Suchergebnisse

An accessible history of multilateralism from its origins in the 1800s to the present. Multilateral initiatives have brought about striking, yet diverging, results. International organizations often struggle with the nationalist impulses of member states, different and shifting goals, and a lack of enforcement methods. Here, Kathryn Lavelle offers a history of multilateralism from its origins to the present. Lavelle focuses on the creation and evolution of major problem-solving organizations, examines the governmental challenges they have confronted and continue to face from both domestic and transnational constituencies, and considers how nongovernmental organizations facilitate their work.

AbstractWhat factors explain U.S. participation in multilateral forums that govern finance? Current literature misses the key features of the Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Congress that result in their distinct manners of support for various multilateral arrangements. I revisit the archival record and apply a new understanding to American participation in the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) as the financial regime has evolved since the collapse of fixed parity in the IMF after 1971. I thus explain the puzzle of American ambivalence through an exploration of the fragmented U.S. regulatory system, which inhibits the United States from acting as a unitary, lead actor of multilateral negotiations. Hence, American coordination must take place both domestically and internationally for an agreement to emerge.

[F]or the democratic political and capitalist economic systems to survive, a government's response to a crisis must rise above the interests of one class alone. Widespread social unrest signals the need to reformulate the regulatory order.

International relations have demonstrated the contribution national legislatures make toward global cooperation. Yet what explains variation in securing funding for International Organizations (IOs) through the US Congress? I derive a theory of interaction from studies of interest groups in American politics and argue that the cause of funding delays and their resolution can be found where groups advance policy reform agendas through Congressional channels. Using process tracing of successive case studies, the article presents evidence from International Development Association (IDA) replenishments. It situates the rationality of members of Congress and other national and transnational actors within the context of a formal, domestic political institution whose budgetary process is deeply conflicted and subject to constant change. Thus, the theory offered here could be used by either rationalists or constructivists to support a material or ideational explanation for Congressional action. Adapted from the source document.