http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4270 www.ibei.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=98&lang=ca Fri, 18 May 2012 09:58:07 GMT 2012-05-18T09:58:07Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/bitstream/id/34793/ http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4270 http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/179816 Can You Home Again? Desertion and Control of Hometowns in Civil Wars McLauchlin, Theodore What allows an armed group in a civil war to prevent desertion? This paper addresses this question with a focus on control in the rearguard. Most past studies focus on motivations for desertion. They explain desertion in terms of where soldiers stand in relation to the macro themes of the war, or in terms of an inability to provide positive incentives to overcome the collective action problem. However, since individuals decide whether and how to participate in civil wars for multiple reasons, responding to a variety of local conditions in an environment of threat and violence, a focus only on macro-level motivations is incomplete. The opportunities side of the ledger deserves more attention. I therefore turn my attention to how control by an armed group eliminates soldiers’ opportunities to desert. In particular, I consider the control that an armed group maintains over soldiers’ hometowns, treating geographic terrain as an important exogenous indicator of the ease of control. Rough terrain at home affords soldiers and their families and friends advantages in ease of hiding, the difficulty of using force, and local knowledge. Based on an original dataset of soldiers from Santander Province in the Spanish Civil War, gathered from archival sources, I find statistical evidence that the rougher the terrain in a soldier’s home municipality, the more likely he is to desert. I find complementary qualitative evidence indicating that soldiers from rough-terrain communities took active advantage of their greater opportunities for evasion. This finding has important implications for the way observers interpret different soldiers’ decisions to desert or remain fighting, for the prospect that structural factors may shape the cohesion of armed groups, and for the possibility that local knowledge may be a double-edged sword, making soldiers simultaneously good at fighting and good at deserting. Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/179816 2011-12-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/172487 Comrades or Culprits? Donor Engagement and Budget Transparency in Aid Dependent Countries de Renzio, Paolo; Angemi, Diego Budget transparency has come to be considered a key aspect of governance. Over the past decade, donors have invested increasing resources in strengthening processes through which budget transparency in developing countries can be enhanced. According to the 2008 Open Budget Index (OBI) Report, however, aid dependency and budget transparency appear to be inversely correlated. This article looks at the role of donor agencies in promoting or preventing budget transparency in aid dependent countries. It analyzes data for a sample of 16 aid-dependent countries included in the OBI, to test some preliminary hypotheses and select six countries for which more detailed findings are then presented. All of these countries have implemented reforms aimed at enhancing budget transparency, with substantial donor support. These, however, often had only limited success, partly because they were not well adapted to the local context, and partly because donors put limited emphasis on improving public access to budget information. Donor efforts were also often offset by other characteristics of donor interventions, namely their fragmentation, lack of transparency, and limited use of program aid modalities such as budget support and pooled sector funding. Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/172487 2011-11-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/96135 The New Institutions of Transatlantic Aviation Karagiannis, Yannis; Heritier, Adrienne This article focuses on the institutions of transatlantic aviation since 1945, and aims at extracting from this historical process topical policy implications. Using the methodology of an analytic narrative, we describe and explain the creation of the international cartel institutions in the 1940s, their operation throughout the 1950s and 60s, their increasing vulnerability in the 1970s, and then the progressive liberalization of the whole system. Our analytic narrative has a natural end, marked by the signing of an Open Skies Agreement between the US and the EU in 2007. We place particular explanatory power on (a) the progressive liberalization of the US domestic market, and (b) the active role of the European Commission in Europe. More specifically, we explain these developments using two frameworks. First, a “political limit pricing” model, which seemed promising, then failed, and then seemed promising again because it failed. Second, a strategic bargaining model inspired by Susanne Schmidt’s analysis of how the European Commission uses the threat of infringement proceedings to force member governments into line and obtain the sole negotiating power in transatlantic aviation. Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/96135 2010-11-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/96134 Banning Obsolete Weapons or Reshaping Perceptions of Military Utility: Discursive Dynamics in Weapons Prohibitions Petrova, Margarita The paper focuses on the argumentative process through which new international norms prohibiting the use of weapons causing severe civilian harm emerge. It examines the debate surrounding the use and usefulness of landmines and cluster munitions and traces the process through which NGOs change conceptions of military utility and effectiveness of certain weapons by highlighting their humanitarian problems and questioning their military value. By challenging military thinking on these issues, NGOs redefine the terms of the debate – from a commonplace practice, the use of such weapons becomes controversial and military decisions need to be justified. The argument-counterargument dynamic shifts the burden of proof of the necessity and safety of the weapons to the users. The process witnesses the ability of NGOs to influence debates on military issues despite their disadvantaged position in hard security issue areas. It also challenges realist assumptions that only weapons that are obsolete or low-cost force equalizers for weak actors can be banned. To the contrary, the paper shows that in the case of landmines and cluster munitions, defining the military (in)effectiveness of the weapons is part and parcel of the struggle for their prohibition. Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/96134 2010-11-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/96133 Divergent Reactions to Globalization: Labor Unions and the Nafta and the EU Enlargement Process Díez Medrano, Juan The 1990s witnessed the launching of two ambitious trade regionalization plans, the Nafta and EU enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe. In contrast to previous projects for the creation or expansion of regional trade blocs, these two projects concerned states at dramatically different levels of economic development: The Nafta involved the very wealthy economies of Canada and the USA and the significantly poorer economy of Mexico, whereas EU enlargement involved the very wealthy economy of the 15 member-state European Union and the significantly poorer economies of former Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. Ultimately, the Nafta and EU enlargement are responses to the challenges of globalization. Paradoxically, however, they have been met with radically different societal reactions in the wealthy partners that participated in the launching of these processes. This paper focuses on the reaction by labor unions on both sides of the Atlantic. I conclude that while labor relations and welfare institutions constrained the trade policy choices made by labor unions in the United States and Europe, they do not tell the whole story. It would seem that United States labor unions were more sensitive to the potential risks for workers associated to the liberalization of trade than were their European counterparts. Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/96133 2010-10-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/63038 The ‘Dragon’ and the ‘Elephant’ and Global Imbalances Spoor, Max Global financial imbalances receive a great deal of attention in relation to the emerging economies China and India. This chapter analyzes this relation, but argues first that they are actually re-balancing the existing structural inequality in the world economy, in which for so long only the Western economies and Japan dominated economic growth and international trade, moving towards a more multi-polar world economy. China in particular, with its rapid export-led growth, has indeed been part and parcel of the emerging financial imbalances, feeding the ‘over-consumption’ in the US and using its accumulating international reserves in buying US-treasury bonds. Finance therefore is moving to the economy that ‘least needs it’. This imbalance can only be redressed if the US (and some of the other OECD countries) start saving more and consuming less (and become more competitive), with China further stimulating domestic demand (which it already did in response to the crisis). China and to a lesser extend India, as emerging large economies and a more important roles in global markets, also contribute to new imbalances, such as the influence of the insatiable appetite for resources (carbon-hydrates, minerals and bio-mass) of these relatively energy-inefficient economies, while at the same time attracting an increasing share of FDI towards them. The chapter finally raises the issue that these three mentioned imbalances make it more difficult for developing countries (except for those who are resource-rich) to get access to the necessary development finance. Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/63038 2010-04-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/43858 The Global Diffusion of Regulatory Agencies: Channels of Transfer and Stages of Diffusion Jordana, Jacint; Levi-Faur, David; Fernández i Marín, Xavier The autonomous regulatory agency has recently become the ‘appropriate model’ of governance across countries and sectors. The dynamics of this process is captured in our data set, which covers the creation of agencies in 48 countries and 16 sectors since the 1920s. Adopting a diffusion approach to explain this broad process of institutional change, we explore the role of countries and sectors as sources of institutional transfer at different stages of the diffusion process. We demonstrate how the restructuring of national bureaucracies unfolds via four different channels of institutional transfer. Our results challenge theoretical approaches that overemphasize the national dimension in global diffusion and are insensitive to the stages of the diffusion process. Further advance in study of diffusion depends, we assert, on the ability to apply both cross-sectoral and cross-national analysis to the same research design and to incorporate channels of transfer with different causal mechanisms for different stages of the diffusion process. Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/43858 2009-12-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/42707 Cognition, Resources, and Institutions in the Explanation of Attitudes to Free Trade Díez Medrano, Juan; Braun, Michael This article proposes a framework for the analysis of attitudes to foreign trade policies that challenges the traditional skill-endowment approach. The traditional approach assumes informed individuals who calculate the costs and benefits of alternative policies. We propose that individuals lack information and that their positions rest on economic vulnerability, as mediated through risk-aversion. We also stress the role of environmental signals and political endorsements in guiding individuals' views on trade policy. We test this alternative approach with a Spanish survey conducted in May 2009 and the ISSP survey conducted in 2003 in a large number of less developed and more developed countries. The Spanish data show that the population is largely uninformed and that their ideas about the consequences of free trade policy do not explain attitudes among different socio-demographic groups. Meanwhile, the ISSP data contradict important aspects of the traditional approach and are consistent with the alternative approach. Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/42707 2009-09-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/42440 International Institutions as Solutions to Underlying Games of Cooperation Koremenos, Barbara This Working Paper was presented at the international workshop "Game Theory in International Relations at 50", organized and coordinated by Professor Jacint Jordana and Dr. Yannis Karagiannis at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals on May 22, 2009. The day-long Workshop was inspired by the desire to honour the ground-breaking work of Professor Thomas Schelling in 1959-1960, and to understand where the discipline International Relations lies today vis-à-vis game theory. Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/42440 2009-11-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/42439 Development and Democratization Boix, Carles Current studies, mainly focused on the postwar period, are split on the impact of development on democracy. Examining panel data that runs from early nineteenth century (a time where hardly any democracy was in place) to the end of the twentieth century, I show income matters positively for democratization – both after controlling for country and time effects and instrumenting for income. Since the effect of time partly varies over time, with some historical periods that are more favorable to democracy than others, I investigate the domestic variables (a decreasing marginal effect of growth in already developed economies) and international factors (the strategies of great powers toward small countries) generating that result. I finally probe the underlying processes through which income shapes political institutions, showing that development produces key changes in the distribution and nature of wealth that, in turn, make democracy a stable political outcome. Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/42439 2009-11-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41347 Are Dictators Immune to Human Rights Shaming? Wright, Joseph G.; Escribà-Folch, Abel This paper examines whether human rights naming and shaming destabilizes the rule of authoritarian leaders. We argue that human rights shaming can destabilize autocratic leaders by signaling international disapproval to elites in the targeted country, increasing their capacity to replace the incumbent. In personalist regimes, shaming increases the risk of irregular exit because regime elite do not have a means to peacefully replace the incumbent. Shaming campaigns also decrease foreign aid and international trade in personalist regimes, denying the leader access to resources to pay his coalition – further destabilizing his rule. In non-personalist regimes where parties or the military allow elites to peacefully replace incumbents, human rights shaming increases the risk of regular turnover of power, but has little effect on the risk of irregular exit or international flows of aid and trade. These findings have implications for understanding when and where shaming campaigns are likely to reduce or deter repression. Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41347 2009-10-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41346 Still in the Era of Area Studies? Political-Scientific Perspectives on European Competition Policy in the 2000s Karagiannis, Yannis This note reviews the political-scientific literature on European competition policy (ECP) in the 2000s. Based on a data set extracted from four well-known journals, and using an upfront methodology and explicit criteria, it analyzes the literature both quantitatively and qualitatively. On the quantitative side, it shows that, although a few sub-policy areas are still neglected, ECP is not the under-researched policy it used to be. On the qualitative side, the literature has greatly improved since the 1990s: Almost all articles now present a clear research question, and most advance specific theoretical claims/hypotheses. Yet, improvements can be made on research design, statistical testing, and, above all, state-of-the-art theorizing (e.g. in the game-theoretical treatment of delegation problems). Indeed, it is paradoxical that ECP specialists do not pay more attention to theoretical questions which are so central to the actual policy area they study. Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41346 2009-10-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41072 The Electoral Determinants of Collective Remittances: The Mexican 3x1 Program for Migrants Meseguer, Covadonga; Aparicio, Javier The 3x1 Program for Migrants is a matching grant scheme that seeks to direct the money sent by migrant organizations abroad to the provision of public and social infrastructure, and to productive projects in migrants’ communities of origin. To do so, the municipal, state, and federal administrations match the amount sent by hometown associations by 3 to 1. This opens the door to the political manipulation of the program. We explore the impact of a particular facet of Mexican political life on the operation of the 3x1: its recent democratization and the increasing political competition at the municipal level. Relying on the literature on redistributive politics, we posit that an increasing number of effective parties in elections may have two different effects. On the one hand, the need to cater to more heterogeneous constituencies may increase the provision of public projects. On the other hand, since smaller coalitions are needed to win elections under tighter competition, fewer public and more private (clientelistic) projects could be awarded. Using a unique dataset on the 3x1 Program for Migrants for over 2,400 municipalities in the period 2002 through 2007, we find a lower provision of public goods in electorally competitive jurisdictions. Thus, we remain sceptical about the program success in promoting public goods in politically competitive locations with high migration levels. Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41072 2009-09-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41071 Authoritarian Responses to Foreign Pressure: Spending, Repression, and Sanctions Escribà-Folch, Abel This paper explores how international sanctions affect authoritarian rulers’ decisions concerning repression and public spending composition, and how different authoritarian rulers respond to foreign pressure. If sanctions are assumed to increase the price of loyalty to the regime, then rulers whose budgets are not severely constrained by sanctions will tend to increase spending in those categories that most benefit their core support groups. In contrast, when constraints are severe due to reduced aid and trade, dictators are expected to greatly increase their levels of repression. Using data on regime types, public expenditures and spending composition (1970–2000) as well as on repression levels (1976–2001), we show that the empirical patterns conform well to our theoretical expectations. Single-party regimes, when targeted by sanctions, increase spending on subsidies and transfers which largely benefit more substantial sectors of the population and especially the urban classes. Likewise, military regimes increase their expenditures on goods and services, which include military equipment and soldiers’ and officers’ wages. Conversely, personalist regimes reduce spending in all categories, especially capital expenditures, while increasing repression much more than other regime types when targeted by sanctions. Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41071 2009-08-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41070 Private Governance of Financial Markets: the US Regulatory Regime on Hedge Funds Robotti, Paola The article investigates the private governance of financial markets by looking at the evolution of the regulatory debate on hedge funds in the US market. It starts from the premise that the privatization of regulation is always the result of a political decision and analyzes how this decision came about and was implemented in the case of hedge funds. The starting point is the failure of two initiatives on hedge funds that US regulators launched between 1999 an 2004, which the analysis explains by elaborating the concept of self-capture. Facing a trade off between the need to tackle publicly demonized issues and the difficulty of monitoring increasingly sophisticated and powerful private markets, regulators purposefully designed initiatives that were not meant to succeed, that is, they “self-captured” their own activity. By formulating initiatives that were inherently flawed, regulators saved their public role and at the same time paved the way for the privatization of hedge fund regulation. This explanation identifies a link between the failure of public initiatives and the success of private ones. It illustrates a specific case of formation of private authority in financial markets that points to a more general practice emerging in the regulation of finance. Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41070 2009-08-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41069 The Political Economy of Resource Rent Distribution Konstantinidis, Nikitas I model the link between political regime and level of diversification following a windfall of natural resource revenues. The explanatory variables I make use of are the political support functions embedded within each type of regime and the disparate levels of discretion, openness, transparency, and accountability of government. I show that a democratic government seeks to maximize the long-term consumption path of the representative consumer, in order to maximize its chances of re-election, while an authoritarian government, in the absence of any electoral mechanism of accountability, seeks to buy off and entrench a group of special interests loyal to the government and potent enough to ensure its short-term survival. Essentially the contrast in the approaches towards resource rent distribution comes down to a variation in political weights on aggregate welfare and rentierist special interests endogenized by distinct political support functions. Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/41069 2009-07-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/13351 Why the EU does not Have an Independent Competition Agency: French Interests and Transaction Costs in Early European Integration Karagiannis, Yannis A major achievement of new institutionalism in economics and political science is the formalisation of the idea that certain policies are more efficient when administered by a politically independent organisation. Based on this insight, several policy actors and scholars criticise the European Community for relying too much on a multi-task, collegial, and politicised organisation, the European Commission. This raises important questions, some constitutional (who should be able to change the corresponding procedural rules?) and some political-economic (is Europe truly committed to free and competitive markets?). Though acknowledging the relevance of legal and normative arguments, this paper contributes to the debate with a positive political-scientific perspective. Based on the view that institutional equilibria raise the question of equilibrium institutions, it shows that collegiality was (a) an equilibrium institution during the Paris negotiations of 1950-51; and (b) an institutional equilibrium for the following 50 years. The conclusion points to some recent changes in the way that European competition policy is implemented, and discusses how these affect the “constitutional” principle of collegial European governance. Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/13351 2008-12-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/13152 The Mediterranean in an Age of Globalisation Halliday, Fred This paper reflects the contents of the Plenary Lecture addressed to the participants of the 2nd Graduate Conference, European Consortium for Political Science, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona, 25 August 2008 Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/13152 2008-12-30T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/9099 Dealing with Tyranny: International Sanctions and Autocrats’ Duration Escribà-Folch, Abel; Wright, Joseph G. This paper enquires into whether economic sanctions are effective in destabilizing authoritarian rulers. We argue that this effect is mediated by the type of authoritarian regime against which sanctions are imposed. Thus, personalist regimes and monarchies, which are more dependent on aid and resource rents to maintain their patronage networks, are more likely to be affected by sanctions. In contrast, single-party and military regimes are able to maintain (and even increase) their tax revenues and to reallocate their expenditures and so increase their levels of cooptation. Data on sanction episodes, authoritarian rulers and regimes covering the period 1946–2000 have allowed us to test our hypotheses. To do so, duration models have been run, and the results confirm that personalist autocrats are more vulnerable to foreign pressure. Concretely, the analysis of the modes of exit reveals that sanctions increase the likelihood of an irregular change of ruler, such as a coup. Sanctions are basically ineffective when targeting single-party or military regimes. Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/9099 2008-06-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/9098 Of Coalition and Speed: Passage and Duration of Statutes in Uruguay's Parliament, 1985-2000 Magar, Eric; Moraes, Juan Andrés We report preliminary findings from analysis of a database under construction. The paper explores the legislative process in search for some of the alleged consequences of cabinet coalitions in a presidential system. Coalition effects should be less evident in the success of executive initiatives: strategic behavior hampers this intuitive measure of performance. Better measures, because less subject to strategic considerations, are the odds of passage of legislators' bills and the time proposals take to be approved. Thus measured, coalition effects are discernible. Analysis of the universe of proposals processed in the fragmented Uruguayan Parliament between 1985 and 2000 reveals that coalition, observed about half the period, swells success rates of coalition members by 60% on average (and by as much as 150% for those close to the president). Event history analysis shows that coalitions cut the wait for an executive bill by 3 months, 1/6th the average wait. The reverse effect is felt on the duration of legislators' bills. Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/9098 2008-06-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/9097 Comparing Governmental Agendas: Evolution of the Prioritization of Issues in the USA and Spain Chaqués, Laura; Palau, Anna M.; Muñoz, Luz; Wilkerson, John This paper is the first step in a long term project investigating policy stability and change in Spain from an agenda setting perspective and comparing the Spanish policy agenda to that of other advanced democracies. Here we begin to compare the allocation of issue attention in Spain and the USA by comparing the substance of annual President and Prime Minister speeches from 1982 to 2005. Existing research argues that the public agenda has become more crowded, competitive and volatile in recent years. We find that in both countries there has been a transformation of the political agenda towards an increasing diversity of issues. However, most of the volatility in executive attention seems to be explained by salient events rather than by issue crowding. We conclude by discussing some limitations of executive speeches as a measure of governmental issue attention and directions for future research. Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/9097 2008-06-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/5203 Explaining Variation in Organizational Change: The Reform of Human Resource Management in the European Commission and the OECD Knill, Christoph; Balint, Tim In this article we investigate the reforms of human resource management in the European Commission and the OECD by analyzing comparatively to what extent both organizations have adjusted their respective structures towards the ideal type of the so-called New Public Management (NPM). The empirical findings show that reforms towards NPM are more pronounced in the Commission than in the OECD. These findings are surprising for two reasons: First, it seems rather paradoxical that the OECD as central promoter of NPM at the international level lags behind the global trend when it comes to reforming its own structures. Second, this result is in contradiction with theoretical expectations, as they can be derived from theories of institutional isomorphism. To nevertheless account for the surprising results, it is necessary to modify and complement existing theories especially with regard to the scope conditions of their causal mechanisms. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/5203 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4914 Europeanization and the Emergence of a European Society Díez Medrano, Juan This article examines the European integration process from a sociological perspective, where the main focus is the examination of the social consequences of the integration process. The European Union has advanced significantly in the economic, social, and political integration processes. This has resulted in a rapid Europeanization of behavior. There has hardly been any progress, however, toward the development of European social groups. This article examines the causes of this lag and concludes that it is highly unlikely that in the middle run there be significant progress toward the Europeanization of society. Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4914 2007-11-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4912 The Ideas Debate in International and European Studies: Towards a Cartography and Critical Assessment Gofas, Andreas; Hay, Colin The appeal to ideas as causal variables and/or constitutive features of political processes increasingly characterises political analysis. Yet, perhaps because of the pace of this ideational intrusion, too often ideas have simply been grafted onto pre-existing explanatory theories at precisely the point at which they seem to get into difficulties, with little or no consideration either of the status of such ideational variables or of the character or consistency of the resulting theoretical hybrid. This is particularly problematic for ideas are far from innocent variables – and can rarely, if ever, be incorporated seamlessly within existing explanatory and/or constitutive theories without ontological and epistemological consequence. We contend that this tendency along with the limitations of the prevailing Humean conception of causality, and associated epistemological polemic between causal and constitutive logics, continue to plague almost all of the literature that strives to accord an explanatory role to ideas. In trying to move beyond the current vogue for epistemological polemic, we argue that the incommensurability thesis between causal and constitutive logics is only credible in the context of a narrow, Humean, conception of causation. If we reject this in favour of a more inclusive (and ontologically realist) understanding then it is perfectly possible to chart the causal significance of constitutive processes and reconstrue the explanatory role of ideas as causally constitutive. Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4912 2007-11-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4479 Ten Propositions on Rural Poverty and Agrarian Transition in Central Eurasia Spoor, Max The relation between agricultural development and rural poverty reduction in six Central Eurasian countries, namely Azerbaijan (South Caucasus) and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (Central Asia), is discussed by presenting and analyzing ten propositions. These propositions cover a broad range of issues that relate to rural poverty in this region, such as: the state of income and non-income poverty; the diverse processes of land reform and farm restructuring, and agricultural policy reform; and finally, the institutional and market framework that is needed for dynamic agricultural and rural development. The paper contends that rural poverty is not responding as robustly to rapid economic growth in these countries, and that agricultural growth, in particular in the newly emerging peasant farm sector, is necessary to promote rural poverty reduction. Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4479 2007-10-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4478 The European Union Police Mission: The Beginning of a New Future for Bosnia and Herzegovina? Collantes Celador, Gemma The creation, reform and/or restructuring of the police in post-conflict societies remains one of the key challenges for practitioners and scholars in the contemporary fields of peace and security, particularly due to the changing nature of conflicts. Since the 1990s the world has witnessed a proliferation of international police missions, with regional organisations gradually acquiring a prominent role. This paper analyses the 2003-2005 period of the European Union Police Mission (EUPM) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Much is at stake in this mission, both in terms of the development of the EU´s external identity but also for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s road to EU membership and sustainable peace. This paper will argue that by 2005 the balance sheet was mixed. EUPM fell short of fulfilling its overall goal of ‘Europeanising’ Bosnian police services, and of its desire to be seen as providing that additional ingredient in police matters that would set it apart from the earlier UN mission. Nevertheless, despite its shortcomings, the Mission did not merit the harsh criticisms it was faced with. Its lack of success was not entirely the Mission’s doing. The paper focuses on three aspects: political and economic viability and sustainability, security levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and institution and capacity building. The explanatory framework used in this paper is based on the democratic policing discourse. In doing so the argument developed here will also shed light on the nature of so-called “best European practices” in police matters. Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4478 2007-10-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4278 The ‘Global Dimension’ of Contemporary Politics. An Argument for Taking ‘Global’ Seriously Selchow, Sabine Recent years have seen a striking proliferation of the term ‘global’ in public and political discourse. The popularity of the term is a manifestation of the fact that there is a widespread notion that contemporary social reality is ‘global’. The acknowledgment of this notion has important political implications and raises questions about the role played by the idea of the ‘global’ in policy making. These questions, in turn, expose even more fundamental issues about whether the term ‘global’ indicates a difference in kind, even an ontological shift, and, if so, how to approach it. This paper argues that the notion of ‘global’, in other words the ‘global dimension’, is a significant aspect of contemporary politics that needs to be investigated. The paper argues that in the globalization discourse of International Studies ‘global’ is ‘naturalized’, which means that it is taken for granted and assumed to be self-evident. The term ‘global’ is used mainly in a descriptive way and subsumed under the rubric of ‘globalization’. ‘Global’ tends to be equated with transnational and/or world-wide; hence, it addresses quantitative differences in degree but not (alleged) differences in kind. In order to advance our understanding of contemporary politics, ‘global’ needs to be taken seriously. This means, firstly, to understand and to conceptualize ‘global’ as a social category; and, secondly, to uncover ‘global’ as a ‘naturalized’ concept in the Political and International Studies strand of the globalization discourse in order to rescue it for innovative new approaches in the investigation of contemporary politics. In order to do so, the paper suggests adopting a strong linguistic approach starting with the analysis of the word ‘global’. Based on insights from post-structuralism as well as cognitive and general constructivist perspectives it argues that a frame-based corpus linguistic analysis offers the possibility of investigating the collective/social meaning(s) of global in order to operationalize them for the analysis of the ‘global dimension’ of contemporary politics. Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4278 2007-06-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4277 Learning from Shocks and the Decision to Open Meseguer, Covadonga Two claims pervade the literature on the political economy of market reforms: that economic crises cause reforms; and that crises matter because they bring into question the validity of the economic model held to be responsible for them. Economic crises are said to spur a process of learning that is conducive to the abandonment of failing models and to the adoption of successful models. But although these claims have become the conventional wisdom, they have been hardly tested empirically due to the lack of agreement on what constitutes a crisis and to difficulties in measuring learning from them. I propose a model of rational learning from experience and apply it to the decision to open the economy. Using data from 1964 through 1990, I show that learning from the 1982 debt crisis was relevant to the first wave of adoption of an export promotion strategy, but learning was conditional on the high variability of economic outcomes in countries that opened up to trade. Learning was also symbolic in that the sheer number of other countries that liberalized was a more important driver of others’ decisions to follow suit. Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4277 2007-05-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4276 The Experience of European Integration and the Potential for Integration in South America Malamud, Andrés; Schmitter, Philippe C. The experience of the European Union is the most significant and far-reaching among all attempts at regional integration. It is, therefore, the most likely to provide some lessons for those world regions that are just beginning this complex process. In turn, the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) and the Andean Community (CAN) are among the regional integration projects that have reached the greatest level of formal accomplishment after the EU. MERCOSUR is a customs union that aspires to become a common market, while avowing the commitment to advance towards political integration. For its part, CAN is a customs union that has already developed supranational institutions such as a Commission, a Parliament and a Court of Justice. In both cases, however, words have progressively tended to wander far from deeds. One reason underlying this phenomenon may be a misunderstanding of the European experience with integration. In this article, we discuss the theories that have been developed to account for integration in Europe and may prove useful to understand integration elsewhere and put forward a set of lessons that could be drawn from the European experience. Subsequently, we introduce a description of the experience of integration in South America and reflect (critically) on how the theories and lessons drawn from the EU could be applied to this region –and beyond. Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4276 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4275 Where Has the Old Debate Gone? Realism, Institutionalism, and IR Theory Grasa, Rafael; Costa, Oriol This paper resorts to the contribution of the science philosopher Gerald Holton to map some of the IR arguments and debates in an unconventional and more insightful way. From this starting point, it is sustained that the formerly all-pervading neorealism-neoinstitutionalism debate has lost its appeal and is attracting less and less interest among scholars. It does not structure the approach of the theoretically-oriented authors any more; at least, not with the habitual intensity. More specifically, we defend that the neo-neo rapprochement, even if it could have demonstrated that international cooperation is possible and relevant in a Realist world, it has also impoverished theoretical debate by hiding some of the most significant issues that preoccupied classical transnationalists. Hence, some authors appear to be trying to rescue some of these arguments in an analytical and systematic fashion, opening up a theoretical querelle that may be the next one to pay attention to. Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT http://www.recercat.cat:80/handle/2072/4275 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z