Suchergebnisse

Why do states cooperate during international financial crises? A prominent account of such phenomena is provided by the Open Economy Politics approach, which advocates a methodological reductionism that focuses on domestic interests and institutions as explanatory drivers of foreign economic policy. I argue that the appropriateness and utility of this approach diminishes in two important contexts: when levels of economic interdependence and international institutionalization are both high; and when international insecurity is rising. Since the second condition has greater generality in international relations, I test it by focusing on a period when international economic institutionalization was much lower than today: the pre-1914 gold standard system. I show that as levels of interstate rivalry and insecurity rose in the years before 1914, so too did the role of strategic considerations in the international financial policies of the major European powers. The utility of the Open Economy Politics approach for explaining foreign financial policy is therefore contingent on an evolving international context. The argument is of considerable relevance to the contemporary era, when a rapidly evolving international political environment is again reshaping international financial policies.

AbstractMany official and private commentators, particularly in Australia and in the Asian region, argue that the world is heading inexorably towards an 'Asian Century'. They foresee a fundamental shift of economic and political power away from the West that will transform the world economy and global politics. I argue that, notwithstanding emerging Asia's undoubted economic achievements, this claim is premature and potentially misleading for three main reasons: implicit in many of these claims are implausible historical analogies with earlier eras of European and American dominance; linear projections of continued Asian growth outperformance may not be realised in practice; and even if rapid growth were to be sustained, the domestic and external obstacles to the collective global influence of Asia will probably remain profound. The implication is that businesses, citizens and policy‐makers, especially those operating in the Asian region, will face a much more uncertain and challenging environment than is sometimes acknowledged.

Recent financial reforms in Japan and elsewhere in Asia represent, for various authors, a fundamental shift in financial governance and in state-business relations in the region. The old 'developmental' state in East Asia has supposedly made way for a neoliberal 'regulatory' state, with its emphases on agency independence and the non-discretionary enforcement of rules. I show in this paper that this interpretation exaggerates the extent of the transformation in the important case of Japan. Although the outward institutional forms of economic governance in Japan, as with many Asian developing countries, has changed dramatically since the mid-1990s, discretion still remains at the core of economic and financial policy. In the area of Japanese banking regulation and supervision, I show how this highly discretionary application and enforcement has been consistent with domestic political pressures. The result is a substantial divergence between superficial convergence upon international regulatory standards and underlying behaviour. I also give reasons why globalization does not mean that this hybrid regulatory model is unsustainable. (Pac Rev/GIGA)