No miracles here: Trade policy,fiscal policy and economic growth

In this paper we consider whether the rate of growth following trade liberalisation differs significantly from growth in other developing countries. We find that it does not. Given this result we explore whether these growth effects are offset by changes in other policy variables, namely changes in fiscal policy. Governments increase welfare spending as a response to greater exposure to international trade. We find evidence that countries that liberalise their trade regimes increase their spending on welfare but not other forms of expenditure. However, once we control for the effects of fiscal policy, trade liberalisation still has no growth effects.     

State urban enterprise zones: origin,policy context,and administrative constraints

This article examines the origins of state enterprise zone policies. Further, the range of state enterprise zones are reviewed, drawing out patterns and generalizations of implementing this type of revitalization policy. As part of this analysis President Reagan urban policy is analyzed as to its effect on state programs. Lastly, the article analyzes three important obstacles - labor, incentives, and politics - that state and local administrators must negotiate to successfully implement the enterprise zone policy.     

Beyond royal politics: state transformation and foreign policy in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Saudi politics is commonly portrayed as reflecting a system of centralised personal rule in which decision-making power trickles down from the tightly knit power circles within the House of Saud. In contrast, this paper draws attention to the empowerment of quasi-autonomous state organisations in Saudi Arabia as a result of state transformation and regional integration. At its most extreme, state transformation in Saudi Arabia has created institutional and regulatory enclaves with vested interests and areas of competence that cross Saudi borders. This paper illustrates the foreign policy ramifications of transformed statehood in Saudi attempts to further Gulf regional integration in the context of the Gulf Monetary Union project.     

Reframing the rising powers debate: state transformation and foreign policy

Abstract

The volume that we introduce breaks with the prevalent tendency in International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers (such as China, Russia, India and Brazil) as unitary actors in international politics. Although a neat demarcation of the domestic and international domains, on which the notion of unitary agency is premised, has always been a myth, these states’ uneven integration into the global political economy has eroded this perspective’s empirical purchase considerably. Instead, this collection advances the concept of ‘state transformation’ as a useful lens through which to examine rising power states’ foreign policymaking and implementation. State transformation refers to the pluralisation of cross-border state agency via contested and uneven processes of fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation of state apparatuses. The volume demonstrates the significance of state transformation processes for explaining some of these states’ most important foreign policy agendas, and outlines the implications for the wider field in IR.