Economic Liberalism and Its Rivals: The Formation of International Institutions among the Post-Soviet States

by Keith A. Darden

• ISBN13: 9780521866538
• ISBN10: 0521866537
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-02-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

This book examines the critical role that the economic ideas of state leaders play in the creation and maintenance of the international economic order. Drawing on a detailed study of the fifteen post-Soviet states in their first decade of independence, interviews with key decision-makers and the use of closed ministerial archives, the book explores how the changing ideas of state officials led countries to follow one of three institutional paths: rapid entry into the World Trade Organizaiton, participation in a regional Customs Union based on their prior Soviet ties, or autarky and economic closure. In doing so, the book traces the decisions that shaped the entry of these strategically important countries into the world economy and provides a novel theory of the role of ideas in international politics. As a dynamic study of ideas and institutions based on a relatively large number of countries in a controlled setting, this book is the first of its kind.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables page	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Theory and Methodology
A Natural Experiment	p. 3
A Theory of International Order	p. 23
Three International Trajectories	p. 51
Liberalism and Its Rivals: History, Typology, and Measurement	p. 84
Contingent Selection and Systematic Effects: Country-Level Analyses of Elite Selection, Ideational Change, and Institutional Choice, 1991-2000
The Baltic States and Moldova	p. 125
Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine	p. 150
The Caucasus	p. 184
Central Asia	p. 200
Comparing Cases
Alternative Explanations and Statistical Tests	p. 231
Smoking Guns: A Causal History of Institutional Choice	p. 261
Conclusions and Implications of the Analysis	p. 306
Measurement and Coding of Economic Ideas - Additional Tests	p. 317
Interviews Conducted by the Author	p. 321
Bibliography	p. 329
Index	p. 345
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