International Political Economy

National Government Responses to Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Fisheries Certification: Insights from Atlantic Canada

by Paul Foley

forthcoming in New Political Economy

Over the last decade, the proliferation of social and environmental certification programmes has attracted the... more Over the last decade, the proliferation of social and environmental certification programmes has attracted the attention of a growing number of political scientists interested in new forms of ‘private’ transnational governance. However, we still lack analyses on the nature and extent of different state responses to and involvement in new private transnational governance arrangements in particular sectors and in different jurisdictions. This article advances our understanding of the interactions between nation-state and private transnational modes of governance by analysing the role of national government authorities in Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) fisheries certification in Atlantic Canada, known more for the disastrous collapse of Northern cod stocks than good marine stewardship. Focusing on the 2008 certification of Northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) fisheries off the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the analysis finds that the implementation and maintenance of MSC certification in this case depended on significant support from government authorities. The delicate legitimacy of both authorities faces a period of uncertainty in this case since some certified shrimp stocks appear to be in decline and perhaps also migrating northward off Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Labour Party's External Economic Policy In the 1940s

by Richard Toye

Deliberation and Global Civil Society: Agency Arena Affect

by james brassett

The article provides a critical analysis of the role and function of global civil society within deliberative... more The article provides a critical analysis of the role and function of global civil society within deliberative approaches to global governance. It critiques a common view that global civil society can/should act as an agent for democratising global governance and seeks to explore the importance of global civil society as an arena of deliberation. This more reconstructive aim is supplemented by an empirically focused discussion of the affective dimensions of global civil society, in general, and the increasingly important use of film, in particular. Ultimately, this then yields an image of the deliberative politics of global civil
society that is more reflective of the differences, ambiguities and contests that pervade its discourses about global governance. This is presented as a quality that debates about deliberative global governance might learn from as well as speak to.

Is Characterization of Treaties a Solution to Treaty Conflicts?

by Ahmad Ali Ghouri

Chinese Journal of International Law 2012; doi: 10.1093/chinesejil/jms034

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) rules on the resolution of treaty conflicts are known as being... more The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) rules on the resolution of treaty conflicts are known as being despondently unhelpful. One identified lacuna is that these rules disregard many differences present in different kinds of treaties. This paper characterizes treaties on the basis of their differences and investigates whether this yields legal rules to resolve treaty conflicts. This paper presents three broad characterizations founded on: (A) the subject matter; (B) the number of State Parties; and (C) the intended objects and purposes of treaties. Respecting the intended objects and purposes, this paper presents three sub-characterizations, namely: (i) universal character treaties; (ii) constitutional character treaties; and (iii) treaties with conflict resolution
clauses. The results are variegated, but the discussions expose the mythic role of treaty characterization in the resolution of treaty conflicts.

The Crisis of US Monetary Hegemony and Global Economic Adjustment

by Mattias Vermeiren

Forthcoming in Globalizations

Over the past decade the world economy has been characterized by escalating global current account imbalances between... more Over the past decade the world economy has been characterized by escalating global current account imbalances between the United States and East Asian states. This paper argues that US structural power in the global monetary system allowed the consolidation of a finance-led growth regime in the US based on massive capital inflows, asset inflation and consumption growth while inducing East Asian emerging market economies to establish export-led growth regimes. The global credit crisis has clearly uncovered the boundaries of US monetary hegemony, imposing severe adjustment throughout the global political economy. I analyse the political economy of global economic adjustment and argue that the crisis of US monetary hegemony is based – domestically – on the crisis of the finance-led growth regime and – globally – on the shortage of global demand. On the basis of an analysis of the impact of the crisis on the models of capitalism of the US, the Eurozone and China, this paper shows that global demand deficiency will persist in the short to medium term.

Global games: Culture, political economy and sport in the globalised world of the 21st century

by John Nauright

appears in Third World Quarterly, 25:7 (2004): 1325-1336.

During the past three decades sport has assumed an ever greater role within the globalisation process and in the... more During the past three decades sport has assumed an ever greater role within the globalisation process and in the regeneration of national, regional and local identities in the postcolonial and global age. With much of global culture displayed by the media, events, particularly significant sporting ones such as the Olympic Games or the soccer World Cup, have become highly sought after commodities as developed countries, and increasingly some leading developing countries, move towards event-driven economies. In the process, however, many countries are left behind without the necessary infrastructure or visibility to compete successfully. Furthermore, the process of displaying a culture in the lead-up to an event and during the event itself has had to focus on ready-made markets, thus reinforcing stereotypes about a place and its people. This paper discusses the paradoxes and inequalities brought on by the sport-media-tourism complex that drives the emphasis on global sporting events.

