International Institutions In Order Research Articles

Government ideology and bailout conditionality in the European financial crisis

The political economy literature on international bailouts has repeatedly shown that the domestic politics of rescued countries influence international bailout compliance. However, we know less about the domestic politics of bailout negotiations, and especially the type of conditions negotiated by governments of more developed countries with strong ties to international lenders. This paper puts forward an argument about the role of a government’s partisanship in shaping the conditions stipulated between international lenders and developed countries when crises confront the latter. Consistent with political cover theories, we argue that governments of crisis countries seek to scapegoat international institutions in order to push domestically unpleasant reforms. However, when crises affect countries significantly close to international lenders, international institutions may tolerate the scapegoating attitude and accept to emphasize governments’ reforms in the direction of their core ideological constituencies. Focusing on bailout negotiations during the Eurocrisis (2008–2016), we maintain that while important and painful reforms were discussed at the negotiation tables, the involved international lenders also accommodated the policy preferences of both left and right governments of crisis-ridden countries, everything else constant. So, conditionality came with duress, but governments were also able to emphasize reforms on the opponents’ policy issues, hence systematically obtaining fewer measures on their voters’ main policy areas. Regression analyses of an original country-quarter dataset of EU bailout conditionality measures provide support to our hypothesis. The findings are relevant to the analysis of partisan politics in economic negotiations and of democratic deficits in international organizations. Furthermore, this study contributes to understanding the political accessibility and ideological dynamics of international lending beyond the Eurocrisis.

Automatic Classification of Hospital Settings through Artificial Intelligence

Modern hospitals have to meet requirements from national and international institutions in order to ensure hygiene, quality and organisational standards. Moreover, a hospital must be flexible and adaptable to new delivery models for healthcare services. Various hospital monitoring tools have been developed over the years, which allow for a detailed picture of the effectiveness and efficiency of the hospital itself. Many of these systems are based on database management systems (DBMSs), building information modelling (BIM) or geographic information systems (GISs). This work presents an automatic recognition system for hospital settings that integrates these tools. Three alternative proposals were analysed in terms of the construction of the system: the first was based on the use of general models that are present on the cloud for the classification of images; the second consisted of the creation of a customised model and referred to the Clarifai Custom Model service; the third used an object recognition software that was developed by Facebook AI Research combined with a random forest classifier. The obtained results were promising. The customised model almost always classified the photos according to the correct intended use, resulting in a high percentage of confidence of up to 96%. Classification using the third tool was excellent when considering a limited number of hospital settings, with a peak accuracy of higher than 99% and an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of one for specific classes. As expected, increasing the number of room typologies to be discerned negatively affected performance.

Challenges to the International Institutional Order

Abstract Witnessing power shifts among major countries in the world, scholars and policymakers alike are confronted with crucial questions about the international institutional order: Do power shifts expedite the collapse of the order? Who are its major challengers, and why? This article tackles these issues, drawing on rationalist theories of international institutions that include both realist and neoliberal thinking. I analyse how the making of the international institutional order, along with its evolution, informs us of the sources of challenges to that order. Accordingly, I explain why the country most powerful in making the international institutional order—thus the apparent beneficiary of that order—ends up nursing so many grievances against it. I illustrate this thesis in the areas of collective security, international trade, and democracy promotion. This article contributes to important debates on global governance and raises policy implications for the rewriting of international rules.

China’s Institutional Statecraft under Xi Jinping: Has the AIIB Served China’s Interest?

ABSTRACT This article examines China's efforts to launch new international institutions in order to advance its interests globally. The Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) presents an opportunity for China to create a China-led Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) to promote its vision of how to improve the existing world order. The operation of the AIIB has evolved in the last five years. Beijing's priority at the initial stage was to exercise precaution to ensure its success. More recently, Beijing has adopted a bolder approach to embed a new set of ideas, norms, principles and practices into the AIIB project selection and implementation with an emphasis on efficiency and flexibility, less formality and legality, and more equal participation of the borrowing developing countries.

Sovereign States and their International Institutional Order

International law’s legitimacy has come under serious attack lately, including, and maybe even more so, in regimes considered democratic. Reading Dworkin’s New Philosophy for International Law in the current context is a timely reminder of the centrality of the political legitimacy of international law. Interestingly, indeed, his account does not succumb to the (however progressive) cosmopolitan ideal of an international political community. Nor is it reducible to a concern for domestic justice in which political legitimacy is only self-regarding. By revisiting seventeenth century international legal theories, Dworkin sends both cosmopolitans and statists back-to-back. He (re-)discovers a third way in which to conceive of statehood today: not on its own, but in a mirror-image fashion and against the background of the international institutional order without which there would be no equal sovereign States, but no individual equality either. Carrying Dworkin’s argument forward, this article identifies and discusses three of its crucial contributions with respect to the objects, subjects and institutions of international legitimacy that deserve further attention. It concludes with different proposals regarding the design and organization of other international institutions than States, both public and private, by reference to their relationship to States (and their people). According to Dworkin, this should enable us to improve not only the legitimacy of the international institutional order as whole, but also the political legitimacy of each State therein since both are mutually related.

