Creating a new sovereign debt reconstruction mechanism: why incentives, risk sharing, and CACs will all matter

This paper argues that the Covid recession, and aggressive monetary tightening in the US accompanying the post-Covid recovery, are likely to cause a sovereign debt overhang in emerging market economies—i.e. debt which is unlikely to be fully repaid. A sovereign debt reconstruction mechanism (SDRM) seems necessary to avoid widespread disorderly debt write-downs. We discuss a range of procedures that are available, building upon Anne Krueger's proposal for an SDRM in 2002 (Krueger, 2002a,b). At that time Krugman (1988) had already argued that any SDRM should incentivize debtors so that they put in effort to clear their debts (a Krugman contract). Menzies (2004) went further than this to show that these effects should be further sharpened, creating what he called ‘hyper-incentive effects' (a Menzies contract). The International Monetary Fund has argued that risk-sharing between debtors and creditors will also be important (IMF, 2020). But we show that risk-sharing will—in general—pull in the opposite direction to incentive effects, and we doubt the extent to which the IMF has recognized this trade-off. Finally, we argue that collective action clauses (CACs) increase the probability of achieving any agreement, whatever it might be. They will help avoid the alternative of disorderly debt write-downs, outcomes which will deliver neither incentive effects nor risk-sharing. © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press.

Core social motives explain responses to collective action issues

Managing collective action issues such as pandemics and climate change requires major social and behavioral change. Dominant approaches to addressing these issues center around information provision and financial incentives to shift behavior, yet, these approaches are rarely effective without integrating insights from psychological research on motivation. By accurately characterizing human motives, social scientists can identify when and why individuals engage, and facilitate behavior change and public engagement. Here, we use the core social motives model to sort social psychological theories into five fundamental social motives: to Belong, Understand, Control, self-Enhance, and Trust. We explain how each motive can improve or worsen collective action issues, and how this framework can be further developed towards a comprehensive social psychological perspective to collective action issues. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

How could a new universal code of conduct prevent and resolve sovereign debt crises? Proposals for design and implementation

In response to the COVID‐19 crisis, government spending around the world has increased significantly and will continue to grow as interest rates rise. In view of protracted and costly sovereign debt restructurings in the previous decades, contractual and noncontractual instruments of the Global Debt Governance‐system have been insufficient to prevent and to resolve sovereign debt crisis. While statutory and comprehensive approaches to resolve sovereign debt crises lack the political support such as an insolvency procedure for states incomprehensive contractual approaches including collective action clauses (CACs) cannot fully secure a comprehensive debt resolution. Codes of conduct could constitute an essential instrument to contribute to preventing and resolving sovereign debt crises. There are two main impediments for establishing and adopting such codes of conduct effectively. First, a range of codes of conduct with different institutional settings and principles have been established − and partly implemented − including those of the Institute of International Finance, the United Nations, the G20, the IMF and the OECD. However, differing institutional settings do not contribute to preventing or effectively resolving debt crises when the actors concerned apply different codes of conduct. We suggest a new universal code of conduct in which the elements of the various proposals made by the public and private sectors would be combined. Second, the global economic governance structure lacks incentives for creditors and debtors to adhere to this new universal code of conduct. This paper proposes measures providing incentives for creditors and debtors to apply the nonstatutory code of conduct.

The Global Coordination Problem: Collective Action among Unequal States

»Das globale Koordinationsproblem: Kollektives Handeln zwischen ungleichen Staaten«. The most pressing problems facing mankind today re-quire for their solution some form of worldwide collective action at the level of states. In order to combat the global threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, wealthy countries must cooperate to provide vaccines for people in low-in-come countries, if only to prevent these populations from becoming breeding grounds for new strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that will also endanger the richer nations. Another, even more pertinent case is the campaign against global warming, which requires concerted action by committed state regimes to curtail the worldwide emission of greenhouse gases. Such figurations give rise to the classic dilemmas of collective action. Throughout human history, with ups and downs, the scale of collective action has extended. This is a cor-ollary of the gradual increase in the scale of governance, from villages to small kingdoms to nation states. National economies, too, have expanded with the increasing control and consumption of fossil energy, as Johan Goudsblom has demonstrated. By the end of the 19th century, nation states were the larg-est units of effective coordination, each one comprising between one and a hundred million citizens. In the course of the 20th century, a few entities have evolved to the next higher order of magnitude with hundreds of millions, or more than a billion citizens and with a gross national product exceeding in most cases 10 trillion US dollars: these "gigants” are China, the USA, India, and the EU. They are at present the initiators and managers of global collective action. The recent COVID-19 pandemic created an urgent coordination problem. The enduring climate crisis evokes very similar dilemmas of collective action. The Russian invasion of Ukraine quite suddenly compelled the USA and the EU to join in antagonistic collaboration and overcome chal-lenges that were much the same. State actors resort to a limited set of strat-egies and practices in order to overcome the pitfalls of collective action and the gigants have a leading role in coordinating them. © 2023, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. All rights reserved.

