Fellowships: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

 

MacArthur Multilateralism Dissertation Fellows, 1996-97

Rhonda Evans, Sociology: The Creation of Environmental and Labor Side Agreements under NAFTA. The passage of NAFTA in 1993 broke important new ground for multilateral trade agreements. NAFTA was the first regional free trade agreement between a developing country and an economic superpower, and it remains the proposed model for greater linkage between U.S. and other Latin American markets. Not only was NAFTA the first agreement to explicitly address environmental issues in the negotiation process, but it also established a new standard for the enforcement of labor law. The inclusion of environmental and labor concerns raises fundamental questions about the role of NGOs, appropriate issue focus, and the formation of state interests in the creation of multilateral regimes. Further, the relatively greater success of environmental groups suggests that environmental politics may be more effective than distributional politics in a multilateral forum. This dissertation will therefore examine what factors enabled environmental groups to gain greater concessions than organized labor in NAFTA's side agreements. Ms. Evans will further explore what this disparity suggests for the future of environmental and labor concerns about multinational trade regimes.
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Anne-Maria Herbert, Jurisprudence & Social Policy: Normative Development through International Organization: The League of Nations and the Evolution of Human Rights Law, 1919-1945. The dissertation examines how international organizations contribute to multilateral normative development in international relations. It is a comparative study of the League of Nations' social and humanitarian work in three areas, all forerunners of the modern human rights movement: 1) the creation of international refugee law, 2) the development of international law prohibiting trafficking in women and children and 3) the campaign to establish basic international health standards. The cases developed along similar lines to current multilateral responses to human rights issues: an initial recognition of the need to coordinate state action; the development of international community norms that prescribe how states should treat their residents; and the conclusion that implementation required a "national solution," and that the international community's role should be to develop strategies to "encourage" state compliance with international standards. The purpose of the dissertation is two-fold: first, to examine how norms developed in these areas through the activities of international and non-governmental organizations; and, second, to analyze how these norms in turn influence behavior both at the national and international levels. In particular, it will investigate the causal role of international organizations -- in providing a forum for bargaining among states, empowering non-state actors, and encouraging social learning -- as well as highlight the impediments to implementing new norms.
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Nicholas Jabko, Political Science: The New Europe and the Market: The Power and Limits of Supranational Liberalism. Freer markets, more power to Brussels? The liberal economic agenda of the 1980s turned out to be a powerful springboard for the recent leap of political integration in Europe; yet, in the mid-1990s, the European integration process once again appears to be stalled. This thesis will spell out a political dynamic which simultaneously accounts for the depth and for the limitations of the process of political integration cum economic liberalization. It will highlight the role of the European Commission, acting out a doctrine of economic liberalization, as the hidden hand behind the Single Market.
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