DrTdaxp

Introduce Special Guest Star and his article on the IMF/WB

Most research on Bretton Words focus on outcomes, but what about their internal politics
collective decisions through weighted voting as alternative to Westphalian vote (UNGA), or great-power veto (UNSC)
“weighted voting” borrowed from corporate governance

Criterea for Reforms…
weights should be “sensible” and coherent to the organization’s objective
“base” or “basic” vote gives ever state a minimum number of votes
but… while growed from 40 to 188 members, basic votes as percentage of total votes has drastically declined

Asisignment Problem (1 instrument for each policy goal)
… yet “votes” are 1 instrument for many objectives

Revised Variables
1. Access to Resources (variability of trade) – capital flows more important now
2. Trade — should intra-EU/eurozone trade be “international trade”?
3. Use GDP/PPP rather than GDP/exchange ranges (Japanese v Chinese international political economic power)
4. Population as new variable (but non-instrumental, so unlikely)

Quota Formula Review Group
– focused more on GDP — but outcomes were viewed as unwanted and useless , so not approved
– “an answer to no question in particular”

maybe a mix of gdp/ppp, pop, basic votes (US loses de facto veto) or gdp/ppp, basic votes (US keeps veto)

Reform for Executive Board
– formed of “IMF Constituencies” or voting groups (some geographic, some linguistic, plus US, UK, GDP, France, plus “elected” but defacto KSA, PRC)
– despite elaborate Executive Board system, IMF rums by Executive Director’s “sense of the meeting” (byzantine consensus)
– does thi smean “real” IMF decisions are made by/in the G7?

Specific Majorities
– different requirements for different types of majorities (from 50% to 85%)

“Prefered Alternative” / Double Majority Syste,
– would weaken US power
– requires both majority of weighted and majority of countries
– WB suggests majority of developed (Core) + majority of “developing” (Gap) countries — but no special category for Seam??
– but IMF has “equality” principal (only one class of membership)

(ROK was unique as OECD country that needed the IMF)

Big Cheese comments
– all organized efforts need decision rules — power v “democracy” (whether IGOs, NGOs, governments, etc)
– WB “nittier and gritter” than IMF — more “on the ground”
– Japanese/Chinese attempts to buil “Asian Monetary Fund” torpedoed byh IMF/US — but Japan wanted to create AMF earlier and PRC wanted to delay (because of growing PRC power)
– Argentina default an exception (Seam) because most Gap countries could not survive default ot IMF
– major crisis needed for significant reforms? Or US vote just falls below 15% (lose de facto veteo) Or regional/Asian alternative

Personnel Reforms
– lack of “passport diversity”
– too many neoclassicists? (apply to universities? – David Horowitz / VDH — ideological tactic of the weak)
– WB/IMF has typically weak executives — but what about McNamara, Wolfensen, Wolfowitz?
– actual question from fellow student: “Is there anything good about the IMF? At all?”

IMF/WB most important US / “Washington Consensus” Introument
– but what about war regimes, “crisis capitalism,” as instruments…
– original “Washington Consensus” didn’t include free capital flows?
– bilateral / regional free trade agreements

Genology of the Paper
– in an ongoing series
– many, many changes, reorgs etc,
– “publishing” as very slow OODA cycle??

—–

FINAL PAPER IDEA

“International Law as Social Cognitive Battlespace”
Possible Structure:

Introduction
International Law
Social Cognition
Battlespaces
Existing Research
Theory
– IL/SC and Realism
– IL/SC and Liberalism
– IL/SC and Constructivism
Practice
– IL/SC and the Rise of al Qaeda
– IL/SC and the Rise of the Vietnamese Communists
– IL/SC and the Rise of Early Christianity
Avenues of Disproof
Conclusions

—

Back to Big Cheese:

On Ecology:
– a set of substantive, rules, decision-making rules, and principals create a Regime, as in Ozone Diplomacy
– ozone fundign decisions requires rich-poor double majority
– benedict (255 / Appendix C) – document giving directions for deciding funding

GEF – Global Environmental Facility- mix of World Bank and UN
– a fusion of San Francisco and Bretton Woods
– the direction of WM/IMF in general?

(Big Cheese: Reagan ’81-’85, Bush ’01-’05 as “romantic American nationalism”)
(reminder: WB annual dispersements of $40 bil; UN regular budget of $1 bil; ICRC yearly $600 mil)

sustainable development – “developing in a way that doesn’t leave the environment worse off for the next generation”

framework convention – nonspecific but legally binding “agreement to agree” on a solution to a problem

protocol – a treaty that is added to another treaty
– “host” treaty does not have to be a framework convention
– for example, Protocol 1 and Protocol 2 added to Geneva Convention

IPCC – international panel on climate change (an epistemic community)

epistemic community – “knowledge”/”science” based “nonpolitical” group of experts/knowledge base
but compare to wikipedia:

An epistemic community consists of those who accept one version of a story, or one version of validating a story. Michel Foucault referred more elaborately to mathesis as a rigorous episteme suitable for enabling cohesion of a discourse and thus uniting a community of its followers. In philosophy of science and systems science the process of forming a self-maintaining epistemic community is sometimes called a mindset. In politics, a tendency or faction is usually described in very similar terms.

Most researchers carefully distinguish between epistemic forms of community and “real” or “bodily” community which consists of people sharing risk, especially bodily risk. Some feminist scholars and ethicists are of the opinion that epistemic community follows logos and is thus effectively male.

As this view suggests, it is also difficult to draw the line between these modern ideas and more ancient ones: Joseph Campbell’s concept of myth from cultural anthropology, Carl Jung’s concept of archetype in psychology. Some consider forming an epistemic community a deep human need, and ultimately a mythical or even religious obligation. Among these very notably are E. O. Wilson and Ellen Dissanayake, an American historian of aesthetics, who famously argued that almost all of our broadly shared conceptual metaphors centre on one basic idea of safety, that of “home”.

From this view, an epistemic community may be seen as a group of people who do not have any specific history together, but search for a common idea of home, e.g. as if forming an intentional community.

AKA – Transnational networks of knowledge-based experts that define for decision-makers what the problems they face are, and what they should do about them.

Montrol Protocol (addition to Vienna) helped by scientific consensus on ozone and feasible economic alternatives

(BC: “in the meantime you had the idiot Reagan who said, international law, we don’t need that”)

BC: “The ozone problem was an easy one to solve, and all it took was years and years and years and to overcome the American administration. But you had to overcome the ideologues in the administration and make them practical” … an elite 4GW?

BC: “Particularly when you have the Bush administration who is unilateralist, and ultra-nationalist, and John Bolton…”

Global Warming “harder” than ozone because
– more expensive fixes
– less clear dangers

Eckersley’s analysis of climate change
– coherent action requires coherent Orientation (requires constructivism)
– very nice discussion on this!
– very 4G?
– so need to be a constructivist to battle climate change — but what about empiricists a la Hammes?
– construvism “collapses into” realism if one accepts non-state actors and soft-power?
– “culture of relating” — ????