Valuing adaptive programming: A study of resilience processes and outcomes.

Recent decades have seen a growth in theoretical frameworks focusing on systems, context and the dynamic interplay of multiple variables, stimulating interest in complementary research and programme evaluation methods. With resilience theory now emphasising the complex and dynamic nature of resilience capacities, processes and outcomes, resilience programming stands to benefit from approaches such as design-based research and realist research/evaluation. The aim of this collaborative (researcher/practitioner) study was to explore how such benefits can be achieved when programme theory spans individual, community and institutional outcomes, with a focus on the reciprocal processes involved in effecting change across the social system. The context of the research was a regional (Middle East and North Africa) project operating in contexts with an escalated risk of marginalised young people being drawn into illegal/harmful activity. The project's youth engagement and development approach combined participatory learning, skills training, and collective social action, adapted for diverse localities and during the COVID-19 crisis. Quantitative measures of individual and collective resilience were at the centre of a set of realist analyses evidencing systemic connections in changes to individual, collective and community resilience. Findings demonstrated the value, challenges and limitations of the applied research approach for adaptive, contextualised programming.

Infusion of ICT into Nigeria's Corporate Democracy: A Proposal for a New Reform Initiative

This article examines the infusion of information communication technology (ICT) into Nigeria's new company legislation to promote corporate democracy. While the initiative is laudable, especially in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, the article argues that the reform is of limited value, as only private companies are empowered to deploy ICT in the conduct of general meetings. By excluding public companies, the article argues, inter alia, that the reform overlooks the role that ICT could play in addressing the assumed passivity of latent, large groups, which typify the shareholders of public companies. In making a case for inclusive reform, the article examines the reforms already undertaken by some countries in the common law jurisdictions, whose templates on the subject may inform the changes Nigeria needs to effect in her law.

Pandemic Makers: How Citizen Groups Mobilized Resources to Meet Local Needs in a Global Health Crisis: ET&P

The enormous scale of suffering, breadth of societal impact, and ongoing uncertainty wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic introduced dynamics seldom examined in the crisis entrepreneurship literature. Previous research indicates that when a crisis causes a failure of public goods, spontaneous citizen ventures often emerge to leverage unique local knowledge to rapidly customize abundant external resources to meet immediate needs. However, as outsiders, emergent citizen groups responding to the dire shortage of personal protective equipment at the onset of COVID-19 lacked local knowledge and legitimacy. In this study, we examine how entrepreneurial citizens mobilized collective resources in attempts to gain acceptance and meet local needs amid the urgency of the pandemic. Through longitudinal case studies of citizen groups connected to makerspaces in four U.S. cities, we study how they adapted to address the resource and legitimacy limitations they encountered. We identify three mechanisms—augmenting, circumventing, and attenuating—that helped transient citizen groups calibrate their resource mobilization based on what they learned over time. We highlight how extreme temporality imposes limits on resourcefulness and legitimation, making it critical for collective entrepreneurs to learn when to work within their limitations rather than try to overcome them.

Housing Activism and Urban Space during the Covid19 Pandemic. Research Notes on the Bairro of Arroios, Lisbon

This paper presents some research notes from an on-going project on housing activism in Lisbon in the last decade, describing its ascendant trajectory (2012-2019) and the impact that the Covid epidemic had on the local activist community (2020-2022). In particular, the paper focuses on two of the main protagonists of local housing activism, the association Habita and the collective Stop Despejos, and on the relation that they have developed in time with an ecosystem (of sites, groups, projects) that have developed in the last ten years in the neighbourhood of Arroios, which have found a characteristic spatial infrastructure in the coletividades (a Portuguese expression that identifies spaces managed by no-profit associations or collectives). The paper examines this relation against the background of two bodies of literature, namely contributions that have examined (i) the nexus between collective action and space and (ii) the different forms of political agency represented by the conceptual pole of "contentious" and "everyday politics". This research is based on extensive data collection (through ethnographic notes, documental analysis, and in-depth interviews, 2020-2022) and on the authors' status of insiders in the process observed.

