This page lists select journal articles on international trade, development, and cultural economics. All the highlighted articles are downloadable and peer-reviewed.
LATEST 2021-2025 (SAMPLE)
Singh, J.P., Amarda Shehu, Manpriya Dua, and Caroline Wesson. 2025. Entangled Narratives: Insights from Social and Computer Sciences on National Artificial Intelligence Infrastructures. International Studies Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf001.
How do countries narrate their values and priorities in artificial intelligence infrastructures in comparative national and global contexts? This paper analyzes the policies governing national and regional artificial intelligence infrastructures to advance an understanding of “entangled narratives”in global affairs. It does so by utilizing artificial intelligence techniques that assist with generalizability and model building without sacrificing granularity. In particular, the machine learning and natural language processing big data models used alongside some process-tracing demonstrate the ways artificial intelligence infrastructural plans diverge, cluster, and transform along several topical dimensions in comparative contexts. The paper’s entangled narra- tive approach adds to international relations (IR) theorizing about infrastructural narratives and technological diffusion. We provide patterned and granular results at various levels, which challenge and refine existing theories that attribute differences in infrastructures and technological adoption to geopolitical competition and imitation, top-down or linear international diffusion effects, and differences in political systems.
Dua, M., Singh, J.P. & Shehu, A. 2025. The ethics of national artificial intelligence plans: an empirical lens. AI Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-025-00663-2
Over fifty countries have published national infrastructure and strategy plans on Artificial Intelligence (AI), outlining their values and priorities regarding AI research, development, and deployment. This paper utilizes a deliberation and capabilities-based ethics framework rooted in providing freedom of agency and choice to human beings– to investigate how different countries approach AI ethics within their national plans. We explore the commonalities and variations in national priorities and their implications for a deliberation and capabilities-based ethics approach. Combining established and novel methodologies such as content analysis, graph structuring, and generative AI, we uncover a complex landscape where traditional geostrategic formations intersect with new alliances, thereby revealing how various groups and associated values are prioritized. For instance, the Ibero-American AI strategy highlights strong connections among Latin American nations, particularly with Spain, emphasizing gender diversity but pragmatically and predominantly as a workforce issue. In contrast, a US-led coalition of “science and tech first movers” is more focused on advancing foundational AI and diverse applications. The European Union AI strategy showcases leading states like France and Germany while addressing regional divides, with more focus and detail on social mobility, sustainability, standardization, and democratic governance of AI. These findings offer an empirical lens into the current global landscape of AI development and ethics, revealing distinct national trajectories in the pursuit of ethical AI.
J. P. Singh and Michael Woolcock. 2023. The Future of Multilateralism and Global Development: Opportunities for Constitutive and Functional Reform. Special Collection: Future of Multilateralism and Global Development. Global Perspectives. 3 (1)
In response to the numerous challenges facing contemporary multilateral organizations, and indeed the very idea of multilateralism itself, many have called for “wholesale change” yet few have provided specific details on substance or articulated how any such reforms might be supported (politically, financially) or implemented. We summarize key insights from a recent global initiative that sought to both provide a critical assessment of multilateralism at different units of analysis and offer credible corresponding responses, doing so within a basic framework distinguishing between multilateralism’s constitutive elements (e.g., the creation, organization, and collective understandings of the UN system) and its functional components (everyday activities such as budgets and hiring practices). This collection of fourteen papers and six commentaries highlights specific ways in which different kinds of political, policy, and procedural challenges might be addressed, including strategies to adopt more adaptive management practices, ensure compliance with dues-paying rules, and diffuse secession threats; enact difficult trade-offs between imperatives for transparency, accountability, and confidentiality; learn from regulatory innovations in trade and investment rules to strengthen labor, human rights, and the environment; formulate workable domestic and global rules for multilateral cooperation; enhance data on, studies of, and policy responses to rising inequalities; implement potential technical fixes to redress debilitating “binding constraints”; promote greater staff diversity (geographically, demographically, ideologically); forge greater complementarity between regional, “new” (Southern-based) and “established” multilateral organizations; secure the substantive contributions of small states; and respond proactively to the shifting contours of geopolitical rivalries, opportunities, and imperatives.
