Power and Global Economic Institutions

About this book

"This book contends that existing approaches leave out key aspects of the relationship between economic power and formal political power in multilateral economic institutions.Importantly,while existing works focus on either power or institutions as distinct realms,we must examine their intersection as well. Third,institutions mediate the importance of the inter-state distribution of economic power through institutional rules and conventions.Simply,institutional conventions denote well-established procedures and specific interpretations of rules for certain actions.Among the many conventions a single institution may embody,of interest here are those that concern formal political power,including the procedures for altering it.Reasonably,these existing rules and conventions determine the parameters,if not the content,of how members alter formal political power in the institution.Particularly,such rules may more often than not be a source for "incremental change" as opposed to more big-bang alterations (e.g.,Pierson 2004; Thelen and Mahoney 2010). Given that the literature currently lacks an integrative theory"--