Professor of Global Political Economy in the Department of Political Science and the Center for Global Change and Governance

Abridged résumé, December 2007

Philip G. Cerny was born in New York City. He is Professor of Global Political Economy in the Division of Global Affairs and Department of Political Science, Rutgers University-Newark (New Jersey, U.S.A). He studied at Kenyon College (Ohio) and the Institut d’Études Politiques (Paris), and received his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester (United Kingdom). He has previously taught in the U.K. at the Universities of York, Leeds and Manchester, and has also been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at Harvard University (Center for European Studies), the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (Paris), Dartmouth College, New York University, the Brookings Institution, and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (Cologne, Germany).

He is the author of The Politics of Grandeur: Ideological Aspects of de Gaulle’s Foreign Policy (Cambridge U.P, 1980; French edition, Flammarion, 1986) and The Changing Architecture of Politics: Structure, Agency and the Future of the State (Sage, 1990). He edited or co-edited four books in the 1980s on various aspects of French politics. More recently he is editor of Finance and World Politics: Markets, Regimes and States in the Post-Hegemonic Era (Edward Elgar, 1993), and co-editor of Power in Contemporary Politics: Theories, Practices, Globalizations (with Henri Goverde, Mark Haugaard and Howard H. Lentner) (Sage, 2000) and Internalizing Globalization: The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Erosion of National Models of Capitalism (with Susanne Soederberg and Georg Menz) (Palgrave, 2005).

His article “Globalization and the Changing Logic of Collective Action”, which originally appeared in International Organization (Autumn 1995), has been reprinted in Charles Lipson and Benjamin J. Cohen, eds., Theory and Structure in International Political Economy (MIT Press, 1999) and Jeffry A. Frieden and David A. Lake, eds., International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Power and Wealth (Routledge, 4th Edition, 2000).

More recently he has published a wide range of journal articles and book chapters, including:

    “Neoliberalism and Place: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Borders”, forthcoming in Bas Arts, Henk van Houtum and Arnoud Lagendijk, eds., State, Place, Governance: Shifts in Territoriality, Governmentality and Policy Practices (Berlin: Springer, 2008)
    “Embedding Neoliberalism: The Evolution of a Hegemonic Paradigm”, forthcoming in the Journal of International Trade and Diplomacy (Spring 2008)
    “The Governmentalization of World Politics”, forthcoming in Elinore Kofman and Gillian Youngs, eds., Globalization: Theory and Practice (London: Continuum, 3rd edition 2008), pp 221-236
    “Restructuring the State in a Globalizing World: Capital Accumulation, Tangled Hierarchies and the Search for a New Spatio-Temporal Fix”, review article, Review of International Political Economy, vol. 13, no. 4 (October 2006), pp. 679-695
    “Dilemmas of Operationalizing Hegemony”, in Mark Haugaard and Howard H. Lentner, eds., Hegemony and Power: Consensus and Coercion in Contemporary Politics (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books on behalf of the International Political Science Association, Research Committee No. 36 [Political Power], 2006), pp. 67-87

