Economic Lawfare: Law, Market Structure, and Economic Power

Abstract

What is the relationship between law and economic power? Two dominant themes of post-war international political economy have been rising economic interdependence and the increasing legalisation of economic affairs. Yet, while scholars of International Relations have revealed much about how interdependence shapes the use of economic power in world politics, the role of law has been comparatively neglected. This thesis seeks to address that imbalance by linking existing understandings of how asymmetric interdependence conditions the use of economic power with ideas regarding how law can mediate state behaviour in the economic domain, unpacking mechanisms through which states can employ law to exercise economic power, and considering how the increasing use of economic power may affect the existing institutions of global economic governance. It does so through a series of six articles that use distinct case studies and a new qualitative database to examine discrete research questions regarding the relationships between law, market structure, and economic power. Empirically, the articles primarily investigate variations in China and Russia's uses of legal and non-legal instruments of economic statecraft, and the industries that they target. Theoretically, the articles identify and illustrate mechanisms through and conditions under which the structure of domestic regulatory frameworks and international legal rules can operate to enable or constrain how states employ economic power. Collectively, they provide a foundation for the thesis to make contributions to the literatures on how law and institutions shape state behaviour, the political economy of economic sanctions, and economic statecraft. Show more