Economic Liberalism and Its Rivals

Abstract

Examines the critical role that the economic ideas of state leaders play in the creation and maintenance of the international economic order. Drawing on a detailed study of the fifteen post-Soviet states in their first decade of independence, interviews with key decision-makers and the use of closed ministerial archives, the book explores how the changing ideas of state officials led countries to follow one of three institutional paths: rapid entry into the World Trade Organization, participation in a regional Customs Union based on their prior Soviet ties, or autarky and economic closure. In doing so, the book traces the decisions that shaped the entry of these strategically important countries into the world economy and provides a novel theory of the role of ideas in international politics.

The Historical Turn in Democratization Studies: A New Research Agenda for Europe and Beyond

“…8 However, the importance of ideational factors for institution building has been emphasized in recent developments in related bodies of literature. First of all, several works have argued that the more uncertain the objective conditions surrounding institutional creation are, the more likely political actors are to rely on ideational filters to interpret reality and orient their strategies, thus giving ideas an independent causal role (e.g., Darden, 2009;Elster, Offe, & Preuss, 1998;Hall, 2006). In other words, if the future is highly unpredictable, the range of plausibly rational strategies expands accordingly, and actors who are similarly positioned socioeconomically may interpret their world in very different ways, and accordingly pursue different projects of institutional change (e.g., Jervis, 1976;Parsons, 2007, p. 130).…”

The Emperor Has No Clothes: The Limits of OPEC in the Global Oil Market

“…This 92 Based on personal discussions with officials at various branches of the U.S. government. 93 http://energy.gov/management/timeline-events-2003, http://energy.gov/management/timeline-events-2007, http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/oildep.shtml, http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/BERA/issue5/cartels.html, http://www1.eere.energy.gov/analysis/pdfs/strategic_program_review.pdf 94 Darden, 2009;Legro, 2005;Blyth, 2002;McNamara, 2002;Boiral, 200795 Darden, 2009: 9 96 Jervis, 2011 example points to a broader problem with informal attempts to infer OPEC's impact in the face of frequent price volatility. If OPEC production increases as prices are falling, some will infer that OPEC is causing prices to fall; but if instead OPEC production decreases, some will infer that OPEC's impact is delayed, and will cause a price increase that arrives some months later.…”

Can There Be a Political Science of the Holocaust?

“…57 In other words, in a region where indigenous antisemitism was nearly universal and violence already a recent experience, the patterning of mass killing seems to have reflected longer-term structures of local society. Violence was, to a degree, iterative.…”

“…First, spaces of violence and relative tranquility may align with previous patterns of education, nationalism, social integration, and governance before the war-although crucially not with ethnic balances or ideology. 57 In other words, in a region where indigenous antisemitism was nearly universal and violence already a recent experience, the patterning of mass killing seems to have reflected longer-term structures of local society.…”