Co-Ordination in Context

First published in 1998. This book makes an original contribution to our understanding of policy failures at the European and international level. On the basis of a comparative analysis the study shows how the co-ordination mechanisms available in the European Community and OECD have complicated the regulation of national policies on state aid to exporting industries. This failure can be explained in theoretical terms: international and supranational organisations are not neutral arbiters, but have interests of their own, interests which are not necessarily aligned with those of their member states. In detailed case studies of Britain, France and Germany the book examines how the preference structure of governments in the exercise of their promotion programmes contrasts with the policies enacted by international bureaucracies. Walzenbach’s interdisciplinary approach specifies the conditions under which policy co-ordination can have detrimental effects and thus, usefully corrects the benign view held by most regime theorists about transaction-cost reducing and efficiency enhancing role of such arrangement.