Publishing Institution: Council on Foreign Relations / Topic: Government

1. Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance

Author:: Sheila A. Smith
Publication Date:: 07-2014
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Electoral reform in the early 1990s ended single-party dominance in Japan and promised an era of new politics in which political parties would alternate control of the government. In the two decades that followed, Japan's foreign and domestic policy priorities were subjected to greater scrutiny and debate as Japan, like so many other nations around the globe, sought to reorient itself in a new post-Cold War world. The U.S.-Japan alliance that anchored Japan's postwar foreign policy was not immune to these domestic political reforms. For half a century, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) prided itself on managing the relationship with Washington. But its ouster in 2009 by the reformist Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) led many to expect that even Japan's alliance with the United States would be subject to serious review.
Topic:: Government and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, and Asia

2. Mutual Assured Production

Author:: Richard Katz
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Tensions between China and Japan are rising, but an economic version of mutual deterrence is preserving the uneasy status quo. Put simply, China needs to buy Japanese products as much as Japan needs to sell them.
Topic:: Cold War, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:: Japan, China, and Beijing

3. The Coming Arctic Boom

Author:: Scott G. Borgerson
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No matter what one thinks should be done about global warming, the fact is, it's happening. And its effects are not all bad. In the Arctic, it is turning an impassible region into an emerging epicenter of industry and trade.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Canada

4. The Rise of Mexico's Self-Defense Forces

Author:: Patricio Asfura-Heim and Ralph H. Espach
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Across Mexico, the lawlessness and carnage of the drug wars have given rise to scores of local self-defense forces aiming to defend their communities. The federal government may be tempted to disband and disarm these armed vigilantes, but until it can shape up its security sector, the local groups offer an imperfect but acceptable alternative.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Mexico

5. A Kinder, Gentler Immigration Policy

Author:: Jagdish Bhagwati and Francisco Rivera-Batiz
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Ever since Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, in 1986, attempts at a similar comprehensive reform of U.S. immigration policies have failed. Yet today, as the Republican Party smarts from its poor performance among Hispanic voters in 2012 and such influential Republicans as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush have come out in favor of a new approach, the day for comprehensive immigration reform may seem close at hand. President Barack Obama was so confident about its prospects that he asked for it in his State of the Union address in February 2013. Now, the U.S. Senate looks poised to offer illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.
Topic:: Government, Immigration, and Reform
Political Geography:: United States and Syria

6. Left Out

Author:: Henning Meyer
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, social democrats in Europe believed that their moment had finally arrived. After a decade in which European politics had drifted toward the market-friendly policies of the right, the crisis represented an opportunity for the political center left's champions of more effective government regulation and greater social justice to reassert themselves.
Topic:: Economics and Government
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, France, Denmark, and Slovakia

7. The End of Hypocrisy

Author:: Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The U.S. government seems outraged that people are leaking classified materials about its less attractive behavior. It certainly acts that way: three years ago, after Chelsea Manning, an army private then known as Bradley Manning, turned over hundreds of thousands of classified cables to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, U.S. authorities imprisoned the soldier under conditions that the UN special rapporteur on torture deemed cruel and inhumane. The Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, appearing on Meet the Press shortly thereafter, called WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, “a high-tech terrorist.”
Topic:: Security, Government, and United Nations
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, and India

8. Accepting Austerity

Author:: Cindy Williams
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: On March 1, 2013, the U.S. Department of Defense lost $37 billion overnight to sequestration. The cut marked the first wave of a series of planned cutbacks that will shrink future budgets across the federal government by about $1 trillion over nine years. The reductions had been set in motion back in 2011, when a special “super committee” established by the Budget Control Act (BCA) failed to reach a deficit-reduction agreement, triggering automatic cuts designed to punish both parties. Unlike other budget cuts, sequestration is implemented across the board, taking the same percentage bite out of every account. Except for the decision to spare the military personnel account that provides the pay for the United States' men and women in uniform, defense leaders had no choice about where to take the 2013 cuts. And so, with just seven months left in the fiscal year, sequestration abruptly erased about eight percent of the the Pentagon's budget for the year.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States

9. Why Banking Systems Succeed -- And Fail

Author:: Charles W. Calomiris and Stephen H. Haber
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: People routinely blame politics for outcomes they don't like, often with good reason: when the dolt in the cubicle down the hall gets a promotion because he plays golf with the boss, when a powerful senator delivers pork-barrel spending to his home state, when a well-connected entrepreneur obtains millions of dollars in government subsidies to build factories that will probably never become competitive enterprises. Yet conventional wisdom holds that politics is not at fault when it comes to banking crises and that such crises instead result from unforeseen and extraordinary circumstances.
Topic:: Government and Politics

