Power and the Governance of Global Trade: From the GATT to the WTO (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)

Power and the Governance of Global Trade: From the GATT to the WTO (Cornell Studies in Political Economy) Review

In Power and the Governance of Global Trade, Soo Yeon Kim analyzes the design, evolution, and economic impact of the global trade regime, focusing on the power politics that prevailed in the regime and shaped its distributive impact on global trade. Using documents now available from the archives of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Kim examines the institutional origins and critical turning points in the evolution of the GATT, as well as preferences of the lesser powers of the developing world that were the subject of heated debate over the International Trade Organization (ITO), which failed to materialize. Using quantitative analysis, Kim assesses the impact of the global trade regime on international trade and finds that the rules of trade forged by the great powers resulted in a developmental divide, in which industrialized countries benefited from trade expansion but developing countries reaped far fewer gains. The findings indicate that a successful conclusion to the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is urgently needed to mitigate the developmental divide by increasing trade between the industrialized and developing worlds. Kim offers a timely reading of the GATT/WTO system as a way to think about how trade and globalization more broadly may be governed in this post-Cold War century, as the global economy contends with a new geopolitical configuration featuring rising powers from the developing world. Important trading nations such as China, India, and other emergent actors in the G-20 countries, Kim argues, reflects the new power politics that will shape the course of global trade governance in the years to come.

Real Democracy: The New England Town Meeting and How It Works (American Politics and Political Economy Series)

Real Democracy: The New England Town Meeting and How It Works (American Politics and Political Economy Series) Review

Relying on an astounding collection of more than three decades of firsthand research, Frank M. Bryan examines one of the purest forms of American democracy, the New England town meeting. At these meetings, usually held once a year, all eligible citizens of the town may become legislators; they meet in face-to-face assemblies, debate the issues on the agenda, and vote on them. And although these meetings are natural laboratories for democracy, very few scholars have systematically investigated them.

A nationally recognized expert on this topic, Bryan has now done just that. Studying 1,500 town meetings in his home state of Vermont, he and his students recorded a staggering amount of data about them—238,603 acts of participation by 63,140 citizens in 210 different towns. Drawing on this evidence as well as on evocative "witness" accounts—from casual observers to no lesser a light than Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn—Bryan paints a vivid picture of how real democracy works. Among the many fascinating questions he explores: why attendance varies sharply with town size, how citizens resolve conflicts in open forums, and how men and women behave differently in town meetings. In the end, Bryan interprets this brand of local government to find evidence for its considerable staying power as the most authentic and meaningful form of direct democracy.

Giving us a rare glimpse into how democracy works in the real world, Bryan presents here an unorthodox and definitive book on this most cherished of American institutions.

(20040913)

Negotiating the World Economy

Negotiating the World Economy Review

It is often said economics has become as important as security in international relations. What goes on when government negotiators bargain over trade frictions, exchange rates, debts, and the rules of international economic organizations? Does their behavior have significant effects? Variations in the process of economic negotiation make a substantial difference to the outcomes of international economic issues, John S. Odell says, and the process can be understood and practiced better than it is now.

Odell identifies strategies used by actual negotiators, and explains strategy choice as well as why the same strategy can gain more in some situations and less in others. Focusing on ten major economic negotiations since 1944 that have involved the United States, Odell identifies three broad factors--changing market conditions, negotiator beliefs and biases, and domestic politics--as influences on strategies and outcomes. He depicts economic bargaining as neither purely distributive struggle nor win-win accommodation. He develops a theory premised on bounded rationality, setting it apart from the most common form of rational choice as well as from views that reject rationality. He closes with suggestions for improving negotiation performance today. The main ideas are relevant for any country and for all who may be affected by economic bargaining.