POLI 441 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, Pax Britannica, Mancur Olson

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 441
• Professor: Krzysztof Pelc

Document Summary

The peace under pax britannica begins to breakdown with world war 1. This instability is symbolized by the smoot hawley tariff, with one vote for one massive tariff on a variety of american goods, and this happens right after the stock market crash. After smoot hawley, many countries retaliate with more protectionism -aggravates the great. Kindleberger"s conclusion for the economy to be stabilized, it needed one stabilizer. The notion of cooperation and peace as a public good, and something that is underprovided. The only way to have it is for one person to provide it for everyone else. Mancur olson says that a device could also be used to achieve cooperation (institutions) The size of the group matters - small groups cooperate; if you have large groups, you don"t" have the face to face enforcement and it is unlikely you will have cooperation.