Status-Based Asymmetries in Relative Deprivation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing inequalities by disproportionately affecting marginalized groups, which should differentially affect perceptions of, and responses to, inequality. Accordingly, the present study examines the effects of the pandemic on feelings of individual- and group-based relative deprivation (IRD and GRD, respectively), as well as whether these effects differ by ethnicity. By comparing matched samples of participants assessed before and during the first 6 months of the pandemic (Ntotal = 21,131), our results demonstrate the unique impacts of the pandemic on IRD and GRD among ethnic minorities and majorities. Moreover, our results reveal the status-based indirect effects of the pandemic on support for both collective action and income redistribution via IRD and GRD. As the pandemic rages on, these results foreshadow long-term, status-specific consequences for political mobilization and support for social change. © The Author(s) 2023.

Research on the emission reduction effects of carbon trading mechanism on power industry: plant-level evidence from China

PurposeCarbon trading mechanism has been adopted to foster the green transformation of the economy on a global scale, but its effectiveness for the power industry remains controversial. Given that energy-related greenhouse gas emissions account for most of all anthropogenic emissions, this paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of this trading mechanism at the plant level to support relevant decision-making and mechanism design.Design/methodology/approachThis paper constructs a novel spatiotemporal data set by matching satellite-based high-resolution (1 × 1 km) CO2 and PM2.5 emission data with accurate geolocation of power plants. It then applies a difference-in-differences model to analyse the impact of carbon trading mechanism on emission reduction for the power industry in China from 2007 to 2016.FindingsResults suggest that the carbon trading mechanism induces 2.7% of CO2 emission reduction and 6.7% of PM2.5 emission reduction in power plants in pilot areas on average. However, the reduction effect is significant only in coal-fired power plants but not in gas-fired power plants. Besides, the reduction effect is significant for power plants operated with different technologies and is more pronounced for those with outdated production technology, indicating the strong potential for green development of backward power plants. The reduction effect is also more intense for power plants without affiliation relationships than those affiliated with particular manufacturers.Originality/valueThis paper identifies the causal relationship between the carbon trading mechanism and emission reduction in the power industry by providing an innovative methodology for identifying plant-level emissions based on high-resolution satellite data, which has been practically absent in previous studies. It serves as a reference for stakeholders involved in detailed policy formulation and execution, including policymakers, power plant managers and green investors.

Thai village health volunteers' employment of self-directed learning and collective power in time of pandemic

The article examines how Thai village health volunteers employed self-directed learning and collective power to overcome working challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative data was collected from 30 VHVs in ten communities across Thailand. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were employed as the data collection techniques. The findings indicate that the VHVs took initiatives to learn unfamiliar technologies which became important working tools in the context of the pandemic. While such initiatives highlight their independent learning attributes involving individuality or "self” learning concepts, the way they incorporated a collaborative learning method, reflects "selves” learning practices. The VHVs also utilized collective power both in-group and inter-group power to through different networking systems. This study illustrates the possible intertwinement of collectivistic and individualistic values found in the process of self and selves-directed learning practices, and the implication of collective power as a cultural force in the field of community health promotion. © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

A Pandemic Instrument Can Start Turning Collective Problems into Collective Solutions by Governing the Common-Pool Resource of Antimicrobial Effectiveness.

To address the complex challenge of global antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a pandemic treaty should include mechanisms that 1) equitably address the access gap for antimicrobials, diagnostic technologies, and alternative therapies; 2) equitably conserve antimicrobials to sustain effectiveness and access across time and space; 3) equitably finance the investment, discovery, development, and distribution of new technologies; and 4) equitably finance and establish greater upstream and midstream infection prevention measures globally. Biodiversity, climate, and nuclear governance offer lessons for addressing these challenges.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the European Union: politics, policies and institutions

The COVID-19 pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to the European Union (EU) and its member states. In the EU, health policy competence has been and remains largely with member states. However, faced with a major external crisis, which more or less affected all member states at the same time, the EU developed a framework within which the member states (and their subnational units) could respond together to the crisis. This introductory article to the Special Issue 'The COVID-19 Pandemic and the European Union,' briefly examines how EU institutions, policies and politics were affected by the crisis. Contrary to earlier crises, the EU responded speedily and effectively this time around. The EU has become increasingly important in crisis management, in part due to the nature of transboundary crises. The EU proved itself to be a good crisis manager on some dimensions, but certainly not on all. The crisis created momentum for collective action and for fast decision-making, even though the legitimacy of some these actions has been subject to limited public scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

How refugees work together: the politics of solidarity and ‘invisible' collective action during COVID-19