10. America the Undertaxed

Author:: Andrea Louise Campbell
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Compared with other developed countries, the United States has very low taxes, little income redistribution, and an extraordinarily complex tax code. If it wanted to, the government could raise taxes without crippling growth or productivity. Tax reform is ultimately a political choice, not an economic one -- a statement about what sort of society Americans want.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States and America

11. Government, Geography, and Growth

Author:: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: According to Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's Why Nations Fail, economic development hinges on a country's political institutions. But their monocausal analysis ignores other important factors (such as geography) that can also affect growth.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Europe

12. Latino Immigrant Entrepreneurs: How to Capitalize on Their Economic Potential

Author:: Alexandra Starr
Publication Date:: 07-2012
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Latino immigrant entrepreneurs are making important contributions to the U.S. economy. They have founded highly successful companies in the frozen food, construction, financial services, and high-tech industries. Many of these companies owe their success to cultural connections with Latin American markets abroad and U.S. Latino consumers at home—markets that are set to grow rapidly in the coming years. Small-scale Latino immigrant entrepreneurs, meanwhile, have helped revitalize city commercial strips and small-town Main Streets across the country.
Topic:: Economics, Government, Markets, and Immigration
Political Geography:: Latin America

13. The Iraq We Left Behind

Author:: Ned Parker
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Nine years after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein and just a few months after the last U.S. soldier left Iraq, the country has become something close to a failed state. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presides over a system rife with corruption and brutality, in which political leaders use security forces and militias to repress enemies and intimidate the general population. The law exists as a weapon to be wielded against rivals and to hide the misdeeds of allies. The dream of an Iraq governed by elected leaders answerable to the people is rapidly fading away.
Topic:: Government and United Nations
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Washington

14. The Missing Middle in American Politics

Author:: Reihan Salam
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After Lyndon Johnson's victory over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 U.S. presidential election, the once-mighty Republican Party was reduced to a regional rump. The Democrats won overwhelming majorities in the House and the Senate, which they used to pass Johnson's Great Society legislation. Republicans, meanwhile, were at one another's throats, having endured the most divisive campaign in modern political history. Goldwater had managed to win the Republican presidential nomination over the impassioned opposition of moderate and progressive Republicans, who at the time may well have constituted a majority of the party's members. Moderates blamed Goldwater's right-wing views for the defection of millions of Republican voters.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, China, and America

15. Poker Lessons From Richelieu

Author:: David Bell
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Armand-Jean du Plessis, better known to history as Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), spent most of his career contending for and then exercising control over a deeply divided, indebted, and dysfunctional superpower. His country's politics were vicious, and its government paralyzingly complex. In short, if he were dropped into Washington today, he might feel right at home.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Europe and Washington

16. Freedom's Secret Recipe

Author:: Michael Mann
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Francis Fukuyama shot to fame with a 1989 essay called "The End of History?" which he expanded into a 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. His thesis was a reworking of the "end of ideology" argument propounded in the 1950s by Daniel Bell and others, with an even more emphatic twist. "What we may be witnessing," Fukuyama declared, "is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the endpoint of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." The argument seemed hubristic, a product of the era's American triumphalism.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America

17. Not Time to Attack Iran

Author:: Colin Kahl
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In "Time to Attack Iran" (January/February 2012), Matthew Kroenig takes a page out of the decade-old playbook used by advocates of the Iraq war. He portrays the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran as both grave and imminent, arguing that the United States has little choice but to attack Iran now before it is too late. Then, after offering the caveat that "attacking Iran is hardly an attractive prospect," he goes on to portray military action as preferable to other available alternatives and concludes that the United States can manage all the associated risks. Preventive war, according to Kroenig, is "the least bad option."
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, America, and Iran

18. Cough It Up

Author:: Jack Chow, Shenglan Tang, and Enis Baris
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Yanzhong Huang (“The Sick Man of Asia,” November/December 2011) paints a troubling picture of a China that has rapidly industrialized yet lags in modernizing its health-care system. Yet in his cogent history of China's health policy, much of which centers on self-reliance, Huang puzzlingly omits China's success in winning nearly $1 billion in recent years from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. That the country's health officials have had to resort to tapping a fund ostensibly dedicated to helping the world's poorest countries speaks to their inability to persuade the government to pay for public health with its national coªers. Only when the incongruity of a financial giant getting grants at the expense of impoverished African countries was illuminated did China choose to stop taking Global Fund awards.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Africa, China, and Asia

