Labor Diplomacy: A Revitalized Aspect of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Era of Globalization

This article analyzes how and why labor diplomacy has become an important element of American foreign policy in recent years. "Labor diplomacy"—a term coined by practitioners in the Department of State—refers to the work performed principally by labor officers (also called labor attachés) at American embassies around the world and, more specifically, the advocacy and promotion of core labor standards within the context of U.S. human rights and international trade policy. The five internationally recognized core labor standards, as developed by the International Labor Organization (ILO), are: freedom of association; the right of collective bargaining; the elimination of forced labor; the effective abolition of child labor; and the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation. The article explores the economic, political, and bureaucratic factors that contributed to the revitalization of labor diplomacy during the 1990s. These include: a growing appreciation for the linkage between labor standards and trade in the globalized economy; the Clinton administration's decision to pursue a closer relationship with the AFL-CIO, particularly after the 1997 "fast-track" debacle; and the changing bureaucratic dynammics within the Department of State. The article also reviews U.S. initiatives, both through the ILO and unilaterally, to strengthen respect for core labor standards around the world, and how these efforts have helped shape American policy toward the World Trade Organization. The article concludes with an analysis of the outcome of the recent WTO Ministerial Meeting in Seattle and a prognosis on the future of labor diplomacy.     

ISA Presidential Selection: A Discussion of Alternatives

During fall 2000, all ISA members will be asked to vote on a set of changes to the association's constitution. Most of the proposed changes are required to bring ISA's constitution up to date with current practices and association circumstances (for example, instead of having only the Editor of ISQ as a member of the Governing Council, one of the proposed changes adds the Editors of ISR and ISP to the council). In the course of examining and reflecting on possible changes to the constitution, the ISA Governing Council discovered that there was controversy among its membership regarding how officers are elected. As a result of this discussion, the Governing Council voted to put a referendum before the membership concerning the election issue and the other requested constitutional changes (though only the officer election issue is discussed in the following pages). To ensure that all members of the association are aware of what the election issues are, we have asked members representing the various positions to discuss their views in the pages of ISP . In addition, Craig Murphy, 2000–2001 ISA President, has written an introduction to the election debate that is printed below. ISA members will be asked to choose between these options in a mail ballot this fall.     

Environmental effects of GATT/WTO membership: an empirical evaluation

ABSTRACT

One of the great questions for scholars of international relations and economics concerns the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the natural environment. Does membership in the multilateral trade regime constrain environmental regulation and increase the environmental burden of national economies? Do countries pay a heavy environmental price for trade liberalization? Although this question has been debated extensively, there is little statistical evidence to contribute the debate. We provide a comprehensive statistical analysis of the environmental effects of joining the multilateral trade regime. We collected data on a variety of environmental policies, institutions, and outcomes that should be influenced by the General Agreementon Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/WTO membership if the predictions of environmental pessimists or optimists are valid. A wide range of statistical models designed to identify the causal effect of the GATT/WTO on the environmental indicators shows that joining the GATT/WTO does not have negative effects on environmental quality.     

Trade and Democracy: A Factor-Based Approach

We study the relationship between trade openness and democracy using a data set with capital-labor ratios, trade flows, and regime type for 142 countries between 1960 and 2007. We are among the first to test a prediction that emerges from the model of Acemoglu and Robinson (2006): Relative factor endowments determine whether trade promotes democracy or not. The statistical results from two-stage least squares estimation indicate that trade is positively associated with democracy among labor-abundant countries but that trade has a negative effect on democracy in capital-abundant countries. The results are not robust, however, and thus we conclude that the evidence in support of their argument is relatively weak.     

International institutions and market expectations: Stock price responses to the WTO ruling on the 2002 U.S. steel tariffs

Many scholars assert that international institutions have little power to enforce laws, punish offenders, or force compliance. Others stress that international institutions are important actors, specifically in the regulation of international trade. In this paper, I show that the recent trade dispute over U.S. steel protection provides us with a critical case to evaluate the role of the World Trade Organization in settling trade disputes and specifically stabilizing expectations of market actors over future steel policy. I argue that stock prices can serve as an important tool in answering these questions. In an empirical analysis using daily steel stock prices, I find that during the 2002 WTO steel case, the WTO dispute mechanism helped market actors stabilize expectations of future trade policy.

