Provision Of Global Public Goods Research Articles

Can we define global collective action problems away?

AbstractThe adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals has rejuvenated an old debate: Can foreign aid be used to finance global public goods (GPGs)? There are those who see aid exclusively as a source of development funding for poor countries. And there are others who are open to answering the question in the affirmative. I put forward five arguments why the latter position is reasonable. Firstly, the formal definition of official development assistance (ODA) cannot be said to exclude its use in financing GPGs as these goods by definition benefit developing countries. Secondly, the amount of ODA provided has never been the gold standard of rich country effort envisaged by some. In particular, the level is boosted by the self‐interests of donors. Thirdly, there is ample precedent for following the benefit principle when it comes to multilateral organisations, which are often seen as GPGs. Fourthly, distinguishing between national public goods and GPGs is not always straightforward as the former are in many cases inputs into the production of the latter, and in such cases, the dividing line between ‘traditional aid’ and ‘funding for GPGs’ is blurred. Finally, it is not obvious in practice that aid as country finance always generates greater welfare gains for developing countries than the provision of GPGs. In sum, being overly normative with respect to what ODA is distracts us from the real problem, namely, that collective action problems result in too little spending on all international public goods, including poverty alleviation in poor countries.

Left populism and foreign policy: Bernie Sanders and Podemos

Abstract This article analyses how populism is conceptualized and studied in International Relations (IR) and argues that it should be seen as a political logic instead of a political ideology. It does so by demonstrating that ‘populist foreign policy’ looks radically different in analyses of the populist left, refuting the possibility of any distinctly ‘populist’ foreign policy positions. We argue that large parts of IR scholarship practise a form of concept-stretching that undermines the quality of analysis as well as the ability to make meaningful policy recommendations. Using the empirical case-studies of the politician Bernie Sanders in the United States and the political party Podemos in Spain, the article demonstrates that populism does not translate into any shared ideological positions, but is a way of formulating and performing—in these cases—leftist politics through which political actors can interpellate and mobilize different societal groups and demands behind their political projects. In particular, the analysis debunks common assumptions about populism's alleged effects on foreign policy and dangers to pluralist democracy, and shows that populism neither necessarily opposes multilateralism, migration and global public good provision nor formulates an authoritarian claim to power.

Towards a new architecture for progressive international capital taxation

The application and operation of the Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) Rules agreed at the OECD and released in December 2021 have both strengths and weaknesses for developing countries. Now is the time to address directly the multilateral institutional "architecture" in relation to international tax negotiations. Despite the current geopolitical tensions, the nature of climate change and increased possibility of future health pandemics have made the need for global public goods provision – and thus global tax coordination – even more necessary. Moreover, the GloBe rules reflect the underrepresentation of non-OECD members in the process of the "Inclusive Framework," as evidenced by their absence in key committee leadership, paucity of specialised delegates and lack of explicit voting rights. Therefore, it is correct to welcome the recent UN resolution to work towards a worldwide Tax Convention.

Sustainable transformation of global ocean governance: Can a global public goods approach lead the way?

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda), by setting integrated ocean goals (IOGs), is expected to strengthen the means of implementation of the legal regime of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This could lead to a sustainable transformation of global ocean governance in the Anthropocene to address systemic risks to the global oceans. Based on the realization of blue justice, the sustainable transformation of global ocean governance encompasses three holistic and interconnected dimensions: blue security, blue economy, and blue protection. It is a complex and adaptive global collective action that involves various actors and methodologies. This study introduces the concept of global public goods (GPGs) to the debate on sustainable transformation of global ocean governance, emphasizing that the process and outcome of governance transformation benefit mankind as a whole. Using cost-benefit analysis, aggregator techniques, and a heterogeneity game model to analyze the undersupply of GPGs, this study then argues that a framework for the provision of GPGs can provide adaptive institutional arrangements for coordinating the "collective action dilemma" involved in the sustainable transformation of global ocean governance. Collective action should be strengthened to promote the achievement of the SDGs: ⅰ) the establishment of international ocean regime complexity to facilitate coordination; ⅱ) the broad implementation of transboundary marine spatial planning as a tool for the coordination of interests; and ⅲ）the promotion of equitable capacity-building, including co-production of ocean knowledge, sharing information on marine data, and diversified financial support mechanisms to reduce heterogeneity.

A paradox of coalition building in public good provision

Does partial coalition among players help mitigate the issue of underprovision of public goods? This study considers endogenous coalition formation and endogenous technology choices in a model of the private provision of global public goods. We show that the possibility of future interstate (partial) coordination may hinder the current adoption of better technology by a country outside the cooperation, which may exacerbate an existing underprovision problem. Specifically, in the subgame perfect equilibrium of a three-stage game, we find two paradoxical results: the inability to form future partial coalitions encourages a country outside the cooperation to adopt better technology, which could lead to an increase in the total public good supply and an improvement of global welfare. These results have important policy implications. For example, in the context of the Paris Agreement, if a major country announces reduced nationally determined contributions in a strategic move to adopt less advanced technology to motivate other countries to form coalitions, it may ultimately lead to a decrease in the overall supply of public goods and global welfare.