    “Plurality, Pluralism, and Power: Elements of Pluralist Analysis in an Age of Globalization”, in Rainer Eisfeld, ed., Pluralism: Developments in the Theory and Practice of Democracy (Opladen: Barbara Budrich on behalf of the International Political Science Association, Research Committee No. 16 [Socio-Political Pluralism], 2006), pp. 81-111
    “Different Roads to Globalization: Neoliberalism, the Competition State, and Politics in a More Open World” (jointly authored with Georg Menz and Susanne Soederberg), in Susanne Soederberg, Georg Menz and P.G. Cerny, eds., Internalizing Globalization: The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Erosion of National Models of Capitalism (Palgrave, 2005), pp. 1-30, and “Capturing  Benefits,  Avoiding  Losses: The United States, Japan and the Politics of Constraint”, in ibid., pp. 123-148
    “Political Globalization and the Competition State”, in Richard  Stubbs  and Geoffrey R. D. Underhill, eds., The Political Economy of the Changing Global Order (Oxford University Press, 3rd edn. 2005), pp. 376-386
    “Power, Markets and Authority: The Development of Multi-Level Governance in International Finance”, in Andrew Baker, Alan Hudson and Richard Woodward, eds., Governing Financial Globalization (Routledge, 2005)
    “Governance, Globalization and the Japanese Financial System: Resistance or Restructuring?”, in Glenn Hook, ed., Contested Governance in Japan (Routledge, 2005)
    “Terrorism and the New Security Dilemma”, U.S. Naval War College Review (Winter 2005)
    “Political Economy and the Japanese Model in Flux: Phoenix or Quagmire?”, New Political Economy, review article, vol. 9, no. 1 (March 2004), pp. 101-111
    “Globalisation and Public Policy Under New Labour” (with Mark Evans), Policy Studies (January 2004)
    “Globalisation and Social Policy” (with Mark Evans), in Nick Ellison and Chris Pierson, eds., New Developments in British Social Policy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
    “Globalization and Other Stories: Paradigmatic Selection in International Politics”, in Axel Hülsemeyer, ed., Globalization in the 21st Century: Convergence and Divergence (London: Palgrave), pp. 51-66, and “The Uneven Pluralization of World Politics”, in ibid., pp. 173-175
    “Webs of Governance and the Privatization of Transnational Regulation”, in David M. Andrews, C. Randall Henning and Louis W. Pauly, eds., Governing the World’s Money (Cornell University Press, 2002)
    “From ‘Iron Triangles’ to ‘Golden Pentangles’? Globalizing the Policy Process”, Global Governance (October 2001)
    “Structuring the Political Arena: Public Goods, States and Governance in a Globalizing World”, in Ronen Palan, ed., Contemporary Theories in the Global Political Economy:  Emerging Debates, Methodologies and Approaches (Routledge, 2000)
    “Globalisation and the Restructuring of the Political Arena: Paradoxes of the Competition State”, in Randall Germain, ed., Globalization and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000)
    “Political Agency in a Globalizing World: Toward a Structurational Approach”, European Journal of International Relations (December 2000)
    “The New Security Dilemma: Divisibility, Defection and Disorder in the Global Era”, Review of International Studies (October 2000)
    “Globalisation and the Erosion of Democracy”, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 36, no. 1 (August 1999), pp. 1-26
    “Globalization, Governance, and Complexity”, in Aseem Prakash and Jeffrey A. Hart, eds., Globalization and Governance (Routledge, 1999), pp. 184-208
    “Globalizing the Political and Politicizing the Global: International Political Economy as a Vocation”, New Political Economy, vol. 4, no. 1 (January1999), pp. 147-62
    “Neomedievalism, Civil War and the New Security Dilemma: Globalisation as Durable Disorder”, Civil Wars, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring), pp. 36-64



He is currently working on chapters for the Handbook of Power (Sage Publications for the IPSA Research Committee on Political Power) and the RIPE Handbook on International Political Economy, as well on a book project provisionally entitled Multi-Nodal Politics: Political Dynamics of a Globalizing World which is intended to develop the application of pluralist and neopluralist approaches – especially the concept of “political process” and the role of agency – to the study of globalization.

He is a past Chair of the International Political Economy Section of the International Studies Association and past member of the I.S.A.’s Long-Range Planning Committee, and has been a member of the Executive Committees of the British International Studies Association and the Political Studies Association of the U.K. He is on the editorial boards of the European Journal of International Relations, the Review of International Studies, the International Studies Quarterly, Civil Wars, the Journal of International Trade and Diplomacy and the Political Research Quarterly. He is a member of the Executive Boards of two Research Committees of the International Political Science Association—R.C. 16 (Socio-Political Pluralism) and R.C. 36 (Political Power).

Phil Cerny is also an interpreter of the traditional folk music of North America and the British Isles. His CD “Atlantic Passages” was released in 2004 by Hudson Records (U.S.A.) and Circuit Music (U.K.).

Global Warming Could Stifle Economic, Political Stability

Benjamin Olken, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that global warming is not just going to devastate agriculture in developing countries, the link between “high temperatures and poor growth is much stronger than we’d realised.”

Olken said that his team’s study is the first to link climate change with economic growth, reports New Scientist.

The authors say that high temperatures could even undermine scientific productivity.

If global temperatures rise as predicted, the economic gap between rich and poor nations will have doubled a decade from now. In 50 years’ time the gap will have widened 12-fold.

For the study, the team looked at how temperatures affected economic growth in the past 50 years.

The researchers found that while rich economies seemed resilient to temperature rises, the GDP of poor countries dropped by 1 per cent in years when those temperatures rose 1 °C or more above the regional average.

They also found that the number of scientific papers – a measure of innovation – also fell in poor countries in hot years, as did economic investment in the region.

Breakdown in government was more likely, as were political coups.

Olken said his results are consistent with other studies showing that high temperatures increase civil unrest, and that drought can lead to political instability.

Introduction to International Politics (POLS0400)

This course analyzes sources and patterns of conflict and cooperation in world politics. It focuses on realist, liberal, constructivist, feminist, and Marxist interpretations. The course considers global security and international political economy during the Cold War and beyond, concluding with an evaluation of efforts to prevent ethnic and civil conflict in contemporary world politics and to strengthen international cooperation in resolving common global issues.

Note: This introductory course is recommended for students in their first or second year of study at Brown, before they take most of the other required courses for the concentration. All IR concentrators must take POLS0400.

