreement on a global climate treaty.

The Economic and Political Influences on Different Dimensions of United States Immigration Policy

Recent research on political attitudes towards immigration often pits arguments emphasizing economic self-interest against ideological or cultural explanations. Many of these studies conceptualize immigration policy along a single dimension instead of disaggregating it into its distinct policy dimensions. Conditional on the type of immigration policy, different explanations should have more or less explanatory power. We disaggregate immigration policy into six different dimensions and provide theoretical scope conditions for when ideological and economic factors should matter. We test these predictions on votes on immigration policy in the US House of Representatives from 1979-2006. We advance the debate on the determinants of immigration policy by showing that both economic self-interest and ideological explanations can be powerful, depending upon the type of immigration policy under consideration.

U.S. Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring: Balancing Values and Interests

AbstractThe rapid and unpredictable changes in the Middle East collectively known as the “Arab Spring” are posing tremendous challenges to U.S. policy formation and action. This article will explore and evaluate evolving U.S. policy in the Middle East and its potential implications. There has always been a tension in American foreign policy between pursuing American “values” (foreign policy idealism) and protecting American “interests” (foreign policy realism). For decades, the United States has sought to “make the world safe for democracy,” while at the same time often supporting repressive, nondemocratic regimes because of national security or economic self‐interest. The tension between these two fundamentally distinct policy orientations has become even more pronounced as the United States tries to respond to the Arab Spring uprisings. Why did the United States actively support the rebels in Libya but not the protestors in Syria or Bahrain? Is there an emerging, coherent “Obama Doctrine” on intervention in Arab countries, or was Libya just a “one‐off” event? These are some of the questions that this article will attempt to answer.

Economic Patriotism, the Clash of Capitalisms, and State Aid in the European Union

This article analyses the political economy of state aid in the European Union (EU) using the concepts of economic patriotism and models of capitalism. State aid is analysed as a form of economic patriotism, which is conceived here as economic interventions which seek, by a number of means, to advance the perceived economic self-interest of particular groups and actors (firms, workforces, or sectors) defined according to their territorial status. The article argues that the paradox of neo-liberal democracy generated by liberal international markets, overlapping economic governance regimes (such as the EU and the World Trade Organisation), and nationally delimited political mandates presents new problems for policy-makers attempting economic interventions like state aid. Forms of economic patriotism are partly shaped by national institutional and social configurations and state traditions. Within EU economic governance, this generates a ‘clash of capitalisms’ whereby liberal EU anti-trust and competition policy norms proscribe certain state aid and industrial policy measures favoured by some European states. As traditional industrial policy becomes decreasingly viable, new modes of economic patriotic interventionism are enacted within contemporary processes of market-making, and the re-regulatory activity framing European markets. The paper focuses on French state aid responses to the global economic crisis, noting how the retreat of neo-liberal ebullience within the EU provides a conducive environment for resurgent French dirigiste approaches to state aid, indicating that the politics of economic patriotism and state aid will continue to be important features of the European political economic landscape in the years ahead.

Why Does the United States Regulate Foreign Bribery: Moralism, Self-Interest, or Altruism?

This short essay traces the legislative history of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its amendments to examine the influence of three distinct motivations: moralism, (economic) self-interest and altruism. The legislative history suggests that moralism and self-interest played the most significant roles in influencing the provisions of the original Act and its 1988 Amendments. Since then altruism has played a more prominent role in shaping the FCPA and other initiatives aimed at foreign bribery. The essay concludes by discussing the potential tension between self-interest and altruism and ways in which it might be resolved.

Putting Inequality in Its Place: Rural Consciousness and the Power of Perspective

Why do people vote against their interests? Previous explanations miss something fundamental because they do not consider the work of group consciousness. Based on participant observation of conversations from May 2007 to May 2011 among 37 regularly occurring groups in 27 communities sampled across Wisconsin, this study shows that in some places, people have a class- and place-based identity that is intertwined with a perception of deprivation. The rural consciousness revealed here shows people attributing rural deprivation to the decision making of (urban) political elites, who disregard and disrespect rural residents and rural lifestyles. Thus these rural residents favor limited government, even though such a stance might seem contradictory to their economic self-interests. The results encourage us to consider the role of group consciousness-based perspectives rather than pitting interests against values as explanations for preferences. Also, the study suggests that public opinion research more seriously include listening to the public.