From Condemnation to Cooperation: The Evolution of China’s Position toward UN Peacekeeping Operations

In its capacity as a great power, China has assumed greater responsibilities regarding the provision of global public goods. Therefore, it has become the UN Security Council’s permanent member which contributes the largest amount of troops to peacekeeping operations. Consequently, China has steadily increased its financial contributions and registered an 8.000 peacekeeping stand-by force. Nonetheless, China’s current leadership in the field of peacekeeping operations differs radically from its initial rejection for missions which it regarded as imperialist instruments destined to undermine the progress of revolutionary movements and weaken the principle of sovereignty. Therefore, in this article, I will explain the evolution of China’s stance toward UN PKOs from an outright rejection to a moderate opposition, and from a limited support to an active participation. Furthermore, I will explain how PKOs enable China to protect its national interests in conflict zones and upgrade its military capabilities through military operations other than war. (MOOTW). Finally, I will explain that this stance is the reflection of evolving national conception roles and of a more ambitious Chinese foreign policy; through which Beijing seeks to strengthen international cooperation, safeguard its interests and nationals overseas, redefine international norms and global governance schemes and reaffirm its great power status.

Knowledge sharing in global governance: a path in public goods delivery

ABSTRACT The exchange of knowledge in development cooperation can help overcome common challenges while providing collective solutions. Country, regional and global platforms play a crucial role to facilitate development cooperation at both national and international level, but there is a lack of knowledge on their structure and operationalisation. The aim of this paper is to fill this knowledge gap to assess how global platforms can contribute to bridge the establishment of national priorities with the provision of global public goods. By way of a documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, the study examines the case of the South-South Galaxy, a platform created by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation to promote the exchange of solutions among all Southern knowledge sharing platforms. The main results find that each node of knowledge sharing works to build a shared understanding of good practices on the SDGs and make this knowledge universally accessible.

Invention in Times of Global Challenges: A Text-Based Study of Remote Sensing and Global Public Goods

We study whether remote sensing (RS), a set of technologies with global reach and a variety of applications, can be considered instrumental to the provision of global public goods (GPG). We exploit text information from patent data and apply structural topic modeling to identify topics related (or relevant) to GPG provision, and trace their participation in the evolution of remote sensing technology over time. We develop a new indicator of affinity to GPG (and other themes) using meta information from our dataset. We find that, first, RS displays features of a general-purpose technology. Second, while peripheral, GPG-relevant topics are present in the RS topic space, and in some cases overlap with topics with high affinity in AI and participation of public sector actors in invention. With our analysis, we contribute to a better understanding of the interplay between the dynamics of technology and (global) political economy, a field of research yet under-explored.

The problem of financing global public goods

A longstanding result from decades of research on the provision of global public goods, is that stable coalitions of cooperating countries are small when the benefits to cooperating are large. This “paradox” of cooperation is seemingly overcome in a recent paper “The Strategic Dimension of Financing Global Public Goods”, by Kornek and Edenhofer (2020). The authors propose a global-public goods game in which countries finance a compensation fund that can balance abatement costs among members. The fund is based on financial transfers, and in the often-explored case of linear benefits and quadratic costs, the proposed institution is credited as being able to support a stable grand coalition. However, when looking carefully at the model, the promising result relies on assumptions and features of an international institution that are not credible because they restrict members’ rights to opt out. The institution’s success relies on countries being required to transfer funds in response to below-average abatement levels. In this short paper we show that when countries have the outside option to renege on the terms of the agreement, no money would be transferred and the institution proposed by Kornek and Edenhofer (2020) reverts to the non-cooperative outcome.

Pay for the Privilege: Does a Global Club Good Opportunity Ruin Local Public Good Provision?

Pay for the Privilege: Does a Global Club Good Opportunity Ruin Local Public Good Provision?

Partner country selection between development narratives and self‐interests: A new method for analysing complex donor approaches

AbstractPartner country (PC) selection lies in the centre of development policy decision‐making of donor countries and institutions, and plays a significant role in shaping aid patterns. This paper proposes a comprehensive analysis contrasting donor intentions in PC selection with actual aid flows. Having analysed selected members of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, namely, the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, we suggest that (1) donors might not only be either altruistic or self‐interested but also motivated by an intention to contribute to the provision of global public goods; (2) self‐interest in aid provision can be an explicitly‐stated strategy, contrary to what has been argued in the majority of the literature, which often treats self‐interest as a non‐stated donor intention; and (3) donors' self‐interested intentions do not always lead to a less development‐oriented donor approach.

