Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order

Paul Tucker

Published by Princeton University Press 2022

Global Discord

Values and Power in a Fractured World Order

Paul Tucker

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691232096

Overview
Contents

About this book

How to sustain an international system of cooperation in the midst of geopolitical struggle

Can the international economic and legal system survive today’s fractured geopolitics? Democracies are facing a drawn-out contest with authoritarian states that is entangling much of public policy with global security issues. In Global Discord, Paul Tucker lays out principles for a sustainable system of international cooperation, showing how democracies can deal with China and other illiberal states without sacrificing their deepest political values. Drawing on three decades as a central banker and regulator, Tucker applies these principles to the international monetary order, including the role of the U.S. dollar, trade and investment regimes, and the financial system.

Combining history, economics, and political and legal philosophy, Tucker offers a new account of international relations. Rejecting intellectual traditions that go back to Hobbes, Kant, and Grotius, and deploying instead ideas from David Hume, Bernard Williams, and modern mechanism-design economists, Tucker describes a new kind of political realism that emphasizes power and interests without sidelining morality. Incentives must be aligned with values if institutions are to endure. The connecting tissue for a system of international cooperation, he writes, should be legitimacy, creating a world of concentric circles in which we cooperate more with those with whom we share the most and whom we fear the least.

Author / Editor information

Paul Tucker is a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and the author of Unelected Power (Princeton). He is a former central banker and regulator at the Bank of England, and a former director at Basel’s Bank for International Settlements, where he chaired some of the groups designing reforms of the international financial system after the Global Financial Crisis.

Reviews

“With a thoughtful analysis that is remarkably wide and deep in scope, Paul Tucker offers an insightful liberal response to systemic global problems that have been the traditional focus of realists in international relations.”—Roger Myerson, Nobel Laureate in Economics

“Tucker develops a totally novel theory of international relations that foregrounds conditions of cooperation and gives priority to the questions of legitimacy and the legitimation of power. A highly valuable contribution to realist political thought.”—Matt Sleat, author of Liberal Realism

“In this extraordinarily impressive book, Paul Tucker makes a strong case for how the international economy should be dealt with in the context of geopolitics. Tucker is a rare thinker, combining in-depth knowledge in economics, political science, and moral and political philosophy with extensive experience at the highest levels of international finance. I know of no one else who could have written a book of the scope and depth of Global Discord.”—Allen Buchanan, Duke University

“Paul Tucker writes with the erudition of a scholar and the realism of a practitioner. Connecting political theory, economics, history, and international relations, he sketches possible futures for the global system while nudging the reader toward an international order that must pass a legitimacy test within democracies. This book packs a powerful argument—common sense yet radical in its implications.”—Dani Rodrik, author of Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
1. Introduction. Geopolitics and Legitimacy in a Globalized World Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. History International Order, Law, And Organizations In A Eurocentric World
2, A European Order: From Christendom to the League Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
3. A Leadership-Based International System Is Built and Adapts: From World War II and Its Horrors to Judicialized International Law, Financial Crisis, and War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
4. Geoeconomics within Geopolitics: China and the West Today, and Scenarios for Tomorrow Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
Part II. Framework: International Institutions, Regimes, Organizations, And Society
5. International Policy Coordination and Cooperation: Humean Conventions and Norms Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
6. Institutions for Cooperation: Equilibria, Regimes, and Organizations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
7. Order, System, and Society: From Self-Enforcing Order to an International Society of Designed Substantive Law? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
Part III. Geopolitics With Geoeconomics Order, “Civilizational” Tensions, And A Dislocated International System
8. Varieties of Order and System: The Contingent Societal Stability of an Institutionalized Hierarchy with American European Roots Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
9. Rising Powers, Norms, and Geopolitics: Party-Led China’s Self-Identity and US Political Nativism as Risks to System and Order Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	214
10. Wishful Thinking: Policy Robustness, Resilience, and Legitimacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Part IV. Legitimacy: Values And Principles For International Order And System
11. Sovereignty and the Globalization Trilemma: Universalist versus Pluralist International Law and System in a World of Civilizational States Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
12. Legitimacy and Legitimation: A Humean-Williamsian Framework Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267
13. Political Realism in International Relations: Order versus System in a World of Concentric Legitimation Circles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	294
14. Principles for Constitutional Democracies Legitimately Delegating to International Organizations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337
Part V. Applications: Reforms To The International Economic System During Shifting Geopolitics
15. Legitimacy for a Fragile International Economic System Facing Fractured Geopolitics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	359
16. The International Monetary Fund and the International Monetary Order: An Exercise in Excessive Discretion with Missing Regimes? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	378
17. The World Trade Organization and the System for International Trade: Is Judicialized Universalism Unsustainable Because Illegitimate? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	401
18. Preferential Trade Pacts and Bilateral Investment Treaties: Security First, or Globalization via Mimesis? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	419
19. Basel and the International Financial System: Are the Tower’s Denizens Too Powerful? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	434
20. Conclusions. Global Discord: Between Disagreement and Conflict Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	454
Appendix: Principles for Constitutional Democracies Participating and Delegating in International System Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	475
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	485
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	487
Name Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	515
Subject Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	519
A Note on the Type Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	535