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4651. Toward a Unified Military Response: Hurricane Sandy and the Dual Status Commander

Author:
Dr. Sue McNeil and Ryan Burke
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The 2013-14 Army War College Key Strategic Issues List stated: “If Hurricane Sandy is seen as an archetype of a complex catastrophe, then a careful analysis of the effectiveness of the DoD response within the context of dual status commanders [DSCs], lead federal agencies, and state response capabilities needs to be conducted.” This monograph does exactly that as it carefully and comprehensively analyzes the DSC-led military response to Hurricane Sandy in New York. Through this lens, it illustrates and discusses the perspectives of the DSC construct and offers recommendations for leveraging existing capabilities and improving those deemed insufficient. Using a case study approach, this analysis addresses notable issues of constitutionality, legality, policy, financial considerations, and even politics, all uniquely situated between individual states’ interests and those of the federal government. To provide military and defense officials with a greater understanding of the benefits and limitations of the DSC arrangement during a no-notice/limited-notice incident, this monograph offers objective and systematic documentation of the Sandy response. It concludes by offering a series of actionable recommendations aimed at improving operational decision-making, policy, and legislation specifically related to DSCs during no-notice/limited-notice incidents.
Topic:
Human Welfare, Natural Disasters, Governance, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
United States of America

4652. Thucydides Was Right: Defining the Future Threat

Author:
Dr. Colin S. Gray
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
To define future threat is, in a sense, an impossible task, yet it is one that must be done. The only sources of empirical evidence accessible are the past and the present; one cannot obtain understanding about the future from the future. The author draws upon the understanding of strategic history obtainable from Thucydides’ great History of the Peloponnesian War. He advises prudence as the operating light for American definition of future threat, and believes that there are historical parallels between the time of Thucydides and our own that can help us avoid much peril. The future must always be unpredictable to us in any detail, but the many and potent continuities in history’s great stream of time can serve to alert us to what may well happen in kind.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Politics, War, and History
Political Geography:
United States of America

4653. Always Strategic: Jointly Essential Landpower

Author:
Dr. Colin S. Gray
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
American Landpower is a strategic instrument of state policy and needs to be considered as such. This monograph explores and explains the nature of Landpower, both in general terms and also with particular regard to the American case. The monograph argues that: (1) Landpower is unique in the character of the quality it brings to the American joint team for national security; (2) the U.S. has a permanent need for the human quality in Landpower that this element provides inherently; (3) Landpower is always and, indeed, necessarily strategic in its meaning and implications—it is a quintessentially strategic instrument of state policy and politics; (4) strategic Landpower is unavoidably and beneficially joint in its functioning, this simply is so much the contemporary character of American strategic Landpower that we should consider jointness integral to its permanent nature; and, (5) notwithstanding the nuclear context since 1945, Landpower retained, indeed retains, most of the strategic utility it has possessed through all of history: this is a prudent judgment resting empirically on the evidence of 70 years’ experience. In short, the strategic Landpower maintained today safely can be assumed to be necessary for security long into the future. No matter how familiar the concept of strategic Landpower is when identified and expressed thus, it is a physical and psychological reality that has persisted to strategic effect through all of the strategic history to which we have access.
Topic:
National Security, Politics, History, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Landpower
Political Geography:
United States of America

4654. The Enduring Importance of Family Wealth: Evidence from the Forbes 400, 1982 to 2013

Author:
Philip Korom, Mark Lutter, and Jens Beckert
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The social science literature proposes two competing explanatory frameworks for the existence and longevity of super-fortunes: superstar or winner-take-all mechanisms, suggesting an increased dominance of new self-made billionaires; and mechanisms focusing on inherited advantages, suggesting an enduring importance of old family fortunes. Using panel data from the USA’s annual Forbes 400 ranking (1982–2013), this study analyzes factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of remaining listed among the American super-rich. We find initially that the percentages of self-made entrepreneurs among the highest wealth echelons of US society have increased significantly since 1982. Sectors that improved the most are finance (including hedge funds and private equity), new technology and mass retail. The decline of inheritance as a source of wealth and the rise of new tech and finance fortunes suggest low reproduction rates among superrich property owners. Family wealth, however, plays an important role if the longevity of fortunes is considered. While the literature predicts family fortunes to be taxed away, divided among a large number of heirs, or lost through incompetence, we find that scions of inherited great wealth (mostly up to the third generation) are more likely to remain listed in the Forbes 400 roster than self-made entrepreneurs. We conclude that even though entrepreneurship increasingly matters for becoming super-rich, it is first and foremost the ability of rich family dynasties to retain control over corporations and to access sophisticated financial advice that makes fortunes last.
Topic:
Economics, Science and Technology, Social Stratification, and Landpower
Political Geography:
United States of America