Alliances,Trade Discrimination,and the Global Trade Regime

Although nondiscrimination is a central tenet of the global trade regime, discrimination was in fact common under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, particularly against developing countries. The latter have recently sought to end such discrimination through World Trade Organization rules: for example, the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) prohibited quota discrimination in this sector. I examine the ATC's impact on US discrimination, asking whether the ATC ended the US policy of favoring allies with generous textile and clothing quotas. I find that, while the United States favored allies before the ATC, this favoritism vanished in the post-ATC period. The ATC thus accomplished its goal of ending explicit textile and clothing discrimination. This result underscores the potential for multilateral rules to control trade discrimination and implies that popular theories of trade policy may be contingent on such rules.     

Circling the Wagons: Soft News and Isolationism in American Public Opinion

This study investigates the differences in coverage of foreign policy by the soft and hard news media, and the implications of such differences for public attitudes regarding the appropriate U.S. role in the world. I find that, relative to traditional news outlets, the soft news media place greater emphasis on dramatic, human-interest themes and episodic frames and less emphasis on knowledgeable information sources or thematic frames, while also having a greater propensity to emphasize the potential for bad outcomes. I then develop a conceptual framework in order to determine the implications of these differences. I argue that the style of coverage of soft news outlets tends to induce suspicion and distrust of a proactive or internationalist approach to U.S. foreign policy, particularly among the least politically attentive segments of the public. I test this and several related hypotheses through multiple statistical investigations into the effects of soft news coverage on attitudes toward isolationism in general, and U.S. policy regarding the Bosnian Civil War in particular. I find that among the least politically attentive members of the public, but not their more-attentive counterparts, soft news exposure—but not exposure to traditional news sources—is indeed associated with greater isolationism in general, and opposition to a proactive U.S. policy toward Bosnia in particular.     

国际贸易与投资中的华商网络:文献评述

近年来，越来越多的经济学家和社会学家开始关注华商网络对于促进国际贸易与FDI的作用。众多文献分别从新制度经济学、社会资本理论、现代进化生物学以及博弈论等角度对华商网络如何克服国际贸易与FDI中的非正式贸易壁垒作出解释；而在经验研究方面，现有研究不仅关注华商网络的静态有效性，而且也考虑其动态无效性。     

中国—东盟自由贸易区建设与我国国际化人才的培养

中国—东盟自由贸易区建成对我国人才培养方向、结构甚至培养模式提出了新的要求,加强面向自由贸易区的国际化人才培养成为加快自由贸易区建设、促进自由贸易区发展繁荣的重要内容。本文分析中国—东盟自由贸易区建立建成对我国国际化人才的需求,其后探讨面向东盟的我国国际化人才培养存在的主要问题及原因,在以上分析的基础上提出对策建议。     

Public support for the international economic organizations: Evidence from developing countries

Public opinions regarding the international economic organizations (IEOs; the IMF, World Bank, and WTO) are understudied. I contrast five lines of argument using a multi-country survey of developing countries, focusing on evaluations of the economy, skills, gender, and ideology and measures of involvement with the organizations themselves. At the individual level, respondents have negative views if they have negative views of the state of the economy. More educated respondents are more likely to have negative views of the IEOs. Women are more likely to have positive views of the IEOs than men. National levels of engagement with the IEOs also affect public evaluations of them. Evaluations of the state of the economy are more influential determinants of IEO evaluations in states that receive IMF and World Bank loans, as well as in states that are active in WTO dispute resolution.

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Electronic supplementary material  The online version of the article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorised users.

周边经济体掀起缔结RTA高潮的原因及其对中国的影响

进入21世纪,我国周边国家掀起了缔结RTA的高潮。一方面,这是亚洲太平洋地区经济体应对全球RTA缔结高潮和地区经济集团化压力的需要;另一方面,也是周边经济体、地区外经济体利益角逐的结果。周边经济体缔结RTA对我国谋求经济发展,寻求稳定、和平、繁荣的周边环境,维护国家安全,促进国家统一都产生了重大影响。     

国际机制与和谐世界构建：基于亚太地区的视角

国际机制是和谐世界构建的重要路径,也是实现国家利益与世界利益和谐互动的基本手段。构建和谐亚太是推动和谐世界建设的切实步骤,积极参与和完善亚太地区有关合作机制,是保障中国与本地区其它国家共享和平与繁荣的重要条件。当前亚太地区的合作机制建设已取得较大进展,但也存在若干不足。未来中国与其他相关方仍需立足于地区实际,稳步推进本地区相关合作机制建设,通过和谐地区建构为中国的和平发展创造一个良好的周边环境和战略依托。     

