States, NGOs, and International Environmental Institutions

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly important participants in international environmental institutions. NGOs have been formally—but not fully—incorporated into what were previously "states-only" activities. This article surveys these new participatory roles and offers an analytical framework for understanding the pattern, terms, and significance, for international theory, of NGO inclusion. NGOs are distinctive entities with important skills and resources to deploy in the process of international environmental cooperation. Rather than undermining state sovereignty, active NGO participation enhances the abilities of states to regulate globally. The empirical pattern of NGO participation has been structured across time and functional areas to reap these gains. Recent evidence from the restructuring of the World Bank's Environment Facility is used to test these claims. That NGOs are now more pervasive in international environmental institutions illustrates the expansion, not the retreat, of the state in addressing global environmental problems.     

The Inter-American Democratic Charter and Governmental Legitimacy in the International Relations of the Western Hemisphere

The adoption of the Inter-American Democratic Charter by the Organization of American States in 2001 proclaiming the right to democracy in the western hemisphere was hailed by many as a landmark development. Since then, however, constitutionally dubious transitions of democratically elected governments were attempted or took place in Venezuela, Haiti, and Ecuador. This paper examines whether the Charter can and should serve as the institutional guarantor of democratic legitimacy in the Americas. Its conclusions are skeptical. As an external instrument, the Charter is bound to have limited impact when government control or authority is subjected to significant domestic disruptions. The Charter's limitations do not lie with the document itself; rather they are inherent in the structure of the international states system. But the Charter's normative basis would be problematic even if these structural limitations did not exist. Taking its cue from the classical liberal approach to international relations, the paper argues that democracy must ultimately be the choice and responsibility of those who live within its bounds, and not of outside governments or institutions.     

Multilateralism in a unipolar world: the UN Security Council and Iraq

The end of the cold war brought a new era in international politicsthat had the potential for creating a more cooperative and peacefulworld. At the heart of this ‘new world order’ wasto be the United Nations Security Council, which would finallybe able to fulfill its obligations under the UN Charter. Inthe immediate post-cold war years it appeared that this optimismwas well founded as the Security Council became increasinglyactive in authorizing peacekeeping and peace-building missions.Just over a decade later, however, the crisis over Iraq againbrought serious concerns regarding the UN's purpose and legitimacy.This article examines the circumstances surrounding the recentUN Security Council dispute in order to illuminate the meritsof multilateral cooperation. It also asks, more fundamentally,whether multilateralism can be sustained in a unipolar world.     

Negotiating normative premises in democracy promotion: Venezuela and the Inter-American Democratic Charter

ABSTRACT

This article analyses negotiations on democracy promotion by looking at the case of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It argues that Venezuela contested the concept of representative democracy during the Charter negotiations, advancing the notion of “participatory and protagonist democracy” and that, even if it was unsuccessful in its demands, the country contributed to deepening the debate on the concept of democracy, on which there is far from worldwide consensus. The article suggests that the main drivers of the negotiation process and the final agreement were domestic political changes in Venezuela, specific features of the negotiations, and the structural position of Venezuela in the field of democracy promotion in the global and regional contexts, which were, at the time, favourable to a compromising attitude to conclusion of the Charter, even if not to the concept of democracy.     

世界大变局与中美日三国战略选择

在世界大变局中,战后国际格局重大变化的主要标志是“世界老二”易位。苏联、日本皆不例外;21世纪以来欧盟也由盛转衰。未来国际格局可能有三种前景:1.中美两极对抗体制;2.中美竞争合作的“两极多元体制”;3.世界各大力量多元并存,构建多元一体的人类命运共同体。这要看世界潮流是走向和平多边主义还是暴力多边主义。中国实现伟大复兴后的战略选择是“济弱扶倾”,为世界可持续发展与可持续安全做贡献。日本面临的战略选择是:继续在《日本国宪法》下走和平发展道路,还是修改宪法,成为“能战国家”的一员,加入暴力强权的多边主义?坚持开放的地区主义与国际协调,还是搞排他经济集团,远交近攻,以中国为竞争对手?利用中美对立从中渔利,还是促进中美协调而避免在中美之间“选边站”?妥善处理中日两国围绕钓鱼岛归属认知争议和台湾问题,还是重走历史老路?囿于冷战思维和传统权力政治的现实主义决策逻辑,同中国搞战略对抗,还是树立共同、综合、合作、可持续安全的新安全观,与中国加强合作?这些战略选择将关乎未来30年的中日关系。     