International Institutions, Institutional Balancing, and Peaceful Order Transition

AbstractAs part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay focuses on the “Kindleberger trap,” a term coined by Joseph Nye Jr. referring to the situation in which no country takes the lead to maintain international institutions in the international system. President Trump's destructive policies toward many international institutions seem to push the current international order to the brink of the Kindleberger trap. Ironically, China has pledged, at least rhetorically, to support and even save these existing international institutions. Based on an institutional-balancing perspective, we suggest that the worry about the Kindleberger trap is unwarranted because the international institutional order will not easily collapse after the decline of U.S. hegemony. Institutional competition among great powers and institutional changes within the institutional order have become two remedies to maintain international institutions and to avoid the Kindleberger trap during the international order transition. What states, including the United States and China, should do is to reembrace and reinvigorate the role of multilateralism in world politics so that the dynamics of institutional balancing and consequential institutional changes in the context of U.S.-China competition do not deprive international society of the public goods and normative values of international institutions. The future international order should not be led by a single country, but by dynamic and balanced international institutions.

A New Cold War? Causes and Future of the Emerging US-China Rivalry

The Trump Administration declared China a strategic competitor and a revisionist power. It escalated a trade war to a fullfrontal clash with China. Some experts qualified it as a new Cold War between the US and China. Both countries are undergoing dramatic transformation. Their destinations will determine the course and outcome of the emerging US-China rivalry. This article argues that while engagement is now defined by competitive interests, the profound interdependence continues underpinning the bilateral relationship. Although there is no precedent to guide economic and geostrategic competition between the two largest and deeply intertwined economies and heavily militarized superpowers, the US and China must find some balance of interests with each other and avoid violent confrontation that serves neither’s interest. This level of engagement requires vision and flexibility. With strong economic interdependence, the existence of an international institutional order, limited ideological confrontation, and nuclear second-strike capability, leaders of two countries have no choice but find ways to manage their competition and continue futher engagement with each other. Authors conclude that the stronger China grows, the harder it gets for Washington to force it back down. Driving PRC into a corner is the way to make China even tougher. So it could cause more severe consequences for both countries.

Neoliberalism, NAFTA, and Dehumanization: The case of femicides in Ciudad Juárez

The overarching focus of this paper is on the way in which the neoliberalism inherent in the international institutional order produces dehumanisation in the third world and the way in which this dehumanisation manifests itself in direct loss of human life through exploitation and even murder. This paper is split into two main parts, the first of which gives a theoretical and general overview of how neoliberalism has both dominated and dehumanised the international institutional order and the second part of the paper gives a more in-depth case study of this phenomena, focusing on how NAFTA has engendered femicides in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Leϊla Choukroune (ed.), Judging the State in International Trade and Investment Law: Sovereignty Modern, the Law and the Economics, Springer, 2016, xix-222pp, ISBN 978-981-10-2358-3, Hb €128.39

Leϊla Choukroune (ed.), Judging the State in International Trade and Investment Law: Sovereignty Modern, the Law and the Economics, Springer, 2016, xix-222pp, ISBN 978-981-10-2358-3, Hb €128.39 - Volume 32 Issue 2

ASPECTS OF MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF EXTENSION PROCESSES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION LEGAL SPACE AND THE REFORMING OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF UKRAINE

