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Question 1

What is understood by the term economic security?

a) Economic security narratives form the conceptual framework for the analyses of 'localized' agents such as individuals, households and local communities. Its primary concern is safeguarding local livelihoods and, in developing countries, is primarily concerned with food security issues. Economic security is therefore essentially domestic.

b) Economic security narratives provide the conceptual framework to examine FEP powers' engagement with the international capitalist system in which economic powers have a duty to fulfill international obligations.

c) In general terms economic analyses refer to its external and internal dimensions which are mutually reinforcing. Micro and macro discourses are overlapping and always manifest in an FEP power's behavior and interests e.g. the pursuit of agricultural protectionism in order to safeguard rural agricultural communities.

d) In general terms economic security analyses may be said to be divisible between its domestic micro-level narratives, and its external macro-level narratives, of the international system. Although not always mutually exclusive FEP behavior is distinguished by its domestic and international points of departure.

Question 2

In what ways did the Cold war impact on economic security analyses?

a) Macro-level economic security is a product of the post-Cold War period and essentially derives from the respective shifts from geo-politics to geo-economics, from military superpowers to economic superpowers, and hence from politico-ideological competition to economic competition

b) The growth in macro-level economic security is a product of the post-Cold War era in which there has been an increasing attention paid to localized economic interest and consolidating domestic security derived from a demise in economic competition. Indeed the US National Security Council has acknowledged the need for continuity with military issues at the fore of national security and economical policy would remain a separate policy issue.

c) The post-Cold War period has resulted in a shift from geo-political and politico-ideological competition to geo-economic competition in which the new tri-polar structure of global economic relationships will be inherently competitive with each vying for hegemonic economic position and to this extent economic security analyses have remained state-centric.

d) The shift from geo-politics to geo-economic superpowers has resulted in FEP international behavior governed by endeavors to consolidate regional integration which will result in the emergence of economic blocs which will negate cooperation between the FEP powers.

Question 3

What is the relationship between the economic-security nexus and economic security in economic security literature?

a) Economic-security nexus is the analytical framework through which we are able to establish whether a policy action was specifically driven by economic and politico-military security objectives, for the intention is always to realize one or the other.

b) Both economic and security policy measures always have separate outcomes, therefore, the production of intended outcomes is contained to the sphere of either economic policy or traditional security measures, e.g. sanctions on Iraq.

c) Economic policy and traditional security measures can be used to translate interests in both (the fungibility of power argument). Threats on the economic front can achieve security aims and vice versa, e.g. Asia's economic security dilemma.

d) Low opportunity costs could be incurred in making economic security choices, therefore, pursuing economic security objectives compared to "welfare-rational" economic policy objectives have negligible impact on the other sphere's interests, e.g. the US embargo on Soviet Union exports and the Soviet Union's denial of market access.

Question 4

In an international system of nation states what do we need to consider the economic security interests of?

a) FEP powers' pursuit of economic policy is essentially a reflection of micro-level economic interests in which the concerns of territorial agents and domestic infrastructural functions, capacity and advancements dominates the decision-making process. FEP interests are concerned with the protection of the socio-economic fabric of society and therefore an extension of the military capacity of the FEP power.

b) Localized agents and FEP powers may pursue economic security interests in the international economic system with domestic interests in mind but also FEP protagonists have a role in the identification and realization of security interests of the agents deemed to constitute that FEP power on an individual and collective basis. Therefore the policy framework is based on specific economic security motivations behind an economic security policy.

c) Economic security policy is determined by economic capability of the FEP to execute economic and political policy in the international system. An FEP power may pursue economic security in the international system with macro-level interests in mind. For instance, whilst an agent's interest may be part of the economy's export capacity it remains part of the FEP powers' broader economic structure. Therefore, structure or collective interest will dominate but not both.

d) Economic security policy is dominated by external environmental factors in which large powerful states that exercise structural power can share external environmental links. The FEP power must respond to those changing structural configurations and systemic alliances and to minimize the potential risks they create

Question 5

What may the pursuit of a threat-minimizing and opportunity-maximizing take on economic security involve?

a) The approach involves prosperity-generating capabilities and interests that work to minimize direct and immediate economic vulnerabilities which concern an internalized approach.

b) Safeguarding the prosperity-generating capabilities related to the defense of FEP power involving the defense of economic functions and capabilities which concerns protective measures at the expense of economic diplomacy and trade relationships.

c) FEP powers are involved in preserving the structural integrity of the internal economy even at the expense of the structural integrity of the international economic system of economic relations. Basic demand of territorial economic agents is the essential security objective.

d) FEP protagonists work to safeguard the trans-national commercial interest in different forms of trans-national economic space which may be localized or foreign. This approach may concern FEP powers working to safeguard the security of their trans-national economic space through regional and multi-lateral modes of cooperation.