Invisible Linkages: A Regional Perspective of East Asian Political Economy

This article studies East Asian political economy from a regional perspective. The Asian financial crisis showed that East Asian economies are highly regionalized. However, the linkages among Asian economies, mostly informal in nature, often appear "invisible" to many in the West, who focus more on the states and formal institutions. Drawing on a broad set of literature mostly in Asian languages, this paper provides a systematic study of informal integration in East Asia, which consists of not only regional production networks, but also ethnic Chinese business networks and subregional economic zones. It finds that the three informal mechanisms have formed an interrelated pattern of regional integration in East Asia. The nature of the economic networks is very useful in explaining the Asian crisis and the different performances of East Asian economies in the crisis. The crisis has also resulted in profound changes in informal integration. While the Japanese–led production networks have been greatly weakened, the Chinese Economic Area is rising, driven by the ethnic Chinese business networks and subregional economic zones. As a result, the Japan–dominated "flying geese pattern" has been broken. The connections between Greater China and the United States have also been enhanced and are out–competing the Japanese production networks. Many of the new developments have been ignored in the West but they are key factors that will shape the future of Asian and World political economy.     

NGOs: Fragmented dreams

Development NGOs are in crisis. They are losing their capacity to engage in critical analysis and propose global solutions; to react to or seize the political initiative; or to situate themselves on the cutting edge of those social and political processes in which new approaches and potential solutions might be found. While some NGOs have sought to accommodate themselves around donors' policies and projects that focus on reducing the negative effects of structural adjustment, the raison d'être of NGOs is to have the autonomy, initiative, and flexibility that non-governmental status confers upon them. A growing split between NGOs' capacity to lobby and do research and their grassroots work reflects a deeper division that exists-- both practical and theoretical --between the concept and process of development and the concept and process of democratisation. The author argues that human development and participatory and representative democracy are both mutually reinforcing and indivisible and that the challenge the NGOs face is to link--theoretically and practically--democracy with development.     

金融危机与世界格局的新变化

金融危机使世界力量结构发生重大而深刻变化.全球战略格局多极化、南北差距趋小化、地缘力量均衡化、制度模式多元化趋势同步快速发展.但当前世界格局的变化仍处于渐变和量变过程,尚未发生突变与质变.美国独超地位、北强南弱态势、西方模式主导仍将维持相当长的时期.     

Responses to Financial Crises: An Evolutionary Perspective

As the world currently faces the ever-deepening sub-prime crisis, we are reminded that the process of globalisation can cause significant disruptions in global markets and political systems. This article focuses on the evolution of financial crisis responses to gain a better understanding of the dynamics affecting current responses. By using a focused comparison of case studies it argues that the development of crisis response and the dominance of the current multilateral actors is a result of an evolutionary process. This process privileges learning and innovation within a complex political economic system. The crises of each era, born of many of the same problems, generate a variety of responding actors, a few of which are adopted. These actors help to address the immediate problems and even work well for a while. Eventually, they are overwhelmed by the tendency of financial interactions to grow. Another set of crises generates another round of actors and mechanisms. As time goes on, crisis response requires more formal institutions that can deal with more complex systems. The article concludes that response actors are becoming more public, multilateral and global in scope. Understanding this pattern of response should help to shed light on the potential for reform of the financial architecture and help to explain the dominance of multilateralism as a crisis response.     