Transnational political strategies and dominant ideologies in the period of economic nationalism. A contradiction of the European Interwar?, in Greek

by Catherine Brégianni

Neoellinica Historica, Academy of Athens, vol. 2, 2010, p. 37-58.

Uluslararası Hukukta Eleştirel Yaklaşımlar

by Uluslararası İlişkiler

Hürkan Çelebi, Ali Murat Özdemir, "Uluslararası Hukukta Eleştirel Yaklaşımlar", Uluslararası İlişkiler, Cilt 7, Sayı 25 (Bahar), 2010

Bu makale uluslararası hukukta mevcut eleştirel yaklaşımlar içerisinde önemli yer tutan iki yaklaşımı eleştirel olarak... more Bu makale uluslararası hukukta mevcut eleştirel yaklaşımlar içerisinde önemli yer tutan iki yaklaşımı eleştirel olarak incelemektedir: iyileştirici yaklaşım ve meta-biçim teorisi bağlamında ekonomi politik yaklaşım. Son dönemde uluslararası hukuk teorisi “Yeni Dalga” olarak bilinen eleştirel perspektifl erin yükselişine şahit olmuştur. “Yeni Dalga” yazarları Eleştirel Hukuk Çalışmaları olarak bilinen daha geniş bir akımın parçasını oluşturmaktadırlar. Ekonomi politik yaklaşım Evgeny Pashukanis’in hukuku meta dolaşımına bağlayan ve uluslararası hukuku meta biçim teorisinin geliştirilmesinde kullanan öncü hukuk çalışmalarına dayanmaktadır.

Introduction to the Political Economy of the Sub-prime Crisis in Britain: Constructing and Contesting Competence

by james brassett

British irony, global justice: a pragmatic reading of Chris Brown, Banksy and Ricky Gervais

by james brassett

The article provides a critical analysis of the concept of irony and how it relates to global justice. Taking Richard... more The article provides a critical analysis of the concept of irony and how it relates to global justice. Taking Richard Rorty as a lead, it is suggested that irony can foreground a sense of doubt over our own most heartfelt beliefs regarding justice. This provides at least one ideal sense in which irony can impact the discussion of global ethics by pitching less as a discourse of grand universals and more as a set of hopeful narratives about how to reduce suffering. The article then extends this notion via the particular – and particularly – ethnocentric case of British Irony. Accepting certain difficulties with any definition of British Irony the article reads the interventions of three protagonists on the subject of global justice – Chris Brown, Banksy and Ricky Gervais. It is argued that their considerations bring to light important nuances in irony relating to the importance of playfulness, tragedy, pain, self-criticism and paradox. The position is then qualified against the (opposing) critiques that irony is either too radical, or, too
conservative a quality to make a meaningful impact on the discussion of global justice. Ultimately, irony is defended as a critical and imaginative form, which can (but does not necessarily) foster a greater awareness of the possibilities and limits for thinking/doing global justice.

Ethics in world politics: cosmopolitanism and beyond?

by james brassett

Deliberation and Global Governance: Liberal, Cosmopolitan, and Critical Perspectives

by james brassett

Contingent borders, ambiguous ethics: Migrants in (international) political theory

by james brassett

The article engages a critical analysis of liberal theory in the context of transnational migration. Normative... more The article engages a critical analysis of liberal theory in the context of transnational migration. Normative arguments provided by liberal-cosmopolitan and liberal-communitarian authors are contrasted. While sympathetic to such approaches, we argue that traditional liberal theory has attempted to downplay the contingency and resultant ambiguity of many of its moral precepts. Historically contingent borders underpin neat universal categories like ‘‘citizen’’ and ‘‘refugee,’’ which fail to reflect the diverse and contested experiences of migration. But such ambiguities need not undermine liberal approaches. Indeed, a proper engagement with the problematic and uncertain realities of migration can provide a spur to a more thoroughgoing ethical praxis. We draw on the philosophical pragmatism of Richard Rorty to outline an approach to migration that remains open to the contingent construction of terms like ‘‘migrant,’’ ‘‘refugee,’’ and ‘‘asylum-seeker.’’ By extending Rorty’s concept of sentimental education, we provide an imaginative and politically
challenging set of agendas for the ethics of migration.