J.P. Singh. 2021. Race, Culture, and Economics: An Example from North-South Trade Relations. Review of International Political Economy. 28 (2): 323-335. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1771612
This essay refines the understanding of culture and race – with operational and temporal dynamics – to explain North-South trade outcomes. Following traditions in economic sociology and anthropology, culture is presented as a toolkit of values. The recent rise of racism and xenophobia as values associated with populism can be traced to cultural toolkits that have sedimented histories. The cultural unsettledness of the present times has brought these values to fore. The blindspots in political economy ignored the cultural embeddedness of interests and values as they evolve through time, and therefore missed both the examination of important outcomes and their historical roots. The paper provides an empirical example from racialized values embedded in the history of North-South trade relations.
GUEST EDITOR: SPECIAL ISSUES/COLLECTIONS
- Co-Editor (with Michael Woolcock, World Bank), Special Collection of 20 essays on the Future of Multilateralism and Global Development, Global Development. 2023.
- Guest Editor, Special Issue on “Emerging Powers in the World Trade Organization,” International Negotiation. 2016.
- Guest Editor (with Beth K Simmons), “International Relations in the Information Age,” International Studies Association Special Presidential Issue, International Studies Review, 2013.
- Guest Editor, Special issue on “Cultural Policy and Border Crossings.” Review of Policy Research. 2007.
ARTICLES 1998-2024
Alexander S Choi, Syeda Sabrina Akter, JP Singh, Antonios Anastasopoulos. December 2024. “The LLM Effect: Are Humans Truly Using LLMs, or Are They Being Influenced By Them Instead?” In Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, Miami.
Manpriya Dua, J.P. Singh, Amarda Shehu. 2024. “Health Equity in AI Development and Policy: An AI-enabled Study of International, National and Intra-national AI Infrastructures.” AAAI 2024 Fall Symposium on Machine Intelligence for Equitable Global Health (MI4EGH).
J. P. Singh. 2020. Trade Negotiations at the (Possible) End of Multilateral Institutionalism. International Negotiation 25:J.P. Singh. 2020. Political Economy, Markets and Institutions: Preference Formation as a Point of Entry. Global Perspectives 1:1
J.P. Singh. 2019. Development finance 2.0: do participation and information technologies matter? Review of International Political Economy. 26(5): 886-910. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2019.1616600
J.P. Singh and Evangelos Chrysagis. April 2019. Understanding Multimodalities in Arts and Social Sciences. Arts & International Affairs. 3.3/4.1. April 2019. doi: 10.18278/aia.3.3.4.1.1
J. P. Singh. 2018. “UNESCO: Scientific humanism and its impact on multilateral diplomacy.” Global Policy. 9:3.
J.P. Singh. May 2018. Singh, JP, Guy Gotto, Zach Marschall. The Arts, Participation, and Global Interests. Arts & International Affairs. 3:1. May 2018
J.P. Singh. June 2017. Art and the Global.” Arts & International Affairs. 2:2.
J.P Singh & Surupa Gupta. 2016. Agriculture and its Discontents: Coalitional Politics at the WTO with Special Reference to India’s Food Security Interests. International Negotiation. 21: 295-326
J.P. Singh and Mikkell Flyverbom. July 2016. Representing Participation in ICT4D Projects. Telecommunications Policy. July 2016.
J.P. Singh. March 2016. “A Subaltern Performance: Circulations of Gender, Islam, and Nation in India’s Song of Defiance.” Arts & International Affairs. 1:1.