How NGOs Use Their Facilitative Negotiating Power and Bargaining Assets To Affect International Environmental Negotiations1

This article argues that NGOs can “tip the balance” in favor of particular outcomes at international environmental negotiations by leveraging a combination of facilitative negotiating power and discreet bargaining assets. It uses the international climate change negotiations to illustrate how NGOs employ their facilitative power and bargaining assets, which stem from NGOs’ transnational character, ability to increase the transparency of negotiations, and claims to legitimacy.     

“主权欧洲”:欧盟向“硬实力”转型?

面对国际秩序和国际格局深度重组,欧盟在“主权欧洲”的话语体系下推动对外战略转型。多边主义多重受压、地缘政治博弈加剧以及大西洋联盟频现危机是欧盟战略转型的外部推动力量,而一体化的多重危机则是其转型的内部根源。欧盟所追求的“主权欧洲”并非进一步从成员国寻求主权让渡,而是意在提升在大国博弈中的地位。为实现上述目标,欧盟希望成为国际社会的地缘政治行为体,强势推进维护多边主义新方略,寻求平衡的跨大西洋关系,并推动一体化的外向性突破。欧盟的战略转型进程在决定其内外政策走向的同时,将会对世界格局和秩序演变产生重要影响。     

竞争性地区主义与亚洲合作的现状及未来

2008年世界金融危机之后,竞争性地区主义的兴起成为亚洲合作中的一个非常值得注意的现象。不过,竞争性地区主义对于亚洲来说并非一个新事物,而是长期孕育在本地区合作的历史进程中。伴随着特朗普的上台和中美竞争的加剧,亚洲竞争性地区主义出现了新的变化趋向:以经济为出发点的合作导向逐渐让位于安全,国际制度日益成为大国权力博弈的工具,制度竞争的内容也从表面的规范之争迈向背后的理念价值之争。这种变化对中美关系发展、地区中小国家的战略选择、东盟在地区合作中的主导地位以及亚洲合作的前景都造成了不小的冲击。为了防止亚洲竞争性地区主义的发展滑向恶性竞争,包括中美在内的泛亚各国,应努力促使"印太战略"和"一带一路"倡议两大机制之间形成某种程度的兼容共存,避免两者成为完全对抗的国际机制,并在部分特定领域共同为亚洲各国提供必要的公共产品。     

The Failure of the Indian Federation's Process of Civic Nation Formation

The States Reorganization Act of 1956, which reformed India's state boundaries primarily along linguistic lines, derailed civic nation creation in postindependence India. Thereafter, regional politicians were given a linguistic community with occasional ethnic congruence as their vote bank. This post-1956 political reality incentivized regional identity formation for regional politicians consolidating political power and eroded the influence of the independence era English-educated secular elite. In addition, the 1956 act made it a strategic rational choice for regional political elites not given their own states, to fight for the formation of new states. The hypothesis demonstrated in this article follows: The States Reorganization Act of 1956 made it the rational choice for regional political and intellectual elites to consolidate power based upon linguistic regional identities, making the central independence era goal of an overarching civic nationalism for the Indian federation impossible.     

Presidential mandates and ministerial institutions: Summitry of the Americas, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)

The periodic Summits of the Americas are the highest form of regional multilateralism in the Western Hemisphere, but summits lack their own means to implement their mandates. Hence, Summit Plans of Action assign many initiatives to existing regional institutions, especially the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). But a notable difference exists in the character and degree to which these two institutions have responded to their unfunded mandates, in that the OAS has become “nested” under the hierarchy of summitry, while the IDB has eschewed subordination in favor of a “parallel” relationship pursuing largely convergent activities. Relying on extensive interviews and reviews of open source and internal documents, six variables are found to explain this differential response: ministerial authorities, competing mandates, institutional missions, internal structures, membership and leadership. Yet for both regional institutions there remains a wide gap between the directives emanating from the Summits and what the two regional institutions have been—and could be—accomplishing. The study concludes with recommendations to improve institutional design. JEL codes L31 · F42 · F02 · D73 · F1     