The article defines the main aspects of mutual influence of the legal system of Ukraine reforming processes and the extension of the legal space of the European Union (EU) from the general theoretical viewpoint. The article defines the category «legal space» as an acknowledged and regulated by law life sphere of people, organizations, states and international institutions in order to achieve the agreed and common goals. The main features of the legal space as a phenomenon of legal reality are outlined: multilevel legal regulation with the application of national and international legal acts, unification of law enforcement rules, mandatory agreement on a consensual basis of actors operating within the legal space. The factors of the EU legal space extension are emphasized. It is noted that the reforming of the legal system of Ukraine and the EU legal space extension are interconnected and complementary processes. At the core of such a relationship lies the political will of Ukraine to recognize and legitimize the norms and principles of EU law on the one hand and the desire of the EU to expand the geographical and spatial boundaries of political, legal and economic influence on the other. Based on the analysis of provisions of the bilateral cooperation acts of Ukraine and the EU, as well as using the achievements of national scientists who studied the impact of EU law on the national legal system, four main aspects of the mutual influence of transformation processes of the national legal system and the scope of the extension of the regulatory capacity of the European Union law are highlighted. In particular, it is the creation of a legal basis for the development integrated ties between Ukraine and the EU, recognition of the universal values ​​of the EU in Ukraine, and the involvement of Ukraine in European politics. It is pointed to the issue of Ukraine's full participation in the realization of common policies with the EU. It is emphasized, that the main result of active interaction between the national legal system and the EU legal space is the change of methodological approaches to the analysis of the correlation of political borders of the European Union and factual territorial scope of the European legal space, especially legal borders. That is why the modern scientific community faces a new perspective task - to ground the patterns of formation of the optimal model of Ukraine's borrowing of positive legal practices from the EU legal space, provided that the national identity is preserved in the conditions of the national legal system reforming.

China and International Order: The Limits of Integration

What does the rise of China mean for the international order, especially the liberal institutional order? Despite of the enormous scholarly attention paid to this important question, there has been no systematic effort to map out this order and how China relates to it. We examine the international institutional order using an original dataset, the Multilateral Agreements and Protocols (MAP). We further develop a new metric of a country’s embeddedness in the international institutional order. Our analysis leads us to reconsider prominent conjectures about China’s evolving relationship to the current international liberal order. We find that, relative to the global average, China is less inclined towards deep commitment to the current international institutional order. Indeed, China’s wariness about this order seems in contrast to the growing global appetite for deep commitment. Furthermore, China seems less embedded in some issue areas that are central to the international liberal order. These findings suggest that the integration of China into the current Western liberal order may not be as automatic as some have suggested and reinforce concerns over the future of global governance.

Cyber Conflicts: Addressing the Regulatory Gap

This special issue gathers together a selection of papers presented by international experts during a workshop entitled ‘Ethics of Cyber-Conflicts’, which was devoted to fostering interdisciplinary debate on the ethical and legal problems and the regulatory gap concerning cyber conflicts. The workshop was held in 2013 at the Centro Alti Studi Difesa in Rome under the auspices of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (NATO CCD COE). This NATO-accredited international military organisation that has always placed a high value on an interdisciplinary approach to cyber defence, uniting as it does perspectives from technical, policy, legal, and strategic domains. The Centre’s mission is to enhance capability, cooperation, and information-sharing between NATO, its member states, and partner countries in the area of cyber defence by virtue of research, education, and consultation. The workshop was one of the projects supported by the Centre to achieve this mission. Readers may already be familiar with the term ‘cyber conflict’, which is understood as any use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that may have disruptive or destructive consequences. Cyber conflicts are an umbrella phenomenon encompassing several instances ranging from cyber warfare and hacktivism to cyber crime and cyber terrorism. As contemporary societies grow dependent from ICTs, any form of conflict that uses these technologies, both as a means and as a target, poses serious threats to their stability, security, and welfare. As recently reported by the Financial Times, Bthe ultimate impact [of cyber-conflicts] could be as much as $3 trillion in lost productivity and growth^. Furthermore, should cyber conflicts propagate without an adequate response then contemporary societies may risk a cyber backlash in the shape of a deceleration to the digitization process imposed by governments and international institutions in order to prevent this Philos. Technol. (2015) 28:333–338 DOI 10.1007/s13347-015-0197-8

El informe sobre erosión de bases imponibles y traslación de beneficios de la OCDE: origen e implementación en un marco internacional y globalizado

El trabajo propone al lector un análisis de las circunstancias que han dado lugar al Informe de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico (OCDE) sobre la erosión de bases imponibles y la traslación de beneficios. En el contexto actual de globalización económica, la falta de coherencia de los sistemas fiscales y el unilateralismo han podido dar lugar a situaciones fiscales asimétricas, en gran parte aprovechadas por las multinacionales. Son también objeto de examen los medios e instrumentos utilizados y propuestos por distintas instituciones internacionales para implementar sus acciones con fuerza legal, en concreto, a través del soft law y su aceptación por parte de los distintos Estados, como método utilizado en la lucha contra la evasión y fraude fiscal.

