The governance of the political and economic world order builds on a complex architecture of international treaties at various geographical scales. In a historical phase of high institutional turbulence, assessing the stability of such architecture with respect to the unilateral defection of single countries and the breakdown of single treaties is important. We carry out this analysis on the whole global architecture and find that the countries with the highest disruption potential are mostly medium-small and micro countries. Political stability is highly dependent on many former colonial overseas territories that are today part of the global network of fiscal havens, as well as on emerging economies, mostly from South-East Asia. Economic stability depends on medium-sized European and African countries. Single global treaties have surprisingly less disruptive potential, with the major exception of the WTO. Our results suggest that the potential fragility of the world order seems to be more directly related to global inequality and fiscal injustice than commonly believed and that the legacy of the colonial world order is still strong in the current international relations scenario. In particular, vested interests related to tax avoidance seem to have a structural role in the political architecture of global governance.

The Resilience of the Multirelational Structure of Geopolitical Treaties is Critically Linked to Past Colonial World Order and Offshore Fiscal Havens

Sacco, Pier Luigi
;
2023-01-01

Abstract

The governance of the political and economic world order builds on a complex architecture of international treaties at various geographical scales. In a historical phase of high institutional turbulence, assessing the stability of such architecture with respect to the unilateral defection of single countries and the breakdown of single treaties is important. We carry out this analysis on the whole global architecture and find that the countries with the highest disruption potential are mostly medium-small and micro countries. Political stability is highly dependent on many former colonial overseas territories that are today part of the global network of fiscal havens, as well as on emerging economies, mostly from South-East Asia. Economic stability depends on medium-sized European and African countries. Single global treaties have surprisingly less disruptive potential, with the major exception of the WTO. Our results suggest that the potential fragility of the world order seems to be more directly related to global inequality and fiscal injustice than commonly believed and that the legacy of the colonial world order is still strong in the current international relations scenario. In particular, vested interests related to tax avoidance seem to have a structural role in the political architecture of global governance.
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Complexity 2023.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: PDF editoriale
Dimensione 684.57 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
684.57 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11564/800329
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 3
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 3
social impact