Introduction

Introduction

The International Politics of Carbon Dioxide Removal: Pathways to Cooperative Global Governance

Abstract Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C require that, in addition to unprecedented reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, between 100 and 1,000 metric gigatons of CO2 be removed from the atmosphere before 2100. Despite this, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is not yet firmly on national or global policy agendas. Owing to uncertainty about both technical potential and social license, it is unclear whether CDR on the required scale will even be feasible. This article asks what scholarship about the provision of global public goods can tell us about governing CDR. We identify four areas where new international cooperative efforts—likely performed by small clubs of motivated actors—could amplify existing CDR policy responses: development of CDR accounting and reporting methodologies, technology development and prototype deployment for technically challenging CDR, development of incentives for CDR deployment, and work on governance and accountability mechanisms that respond to social justice impacts and social license concerns.

Domestic Provision of Global Public Goods: How Other Countries’ Behavior Affects Public Support for Climate Policy

Abstract When considering public support for domestic policies that contribute to a global public good, such as climate change mitigation, the behavior of other countries is commonly regarded as pivotal. Using survey experiments in China and the United States we find that other countries’ behavior matters for public opinion, but in a contingent manner. When citizens learn that other countries decrease their emissions, this leads to support for further domestic action. Yet, support for reciprocal behavior is not a necessary consequence of other countries increasing their emissions. Responding in-kind to emissions increases abroad depends upon the home country’s past behavior and who the other country is. Our results imply that the international context remains important, despite global climate policy now relying more on coordinated unilateral action and polycentric governance. They also show, however, that we need to pay greater attention to contingent effects of countries’ positive and negative behavior in this area.

Does hostility affect public support for the provision of global public goods among competing neighboring countries? A survey experiment in Northeast Asia

Cooperation beyond the borders of sovereign states and investment in global public goods (GPGs) are essential for tackling transboundary challenges, such as climate change, marine pollution, and health security. However, little is known about how regional tension or isolationism might affect cooperation with neighboring countries on transboundary issues. Thus, in this study, using a conjoint experiment of representative samples from members of the public in Japan, China, and South Korea, we investigated: 1) public support for GPGs using the case of trilateral cooperation for the establishment of common global funds among Japan, China, and South Korea; and 2) the extent to which hostility toward neighboring countries affects such public support. The results showed that Chinese people had lower hostility toward neighboring countries and higher public support. Both Japanese and South Koreans had higher hostility. Meanwhile, public support was lower in Japan but moderate in South Korea. These results suggest that hostility toward neighboring countries affects public support for GPGs. The stronger the hostility toward neighboring countries is, the lower the public support for international cooperation becomes. However, the mechanisms of these effects are complex. Generally, hostility toward a government has more negative effects than hostility toward people of the same country. Furthermore, the present study provides important insights based on the findings that Chinese strongly supported building GPGs with neighboring countries, and people in all three countries somewhat supported equal sharing of the financial burden. However, authorization mechanisms for GPGs are essential, because citizens most supported GPGs managed by their home country. Thus, adopting authorization mechanisms to mutually manage funds is essential for widening public support for GPGs.

National parochialism is ubiquitous across 42 nations around the world

Cooperation within and across borders is of paramount importance for the provision of public goods. Parochialism – the tendency to cooperate more with ingroup than outgroup members – limits contributions to global public goods. National parochialism (i.e., greater cooperation among members of the same nation) could vary across nations and has been hypothesized to be associated with rule of law, exposure to world religions, relational mobility and pathogen stress. We conduct an experiment in participants from 42 nations (N = 18,411), and observe cooperation in a prisoner’s dilemma with ingroup, outgroup, and unidentified partners. We observe that national parochialism is a ubiquitous phenomenon: it is present to a similar degree across the nations studied here, is independent of cultural distance, and occurs both when decisions are private or public. These findings inform existing theories of parochialism and suggest it may be an obstacle to the provision of global public goods.

