Research Library

This chapter examines the role of international legal approaches to the settlement of territorial disputes. What are the conditions that make resort to negotiations inadequate for the settlement of a territorial dispute? Why do governments make legal commitments that bind their future behavior with respect to how a territorial agreement is to be resolved? That is, what conditions make a formal legal commitment to arbitrate a dispute an attractive alternative? And, finally, why do states sometimes actually go through with such commitments to submit to third–party review of their territorial claims?
Motivating this study is the question of the role that international quasi–judicial processes can play in the resolution of territorial disputes among states. Previous research suggests that international law may play an important role in reducing the incidence of territorial disputes. Paul Huth (1996), for example, has found that clear legal agreements reduce the probability that a dispute will arise in the first place. By his estimate, some 142 border agreements were concluded between 1816 and 1990, and 126 of these were still in force and honored by both states in 1995 (Huth 1996, 92; see also Kocs 1995). If supranational authoritative rulings contribute to such agreements, then there are good reasons to expect them to make a positive contribution to settling the dispute peacefully.

In this paper we estimate a bargaining model of government formation in parliamentary democracies. We use the estimated structural model to conduct policy experiments aimed at evaluating the impact of institutional features of the bargaining environment on the type of coalitions that form (e.g., minority or majority) and on their relative stability.

I present a simple model of technological revolutions. A technological revolution is the introduction of a new generation of machines that can only be operated by workers who have learned a set of machine-specific skills. If learning the new skills is more (less) costly than learning the skills associated with pre-existing technologies, the revolution is skill biased (deskilling). On impact, skill-biased (deskilling) revolutions trigger a reallocation of capital from high (low) learning cost to low(high) learning cost workers, thereby reducing the relative and absolute wage of the former. Thus, the model of skill-biased revolutions replicatesthe observed recent changes in the wage structure, and constitutes a possible interpretation of the Information Technology Revolution.

It also provides insight into the future possible behavior of the wage structure, as the diffusion of information technology continues. The model of deskilling revolutions constitutes a possible interpretation of the introduction ofthe assembly line in the early 1910s. I also present some new facts from the Annual Survey of Manufacturing. The inter-industry dispersion of capital-labor ratios has increased substantially and abruptly after 1975. Increases in capital-labor ratios between 1975 and 1990 are positively correlated across industries with changes in pay per worker, changes in the proportion of non-production workers in total employment, high average-wage levels in 1975, and high non-production worker shares in 1975. I argue that my theory constitutes one possible explanation for these facts.

In this chapter, I examine the process of reconciliation within the framework of interactive problem solving, an approach to conflict resolution anchored in social–psychological principles. Interactive problem solving is a form of unofficial diplomacy, derived from the work of John Burton and epitomized by the microprocess of problem–solving workshops. These workshops are unofficial, private, confidential meetings between politically influential member of conflicting parties, designed to develop new insights into their conflict and new ideas for resolving it, which can then be infused into the political process within each community. My work in this genre has focused primarily on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, but the approach can be – and has been – applied to other protracted conflicts between identity groups.

This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities facing efforts to shape a transition toward more sustainable relations between humans and their planet. It begins with a review of international goals for human development and environmental conservation, past trends in interactions between the earth’s social and natural systems that set the stage for contemporary efforts to meet those goals, and some of the foreseeable problems that will have to be addressed in the years ahead. Arguing that the successful strategies for navigating a sustainability transition will necessarily be knowledge intensive, the paper discusses strategies for social learning about sustainability. It closes with a review of the institutional reforms that will be necessary to implement such strategies.

During the past two decades or so, capital controls have been lifted, national capital markets have been liberalized and international capital markets have exploded among the advanced industrial economies and beyond. As major players with significant stakes in the smooth operation of international capital markets, the United States and Europe have common interests in the emergence of a regulatory framework that enhances market stability, minimizes systematic risks, and allows for the efficient operation of markets. Yet despite the growth in cross border capital movements, regulatory cooperation is at times plagued by differences in national approaches and preferences, difficulties coordinating rules where multiple regional or international organizations are involved, and regulators' reluctance to cooperate fully with foreign jurisdictions...

A single chapter cannot do justice to the range of rules and agreements that have been made among the banking and securities regulators of Europe and America over the past decade. Rather than strive for exhaustiveness, this chapter selects three issue areas that illustrate particular dynamics of rule development: capital adequacy standards for internationally active banks; anti–money laundering efforts; and international accounting standards for foreign listings on local stock exchanges. There are two key dimensions that these cases illustrate: the problem of defection (which demands stronger rules of surveillance and sanction than mere coordination problems), and the issue of the scope of agreement (systematic problems demand multilateral solutions).