Support for the Welfare State Over Time: The Two Dimensions of Redistributive Preferences

Most political economy models start from the assumption that economic self-interest is a key predictor of support for income redistribution. A growing literature, in contrast, emphasizes the role of “other-oriented” concerns, such as social solidarity or affinity for the poor. These frameworks generate distinct, often conflicting predictions about variation in mass attitudes toward redistribution. We argue that this tension is in part an artifact of conceptualizing demand for redistribution as unidimensional, and propose distinguishing between redistribution conceived as taking from the “rich” and redistribution conceived as giving to the “poor”. These two facets of redistribution prime different individual motives: self-oriented income-maximization on the one hand, and other-oriented social affinity with welfare beneficiaries on the other. We find strong evidence for this framework using British longitudinal survey data and cross-sectional data from four advanced industrial countries. We discuss the implications for studying changes in mass support for redistributive social policies.

ADAM SMITH ON VANITY, DOMINATION, AND HISTORY

Adam Smith's lectures present a bleak theory of history in which the innate human “love of domination” results in the perpetuation of increasingly repressive slave societies. This theory challenges common conceptions about the philosophical and historical foundations of Smith's thought, and accounting for it requires moving beyond traditional dichotomies between an “economic” sphere grounded on asocial wants and a “political” sphere grounded on sociability. For Smith, under the influence of earlier thinkers like La Rochefoucauld, Mandeville, and Rousseau, all human behavior is rooted in our esteem-seeking social nature, and the dominant form of esteem-seeking is a “corrupt” one based on external superiority. Understanding these foundations explains why Smith views both European commercial society and its central motive of economic self-interest as historically contingent, the product of a long series of unintended historical consequences.

Wal-Mart's Conscientious Objectors: Perceived Illegitimacy, Moral Anger, and Retaliatory Consumer Behavior

In 2 studies, participants' perceptions and emotional responses toward Wal-Mart were investigated. Moral anger was tested as a mediator of the relationships between ethical concerns and willingness to support or take confrontational actions against Wal-Mart. In Study 1, greater ethical concerns predicted less consumer support and increased willingness to take confrontational actions; moral anger mediated this relationship. In Study 2, moral mandates positively predicted people's ethical concerns while ethical concerns predicted increased moral anger. Willingness to protest retail organizations is not simply motivated by rational judgments about economic self-interest as consumers' ethical perceptions and moral emotions can motivate such actions.

Social Welfare and the Psychology of Food Sharing: Short-Term Hunger Increases Support for Social Welfare

Do politically irrelevant events influence important policy opinions? Previous research on social welfare attitudes has emphasized the role of political factors such as economic self-interest and ideology. Here, we demonstrate that attitudes to social welfare are also influenced by short-term fluctuations in hunger. Using theories in evolutionary psychology, we predict that hungry individuals will be greedier and take more resources from others while also attempting to induce others to share by signaling cooperative intentions and expressing support for sharing, including evolutionarily novel forms of sharing such as social welfare. We test these predictions using self-reported hunger data as well as comparisons of subjects who participated in relevant online studies before and after eating lunch. Across four studies collected in two different welfare regimes — the UK and Denmark — we consistently find that hungry individuals act in a greedier manner but describe themselves as more cooperative and express greater support for social welfare.

Moral Economies of Food in Cuba

The way people produce, exchange and consume food in Cuba is underwritten by cultural and political economic rules as well as economic self-interest. These “rules” are not just formed from the top down, but also from the bottom up, though, as I will explain in this paper, norms established by what I call the national moral economy often give cultural form to local practices of food provisioning. Despite extreme scarcities in the early 1990s and continuing difficulties obtaining food in the present dual economy, Cubans often frame farming and household provisioning in terms of the national moral economy. The latter is, in turn, structured by values that have developed in Cuba over time such as asceticism and hard work.

Achieving Moral Capitalism through Entrepreneurial Justice

Adam Smith argued that capitalism was best achieved when individuals temper their economic self-interests with ethically grounded motivations. Unfortunately, Smith stopped short of articulating precisely how individuals might manage these seemingly competing interests in a way that is practical for actors in modern day organizations. We believe that a set of effective principles of justice can be found in the writings of political philosopher John Rawls. We argue that due to the empirical realities of entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial context is aligned with Rawls' original position. We consider how Rawls' principles might inform founders of new organizations with regard to their interaction with organizational stakeholders.

How Can Economic Interests Influence Support for Free Trade?