4655. Players and New Rules of the Game Politics as Organized Combat: New in Sweden.

Author:
Stefan Svallfors
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
As Hacker and Pierson (2010) have observed, politics is primarily organization: “organized combat.” To understand the outcomes of politics, we have to look at how it is organized over time: by whom and with what resources? I take Sweden as an example of how politics as organized combat has changed quite dramatically in recent decades. Sweden is often cited as an opposite to the United States among the rich capitalist countries, but it has experienced many encompassing policy changes which have not received the attention they deserve. The paper specifies how Swedish organized politics has changed fundamentally, including the dismantling of corporatist arrangements, changes in the economic policy decision-making framework, increased income inequality, weakened political parties and changes in their social bases, the decline of blue-collar union strength, the growth of the policy professionals category, the increased impact of multilevel politics, and the mediatization of politics. Today’s amorphous, invisible mode of elite-driven policy-making diverges greatly from the old corporatist structures and is accompanied by dramatically increasing inequality. Even in Sweden, the impact of money on politics has become stronger. The paper discusses what this implies for current politics and policy-making in Sweden.
Topic:
Economics, Politics, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Sweden and United States of America

4656. The US Eligible-to-Naturalize Population: Detailed Social and Economic Characteristics

Author:
Robert Warren and Donald Kerwin
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Naturalization has long been recognized as a crucial step in the full integration of immigrants into US society. Yet until now, sufficient information on the naturalization-eligible has not been available that would allow the federal government, states, localities, and non-governmental service providers to develop targeted strategies on a local level to assist this population to naturalize and to overcome barriers to eligibility. This paper remedies that deficiency by providing detailed estimates on the naturalization-eligible from data collected in the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS).
Topic:
Government, Immigration, Reform, Naturalization, and Census
Political Geography:
United States of America

4657. Piecing Together the US Immigrant Detention Puzzle One Night at a Time: An Analysis of All Persons in DHS-ICE Custody on September 22, 2012

Author:
Donald Kerwin, Daniela Alulema, and Siqi Tu
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
This paper analyzes a dataset of every person in the custody of the US Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS-ICE or ICE) on September 22, 2012, and compares this data with an earlier analysis of a similar dataset on detainees in DHS-ICE custody on January 25, 2009. DHS-ICE provided the 2012 and 2009 datasets in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the Boston Globe and Associated Press. The paper sets forth findings related to: (1) the removal adjudication processes to which the detainees were subject; (2) the facilities in which they were held; (3) their length of detention; and (4) their criminal histories, if any.
Topic:
History, Immigration, Prisons/Penal Systems, Reform, and Homeland Security
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

4658. Unlocking Human Dignity: A Plan to Transform the US Immigrant Detention System

Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Unlocking Human Dignity: A Plan to Transform the US Immigrant Detention System addresses one of the most troubled features of the US immigration system and highlights the need for fundamental changes to it. The report comes six years since the inception of the Obama administration’s detention reform initiative. In the interim, the number of immigrant detainees per year has risen to more than 400,000, the administration has opened immense new family detention centers, and the overwhelming majority of persons in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have remained in prisons, jails and other secure facilities where they are subject to standards designed for criminal defendants and, in many ways, treated more harshly than criminals.
Topic:
Immigration, Prisons/Penal Systems, Border Control, Reform, and Homeland Security
Political Geography:
United States of America

4659. Humanitarian Protection for Children Fleeing Gang-Based Violence in the Americas

Author:
Elizabeth Carlson and Ann Marie Gallagher
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
By the end of 2011, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began to see a steady rise in the number of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) from Central America, particularly from the Northern Triangle countries— El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala—arriving to the US-Mexico border. The number of children entering the United States from these countries more than doubled during fiscal year (FY) 2012 and continued to grow through FY 2014. In FY 2013, CBP apprehended over 35,000 children. That number almost doubled to 66,127 in FY 2014, with Central American children outnumbering their Mexican counterparts for the first time. Research has identified high levels of violence perpetrated by gangs and drug cartels in the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico as a primary reason for this surge. Under the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) passed with bi-partisan support in 2008, children from Central America cannot be deported immediately and must be given a court hearing.
Topic:
Political Violence, War on Drugs, Border Control, Children, and Trafficking
Political Geography:
Central America and United States of America

