| Review of: | The new economic diplomacy: decision-making and negotiation in international economic relations by Nicholas Bayne, Stephen Woolcock |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Mikhail A. Molchanov |
| Reviewed in: | International Affairs |
| Date accepted online: | 27/07/2004 |
| Published in print: | Volume 80, Issue 2, Pages 367-414 |
International and national political economy, economics and development
While economic diplomacy as such is ages old, its academic study is quite recent. Among roughly a dozen books on the subject you may find in a first-class academic library, the present volume will stand out if only because it is up to date, relatively comprehensive and targets the policy-making community to no lesser extent than students and academics.
It is a textbook nonetheless. Used in a graduate class in the International Relations department of the London School of Economics, the book is a multi-authored volume that cannot avoid being at times repetitive and at times exceedingly scholastic. Its theoretical chapters, excellent though they are, offer a familiar roster of realism-liberalism, state-centred and society-centred approaches, state and non-state actors, linkages and two-level games. Great for a student, these chapters will hardly excite a reader hunting for a theoretically innovative study. Such a reader would probably be happier seeing a bit less of Putnam and Odell, both cited profusely, and a bit more of the authors' original theorizations.
The book correctly observes that the subject matter of economic diplomacy arises at the cross-roads between international political economy and International Relations (IR) theory, on the one hand, and organization theory and theories of negotiation, on the other. It stands to reason that such a complex subject can be treated from more than one angle. While economistic reasoning and IR liberalism are bound to occupy centre stage, the book could use insights of conflict sociology, or try an explicitly normativist or social interactionist viewpoint. Back to the debate in IR theory, it could have benefited from a social constructivist perspective. The scramble of the 'big eight' for reconstruction contracts in Iraq invites the resurgence of neo-Marxist theorizations, which, although many times pronounced dead, may yet surprise the reader with the uncanny relevance of certain classic texts to the post-September 11 situation. The currently fashionable talk of a US 'empire', incidentally launched by the IR liberals, presents some pointers for a more critical discourse on the subject.
Unfortunately, none of these promising avenues of research are recognized as such in either theoretical or 'practical' chapters. Instead, the tone and the argument of the book are rather mainstream in both methodological and ideological senses of the word. A reader interested in alternatives to the liberal perspective on the issues of global political economy will be searching these chapters in vain. Both dependency and world systems theories are given short shrift, Marx is nowhere to be seen, and the word 'imperialism' is thoroughly eschewed. This is undeniably a business-friendly book, which takes free trade as 'the greater good for the greater number' and dismisses public concern over globalization's blindness to underprivileged nations and groups as self-serving attempts to 'overload the trading system with all manner of social democratic objectives held dear only in Europe' (p. 155). As if all those supporters of state-led development since Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List were motivated solely by social democratic values.
In the era of rapidly rising (and potentially hostile) regional trade blocs, the idea of global free trade deserves a more nuanced exposition. Authors could spend more time and effort dealing with the subject of economic nationalism, as manifested through persistent protectionist temptations in the West and mounting opposition to the neo-liberal policy blueprint in the developing world. Although it would be unfair to say that the Washington Consensus drives all the chapters equally, the neo-liberal institutionalist paradigm clearly dominates the book. Nicholas Bayne does note the 'dark side of globalisation', and both authors dwell on the necessity to reconcile efficiency and accountability, particularly with regard to a growing demand for greater transparency in international trade negotiations. Yet, occasional traces of other viewpoints and 'deviant' methodologies do not significantly change the picture of 'globalisation's undoubted benefits' (p. 289).
The case-studies are mostly written by practitioners and read well. They are particularly revealing in terms of minutiae of the preparation of economic summits (chs 7-8), administrative and cultural aspects of negotiation processes (chs 11-13), the significance of economic diplomacy for developing nations (ch. 15) and the central place that international financial and trade institutions occupy in today's increasingly globalized world (chs 16-17).
Overall, this is a well-written and well-edited book. It can be recommended to both students and practitioners involved with international negotiations over various aspects of trade relations, international business and commerce. However, as a textbook, it goes a bit far in smoothing out the edges of the ongoing debate between supporters and protesters of globalization with an American face. It tends to underplay the intensity of existing tensions between the rich North and poor South. It leaves some important issues, such as China's growing role and influence in international trade or the creeping decline of the US, out of focus. In light of recent events, it might have benefited from a more extensive treatment of the EU-US trade contradictions, or from an analysis, however brief, of the telling failure of the Cancun ministerial meeting.