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Begin New Search Content Type Policy Brief Publication Year within 3 Years Publication Year within 25 Years

531. Byting back: The EU’s digital alliance with Latin America and the Caribbean

Author:
Carla Hobbs and José I. Torreblanca
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
China’s and Russia’s growing presence in Latin America and the Caribbean undermines democracy and Western influence in the region, along with the international rules-based order. The EU is responding to this threat by attempting to strengthen its relationships with Latin American and Caribbean countries. The bloc is attempting to build on their affinity for European values and rights, as well their preference for sustainable and inclusive development. Cooperation on digital technologies should be a priority in the effort, given the region’s need for greater connectivity. The Spanish presidency of the EU should lead the formation of a Digital Alliance with Latin America and the Caribbean at a summit scheduled for 2023. The EU can make this alliance work by focusing on connectivity investments, cyber-security, and rights to support Latin American countries’ digital transitions. The alliance will also require a long-term vision within the EU, commitments from member states, leadership by several Latin American countries, and public-private investment partnerships.
Topic:
European Union, Democracy, Alliance, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, and Latin America

532. We’ll always have Paris: How to adapt multilateral climate cooperation to new realities

Author:
Anthony Dworkin and Mats Engström
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
Ahead of COP27, multilateral climate negotiations are stalling due to geopolitical tensions, distrust between the global south and high-income countries, and concerns about energy supplies. It is necessary to move faster in implementing emissions-reduction measures, but the need for consensus in the global climate process makes this difficult. At the same time, drivers of action on climate change are evolving, with countries now competing for economic advantage in new green technologies. The EU and its partners are right to combine negotiations under the UN climate convention with initiatives that bring together like-minded and ambitious countries to accelerate industrial transformation. To be effective and legitimate, these efforts should remain rooted in the multilateral system and incorporate substantial climate funding for emerging markets and lower-income countries. EU institutions and member states should also work to strengthen the capacity of multilateral institutions to support efforts on climate change.
Topic:
Climate Change, International Cooperation, European Union, Multilateralism, and Paris Agreement
Political Geography:
Global Focus

533. Back to barracks: Building democracy after the military coup in Sudan

Author:
Amgad Fareid Eltayeb
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
The protest movement that toppled dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019 promised a first in post-independence Sudan: democratic government. Although a historic opportunity for Sudan, real democracy threatened Sudanese political and military elites. Regimes formed through agreement between these elites constitute the one constant throughout Sudan’s post-independence period. The gap between the political elites and the protest movement helped the military coup in 2021 entrench their position. Violence, repression, and unrest are widespread – and splits in the broader military camp threaten to spill over into civil war. These splits also precipitate Sudan being drawn into regional conflicts such as in Ethiopia and Chad. The international community and European states have failed to find a viable political pathway to end the coup because they are too focused on working with elites. They need to grasp that both military and civilian elites are responsible for failing to open politics to the people of Sudan. The EU and member states should support pro-democracy actors in Sudan and press for a new political pathway centred on them.
Topic:
Military Affairs, European Union, Democracy, and Coup
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

534. Defend. Resist. Repeat: Ukraine’s lessons for European defence

Author:
Hanna Shelest
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
Ukraine’s response to Russian aggression in 2022 holds valuable lessons for the EU and its member states. Since 2014, Ukraine has transformed its armed forces, mobilised a network of reservists, and coordinated military and civilian defence agencies to prioritise cross-society resilience to crises. It has done so by adopting NATO best practices and through a unique movement of volunteers who help fund the war effort. The Ukrainian armed forces have also found innovative ways to use new technologies in mounting an asymmetric response to their much larger adversary. EU member states can learn from Ukraine’s experiences, but this should be a two-way street – with European countries continuing to supply weapons and provide training to Ukraine, and gaining real-world wartime insights in return.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, European Union, and Resilience
Political Geography:
Europe and Ukraine

535. Gateway to growth: How the European Green Deal can strengthen Africa’s and Europe’s economies

Author:
Michaël Tanchum
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
In much of Africa, growth is being driven by “green energy innovation ecosystems”, which combine telecoms, digital platforms, solar power, and the internet of things. European companies and states risk losing out on business opportunities and political influence if they fail to integrate their services and infrastructure into these emerging ecosystems. China and other economic and geopolitical rivals will become African states’ main partner if Europeans stand aside from this key growth trajectory. The EU can: assist on offering world-class data regulation and supporting the construction of data centres; support the construction of other infrastructure, such as for 5G; and help roll out off-grid solar power generation and electric vehicle manufacturing. Europeans should work in joint ventures with African firms as this model is proven to create value added that China’s investments often fail to produce. The EU should merge its nascent Global Gateway international connectivity programme with the European Green Deal. The objectives of both require similar levels of investment in African infrastructure and they can unlock the investment potential of European public-private partnerships.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, European Union, Economy, Innovation, and Green Deal
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa

536. Tough trade: The hidden costs of economic coercion

Author:
Jonathan Hackenbroich, Filip Medunic, and Pawel Zerka
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
Chinese economic coercion against Europe is on a deeply worrying trajectory. Having moved from threats in 2020 to punishment of European companies in 2021, China is now interfering with the EU market as part of a diplomatic dispute with Lithuania. If Beijing pressures European companies to stop trading with Lithuania, businesses could face pressure to stop dealing with Taiwan, Slovenia, or other places when tensions rise. The threat of Russian energy coercion is real, too. The EU needs to develop an Anti-Coercion Instrument that acts as a powerful economic deterrent, but this alone will not sufficiently protect Europe against economic coercion. The EU also requires a comprehensive resilience architecture, including a strong agenda for improving economic strength and trade links, a Resilience Office, and a reformed Blocking Statute that can counter secondary sanctions with Chinese characteristics. A Resilience Office could provide strategic coordination of the EU’s response and evaluate the costs of economic coercion, while the Blocking Statute could allow for targeted countermeasures against companies based in third countries.
Topic:
Security, Economics, European Union, Trade, and Coercion
Political Geography:
Europe