The Politics of Impartiality: The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in the Soviet Union, 1946–7

Officials from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) were among the world’s first international civil servants charged with impartially implementing a humanitarian assistance programme in a contentious political environment. Using the underexploited papers of Richard Scandrett and Marshall MacDuffie, this article explores the story of UNRRA in the Soviet Union and assesses its significance in forging an ethos of international public service and humanitarianism in the United Nations system. I argue that this animating spirit has its roots in the first-hand exposure of UNRRA personnel to the destruction wrought by the war, and in the personal rapport UNRRA officials established with their Soviet counterparts. Meanwhile, a strong reaction against multilaterally administered relief arose in the USA, forcing the organization to vigorously defend its performance. In response, UNRRA staff rejected the politicization of relief and became more committed to the broader goal of strengthening international institutions in order to address global problems. UNRRA staff concluded that the impartiality of international relief work should be protected as a vital asset in alleviating human suffering. As today’s humanitarian workers face an increasing threat of violence in places like Afghanistan and Sudan, the lessons on UNRRA’s experience are worth remembering.

Hope or Hype? Legitimacy and US Leadership in a Global Age

Many foreign affairs cognoscenti agree that the United States needs to restore its standing as a legitimate world leader and recommit to international institutions in order to address the world's most pressing problems. However, these prescriptions mean relatively little without first examining what legitimate leadership entails and whether such leadership is, in fact, possible. This article proceeds in three steps. First, it discusses the meaning of legitimate leadership in the context of international institutions and underscores the enduring challenges the United States faces in this regard. Second, it highlights the domestic political impediments that ineluctably constrain the implementation of a consistent and cohesive US foreign policy. Finally, the article suggests that if the US legitimacy deficit is to some degree a fact of life, we should rethink which governance arrangements are most capable of harnessing US power for a greater good and devote increased attention to what legal scholars call “new governance.”

Hold the croissant! The European Union declares war on obesity

In this paper, we argue that EU institutions have demonstrated an interest in diet/nutrition for some time, but only in the last five years has obesity risen to the top of the agenda. How did the Commission and European parliament become involved in fighting obesity? It is not because national governments or societal interest groups or public health agencies pushed EU officials to reduce the body mass of European citizens. Rather, drawing on the literature on transnational policy actors, we show that the current attention to obesity is heavily influenced by WHO research reports. Moreover, the WHO's recommendations on obesity supply EU institutions with a new agenda, which in turn mobilizes pan-European groups and private sector interests. Obesity provides a further example of entrepreneurial Commission officials pursuing alliances with international institutions in order to take advantage of their scientific expertise and to carve out a new EU agenda.

No International Organization is an Island . . . the WTO’s Relationship with the WIPO: A Model for the Governance of Trade Linkage Areas?

Trade has fuzzy boundaries where it overlaps with many different fields – be it the environment, intellectual property, or other. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is thus required to interact with other international institutions in order to come to an arrangement for dealing with these ‘trade and ?’ linkage areas. The relationship between the WTO and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) could in many respects serve as a model. The picture that emerges when the various forms of interaction of the two organizations are assessed is that they benefit most from complementarity. Thus, for example, the WIPO offers detailed intellectual property rules, whilst the WTO supplements this with effective dispute settlement. This advantage may largely be due to the fact that the WTO has incorporated many of the WIPO rules into its own law. One of the recommendations put forward here is for other ‘trade and ?’ spheres to do the same. On the other hand, the analysis highlights a number of problems that occur when two institutions cross paths. One such difficulty is a potential conflict of law. To help to resolve it, the WTO dispute settlement system should give greater consideration to the provisions of non-WTO law. Some hope for this is given in the US-Copyright case, but it is questioned whether this still holds in view of more recent caselaw. The interplay between the WTO and the WIPO thus forms the basis for a number of recommendations for better governance of trade linkage areas.

