The OECD is at the core of the liberal international order (LIO) that has characterised relations among Western countries since 1945. We review how the OECD has been analyzed in the field of... Show moreThe OECD is at the core of the liberal international order (LIO) that has characterised relations among Western countries since 1945. We review how the OECD has been analyzed in the field of International Political Economy (IPE). By revisiting the intellectual debates on why countries cooperate through International Organizations (IOs), we argue that the OECD has been in one of the blindspots as scholars did not grasp the role played by knowledge in legitimating the LIO. The OECD plays an important role in the creation and maintenance of a working consensus over the norms, ideologies, and practices that constitute the LIO. This started to change in the 1990s as scholarship on IOs expanded beyond IR debates over international cooperation, towards the development of an interdisciplinary study of global economic governance. Expanding on the work of Susan Strange, we suggest that the OECD’s main role in global economic governance is epistemic. Show less
Tibetan manuscripts in general, and Bon manuscripts in particular, are often characterised by orthographic inconsistencies and multiple contracted forms (Tib. bsdus tshig or bskungs yig). While... Show moreTibetan manuscripts in general, and Bon manuscripts in particular, are often characterised by orthographic inconsistencies and multiple contracted forms (Tib. bsdus tshig or bskungs yig). While these features may be a nuisance to the reader, they deserve to be analysed more systematically: it is possible that these heterodox spellings and other scribal peculiarities, far from being random errors, may represent local writing conventions. On the basis of an extended study of facsimile reproductions of Bon manuscripts from Bsam gling monastery in Dolpo, Nepal, this chapter aims to explore the best way forward towards defining local orthographic styles and other codicological features. A major starting hypothesis to be tested is that {\textquoteleft}heterographies{\textquoteright} may help us to detect oral and written modes of transmission. Show less
In this introductory chapter we first review the standard bank–credit/capital markets dichotomy used to describe national financial systems. We examine the influence of this dichotomy in the... Show moreIn this introductory chapter we first review the standard bank–credit/capital markets dichotomy used to describe national financial systems. We examine the influence of this dichotomy in the comparative political economy (CPE) literature, which is the disciplinary focus of most of the contributors to this volume. We explain how effectively scholars of the political economy of finance explain the phenomenon of change and then briefly describe the market-based banking model in the context of the broader national financial systems. In the penultimate section, we consider the impact of market-based banking on the domestic political economy and the impact of the international financial crisis. Show less