Networks of Influence? : Developing Countries in a Networked Global Order

xx, 274 p. Figure. Tables. Footnotes. Index. Networks are thriving in global politics. Some bring policy-makers from different countries together to share problems and to forge possible solutions, free from rules of representation, decision-making, and transparency which constrain more formal international organizations. This book asks whether developing countries can benefit from such networks? Or are they safer to conduct their international relations in formal institutions? The answer varies. The key lies in how the network is structured and what it sets out to achieve. This book presents a fascinating account of how some networks have strengthened the position of developing country officials, both at home, and in their international negotiations. Equally, it points to conditions which make it perilous for developing countries to rely on networks. From Wikipedia: "Leonardo Martinez-Diaz is Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere in the United States Department of the Treasury. Previously, he served as Director of the Office of Policy in the United States Agency for International Development. Before entering government, he was Fellow and Deputy Director of the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution. He also served as Deputy Director of Brookings Partnership for the Americas Commission, as an Economist at the International Monetary Fund, and as Director of the High-Level Commission on the Modernization of World Bank Group Governance. Before joining Brookings, Martinez-Diaz was Research Associate with the Global Economic Governance Program at Oxford University, where he focused on the politics of banking reform in developing countries and the role of the IMF in financial crisis-management. Mr. Martinez-Diaz, a Luce Fellow in Indonesia, worked as an academic and consultant. His analysis on Indonesia was published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Oxford Analytica, the International Herald Tribune, and The Economist. Martinez-Diaz is author of Globalizing in Hard Times: the Politics of Banking-Sector Opening in the Emerging World (Cornell, 2009). He is co-editor with Ngaire Woods of Networks of Influence? Developing Countries in a Networked Global Order (Oxford, 2009), of Brazil as an Economic Superpower? Understanding Brazil s Changing Role in the Global Economy with Global Economy and Development Director Lael Brainard (Brookings, 2009), and of Studies of IMF Governance: A Compendium with Ruben Lamdany (IMF, 2009). Martinez-Diaz specialized in International Political Economy, receiving a M. Phil degree in 2001 and D. Phil in 2007 from Magdalen College, Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He graduated with honors from Northwestern University in 1999 with degrees in Economics and Political Science and was a 1998 Truman Scholar." Also from Wikipedia: "Ngaire Woods (pronounced "nyree") (born 13 February 1963) is a New Zealand-born British academic. Woods was educated at the University of Auckland where she graduated with a BA in economics and a LLB (Hons) in law. She studied at Balliol College, Oxford as a New Zealand Rhodes Scholar, completing an M. Phil in International Relations (with Distinction) and a D. Phil. From 1990 to 1992, she was a Junior Research Fellow at New College, Oxford and subsequently taught at the Government Department at Harvard University before taking up her Fellowship at University College, Oxford. Woods is Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University and a Professor of International Political Economy and fellow in Politics and International Relations at University College, Oxford, and Director of the Global Economic Governance Programme at the Department of Politics and International Relations and Centre for International Studies of the University of Oxford. Her major academic interests include the United Nations and globalization. She also teaches for the TRIUM Global Executive MBA Program, an alliance of NYU Stern, the Lond.…