Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order

by Paul Tucker

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691232089
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/02/2024
Pages:	560
Sales rank:	873,605
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

1 Introduction. Geopolitics and Legitimacy in a Globalized World 1

Part I History: International Order, Law, and Organizations in a Eurocentric World 27

2 A European Order: From Christendom to the League 29

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 71

4 Geoeconomics within Geopolitics: China and the West Today, and Scenarios for Tomorrow 107

Part II Framework: International Institutions, Regimes, Organizations, and Society 119

5 International Policy Coordination and Cooperation: Humean Conventions and Norms 121

6 Institutions for Cooperation: Equilibria, Regimes, and Organizations 145

7 Order, System, and Society: From Self-Enforcing Order to an International Society of Designed Substantive Law? 166

Part III Geopolitics with Geoeconomics: Order, "Civilizational" Tensions, and a Dislocated International System 193

8 Varieties of Order and System: The Contingent Societal Stability of an Institutionalized Hierarchy with American European Roots 195

9 Rising Powers, Norms, and Geopolitics: Party-Led China's Self-Identity and US Political Nativism as Risks to System and Order 214

10 Wishful Thinking: Policy Robustness, Resilience, and Legitimacy 235

Part IV Legitimacy: Values and Principles for International Order and System 247

11 Sovereignty and the Globalization Trilemma: Universalist versus Pluralist International Law and System in a World of Civilizational States 249

12 Legitimacy and Legitimation: A Humean-Williamsian Framework 267

13 Political Realism in International Relations: Order versus System in a World of Concentric Legitimation Circles 294

14 Principles for Constitutional Democracies Legitimately Delegating to International Organizations 337

Part V Applications: Reforms to the International Economic System During Shifting Geopolitics 359

15 Legitimacy for a Fragile International Economic System Facing Fractured Geopolitics 361

16 The International Monetary Fund and the International Monetary Order: An Exercise in Excessive Discretion with Missing Regimes? 378

17 The World Trade Organization and the System for International Trade: Is Judicialized Universalism Unsustainable Because Illegitimate? 401

18 Preferential Trade Pacts and Bilateral Investment Treaties: Security First, or Globalization via Mimesis? 419

19 Basel and the International Financial System: Are the Tower's Denizens Too Powerful? 434

20 Conclusions. Global Discord: Between Disagreement and Conflict 454

Appendix: Principles for Constitutional Democracies Participating and Delegating in International System 475

Acknowledgments 485

Bibliography 487

Name Index 515

Subject Index 519

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“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

“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

“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

“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

Editorial Reviews

A Financial Times Economics Book of the Year

From the Publisher

08/01/2022

Knighted in 2014, Tucker (Unelected Power) has held a number of important central banking positions. In his latest book, he analyzes the post-World War II international political and economic order, which he thinks is in a state of uncertainty and flux and may well lead to substantive changes, even possibly to the point of a new cold war between constitutional democracies and authoritarian regimes like Russia and China. He considers if and how a new international order can gain legitimacy by discussing various institutions (e.g., the International Monetary Fund), their ideological foundations, and the tension between the liberal universalism of the international order and the nationalist aspects of the various countries. In his appendix, he attempts to provide guidance for how constitutional democracies can navigate in the tricky business of nationalist regimes, while preserving their cultural authenticity and values and becoming members of multinational organizations. VERDICT A sophisticated analysis of the contemporary international economic order that will be relevant to policy and politics wonks.—Shmuel Ben-Gad

Library Journal