The GW Center for the Study of Globalization
2033 K Street, NW, Suite 230 • Washington, DC 20052 • Phone: (202) 994-5206 • Fax: (202) 994-5284
Email: gwcsg@gwu.edu • http://gstudynet.org/
What explains the emergence and forms of new global governance regimes? Social scientists engaged in the globalization debates emphasize three main answers: the diffusion of ideas, the pressures of efficiency forces and the market power of leading countries. We believe the standard approaches systematically underestimate the European Union's importance. Cooperation among western European governments over five decades has produced a dense layer of regional governance that regulates commercial activity and integrates national political economies. The EU increasingly speaks with a single voice on economic policy and usually arrives at international negotiations having already hashed out a regional solution. We hypothesize that EU factors have significantly shaped new global governance regimes.
In stark contrast to standard approaches, we conceptualize the EU as a polity in motion as well as a strategic global actor and expect that its influence depends on the nature of European integration itself. Our starting place is a classic question associated with increasing levels of cross-border interdependence. When economic activity spills across borders and exposes differences between national regulatory systems, what types of new governance forms are likely to emerge and why?
We have narrowed the question by focusing on the formal and informal rules governing transatlantic economic and financial activity, a critical subset and often the origins of any global governance regime, and will compare four recent cases in which increased transatlantic interdependence has brought differing governance regimes into sharp relief. Two come from the financial sectors—accounting standards and competition rules for securities exchanges—and two from sectors rooted in the electronic technology revolution—personal data privacy regimes and regulations governing online content. By comparing the cases over time, we seek to explain an array of outcomes including regimes based on mutual recognition, negotiated new standards, informal harmonization and national discretion. Economic globalization and European integration are among the most important trends of the late-twentieth-century international political economy. We want to understand how the two historical trajectories intersect.
Elliot Posner, Assistant Professor of Political Science
The GW Center for the Study of Globalization
2033 K Street, NW, Suite 230 • Washington, DC 20052 • Phone: (202) 994-5206 • Fax: (202) 994-5284
Email: gwcsg@gwu.edu • http://gstudynet.org/