19. Will Oil Drown the Arab Spring?

Author:: Michael L. Ross
Publication Date:: 09-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Summary: No state with serious oil wealth has ever transformed into a democracy. Oil lets dictators buy off citizens, keep their finances secret, and spend wildly on arms. To prevent the “resource curse” from dashing the hopes of the Arab Spring, Washington should push for more transparent oil markets -- and curb its own oil addiction. MICHAEL L. ROSS is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of the forthcoming book The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations. Even before this year's Arab uprisings, the Middle East was not an undifferentiated block of authoritarianism. The citizens of countries with little or no oil, such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia, generally had more freedom than those of countries with lots of it, such as Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. And once the tumult started, the oil-rich regimes were more effective at fending off attempts to unseat them. Indeed, the Arab Spring has seriously threatened just one oil-funded ruler -- Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi -- and only because NATO's intervention prevented the rebels' certain defeat. Worldwide, democracy has made impressive strides over the last three decades: just 30 percent of the world's governments were democratic in 1980; about 60 percent are today. Yet almost all the democratic governments that emerged during that period were in countries with little or no oil; in fact, countries that produced less than $100 per capita of oil per year (about what Ukraine and Vietnam produce) were three times as likely to democratize as countries that produced more than that. No country with more than a fraction of the per capita oil wealth of Bahrain, Iraq, or Libya has ever successfully gone from dictatorship to democracy. Scholars have called this the oil curse, arguing that oil wealth leads to authoritarianism, economic instability, corruption, and violent conflict. Skeptics claim that the correlation between oil and repression is a coincidence. As Dick Cheney, then the CEO of Haliburton, remarked at a 1996 energy conference, "The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas reserves where there are democratic governments." But divine intervention did not cause repression in the Middle East: hydrocarbons did. There is no getting around the fact that countries in the region are less free because they produce and sell oil.
Topic:: NATO, Government, and Oil
Political Geography:: Iraq, Ukraine, Middle East, Kuwait, Libya, Vietnam, California, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and Tunisia

20. Can Europe's Divided House Stand?

Author:: Hugo Nixon
Publication Date:: 11-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Conventional wisdom has it that the eurozone cannot have a monetary union without also having a fiscal union. Euro-enthusiasts see the single currency as the first steppingstone toward a broader economic union, which is their dream. Euroskeptics do, too, but they see that endgame as hell -- and would prefer the single currency to be dismantled. The euro crisis has, for many observers, validated these notions. Both camps argue that the eurozone countries' lopsided efforts to construct a monetary union without a fiscal counterpart explain why the union has become such a mess. Many of the enthusiasts say that the way forward is for the 17 eurozone countries to issue euro bonds, which they would all guarantee (one of several variations on the fiscal-union theme). Even the German government, which is reluctant to bail out economies weaker than its own, thinks that some sort of pooling of budgets may be needed once the current debt problems have been solved. A fiscal union would not come anytime soon, and certainly not soon enough to solve the current crisis. It would require a new treaty, and that would require unanimous approval. It is difficult to imagine how such an agreement could be reached quickly given the fierce opposition from politicians and the public in the eurozone's relatively healthy economies (led by Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands) to repeated bailouts of their weaker brethren (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain). Moreover, once the crisis is solved, the enthusiasm for a fiscal union may wane. Even if Germany is still prepared to pool some budgetary functions, it will insist on imposing strict discipline on what other countries can spend and borrow. The weaker countries, meanwhile, may not wish to submit to a Teutonic straitjacket once the immediate fear of going bust has passed.
Topic:: Economics and Government
Political Geography:: Europe, Finland, Greece, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Ireland