4660. In Harm’s Way: Family Separation, Immigration Enforcement Programs and Security on the US-Mexico Border

Author:
Jeremy Slack, Daniel E. Martinez, Scott Whiteford, and Emily Peiffer
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
The Consequence Delivery System (CDS) is a suite of border and immigration enforcement programs designed to increase the penalties associated with unauthorized migration in order to convince people not to return (Rosenblum 2013). Despite its inauguration in 2011, many aspects of the CDS are not new. CDS does however, mark a shift from the deterrent strategy that, in the 1990s that relied heavily on the dangers of the natural terrain to dissuade unauthorized border crossers, to one that actively punishes, incarcerates, and criminalizes them. This article presents findings from the Migrant Border Crossing Study, a random sample survey of 1,100 recently deported migrants in six cities in Mexico conducted between 2009 and 2012. It examines the demographics and family ties of deportees, their experiences with immigration enforcement practices and programs under the CDS, and how these programs have reshaped contemporary migration and deportation along the US-Mexico border. The article covers programs such as criminal prosecutions of illegal entries under Operation Streamline, and the Alien Transfer and Exit Program (ATEP) or lateral repatriation program which returns immigrants to different locations from where they illegally entered. In relationship to these programs, it considers issues of due process and treatment of deportees in US custody. It also examines interior enforcement under Secure Communities, which, during the study period, comprised part of the overarching border security plan, and screened virtually everybody arrested in the United States against immigration databases.
Topic:
Crime, Demographics, Immigration, Border Control, and Reform
Political Geography:
Mexico and United States of America

4661. Book Review: Diaspora Lobbies and the US Government: Convergence and Divergence in Making Foreign Policy By Josh DeWind and Renata Segura, eds. New York, NY: Social Science Research Council and New York University Press, 2014. 320 pages.

Author:
Thomas Ambrosio
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
While concerns about the loyalties of “hyphenated Americans” remain, the widespread acceptance of multiculturalism in American society has legitimized activities by ethnic groups to advocate within the US political system on behalf of their country of origin and its interests. This phenomenon is not new, but it has received heightened scholarly attention since the end of the Cold War for three reasons. First, given the level of American power, the United States has fewer constraints on its actions on the international stage and therefore its internal sources of conduct are more important — interest groups of all types could potentially influence US foreign policy to a greater degree than before. Second, the United States’ highly diverse ethnic composition means that nearly every event outside the country has an impact on at least some of its citizens; moreover, there are a multitude of ethnic groups vying for influence over US foreign policy. This diversity and mobilization has increased over the past few decades. Lastly, the decentralized nature of the American political system (and, in particular, the US Congress) allows for multiple points of entry into the policy-making process, which, in turn, grants these groups greater influence. Ethnic interest groups are a core part of this system and they must be taken into account when seeking to explain American foreign policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cold War, Politics, and Ethnicity
Political Geography:
United States of America

4662. The Influence of Foreign Direct Investment, Intrafirm Trading, and Currency Undervaluation on US Firm Trade Disputes

Author:
J. Bradford Jensen, Dennis P. Quinn, and Stephen Weymouth
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
The authors investigate a puzzling decline in US firm antidumping (AD) filings in an era of persistent foreign currency undervaluations and increasing import competition. Firms exhibit heterogeneity both within and across industries regarding foreign direct investment (FDI). Firms making vertical, or resource-seeking, investments abroad are less likely to file AD petitions and firms are likely to undertake vertical FDI in the context of currency undervaluation. Hence, the increasing vertical FDI of US firms makes trade disputes far less likely. Data on US manufacturing firms reveals that AD filers generally conduct no intrafirm trade with filed-against countries. Persistent currency undervaluation is associated over time with increased vertical FDI and intrafirm trade by US multinational corporations (MNCs) in the undervaluing country. Among larger US MNCs, the likelihood of an AD filing is negatively associated with increases in intrafirm trade. The authors confirm that undervaluation is associated with more AD filings. However, high levels of intrafirm imports from countries with undervalued currencies significantly decrease the likelihood of AD filings. The study also highlights the centrality of firm heterogeneity in international trade and investment in understanding political mobilization over international economic policy.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States of America