AbstractRecent research on the sources of individual attitudes toward trade policy comes to very different conclusions about the role of economic self-interest. The skeptical view suggests that long-standing symbolic predispositions and sociotropic perceptions shape trade policy opinions more than one's own material well-being. We believe this conclusion is premature for two reasons. First, the practice of using one attitude to predict another raises questions about direction of causation that cannot be answered with the data at hand. This problem is most obvious when questions about the expected impact of trade are used to predict opinions about trade policy. Second, the understanding of self-interest employed in most studies of trade policy attitudes is unrealistically narrow. In reality, the close relationship between individual economic interests and the interests of the groups in which individuals are embedded creates indirect pathways through which one's position in the economy can shape individual trade policy preferences. We use the data employed by Mansfield and Mutz to support our argument that a more complete account of trade attitude formation is needed and that in such an account economic interests may yet play an important role.1

Korea's Search for a Global Role between Hard Economic Interests and Soft Power

South Korea has been a rising economic power for some decades. It exhibits several behavioral traits associated with rising powers such as issue leadership and opportunity seeking. Korea aims to be an issue leader in the field of development, although it seeks to secure the foundations for further sustained economic growth. In this article, we investigate Korea's global strategy since the 1990s, aiming to translate its economic clout into global political influence. The focus is placed on a critical evaluation of the approach under the current Lee Myung Bak administration since 2008. This article examines the domestic factors that have led Korea to pursue its strategies of securing influence, including most notably the legacy of the mercantilist developmental state. The article raises cautionary concerns about the capacity of Korea to adopt a foreign policy that moves beyond economic self-interest and plays an active role in the creation of global public goods.

Kenya and International Security: Enabling Globalisation, Stabilising ‘Stateness’, and Deploying Enforcement