537. The Development Response to Kleptocracy and Strategic Corruption

Author:
Josh Rudolph
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS)
Abstract:
Kleptocracies do not stop at their own borders. The same actors, networks, tactics, and resources that they wield to prevent democracy and rule of law from sprouting at home are also repurposed for foreign aggression. While cronies, oligarchs, and lesser operatives do get rich in the process, “strategic corruption” is chiefly a geopolitical weapon directed by autocratic regimes to secretly undermine the sovereignty of other countries. The three most common manifestations of strategic corruption vary on a spectrum of how directly and boldly they violate sovereignty and subvert democratic processes. Starting with the most indirect and chronic form of strategic corruption, Russia and China invest “corrosive capital” throughout Eastern Europe and the Belt and Road Initiative, respectively. They use corrupt patronage networks and opaque business dealings to spread their kleptocratic model of authoritarian governance. Those corrupt investments are usually also supported by tactics of “malign influence,” like when a minister or politician receives bribes or economic threats until they censor their political speech, advance a foreign policy initiative, or otherwise subordinate the legitimate sovereign interests entrusted to them by their own people in favor of the interests of a foreign power. Finally, the most direct and acute form of strategic corruption involves financial methods of election interference and other tactics of corrupting democratic processes. Often funded with the proceeds of kleptocracy, election interference through covert political financing has become the bailiwick of Kremlin-directed oligarchs. Separate from those three manifestations of strategic corruption—corrosive capital, malign influence, and election interference—China and Russia try to hide their dirty money and malign activities by pressuring foreign journalists into silence through surveillance, thuggery, and lawsuits. Western foreign assistance has not yet offered a coherent response to kleptocracy and strategic corruption, but that is starting to change under the Biden administration. Building resilience to this transnational threat through foreign aid will require four new approaches that are more political and coordinated than traditional development assistance. First, aid should be informed by local political analysis. More important and less used than technical reviews of laws and institutions, political analysis should center anti-corruption efforts around known corrupt activity. That starts by asking sensitive questions about which individuals, institutions, and sectors are the most corrupt, how extensively their networks of wealth and power span, and which corrupt figures must be held accountable to thoroughly purge grand corruption. Second, aid should be responsive to political shifts, scaling up and down, respectively, in response to windows of opportunity for anti-corruption reform and times of backsliding toward kleptocracy. Third, aid responses to kleptocracy should be coordinated at the regional and global levels, similarly to how grand corruption operates across borders through transnational networks of actors and tools. Fourth, anti-corruption programming should be deeply integrated across the traditional sectors of assistance, particularly health, infrastructure, energy, climate, and security. Some of these new approaches are already being prioritized under the Biden administration’s new strategy to combat corruption, particularly coordinating across tools and sectors to fight transnational corruption. But operationalizing this mission will be no small endeavor, given that anti-corruption assistance is delivered through a notoriously technocratic and apolitical bureaucracy built during the Cold War to aid socioeconomic development in individual countries steadily over decades. But getting this right offers the key to defending democracies from autocratic aggression, showing how democracy can deliver, and even helping bring foreign policy and domestic politics into alignment for the first time in a generation.
Topic:
Corruption, Development, Finance, and Kleptocracy
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Eastern Europe, and Global Focus

538. Beijing Winter Olympics 2022: Sports, Law, and Policies

Author:
Tim Harcourt, Deborah Healey, Keiji Kawai, and Yang Pei
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
China Studies Centre, The University of Sydney
Abstract:
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics were hosted amid the Covid-19 pandemic and surrounded by concerns and controversies. This Understanding China Brief results from a roundtable discussion organized by the China Studies Centre and the Centre for Asia and Pacific Law of Sydney University on 3 February 2022 to examine four aspects of the Beijing Olympics: boycotts, COVID- 19 control, law reform, and the economics of the Olympics.
Topic:
Economics, Reform, Sports, Conflict, Olympics, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China and Asia

539. Comparing Older Adults’ Mental Health Needs and Access to Treatment in the U.S. and Other High-Income Countries

Author:
Munira Z. Gunja, Arnav Shah, and Reginald D. Williams II
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Commonwealth Fund
Abstract:
Nearly all U.S. adults over 65 have some mental health coverage through Medicare. Whether that coverage is sufficient is in question. Comparing mental health care access and affordability for U.S. Medicare beneficiaries with that for older adults in peer nations could highlight coverage gaps and point to opportunities for improvement.
Topic:
Economics, Health Care Policy, Social Policy, and Medicare
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

540. Primary Care in High-Income Countries: How the United States Compares

Author:
Molly FitzGerald, Munira Z. Gunja, and Roosa Tikkanen
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Commonwealth Fund
Abstract:
Primary care providers (PCPs) serve as most people’s first point of contact with the health care system. These clinicians build relationships with their patients over time and help coordinate care delivered by other health care providers.1 Evidence shows that a strong foundation of primary care yields better health outcomes overall, greater equity in health care access and outcomes, and lower per capita health costs.2 But in the United States, decades of underinvestment and a low provider supply, among other problems, have limited access to effective primary care.3 This brief highlights gaps in the U.S. primary care system by comparing its performance to systems in 10 other high-income countries.
Topic:
Governance, Health Care Policy, Medicine, and Primary Care
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America