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Begin New Search Political Geography Global Focus Content Type Policy Brief Publication Year within 10 Years Publication Year within 5 Years

201. After the OECD-Deal: Transatlantic Cooperation and International Corporate Tax Reform

Author:
Shahin Vallée and Ben Judah
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
Tax avoidance by multinational corporations has become a central feature of the world economy. After decades of opposition, the US wants to set a global minimum corporation tax rate and limit tax avoidance, but it will need all of Europe to stand behind it. A historic 130-country OECD tax agreement is giving some hope but both sides of the Atlantic will need to confront deeply rooted interests if they want to implement the deal and build a new cooperative tax reform framework.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Reform, Economy, Transatlantic Relations, Corporate Tax, and OECD
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

202. Global Supply Chains: Compete, Don’t Retreat

Author:
Committee for Economic Development of the Conference Board
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Conference Board
Abstract:
For decades, global supply chains have become increasingly integral to the US economy and have been embraced by business and successive US Administrations because they increase efficiency and US competitiveness. But over the past several years, criticism has grown beyond the argument that US jobs are being exported to include concern about a more hostile and competitive global landscape.1 Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and lockdowns were imposed. Production in general was disrupted, shutting down suppliers and interrupting transportation channels; foreign governments closed their borders or hoarded crucial supplies for their own peoples.2 Prominently, lifesaving supplies—including personal protective equipment (PPE) and pharmaceutical production commodities, often sourced from abroad—were in short supply, putting frontline health care workers at even greater risk and complicating vaccine distribution.3 And then, as the pandemic began to ease and demand for goods increased, the enormous container ship Ever Given was grounded in the Suez Canal for six days, bringing much of goods transport around the world to a grinding halt and raising fears of even greater supply chain bottlenecks and commercial chaos.4 This truly unprecedented turn of events has exposed challenges to US reliance on global supply chains. Critics of the “offshoring” of jobs have assigned much of the economic and even the human pain of the pandemic to unwise and excessive dependence on global supply chains that include countries with “command” economies rather than free-market ones, or hostile nations that are unreliable sources of essential goods. The pandemic has also raised national security concerns about the reliability and resiliency of global supply chains, and businesses have been forced into workarounds of their own practices. Given the size of China’s economy, its extensive role in global supply chains, its growing military strength, and the growing tensions in its bilateral US relationship, China is at the nexus of these major concerns about supply chain resilience. The new administration has responded to this turmoil with a series of policy directives,5 studies on the subject,6 and legislative proposals under active consideration in Congress covering both short-term and medium-term responses, including a twenty-first century industrial strategy—which would be a major change of US policy direction. Global trade in materials, tools, components, and services deserves an immediate assessment of both security and economic needs for the long term.7 Security with prosperity must be the goal, and the nation must fully comprehend the bigger picture to achieve that outcome. This brief will put the role of global supply chains in the US and the world economy in perspective. It will offer recommendations to manage the economic and security challenges of global supply chains in the postpandemic economy to ensure that the US remains an innovative and competitive global leader.
Topic:
Economy, Trade, Strategic Competition, COVID-19, Commerce, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

203. Inclusion is Not Enough to Achieve Gender and Racial Equality in Global Peace and Security

Author:
Signe Marie Cold-Ravnkilde, Marsha Henry, Robin May Schott, and Nina Wilen
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
In January 2021, the Danish Ministry of Defence launched a new plan setting out how Denmark should implement United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 of 2000, which is the cornerstone of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda (WPS). The plan contains concrete steps for incorporating gender and diversity perspectives into the Danish defence forces, ranging from recruitment to solving peace and conflict-related tasks globally. Indeed, the timing is right. As Denmark prepares its candidature for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) from 2025, gender equality has been identified as one of the key priorities in the country’s contribution to global peace. Against this backdrop, how can the Danish contribution to this field avoid previous pitfalls and help to open up a broader space for equality in global peace and security? Twenty years ago, women’s movements across the world put women and human security on the global peace agenda. With UNSCR 1325, member states committed themselves to mainstreaming a gender perspective into matters of conflict and peacebuilding. While the WPS agenda is sometimes presented as an achievement of the Global North, many countries from the Global South have made contributions to gender equality, and there is now a growing global ownership of this normative agenda. The WPS’s focus on women’s experience in conflict was an important step in moving away from their invisibility in conflict. The attention of journalists and international courts to war practices that harm women specifically, including rape and sexual abuse, have had enormous significance for public awareness and the sense of justice. However, the past twenty years have also exposed major gaps in the WPS agenda. Focusing on women alone is not sufficient for understanding how practices and values in organisations and cultural contexts reinforce both gendered and racialised power hierarchies in the civilian and military worlds. Experiences from international peacekeeping since 2000 foreground the need for an epistemological and practical shift. To understand the challenges to equality in the global peace agenda, an intersectional lens is needed to examine how multiple systems of power, including gender, race, North-South axes of power, age, class and religion, co-exist and interact with each other.
Topic:
Security, Peacekeeping, Violence, Inclusion, and Gender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

204. Getting From Ideas to Reality: Building Political Support to Translate Good Ideas Into Actual Practice

Author:
Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
While many actors within government wish to advance more responsible approaches to land-based investment, there are often political barriers for bringing law and policy proposals to fruition and translating those ideas into practice. This primer focuses on how government officials can improve the governance and practice of responsible land-based investment by building stronger political support. This is especially important given that government champions or "reformers" frequently interact with peers or superiors who have differing and sometimes opposing interests. The primer outlines strategic approaches which champions within government can take to improve the chances that their ideas are implemented, and examples of how the approaches could look or proceed in reality.
Topic:
Politics, Governance, Reform, and Land
Political Geography:
Global Focus

