İktisatçılar kurumların iktisadi ilişkiler içindeki rolü konusunda kayıtsız. Uluslararası kurumların doğası ve uluslararası rejimler -ki bunlar uluslararası piyasayı ve iktisadi aktiviteleri yönetir- uluslararası politik iktisatçıların ilgi alanındadır. Rejimlerin refahın dağılımını önemli ölçüde etkilediği gibi devletler de kurumların fonksiyonlarını ve yapılarını etkilemeye teşebbüs ederler kendi politik, ekonomik vs. güçlerini artırabilmek için.

Refahın Dağılımı ve Ekonomik Aktiviteler

İktisat bilimi kıt kaynakların verimli dağıtımını ve ekonomik aktiviteler sayesinde herkesin mutlak biçimde fayda sağladığını vurgularken, IPEnin devlet merkezci alimleri bu aktivitelerin bölüşüm ile ilgili sonucuna odaklanır. İktisata göre, değiş-tokuş karşılıklı fayda olduğundan yapılır, aksi takdirde exchange olmazdı. IPEcilere göre ise ekonomik aktöeler sadece mutlak değil, relative faydalarını ve kazançlarını da artırmaya meyillidirler. Devletler de diğer devletlere nazaran daha fazla büyümenin derdindelerdir.

Relative gain David Hume ve akranları tarafından da dikkate alındı. Hume’ın merkantilist arkadaşları bir ulus ticaret ve ödemeler fazlası oluşturmaya çalışmalıdır. Bu görüş relative gain tabanlıdır. Merkantilist devirde ekonomik ilişkiler zero-sum olarak değerlediriliyordu. Hume bu düşüncenin aptalca olduğu  ve merkantilizmin self-defeating doğasının bulunduğunu göstermek için “Price-spice flow mechanism” i(bu düşünce kabaca şöyle:merkantilizme uyan devlet fazla vererek değerli maden ve para fazlası bulunduracaktır bu da uzun vadede enflasyona yol açacak ve ihracat mallarının fiyatını artıracaktır. ) iktisat düşüncesiyle tanıştırdı. Akabinde, David Ricardo karşılaştırmalı üstünlük teorisiyle her ulusun serbest ticaretten ve bir alanda uzmanlaşarak yapılan iktisadi devletler arası ilişkilerden faydalı çıkacağını gösterdi. Yani uluslararası ekonomik değiş-tokuş ilişkileri zero-sum oyundan ziyade positive-sum oyun şeklinde.

Birbirini takip eden tartışmalar Joseph Grieco‘nun argümanı etrafında şekillendi. “Devletler relative kazancı mutlak kazanca tervih ederler, bu da uluslararası işbirliğini zora sokar.” Öte yandan da Liberaller mutlak gelirin önemine ilaret eder ve Grieco’nun relative kazancı abarttığını düşünürler. Dolayısıyla onlara göre, uluslararası işbirliği Grieco’nun sandığından daha kolay sağlanabilir.

Aslında mutlak vs göreceli trade-off un nasıl şartlar altında yapıldığına bağlı. Devlerler hiçbir zaman ekonomik aktivitelerin bölüşüm sonucunun oluşturduğu göreceli refah ve gücü ihmal edemez, belki güvenlik sebepleriyle. Soğuk Savaş yıllarında, USA, Batı Avrupa ile ekonomik işbirliklerini güçlendirmeye çalıştı, ekonomik maliyetlere rağmen. Devletler özellikle kazançların dağılımının yurtiçi refah, ulusal servet ve askeri gücü nasıl etkilediği üzerine ilgilenir. —sayfa 80 ikinci paragraf çeviri, when a state…—  Servetin dağılımı zamanla askeri gücü, ekonomik gücü etkileyebileceği ve uluslararası düzeni değiştirebileceği için devletler bu konuda çok hassastırlar. 21. yy’ın başında bu dikkat industrial power, özellikle high-tech sanayi üzerine odaklandı.

National Autonomy

IPEnin baskın temalarından biri artan uluslararası ekonomik bağımlılık ile devletlerin siyasi otonomilerini ve ekonomik bağımsızlıklarını sürdürme istekleri arasındaki ısrarlı uyuşmazlıktır. Ülkeler hem serbest ticaret ve yabancı yatırımlardan yararlanmak isteyip hem de kültürel değerlerini, sosyal yapılarını ve otnomilerini korumak istiyor olabilirler. Ama uluslararsı birleşim, ticaret ve entegrasyon rekabeti kızıştırır ve ülkeleri verimliliklerini artırma konusunda ikna etmeye çalışır. Bu sebeple ulusal piyasaların birleşimi politik, ekonomik ve kültürel otonomiyi yok edeceği korkusu gitgide yaygınlaşır.

