Milner, Helen V. (2005). Globalization, Development, and International Institutions: Normative and Positive Perspectives (Vol. 3, 833-854): Cambridge Journals Online.
This text is a call to approach the study of international institutional efficacy from a different angle. In that, the article does much in a very short space. What is says is important, though it is quite general in certain aspects, especially in its treatment of “normative” theory.
Milner begins by wondering how one could begin to truly assess the effectiveness of international institutions like the IMF. Surely a counterfactual must be deployed, but this is problematic in itself. “Counterfactuals cannot be answered directly because they presume a situation which did not occur and rely on speculation about what this hypothetical world would have been like” (834). Researchers are thus left to make inference based on longitudinal comparisons and cross-sectional comparisons of data that is available in situations where certain countries were more or less effected by IMF (for instance) lending.
She also understands that the role of the counterfactual has been criticized by “normative” scholarship. She claims that, “combining normative and empirical scholarship may be unusual, but fruitful” (834). The goals of this paper is to review recent studies on the IMF/WB/WTO, to look at scholarship on international institutions and then to connect this all back to “normative” theory.
She reviews Stiglitz, Easterly, Vreeland, Stone and Pogge. She then looks at the history of international economic institutions since WWII, and the uneven instances and evidence of growth that has arisen out of the less developed world. Milner then explores for reasons that international institutions exist: they constrain great powers, they provide information and improve transaction costs, they allow for reciprocity in international relations and they are a catalyst for domestic political reform.
Then, four sources of institutional problems are identified: Firstly, they have no impact. Secondly, they are controlled by hegemons. Thirdly, they are controlled by private interests, specifically investors. Fourthly, they are not internally accountable.
We are then treated with a brief trek through “normative” scholarship. This specifically focuses on the role that institutions should play in the international system. She looks at Rawls and disagrees with his notion of a national consensus, arguing for a global consensus regarding distribution. Secondly, she puts for the assertion (already mentioned) that counterfactual approaches to understanding theory are lacking in substance and credibility. Finally, she makes the claim that narrowly defined nationalist politics need to change.
She concludes by prescribing that further research in this area should be focus on, “the actual effects of international institutions, rather than debates about whether they are autonomous agents” (849).
