 An illiberal economic order: commitment mechanisms become tools of authoritarian coercionNikhil Kalyanpur Review of International Political Economy, 2023, vol. 30, issue 4, 1238-1254 Abstract: Globalization did not negate state power. It changed the toolkit. We expected the norms and incentives of the liberal economic order to push regimes in places like China and Russia to democratize. Instead, authoritarianism appears to be thriving. This article argues that authoritarians have learned how to take advantage of the institutions underpinning globalization for their own illiberal ends. They use courts in major economic powers to negate the effects of international institutions and to target their political competition. They subvert our expectations by repurposing the basic premises of liberalism – predictability and openness. The article demonstrates these claims by examining how the institutions of multiple international economic regimes, which were designed as constraints, have been turned into offensive tools. The findings illustrate that International Political Economy (IPE) scholars need to begin analyzing how governments learned these tactics and whether we can reconcile the contradictions they exploit. Date: 2023 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:30:y:2023:i:4:p:1238-1254 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2023.2211280 Access Statistics for this article Review of International Political Economy is currently edited by Gregory Chin, Juliet Johnson, Daniel Mügge, Kevin Gallagher, Ilene Grabel and Cornelia Woll More articles in Review of International Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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