In this book, Miles Kahler examines both global and regional institutions and their importance in the world economy. Kahler explains the variation in these institutions and assesses the role they play in sustaining economic cooperation among nations.

This book assesses South America’s most ambitious attempt at economic integration, Mercosur. It explains the main—and inherent—weaknesses of the integration effort, through explicit comparison with the European experience with integration. Jeffrey Cason argues that the three main reasons for Mercosur’s limited success are weak domestic political institutions in the member countries, vulnerability in the global political economy, and a serious imbalance in the economic and political weight of the member countries. In addition to providing this overarching explanation for Mercosur’s limitations, the book tells the story of Mercosur’s genesis, development, and frustrations. This book provides both an explanatory framework for understanding Mercosur and a story. It considers how Mercosur emerged, why it was greeted with great enthusiasm (and huge trade growth), and how it hit stumbling blocks as it sought to be more than it was capable of being. The book also focuses on how and why developing countries are inherently limited in any economic integration project.

Why do international organizations (IOs) look so different, yet so similar? The possibilities are diverse. Some international organizations have just a few member states, while others span the globe. Some are targeted at a specific problem, while others have policy portfolios as broad as national states. Some are run almost entirely by their member states, while others have independent courts, secretariats, and parliaments. Variation among international organizations appears as wide as that among states. This book explains the design and development of international organization in the postwar period. It theorizes that the basic set up of an IO responds to two forces: the functional impetus to tackle problems that spill beyond national borders and a desire for self-rule that can dampen cooperation where transnational community is thin. The book reveals both the causal power of functionalist pressures and the extent to which nationalism constrains the willingness of member states to engage in incomplete contracting. The implications of postfunctionalist theory for an IO's membership, policy portfolio, contractual specificity, and authoritative competences are tested using annual data for 76 IOs for 1950-2010. Transformations in Governance is a major academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states up to supranational institutions, down to subnational governments, and side-ways to public-private networks. It brings together work that significantly advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars. The series targets mainly single-authored or co-authored work, but it is pluralistic in terms of disciplinary specialization, research design, method, and geographical scope. Case studies as well as comparative studies, historical as well as contemporary studies, and studies with a national, regional, or international focus are all central to its aims. Authors use qualitative, quantitative, formal modeling, or mixed methods. A trade mark of the books is that they combine scholarly rigour with readable prose and an attractive production style. The series is edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the VU Amsterdam, and Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford.

This text offers a rethinking of the field of international political economy in an era of growing but uneven globalization. Even as global integration advances, states play central roles as partners with the largest of global firms, as the catalysts of competitiveness and economic growth, as the creators of global institutions, and in promoting and responding to global interdependence. Indeed, the struggle for power and wealth within and among states underscores the primacy of politics in understanding current realities. At the same time, new issues and actors complicate the global agenda as it expands to address the environment, global health, and food security. By offering a clear explanation of basic concepts, contextualizing the presentation of theoretical debates, and placing current events in historical context, International Political Economy ensures students a deep understanding of how the global economy works and the ways in which globalization affects their lives and those of people around the world. Key Content and Features Engages debates over the reach and significance of globalization. Examines the sources and consequences of global financial instability. Explores the origins and consequences of global inequality. Compares various strategies of development and state roles in competitiveness. Discusses the role of key international economic institutions. Considers the impact of the rise of China on the global economy and the potential for war and peace. Illustrates collective efforts to fight hunger, disease, and environmental threats. Includes numerous graphs and illustrations throughout and end of chapter discussion questions. Links key concepts for each chapter to a glossary at the end of the book. Provides a list of acronyms at the outset and annotated further readings at the end of each chapter. Offers additional resources on a web site related to the text, including a list of links to IPE-related web pages.

The study of political institutions is among the founding pillars of political science. With the rise of the 'new institutionalism', the study of institutions has returned to its place in the sun. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of where we are in the study of political institutions, covering both the traditional concerns of political science with constitutions, federalism and bureaucracy and more recent interest in theory and the constructed nature of institutions. The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions draws together a galaxy of distinguished contributors drawn from leading universities across the world. Authoritative reviews of the literature and assessments of future research directions will help to set the research agenda for the next decade.

The late-twentieth century is often portrayed as an ‘Age of Democratisation’, with democracy heralded as the best of all political systems. Yet democracy has multiple meanings, values and significances. The start of the twenty-first century has witnessed a massive revival of interest in the meaning and role of democracy, not least as democracy understood in one highly particular sense has been increasingly recognised to be in crisis. This book presents these deliberations in a new light by moving beyond the concept of the sovereign state as the dominant framework of enquiry and by rejecting the primacy of the state and the categorical separation of the ‘domestic’ and the ‘international’. Instead, Ayers elaborates an account of democratisation through the global political economy, encompassing a trenchant critique of mainstream democracy promotion in theory and practice, and opening-up possibilities for different histories of democratisation autonomous of the Western liberal and neoliberal project. This innovative work will prove useful to scholars and students in the fields of Politics, Political Economy, International Relations, Development, African Studies, History, Geography and Sociology.

International intervention on humanitarian grounds has been a contentious issue for decades. This volume undertakes a systematic and broadly international review of issues relating to this subject.

This book collects and integrates Abbott and Snidal’s influential scholarship on indirect global governance, with a new analytical introduction that probes the role of indirect governance techniques in the universe of global governance arrangements. The volume presents the Governance Triangle, a now widely-used figure that demonstrates and helps to assess the proliferation of private and public-private standard-setting organizations, along with new forms of intergovernmental institutions, over recent decades. It then analyzes how intergovernmental organizations, regulatory bodies, and other "global governors" enlist and work through those organizations as intermediaries, so as to govern more effectively and gain knowledge, influence and legitimacy. It demonstrates Abbott’s and Snidal’s groundbreaking concept of orchestration, a mode of indirect governance in which influential governors catalyze, support, and steer intermediary organizations through wholly voluntary relationships. It also considers their more recent innovations in the theory of indirect governance. These include additional modes of governance, such as co-optation, delegation and trusteeship, as well as the pervasive "Governor’s Dilemma" trade-off between a governor’s control of its intermediaries and the intermediaries’ competence. This book will appeal to scholars and students in multiple disciplines, including international relations, global governance, law, and regulatory studies.

Dealing with the central themes and issues of the subject, this text outlines the different theoretical approaches of the global political economy, as well as engaging key contemporary debates such as worldwide trade and production.

NEW IN PAPERBACK FEBRUARY 2005! `The most systematic and wide-ranging survey of the multi-faceted field of International Relations yet produced. It is sure to become a standard reference work and teaching text, and is unlikely to be superseded at any time in the near future. It should be considered as essential reading' - International Affairs The Handbook of International Relations, published 2002 in hardback, quickly established itself as the benchmark volume, providing a state-of-the-art review and indispensable guide to the study of international relations. It is now released in paperback, in order to be accessible to students in classroom use. Divided into three parts, the volume reviews both the historical, philosophical, analytical and normative roots to the discipline and the key contemporary topics of research and debate today. The first part introduces the major approaches within the field and unpacks many of the on-going debates within the discipline including those between rationalist and constructivist approaches. The second part moves on to explore the key concepts and contextual factors important to the subject from concepts like the state and power, to international and transnational actors, debates around globalization, and contending feminist perspectives. The final part reviews a number of the key substantive issues in international relations and is designed to complement the analytical tools and perspectives presented in Parts I and II. Examples of the many topics included are: foreign policy; war and peace; security; nationalism and ethnicity; finance; trade; development; the environment; and human rights.