亚太妇女跨国迁移及其性产业与公共治理——菲律宾NGO的社会行动探析

20世纪90年代以来,亚太地区的人口迁移与性产业相互推动,促使越来越多的女性移民卷入性产业。如今,性产业的蔓延与繁荣已经成为亚太地区社会经济发展面临的一个严重问题,引起各国政府与相关非政府组织的极大关注。因此,治理性产业的法律与公共政策也成为亚太地区国家与公民社会讨论的重要内容。本文以菲律宾妇女海外性工作者与菲律宾NGO的社会行动为例,探讨发展中国家的妇女移民在跨国迁移中的角色、地位与社会、性别危机,以及公民社会参与性产业的社会治理行动与策略。     

Political Trust,Corruption, and Ratings of the IMF and the World Bank

There are only a handful of studies that examine public support for the IMF and World Bank. Public opinion data on attitudes to the economy feature prominently in these studies. Utilizing data from the Afrobarometer survey, we find that evaluations of the economy, ideology, and a range of sociodemographic factors including age, gender, employment status, health, education, and living conditions are not significantly related to ratings of effectiveness. Rather, we find that political trust and corruption—two very important concepts in the wider literature on individual-level attitudes toward international relations and foreign policy issues—are strongly associated with ratings of effectiveness.     

Worker Influence on Capital Account Policy: Inflow Liberalization and Outflow Restrictions

How do workers impact openness to international investment flows? This article distinguishes between two types of openness: openness to inflows and openness to outflows of investment. Workers benefit from inflow openness due to increases in wages, productivity, and efficiency and due to reductions in borrowing costs, which are associated with investment inflows. Workers are hurt by outflow openness, as investors gain investment options, and therefore bargaining power, when outflows are permitted. Labor rights help workers overcome collective action problems, and democratic institutions increase policymakers’ responsiveness to labor organizations and make their commitment to labor rights credible. The theory thus predicts that, particularly under democratic institutions, labor rights are positively correlated with inflow openness and negatively correlated with outflow openness. Evidence from time-series, cross-sectional data is consistent with the theoretical expectations.     

Globalization and Population: International Trade and the Demographic Transition

I study the effect of international trade on birth rates across a large number of countries. A supply-demand model of the birth rate explains that a rise in international trade reduces the demand for children and encourages an earlier onset of the mortality revolution. These two effects caused by the rise of international trade lead to a lower birth rate. A time-series cross-section empirical analysis for a large sample of developed and developing countries exhibits that international trade has a statistically significant and inverse effect on the birth rate. The policy implications relating to trade, economic growth, and conflict are discussed in the conclusion.     

论上海合作组织的发展前途——基于中俄战略构想比较分析的视角

战略利益决定战略构想.战略构想的相同或相近,体现了其共同或相似的战略利益.战略构想不同,是由其不同利益或利益分歧决定的.上合组织是否有前途,是否有生命力,从根本上来说取决于中俄两国战略构想是否一致或大体吻合.如果战略构想相差甚远,体现了其战略利益的背道而驰,那么建立在其上的国际组织是不可能有大的发展前途的.中俄关于上合组织的战略构想中,相同、相似或交叉之处远远大于或多于不同或分歧之处,说明上合组织虽然是一个新建的、年轻的国际组织,还很不成熟,很不完善,但上合组织是有生命力的,是有发展前途的.     

Globalization by the Numbers: Quantitative Indicators and the Role of Policy

Many writers have sought empirical referents for globalization. The most persuasive work has considered economic, political, cultural, and environmental indicators. Attempts to combine indicators from different spheres into a single index appear unpromising.     

从菲律宾的劳务输出看中新劳务合作

改革开放以来,中新劳务合作取得了一定的成绩。近年来,中新劳务合作出现一些矛盾与纠纷。如何保住我国劳动力在新加坡劳务市场上的地位,进一步扩大我国对外劳务输出规模?菲律宾作为世界上劳务输出的大国,其独特的劳务政策值得我们借鉴。     

东北亚核安全缺失与供给模式改进——基于国际公共产品视角

核安全是东北亚重要但短缺的公共产品。从公共产品的理论解释与客观现实的具体反映看,全球组织和域外霸权国都无法实现东北亚核安全的持续、有效供给,域内国家加强合作是弥补地区核安全缺失不可忽视的重要方面。东北亚核安全供给模式改进是在共商、共建、共享原则基础上,传统核安全由中俄美三个合法拥核大国共同协调、域内其他国家参与提供,非传统核安全由中日韩共同主导、携手域内其他国家平等参与提供,推动东北亚核安全从域外力量主导、同盟辅助的霸权供给模式逐步向域内实力国家主导、其他国家平等参与的多边合作供给模式转变。