Suchergebnisse

Increasingly today nation-states are entering into agreements that involve the sharing or surrendering of parts of their sovereign powers and often leave the cession of authority incomplete or vague. But until now, we have known surprisingly little about how international actors design and implement these mixed-sovereignty arrangements. Contracting States uses the concept of "incomplete contracts"--agreements that are intentionally ambiguous and subject to future renegotiation--to explain how states divide and transfer their sovereign territory and functions, and demonstrate why some of these arrangements offer stable and lasting solutions while others ultimately collapse. Building on important advances in economics and law, Alexander Cooley and Hendrik Spruyt develop a highly original, interdisciplinary approach and apply it to a broad range of cases involving international sovereign political integration and disintegration. The authors reveal the importance of incomplete contracting in the decolonization of territories once held by Europe and the Soviet Union; U.S. overseas military basing agreements with host countries; and in regional economic-integration agreements such as the European Union. Cooley and Spruyt examine contemporary problems such as the Arab-Israeli dispute over water resources, and show why the international community inadequately prepared for Kosovo's independence. Contracting States provides guidance to international policymakers about how states with equally legitimate claims on the same territory or asset can create flexible, durable solutions and avoid violent conflict.

In recent years new political actors, drawing on innovative sources of power and legitimacy, have become increasingly influential in world politics. Traditional international politics is being supplemented by non-state actors, organizations, and networks. The World Economic Forum and Transnational Networking presents an informative investigation of the WEF as a political actor and important part of transnational civil society. Drawing upon extensive original research, Frisen analyzes the surprising role the WEF has played in international processes such as the campaign for the cancellation of third world debt, a campaign which culminated in the adoption of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative at the G8 in 2005. Her findings provoke even wider questions about the role and influence of other non-state organizations and about transnational politics, questions that are particularly pressing at a time when the norms and formal institutional structures of the liberal international order appear to be eroding. Theoretically rigorous, empirically sound, and engagingly written, this book is essential reading not only for researchers and students within international political economy, but also for practitioners within transnational organizations and transnational civil society campaigns.