21. The True Costs of Humanitarian Intervention

Author:: Benjamin A. Valentino
Publication Date:: 11-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As forces fighting Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi consolidated control of Tripoli in the last days of August 2011, many pundits began speaking of a victory not just for the rebels but also for the idea of humanitarian intervention. In Libya, advocates of intervention argued, U.S. President Barack Obama had found the formula for success: broad regional and international support, genuine burden sharing with allies, and a capable local fighting force to wage the war on the ground. Some even heralded the intervention as a sign of an emerging Obama doctrine. It is clearly too soon for this kind of triumphalism, since the final balance of the Libyan intervention has yet to be tallied. The country could still fall into civil war, and the new Libyan government could turn out to be little better than the last. As of this writing, troubling signs of infighting among the rebel ranks had begun to emerge, along with credible reports of serious human rights abuses by rebel forces. Yet even if the intervention does ultimately give birth to a stable and prosperous democracy, this outcome will not prove that intervention was the right choice in Libya or that similar interventions should be attempted elsewhere. To establish that requires comparing the full costs of intervention with its benefits and asking whether those benefits could be achieved at a lower cost. The evidence from the last two decades is not promising on this score. Although humanitarian intervention has undoubtedly saved lives, Americans have seriously underappreciated the moral, political, and economic price involved. This does not mean that the United States should stop trying to promote its values abroad, even when its national security is not at risk. It just needs a different strategy. Washington should replace its focus on military intervention with a humanitarian foreign policy centered on saving lives by funding public health programs in the developing world, aiding victims of natural disasters, and assisting refugees fleeing violent conflict. Abandoning humanitarian intervention in most cases would not mean leaving victims of genocide and repression to their fate. Indeed, such a strategy could actually save far more people, at a far lower price.
Topic:: Security, Government, and Human Rights
Political Geography:: America, Washington, and Libya

22. Why We Still Need Nuclear Power

Author:: Ernest Moniz
Publication Date:: 11-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the years following the major accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, nuclear power fell out of favor, and some countries applied the brakes to their nuclear programs. In the last decade, however, it began experiencing something of a renaissance. Concerns about climate change and air pollution, as well as growing demand for electricity, led many governments to reconsider their aversion to nuclear power, which emits little carbon dioxide and had built up an impressive safety and reliability record. Some countries reversed their phaseouts of nuclear power, some extended the lifetimes of existing reactors, and many developed plans for new ones. Today, roughly 60 nuclear plants are under construction worldwide, which will add about 60,000 megawatts of generating capacity -- equivalent to a sixth of the world's current nuclear power capacity. But the movement lost momentum in March, when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the massive tsunami it triggered devastated Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant. Three reactors were severely damaged, suffering at least partial fuel meltdowns and releasing radiation at a level only a few times less than Chernobyl. The event caused widespread public doubts about the safety of nuclear power to resurface. Germany announced an accelerated shutdown of its nuclear reactors, with broad public support, and Japan made a similar declaration, perhaps with less conviction. Their decisions were made easier thanks to the fact that electricity demand has flagged during the worldwide economic slowdown and the fact that global regulation to limit climate change seems less imminent now than it did a decade ago. In the United States, an already slow approach to new nuclear plants slowed even further in the face of an unanticipated abundance of natural gas.
Topic:: Government and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, and Germany

23. Counterrevolution in Kiev

Publication Date:: 11-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: President Viktor Yanukovych has led Ukraine, no stranger to crisis, into another round of turmoil. He has rolled back democracy while failing to take on corruption or take the country closer to Europe. Now, much of the public has turned against him -- and the country could be headed for more unrest.
Topic:: Government and Politics
Political Geography:: Europe and Ukraine

24. Africa Unleashed

Author:: Edward Miguel
Publication Date:: 11-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Steven Radelet's accessible new book argues that much of the credit for Africa's recent economic boom goes to its increasingly open political systems. But Radelet fails to answer the deeper question: why some countries have managed to develop successful democracies while others have tried but failed.
Topic:: Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, Asia, and Liberia

25. How Central is Land for Peace?

Author:: Elliott Abrams, Oded Naaman, and Mikhael Manekin
Publication Date:: 11-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A HEALTHY OBSESSION Oded Naaman and Mikhael Manekin In "The Settlement Obsession" (July/ August 2011), Elliott Abrams argues: In the end, Israel will withdraw from most of the West Bank and remain only in the major blocs where hundreds of thousands of Israelis now live. Israelis will live in a democratic state where Jews are the majority, and Palestinians will live in a state -- democratic, one hopes -- with an Arab Muslim majority. The remaining questions are how quickly or slowly that end will be reached and how to get there with minimal violence. For Abrams, there can be no other end; all that politics can do is postpone this end or bring it about. Although it would be preferable to end the conflict as soon as possible, there is no immediate need to do so. Any sense of immediacy, Abrams writes, is overblown: he claims that nongovernmental organizations and some in the international community unjustly point to a humanitarian crisis to create unwarranted urgency. In reviewing our book, Occupation of the Territories, Abrams attempts to assuage worries about the need for urgent action, going so far as to compare Israel's military behavior during its 45-year occupation of the West Bank -- in which Israel has expropriated land, seized natural resources, and settled its own population there -- to the United States' behavior during in its ten-year occupation and massive reconstruction of Germany after World War II. Abrams then implies that Breaking the Silence does not provide reliable or sufficient evidence for the claim that, in his words, "the presence of Israeli settlers and IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers in the West Bank is laying waste to the area, reducing it to misery."
Topic:: Government and War
Political Geography:: United States, Israel, Palestine, Arabia, and Germany

