Kurz, Richard William
(2004)
Harmonising international capital adequacy standards for securities firms: Explaining the contours of authority in the EU and IOSCO negotiations.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
This thesis investigates the sources, structure, and exercise of authority and influence in international policy-formation. It does this by examining two contemporaneous negotiations to harmonise securities firm capital adequacy standards, the European Union's successful adoption of regional standards and the International Organization of Securities Commission's failed effort to adopt international standards. The thesis examines the accuracy of state and non-state centric hypotheses in explaining the outcomes of the negotiations. It also proposes a synthetic analysis of empirical findings, which identifies and assesses interactions between observations drawn from state and non-state centric approaches, to develop new perspectives on authority and influence in policy formation. The thesis argues that international policy-making authority ultimately resided with state actors and institutions. Policy-making was informed by the interaction of state and non-state preferences. Rarely, however, were non-state preferences translated, unaltered, into policy. The case studies demonstrated that international policy-making authority and influence extended beyond state actors, but that states retained their autonomy and sovereignty in policy formation. 1 This thesis finds that non-state-centric approaches are analytically superior to state-centric perspectives. But synthetic analysis of state and non-state centric empirical observations goes even further, to develop distinctive conclusions that cannot be derived by relying solely on discrete analytical perspectives. This is because it examines the process of policy-formation and the dynamic interaction of state and non-state observations. These conclusions encourage multi-variable, process-focused analysis. The empirical analysis also qualifies the arguments of certain non-state centric perspectives. First, theorists' conflation of authority and influence detracts from a nuanced assessment of influences on policy formation. Second, the analytical complexity of multiple-variable perspectives is justified by their superior analytical insights. Third, 1. This argument applies only to the US and EU member-states. theorists' argument that globalisation has transformed state authority is shown to be overdrawn. Fourth, predictions of international regulatory convergence also appear strained. Finally, the utility of EU integration perspectives in non-EU analyses is demonstrated.
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