Daniel W. Drezner

Globalization and Policy Convergence

An implicit assumption of most policy analysts and some academics is that globalization leads to a convergence of traditionally national policies governing environmental regulation, consumer health and safety, the regulation of labor, and the ability to tax capital. Some claim that globalization leads to a race to the bottom, where concerns about the regulatory standards are sacrificed on the altar of commerce. Others argue that the growth of transnational governance structures leads to a negotiated convergence of ample regulation. This essay reviews the arguments and evidence for how globalization affects the convergence of regulatory policies, in particular the setting of labor and environmental standards. It argues that the theories of policy convergence, which rely on structural factors to induce policy convergence, are largely unsupported by the empirical evidence. Theories that grant agents autonomous decisionmaking power perform better but remain underspecified. Ironically, the realist paradigm, which has generally denigrated the globalization phenomenon, could prove a fruitful source for theories of improved policy convergence.

The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion

Why do policymakers consistently employ economic sanctions even though scholars consider them an ineffective tool of statecraft? Game-theoretic models of economic coercion suggest the success rate may be understated because of selection effects. When the targeted country prefers conceding to incurring the cost of sanctions, it has an incentive to acquiesce before the imposition of sanctions. The bulk of successful coercion episodes should therefore end with sanctions threatened but not imposed. This contradicts the recent literature on sanctions, which assumes that sanctions rarely, if ever, work at generating significant concessions from the targeted country and are imposed for domestic or symbolic political reasons. If the game-theoretic argument is correct, the crucial cases to study are those in which coercion is threatened but not implemented. A statistical analysis of data on sanctions in pursuit of economic or regulatory goals strongly supports the gametheoretic argument. These results suggest that the significance of economic coercion has been undervalued in the study of statecraft and international relations more generally.

The sanctions paradox : economic statecraft and international relations

1. Introduction Part I. Theory and Data: 2. A model of economic coercion 3. Plausibility probes 4. Statistical tests Part II. Economic Coercion in the Former Soviet Union: 5. Russian power and preferences 6. The extent of NIS concessions 7. Evaluating the evidence Part III. Choosing Between Carrots and Sticks: 8. Economic statecraft and nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula 9. Conclusions, implications, speculations.

Bargaining, Enforcement, and Multilateral Sanctions: When Is Cooperation Counterproductive?

Scholars and policymakers generally assume that multilateral cooperation is a necessary condition for economic sanctions to be of any use. However, previous statistical tests of this assumption have shown that sanctions are more successful with lower levels of cooperation. This puzzle calls into question established theories of economic statecraft as well as theories of international cooperation. In this article I test possible explanations for the ineffectiveness of multilateral cooperation on sanctions events using James Fearons (1998) breakdown of cooperation into bargaining and enforcement phases as a framework for discussion The empirical results show that when multilateral economic sanctions fail, their failure is due to enforcement, not bargaining problems Without the support of an international organization, cooperating states backslide from promises of cooperation Backsliding occurs because of domestic political pressures and uncertainty about the intentions of the other sanctioning countries; backsliding causes an initial burst of cooperative behavior to decay over time. Without institutional support, cooperation is worse than useless—it is counterproductive. This result suggests that international cooperation is a more fragile equilibrium than previously thought but undercuts realist arguments that international organizations are unimportant.

The Power and Peril of International Regime Complexity

The proliferation of international rules, laws, and institutional forms raises important questions for regime theory. Looking at the theoretical and empirical arguments presented by all the contributors, however, it seems clear that that complexitys effects on actor strategies—particularly powerful actors—remain open to debate. Some of the posited effects of international regime complexity have contradictory or cross-cutting effects. Further effects of regime complexity—cross-institutional strategizing, the asymmetrical distribution of legal and technical expertise, and the fragmentation of reputation—can erode the significance of institutions in complex environments. This contribution considers the effect that regime complexity has on how powerful actors approach world politics—in part by connecting the current debate with past discussions about the significance of international regimes in world politics.

Conflict Expectations and the Paradox of Economic Coercion

Despite their increasing importance, there is little theoretical understanding of why nation-states initiate economic sanctions or what determines their success. These events are often explained away as “symbolic politics” driven completely by domestic-level factors. This article develops a simple game-theoretic model of economic coercion to show that both “senders” and “targets” of economic coercion incorporate expectations of future conflict as well as the short-run opportunity costs of coercion into their behavior. Conflict expectations have a paradoxical effect on coercion events. First, senders that anticipate frequent conflicts will be more willing to initiate economic coercion, even if such attempts are costly. Senders that anticipate few conflicts will not threaten sanctions unless they incur minimal costs and the target would suffer significantly. While a robust anticipation of future disputes might make the sender prefer a coercive strategy, it also reduces its ability to obtain concessions. Target states that anticipate frequent conflict with the sender will make fewer concessions. Ironically, a sender will obtain the most favorable distribution of payoffs when it cares the least about its reputation or the distribution of gains. These hypotheses are tested statistically, with the results strongly supporting the conflict expectations model.

The Realist Tradition in American Public Opinion

For more than half a century, realist scholars of international relations have maintained that their world view is inimical to the American public. For a variety of reasons—inchoate attitudes, national history, American exceptionalism—realists assert that the U.S. government pursues realist policies in spite and not because of public opinion. Indeed, most IR scholars share this “anti-realist assumption.” To determine the empirical validity of the anti-realist assumption, this paper re-examines survey and experimental data on the mass public’s attitudes towards foreign policy priorities and world views, the use of force, and foreign economic policy over the past three decades. The results suggest that, far from disliking realism, Americans are at least as comfortable with the logic of realpolitik as they are with liberal internationalism. The persistence of the anti-realist assumption might be due to an ironic fact: American elites are more predisposed towards liberal internationalism than the rest of the American public.

The trouble with carrots: Transaction costs, conflict expectations, and economic inducements

(1999). The trouble with carrots: Transaction costs, conflict expectations, and economic inducements. Security Studies: Vol. 9, Power and the Purse: Economic Statecraft, Interdependence, and National Security, pp. 188-218.

The System Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great Recession

Prior to 2008, numerous international relations scholars had predicted a looming crisis in global economic governance. Policy analysts have only reinforced this perception since the financial crisis, declaring that we live in a “G-Zero” world. This article takes a closer look at the global response to the financial crisis and reveals a more optimistic picture. Despite initial shocks that were more severe than the 1929 financial crisis, global economic governance structures responded quickly and robustly. Whether one measures results by outcomes, outputs, or process, formal and informal governance structures displayed surprising resiliency. Multilateral economic institutions performed well in crisis situations to reinforce open economic policies, especially in contrast to the 1930s. While there are areas where governance has either faltered or failed, on the whole, the system has worked. Misperceptions about global economic governance persist because the Great Recession has disproportionately affected the core economies; analysts have conflated national with global governance; and the efficacy of past periods of global economic governance has been badly overestimated. Why the system has worked better than expected remains an open question, but we can tentatively conclude that both the power of the United States and the resilience of neoliberal economic ideas were underestimated.

International Political Economy, Global Financial Orders and the 2008 Financial Crisis

The 2008 financial crisis triggered the most severe global economic downturn since the Great Depression. The crisis has provoked soul-searching among economists, yet international political economy (IPE) scholars have been relatively sanguine. We argue that IPE has strayed too far away from studying the geopolitical and systemic causes and consequences of the global economy. IPE must explain the generation and transformation of global financial orders. Both the distribution of political power and the content of economic ideas will shape any emergent global financial order. A Kuhnian life-cycle framework of global financial orders permits a systemic approach to global finance that integrates the study of power and social logics into our understanding of markets.