On the international stage Kenya promotes itself as a regional peacemaker. The country is an important contributor to UN missions, has had an important role in mediating regional conflicts, and is a driving force in the implementation of Africa's peace and security architecture. However, there is another picture of Kenya's engagement in regional conflicts which, at first glance, seems to contradict international perception of the country. By discussing Kenya's historical and current practices in regional security, this article analyses how the Kenyan government balances what seem to be multiple security agendas, ranging from following a responsibility to protect, to pursuing economic self-interest, to executing international counterterrorism agendas. Rather than being a shift in the country's foreign policy, it will be argued that Kenya's involvement in rights and norm-violating practices—more specifically in arms deliveries to Southern Sudan and the illegal military training of youths in defence of the Somali transitional government, as well as repressive ‘counterterrorism’ practices against its own population—illustrates how the conditions of globalisation not only limit but also enable new opportunities for the positioning of postcolonial states in the international arena. It confirms patterns in Kenya's political history in which the politics of attracting, sustaining, and diversifying international partners and external revenue is part of the regime's continuing efforts at consolidating ‘stateness’. Actively engaging with international norms to make them comply with one's own perceptions of security demonstrates how actors in the South shape the terms of reference in regional security. En la escena internacional, Kenia se promueve como un mantenedor de la paz regional. El país es un contribuidor importante a las misiones de la ONU, ha tenido un importante rol como mediador en conflictos regionales y es un impulsor en la implementación de la paz y la arquitectura de la seguridad en África. Sin embargo, el compromiso de Kenia en los conflictos regionales tiene otra cara, que en primera instancia, parece contradecir a la percepción internacional de este país. A partir de un debate sobre las prácticas históricas y actuales en seguridad regional, este artículo analiza cómo equilibra el gobierno de Kenia, lo que parecen objetivos de seguridad múltiples, que van desde dar seguimiento a la responsabilidad de proteger y conseguir una economía de interés propio, a ejecutar planes de contraterrorismo internacional. En lugar de tener un cambio en la política exterior del país, se planteará que la participación de Kenia en los derechos y las prácticas de violación de normas—más específicamente en los envíos de armas al sur de Sudán y el entrenamiento militar ilegal de los jóvenes en defensa del gobierno de transición de Somalia, como las prácticas represivas del ‘contraterrorismo’ contra su propia población—ilustra cómo las condiciones de la globalización, no solamente limitan pero facilitan nuevas oportunidades en el posicionamiento de estados poscoloniales en la arena internacional. Eso confirma los patrones en la historia política, en la cual la política de atracción, sostenimiento y diversificación de socios internacionales e ingresos externos, hacen parte de los continuos esfuerzos del régimen en la consolidación de ‘condición de estado’. La participación activa con las normas internacionales para hacerlas cumplir con sus propias percepciones de seguridad, demuestra cómo los actores del sur forjan los términos de referencia, en la seguridad regional. 在国际舞台上，肯尼亚以地区维和者的身份推销自己。对于联合国维和行动，肯尼亚是一个重要的贡献者，在斡旋地区冲突中扮演着重要角色，而且肯尼亚是实现非洲和平及落实非洲安全体系结构的推动力。然而，肯尼亚介入地区冲突还有另外一面，咋一看，另一面与肯尼亚的国际形象相背。通过研究肯尼亚在历史上以及当下的地区安全实践，本文分析肯尼亚政府是如何平衡看上去多样多种的安全议程，包括完成保护的责任、追求经济的自我利益，以及执行国际反恐议程。文章认为，肯尼亚卷入违反权利与规范的行为—— 更具体而言是向苏丹南部运送武器 、为保卫索马里过渡政府对年轻人进行非法军事训练，以及针对自己民众的“反恐”镇压行为——不仅仅是一国外交政策的转变，更是阐明了全球化这一条件是如何限制后殖民主义国家在国际舞台上的定位，以及如何给予他们新的契机。本文证实肯尼亚政治史上吸引、稳定与扩大国际伙伴和对外收益的政治活动模式，是其政权巩固“国家性”的持久努力的一部分。积极对接国际规范使其服从于一国自身的安全认知，表明了南方行为体是如何塑造地区安全的参照系的。 케냐는 스스로 국제무대에서 지역 평화를 만드는 나라라고 내세웠다. UN임무에 중요한 기여를 한 나라이고, 지역 갈등을 중재하는데 중요한 역할을 했고, 아프리카의 평화와 안보 구축에서 추진력을 발휘했다. 그러나, 케냐에 대한 국제적 인식과는 모순되게 케냐가 지역 갈등 개입한 또 다른 면이 있다. 이 논문은 지역 안보에서 케냐의 역사적 및 현재적 실태를 논의하면서 케냐 정부가 보호 책임 수행에서부터, 경제적 이해 추구와 국제 반테러 의제 실행에 이르는 다중적 안보 의제들 간의 균형을 어떻게 유지하는지를 분석한다. 외교정책을 변화시키기보다 케냐가 권리와 규범을 위반하는 활동에 참여하는 것 - 더 구체적으로 케냐 사람들을 대상으로 한 억압적 반테러 활동뿐만 아니라 남부 수단으로 무기를 전달하고 소말리아 과도 정부를 방어하기 위해 불법적으로 청년을 대상으로 군사교육을 시키는 것-은 어떻게 세계화가 국제 영역에서 포스트콜로니얼 국가들의 위치에 걸맞는 새로운 기회를 제약할뿐만 아니라 또한 새로운 기회를 부여하는가를 보여준다. 국제적 파타너를 끌어들이고, 유지하고 다변화하는 정치와 외부로부터의 수입은 ‘국가성’을 강화시키기 위한 케냐 정권의 지속적인 노력의 일부이다. 적극적으로 국제 규범을 자신의 안보 개념에 따르게 하는 것은 어떻게 남반부 행위자들이 지역 안보에서 고려할 사항에 영향을 미치는지를 보 여준다.

The Great Recession: Some Niebuhrian Reflections

The Great Recession: Some Niebuhrian Reflections

The Chinese and the "Redlands Plan": Ethnic Cleansing, the Rule of Law, Economic Self-Interest, and Financial Restraint

In 1893, working-class anti-Chinese agitation in Redlands, California, was pre-empted by the Redlands Plan put forth by the town9s business leaders, whose stake in the region gave them a high appreciation for law and order. Under this plan, Chinese laborers without a certificate of residence would be arrested and, under Article 6 of the Geary Act, deported. The first spate of arrests was expected to put the rest of the local Chinese community to flight—all without violence. In the end, while violence was thwarted, no Chinese were deported, and a local Chinese presence continued into the twentieth century.

American Attitudes Toward Economic Inequality

In a democratic society, changes in policy or outcomes are expected to be a product of the people’s preferences. To what extent do the American people support policies that reduce income inequality? This paper investigates whether Americans are supportive of large gaps in income, and finds that, contrary to popular perception, the American public is unsupportive of reducing income differences, a majority favor reductions in inequality. In examining the reasons for this support, I find that partisan and ideological attachments, along with economic self-interest are substantively and most consistently the strongest predictors of an individual’s support for reducing income inequality. These findings suggest that in light of increases in wealth inequality, elected officials’ failure to reduce this growth spurns the public will.