"Global supply chain integration is not only a rapidly growing feature of international trade, it is responsible for fundamentally changing trade policy at international and domestic levels. Ka Zeng and Xiaojun Li argue that global supply chain integration pits firms and industries that are more heavily dependent on foreign supply chains against those that are less dependent on intermediate goods for domestic production. Given that final goods are produced with both domestic and foreign suppliers, businesses whose supply chain will be disrupted as a result of increased trade barriers should lobby for preferential trade liberalization to maintain access to those foreign markets. Moreover, businesses whose products are used in the production of goods in foreign countries should also support preferential trade liberalization to compete with suppliers from other parts of the world. This book uses multiple methods, including cross-sectional, time series analysis of the pattern of Preferential Trade Alliance formation by existing World Trade Organization members; a firm-level survey; and case studies of the pattern of corporate support for regional trade liberalization in both China and the United States. The authors show that the growing fragmentation of global production, trade, and investment is altering trade policy away from the traditional divide between export-oriented and import-competing industries."
Token forces - tiny national troop contributions in much larger coalitions - have become ubiquitous in UN peacekeeping. This Element examines how and why this contribution type has become the most common form of participation in UN peace operations despite its limited relevance for missions' operational success. It conceptualizes token forces as a path-dependent unintended consequence of the norm of multilateralism in international uses of military force. The norm extends states' participation options by giving coalition builders an incentive to accept token forces; UN-specific types of token forces emerged as states learned about this option and secretariat officials adapted to state demand for it. The Element documents the growing incidence of token forces in UN peacekeeping, identifies the factors disposing states to contribute token forces, and discusses how UN officials channel token participation. The Element contributes to the literatures on UN peacekeeping, military coalitions, and the impacts of norms in international organizations.
What is the relationship between ownership type and environmental performance in Chinese firms? Using a survey of over 1,000 industrial firms in 12 Chinese cities in 2006, this article tests a number of competing hypotheses linking ownership type to environmental performance. The results show that small and medium state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on average spend less on pollution abatement technologies and are less likely to meet national emissions standards, compared to privately owned enterprises (POEs) and foreign invested enterprises (FIEs). However, the environmental performance of the largest SOEs matches that of their private and foreign counterparts. These findings are complemented by qualitative interviews and archival research conducted in 2012. (J Contemp China/GIGA)