Regional Financial Arrangements in the Global Financial Safety Net: The Arab Monetary Fund and the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development

The so‐called global financial safety net provides backstop insurance during financial crises. The three elements of the global safety net — the IMF, regional financial arrangements (RFAs) and bilateral swap agreements — underwent substantial changes after the global financial crisis. How have these changes influenced their use? What role do RFAs have in the safety net? This contribution addresses these questions by examining the timeliness, volume and policy conditionality of liquidity provision of each of the three elements, using a data set of 50 RFA member countries from the period 1976–2015. The article presents case studies of the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) and the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD) to create a deeper institutional understanding of the governance mechanisms of regional funds. The authors find that today's global financial safety net produces inequalities in emergency liquidity provision. In terms of volume, RFAs improve the safety net only for small member countries — about one‐third of the countries in the sample can access sufficient liquidity regionally. The experiences of AMF and EFSD demonstrate that intra‐regional asymmetries of RFAs play a contradictory role: while the participation of large economies leverages liquidity provision, it simultaneously creates difficulties for the governance of the regional body.     

The New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: China's Ambiguous Approach to Global Financial Governance

The creation of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has generated a great deal of attention and controversy in the development community and beyond. Do these banks indicate that China is promoting a new model of multilateral development finance that undermines the existing system dating back to Bretton Woods? What are the forces shaping China's policy choices in this area? In contrast to the prevailing tendency to view these banks as part and parcel of the same challenge or opportunity for multilateral development financing, this article highlights major distinctions between the NDB and the AIIB. The fact that China is playing a prominent role in both the NDB and the AIIB suggests that China is not promoting a coherent new model of multilateral development financing, but is instead straddling different traditions in this realm of global financial governance. The ambiguity in China's approach to multilateral development finance is shaped by its multiple identities and complex economic and political interests.     

The Rise of Territorial Governance in European Policy

The notion of territorial governance has relatively recently emerged onto the European policy agenda, and often used in relation to the concept of territorial cohesion. To date, the notion has been understood and conceptualized in various ways and has been defined rather loosely when invoked. This paper examines how the notion is used and understood in European policy debates. It questions whether the notion is different to general concepts of governance and multi-level governance. Three specific characteristics are suggested that might distinguish territorial governance from other types of governance: (i) managing territorial dynamics, (ii) assessing territorial impacts and (iii) delineating policy boundaries.     

Globalizing China: The Rise of Mainland Firms in the Global Economy

Two economic geographers survey the changing trends of China's outward foreign direct investment. Based on materials derived from original field work as well as published studies, they shed light on the major mechanisms through which mainland China's leading firms have successfully ventured abroad, as evidenced by proposed or realized acquisitions of significant corporate entities in the United States, Africa, Europe, and elsewhere in Asia. The authors argue for a political-economy approach to understanding "globalizing China," a complex phenomenon whereby the Chinese state is strategically and intricately enmeshed with the corporate interests of its leading business firms. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F23, L21, L22, M16. 3 figures, 3 tables, 128 references.     

Explaining the Rise of Rural Governance in Europe

This paper develops a new institutional economics account of the broad issues of governance in European rural development. It is argued that rural governance is determined by rural development stakeholders' property rights which in turn reflect their interests in rural development. On this basis, rural governance is explained in terms of the property rights structures reflecting the growing commonness of interests of rural development stakeholders.     

区域经济地理学科的发展现状及其面临的革新任务

本文分析了区域经济地理学的发展现状,论述了区域经济地理学发展过程中需要处理好的几方面关系问题与面临的革新任务。     

Global Governance: Poorly done and Poorly Understood

A set of ethical issues—tensions between democratization and globalization, about some ways in which the global inequalities have increased, and about gross failures of contemporary international cooperation—provide reason to consider our understanding of global governance and the political forces organized to support or transform it. Many scholars agree on the existence of a global polity characterized by the dominance of neo-liberalism, the growing network of both public and private regimes that extend across the world's largest regions, the system of global intergovernmental organizations, and transnational organizations both carrying out some of the traditional service functions of global public agencies and working to create regimes and new systems of international integration. Scholars who emphasize the historically contingent social construction of human institutions and who focus on the transformative potential of transnational social movements have provided the greatest insight into what can be done to confront the ethical issues raised by contemporary global governance. Almost all analysts agree that the current great powers cannot be relied upon to facilitate progressive change, although that is only one reason why global governance is likely to remain inefficient and incapable of shifting resources from the world's rich to the poor, even though it may continue to play a role in promoting liberal democracy and the empowering of women.     

Urban Planning in Italy: The Future of Urban General Plan and Governance

This article aims to highlight and, whenever possible, demonstrate that the urban general plan is still the instrument of the utmost importance to trigger and steer urban transformations. Within the current Italian context, the article examines the characteristics, contradictions, weaknesses and opportunities of urban planning set of rules and practices and tries to propose concrete answers to questions and issues strictly connected that affect the municipality's urban planning: how to manage and govern a contemporary metropolis or city agglomeration, the concerns associated with overlapping jurisdictions and different rules for various hierarchical administrative levels, the costs of social and common services, the need to include in the urban plan the possible use of European Union Structural Funds, the real estate market affecting new development and urban regeneration programmes and investments. All these aspects should be included in a unifying and strong planning instrument, the urban plan, which could address and steer effectively the urban planning policies and their governance.     