Ekonomik ve teknik bağlılık ile bağımsız devletlerin politik sistemlerinin bölünmüşlüğünün devam etmesi hali arasındaki uyuşmazlık IPEnin konularından. Ama, güçlü piyasa güçleri politik sınırları aşar ve toplumlara entegre olur.

Çoğu iktisatçı ve politik iktisatçıya göre uluslararası ekonomi, uluslararası politik ilişkiler üzerinde pozitif etkiye sahiptir. Int ekonomi mutual bağımlılık ve ortak ilgi alanları yaratır.

Interdepence aynı zamanda hassasiyet de yaratır. Birülkedeki faiz oranının değişmesi diğer ülkeyi etkiler. (sensitivity interdependence)

Diğer hassasiyet terimi(vulnerability interdependence) ise devletlerin diğer ülkelere bağımlılığını en aza indirmeye çalıştığını ve piyasa bağımlılığının politik sömürme ve faydalanma olasılığının bulunduğunu ifade eder.

The Politics of International Regimes

Ekonomik aktiviteler için bazı kural ve kurumlar gereklidir, ekonomiyi düzene sokmak ve kişisel mülk haklarını koruyabilmek için. Liberal uluslararası sistem üzerinde anlaşılmış kurallara ihtiyaç duyar. Liberal ekonomi ancak stabil para sistemi, piyasa başarısızlıkğının olmaması, aldatma ve bedavacılık sorunun ortadan kalkması gibi koşulların sağlanması durumunda sağlıklı olarak işler.

Eski zamanlarda uluslararası ekoni kuralları oldukça basit ve gayriresmi idi. Ama daha sonraları özellikle 20 ve 21  yzyılda daha implicit kurallar ortaya çıktı. Mesela, Pax Britannica(19. yy) da denizaşırı mülk hakkı için basit bir ‘gunboat diplomacy’ kuralı varken, şimdi çok daha kompleks uluslararası kurallar var.

Rejim ile kurum kelimesi birbiri yerine kullanılsa da dünya ekonomisinin fonksiyonu için önemli olan kuralların kendileridir, resmi kurumlardan ziyade. Robert Keohane önemli alimlerden rejim teorinin gelişimindeki. Ona göre, uluslararası rejim dünya ekonomisinin gerekli bir özelliği ve verimliliği artırmak için de gerekli. Rejim ekonomiyi stabilize etmek ve korumak için de önemli bir kavram.

Susan Strange‘e göre rejim teorisi gelip geçisi heves ve Amerikanın devam eden hegemonyasını meşru kılmak için polemiksel bir araç. O ve arkadaşlarına göre uluslaraarası rejimler Amerikanın iyiliği için ekonomik, politik, ideolojik kararlar ve ilişkiler içinde ve nötr değil. Dünya ekonomisinin zarar görmesi de Amerikanın politikalarının sonucudur, Amerikanın ekonomik olarak düşüşünün değil. Doların global currency olması da Amerika’yı sorumsuz davranmaya itiyor.

Origins

Importantly, though, this means little in terms of actual progress on emissions and climate policy.  The United States actually figures to make its 2020 Kyoto targets, which is basically an artifact of fracking.  More directly, California has started its cap-and-trade system; as I noted a couple of weeks ago, China is set to do the same; India is pursuing a wide variety of clean energy initiatives.  The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative continues on its way, together with the European trading market, and talks are underway to link the markets together.

It wasn’t hard for me to predict this a couple of years ago — you would have had to have been blind, or an academic with a vested interest in pushing international treaty architectures, not to see the pattern.  But I think it also tells us something about international institutions more generally.

Three decades ago, Robert Keohane published a seminal article entitled “The Demand for International Regimes.”  If international institutions cannot coercively enforce their mandates, Keohane asked, what good are they?  His answer was shrewd and insightful, deriving from transactions costs economics.  Multilateral agreements are hard, he noted: you have to get everyone in the room, focus their political leaders appropriately, and have them negotiating from a relatively common factual basis — all species of trasnactions costs problems.  International institutions can help solve these problems because they can generate high-quality information, make the act of negotiating easier, and provide individual nations with a bureaucratic base (viz. the negotiators and staffs who represent a nation at the institution) from which to broker agreements.

The irrelevance of Doha helps flesh out Keohane’s theory, ironically providing the basis for the demand of the absence of international regimes.  The very thing that makes an international institution such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change useful also makes it susceptible to domestic political sabotage.  The reduction of negotiation transactions costs makes it easier for opponents to block it; its centralized production of information makes it easier for opponents to discredit proponents’ factual conclusions.  One would expect on this theory to find that when international agreements face substantial domestic opposition, they will avoid international institutions.  For example, because US domestic opposition to arms control treaties in the early 1970′s was so fierce, Henry Kissinger pursued backchannel negotiations with the Soviet Union.

This framework, then, might suggest that different national climate regulatory mechanisms will tacitly begin to align without any central coordinating mechanism, and instead, a series of inefficient but roughly workable bilateral arrangements will emerge.  European carbon markets will arrive at a way to credit offsets from RGGI, for example.  China and California might figure out a way to demand credits from and give credits to the other.  These administrative mechanisms will be less open and transparent, but less politically vulnerable, then a public international regume, with all the advantages and disadvantages that attend such arrangements.

The idea behind this is that having read a lot of Keohane and Nye I’m struck by how close they seem to be in real life, so I thought it would be funny to have them bickering. Also, I think the word “mutantification” is pretty funny, so it kind of just wrote itself.

I originally was going to end it with them flying off to Berkley on their tiny bat wings to shoot eye lasers at Kenneth Waltz. Did I not mention they have eye lasers? Anyway, my hand started getting tired so I stopped drawing.

There are three characteristics that comprise complex interdependence; multiple channels, absence of hierarchy among issues, and the minor role of military force. Look at our world today and you see communication on a whole new level compared to lets say…fifty years ago. Today, we have multiple channels of contact. These include informal ties between governments and transnational organizations; banks and corporations. A dynamic occurs because of the closeness between government and business. As a result, transnational organizations in pursuit of their interests make government policies in other countries more receptive to one another. Also of note, since these organizations are not entirely controlled by governments, they have become integrated into foreign and domestic relations. What we see now is that governments’ domestic policies have broadened and transnational organizations have made decisions that exceed national boundaries and as a result the domestic policies of various countries encroach upon another. Thus, “foreign economic policies touch more domestic economic activity than in the past, blurring the lines between domestic and foreign policy and increasing the number of issues relevant to foreign policy.”[1] The blurring of foreign and domestic policy allows for the cooperation of actors, which gives rise to institutions that tackle various issues that now cross cut.

Because issues have become extremely diverse, military security is not paramount in the foreground of political minds. This, of course, relates to the fact that various governments’ domestic policies impinge on one another. Thus, multiple issues are not arranged in a clear hierarchy. As stated early, issues that were once thought to be domestic have ascended because the distinction between foreign and domestic has hazed and as such these issues are addressed within several governmental departments and internationally create coalitions to address these issues. And since other issues no longer play a subordinate role to military security, military force has a minor role. Even under liberalism, anarchy is still prevalent but is less likely because of institutions and the interests of states to maintain these institutions. Military force, is no longer appropriate to achieving goals, especially economic goals. But that does not mean force can not be used politically, the threat of force can be a deterrent against other countries or allies. Thus, deterrence is a defensive function, which can also be used in bargaining.

Taking into account the three characteristics of complex interdependence and how each can work under liberalism, how does complex interdependence aim to overcome the security dilemma? According to Robert Jervis, “The lack of an international sovereign not only permits wars to occur, but also makes it difficult for states that are satisfied with the status quo to arrive at goals that they recognize as being in their common interest.”[2] But under liberalism we learned that actors are willing to cooperate to further their interests and in order to do so they create institutions. Yet, we also learned that liberal theorists acknowledge the anarchic nature of the international system. When a state expands its power most likely it will expand its security. This becomes a problem in the realm of international politics known as the security dilemma. The security dilemma states, “many of the means by which a state tries to increase its security decrease the security of others.”[3] Taking this into account we are obviously not all dead and that means there are factors that have influenced the impact of anarchy and the security dilemma.

To better understand the variables that have allowed for cooperation in light of the anarchical nature of the international system and the security dilemma, let us delve into Rousseau’s “Stag Hunt.” Two hunters are out on a hunt and come upon a stag. If they work together, cooperate, they can capture the stag and both eat but as one ventures into the bush to flush the stag out the other prepares with his or her bow or gun to kill the stag. But a rabbit appears to the person holding the bow or gun and now the person has a choice: continue with the previous plan and kill the stag and both hunters eat well or pursue the rabbit and eat alone. In other words, if this person defects then the chances of cooperation are reduced. In order to overcome this all actors must be in pursuit of a common goal but that does not necessarily mean they will reach that goal. The fear of exploitation is at the heart of the security dilemma but it is also why international life is not as anarchic as Thomas Hobbes would put it. But the loss of cooperation and the potential gains therein and the needless wars and violence prevent major defections. The greater the costs of defection the greater chance cooperation will win the day.

