Reforming the World Health Organization: what influence do the BRICS wield?

The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently undergoing fundamental reform that is intended to impact its programmes and priority setting and its financial and governing structures. Within the reform debates, new relations of powers are emerging among traditional donors and emerging economies such as the ‘BRICS’: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. These five emerging economies have formally committed ‘to strengthen and legitimise the WHO as the coordinating authority in global health’ through the principle of multilateralism. In this paper, the results of a qualitative study – based on 21 key informant interviews – that seeks to better understand BRICS’ engagement in this organisation and the extent to which their action enables these countries to influence the reform process were presented. The results show that individual BRICS countries found natural pairings with each other on both particular elements of the reform, notably governance and WHO financing, and specific health issues. While numerous examples of individual BRICS countries seeking to raise the profile of specific health issues were found, some evidence of a coordinated effort to influence reform as a bloc was also found. Although this was largely limited to rhetorical announcements of support in formal Declarations and Communiqués, it nevertheless articulates a vision of the WHO as an organisation with a broad mandate delivered with sufficient, predictable funding.     

Congresses versus caudillos: the untold history of democracy in Latin America,with special emphasis on New Granada (Colombia), 1830–60. A new research agenda

SUMMARY

Since their origins, congresses played significant roles in the emerging states of Latin America following independence from Spain. Yet their protagonism has been overshadowed by the so-called caudillos, the strongmen who seem to have dominated the politics of the region during most of the nineteenth century. This article argues that congresses were central political actors in Latin America during the century and it does so by examining their various functions. Congresses served to form governments, to define the legislative agenda and to limit the power of the executive. Congress was the institution around which political parties and their leaders were formed, while the practices of representative government developed.     

A Diamond of Intense Brilliance in the Diadem of Brazilian Diplomacy: The 1953 Plan for Peace in Jerusalem

In 1953, the Brazilian government decided to advance a plan for the demilitarisation and internationalisation of Jerusalem within a 50-kilometre radius. After consultations, the Holy See initially perceived the Brazilian initiative as agreeable. Also approached, the United States and Britain distrusted the plan, thinking they were dealing with a Papal overture. Israel suspected the Holy See to be behind the initiative and distrusted its intentions. For a few months, rumours stirred concern in the interested parties. After confusing mutual consultations, the Holy See did not really support the initiative and finally rejected and abandoned it. The fate of Brazil’s plan is relevant to understand the stalemate about the fate of Jerusalem, divided by Israel and Jordan, in the early years of the Cold War. Washington and London had already abandoned efforts to solve the issue through the United Nations but were unable to produce an alternative. Although attached to the prospect of internationalisation, the Holy See did not entertain the possibility of negotiating the city’s future. Brazil was making its initial foray into a more universalistic foreign policy and experimenting with different possible identities—Catholic, Western, peaceful—to substantiate its interest in making a broader contribution to international politics.     

Discursive mismatch and globalization by stealth: The fight against corruption in the Brazilian legal field

Law and globalization studies have documented how Global South lawyers compete over the adaptation of international norms. Yet, little is known about how this adaptation legitimates worldviews beyond the law. To advance this literature, this paper proposes a discourse-centered field analysis of the legal globalization of anti-corruption ideas in Brazil. It examines Brazilian lawyers' disputes over a 2016 anti-corruption bill. The bill supporters mobilize global anti-corruption discourses that are exogenous to the legal field to defend harsher criminal law. Their critics counter the reform by mobilizing endogenous legal ideas against criminal law expansion. In so doing, they do not challenge reformers' ideas about corruption. I show how this discursive mismatch leads to a form of globalization by stealth, whereby local dynamics allow global ideas to remain unchallenged in local fields.     

Tax Disputes under Institutional Instability: Theory and Implications

This article aims to offer the first structural analysis of tax disputes under institutional instability using a core element of the international tax regime as an example. It offers a theory grounded on Mancur Olson's seminal contribution to group dynamics, the logic of collective action. It also suggests implications of this theory that might help to address key enforcement issues faced by the international tax regime in a frequent context worldwide: institutionally unstable countries.     

Policy and regulatory design for developing countries: a mechanism design and transaction cost approach

The first-generation literature on policy design has made considerable contributions over the last 30 years to our understanding of the process, politics and implications of policy design and instrument choice. This literature, however, has generally treated institutions as a black box and has not developed a coherent set of frameworks, theories and models of how institutions matter to policy design. In this paper, I unpack the black box of institutions using transaction cost and mechanism design to show how regulations can be better designed in developing countries when institutions are weak, unaccountable, corrupted or not credible. Under these conditions, I show that efficient regulatory design has to minimize transaction costs, particularly agency problems, by having incentive compatible (self-enforcing) mechanisms. I conclude with a second-generation research agenda on regulatory design with implications for environmental, food and drug safety, healthcare and financial regulation in developing countries.     

Business and the Politics of Urban Violence in Colombia

What explains variation in local government policy responses to urban violence? Existing research on the politics of urban violence overlooks the pivotal role that private sector interests play in shaping the public provision of security in major developing world cities faced with conditions of intense violence. I argue that business is a pivotal political actor that mobilizes through powerful private sector institutions to shape policy responses to urban violence in ways that advance its economic interests and preserve its privileged status in local political arenas. The security policy preferences of business vary across economic sectors due to variation in relations to urban space and violence. This cross-sectoral variation in security policy preferences generates both opportunities and challenges for political and societal actors that seek to stem and prevent urban violence. Analysis of puzzling variation in policy responses across Colombia's three principal cities—Medellin, Cali, and Bogota—and over time within each shows that a focus on business can strengthen our understanding of the politics of urban violence and, more broadly, its implications for development.     

Institutions and the Legislative Success of ‘Strong’ Presidents: An Analysis of Government Bills in Chile

This paper examines the approval of government bills in Chile, evaluating the effect of presidential prerogatives and policy substance, and considering both bill-specific and contextual effects. The results show that presidential prerogatives over financial policy, as well as the ability to affect the congressional agenda through urgent bill scheduling, significantly influence government bill approval. As expected, government success is enhanced during the honeymoon period. However, changes in public approval of the president do not appear to exert a significant effect on the passage of presidential bills.