Suchergebnisse

AbstractTheories of hegemonic leadership often begin with a constraining assumption: that international structure can explain both a state's capability to provide leadership and its interest in doing so. By conflating these explanations, traditional theories, even those from quite different approaches, share common problems. These problems are illustrated by examining three well-known models, and comparing their applications to the eighteenth century. This period provides difficult cases for all three, since countries with power did not provide political or economic leadership, and those which were attempting to provide leadership were not powerful. An alternative theory of leadership is then offered, using structural factors to explain capabilities, but domestic political economic factors to explain interests. The ability of this model to handle the historical cases with greater accuracy suggests that domestic factors could offer fresh insight into theories of leadership.

Several possible explanations have been given for why democracies maintain peaceful relations among themselves. This article examines the role of domestic political institutions in establishing market relations and the degree of interference in domestic economic relations. It is argued that less representative regimes are more likely to establish pervasive policies delivering rents than more representative regimes. Pervasive rents, in turn, alter the relationship of domestic and international prices, which affects how countries choose to participate in the international economy. Republics, where rent-seeking may be pervasive, but rents tend not to be distorting, fit into liberal international systems with greater ease than other types of regimes; republics, therefore, find it more attractive to meet their international needs through trade than do nonrepublican regimes. By exploring the importance of regime type for the formation of international preferences, questions about relations between democratic states are linked to broader issues of grand strategy and policies to foster international peace and stability.

Economic theory suggests that trade liberalization rewards relatively abundant factors of production — labor in most economically developing countries. In South Africa, trade liberalization has not benefited the locally abundant factor (unskilled labor). Instead, unemployment remains stubbornly high. The legacy of apartheid explains this surprising result; apartheid distorted factor markets (including patterns in land ownership, unionization, investment, infrastructural development and more). The gains from trade will remain elusive unless the Government engages in policies targeting flexibility in factor markets to support trade adjustment. ANC governments have introduced some policies along these lines, but have refrained from taking on certain politically powerful constituencies within their own party.