Was the Cold War a distinctive moment for U.S.–Latin American relations? The answer can be no. The United States had faced military, political, and economic competition for influence in the Americas from extracontinental powers both before and during the Cold War. The United States pursued ideological objectives in its policy toward Latin America before, during, and after the Cold War. And the pattern of U.S. defense of its economic interests was not appreciably different during the Cold War than before. And yet, this article argues that the Cold War was a distinctive moment because ideological considerations acquired primacy over U.S. policy in the region to an extent unparalleled in the history of inter–American relations. As a consequence, this ideologically–driven U.S. policy often exhibited nonlogical characteristics because the instruments chosen to implement U.S. policy were too costly, disproportionate, or inappropriate. The article focuses on those instances when the United States used military force to achieve its aims or when the United States promoted or orchestrated an attempt to overthrow a Latin American government.

This paper investigates private–interest, public–interest, and political–institutional theories of regulatory change to analyze state–level deregulation of bank branching restrictions. Using a hazard model, we find that interest group factors related to the relative strength of potential winners (large banks and small, bank–dependent firms) and losers (small banks and the rival insurance firms) can explain the timing of branching deregulation across states during the last quarter century. The same factors also explain congressional voting on interstate branch–ing deregulation. While we find some support for each theory, the private interest approach provides the most compelling overall explanation of our results.

I argue that the impact of development on the distribution of political power in society may create an incentive for a state to become 'predatory' and fail to promote economic development. I develop a model of endogenous policy choice where public investment, while socially productive, simultaneously increases the ability of agents outside the ruling group to contest political power. The model shows that ineffcient underinvestment (predatory behavior) tends to arise in societies where, (1) there are large benefits to holding political power, and which are, (2) well endowed which natural resources, (3) badly endowed with factors which are complementary to public investment, such as human capital, and (4) intrinsically unstable. I document the importance of the mechanism I propose in accounting for the behavior of actual predatory regimes.

Students of comparative politics have long faced a vexing dilemma: how can social scientists draw broad, applicable principles of political order from specific historical examples? In Analytic Narratives, five senior scholars offer a new and ambitious methodological response to this important question. By employing rational-choice and game theory, the authors propose a way of extracting empirically testable, general hypotheses from particular cases. The result is both a methodological manifesto and an applied handbook that political scientists, economic historians, sociologists, and students of political economy will find essential.

In their jointly written introduction, the authors frame their approach to the origins and evolution of political institutions. The individual essays that follow demonstrate the concept of the analytic narrative - a rational-choice approach to explain political outcomes - in case studies. Avner Greif traces the institutional foundations of commercial expansion in twelfth-century Genoa. Jean-Laurent Rosenthal analyzes how divergent fiscal policies affected absolutist European governments, while Margaret Levi examines the transformation of nineteenth-century conscription laws in France, the United States, and Prussia. Robert Bates explores the emergence of a regulatory organization in the international coffee market. Finally, Barry Weingast studies the institutional foundations of democracy in the antebellum United States and its breakdown in the Civil War. In the process, these studies highlight the economic role of political organizations, the rise and deterioration of political communities, and the role of coercion, especially warfare, in political life. The results are both empirically relevant and theoretically sophisticated.

Analytic Narratives is an innovative and provocative work that bridges the gap between the game-theoretic and empirically driven approaches in political economy. Political historians will find the use of rational-choice models novel; theorists will discover arguments more robust and nuanced than those derived from abstract models. The book improves on earlier studies by advocating - and applying - a cross-disciplinary approach to explain strategic decision making in history.

"The transformation of politics in Latin America, the consolidation of a democratic consensus in the Anglophone Caribbean, and the able performance of many democratic governments in fashioning economic policies made this book intellectually possible. Most of Latin America's democratic governments have carried economic reforms more effectively than their authoritarian predecessors and have remained stunningly resilient despite many problems. The naysayers have not been proven right. Indeed, even if democratic governments were to be overthrown tomorrow, the history of democratic politics in the 1980s and 1990s is already noteworthy."—from the Introduction

In Democratic Politics in Latin America and the Caribbean, Jorge Domínguez focuses on the successful accomplishments of democratic politics in the region—a process that nations in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa seek to emulate. Domínguez considers the role of British colonial rule and United States policies. But he also examines the development of parties, other civil institutions, and competitive markets, which lend permanence to democracy. He also discusses the prospects for democracy in Cuba and Mexico. Despite recurrent problems, Dom?nguez concludes, the outlook is good for stable democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Students of comparative politics have long faced a vexing dilemma: how can social scientists draw broad, applicable principles of political order from specific historical examples? In Analytic Narratives, five senior scholars offer a new and ambitious methodological response to this important question. By employing rational-choice and game theory, the authors propose a way of extracting empirically testable, general hypotheses from particular cases. The result is both a methodological manifesto and an applied handbook that political scientists, economic historians, sociologists, and students of political economy will find essential.