The relative peace following the Napoleonic Wars highlight how liberal statesmen feared large armies would lead to despotism and how conservative statesmen feared wars would lead to revolution. That is why the domestic costs of wars must be weighed because strong states can be destabilized by discontent at home. The advantages of cooperation can also lead to economic prosperity. Prior to World War II, the United States was Japan’s most important trading partner. Thus, cooperation can maintain the status quo and bring relative wealth. Statesmen know that entering a war can bring about unforeseen and uncontrollable events. No matter how sure or how well researched; the battlefield is unpredictable as well as the actions of politicians. Any gains from cooperation can be doubled in more than wealth, such as improved relations, and eventually states will see the value of one another’s well being.

Liberalism tells us that states want to cooperate and the best way to go about this is through institutions. Even though the anarchical nature of the international system provides scenarios for war and an arms race, states are motivated to pursue interests that benefit them with relative little cost. That means military force has taken a minor role in their policies. States understand that force is not necessarily the best in achieving their goals. Cooperation then is the most beneficial in terms of achieving said goals. Since complex interdependence is possible under liberalism then these goals or interests are the most possible under liberalism with a relative cost of course.

During the workshop, I also ran into Nic Cheeseman, who is a University Lecturer in African Studies at Oxford, and writes a great blog called Democracy in Africa.

Buy After Hegemony from Flipkart by clicking on this link:

Most of us who have been following climate change negotiations are rather cynical by now about what can be accomplished at large international gatherings.  Indeed, few of us expected much from the meeting in Durban.  Against that background, I, at least, was pleased by the last-minute deal that was reached there earlier this month.    The good news is that China and India, after many years of resistance, agreed to be included under the caps of the Kyoto Protocol as of 2020.   The language, although heavily negotiated, refers to “an outcome with legal force.:  The great negotiating disaster of Kyoto was, in my view, the Berlin Mandate of 1995, which exempted developing countries from limits, giving them a property right not to be covered that they were loath to relinquish.  In response, the United States refused to be covered by caps when China, a major competitor and now the leading greenhouse gas emitter, did not have its emissions limited in any way.  At Durban, the EU, led by Connie Hedegaard, wisely abandoned its former policy of unconditionally supporting Kyoto, instead demanding reciprocity:  others had to agree to be bound by a future extension of  Kyoto for the EU to agree to continue its compliance with Kyoto after 2012.  And the United States, led by Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing of the State Department and supported by the White House, also played a constructive role.

We know that negotiations are very far “behind the curve” of climate change, evidence of which is accumulating even faster than many scientists expected.   All of this may be too little, too late.  But on a realistic assessment, relative to where the world was three weeks ago and reasonable expectations at that time, Durban represents progress, which should be respected, although probably not celebrated since much remains to be done.

Keohane also suggested this blog — Assessing the Climate Talks — Did Durban Succeed? — by Robert Stavins, which also provides a qualified but upbeat perspective on the conference.

Click here to listen to our first roundtable discussion.

To access the readings discussed in this podcast, click here.

Our discussion follows the following outline:

Discussion of Order

1. What is order?
2. How do we know order when we see it?
3. Stability v. instability in the international system
4. What kind of “order” are we working towards? What kind of order should we be working towards?

Theoretical Building Blocks

1. Review relevant theories of international politics.
2. What can the theories explain?
3. What can’t they explain?

For realists, anarchy is a product of the multitude of sovereign states within the international system. States are free to pursue courses of action without any structural restraints. Without a hierarchical structure providing rules for state interaction, states are situated in relationships of self-help and, consequently, are in direct competition with one another to secure their national interest defined as power. In the realist conception of international politics, power is both an ends and a means. The zero-sum game ignited by anarchy compels states to act rationally, otherwise there is a chance that a competitor will become more powerful and, therefore, threaten another’s national interest. Despite the omnipresence of rational-egoism in the system, cooperation is not absent from the realist model. In fact, anarchy compels states to cooperate – but only temporarily to enhance their interests. Kenneth Waltz’s defensive realism, which articulates the effects of anarchy on balance of power politics, explicates cooperation’s role in the realist framework. In order to protect national interest, Waltz says, states will ally to negate the ascending power of another. Once the power equilibrium is restored, the allied states pursue their interests independently, only to balance again in the future when one state disrupts the distribution of power.[1] International institutions do not play a role in softening realism’s anarchy because no international body exists to extricate states from the self-help principle. Basically, international institutions are a tool for enhancing national interest against the welfare of other states. Thus, zero-sum competition is an enduring feature of the international system.