The geopolitics of COVID-19: US-China rivalry and the imminent Kindleberger trap

Purpose The spread of COVID-19 is not just a health crisis. The pandemic has taken a geopolitical dimension. The health crisis amplified the competitive dynamics between the USA and China, affected the provision of global public goods and injected instability into the global order. In line with the geopolitical zero-sum thinking, both the USA and China have sought to capitalize on the crisis to boost their international profile. Instead of working together to mitigate the health and economic impacts of COVID-19, the two powers fear that the other will exploit the current situation to accrue political, economic or military gains that will give it an edge after the pandemic subsides. The spread of COVID-19 has set off a “battle of narratives,” in which China and the USA are accusing each other of failing to rise to the challenge. The world seems to be falling into a “Kindleberger Trap,” in which the established power is unable to lead while the rising power is unwilling to assume responsibility. The COVID-19 crisis is occurring amid the collapse of global cooperation. The USA, the traditional leader of international collective efforts in times of crisis, has abandoned its role entirely. The lack of leadership at the global level during an international crisis may cause the breakdown of the international order. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines the US-China competitive dynamics through the lens of the work of Charles Kindleberger, which both liberals and realists regard as foundational when examining the dynamics of global crisis management. This paper also uses the meta-geopolitics framework to determine the ability of both China and the USA to respond to the current COVID-19 crisis and its implications for their power and standing in the international system. Findings This paper concludes that the only way to escape the Kindleberger trap is “to embed Sino-American relations in multilateralism.” Originality/value As rivals, both the USA and China are seeking to capitalize on the crisis to boost their international profile. This paper probes how China and the USA navigated the ongoing COVID-19 crisis to determine whether or not they are currently in a “Kindleberger Trap,” using elements of the meta-geopolitics framework of analysis, namely, health issues, domestic politics, economics, science and international diplomacy. Using the meta-geopolitics framework will help us determine the ability of both China and the USA to respond to the current COVID-19 crisis and the implications of that on their power and standing in the international system.

A Paradox of Coalition Building in Public Good Provision

This paper considers endogenous coalition formations and endogenous technology choices in a model of private provision of global public goods. We show that the possibility of future interstate (partial) coordination may hinder the current adoption of better technology by a country outside the cooperation, which may exacerbate an existing underprovision problem. In particular, in the subgame perfect equilibrium of a three-stage game, we find two paradoxical results: prohibition of the formation of future partial coalitions encourages the country outside the cooperation to adopt better technology, which could lead to an increase in the total public good supply and an improvement of global welfare. The results have an important policy implication: in the context of the Paris Agreement, for example, a large country announces lower nationally determined contributions by a strategic incentive to adopt lower technology to motivate coalition building by other nations, which in the end may lead to lower aggregate public-good supply and global welfare.

System Rivalry during Pandemic Times: A Political Economy View of Great Power Vaccine Diplomacy

The COVID-19 pandemic has turbocharged world history while ravaging global populations. From digital transformations of work and education, to development, clinical testing and distribution of new vaccines in unprecedented timeframes, adapting to the virus has driven structural shifts at breakneck speed when viewed historically. Perhaps one of the most significant structural shifts the pandemic has accelerated is the growing geopolitical and economic tensions between China and the U.S., with some asking whether it marks the end of U.S. hegemony as leader of the post-war liberal international order (Lake, Martin, & Risse 2021; Norrlöf, 2020). Much of the tensions revolve around claims that China’s model of state capitalism gives it unfair competitive advantages against liberal capitalist economies. China’s trading partners, and most vocally the U.S., increasingly argue the country is not meeting its WTO obligations (Bown & Hillman, 2019; Zhou, Gao, & Bai, 2019). Economic competition between the U.S. and China in particular, has invoked the view that we are entering a new Cold War type conflict (Karaganov, 2018; Westad, 2019; M. Zhao, 2019). The pandemic has only added heat to pre-existing tensions, with Bahi arguing: ‘The health crisis amplified the competitive dynamics between the USA and China, affected the provision of global public goods and injected instability into the global order’ (Bahi, 2021, p. 1). As economies seek to recover from the economic consequences of the pandemic, trade tensions stemming from different capitalist systems are becoming geopolitical flashpoints that have the potential to intensify and threaten economic recovery (Bahi, 2021). This chapter will assesses how growing economic and geopolitical competition is impacting public good provision through proxy competition between China and the U.S. waged through ‘vaccine diplomacy’ (S. Zhao, 2021). Renewed state-to-state systemic competition between the two largest economies today will have an important effect on the overall ability of the world to combat COVID-19, as well as recover economically from the detrimental economic effects of lockdowns, which will in turn impact countries’ future ability to manage a major health crises. There is a pressing need to understand the nature of these tensions if policies for attenuating Sino-Western tensions are to be devised.

Reading Kindleberger in Beijing: Xi Jinping’s China as a provider of global public goods

In 2017, scholar Joseph Nye postulated that a rising China that failed to deliver global public goods could result in a ‘Kindleberger Trap’, failing, like the then rising United States about a century ago, to supply global public goods at a time of need. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made expanding China’s role in global public goods provision a hallmark of his foreign policy. This study assesses Xi-led China’s commitment to supplying global public goods using guideposts from historical examples of countries that made the shift from consumers to suppliers of global public goods. It finds that China seeks to enlarge its role in providing global public goods. However, Beijing is supplying those global public goods that it sees as maximising its interests, while simultaneously reshaping existing or constructing new modalities for their delivery. This behaviour, associated with systemic challengers, weakens confidence in China’s role as a stabiliser in future global crises.