Question 6

At a generic level how might finance-credit as a security objective of an FEP power be a complex task?

a) Cooperative acts are increasingly characterized by the pursuit of finance-credit security risks. Complex inter-dependence of financial globalization has engendered deepening connectivity between national and regional financial systems and created the need for cooperation on international financial matters. Finance-credit security interests are, therefore, closely aligned to systemic and alliance security.

b) The pursuit of finance-credit security has increasingly led to national level objectives being pursued. Nation-states can seek financial-credit security despite powerful currency speculators making the international system more complex. Therefore, the national financial-credit security is a primary objective above alliance or systemic security.

c) FEP powers have tended to rely on policy to deepen connectivity between nations and regions to attain international financial security rather than rely on foreign exchange reserves as the basis for pursuing an independent finance-credit security policy based on the recognition that collective security policy is required.

d) Most FEP powers possess a large foreign exchange reserve which means that most nations are able to pursue an independent finance-credit security policy and maintain exchange rates stability through market intervention despite fluctuations in financial interactions.

Question 7

In economic security analysis in general terms of classifying FEP objectives which statement corresponds to the pursuit of systemic security in a neo-liberalist perspective?

a) Neo-liberal institutionalists contend that governance architecture of systemic security primarily is concentrated within the nation-state as agents and custodians of public goods.

b) The viability of destabilization in the international system is undermined by the dynamics it creates; the need to optimize a free and global open economy generates a constant state of security derived from that need.

c) Economic instability engendered by the competitive dynamics of the capitalist international economy means that economic security is an illusory condition because competition leads to problems in both the efficiency and productivity and responses are always negatively driven.

d) Economic security is contingent on whether FEP powers respond positively to conditions of insecurity. Maximization of global welfare is dependent on security of the international economic system. Systemic security is at the core of the economic security concerns of neo-liberalism, systemic support being the avenue to attaining economic security.

Question 8

What do we understand by the 'socio-economic paradigm' of security objectives?

a) The maintaining of socio-economic integrity of the socio-economic entity and the prosperity-generating capabilities and interests that may be associated with it.

b) The adaptation of new international norms in response to foreign pressure and neo-liberalism which has facilitated the emergence of a single global socio-economic paradigm through the liberalization and de-regulation of transnational economic space.

c) The distribution of prosperity and prosperity generating methods resulting in a change to the underlying paradigmatic fundamentals to adapt to international conditions.

d) The separation of socio-economic paradigm from parallel concepts of economic systems and capitalist culture in which competition between different socio-economic paradigms creates barriers to the opening up of trans-national economic space.

Question 9

Why and how have local and regionalized concerns been addressed?

a) Transborder community security as an FEP powers objective is distinguishable from other relationships concerned with other security sectors such as pollution or drug and human trafficking

b) Transborder community objectives seek to develop new economic transborder spaces in lieu of business networks to expand and diversify domestic resources but the result is a decline in national power.

c) Transborder communities are created out of the need to address common economic security challenges: the structural integrity and development of participating FEP powers' economies are connected or have an impact on other. This is particularly true for smaller FEP powers

d) Transborder community objectives are a calculated bid to check dependency relationships with stronger FEP powers and to increase their relative power in proportion to this.

Question 10

How should the pursuit of FEP objectives be regarded?

a) The tendency of the typologies in any set of FEP objectives to be isolated in the interests they serve which makes it possible to construct a hierarchical ordering in the pursuit of objectives.

b) Relationships between typologies are relational and co-reinforcing natural overlaps in policy produce relational benefits to the international economic system which reinforces other policy interest.

c) Relationships between typologies are always conflicting resulting from competition inherent in the international economic system. This conflict creates dialectical tensions between different FEP goals. Hierarchy of typologies is determined by the extent of conflict produced by the pursuit of FEP objectives.

d) Broadly speaking supply, market access, finance-credit, techno-industrial capability typologies can be said to be technologically orientated, whilst transborder community, systemic alliances and socio-economic paradigms are more relational in nature. Relationships between typologies may be co-reinforcing or conflictual.

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 12.

Chapter 12

Instructions