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International Affairs
January 1999
Russia’s economic crisis in the summer of 1998 has renewed debate as to whether the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has helped, hindered or been irrelevant to economic transition in the core of the former Soviet Union. The authors examine the relationship between the Fund and Russia over the past ten years, highlighting a mixed record of successes, failures and the limits of the Fund’s role.They argue that the institution may well have also inadvertently faciliated the rise of political forces which are today opposed to the second phase of reforms which Russia so desperately needs. In conclusion, the authors question whether the IMF ought to continue to lead Western attempts to foster stability and growth in Russia.
Nigel Gould-Davies is Lecturer in Politics at Hertford College, University of Oxford. He is the author of ‘Nizhnii Novgorod: the dual structure of political space’ in Growing pains: Russian democracy and the election of 1993, edited by Timothy J. Colton and Jerry F. Hough (1998). He is completing a study on ‘the logic of ideational agency: the Soviet experience in world politics’.
Ngiare Woods is Fellow and Lecturer in Politics at University College, Oxford. She is co-editor (with Andrew Hurrell) of Inequality, globalization and world politics (forthcoming 1999) and is currently working on a book about ‘The politics of the IMF and the World Bank’.
This article examines the concepts of democracy and legitamacy in the context of post-Soviet Cental Asia. Its first argument is that democratization projects have lived through hard times in five Central Asian countries despite the failure of the institutional expression of democrary to incorporate the values and structures of these societies. The Soviet legacy of cynicism combined witht local conservative political culture obstructs the emergence of democratic values and processes crucial for successful institutional development. If democracy does not provide a basis for political legitimacy, should the conclusion be that the ruling regimes are illegitimate?
The article’s second argument is that the current sources of legitamacy stem from the fact that the regimes managed to cope with the initial challenges of post-communist transition with relative success and laid the foundation of the new states. Moreover, the populaitons do not see viable alternatives to the present order. However, there are new problems, such as mounting social tensions, regionalization and criminalization of politics. These challenges are largely a by-product of developments in the post-independence era. The continuing legitamacy of the regimes will depend on their ability to cope with these new, hightly problematic issues.
Anna Matveeva is a Research Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. She was formerly Head of the former Soviet Union Programme at the London-based NGO International Alert. She is the author of The North Caucasus: Russia’s fragile borderland (forthcoming 1999).
In late 1994 and 1995, senior figures on both sides of the Atlantic advocated a transatlantic free trade area: in December 1995 the EU and the United States signed the New transatlantic agenda and the Joint EU–US action plan in Madrid; in March 1998, the European Commission proposes a ‘new transatlantic marketplace’, which was vetoed by France in the following month; and in September 1998 the Commisssion offered its latest plan—the Draft action plan for transatlantic economic partnership. This article examines the political and economic case for new institutions, drawing on the arguments the Commission used to support its proposal for a new transatlantic marketplace. These arguments are found to be unpersuasive. For an EU stance in trade policy matters to be improved by a French veto may be unprecedented. That is what has happened, however. The French veto actually led to the Draft action plan which provides transatlantic trade relations with a better framework that the proposal for a new transatlantic marketplace could possibly have done.
Brian Hindley is a Principal of LECG Ltd, the economic consultants. He is also a consultant on trade policy issues to a number of international organizations and Emeritus Reader in Trade Policy Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author (with Patrick A. Messerlin) of Antidumping industrial policy (1996) and ‘The regulation of imports from transition economies by the European Union’ in Policies on imports from economies in transition, edited by Peter Ehrenhaft, Brian Hindley, Constantine Michalopolos and L. Alan Winters (1997).
This article provides an overview of the issues involved in international efforts to open and restructure markets for financial services and to ensure adequate regulation and supervision of financial firms. It discusses the liberalization in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the first global trade agreement to cover financial and other services, and the roles of various international fora in strengthening national regulatory and supervisory systems and enhancing cooperation and coordination between supervisors. The article emphasizes that measures to liberalize trade in financial services and measures to strengthen prudential regulation and supervision are complementary and mutually reinforcing.
Sydney J. Key is on the staff of the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of International Finance, Washington DC. In the 103rd US Congress (1993–94) she was staff director of the Sub-Committee on Internationl Development, Finance, Trade and Monetary Policy of the House Banking Committee. She is an adjunct Professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University and a Lecturer at the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law Studies at Boston University School of Law. Her publications include Financial services in the Uruguay Round and the WTO (1997).
One of the most enduring ideas about the Northern Ireland conflict is that it has been rigorously studied. This is a myth. The stark absence of analysis of its military and international dimensions makes the conflict one of the least understood of modern times. Scholarly studies of Northern Ireland have been insulated from influences in the wider academic world by the dominance of hitherto unchallenged images about the crisis. These images support a dominant orthodoxy that has confirmed intellectual investitgation of the ‘Troubles’ to Northern Ireland itself, sustaining a view that little of value can be gained from studying the military nature of the conflict. This orthodoxy is one to which, depressingly, the international relations community has been only too willing to contribute to justify its fear and neglect. Not only does this reflect poorly on academic practice but it has also helped to engender a dangerously distorted image of the conflict that bodes ill for the future.
M. L. R. Smith is Lecturer in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and Principal Consultant to the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the author of Fighting for Ireland? The military strategy of the Irish Republican Movement (1995).
British Universities have, in recent years, come under increasing pressure to respond to ‘international’ and ‘global’ trends. This affects student composition, professional standards and research orientation, as well as competitiveness in research and the provision of facilities. This article sets the internationalization in historical context, identifies different meanings of the word ‘international’ and argues that in three key areas—language competence, area studies and information technology—current policies may be mistaken. The author concludes with a critical account of how factors external to the university may inhibit, rather than promote, fulfilment of its international responsibilities.
Fred Halliday is Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. From 1989 to 1992 he was Chairman of the Research Committee of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. A regular contributor to the media, he has written on international relations theory, the Cold War and Middle East politics. His books include Rethinking international relations (1994), and Revolution and world politics: the rise and decline of the sixth Great Power (forthcoming 1999).
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