How the United Nations Beat Hitler and Prepared the Peace

The United Nations was born in 1942, defeated the Axis Powers led by Germany, Italy and Japan and created today's UN system. This reality has been lost in modern scholarship. We are taught that the Allied countries, mainly America and Britain, with the Soviet Union won the war and that the United Nations was created in 1945. In this way, the achievement of victory can be set in opposition to the United Nations and to multilateralism in general. But it should not be possible to separate victory in the war from the modern United Nations and its priorities, for these were the priorities set by the United Nations at war. America, Britain and the Soviet Union led a large coalition of states organised as the United Nations and this term was used routinely in military orders, in the instruments of surrender signed by the enemy and in political and social life. Bretton Woods and San Francisco were United Nations conferences, and interim United Nations organisations preceded the Charter. Understanding the wartime United Nations reframes our understanding of the second half of the last century and of our own. From UNESCO to the World Bank the primary purpose of the international system is conflict prevention and its wartime architects bequeathed us this system as a realist necessity vital in times of trial, not as a liberal accessory to be discarded when the going gets rough.     

The Theory of Democratic Peace and Threat Perception

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's assessment of Hitler as a potential threat to American security in the aftermath of the Munich crisis highlights the role of liberal-democratic norms in shaping the threat perceptions of democratic leaders. A critical factor in Roosevelt's post-Munich expectation of future trouble for the United States was his judgment that Hitler's contempt for democratic processes of accommodation forecasted unlimited aims. Since Roosevelt did not link his perception of threat to regime type, however, this episode also calls into question a central tenet of the theory of democratic peace: the notion that democracies invariably harbor a "presumption of enmity" toward nondemocracies. Nevertheless, the Munich case allows us to see which democratic norms do matter in threat perception and establishes that they are not simply the epiphenomena of state interests. Moreover, Roosevelt's response to the Munich crisis shows that threat can be assessed primarily on the basis of intentions and suggests how democratic predispositions can provide indicators of intent. Finally, in analyzing why some democratic leaders derive diagnostic information about aggressive intentions from such indicators, while others do not, this article explores the connection between different leaders' perceptions and the foreign policy processes of democratic states.     

A New U.S.-Colombian Relationship: Transnational Crime and U.S. National Security

To fight transnational crime, the United States needs to strengthen its cooperation with Colombia. This initiative, according to the authors, will not only be cost-effective for the United States, it will also signal U.S. willingness to work “by, with and through” other states, and may make possible an expanded regional framework to act against the criminal cartels.     

How NGOs Use Their Facilitative Negotiating Power and Bargaining Assets To Affect International Environmental Negotiations1

This article argues that NGOs can “tip the balance” in favor of particular outcomes at international environmental negotiations by leveraging a combination of facilitative negotiating power and discreet bargaining assets. It uses the international climate change negotiations to illustrate how NGOs employ their facilitative power and bargaining assets, which stem from NGOs' transnational character, ability to increase the transparency of negotiations, and claims to legitimacy.     

The rise and fall of donor funding for advocacy NGOs: understanding the impact

NGOs in Asian countries often experience fluctuations in funding because of the constantly shifting priorities of their international donors. Without domestic sources, Asian NGOs are forced to re-align their priorities with donor interests in order to compete for funding. In the case of advocacy NGOs, the resulting asymmetry in donor–grantee relations often leads to a crisis of legitimacy and deteriorating effectiveness for the NGO. Because of the political nature of advocacy work, these NGOs must maintain a reputation for independence and legitimacy if they are to be influential in the political process. This article analyses the impact of fluctuating international donor assistance to advocacy NGOs in Cambodia, the Philippines, and Thailand, and offers recommendations for donors. While donors have spent significant resources on building the capacity of advocacy NGOs in South-East Asia, funding trends usually undermine the effectiveness of their grantees long before funding is ended.