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35371. Falling Behind? Boom, Bust, and the Global Race for Scientific Talent

Author:
Michael Teitelbaum
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In Washington, doomsday prophets tend to be effective motivational speakers. They successfully persuade the electorate that their cause is worthy and prompt Congress to take action. In his book Falling Behind? Boom, Bust, and the Global Race for Scientific Talent, Michael Teitelbaum takes on a particular brand of doomsday prophet: those who see impending shortages in the science and engineering workforce. Teitelbaum walks his readers through five postwar cycles of boom and bust in the science and engineering workforce, which eh argues have been driven to a large extend by political machinations set in motion by labor shortage claims (claims that have been almost universally rejected by economists studying the issue). The institutions that currently shape the science and engineering workforce are largely the product of policy responses to these booms and busts. As a result, Falling Behind? Is more than just a work of policy history. It is also a cogent analysis of contemporary R funding mechanisms, high-skill immigration policies, and PhD program structures.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Washington and Soviet Union

35372. Saving Congress from Itself: Emancipating the States Empowering Their People

Author:
James L. Buckley
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
“The United States faces two major problems today,” writes James L. Buckley: “runaway spending that threatens to bankrupt us and a Congress that appears unable to deal with long-term problems of any consequence.” Contributing significantly to both, he argues, are the more than 1,100 federal grants-in-aid programs Congress has enacted—federal grants to state and local governments, constituting 17 percent of the federal budget, the third-largest spending category after entitlements and defense, with costs that have risen from $24.1 billion in 1970 to $640.8 billion in fiscal 2015. His “modest proposal”? Do away with them entirely, thereby saving Congress from itself while emancipating the states and empowering their people. If that sounds like a program for revising constitutional federalism, it is.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States

35373. The American Warfare State: The Domestic Politics of Military Spending

Author:
Rebecca U. Thorpe
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In The American Warfare State, Reecca Thrope attempts to answer what she calls “the fundamental puzzle” of American politics: “Why a nation founded on a severe distrust of standing armies and centralized power developed and maintained the most powerful military in history.”
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
America

35374. Boom Towns: Restoring the Urban American Dream

Author:
Stephen J. K. Walters
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The image of a boom town is commonly used to describe exceptional conditions through which a village suddenly becomes a city. Often such conditions are the discovery of mineral deposits that attracts industry and commerce. While in their booming condition, such towns are oases of societal flourishing relative to their preceding state. In Boom Towns, Stephen J.K. Walters, a professor of economics at Loyola University in Baltimore, explains that cities in general have the capacity perpetually to b forms of boom towns. Cities can serve as magnets to attract people and capital, thus promoting the human flourishing that has always been associated with cities at their best. It is different if cities are at their worst, as Walters explains in brining Jane Jacobs's Death and Life of Great American Cities into explanatory ambit. There are no natural obstacles to cities occupying the foreground of societal flourishing. There are obstacles to be sure, but these are man-made. Being man-made, they can also be overcome through human action, at least in principle even if doing so in practice might be difficult.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
America

35375. Contested leadership in international relations

Author:
Daniel Flemes and Steven E. Lobell
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The articles in this special issue examine the responses to the rise of new and emerging powers including Brazil, China, India and South Africa across different regions. Rather than focus on great powers and hegemons, the contributors address the contestation between regional powers, and secondary and tertiary states. The contributors address three questions: What are the drivers of different strategic responses? What are the different regional responses to shifts in the distribution of material capabilities? What is the influence of agency and structure in contested regional orders? To address these questions, different schools are employed including realism, institutionalism, and the English school to examine state characteristics, systemic, sub-systemic, domestic constraints and opportunities, the role of ideas and shared values, and different regional governance structures.
Topic:
United Nations
Political Geography:
China, India, and Brazil

35376. Why do secondary states choose to support, follow or challenge?

Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
<p>In this article we examine when and why secondary and tertiary states select a strategy that does not entail following the lead of the rising states. To address these questions we outline a simple model that examines systemic and sub-systemic (regional) constraints on and opportunities for secondary and tertiary states: how engaged in the region is the global hegemon, how many rising (and extra-regional) states are in the region, and which states are waxing and waning and by how much. These three characteristics create different opportunities for and constraints on secondary and tertiary states, which in turn influence the set of strategy choices of these states as they respond to the regional hegemon. Our model cannot account for the specific foreign policy strategies that secondary and tertiary states select. Such a model would require domestic and individual level variables. We leave it to the area specialists and experts in the following articles in the volume to introduce these variables and explain the specific strategies used. Instead, based on our model we can explain general tendencies toward accommodative strategies, resistance strategies and neutral strategies. It is important to note that secondary and tertiary states can use a mix of different strategies toward regional and global hegemons, such as resisting primary threats and accommodating secondary threats. Moreover, secondary and tertiary states are often engaged in multiple games a strategy might appear to be costly and suboptimal at one level but reasonable and optimal at another level. Finally, in selecting a strategy secondary and tertiary states factor the systemic, sub-systemic and domestic costs of the alternative strategies./p

35377. Drivers of strategic contestation: The case of South America FREE

Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
<p>This article analyzes what the drivers of contestation of secondary powers vis--vis the regional power are, differentiating therein between structural, historical, behavioural and domestic such drivers. We argue that in regions characterized by relative stability where major interstate violent conflicts are unlikely, as is the case in South America, secondary powers rely mainly on soft-balancing mechanisms vis--vis the regional power. Whereas Brazils foreign policy behaviour is key to South American secondary powers being induced to contest the countrys powerhood, the choices that the foreign policy elites of those secondary powers make regarding what the specific expression of soft balancing is to be are influenced by certain domestic groups. Empirical examples are given of how Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela as secondary powers unfold these domestic drivers, which shape their different ways of soft balancing Brazil. The article thus explains why some secondary powers rely more on institutional binding, others on economic statecraft, or buffering, while others contest by offering and building alternative leadership proposals./p

35378. Neither balance nor bandwagon: South American international society meets Brazil's rising power

Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
<p>This article examines the strategic positioning of Brazil in South America and how South America relates to Brazils rising status both globally and regionally. It does so from the perspective of international society known as the English school. This perspective emphasizes how Brazil shares a number of values and institutions with its neighbors that offer the foundations for a distinct regional international society in South America. It thus challenges the materialist stance held by realism which envisages that secondary powers either balance or bandwagon the dominant pole and affirms instead that South Americas strategies towards Brazil are more complex and nuanced than a simple polarity standpoint suggests./p

35379. Revisiting consensual hegemony: Brazilian regional leadership in question

Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
<p>A central challenge confronting Brazilian foreign policy is its reluctance to accept measures that might restrict national autonomy. This limits the extent to which Brazil can lead and leverage the region, particularly in the face of competing visions such as ALBA and the Pacific Alliance. The issues is Brazils continued reliance on a consensual hegemony approach to regional relations after neighbouring countries opened space for a more assertive leadership closer to Pedersens model of cooperative hegemony. Although consensual hegemony allowed Brazil to establish its project in South America, by the end of Lulas first presidential term more was being demanded and the failure to provide leadership goods weakened Brazils regional position. Current questioning of Brazilian leadership on the continent is found in an almost contradictory approach that sees Brazilian diplomats pushing away suggestions of assertive leadership while more concrete action is quietly taken by other regionally engaged sections of the Brazilian state./p

35380. Contested regional orders and institutional balancing in the Asia Pacific

Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
<p>The rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is gradually transforming the international system from a unipolar world toward multipolarity. Chinas ascent not only challenges US domination, but also intensifies the institutionalization of security in the Asia Pacific. On the basis of institutional balancing theory, I argue that (i) Chinas rise has led to a competition among different regional orders, that is, the US-led bilateralism versus ASEAN-centered and China-supported multilateralism. However, conflicts or wars are not inevitable since the contested regional orders can coexist in the Asia Pacific. (ii) The deepening economic interdependence has encouraged regional powers, including the United States, China and ASEAN, to rely on different institutional balancing strategies to pursue security after the Cold War./p