4663. Where Does the Biggest Gorilla in the Room Sit? Milk, the United States and International Trade Negotiations

Author:
Bruce Muirhead
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
As Robert Reich, a former labor secretary under Bill Clinton, once asked, with reference to the United States, “Where does the biggest gorilla sit? Anywhere it likes.” Dairy has long been a protected sector in the United States, which has a history of constructing its own reality with respect to freeing up international trade in agricultural products, milk included, and of ignoring or renegotiating commitments when they did not suit the government of the day. This background paper explores the historical evolution of US trade and agricultural policy as seen through its position on the dairy file in international trade regulations.
Topic:
Agriculture, International Trade and Finance, Food, and Food Security
Political Geography:
United States of America

4664. Settler-State Political Theory, 'CANZUS' and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Author:
Kirsty Gover
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
When the UN General Assembly voted in 2007 to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), only Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA cast negative votes. This article argues that the embedding of indigenous jurisdictions in the constitutional orders of these states via negotiated political agreements limits their capacity to accept certain provisions of the UNDRIP. Once the agreement-making process is set in motion, rights that do not derive from those bargains threaten to undermine them. This is especially true of self-governance and collective property rights, which are corporate rights vested to historically continuous indigenous groups. Since these rights cannot easily be reconciled with the equality and non-discrimination principles that underpin mainstream human rights law, settler governments must navigate two modes of liberalism: the first directed to the conduct of prospective governance in accordance with human rights and the rule of law and the second directed to the reparative goal of properly constituting a settler body politic and completing the constitution of the settler state by acquiring indigenous consent. Agreements help to navigate this tension, by insulating indigenous and human rights regimes from one another, albeit in ways not always supported by the UNDRIP.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, United Nations, and Governance
Political Geography:
Europe, Canada, United Nations, Australia, New Zealand, and United States of America

4665. Internet Freedom and Human Rights

Author:
Daniel Joyce
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This article considers whether the Internet has become so significant, for the provision of, and access to, information and in the formation of political community and associated questions of participation, that it requires further human rights protection beyond freedom of expression. In short, should Internet freedom be configured as a human right? The article begins by considering the ubiquity of the Internet and its significance. A wider historical view is then taken to understand Internet freedom in terms of its lineage and development from earlier debates over freedom of expression and the right to communicate, through to the recognition of the significance of an information society and the need for Internet regulation on the international plane. The current debate over Internet freedom is then analysed with particular focus given to Hillary Clinton’s speech on Internet freedom and its subsequent articulation by Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue. The concluding part introduces the critical work of Evgeny Morozov and Jaron Lanier to an international law audience in order to deepen the debate over Internet freedom and to point to the concept’s limitations and dangers. It is too early to say whether a ‘right to Internet freedom’ has achieved universal recognition, but this article makes the case that it is worth taking seriously and that Internet freedom may need its own category of protection beyond freedom of expression.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, History, Regulation, Internet, and Freedom of Expression
Political Geography:
Europe, Global Focus, and United States of America

4666. Double Remedies in Double Courts

Author:
Sungjoon Cho and Thomas H. Lee
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This article uses an ongoing trade controversy litigated in US courts and the World Trade Organization dispute resolution system as a vehicle for exploring different models to deal with parallel adjudications in different legal systems between the same or related parties on the same issue. In lieu of more traditional models of subordination or first-to-decide sequencing, the article proposes an engagement model as a solution to the double-courts, single-issue problem.
Topic:
International Law, International Trade and Finance, World Trade Organization, and Courts
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and United States of America

4667. Surabhi Ranganathan. Strategically Created Treaty Conflicts and the Politics of International Law

Author:
Sabrina Safrin
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Treaty conflicts may be inevitable, but what do we make of conflict by design? In Strategically Created Treaty Conflicts and the Politics of International Law, Surabhi Ranganathan thoughtfully explores nations’ purposeful creation of conflicts between treaties to advance their political goals and to restrict the impact of treaties to which they object. Essentially, states fight legal fire with legal fire. If they object to a multilateral treaty regime, they create another regime that effectively conflicts with, or cabins, the treaty regime that they object to rather than simply walking away.
Topic:
International Law, Treaties and Agreements, Book Review, and Law of the Sea
Political Geography:
Europe and United States of America