2010 “Statecraft in the Global Financial Crisis: An Interview with Kanishka Jayasuriya,” Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies. No. 3, P. 127-138.

by Jeb Sprague

Kanishka Jayasuriya, Professor of Political Science at the University of Adelaide, Australia and author of two... more Kanishka Jayasuriya, Professor of Political Science at the University of Adelaide, Australia and author of two monographs  – Reconstituting the Global Liberal Order: Legitimacy and Regulation (2005) and Statecraft, Welfare and the Politics of Inclusion (2006) – argues that changing forms of governance and new regulative laws are enabling the transnationalization of institutions within national states. He also interprets these
changes as giving rise to a new type of institutional struggle unique to globalisation. For social scientists in general and political economists in particular, Jayasuriya’s work
provides a useful lens through which to understand intra-state transformation in the global epoch. By rejecting Realist/Weberian conceptions of the state and drawing inspiration instead from materialist state theory, he understands state transformation as a reflection of ongoing processes linked to socio-economic forces that are novel to the historical present. And in the wake of the global financial crisis, he argues, we should not see the state as either disappearing or returning, for it is continuing to transform in ways peculiar to the age of globalism. The real question is for whom states will act in the future. In order to answer this, Jayasuriya suggests that we must look to transformations occurring within the national state, for it is these that are changing statecraft as we know it.

In this interview, Jayasuriya discusses some of his main concepts and theories, such as the regulatory state; meta-governance; the transition from ‘social constitutionalism’ to ‘economic constitutionalism’; and describes how each of these
relate to the ongoing crisis of global capitalism. He clarifies his views on the idea of a transnational capitalist class, arguing that there must be “different fractions within it”; and goes on to discuss the connection of his theories on state-transformation with the related works of William Robinson and Martin Shaw. Finally, he discusses some of the theorists that have influenced his work – such as Nicos Poulantzas, Carl Schmitt, Franz Neumann, and Amartya Sen – and briefly describes his areas of ongoing research.

‘Review of F. Gale and M. Haward, 2011. Global Commodity Governance: State Responses to Sustainable Forest and Fisheries Certification. Palgrave.’

by Paul Foley

published in Global Environmental Politics, 2012, Vol. 12 (2): 120-22.

Learning the Hard Way

by STAMATIA KREMMYDA

published in 'Insight, Edinburgh University Economics Magazine', page 30

Joan Robinson’s Short-Period Theory of Employment - a development of the contributions of Keynes, Kalecki and Marx

by Brendan Sheehan

A longer version of this paper was originally presented to the Association for Heterodox Economists Conference at the Open University in London in July 2000.

This paper is a pedagogic tool that seeks to re-activate interest in Joan Robinson’s short period theory of... more This paper is a pedagogic tool that seeks to re-activate interest in Joan Robinson’s short period theory of employment, which has been ignored by mainstream economists. This theory develops the arguments advanced by Kalecki and Keynes with respect to employment, whilst the treatment of unemployment synthesises the seemingly disparate perspectives of Keynes and Marx. A simple two-sector model outlines Robinson’s distinctive treatment of the main components of aggregate demand. The distribution of income is the dominant influence on consumption, there is a two-stage multiplier effect and profits in the Consumption sector dictate the rate of investment. It predicts that effective demand determines total output, capacity utilisation and aggregate employment. It then specifies two categories of unemployment - Keynesian (demand deficient) and Marxian (reserve army). The model provides a snapshot of how employment responds to a change in effective demand, which is consistent with the Robinsonian vision of an economy moving along an irreversible time path.

Review of Adam Hanieh's "Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States"

by Omar Dahi

Arab Studies Journal

Monetary Power and EMU: Macroeconomic Adjustment and Autonomy in the Eurozone

by Mattias Vermeiren

Forthcoming in the Review of International Studies

This article examines the impact of the establishment of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the introduction of the... more This article examines the impact of the establishment of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the introduction of the euro on the monetary power of its member states. Taking into consideration continuing capitalist variety among national political economies of the Eurozone, I examine the implications of EMU for the macroeconomic autonomy of different national models capitalism. Drawing on a comparative capitalism perspective, it is argued that the Eurozone’ coordinated market economies – Germany in particular – have gained much more from the introduction of the euro in terms of monetary power than the other models. This argument will be based on an analysis of two key dimensions of EMU’s macroeconomic governance regime: (1) exchange rate policymaking and (2) the management of balance-of-payments.

Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism. Critical Discourse Studies.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies... more Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.