205. Protecting Freedom of Thought in the Digital Age

Author:
Susie Alegre
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
As digital technology plays an ever-increasing role in our lives, the need for regulations to protect our rights to freedom of thought and opinion is becoming more apparent, especially with regard to social media platforms’ relentless mission to get inside people’s heads using their personal data. International human rights law protects our right to freedom of thought, which includes the right to keep our thoughts and opinions private, the right not to have our thoughts and opinions manipulated, and the right not to be penalized for our thoughts and opinions. This policy brief will explore strategies to protect these rights in digital spaces.
Topic:
Human Rights, Science and Technology, Privacy, and Digitalization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

206. Designing Institutional Collaboration into Global Governance

Author:
C. Randall Henning
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Collaboration among international institutions is essential for high-quality governance in many areas of global policy, yet it is chronically undersupplied. Numerous opportunities for institutional collaboration are being missed and there are calls for deepening collaboration in discourse on global governance — in new areas of governance, such as digital privacy, content moderation and platforms; better-established areas, such as climate change and biodiversity; as well as long-established but nonetheless evolving areas, such as international finance, development and trade. There are several obstacles to collaboration, including key countries’ using some institutions to constrain others, a strategy of “complexity for control.” This policy brief suggests that in designing international institutions, states and other principals should draw from a tool kit of strategies and techniques for promoting collaboration, including introducing or developing formal and informal mechanisms, and harnessing the Group of Seven and the Group of Twenty to foster collaboration proactively. New institutions should be designed from the outset to collaborate with others in a dense institutional environment.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Privacy, Institutions, Innovation, and Collaboration
Political Geography:
Global Focus

207. Designing and Regulating Retail Digital Currencies

Author:
Steven L. Schwarcz
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Governments and multinational organizations are exploring the feasibility of developing “retail” digital currencies, sponsored by governmental central banks or privately issued, which consumers could use on a day-to-day basis as an alternative to cash. Central bank digital currencies could be either account-based or token-based. Privately issued digital currencies would likely be token-based. Private issuers are focusing on “stablecoins,” which are digital currencies backed by assets having intrinsic value. Retail digital currencies raise new regulatory issues in addition to those typically associated with money and payment systems. The most successful retail digital currencies are likely to be used not only domestically but also in cross-border transactions, which can be costly. They therefore should be designed, regulated and supervised to reduce these costs and, ideally, also to increase consumer accessibility — and thus to broaden financial inclusion.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Currency, Innovation, Cryptocurrencies, and Digital Currency
Political Geography:
Global Focus

208. COVID-19 and the Exacerbation of Gender Inequality: How the Pandemic Disproportionately Affected Women around the World

Author:
Jennifer Dikler
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
Abstract:
The gender wage gap, or the idea that women have historically and consistently earned less than men, has been widely studied and accepted over the past few decades. This gender wage gap exists globally and serves as a powerful indicator of the gender inequality experienced by women. As of 2019, according to data amassed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), South Korea’s gender wage gap among full-time employees is the largest among the countries that make up the OECD, coming in at 32.5%. Japan was second at 32.5%, followed by Mexico, the United States, and Canada at 18.8%, 18.5%, and 17.6%, respectively. Notably, in countries with higher levels of racial diversity, the gender wage gap is usually significantly exacerbated for women of color. Despite narrowing in recent years, the gender wage gap is extremely stubborn, and very much existent, as is the general global gender inequality that it reflects. In the past 18 months, the world's population and the global economy have been significantly upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus has affected virtually every country in the world, especially nations with fewer resources to help combat its spread. Studies are also beginning to confirm that COVID-19 has had a disproportionate economic effect on women in many countries, amplifying the gender inequality that persisted in the global economy even prior to the pandemic. For example, as outlined in a study published by McKinsey in July 2020, “Women make up 39 percent of global employment but account for 54 percent of overall [COVID-19- related] job losses” (Madgavkar et al. 2020). However, the widening of the gender gap during the pandemic has been far from universal, with some countries seeing the opposite results. This brief seeks to provide an initial exploration, specifically highlighting how variably the pandemic has affected the United States, South Korea, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Honduras, Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany. When it comes to global gender equality, where progress is so essential and yet so slow, it is extremely important to explore the economic setbacks created by the pandemic. If not addressed properly, these setbacks might not only slow the fight toward gender equality, but could also slow down the global economy.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Women, Inequality, Economy, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

209. The Impact of Unilateral Trade Policy on International Trade Structure

Author:
Moonhee Cho
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
Abstract:
Uncertainty grows with the diffusion of unilateral trade policies. In particular, the average value of the World Uncertainty Index increased by four to fivefold compared to 1990. Recently, unilateral trade policies are spreading internationally. Non-tariff measures including anti-dumping, countervailing measures, SPS and TBT are increasing. Moreover, both developing and developed countries are adopting trade-disruptive measures and these are rapidly increasing. This report analyzes the widespread diffusion of unilateral trade policies and changes in trade structures.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Trade Policy, and Unilateralism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

210. Analysis of Determinants of Foreign Capital Flow: Focused on Interest Rate and Exchange

Author:
Deok Ryong Yoon, Wongho Song, and Jinhee Lee
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
Abstract:
As the linkage between domestic and foreign financial markets grows stronger, concerns have been raised about the inflow and outflow of foreign investment capital as a source of financial instability whenever the financial market becomes unstable. Considering that opening the capital market is not an option, it becomes essential to examine the determinants of foreign investment to maximize the benefits of foreign capital inflows and outflows for sound growth in the real sector as well as the financial sector. Accordingly, this study attempts to produce evidence-based policy implications by empirically analyzing the determinants of the inflow and outflow of foreign investment funds.
Topic:
Foreign Exchange, Markets, Capital Flows, Investment, and Interest Rates
Political Geography:
Global Focus