Naming and Shaming

Direct from the G20 summit:

A commitment to "name and shame" countries that renege on free trade agreement.

If protectionism stems from domestic political pressure, will international "shame" only increase a politician's payoff to trade closure?  A leader (or legislature) gets a lot of political mileage out of protecting their constituency from the big, bad, greedy world.  But, that political capital skyrockets when that leader/legislature does so in the face of international pressure to do other wise.  

I predict lots of David vs. Goliath analogies in the months to come.  Just another reminder that audience costs cut both ways - they can constrain or embolden.

G20 Results

Read summaries here, here here, here or here, ou ici.
Read the communique here.

What do Summiters Eat?

The official menu [at Friday night's pre-summit meal] included fruitwood-smoked quail, thyme-roasted rack of lamb and baked Vermont brie with walnut crostini, along with three wines.

Comments reflect public outrage: "The insensitivity of the Bush White House, even in its last days, never ceases to amaze me. ..According to news reports last night, they serve a wine costing about $300 a bottle? Now, I'm all in favor of wine with dinner, it's a healthy, civilized drink -- but $300 a bottle? There are a wide range of perfectly acceptable wines in the $15-$25 range. But how typical, at a time when many Americans are scaling back, when there are many who go to bed hungry each night, both here and abroad, the Bush Administration spends $300 a bottle on wine."

Right, like world leaders will drink $15 wine...and are the Dems really moins rafinée?

Two quick reads...

Gordon Brown calls on governments to resist protectionism--hear that Nancy, Harry, and Barry?
The Economist provides a very nice overview of issues at play in the weekend summit. I think they discuss the issues in reverse order of importance, but oh well...

Problems, Proposals, and Positions

Lots of posts this weekend on the G20 Summit, the timing of which dovetails nicely with current focus of my IPE class. Here is some background reading.

The Problem at Hand and some proposed solutions. (This is an ebook; I don't expect you to read it all).

Position Taking
Concise overview of EU position.
But then there is the Gordon Brown complication.
The so-called BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The United States.
And of course the president-elect Obama complication.

Commentaries
Why we should aim high (Mallaby on why we need a bigger IMF).
Why we should have low expectations.

...and this is my other brother Darryl

The international community urgently needs an international institution to coordinate the naming of international bodies. The task is urgent because effective international cooperation depends in part upon the names we give to international bodies. Governments have proven that they are unable to efficiently name these bodies on their own.

The G20 Summit, scheduled for Washington, DC this weekend, illustrates the nature of the problem. Which G20 is summitting? The G20 that coordinates positions of developing country agriculture exporters and acts as a negotiating block in the WTO? Nope, not that one. The summitting G20 is the one that "promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability." Left to themselves, therefore, governments have assigned the same name to two international bodies with different memberships and completely different purposes.

A name's purpose is to differentiate. This is why the old (Bob) Newhart Show always got laughs from the line, "Hi, I'm Larry. This is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl. It's also why we laugh upon learning that George Foreman has named all five of his sons George.

Our laughter arises from the recognition that the failure to pick names that differentiate creates confusion. Consider the confusion associated with calling a G20 Summit. Which governments should attend? Do Brazil and China--members of both--send their trade or finance ministers? What agenda items should these officials prepare to discuss? Where should they go? The potential for wasteful travel (and unecessary greenhouse gas emissions) and confused and unproductive meetings is apparent. This is inefficient--very high transactions costs. This is no way to run the world.

A new international organization could eliminate such confusion (reduce transactions costs) by ensuring that each international body has a unique name. In addition, this new IO might encourage greater creativity in names. International civil servants could create alternatives to the popular "G-followed by a number" (G4; G5, G7 G8; G20, G20, G77, etc) or equally popular "Roman-numbers-appended-to-existing-names" (e.g., Bretton Woods II). If the civil servants lacked the requisite creativity, they could just keep a ledger to ensure that in a world of infinite "G-followed by a number" possibilities, each group is assigned a unique "G-followed by a number" name.

The need for this initiative grows more pressing each year as governments expand the range of issues subject to international cooperation. Without action, current confusion will grow exponentially. Eventually, government officials will routinely show up at the wrong place prepared to discuss the wrong issues. We must act now.