26. Demystifying the Arab Spring

Author:: Lisa Anderson
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In Tunisia, protesters escalated calls for the restoration of the country's suspended constitution. Meanwhile, Egyptians rose in revolt as strikes across the country brought daily life to a halt and toppled the government. In Libya, provincial leaders worked feverishly to strengthen their newly independent republic. It was 1919. That year's events demonstrate that the global diffusion of information and expectations -- so vividly on display in Tahrir Square this past winter -- is not a result of the Internet and social media. The inspirational rhetoric of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech, which helped spark the 1919 upheavals, made its way around the world by telegraph. The uprisings of 1919 also suggest that the calculated spread of popular movements, seen across the Arab world last winter, is not a new phenomenon. The Egyptian Facebook campaigners are the modern incarnation of Arab nationalist networks whose broadsheets disseminated strategies for civil disobedience throughout the region in the years after World War I. The important story about the 2011 Arab revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya is not how the globalization of the norms of civic engagement shaped the protesters' aspirations. Nor is it about how activists used technology to share ideas and tactics. Instead, the critical issue is how and why these ambitions and techniques resonated in their various local contexts. The patterns and demographics of the protests varied widely. The demonstrations in Tunisia spiraled toward the capital from the neglected rural areas, finding common cause with a once powerful but much repressed labor movement. In Egypt, by contrast, urbane and cosmopolitan young people in the major cities organized the uprisings. Meanwhile, in Libya, ragtag bands of armed rebels in the eastern provinces ignited the protests, revealing the tribal and regional cleavages that have beset the country for decades. Although they shared a common call for personal dignity and responsive government, the revolutions across these three countries reﬂected divergent economic grievances and social dynamics -- legacies of their diverse encounters with modern Europe and decades under unique regimes.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, Libya, Arabia, Egypt, and Tunisia

27. Getting the Military Out of Pakistani Politics

Author:: Aqil Shah
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States has a major stake in Pakistan's stability, given the country's central role in the U.S.-led effort to, in U.S. President Barack Obama's words, "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat" al Qaeda; its war-prone rivalry with India over Kashmir; and its nuclear arsenal. As a result, U.S. policy toward Pakistan has been dominated by concerns for its stability -- providing the reasoning for Washington's backing of the Pakistani military's frequent interventions in domestic politics -- at the expense of its democratic institutions. But as the recent eruption of protests in the Middle East against U.S.-backed tyrants has shown, authoritarian stability is not always a winning bet. Despite U.S. efforts to promote it, stability is hardly Pakistan's distinguishing feature. Indeed, many observers fear that Pakistan could become the world's first nuclear-armed failed state. Their worry is not without reason. More than 63 years after independence, Pakistan is faced with a crumbling economy and a pernicious Taliban insurgency radiating from its Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the semiautonomous seven districts and six smaller regions along its border with Afghanistan. It is still struggling to meet its population's basic needs. More than half its population faces severe poverty, which fuels resentment against the government and feeds political instability. According to the World Bank, the Pakistani state's effectiveness has actually been in steady decline for the last two decades. In 2010, Foreign Policy even ranked Pakistan as number ten on its Failed States Index, placing it in the "critical" category with such other failed or failing states as Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia. The consequences of its failure would no doubt be catastrophic, if for no other reason than al Qaeda and its affiliates could possibly get control of the country's atomic weapons. The Pakistani Taliban's dramatic incursions into Pakistan's northwestern Buner District (just 65 miles from the capital) in 2009 raised the specter of such a takeover.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, Washington, Middle East, India, and Kashmir

28. What is Totalitarian Art?

Author:: Kanan Makiya
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Igor Golomstock's encyclopedic tome on the art produced in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and communist China makes a good case that totalitarian art is a distinct cultural phenomenon. But a new postscript on art under Saddam Hussein is less compelling, writes a former Iraqi dissident.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: China, Iraq, Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy

29. The Impending Squeeze

Author:: Tim W. Ferguson, Charles B. Heck, and Mitchell W. Hedstrom
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: ESSAY American Profligacy and American Power Roger C. Altman and Richard N. Haass The U.S. government is incurring debt at an unprecedented rate. If U.S. leaders do not act to curb their debt addiction, then the global capital markets will do so for them, forcing a sharp and punitive adjustment in fiscal policy. The result will be an age of American austerity. Would you like to leave a comment? 1CommentsJoin To the Editor: Roger Altman and Richard Haass ("American Profligacy and American Power," November/December 2010) persuasively argue that continued American profligacy promises to undermine American power. But the situation is even more urgent than they suggest. Although Altman and Haass expect markets to remain calm "possibly for two or three years," the rising price of gold suggests otherwise. Gold has risen from $460 per ounce to $1,400 per ounce in the last five years -- representing a 67 percent devaluation of the U.S. dollar per unit of gold. As former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan has said, gold is "the ultimate means of payment." Moreover, on top of new government debt over the next several years, maturing existing debt will need to be refinanced. At 4.6 years, the average maturity of the U.S. federal debt held by the public (debt that now totals $9.1 trillion) is tight relative to, for instance, the average maturity of 13.5 years for British government debt. According to the International Monetary Fund, the maturing debt of the U.S. government will equal 18.1 percent of U.S. GDP during 2011 alone. Altman and Haass rightly note that the U.S. government's annual interest expense will rise dramatically as its stock of debt increases and interest rates inevitably rise. Further debt increases would substantially darken the fiscal outlook for the federal government. And even a relatively small rise in interest rates would have a significant impact. TIM W. FERGUSON Editor, Forbes Asia CHARLES B. HECK Former North American Director, Trilateral Commission MITCHELL W. HEDSTROM Managing Director, TIAA-CREF
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Asia

30. The City and the State

Author:: Sandy Hornick
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: New books by Witold Rybczynski and Edward Glaeser celebrate the ever-changing American urban experience. In proposing how to revitalize modern cities, however, both books underplay the critical role of the government.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America

31. Sudan's Secession Crisis

Author:: Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Ahead of last weekend's secession referendum in Sudan, Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz wrote on the prospects for compromise and reconciliation between the country's north and south.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Sudan

32. The Political Power of Social Media

Author:: Clay Shirky
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Discussion of the political impact of social media has focused on the power of mass protests to topple governments. In fact, social media's real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere -- which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States

33. Letter to the Editor: Legalize It

Author:: Terry Nelson
Publication Date:: 01-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Robert Bonner writes that "destroying the drug cartels is not an impossible task" ("The New Cocaine Cowboys," July/ August 2010). But he really should have written, "Destroying some drug cartels is not an impossible task."
Topic:: Security, Government, and War on Drugs
Political Geography:: United States

34. Armistice Now: An Interim Agreement for Israel and Palestine

Author:: Ehud Yaari
Publication Date:: 03-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: More than 16 years after the euphoria of the Oslo accords, the Israelis and the Palestinians have still not reached a final-status peace agreement. Indeed, the last decade has been dominated by setbacks -- the second intifada, which started in September 2000; Hamas' victory in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections; and then its military takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 -- all of which have aggravated the conflict.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia

35. India's Rise, America's Interest: The Fate of the U.S.-Indian Partnership

Author:: Evan A. Feigenbaum
Publication Date:: 03-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Until the late 1990s, the United States often ignored India, treating it as a regional power in South Asia with little global weight. India's weak and protected economy gave it little influence in global markets, and its nonaligned foreign policy caused periodic tension with Washington. When the United States did concentrate on India, it too often fixated on India's military rivalry with Pakistan. Today, however, India is dynamic and transforming. Starting in 1991, leaders in New Delhi -- including Manmohan Singh, then India's finance minister and now its prime minister -- pursued policies of economic liberalization that opened the country to foreign investment and yielded rapid growth. India is now an important economic power, on track (according to Goldman Sachs and others) to become a top-five global economy by 2030. It is a player in global economic decisions as part of both the G-20 and the G-8 + 5 (the G-8 plus the five leading emerging economies) and may ultimately attain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. India's trajectory has diverged sharply from that of Pakistan. With economic growth, India acquired the capacity to act on issues of primary strategic and economic concern to the United States. The United States, in turn, has developed a growing stake in continued Indian reform and success -- especially as they contribute to global growth, promote market-based economic policies, help secure the global commons, and maintain a mutually favorable balance of power in Asia. For its part, New Delhi seeks a United States that will help facilitate India's rise as a major power. Two successive Indian governments have pursued a strategic partnership with the United States that would have been unthinkable in the era of the Cold War and nonalignment. This turnaround in relations culminated in 2008, when the two countries signed a civil nuclear agreement. That deal helped end India's nuclear isolation by permitting the conduct of civil nuclear trade with New Delhi, even though India is not a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Important as the agreement was, however, the U.S.-Indian relationship remains constrained. For example, although U.S. officials hold standing dialogues about nearly every region of the world with their counterparts from Beijing, Brussels, and Tokyo, no such arrangements exist with New Delhi.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, Washington, India, and New Delhi