From the Treaty of Westphalia’s establishment of the nation-state as the primary unit of international relations in 1648 to World War II, realism’s anarchy offers a compelling longe duree perspective of the motivations of states and interstate conflict. During that time, the insubstantial information flows between nation-states exacerbated the question of other states’ policy intentions. Realism’s strict interpretation of anarchy, however, seems anachronistic considering the technological advances of the mid- to late-twentieth century that connected nations and facilitated the integration of national economies into the complex global economy.

Contrary to the central assumption of neo-realism, anarchy is not the sole determinant of state behavior in the modern era. One need only open the newspaper for evidence that states are subject to formal and informal constraints. Liberal theorists like Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye agree that the international system is anarchic but contend that international economic institutions, though voluntary, reduce interstate tensions by linking economic welfare – a rational component of the national interest – to stable and contention-minimizing relationships.[2] In the liberal model, states are concerned with absolute gains instead of relative gains, thus rationalizing anarchy as an opportunity instead of a burden. Institutions need not be located in brick and mortar buildings; instead they can be norms widely accepted by the states in the international system. In today’s world, for example, virtually all states agree that war is only considered ‘just’ if waged for defensive purposes. By and large, the ‘institution’ of just war restrains states from aggressively pursuing military conquest.

The question that then arises is whether the tempered anarchy of the twentieth century is a temporary or permanent deviation from realism’s rigid interpretation of anarchy. Some liberals insist that institutions, once formed, acquire a logic and agenda separate from their constituent states; thus becoming pseudo-sovereign agents in the international system.[3] If this is the case, then a system defined by soft anarchy may be a constant. Another way to predict the degree of anarchy in the future is to question the effects of technological progress through history. From steamboats and the telegraph to television and the Internet, human innovation has created an increasingly interconnected and culturally homogenous world. As the globe becomes smaller, institutions are utilized to mediate between disputant agents and formulate responses to the ills produced by the virtual elimination of spatial barriers. Conversely, anarchy may be intensified by a myriad of factors – ranging from resource scarcity to violence perpetrated by non-state actors. In today’s world, it is not outlandish to imagine a state attempting to protect its national welfare from non-state militant groups by wantonly violating the sovereignty of weak and/or unwilling nations while disregarding formal and informal international institutions. In this case, a system marked by hard anarchy is likely to result.

As demonstrated in the paragraph above, predicting the future severity of anarchy is a tenuous task. One alternative model examines anarchy as the product of vacillating norms of international society. In “Anarchy is What States Make of It,” constructivist Alexander Wendt advises scholars of international relations to examine processes of state interaction instead of focusing on the conditions of interaction. The degree of anarchy in the system is determined, he says, by states’ identities as constructed by the interaction of an ego with alters. In other words, at any one time the system can be more or less cooperative based on the socialization process of states.[4]

The soft anarchy defining the current period of the international system can be attributed to the unipolar dominance of the Untied States and the states socialization vis-à-vis the institution of a single great power. Great powers are informal institutions that play a substantial role in creating norms in the international system either through their interaction, as in a multipolar system, or their unrivaled power, as in a unipolar system. In the former case, the system is likely to be more anarchical. Yet, if a single superpower dominates the system and promotes the idea of absolute gains, as the United States does, then a challenger or coalition of challengers is less likely to emerge. In other words, a loose, non-obligatory order built upon common norms and understandings simultaneously sustains anarchy but also provides structure. The degree of anarchy in a unipolar system, though, is contingent upon the identity of the great power. An aggressive great power with a zero-sum interpretation of interstate events will plunge system into a hard anarchy.

In sum, as long as sovereign states remain the primary actors in the international system, anarchy will remain as the structure influencing states’ action. However, the system can at times be more or less anarchic. The realist and liberal arguments concerning anarchy are both correct when situated within an appropriate context. Constructivist’s process-centric analysis of international politics reconciles these two school’s understanding of anarchy. It accepts the idea that hard and soft anarchies are variant conditions of the system dependent on states’ socialization. To understand the international system’s structure of anarchy, one must look at the dominant institutions mediating state interaction.

[2] Robert O. Keohane “Neorealism and World Politics” in Neorealism and its Critics, ed. Robert Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 18.

[3] Richard K. Ashley, “The Poverty of Neorealism” in Neorealism and its Critics, ed. Robert Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 275.

[4] Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is What States Make of It,” International Organization 46 (1992): 405.