Recent scholarship on refugee assistance has begun shifting the focus from traditional humanitarian interventions to alternative forms of refugee response, undertaken through more local, informal networks. These forms of humanitarian assistance and solidarity can transcend national refugee politics, and function as an alternative form of political engagement with the issue of refugee protection. Much of this emerging literature focuses on how host communities, diaspora networks, and activist groups support refugees. However, we know very little about how solidarities are generated between different refugee groups in the same host state, which has important implications for understanding the ways in which different refugee groups organise and seek to secure their own welfare in shared displacement. This study draws on evidence from India during the COVID-19 pandemic to analyze how such intergroup cooperation in exile develops. I find, first, that refugees navigate their vulnerabilities through informal, interpersonal forms of care and solidarity, which bolsters identification with shared challenges and goals. Second, such solidarities can generate collective action that helps refugees carve out certain spaces of inclusion in a larger context of structural exclusion. Third, the network structure of these solidarities is shaped by existing policy regimes and social relationships in key ways. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Protest in unlikely times: dynamics of collective mobilization in Europe during the COVID-19 crisis

Based on an original protest event analysis (PEA) dataset covering 30 European countries, this paper provides three sets of results. Despite its unlikeliness due to lockdowns and social distancing measures, protest during COVID-19 has hardly been put to a halt even if, as a result of the restrictions imposed by the lockdown measures on the opportunities of public collective actions, protest occurred at significantly lower levels compared to pre-COVID-19 times, in terms of number of events and, above all, in terms of the number of participants. Moreover, protest was refocused on COVID-19-related issues, in particular on protest against the restrictions imposed by the government lockdowns, while non-COVID-19 issues, in particular economic issues, were crowded out. In addition, protest during the COVID-19-crisis also responded to highly contingent national context conditions which varied between the different regions of Europe. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

The political aspects of solidarity mobilizations in the context of shrinking civil society during the first wave of COVID-19

This paper contributes to the literature on solidarity mobilizations and the framings of social and political change in the context of the shrinking welfare state, de-democratization, and repressive state policies towards civil society. These issues are explored through the lens of interview-based research on Hungarian solidarity initiatives that emerged in response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic between March and June 2020. We specifically look at the ways in which volunteers and activists engaged in solidarity activities associated with healthcare, care-work, and education;accounted for their aspirations;conceptualized social responsibility;and reflected on the crisis management of the state. We found that newly emerging grassroots actors reinforced the documented trend of depoliticization in civil society. Although most respondents formulated a depoliticizing narrative, they did offer interpretations of their public role and collective action, values, and responsibilities, and pronounced a desire for social change. Nevertheless, to account for these framings, we need to move beyond the binary understanding of politics in solidarity and civil society research.

Emotional cycles and collective action: Global crises and the World Social Forum

As the world suffers the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, global justice activists pursue political solutions to its devastating consequences especially on the weakest sections of the world's population. I analyse activists' responses to the 2008 financial crisis to reflect on how collective action is impacted by social crises. The global justice movement and the financial sector face recurring, intertwined, and inversely related cycles of exuberance and crash. I find that, on the one hand, the prevalence and intensity of recurring crises in large transnational collective actors depend on factors including their prevalent emotional dynamics, their dispositions towards their objectives, and their ability to gauge external reality. On the other hand, differential outcomes of crises in groups are accounted for by the capacity to mourn the losses suffered, as opposed to the denial of responsibility and the externalisation of blame. I analyse these emotional dynamics through psychoanalytic lenses to provide a contribution to the literature on the cycles of collective action and, more broadly, to the study of political action and social change.

War Metaphors (What Are They Good For?): Militarized Rhetoric and Attitudes Toward Essential Workers During the Covid-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders and society at large invoked militarized rhetoric and war metaphors to elevate essential workers and inspire collective action. Using a survey experiment we investigate whether this type of framing affects public views about (1) individual responsibilities, (2) targeted polices, and (3) perceptions of those called heroes and soldiers. We find that the war metaphor has minimal effects on public attitudes toward policies and individual actions in response to the pandemic. Framing the response in militaristic terms does, however, appear to affect perceptions of essential workers. Counter to our hypotheses, subjects who saw essential workers called heroes or soldiers viewed them as more motivated by compensation rather than service, and expressed less respect for them, than respondents in the control. These findings, including the nulls, make important contributions to our understanding of the limits of framing effects in a polarized context.

La construction de l'action collective solidaire en contexte pandémique

Par son intensité, la pandémie de Covid-19 a révélé la vulnérabilité des organisations tout en témoignant de capacités de réponses collectives imprévues. Cet article montre que le contexte extrême a engendré de multiples ruptures, mais aussi des improvisations collectives, propices à l'expérimentation et à l'apprentissage, portées par des valeurs de solidarité.Alternate :The intensity of the Covid-19 pandemic revealed the vulnerability of organisations, while at the same time demonstrating unforeseen collective response capacities. This article shows that the extreme context generated multiple disruptions, but also collective improvisations, conducive to experimentation and learning, supported by values of solidarity.