36. Helping Others Defend Themselves

Author:: Robert M. Gates
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the decades to come, the most lethal threats to the United States' safety and security -- a city poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack -- are likely to emanate from states that cannot adequately govern themselves or secure their own territory. Dealing with such fractured or failing states is, in many ways, the main security challenge of our time.
Topic:: Security and Government
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

37. The Brussels Wall

Author:: William Drozdiak
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: These days, there is a great deal of talk about the dawn of an Asian century -- hastened by the rise of China and India. Meanwhile, the fractious Atlantic alliance, enfeebled by two wars and an economic crisis, is said to be fading away. But the West is not doomed to decline as a center of power and influence. A relatively simple strategic fix could reinvigorate the historic bonds between Europe and North America and reestablish the West's dominance: it is time to bring together the West's principal institutions, the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. When NATO's 28 leaders gather in Portugal later this year to draw up a new security strategy for the twenty-first century, they will consider a range of options, including military partnerships with distant allies such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea. Yet the most practical solution lies just down the road from the alliance's sprawling headquarters near the Brussels airport. Genuine cooperation between NATO and the 27-nation European Union would allow Western governments to meld hard power with soft, making both organizations better equipped to confront modern threats, such as climate change, failed states, and humanitarian disasters. A revitalized Atlantic alliance is by far the most effective way for the United States and Europe to shore up their global influence in the face of emerging Asian powers. NOT-SO-FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS Anybody who spends time in Brussels comes away mystified by the lack of dialogue between the West's two most important multinational organizations, even though they have been based in the same city for decades. Only a few years ago, it was considered a minor miracle when the EU's foreign policy czar and NATO's secretary-general decided that they should have breakfast together once a month. An EU planning cell is now ensconced at NATO military headquarters, but there is scarcely any other communication between the two institutions. With Europe and the United States facing common threats from North Africa to the Hindu Kush, it is imperative for Western nations to take advantage of these two organizations' resources in the fields of law enforcement, counterterrorism, intelligence gathering, drug interdiction, and even agricultural policy.
Topic:: NATO, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:: China, Europe, Asia, North America, and Brussels

38. Getting Deradicalization Right

Author:: Jessica Stern and Marisa L. Porges
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Topic:: Government, Islam, and Reform
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia

39. State of the Union Address, 2010

Author:: Barack Obama
Publication Date:: 01-2010
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: THE PRESIDENT: Madam Speaker, Vice President Biden, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union. For 220 years, our leaders have fulfilled this duty. They've done so during periods of prosperity and tranquility. And they've done so in the midst of war and depression; at moments of great strife and great struggle.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Government, War, Labor Issues, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:: United States

40. Interdependency Theory: China, India and the West

Author:: Simon Tay
Publication Date:: 09-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Topic:: Development, Economics, Government, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:: China and India

41. American Profligacy and American Power

Author:: Richard N. Haass and Roger C. Altman
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The U.S. government is incurring debt at an unprecedented rate. If U.S. leaders do not act to curb their debt addiction, then the global capital markets will do so for them, forcing a sharp and punitive adjustment in fiscal policy. The result will be an age of American austerity.
Topic:: Economics, Government, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and America

42. The Rise of the Mezzanine Rulers

Author:: Michael Crawford and Jami Miscik
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Governments across the Middle East and South Asia are increasingly losing power to substate actors that are inserting themselves at a mezzanine level of rule between the government and the people. Western policymakers must address the problem systematically, at both a political and a legal level, rather than continue to pursue reactive and disjointed measures on a case-by-case basis.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: South Asia and Middle East

