JHU SAIS Professor Mitchell Orenstein Publishes New Book on Privatizing Pensions Worldwide

Washington, D.C.-10/13/2008-Mitchell A. Orenstein, the S. Richard Hirsch Associate Professor of European Studies at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), has recently published Privatizing Pensions: The Transnational Campaign for Social Security Reform. Princeton University Press released the book on 10/8.

Privatizing Pensions examines the following questions: To what extent do international organizations, global policy networks and transnational policy entrepreneurs influence domestic policy makers? Have we entered a new phase of globalization that, unbeknownst to most citizens, shapes policies that used to be the sole domain of domestic politics? Orenstein reveals how international institutions-such as the World Bank, USAID and other transnational policy actors-have played a seminal role in the development, diffusion and implementation of new pension reforms that are transforming the postwar social contract in more than 30 countries worldwide, including the United States.

Orenstein shows how transnational actors have driven change in a policy area once thought to be beyond reform in many countries, and how they have done so by deploying their unique resources and legitimacy to promote new ideas, recruit disciples worldwide and provide a broad range of technical assistance to government reformers over the long term. He demonstrates that while domestic decision makers 05/retain veto power over these reforms-which replace traditional social security with individual pension savings accounts-transnational policy makers play the role of "proposal actors," shaping the information, preferences and resources of their domestic clients.

Privatizing Pensions argues that even the most quintessentially domestic areas of policy have been thoroughly globalized, and that these international influences must be better understood.

Orenstein's other books include Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe.

SAIS is one of the country's leading graduate schools devoted to the study of international relations. Located along Embassy Row in Washington's Dupont Circle area, the school enrolls more than 580 full-time graduate students and mid-career professionals and has trained more than 15,000 alumni in all aspects of international affairs. SAIS also has campuses in Bologna, Italy, and Nanjing, China.