Doing Due Diligence: Forms of Moral Judgment in the Regulation of International Finance

这个项目的重点是道德制裁对国际金融监管的影响。特别是，它探讨了道德制裁在实地的可操作性，因为离岸金融服务行业的人对潜在客户做出判断，意在减少金融犯罪和洗钱。自20世纪90年代以来，加勒比国家一直试图使监管金融服务的国家法律符合国际“软法”中宣布的全球规范：不具约束力的国际原则、建议和行为规则。拟议的研究通过调查当当地行为者将自己的规范制度和判断带到构成遵守的做法中，以及当它们被纳入更大的解释社区时，全球规范可能发生的变化，从而审查在实现遵守之后会发生什么。国际和平倡议假设，处于不同位置的代理人在从事合规后制度涉及的日常工作时，会召集不同的道德话语，并以不同的方式解释新兴的国际规范，这有可能重塑这些国际规范和颁布这些规范的更广泛的社区。特别是，它假设，在加勒比地区，一种长期存在的道德评价文化形式--体面/声誉二分法--正在塑造对税务竞争的遵守并改变其全球话语。拟议的研究将有助于学术辩论的三个领域：a)国际软法、跨国问题网络和全球伦理与全球化的相关性；b)金融中心的比较研究；c)官僚机构和金融的人类学。拟议中的研究还将有助于有关金融监管、在各国以国家主权的名义抵制国际“硬法”时促进全球规范和道德制裁的政策辩论，以及打击洗钱。它还将通过使用研究生研究助理来促进教学和培训，这些助理将学习档案方法和统计程序。国际政策研究所还将在本项目完成后举行一次关于国际金融新监管形式的会议，以促进对有害税收竞争进行研究并试图减轻有害税收竞争的学者和政策顾问之间的多学科对话。

This project focuses on the effect of moral sanctions on the regulation of international finance. In particular, it explores the operationalization of moral sanctions on the ground, as persons in the offshore financial services industry make judgments about potential clients that are meant to mitigate financial crime and money laundering. Since the 1990s, Caribbean states have attempted to bring state law regulating financial services into compliance with global norms proclaimed in international "soft law:" non-binding international principles, recommendations, and rules of conduct. The proposed research examines what happens after compliance has been achieved, by investigating potential transformations of global norms when local actors bring their own normative systems and judgments to the practices that constitute compliance and as they get incorporated into larger communities of interpretation. The PI hypothesizes that differently positioned agents muster different moral discourses and interpret emerging international norms differently as they go about the daily work involved in post-compliance regimes, and that this has the potential to reshape those international norms and the broader community that promulgates them. In particular, it hypothesizes that, in the Caribbean, a longstanding cultural form of moral evaluation -- the respectability/reputation dichotomy -- is shaping compliance with and transforming global discourse on tax competition. The proposed research will contribute to three areas of scholarly debate: a) the relevance of international soft law, transnational issue networks and global ethics to globalization; b) the comparative study of financial centers; and c) the anthropology of bureaucracy and finance. The proposed research will also contribute to policy debates about the regulation of finance, the fostering of global norms and moral sanctions when states resist international "hard law" in the name of national sovereignty, and money laundering interdiction. It will also advance teaching and training through the use of graduate research assistants who will learn archival methods and statistical procedures. The PI will also conduct a conference on new forms of regulation for international finance, to be held after the completion of this project, in order to facilitate multidisciplinary dialogue among scholars and policy advisors who conduct research on and are attempting to mitigate harmful tax competition.