Consensus rationales in negotiating historical responsibility for climate change

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - This article explores strategies in consensus-making processes in international climate diplomacy. Specifically, it examines...     

On Where We Differ: Sites Versus Grounds of Justice,and Some Other Reflections on Michael Blake’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Justice and Foreign Policy</Emphasis>

Blake’s book conveys a straightforward directive: the foreign policy of liberal states should be guided and constrained by the goal of helping other states to become liberal democracies as well. This much is what we owe to people in other countries—this much but nothing more. The primary addressees are wealthier democracies, whose foreign policy ought to be guided by the idea of equality of all human beings. My approach in On Global Justice bears important similarities to Blake’s, but with those similarities also come equally important differences. The purpose of this piece is to bring out these similarities and differences and in the process articulate some objections to Blake.     

Does transnational private governance reduce or displace labor abuses? Addressing sorting dynamics across global supply chains

The attention of practitioners and scholars of private regulation of working conditions is focused on whether and how corporate buyers can help improve labor and safety standards in the factories that supply them by adopting codes of conduct, joining social certification schemes, participating in social audit processes, and financing safety improvements. I argue that more attention should be paid to the possibility that private regulation schemes – whatever degree of compliance they achieve – mostly result in a displacement effect or sorting dynamic that leaves the overall level of working conditions unchanged. I sketch a research agenda aimed at identifying the conditions under which a sorting dynamic can occur and at conceiving innovative private governance designs that could avoid it.     

Civil Liberties vs. Security: Why Citizens Accept or Reject Digital Security Measures

Fundamental changes to security policy in European democracies raise the question of the acceptance of new security measures. This paper aims to explain why new measures are accepted (or not). It combines three core elements that are typically analysed separately in the literature: individual attitudes (especially trust), social context and cost/benefit balancing. Comparing Germany and the UK, the model is tested using data from two countries with different societal perceptions of two prototypical security measures: communications data retention and passenger name records. The analysis confirms that trust is crucial, but in a more complex way than usually argued. Trust in specific institutions and actors, related to the specific security measure, is decisive for acceptance. Furthermore, individual cost/benefit balancing is also important for acceptance. Consequently, our model shows that a more detailed analysis than in former studies is needed for understanding the acceptance of security measures in European democracies such as Germany and the UK.     

The Economic Dimension of Sino-Pakistani Relations: an overview

This study deals with the subject of growing economic ties between China and Pakistan over the past decade which have evolved to match the strong bilateral political and military relations between Beijing and Islamabad. While economic exchanges between the two countries were long colored by essentially political considerations, since 1999 two-way trade and investment have expanded and become both strategically and commercially driven. To understand what underlies this development, one must look at several significant domestic and external policy shifts that have taken place in China and Pakistan since 1999. The study overviews the nature of Chinese investment in Pakistan, notably infrastructure projects such as Gwadar Port and the upgrading of the Karakoram Highway, which have both commercial and possible geostrategic facets. It also examines the deepening and broadening of Sino-Pakistani trade, as a result of which China has become economically integrated with South Asia.