To Assess the Rise of China

Fei-Ling Wang • http://asiapolicy.nbr.org • asia policy, number 8 (july 2009), 151–59 Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng, eds. China’s Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008 • 336 pp. C. Fred Bergsten, Charles Freeman, Nicholas R. Lardy, and Derek J. Mitchell China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2008 • 256 pp. David M. Lampton The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008 • 361 pp. review essay To Assess the Rise of China Fei-Ling Wang© The National Bureau of Asian Research, Seattle, Washington [ 152 ] asia policy China’s Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng, eds. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008 • 336 pp. editors’ executive summary Thisvolumeisacollaborativeeffortinapplyinginternationalrelationstheories to the dynamics brought on by the rise of China and the resulting U.S.-China power transition. main argument Past examples of great-power transitions help explain the changes being brought about by China’s ascent. Though conflicts of interest between the U.S. and China will continue, the intensity and direction of the transition will be determined by four main factors: (1) structural variables that influence the transition, with specific importance on the polarity of the modernday international system, the geographical characteristics of great-power placement,andweapontechnologies,(2)China’sparticipationininternational politics and ability to create and influence international institutions, (3) Chinese state-level variables that operate within the context of international and regional structures, and within the context of international institutions, and (4) the influence of Chinese decisionmaking on the behavior of other countries and vice versa. policy implications • The particular global and regional structural context of U.S.-China competition, though increasingly strained due to growing conflicts of interest, has the potential to facilitate a peaceful power transition. • China has become an engaged beneficiary of the contemporary international institutional order and possesses an interest in maintaining and consolidating this order. • The combined effects of Chinese and U.S. participation in global institutions and Chinese involvement in regional institutions can mitigate the competition inherent in the U.S.-China power transition. [ 153 ] review essay • to assess the rise of china China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities C. Fred Bergsten, Charles Freeman, Nicholas R. Lardy, and Derek J. Mitchell Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2008 • 256 pp. authors’ executive summary This book examines the dynamics underpinning China’s rise and suggests U.S. policy responses to further encourage China’s constructive integration into the international community. main argument China poses enormous challenges and opportunities to the U.S. and the world. As China continues to evolve and debate its future course, U.S. interests can be best protected by engaging China actively during this formative period, and by helping the country develop the tools, infrastructure, and policies that will enable Beijing to become a cooperative counterpart to Washington in global affairs. The U.S. should support reconfiguration of the global architecture to incorporateChinaintothediscussionbothofthedevelopmentofinternational rules and of what it means to be a “responsible stakeholder.” policy implications • Given that China faces significant domestic challenges—which include developing democracy with Chinese characteristics and handling relations between the central and local governments—U.S. policy goals would benefit by enhancing exchanges among officials, politicians, academics, and business groups that help China manage these challenges. • China’sunbalancedeconomicdevelopment,especiallyitsenergy‑intensive heavy industry and investment-led growth, has aggravated income inequality, heightened trade tensions, and contributed to serious environmental problems. More vigorous Chinese policy action is needed in the fiscal, financial, exchange rate, and pricing domains. The U.S. can work with China on climate change through a multilateral framework. • The U.S. must ensure that China enhances PLA transparency and understands continued U.S. regional commitments and capabilities, all the while seeking to work with China where there are mutual interests. • As China has the potential to contribute to the resolution of a broad range of global issues, its expanding engagement with the world, channeled constructively, should be welcomed. [ 154 ] asia policy T h e Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds David M. Lampton Berkeley...

Post-Fordist governance of nature: The internationalization of the state and the case of genetic resources – a Neo-Poulantzian perspective

ABSTRACT Compared with the stated aims and the claims for urgent action, multilateral environmental agreements show unsatisfying results. Among other reasons – e.g. a deficit in national implementation – lack of coherence among a variety of overlapping and sometimes contradictory international institutions is considered as one major cause which needs to be overcome. In this article, however, it is argued that this lack of coherence is not a result of a lack of cooperation but a form of governance failure strongly connected with the political and economic structures of global capitalism and its ongoing neoliberal-imperial transformation. Moreover, it is demonstrated that this governance failure is a by-product of the articulation of sometimes antagonistic interests and related power relations inscribed in different national and international institutions. Building on the concept of societal relationships with nature, on historical-materialist state theory and its perspective of the internationalization of the state as well as on the regulation approach, the paper analyzes the tension between different international institutions in order to understand the actual transformations towards a post-Fordist governance of nature. The empirical issues dealt with are different international regulations concerning the appropriation of genetic resources, especially the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Global North in Achebe'sArrow of Godand Adichie'sHalf of a Yellow Sun

Popular accounts of globalization have tended to dwell on the speed, extent and depth of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from trade and financial flows to culture, entertainment, crime and spiritual matters. This has given the dominant impression of globalization as inevitable, indeed desirable since it promotes increasing global awareness and interdependency and the emergence of trans-national civil society in which global non-state actors could put pressure on nation-states and international institutions in order to facilitate 'global justice.' What is often left out in these accounts is how the processes of globalization are currently bound to relationships of power, domination and exploitation, thus underplaying the crucial roles of agency, power blocs and imperial interests in a set of concrete social, political and economic agendas promoted and resisted by different agents. What will globalization be like if the racist, imperialist or neo-liberal capitalist driving forces of its processes are acknowledged and seriously addressed? In this paper, we look at how two novelists, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Adichie, writing from the same cultural environment but separated by age, gender and style, represent the agents of the powerful globalizing cultures of the north in their novels. Perhaps the problem is not with globalization but the nature of the forces driving its agents.