Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould Recent documents in John A Gould en-us Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:20:27 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/9 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/9 Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:13:23 PDT This paper examines the primary policy initiatives of the Slovak government led by Prime Minister Robert Fico between 2006 and 2008. Fico's 2006 campaign rejected the perceived inequalities and injustices of his predecessor's liberal economic reforms and promised to build institutions of social democracy. His government has achieved a mixed record of success. Bound by the threat of capital flight and devaluation, the government adopted the euro on Jan 1, 2009-successfully fulfilling its predecessor's policy. Beyond this, the lack of any clear economic or social crisis - in fact, the success of his predecessor's reforms - weakened the case for a major rollback of policies. The Fico government thus never felt compelled to offer a coherent social-democratic policy vision appropriate to a small and extraordinarily open export economy. Some government measures have helped fix important institutional shortcomings, but as a whole, its measures have been disconnected, ad hoc, client-driven, often corrupt, and all too often, needlessly statist. Slovakia now faces a crisis of demand in its export markets. Its economy will recover with these markets. In the meantime, however, Slovakia has lost the chance to build socially-oriented institutions that would help it to better cope with the global market place. John A. Gould working paper http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/8 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/8 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:39:11 PST John A. Gould under review http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/7 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/7 Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:34:10 PST John A. Gould under review http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/6 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/6 Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:35:03 PDT This paper examines the political economy of the Orange Revolution in an effort to understand routes by which less democratic postcommunist countries might break with an illiberal status quo. The fusion of Ukraine's rent-seeking economic interests and illiberal political regime produced an unstable equilibrium that is poorly explained by two leading theoretical frameworks: 'market reform' and `political competition' theory. Only by combining key insights from each do we get a full explanation of the pressures that generated Ukraine's challenge to illiberalism in 2004. We examine this story with a particular focus on the crisis-prone nature of `competitive authoritarian regimes' and the related strategic calculations of business elites. John A. Gould published papers http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/5 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/5 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:30:55 PDT Hilary Appel published papers http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/4 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/4 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:27:07 PDT John A. Gould published papers http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/3 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/3 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:21:55 PDT Slovakia distinguished itself in the first half of this decade by launching a coherent set of economic reforms that limited government and transferred social and economic risk to individuals. We examine reforms in fiscal policy, pensions, the labour code, health care, investment, education and justice. While the surprise formation of a centre - right governing coalition in 2002 enabled Slovakia's 'neoliberal' turn, a close network of neoliberal policy makers and advisors from civil society organisations used the opportunity to push forward a compelling explanation of Slovak economic problems and promote a clear institutional design for fixing them. Sharon Fisher published papers http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/2 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/2 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:15:07 PDT Neoliberal market reformers stress the 'market building instincts' of private owners to justify rapid forms of property transformation under illiberal political conditions. Private owners demand the institutions of the selfrestraining state to protect property from various forms of expropriation and to enforce contracts. Legacy theorists counter that under illiberal political conditions, economic insiders are more likely to capture the benefits of privatization programs and then seek exemption from the rule of law rather than application of it. We employ a 'path contingency' approach to show that under illiberal, competitive authoritarian conditions, privatization recipients and other private economic agents are unlikely to demand the basic institutions of market democracy. Yet, this is by no means a stable set of affairs. Political inequality and its attendant rent-seeking behavior will likely delay or distort growth and can contribute to economic and political instability. Political crisis may follow as regimes face societal frustration and energized, united political oppositions. Such crises are moments of uncertainty and flux. Crises provide private economic agents in particular with an opportunity to reconsider their ties to an illiberal regime. This paper examines these propositions during illiberal regime crises in Serbia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. John A. Gould published papers http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/1 http://works.bepress.com/john_a_gould/1 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:02:22 PDT This paper applies the insights of obsolescing bargaining theory to a situation in which a host country interacted with both multinational corporations and an international organization, the World Bank. Drawing on resource curse literature and the Rubinstein bargaining model, we demonstrate the continued usefulness of obsolescing bargaining theory by explaining why the World Bank had to renegotiate its initial bargain with Chad in the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project. The paper explores how specific bargaining parameters changed over time in this case and suggests how resource curse dynamics and their impact on domestic politics might be particularly relevant for bargaining between host countries and international actors. The case study serves as a warning to international financial institutions and corporations alike with regard to the ways in which obsolescing bargains can arise in the contemporary global political-economy. John A. Gould published papers