Democracy and Political Stability

Intergovernmental Organizations (IOs), Multinational Enterprises(MNEs), and powerful democratic countries are active players of institution building in the developing world. This book empirically demonstrates that these players do not consistently seek to generate desirable western-style political and economic institutions. What explains such inconsistency in the actions of these major actors? The conclusion is that IOs, MNEs, and powerful democratic countries have divergent purposes and motivations; such divergence triggers conflicting interactive behavior of cooperation and competition among these actors regarding their institution building efforts. For example, while the actions and policies of International Organizations, with their distinct codes of conduct, are primarily motivated by building market based rationalistic economic and political institutions, the actions of nation states and MNEs are predominantly driven by self-interest and survival motives. More importantly, the presence of diverse motivations and purposes among these actors is a primary source of inconsistency in the institution building efforts.