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Begin New Search Topic International Relations Political Geography United States Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 25 Years

41. Brazil and the Transatlantic Community in the Wake of the Global Crisis

Author:
Thomas J Trebat
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Columbia University
Abstract:
As the great global crisis eases its grasp, it is a time to reconsider relations between Brazil and the North, especially the United States and the European Union. While the world economy is still reeling, it is very possible that a new and more productive period in Brazil's relations with the US and Europe is possible. This positive outcome derives from numerous factors, most especially Brazil's “peaceful rise” to a more prominent global role and the arrival of the Obama administration whose promise of a new beginning in U.S. foreign policy has been greeted with such evident enthusiasm in Latin America.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, International Political Economy, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Brazil, and Latin America

42. Contextualizing Conceptions of Corruption: Challenges for the International Anti-corruption Campaign

Author:
Malte Gephart
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
While in an initial legal and academic anti-corruption wave corruption itself was at the center of analysis, research is now increasingly focused on anti-corruption discourse and praxis. The latter analyses have generated numerous criticisms of anti-corruption activities and anti-corruption research, and these are presented in this literature review. These criticisms range from the anti-corruption norm's legitimacy deficit, to the difficulty of defining and measuring corruption, to the discourse's depoliticization through its technicalization. The anti-corruption movement faces particular difficulties with respect to the tension between the universality of the anti-corruption norm and its simultaneous contextualization for specific and local application. This tension is especially important because it touches upon the central issues of the respective political communities, such as the division of the private from the public, which differ from one cultural context to another. The contextualization of anti-corruption concepts has to be enabled in various areas: first, with respect to the culturally shaped conception of the division between the public and the private; second, with respect to local understandings of corruption, that is, what is actually meant when talking about “corruption”; and third, with respect to the low socioeconomic development levels in some countries, which do not permit the absence of corruption (evading a zero-tolerance rhetoric).
Topic:
International Relations, Corruption, International Cooperation, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and United Nations

43. Re-setting US-EU-Russia Relations. Moving Beyond Rhetoric

Author:
Emiliano Alessandri and Riccardo Alcaro
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
After a period of severe turbulences, the United States, Europe, and Russia seem willing to start out on a new course. 'Pushing the reset button', as suggested by US Vice President Joe Biden, is an alluring formula, but it is no guide for action. A new US and European arrangement with Russia is more likely to endure if all parties learn from the troubled experience of the last few years.
Topic:
International Relations and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Europe

44. Effectiveness and Ineffectiveness of the UN Security Council in the Last Twenty Years: A US Perspective

Author:
John Van Oudenaren
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The origins of the UN Security Council go back to the Congress of Vienna and the peacemaking process that followed the Napoleonic wars of 1799-1815, when the distinction between the great powers and all other powers first was enshrined in the practice of international diplomacy. The great powers were said to be those powers with interests general to the European system and thus by implication a stake in the system as a whole, in contrast to lesser powers, which had merely local or regional interests. This distinction carried over into the peace-making process after World War I and was formalized in the Covenant of the League of Nations, which identified the Principal Allied and Associated Powers as the permanent members of the League Council. The distinction lived on in the United Nations Organization and the UN Charter, which assigned responsibility for the maintenance of peace to the Security Council, in which the five states defined as great powers were given a permanent veto.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States

45. Engaging Syria? U.S. Constraints and Opportunities

Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Candidate Obama pledged that his Middle East policy would include re-engagement with Syria; President Obama will find that the past is not easily overcome. The reasons behind his vow remain pertinent. Syria holds important cards in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine, is Iran's most important Arab ally and has substantial influence over Hamas and Hizbollah. There are indications of potential common ground on which to build, from resuming Israeli-Syrian negotiations, to consolidating progress in Iraq to blunting the rise of jihadi militancy and sectarianism. But significant obstacles to healthy, mutually beneficial relations remain, along with a legacy of estrangement and distrust. They dictate the need for a prudent approach that seeks first to rebuild ties and restore confidence. It will be critical to reassure Damascus that the U.S. is interested in improving relations and resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict, not in regime change. It is also equally critical not to compromise on core principles such as Lebanon's sovereignty or the integrity of the international tribunal investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Arabia, and Syria

