On Moral Stands and Grandstands: Relations among the Rich over Poor Country Problems.

This paper examines the response by rich industrialized countries to a subset of primarily moral and humanitarian issues that emanate from or disproportionately affect developing countries including debt relief, climate change, HIV/AIDS, and the International Criminal Court. Why were some of these issues—climate change, the ICC—so contentious while debt relief and HIV/AIDS were not? The basic argument of the paper is that where the U.S. fails to advance a constructive plan to address an issue and proves unwilling to bear the costs of leadership, this creates opportunities and incentives for European political grandstanding to placate domestic public opinion and buttress the institutional project of the European Union. Where the U.S. leads and does not abdicate in this class of issue areas, there are fewer opportunities and pressures for grandstanding, leading to less contention and politicization of the issue. The article also distinguishes grandstands from true moral stands, drawing on the literature on costly signaling, suggesting that the former involve cheap expressions of political outrage whereas the latter imply more substantial investments of political and physical capital. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]