China threat? Evidence from the WTO

The rise of China has elicited a voluminous response from scholars, business groups, journalists and beyond.Within this literature, a 'China Threat Theory' has emerged which portrays China as a destabilizing force within global politics and economics. Though originating in Realist accounts, this China Threat Theory has spread across to other approaches, and it increasingly forms the backdrop against which scholarly work positions itself. Our article contributes to this debate by examining China's role within the World Trade Organization (WTO). It assesses the extent to which China has been the disruptive power that it is often claimed to be. In particular, the article examines the change identified in Chinese diplomacy around 2008, and argues that this is attributable to the process of learning and socialization that China had to undergo as a new member, coupled with its elevation to a position of decision-making power. Contrary to the China Threat Theory, we find little to suggest that China has adopted an aggressive system challenging mode of behaviour. © 2013 Kluwer Law International BV, The Netherlands

The WTO in Nairobi: the demise of the Doha Development Agenda and the future of the multilateral trading system

This article offers a full-length evaluation of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) decisive December 2015 Nairobi ministerial conference. It examines the dynamics of the meeting, the emergence of a new negotiating mode, and the contestations between key developing and developed members; it explores the substance of the deal negotiated; and it reflects on the future capacity of the WTO to serve as a means of securing trade gains for developing and least developed countries. Three arguments are advanced. First, the use of a new mode of negotiating brought participation and consensus into the core of the Nairobi talks, but it also resulted in an agreement that moves away from the pursuit of universal agreements to one wherein more narrowly focused piecemeal deals can be brokered. Second, the package of trade measures agreed continues an established pattern of asymmetrical trade deals that favour developed members over their developing and least developed counterparts. Third, Nairobi alters fundamentally the likely shape of future WTO deals with significant consequences for developing country trade gains. The likely result is that while Nairobi will energise the multilateral system it will do so in a way that is of questionable value to developing and least developed countries

Rhythms of social interaction: messaging within a massive online network

We have analyzed the fully-anonymized headers of 362 million messages exchanged by 4.2 million users of Facebook, an online social network of college students, during a 26 month interval. The data reveal a number of strong daily and weekly regularities which provide insights into the time use of college students and their social lives, including seasonal variations. We also examined how factors such as school affiliation and informal online friend lists affect the observed behavior and temporal patterns. Finally, we show that Facebook users appear to be clustered by school with respect to their temporal messaging patterns