43. Promise, Peril for Iraq's New Government: Interview with Joost Hiltermann

Author:: Bernard Gwertzman (interviewer)
Publication Date:: 12-2010
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After nine months of political wrangling, Iraq's parliament confirmed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's new coalition government December 21. Though the government is "a good basis for setting out," says Iraq expert Joost Hiltermann, there's much uncertainty about how cohesive it will be and whether the inclusive government formed can govern. Hiltermann says there are questions about who will head the three major security ministries, whether a new National Council for Strategic Policy--designed as a "real check" against Maliki's power--will be approved by parliament, and whether Ayad Allawi, who headed the Iraqiya bloc that won the most seats in the election, will want to head that council. The United States pushed a power-sharing agreement "that went beyond the sharing of ministerial positions," says Hiltermann, but it remains to be seen whether various factions, including the prime minister and his allies, will allow that to happen.
Topic:: Political Violence, Democratization, Government, Politics, Governance, and Sectarianism
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

44. Copenhagen's Inconvenient Truth

Author:: Michael Levi
Publication Date:: 09-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: This December, diplomats from nearly 200 countries will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which for the first time bound wealthy countries to specific cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Most of these emissions come from burning fossil fuels -- coal, oil, and natural gas -- for energy, from deforestation, and from the agricultural sector. They must be cut deeply in the coming decades if the world is to control the risks of dangerous climate change. Most of those devoted to slashing the world's greenhouse gas emissions have placed enormous weight on the Copenhagen conference. Speaking earlier this year about the conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was emphatic: "We must harness the necessary political will to seal the deal on an ambitious new climate agreement in December here in Copenhagen. . . . If we get it wrong we face catastrophic damage to people, to the planet." Hopes are higher than ever for a breakthrough climate deal. For the past eight years, many argued that developing nations reluctant to commit to a new global climate-change deal -- particularly China and India -- were simply hiding behind the United States, whose enthusiastic engagement was all that was needed for a breakthrough. Now the long-awaited shift in U.S. policy has arrived. The Obama administration is taking ambitious steps to limit carbon dioxide emissions at home, and Congress is considering important cap-and-trade and clean-energy legislation. The road to a global treaty that contains the climate problem now appears to be clear. But it is not so simple. The odds of signing a comprehensive treaty in December are vanishingly small. And even reaching such a deal the following year would be an extraordinary challenge, given the domestic political constraints in Washington and in other capitals that make such an agreement difficult to negotiate and ratify. The many government officials and activists seeking to solve the climate problem therefore need to fundamentally rethink their strategy and expectations for the Copenhagen conference.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States and Washington

45. In the Quicksands of Somalia

Author:: Bronwyn Bruton
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Washington's repeated attempts to bring peace to Somalia with state-building initiatives have failed, even backfired. It should renounce political intervention and encourage local development without trying to improve governance.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, Washington, Middle East, and Somalia

46. Tomorrow's Institution Today

Author:: Amitai Etzioni
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Old international institutions must be updated to tackle transnational challenges. The most promising model for doing so is the Proliferation Security Initiative, a recent cooperative effort to interdict weapons of mass destruction.
Topic:: Security and Government
Political Geography:: United States, Middle East, and North Korea

47. Deng Undone: The Costs of Halting Market Reform in China

Author:: Derek Scissors
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Driven by a near obsession with economic growth, Beijing has extended the state's reach into the economy. Instead of urging the Chinese government to resume extensive market reforms, Washington should encourage it to focus on a narrow range of feasible measures.
Topic:: Economics, Government, and Reform
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Beijing

48. State Capitalism Comes of Age: The End of the Free Market?

Author:: Ian Bremmer
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Across the world, the free market is being overtaken by state capitalism, a system in which the state is the leading economic actor. How should the United States respond?
Topic:: Economics, Government, and Reform
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Europe

49. Diplomacy, Inc.: The Influence of Lobbies on U.S. Foreign Policy

Author:: John Newhouse
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Lobbies representing foreign interests have an increasingly powerful -- and often harmful -- impact on how the United States formulates its foreign policy, and ultimately hurt U.S. credibility around the world.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:: United States, Washington, and Armenia

50. The Real War in Mexico

Author:: Shannon O'Neil
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Summary -- Hysteria over bloodshed in Mexico clouds the real challenge: the rising violence is a product of democratization -- and the only real solution is to continue strengthening Mexican democracy.
Topic:: Security and Government
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Mexico

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