Global Political Economy: Theory and Practice (3rd edition)

This up-to-date book provides a balanced, in-depth background to main IPE theoretical approaches, examines IPE issues in historical perspective, and discusses domestic-international linkages.  Managing the Global Economy Since World War II: The Institutional Framework; The Realist Perspective; The Liberal Perspective; The Historical Structuralist Perspective; International Monetary Relations; Foreign Debt; Global Trade Relations; Regionalism and Global Trade Regime; Multinational Corporations and Global Production; International Development; Current Trends in the Global Political Economy.

Leadership and Global Mindset

In global companies, corporate leaders have to care and understand about the similarities and differences in the region or the country in terms of political, economic, legal, and cultural. Global leaders must try to work in different regions or countries and face a variety of economic conditions, political, social, and cultural. The global leader must always observe the global changes that occur so accustomed to change and uncertainty.

The global leader must understand the needs of local and international customers, varied needs of consumers become a source of corporate opportunities. According to Dekker, Jansen, and Vinkenbur there are four requirements that must be owned by a global leader:

    International work experience, the experience can help to understand the global perspective.
    Cross-cultural competence, the leader is able to accommodate all the needs of global customers and do joint relationship with diverse backgrounds.
    Leadership, global leader be professional and have the ability and knowledge that has been tested.
    Openness, a global leader must be open to the outside world. Leaders must consider themselves as part of the world as a whole, not just part of the region or country.

Global leaders believe that the market is not only limited in one region or country, but can penetrate the boundary region or country. The global leader must like traveling, the ability to share between private life and work, understand the diverse community, work effectively and have the ability to balance global strategy

Global Political Ekonomi

INTRODUCTION

A ground swell of Global protesters including labor unions, farmers, environmentalists, human rights activists and anarchists disrupts and aborts the World Trade Conference in Seattle in 1999.

The passage of a bill imposing heavy tariffs or import restrictions on a commodity in one country  affects  the economy and even the stability of the government of another country.

A rebellion in a province producing a scarce raw material in one country  disrupts the supply for the industry of another country, causing lay-offs and social disruption.

The decision by a government to make its currency not convertible on the international exchange market devalues its currency, making foreign goods expensive and causing inflation, but discourages foreign investment and protects local industry.

These are the kind of issues addressed on this site.

This site deals with intertwined global economic and political issues. The emphasis on intertwined refers to the Complex Approach which is the method of inquiry used on this site as distinct from the “systems approach” which is commonly used for social, economic and political analyses.

The field is also called "international political economy."  But that term does not meet the complex approach criteria.  Global political economy goes beyond relations between nations, i.e., nation-states.  For example, drug trafficking, illegal arms deals, smuggling goods and people, and laundering their financial products, which are estimated to amount to a trillion dollars annually, are not taking place in the framework of relations between nation-states.

Global Context (Afghanistan) A Thousand Splendid Suns

Reviewed by: Bruce Riley Ashford

This series of posts deals with the global context in its historical, social, cultural, political, economic, demographic, and religious dimensions in particular. We will provide book notices, book reviews, and brief essays on these topics. We hope that you will find this series helpful as you live and bear witness in a complex and increasingly hyper-connected world.

Khaled Hosseini’s second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, is a splendid follow-up to his first novel The Kite Runner which has sold almost 5 million copies worldwide. Whereas the first story dealt with the lives of two young boys, the second gives the story of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila. The majority of the story takes place in Kabul, while moments of the story occur in Herat, Afghanistan and Murree, Pakistan.

Mariam is the illegitimate child of a wealthy man in Herat who keeps her at arms length. She struggles to understand why she cannot be like her father’s other children, and desperately wants her father’s attention. When she disgraces her father by visiting him in Herat, she returns home to find that her mother has committed suicide. As a result, Mariam’s father gives her in marriage to the much older Rasheed who takes her to Kabul. In the ensuing narrative, Mariam learns to cook and clean for her husband, wear a burqa, endure constant beatings and abusive sex, and deal with the pain of multiple miscarriages.

Eventually, Rasheed marries again, this time to Laila, who was raised in a good home with loving parents in Kabul. The ensuing narrative deals with the developing relationship of these two women who are married to the same man. The novel gives a colorful, and often sad, portrayal of Afghan society and culture, dealing with such themes as war, poverty, sexual abuse, and murder. Like The Kite Runner, it is an emotionally arresting book, as Hosseini’s well-crafted characters deal with the realities of turn-of-the-century Afghan life.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is recommended for its significance (1) as a well-written work of literature, (2) as a realistic and masterful portrayal of aspects of Afghan history and culture, spanning from the Soviet occupancy up until the recent post-Taliban era, and (3) as a reminder that there are countless thousands of women like Mariam and Laila, and men like Rasheed, who live mind-numbingly painful lives, and who have little or no access to the gospel.

Book: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Genre: Fiction
Region: Central Asia
Length: 372 pp.
Difficulty: Intermediate