In their jointly written introduction, the authors frame their approach to the origins and evolution of political institutions. The individual essays that follow demonstrate the concept of the analytic narrative—a rational-choice approach to explain political outcomes—in case studies. Avner Greif traces the institutional foundations of commercial expansion in twelfth-century Genoa. Jean-Laurent Rosenthal analyzes how divergent fiscal policies affected absolutist European governments, while Margaret Levi examines the transformation of nineteenth-century conscription laws in France, the United States, and Prussia. Robert Bates explores the emergence of a regulatory organization in the international coffee market. Finally, Barry Weingast studies the institutional foundations of democracy in the antebellum United States and its breakdown in the Civil War. In the process, these studies highlight the economic role of political organizations, the rise and deterioration of political communities, and the role of coercion, especially warfare, in political life. The results are both empirically relevant and theoretically sophisticated.

Analytic Narratives is an innovative and provocative work that bridges the gap between the game-theoretic and empirically driven approaches in political economy. Political historians will find the use of rational-choice models novel; theorists will discover arguments more robust and nuanced than those derived from abstract models. The book improves on earlier studies by advocating—and applying—a cross-disciplinary approach to explain strategic decision making in history.

Coffee is traded in one of the few international markets ever subject to effective political regulation. In Open-Economy Politics, Robert Bates explores the origins, the operations, and the collapse of the International Coffee Organization, an international "government of coffee" that was formed in the 1960s. In so doing, he addresses key issues in international political economy and comparative politics, and analyzes the creation of political institutions and their impact on markets. Drawing upon field work in East Africa, Colombia, and Brazil, Bates explores the domestic sources of international politics within a unique theoretical framework that blends game theoretic and more established approaches to the study of politics.

The book will appeal to those interested in international political economy, comparative politics, and the political economy of development, especially in Latin America and Africa, and to readers wanting to learn more about the economic and political realities that underlie the coffee market. It is also must reading for those interested in "the new institutionalism" and modern political economy.

This article argues that the strictly pragmatic, step–by–step approach of Oslo has reached a dead end and that cajoling the parties into signing an agreement is now irrelevant. To move the peace process to a successful conclusion, the parties must now commit themselves to a principled solution whose key elements include prior commitment to a genuine two–state solutions the end point of the final status negotiations, provision of meaningful citizenship to the Palestinians of the territories and the refugees, and mutual acknowledgment of the other?s nationhood and humanity. Such a proposal, though seemingly utopian, represents the most realistic option at the present juncture.

Published in Journal of Palestine Studies 28, no. 1 (1998): 36-50; and Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 5, no. 2 (1999): 101-115.

Policy Reform, Volume 1, 1–45

Recent growth theory fails to provide a convincing account of underdevelopment in terms of economic "fundamentals". As a result, many accounts cite "bad" government policy (including the failure to support appropriate institutions) as a casual factor behind stagnations. Yet this perspective is hard to understand from the viewpoint of welfare economics. This paper studies theories of endogenous policy which can possibly account for such bad policy. I stress three (interrelated) general intuitions about causes of bad policy which apply, irrespective of the type of political regime: 91) inability to use transfers to separate efficiency and distribution, (2) inability to commit, (3) the close connection between development and changes in the distribution of political power. I particularly stress the ability (or inability) of these theories to explain cross country differences.

Since the collapse of the bipolar world power paradign in 1991, the concept of security in the Americas has come under intense review. This paper will examine the historic tension between U.S. and Latin American/Caribbean security interests as addressed within the Inter–American System, and how these institutions have evolved as a result.

The first part of this paper critically examines existing explanations for institutional innovation on the one hand and economic reform measures on the other, and offers an alternative, synthetic explanation for understanding the relationship between them. The second section derives hypotheses for disaggregating the political economic dynamics of institutional creation and durability, and illustrates the empirical manifestation of these dynamics through various "observations" 7 of financial institutional innovation in Wenzhou. The final section frames Wenzhou’s apparent exceptionalism in comparative perspective both within and beyond China.