Kendall W. Stiles

International Support for NGOs in Bangladesh: Some Unintended Consequences

Abstract Based on the experience of donors in Bangladesh over the past 10 years, we can conclude that efforts to strengthen civil society and thereby democratization by providing resources to NGOs in the developing world are likely to have some unintended and negative results. From the pluralist perspective, the “Civil Society Empowerment” initiative is likely to increase antagonism and noncooperation between NGOs and mainline civil society actors, while from a radical point of view, support for NGOs is likely to undermine their willingness to serve as social mobilizers. Suggested remedies are offered to mitigate these dual tendencies.

IMF conditionality: Coercion or compromise?

Abstract The author compares the utility of three competing models of decision making in the International Monetary Fund with the purpose of determining how best one can understand how the IMF decides on its conditionality vis-a-vis borrowing nations. The three models focus on the following as alternative sets of factors in IMF decision making: (1) bureaucratic expertise and authority; (2) dominance of political interests of major industrialized nations, and (3) bargaining and compromise among IMF staff and between the Fund and borrowing countries. Based on interviews with IMF officials and seven brief case studies, the author concludes that bargaining and compromise is the most central dynamic of IMF policy making.

The Power of Procedure and the Procedures of the Powerful: Anti-Terror Law in the United Nations

This research attempts to answer the question: to what extent do institutional procedures matter in shaping international organization policies? Little empirical evidence has been applied to the question, in part because structural forces predominate in most theories and because it is difficult empirically to isolate the procedural variable. The UN’s response to the 11 September 2001 attacks, in the context of its treatment of the terrorism issue generally, allows us to compare and contrast the response of the Security Council and the General Assembly’s Sixth Committee. While the case makes it clear that structural forces have influenced the choice of procedures in both bodies over their histories, it is also clear that exogenous shocks and the search for creative policies by major powers can cause dramatic shifts in institutional procedures. In particular, the events of 11 September created a unique opening for the United States and other Western powers to attempt a radical revision of anti-terror law. This could be done most efficiently through the Security Council by use of procedural provisions that were either dormant or only recently revitalized. Efforts to cement a consensus in the GA Sixth Committee quickly ran aground against age-old questions of the definition and scope of terrorism against the backdrop of norms on occupation and self-determination. The research should rekindle interest in procedural issues and the problem of ‘forum shopping’.

After Consensus, What? Performance Criteria for the UN in the Post-Cold War Era*

Not since 1945 has the UN enjoyed such support across the East-West divide as today. Cold War standards to evaluate UN performance are now of little value, but there is little general and theoretical discussion of alternative criteria. In an effort to clarify the issues at stake in what is sure to be a lively debate, the authors derive four distinct performance criteria extant in the literature on UN performance. These criteria include (1) declarations found in organic documents (charter-based), (2) medium and short-term objectives established by agency officials (operational), (3) past performance (trend-based), and (4) a scenario following elimination of the agency (absence-based). The strengths and weaknesses of each criteria are discussed theoretically and concretely through use of the four criteria to assess UN peace-keeping operations. The authors conclude that a blending of the operational and trend-based approach offers the most promising avenue for UN evaluation.

Who is keeping the sea safe? Testing theories of international law compliance

Theories of international law compliance have blossomed in recent years and many have been subjected to rigorous testing. In this exercise, we argue that theories based on managerial models are particularly promising in explaining why certain states comply more readily with international rules governing the safety of international shipping. Specifically, we test a wide range of variables drawn from interest-driven theories, as well as society-driven theories of compliance, and compare their explanatory power to governance-driven theories to explain anti-piracy policies and safety aboard ship. While many governance-driven variables correlate with both outcomes, they explain ship safety policies particularly well.

The ambivalent hegemon: Explaining the ‘lost decade’ in multilateral trade talks, 1948–1958

Abstract Hegemonic stability theory and its variants point to the dominance of the United States and its commitment to multilateralism and liberalism in the early post‐Second World War period as the key ingredients to the establishment of a liberal world trading order as embodied in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The present study challenges this image on several fronts by focusing on the GATT multilateral trade negotiations between 1948 and 1958. The historical review shows that US attachment to liberal principles was susceptible to reversal under moderate congressional pressure and its influence in GATT negotiations constrained by European assertiveness and linkage of trade talks to security priorities, although not from any deep commitment to multilateralism as such. The account reinforces the notion that international cooperation is less the product of hegemonic unilateralism and more the outcome of bargaining and exchange between multiple parties both in and out of the institution...

The IMF and Economic Development

The IMF and Economic Development. By James Raymond Vreeland. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 216p.

International norms and cycles of change

70.00 cloth,

Negotiating debt : the IMF lending process

22.00 paper. This insightful and carefully researched work by James Raymond Vreeland should end once and for all the debate on whether participation in an International Monetary Fund program tends to improve or depress economic growth. The answer is a resounding no in that, on average, economic growth is roughly 1.5% slower when countries are under an IMF program than otherwise, according to Vreeland. This finding is consistent with several studies—mostly written by authors on the Left—although he takes pains to leave ideology at the door. Rather, he puts together the most systematic and exhaustive study of the subject to date in order to show how the same finding can be arrived at with methods that are qualitative and quantitative, empirical and abstract. Although the result tends toward repetition, there is something here for everyone.