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao: Between Regional Embeddedness and Global Networking

Abstract

This paper aims to show the levels of local and regional embeddedness of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (GMB) as well as its effects on the position of Bilbao within global networks. Although it is often said that the GMB as an international art franchise did not fit well with the local traditions, values and culture of Bilbao and the Basque Country, this paper attempts to show that the GMB is quite embedded into the local and regional context of institutions, private agents and policies. This effect increases with the growing recognition of the potential effects of the GMB on the creative and service industry in the Bilbao region. On the other hand, there is also an increasing tendency for Bilbao and the GMB to be included in global networks, as can be demonstrated by the branding effect of the GMB on the attraction of tourists or the increasing importance of the term “Bilbao” in semantic networks. The authors conclude with some recommendations on strengthening both the regional embeddedness and the global networking potential of museums in order to generate positive effects on urban regeneration and regional development.     

The Permeability of the Middle East: The Predicament of Regional and Global Forces: a Review Easy

Book reviewed in this article: Persistent Permeability? regionalism, localism, and globalization in the Middle East: by Bassel F. Salloukh and Rex Brynen, eds. A History of the Modern Middle East: by William L. Cleveland Middle East at the Crossroads: the Changing Political Dynamics and the Foreign Policy Challenges: by Manochehr Dorraj, ed. Conflict and Peace in the Middle East: National Perceptions and United States‐Jordan Relations: by Hatem Shareef Abu‐Lebdeh Nation‐Building: A Middle East Recovery Program: by Jerry M. Rosenberg     

Economic Globalization and Institutions of Global Governance

Economic globalization is reducing the significance of state boundaries. We have a global economy but lack the institutions necessary for a global polity. Unilateral action by a would–be hegemon is untenable in the long term and hence there is a need to discuss our institutions of global governance. The benefits and costs of globalization have been distributed asymmetrically, placing poor people in poor countries at a disadvantage, especially as regards the free movement of low–skilled labour and the creation of intellectual property rights. The World Trade Organization, a target of the critics of globalization, should be seen as a welcome extension of the rule of law to the international arena and a counterweight to unilateralism. More generally, global economic liberalism should be balanced by institutions which provide global public goods and international mechanisms to finance them. All of this implies a further weakening of state sovereignty and a need to ensure that global institutions are democratic and can be held accountable to people worldwide for their performance.     

Global Environmental Governance and the Challenge of Shadow States: The Impact of Illicit Sapphire Mining in Madagascar

The environment has become a key site of global governance because of its transboundary nature: forests, wildlife and oceans have all become central foci for networks of global governance which link international organizations, international financial institutions, states and non‐governmental organizations. This article examines how contemporary forms of global governance can be challenged and even subverted. It uses the concept of shadow states introduced by William Reno to explore how invisible global networks flow through developing states, to show how they constitute important political and economic interest groups, and to assess what kinds of environmental impact they have. It explores how powerful these networks are, and whether they are able to challenge or subvert attempts to manage, control or govern the environment. The author provides an analysis of the ways in which the clandestine networks of shadow states impact on conservation initiatives in the developing world, focusing on the features of global environmental governance and the problems posed by illicit gem mining and trafficking in Madagascar.     

The Sociopolitics of Archaeology in Quebec: Regional Developments within Global Trends

In the 1960s, archaeology was a newcomer to Quebec’s cultural francophone scene, and commercial archaeology made its first appearance at the end of the 1970s. Today, in a context of global chronic economic crisis, we intend to examine the effects of provincial and federal ideological and economic trends on the praxis of archaeology in Quebec. These include a progressive deregulation of the public sector by weakening the institutions through the termination of archaeological posts or/and non-replacement of retired archaeologists, and a progressive disengagement of the public sector through conditional regulation, accompanied by a lax attitude towards entrepreneurs, and stickler regulations for archaeologists. We present a series of current issues and examples in Quebec archaeology which illustrate these trends, in particular two case studies occurring in Montreal and Northern Quebec, respectively.     

Local and Regional Development in Global Value Chains,Production Networks and Innovation Networks: A Comparative Review and the Challenges for Future Research

Globalization as a process has developed exponentially over the past 20 years, generating multiple and opposite effects for local and regional development (LoRD). This has created both new opportunities as well as raising new threats for local actors, both public and private. This special issue sets out to consider the prospects for LoRD in this context. Our aim in the introductory article is to consider how globalization may bring about LoRD. We do this through a comparative review of three critical analytical frameworks that have been used in recent years to examine the changing dynamics of globalization and their consequences for local production systems, namely global value chains, global production networks and global innovation networks. We provide an overview of these distinct approaches, identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Our argument is not that any one of these approaches is necessarily “better” than the others, but rather that to formulate a more complete and dynamic territorial perspective on regional development in the context of globalization, there needs to be an attempt at (eclectically) integrating the elements of these three distinct frameworks. The article then goes on to show how individual contributions in this special issue push forward this agenda, drawing on these distinct analytical frameworks to consider the transformative prospects for LoRD.