46. The Somali conflict: The role of external actors

Author:
Bjørn Møller
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Somalia has been without a functioning state ever since 1991, when the former dictator, Siyad Barre, was overthrown. None of the competing factions were strong enough to take his place as ruler of the country, producing first chaos, but gradually a form of stateless order. The international interventions have ever since the failed, and counter-productive intervention by the United Nations and the United States in the early 1990 exacerbated rather than mitigated the problems, let alone solved them. This was especially the case for the Ethiopian invasion (December 2006-January 2009), which produced utter chaos and a severe humanitarian crisis. Since the withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces, Islamist extremist militias have been establishing control of Somalia, and they may or may not be able to maintain this control. If they pursue their radical programme of Islamisation, their reign is likely to be short, but if they moderate themselves they may retain control.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, Foreign Policy, United Nations, and War
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Somalia

47. Crisis and Consensus; America and ASEAN in a New Global Context

Author:
Donald K. Emmerson
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
No crisis is uniformly global. The suffering and the opportunity that a “global” crisis entails are always unevenly distributed across countries, and unevenly across the population inside any one country. That said, one can nevertheless argue that we—not the old royal “we” but, more presumptuously, the new global “we”—are in January 2009 experiencing the latest of four dramatic changes that major parts of the world have undergone over the last twenty years. In 1989, of course, the Berlin Wall was breached, ending the Cold War, followed by the implosion of Lenin's Soviet dystopia two years later. Nor did the 1989 massacre of proreform demonstrators in Tiananmen Square revive a command economy in China. Instead it kept the polity shut so that Deng's economy could continue to open.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, China, America, Israel, Asia, and Berlin

48. Global Imbalances and the Financial Crisis

Author:
Steven Dunaway
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The current economic and financial crisis has brought about a significant change in global economic governance as the international forum for discussions on the crisis has shifted from the small group of advanced countries in the Group of Seven (G7) to the Group of Twenty (G20), a broader group including important emerging market countries. The G20 summit held in Washington, DC, on November 15, 2008, dealt with the immediate concerns fostered by the crisis and focused on both macroeconomic policy actions needed to support global growth and ideas for implementing financial market reforms. Follow-up G20 summits are expected, starting with a gathering in the United Kingdom in April 2009. However, for these discussions to have a substantial impact, the agenda will have to be broadened beyond economic stimulus and financial market regulation. If not, global policymakers will miss a critical chance to make the world economy and financial markets more stable, as then U.S. treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. pointed out: If we only address particular regulatory issues—as critical as they are—without addressing the global imbalances that fueled recent excesses, we will have missed an opportunity to dramatically improve the foundation for global markets and economic vitality going forward. The pressure from global imbalances will simply build up again until it finds another outlet.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and China

49. China's $1.7 Trillion Bet: China's External Portfolio and Dollar Reserves

Author:
Brad W. Setser and Arpana Pandey
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
China reported $1.95 trillion in foreign exchange reserves at the end of 2008. This is by far the largest stockpile of foreign exchange in the world: China holds roughly two times more reserves than Japan, and four times more than either Russia or Saudi Arabia. Moreover, China's true foreign port- folio exceeds its disclosed foreign exchange reserves. At the end of December, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE)—part of the People's Bank of China (PBoC) managed close to $2.1 trillion: $1.95 trillion in formal reserves and between $108 and $158 billion in “other foreign assets.” China's state banks and the China Investment Corporation (CIC), China's sovereign wealth fund, together manage another $250 billion or so. This puts China's total holdings of foreign assets at over $2.3 trillion. That is over 50 percent of China's gross domestic product (GDP), or roughly $2,000 per Chinese inhabitant.
Topic:
International Relations, Debt, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Israel, Asia, and Saudi Arabia

50. Turkey and Armenia: Opening Minds, Opening Borders

Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Turkey and Armenia are close to settling a dispute that has long roiled Caucasus politics, isolated Armenia and cast a shadow over Turkey's European Union (EU) ambition. For a decade and a half, relations have been poisoned by disagreement about issues including how to address a common past and compensate for crimes, territorial disputes, distrust bred in Soviet times and Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani land. But recently, progressively intense official engagement, civil society interaction and public opinion change have transformed the relationship, bringing both sides to the brink of an historic agreement to open borders, establish diplomatic ties and begin joint work on reconciliation. They should seize this opportunity to normalise. The politicised debate whether to recognise as genocide the destruction of much of the Ottoman Armenian population and the stalemated Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh should not halt momentum. The U.S., EU, Russia and others should maintain support for reconciliation and avoid harming it with statements about history at a critical and promising time.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, Genocide, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Turkey, Caucasus, Asia, Soviet Union, Armenia, and Azerbaijan