J.P. Singh. 2015. Diffusion of Power and Diplomacy: New Meanings, Problem Solving, and Deadlocks in Emerging Multilateral Negotiations. International Negotiation. Volume 20: 146-174. 20th Anniversary Edition. 2015
J.P. Singh. 2014. “Developing Countries, Agriculture, and the World Trade Organization.” Yojana. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. June 2014.
J.P. Singh. 2014. Development Remix: Representing Poverty, Culture, and Agency in the Developing World. International Studies Perspectives. Volume 15:3.
J.P. Singh. 2014. Cultural Networks & UNESCO: Fostering Heritage Preservation Betwixt Idealism and Participation. Heritage & Society.
J.P. Singh. 2013. Information Technologies, Meta-power, and Transformations in Global Politics. International Studies Review.
J.P. Singh. 2010. Development Objectives and Trade Negotiations: Moralistic Foreign Policy or Negotiated Trade Concessions? International Negotiation. 15: 367-389.
J.P. Singh. 2010. Multilateral Approaches to Deliberating Internet Governance. Policy and Internet, Vol 1:1. 91-111.
J.P. Singh. 2009. What is Being Controlled on the Internet? In Johann Erickson and Giampiero Giacomello, Editors. “The Forum: Who Controls the Internet?” International Studies Review. 218-221.
J.P. Singh. 2008. Agents of Policy Learning and Change: US and EU Perspectives on Cultural Policy. Journal of Arts Management, Law, Society. 141-159.
J.P. Singh. 2008. Paulo Freire: Possibilities for Dialogic Communication in a Market-Driven Information Age. Key Thinkers in the Information Age Series. Information, Communication, and Society. Vol. 11: Issue 5. 699-726. 2008
J.P. Singh and Shilpa Hart. 2007. Sex Workers and Cultural Policy: Mapping the Issues and Actors in Thailand. Review of Policy Research. 24:2: 155-173.
J.P. Singh. 2007. Culture or Commerce? A Comparative Assessment of International Interactions and Developing Countries at UNESCO, WTO, and Beyond. International Studies Perspectives. 8: 36 – 53.
J.P. Singh. 2006. Coalitions, Developing Countries, and International Trade. International Negotiation 11: 499 – 524.
J.P. Singh. 2006. Foreign Direct Investment Variations in Emerging Markets: Credible Commitments, Economic Downturn, or Something Else? Information Technologies and International Development. Vol. 2:4. 75-87
J.P. Singh and Shilpa Hart. 2004. Development as Cross-Cultural Communication: Anatomy of a Development Project in North India. Journal of International Communication. 50-75.
J.P. Singh and Sarah Gilchrist. 2002. Three layers of the electronic commerce network: challenges for the developed and developing worlds. Info: the journal of policy, regulation and strategy for telecommunication, information and media. Vol. 4, No. 2. 31-41.
J.P. Singh. 2001. From POTS to E-commerce: What Have the Developing Countries Learnt About Property Rights Over the Last 50 Years? Prometheus. Vol. 19, No. 4, 347-361
J.P. Singh. 2000. The Institutional Environment and the Effects of Telecommunication Privatization and Market Liberalization in Asia. Telecommunication Policy. Vol. 24, 885-906.
J.P. Singh. 2000. Weak Powers and Globalism: Impact of Plurality on Weak-Strong Negotiations in the International Economy. International Negotiation. Vol. 5, 449-484
J.P. Singh. 1998. Unraveling ‘The Missing Link’: The Provision of Telecommunications Services in Select Developing Countries. Communicatio 24(1): 48-58
J.P. Singh. 2000. “Issues of Access, Affordability, and Use: Bringing People and Information Technologies Together in India” Voices: A Journal on Communication for Development. 2000.
J.P. Singh. 1998. “Telecommunication User Groups and Economic Development.” Asia-Pacific Telecommunity Journal. January 1998.
J.P. Singh. December 1997. “Need for Accountability: Telecommunications Policies for Rural India.” Voices: A Journal on Communication for Development. December 1997