• Situating International Institutions:

• Institutions are embedded in global political, ideological and economic structures

• Robert Cox offers an analytical model that facilities our study of institutions:

• Robert Cox: Hegemonic historical structures (Current one Globalization III) at a given historical moment embodies the following core features:

• Ideas (political, economic, cultural processes)

• Material capabilities (economic and military power)

• Institutions (International institutions)

The International Financial Architecture (WB &IMF)

• The World Bank:

• Created in 1944

• Mandate: Dealing with long term economic issues in efforts to maintain economic growth and order

• 1945-1978: Dominant lending pattern

• Large-scale projects (agriculture, dams, etc).

• Lending policies informed by post-1945 global Keynesianism.

• 1979…

• Lending trend:

• core features of neo-liberalism– Privatization, conditional lending

(democratization), rolling back the state, supporting emerging markets (Asia, Russia and Latin America)

• World Bank: Organizational structure– The Bank is owned by its 180 member

countries both in the core and peripheral regions

– the interests of these members represented by a Board of Governors who meet once a year.

• The Bank’s authority though is delegated to the Board of Directors with the Executive Directors supervising the general operations of the Bank.

• The President of the World Bank (James Wolfensohn), serves as the Chairperson of the Board and he also is allowed to vote in case of a tie during Board’s meeting.

• World Bank: Roots of its power– It’s the world’s largest provider of development

assistance and thus has a major influence on the evolution of political economies of peripheral regions.

– Voting structure: reflects the structural power of leading industrial countries and thus accords the institution a powerful position in world affairs

• Voting Structure in brief (these countries also have permanent representation at the Board and also appoint their Eds directly)

• Country % of total votes

• United States 14.45

• Japan 10.96

• Germany 7.08

• United Kingdom 4.97

• France 4.35

• The remaining 175 member countries are organized in country constituencies and generally hold limited voting power

• Example: Nordic-Baltic Office (country constituency of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden )--ED controls only 4.94 % of votes

• Knowledge Production and dissemination:

• Borrowers heavily from of what scholars such as Stephen Gill, Susanne Soederberg, refer to as ‘organic intellectuals’ of global capital (e.g. in the case of SAPs and the theme of ‘Good Governance”, Deepak Lal and Goran Hyden respectively)

• In addition, has its own research unit insulated from the wider ‘market’ of ideas.

• Example: Globalization III, In its research and policy unit produces and generates ideas mainly ideas that strengthens and supports neo-liberal economic and political restructuring.

• International Monetary Fund

• Establishment in 1944.

• Primary Tasks: to monitor and manage a system of stable exchange rates in which the value of all currencies was based on gold and the US dollar.

• -provide countries with short-term financing from its vast reserves to help them overcome temporary balance of of foreign currencies and g

• In 1971, after President Nixon unilaterally abandoned the gold standard, the main responsibility of the IMF has been short-

• term loans for balance-of-payments deficits

• IMF organization structure:

• 180 member countries

• membership is open to any country that conducts its own foreign policy and is willing to adhere to the IMF charter of rights and obligations

• Each member country contributes a certain amount of money called a quota subscription.– Form a pool of money that the IMF can draw

from to lend to member countries in financial difficulties

–

• -they are the basis for determining how much money a member country can borrow from the IMF in periodic allocations (known as special drawing rights). The more a member contributes, the more it can borrow.

• -they determine the voting power of the member

• Largest quotas and votes of 2002

• Country % of Fund total votes

• United States 17.16

• Japan 6.16

• Germany 6.02

• France 4.97

• UK 4.97

• For comparison:

– The African country with the largest quota is South Africa, which holds 0.87 %

• As with the World Bank, the remaining member countries are organized in country constituencies.

• IMF: Roots of its power

• -its Surveillance function (motors the economic activities of every country)

• Conditional lending

• Close links to core countries

Regulating International Trade

• 1947-1993- General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT regime)– Carter of the General Agreement on Tariffs and

Trade signed in 1947– Objective: to encourage the liberation of world

trade by preventing a repetition of the protectionist and other discriminatory trade policies that deepened the economic crisis of the 1930s.

• -Throughout its 48 years history, GATT remained a multilateral treaty (with a weak institutional framework) under which decisions could only be taken only by “contracting parties acting jointly.”

-Compare this to the World Bank--could act on its own without continuous

approval by its members.)

•

• GATT regime- eight rounds of multilateral trade agreements all geared to reducing barriers to global trade.– First six rounds of negotiations reduced average

tariffs in developed countries 40% to about 8 (Laird and Yeats, 1990)

– Tokyo round (7th) (reduced nontariff barriers-e.g. government procurement requirements,

• restrictive licensing procedures, health and safety all deemed as obstacles to world trade)– Removal of non-tariffs barriers important since

decrease in average tariff rates in the core countries led to increase of non-tariff barriers.

The creation of the WTO

• Rise of protectionalism (1970s)

– Reasons:• the two oil shocks

• entry of new and efficient exporters in world markets (competitive pressure on the industries of most major trading countries).

• Weakness of the GATT regime– Limited institutional scope

• WTO (Final Act of the Uruguay Round)– Preamble: – promote economic growth and well-being– Less developed countries (LDCs) share in the

growth of trade– Strengthen the GATT agreement– protect and preserve environment

• Scope and functions of WTO:

• -to provide the common institutional framework encompassing all WTO GATT, Uruguay Round agreements.

• Administers trade agreements in goods (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade);

• agreements on trade in services (General agreement on Trade in services-GATS);

• -Administers TRIPS (Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights--monitors rights of copyright and patent holders);

• -Global investment (Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS)

• -provide framework for administration and implementation of agreements

• -forum for further negotiations

• -dispute-settlement system

• -trade policy review mechanism

• WTO is the link between contemporary commitment to the liberation of trade and nation-state policy frameworks on issues such as, environment protection, health and food safety.

• Global trade disputes– since 1995 WTO has handled 220 (GATT 200

disputes 1947-1994 trade disputes (e.g, Europe ban on hormone-treated beef, use of offshore tax havens by US exports, US ban on “turtle-unsafe shrimps, banana imports to the EU (Jens L. Mortensen, 2002).

• -promote greater coherence among member’s economic policies

• WTO’s Structure:

• -General Council plus councils on goods, services,

• -Ministerial Conference

• Secretariat

• Single Dispute Settlement Body for all GATT agreements.

• WTO and the global economic power structure:

– Enormous power in regulating trade due its expansive mandate and its disputes-settlement system.

• The United Nations: