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61. AI and Propaganda: Nothing Is True, and Everything Is Generated

Author:
Halyna Padalko and Peter Pomerantsev
Publication Date:
05-2026
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
A public conversation with Peter Pomerantsev, British-Ukrainian author, journalist, and one of the world's leading voices on propaganda and authoritarian disinformation. His books "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible," "This Is Not Propaganda," and "How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler" have defined how a generation understands modern information warfare. A senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at John Hopkins University, Pomerantsev has spent decades documenting how autocratic regimes weaponize media, narrative, and, now, artificial intelligence to destabilize democracies and erode the very idea of truth. As AI reshapes the information landscape at breathtaking speed, this conversation asks the questions that matter most: How does AI-powered propaganda differ from what came before — and how do new technologies shape public reality? What happens to our collective capacity for critical thinking when personalized, algorithmically generated realities become the new normality? How can AI help us to protect ourselves from information manipulation? Who are the main actors in disinformation as a business, and what can the world learn from Ukraine, which has become an unexpected laboratory for countering disinformation under existential pressure?
Topic:
Propaganda, Artificial Intelligence, Disinformation, and Information Warfare
Political Geography:
Global Focus

62. Starr Forum: New World Disorder: What’s the Humanitarian Perspective?

Author:
David Miliband and John Deutch
Publication Date:
04-2026
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
Starr Forum: New World Disorder: What’s the Humanitarian Perspective? | Thursday, April 9, 2026 Speaker: David Miliband, president, International Rescue Committee (IRC), and former foreign secretary for the United Kingdom (2007-2010). He oversees the IRC’s operations in more than 40 crisis-affected countries and its refugee resettlement and assistance programs throughout Europe and the Americas. He is a 1987 graduate of Oxford, with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics, and earned a master’s degree in political science in 1989 from MIT. Moderator: John Deutch is an American civil servant and physical chemist. He was the United States deputy secretary of defense from 1994 to 1995 and director of Central Intelligence from May 10, 1995, until December 15, 1996. He is an emeritus Institute Professor at MIT.
Topic:
International Relations, Geopolitics, International Order, and Humanitarian Response
Political Geography:
Global Focus

63. GR&P Seminar: Sanction Spillover and Trade Diversification

Author:
Christina L. Davis
Publication Date:
05-2026
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
How do sanctions affect third-party states? This research, conducted with Ruofan Ma (Harvard), examines how states respond to the systemic risks caused by sanctions by diversifying their trade portfolios. Analyzing trade concentration and sanction data from 1990 to 2020 and also looking at the specific case of President Trump's 2018 national security tariffs, we find that states diversify their trading partners when sanctions disrupt their existing trade partner networks. These findings highlight the spillover effects of sanctions and the dynamics of trade interdependence.
Topic:
Sanctions, Tariffs, Risk, Trade, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
Global Focus

64. The Recruitment and Use of Children as a Stand-Alone Crime Against Humanity

Author:
Janine Morna and Laura Perez
Publication Date:
03-2026
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
As United Nations Member States prepare to negotiate a new Convention based on the Draft Articles on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity (Draft Articles),1 the international community faces a critical opportunity to close a longstanding gap in protection and accountability. Despite decades of prevention efforts, the recruitment and use of children by State and non-State armed actors remains widespread and devastating. Children are forced to serve in a range of roles, including as fighters, porters, messengers and spies in armed conflict and in other situations of violence. The future Convention presents a moment to explicitly recognize the recruitment and use of children as a constituent act of crimes against humanity. This would ensure that such exploitation is punishable as a crime against humanity when it forms part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, regardless of whether the situation is formally classified as an armed conflict. It also offers an important step toward aligning international criminal law with international norms prohibiting compulsory recruitment and direct participation in hostilities of people aged 15 to 17.
Topic:
United Nations, Crimes Against Humanity, Armed Conflict, and Child Soldiers
Political Geography:
Global Focus

65. As US food aid retreats, can BRICS+ and biotechnology fill the world’s food security gap?

Author:
Cullen S. Hendrix
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
Cuts to agricultural development assistance and food aid by the United States and other advanced economies are creating a global vacuum just as climate change and conflict drive global hunger up. Many food-insecure developing economies with significant hunger lack the resources to self-finance agricultural research and development (R&D) and have had to depend increasingly on themselves—and one another—to meet rising food needs. Hendrix argues that the BRICS+ economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia—are well positioned to fill the world’s food security gap.
Topic:
Agriculture, Markets, Foreign Aid, BRICS, Food Assistance, and Biotechnology
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

66. Innovation as resilience: Demand-side strategies for critical mineral supply chain security

Author:
Alexis Harmon and Reed Blakemore
Publication Date:
06-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
This report, the first in the Redefining Resilience series of publications, examines demand-side innovation for critical mineral supply chains: the set of strategies that reduce how much of a constrained mineral an economy requires and expand the range of viable supply options. It argues that critical mineral supply chain policy has a structural blind spot. It has been organized around the question of where materials come from while largely ignoring an equally consequential set of questions: how much of these materials economies actually need, how that demand is shaped, and who shapes demand. Material substitution, material efficiency, and system and product redesign are not substitutes for supply-side investment, but they are essential complements that remain underused. Drawing on a roundtable convened under the Chatham House Rule by the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, this report examines two sectors, batteries and permanent magnets, to show how demand-side innovation either reaches deployment or stalls. The barriers are concrete and addressable: financing systems poorly structured for first-of-kind technology, procurement frameworks that privilege incumbent materials, qualification processes that slow substitution, and, overarchingly, a policy architecture focused overwhelmingly on supply. Closing these gaps requires targeted interventions: demand-pull mechanisms that bolster markets for alternative technologies, standards reform that enables substitution, and better coordination that brings manufacturers and system designers into supply chain policy alongside miners and processors. The goal is not to replace supply-side interventions but to build the complementary demand-side infrastructure needed to strengthen and de-risk mineral supply chains.
Topic:
Geopolitics, Innovation, Supply Chains, Energy, Energy Security, and Critical Minerals
Political Geography:
Global Focus

67. Does implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) increase resource revenue in developing countries?

Author:
Neerbewendé Abdoul Rachid Pafadnam
Publication Date:
02-2026
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The need for developing countries to increase their domestic revenue has always been relevant, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, which weakened their public finances. This paper analyses the dynamic treatment effects of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) implementation on resource revenue mobilization. We use a sample of 83 developing countries from 1995 to 2019, and our empirical strategy relies on the recent dynamic heterogeneity-robust difference-in-differences estimator. Our results show that implementing the EITI increases resource revenue in member countries through improved governance from greater transparency, increased foreign direct investment, and extractive resource exports. These findings are robust to several robustness checks. This study highlights the significant contribution of the EITI implementation in domestic revenue mobilization and the necessity to improve transparency in natural resources management, especially as international demand for critical mineral resources is expected to grow strongly.
Topic:
Development, Political Economy, Natural Resources, Tax Systems, COVID-19, Extractive Industries, and Revenue
Political Geography:
Global Focus

68. From Factories to Ideas: The New Map of Global Power

Author:
Erik van der Marel
Publication Date:
03-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE)
Abstract:
Globalisation is not collapsing but transforming. Rather than retreating, global economic integration is shifting from a system organised around physical goods and factories to one increasingly driven by intangible assets such as data, services, intellectual property, and knowledge-intensive collaboration. Intangible flows are reshaping how integration occurs. Unlike goods trade, these flows are largely weightless, collaborative, scale at near-zero marginal cost, and are far less constrained by physical distance, weakening the traditional link between geography and economic exchange. Distance has been redefined from geographic to geopolitical. In the intangible economy, cross-border exchange depends less on how far countries are apart and more on political trust, security alignment, and institutional compatibility, including shared norms around governance, data, and the rule of law. Economic power is reorganising around “idea blocs.” Because intangible assets are harder to protect than goods, firms and investors increasingly concentrate collaboration among politically aligned countries with strong institutions, producing new groupings that surpass geography and reshape global alliances. This shift demands a new framework for understanding globalisation. Existing models cantered on supply chains and production networks cannot explain current patterns of integration, power, and cooperation; globalisation must instead be understood through the political economy of intangibles, institutions, and trust.
Topic:
Globalization, Intellectual Property/Copyright, Services, Innovation, and Trade
Political Geography:
Global Focus

69. War is a mind game: countering weaponized information

Author:
Marek Havlík and Jiří Horáček
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Cognitive warfare is the weaponization of information that exploits natural cognitive vulnerabilities to disrupt, manipulate and control individuals’ perceptions of reality. NATO’s current countermeasures, such as pre-bunking, strategic communications, and trust-building efforts, don’t fully address the deeper psychological and cognitive vulnerabilities targeted in cognitive warfare. In addition to common cognitive vulnerabilities like emotions, cognitive biases, and uncertainty, other critical traits are being exploited on the cognitive battlefield to manipulate and control vulnerable individuals.
Topic:
Security, NATO, Information Warfare, and Cognitive Warfare
Political Geography:
Global Focus

70. Betting on blue: how to improve NATO military forecasting for acquisitions

Author:
Ben Connable
Publication Date:
07-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
Effective acquisition strategies require a solid, evidence-grounded forecasting methodology and real-world data. But at least for land warfare, that baseline is inadequate. Absent a global understanding of land war – by far the most common and strategically relevant type of conventional and irregular war – NATO acquisitions may not best address even the pressing threat from Russia. Analysis of the new Ground Combat Database shows how important findings and questions relevant to acquisitions can be drawn from longitudinal case data. Even better analytic approaches are readily available, as are better data. Action plan forecasting and acquisitions can be improved with aggressive and evidence-grounded analyses.
Topic:
NATO, Military, and Warfare
Political Geography:
Global Focus

71. Beam me up: leadership skills in space

Author:
Maria Soto
Publication Date:
04-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
As NATO nations enhance their space capabilities, there is a critical need for leadership development. Current training focuses heavily on technical skills, often overlooking essential leadership qualities such as creativity, resilience and emotional intelligence, which are crucial for effective command in joint operations. Successful space leaders must cultivate the interconnected qualities of individual agility, trust, resilience and self-awareness to navigate the complexities of this domain. To develop effective space leaders, NATO should integrate leadership training with technical education, prioritize cross-domain collaboration and leverage partnerships with industry.
Topic:
NATO, Partnerships, Leadership, and Space
Political Geography:
Global Focus

72. Research for Community Benefits and Risks from Carbon Credit Project

Author:
Oxfam in Cambodia
Publication Date:
03-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
This study examines the community-level benefits and risks associated with carbon credit initiatives in Cambodia, with a focus on REDD+ initiatives. The research focuses on the governance and socioeconomic dimensions of these initiatives rather than their technical carbon accounting performance.
Topic:
Climate Change, Governance, Socioeconomics, Carbon Credits, and Carbon Finance
Political Geography:
Global Focus

73. Navigating Grievance Mechanisms: A Pathway to Robust Accountability for Rightsholders

Author:
Maria Romis
Publication Date:
06-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
This briefing for business provides practical guidance for companies on how to design and implement effective grievance mechanisms as a core component of human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD). Building on the expectations set by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and emerging regulatory frameworks, it emphasizes that grievance mechanisms are not only a compliance requirement but a critical tool for identifying risks, enabling remedy, and strengthening accountability across operations and supply chains. The paper argues that effective systems must be both people-centered—trusted, accessible, and shaped by rightsholders—and embedded within a broader grievance ecosystem that connects operational, brand, and multi-stakeholder level mechanisms. Each level plays a distinct but complementary role: operational mechanisms provide immediate, site-level access; brand-level systems extend accountability across supply chains and leverage influence to drive remedy; and multi-stakeholder mechanisms enable collective action to address systemic risks. Across all levels, the briefing highlights a consistent implementation gap: mechanisms often remain compliance-driven, fragmented, and underused due to lack of trust, accessibility barriers, and limited rightsholder participation. In contrast, emerging good practices show that when mechanisms are designed with rightsholders, supported by local actors, and linked through clear escalation pathways, they can surface hidden risks, strengthen accountability, and deliver meaningful outcomes. The briefing is structured in four parts: (1) reframing grievance mechanisms as rights-based systems for remedy; (2) examining different types of mechanisms and good practices across operational, brand, and multi-stakeholder levels; (3) exploring how these mechanisms can function together as a layered and complementary system; and (4) outlining practical steps to embed a people-centered approach across all levels. Together, these elements support companies in moving from fragmented, compliance-driven approaches toward integrated systems that enable effective remedy, continuous learning, and long-term risk reduction.
Topic:
Human Rights, Business, Accountability, Due Diligence, Rightsholder Engagement, and Grievance Mechanisms
Political Geography:
Global Focus

74. From Commitments to Communities: Rethinking Climate Finance: How civil society and community participation strengthen accountability, access and equity

Author:
Tallulah Cherry-Virdee and Bertram Zagema
Publication Date:
05-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The climate crisis is accelerating, but climate finance is still not reaching the people who need it most. Despite repeated promises and global commitments, funding remains inadequate, fragmented, and too often locked in top-down systems that ignore local realities. Communities on the frontlines and civil society actors are too often shut out of decisions that directly affect their lives — excluded from planning, budgeting, and access to finance itself. This must change. Real climate justice demands finance that is accessible, equitable, and driven by the voices of those most impacted. Drawing on 21 studies from across the Global South, this report exposes systemic barriers in climate finance and shines a light on what works. It highlights how civil society is already driving change, and sets out clear, practical recommendations to make climate finance more accountable, inclusive, and rooted in community realities.
Topic:
Governance, Climate Finance, Participatory Budgeting, Climate Justice, and Fiscal Justice
Political Geography:
Global Focus

75. Resisting the Rule of the Rich

Author:
Alex Maitland, Anjela Taneja, Anthony Kamande, Carlos Brown Solá, Harry Bignell, Max Lawson, and Rune Møller Stahl
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Extreme inequality is reaching new heights. In 2025, billionaire wealth increased three times faster than the average annual rate over the previous five years. Meanwhile, one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat and nearly half the world’s population live in poverty. The super-rich are becoming a new oligarchy, using their extreme wealth to buy politics, the media and justice to defend their fortunes, dismantle and destroy progressive policies and strip away our basic civil and political rights. Siding with the super-rich, increasingly authoritarian governments are supressing dissent, curtailing rights and fuelling division to protect and preserve this extreme inequality. We must resist by building a worldwide people’s movement to defend our rights, and fight for a clear alternative to inequality and oligarchy.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Inequality, Protests, Tax Systems, Repression, Justice, Freedom, Gender, and Civic Space
Political Geography:
Global Focus

76. Grand Bargain 10 Years on: Protecting quality under scarcity

Author:
Rachel Scott
Publication Date:
03-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The Grand Bargain reaches its 10-year mark in 2026 at a moment of acute funding cuts, hyper-prioritization and rising pressure to prioritize quantity over quality. The Facilitation Group are now leading consultations to inform negotiations on how the Grand Bargain evolves beyond 2026. This paper argues that progress since 2016 is real but fragile, and that the next phase must learn from what has enabled and hindered delivery. Oxfam calls for a focused forum that protects hard-won gains, proves progress credibly, accelerates practical change on the ground, and keeps quality and legitimacy non-negotiable under scarcity.
Topic:
Reform, Humanitarian Response, and Grand Bargain
Political Geography:
Global Focus

77. Time to Walk the Talk: The IMF’s tax advice, 2022-2024

Author:
Nabil Abdo
Publication Date:
04-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Since the pandemic, the IMF’s leadership has been urging countries to pursue more progressive tax policies, backed up by the Fund’s own research. Despite this encouraging development, the IMF’s policy advice on tax in its Article IV reports since the pandemic has been skewed towards regressive taxation. This indicates its continued insistence on austerity as the default way forward, thereby entrenching gender and economic inequalities.
Topic:
International Monetary Fund, Surveillance, Tax Systems, Austerity, and Wealth
Political Geography:
Global Focus

78. Unlocking water capacity: How AI & Cloud computing applications can increase water supply and reduce water demand

Author:
Oxford Economics
Publication Date:
04-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Oxford Economics
Abstract:
Oxford Economics Australia partnered with AWS to produce a robust, evidence-led report exploring how AI, cloud computing, connected sensors, and advanced analytics can help increase available water capacity across Australia. The project assessed practical opportunities to reduce water losses, optimise consumption, improve operational decision-making, and support long-term water resilience across utilities, households, agriculture, and mining. Deliverables included sector modelling, market sizing, real-world case studies, adoption pathways, and quantified efficiency opportunities.
Topic:
Water, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Consumption, and Supply and Demand
Political Geography:
Global Focus

79. Housing at the Center: Rebuilding the Social Contract for Cities in a Fragmented World

Author:
Anacláudi Rossbach
Publication Date:
04-2026
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Baku Dialogues
Institution:
ADA University
Abstract:
As the world turns its attention to Baku in anticipation of the Thirteenth Session of the World Urban Forum (WEF13), a profound realization is taking hold across governments, institutions, and communities: the future of cities will be determined not only by how they grow, but by how they house their people. Across continents and contexts, housing has emerged as the defining challenge of our urban age. It sits at the intersection of inequality, climate change, economic instability, and social fragmentation. And yet, for decades, it has too often been treated as a sectoral issue—something to be addressed through discrete policies, market adjustments, or targeted programs. It is increasingly clear and consistently emphasized by UN‑Habitat that housing must be understood not as a standalone domain, but as the foundation of the entire urban system. The scale of the challenge is staggering. Over 2.8 billion people worldwide live in inadequate housing conditions. Hundreds of millions experience homelessness, often in forms that remain invisible in official statistics—people living in temporary shelters, overcrowded spaces, or precarious arrangements that offer little security or dignity. More than 1 billion people reside in informal settlements or slums, where access to basic services such as water, sanitation, and electricity is uncertain, and where tenure insecurity leaves communities vulnerable to eviction and displacement. In short, the housing crisis affects nearly 40 percent of the global population.
Topic:
Development, Inequality, Cities, and Housing
Political Geography:
Global Focus

80. From Conflict Zones to Supply Chain Zones: Critical Raw Materials and the Reconfiguration of Global Power

Author:
Han Ilhan
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Baku Dialogues
Institution:
ADA University
Abstract:
The international system is entering a period of heightened fragmentation and strategic realignment. Economic security, supply chain resilience, and industrial competitiveness are increasingly central to national strategy. Within this evolving landscape, critical raw materials (CRMs) have moved from the margins of industrial policy to the center of geopolitical and geo‑economic planning. CRMs are foundational not only to the energy “transition,” but also to advanced manufacturing, digital infrastructure, aerospace systems, and defense technologies. Their strategic relevance derives from both their functional indispensability and the concentration of processing capacity within a limited number of jurisdictions. In several key mineral value chains, supply exposure remains highly concentrated, resulting in vulnerabilities for advanced economies whose industrial bases depend on secure and predictable access. As a result, diversification of supply has become a policy priority across multiple demand‑side economies. Yet the implications of CRMs extend beyond industrial competitiveness. The geography of CRM production and processing intersects with regions historically shaped by political tension, limited economic integration, and uneven development. As global supply chains are reconfigured, CRMs have the potential either to reinforce geopolitical rivalry or to anchor new forms of economic interdependence. Whether CRMs become instruments of intensified competition or foundations of structural stability will depend not only on resource endowment, but on the architecture of cooperation between supply‑side and demand‑side economies. The defining question is therefore not simply who controls resources, but how capital, technology, and long‑term strategy are aligned around them. Understanding the evolving global CRMs landscape requires examining both the policy responses of advanced economies and the institutional models that have shaped the current concentration of supply.
Topic:
Geopolitics, Supply Chains, International System, Raw Materials, and Energy Transition
Political Geography:
Global Focus