4668. M. Sornarajah. Resistance and Change in the International Law on Foreign Investment

Author:
Harm Schepel
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
In 1994, Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah published the first edition of his treatise, The International Law on Foreign Investment. There, he sought to demonstrate that investment law as a separate branch of international law was ‘in the process of development’ and could and should be isolated for separate study. Organizing his material from the disparate sources of domestic law, contract-based arbitration and public international law along the overarching tension between the interests of developing countries and those of traditionally capital-exporting states, his stated aim was to ‘help in the identification of the nature of the disputes’, which would lead, in turn, to the ‘formulation of acceptable solutions’. The treatise was a well-timed pioneering effort that rightfully earned the author a lasting reputation as one of the founding fathers and towering figures of the academic discipline. There seems to be no one better placed, then, to ask, 20 years on, what happened or, rather, what went wrong. Investment law has developed with breathtaking speed into a (very) separate branch of international law – yes – but almost entirely on the waves of treaty-based investor–state arbitration, which has all but eclipsed contractual and domestic processes, at least in terms of academic interest. And this system has, in the eyes of Sornarajah and many others, rather spectacularly failed to lead to ‘acceptable solutions’, especially for developing countries.
Topic:
International Law, Treaties and Agreements, Foreign Direct Investment, Neoliberalism, and Book Review
Political Geography:
Europe and United States of America

4669. Amérique latine - L’année politique 2015

Author:
Maya Collombon, Hélène Combes, Olivier Dabène, Gaspard Estrada, Marie-Laure Geoffray, Ana Carolina González Espinosa, Erica Guevara, Damien Larrouqué, Marilde Loiola de Menezes, Frédéric Louault, Frédéric Massé, Mohcine Mounjid, Eduardo Rios, and Darío Rodriguez
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
Amérique latine - L’Année politique is a publication by CERI-Sciences Po’s Political Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean (OPALC). The study extends the work presented on the Observatory’s website (www.sciencespo.fr/opalc) by offering tools for understanding a continent that is in the grip of deep transformations.
Topic:
Political Violence, Economics, Regional Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, Sociology, and Elections
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Arab Countries, Latin America, Nicaragua, Caribbean, Venezuela, Mexico, and United States of America

4670. Une puissance parmi d'autres : évolution des enjeux et défis géostratégiques de la France en Océanie (One Among Many: Changing Geostrategic Interests and Challenges for France in the South Pacific)

Author:
Denise Fisher
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
France, which is both an external and resident South Pacific power by virtue of its possessions there, pursues, or simply inherits, multiple strategic benefits. But the strategic context has changed in recent years. China's increased presence; consequent changes in the engagement of the US, Japan and Taiwan; and the involvement of other players in the global search for resources, means that France is one of many more with influence and interests in a region considered by some as a backwater. These shifts in a way heighten the value of France's strategic returns, while impacting on France's capacity to exert influence and pursue its own objectives in the region. At the same time, France is dealing with demands for greater autonomy and even independence from its two most valuable overseas possessions on which its influence is based, New Caledonia and French Polynesia. How it responds to these demands will directly shape the nature of its future regional presence, which is a strategic asset.
Topic:
Political Economy, Natural Resources, Colonialism, Political Science, and Decolonization
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Taiwan, France, Australia, Australia/Pacific, and United States of America

4671. The Role of U.S. Elite Military Schools in Promoting Intercultural Understanding and Democratic Governance

Author:
Carol Atkinson
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Educational exchanges at the U.S. military’s war and staff colleges promote intercultural understanding, international security, and help the United States achieve its foreign policy goals. This article provides an overview of the different types of U.S. military education and training programs that are open to foreign participation, and explores the differences between these and civilian exchange programs. It looks at the impacts of military educational exchange programs on their participants, and also draws lessons learned for the design and administration of exchange programs.
Topic:
Education, Governance, Military Affairs, Democracy, Soft Power, Constructivism, and Socialization
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

4672. Transatlantic Security, Defence and Strategy: Badly Needed Reforms

Author:
Peter M.E. Volten(ed.)
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
This year we celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the downfall of communism in Europe, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Students who started their postsecondary education this year were born about seven years after this anniversary, in 1996. And the freshmen of 1990 are now in their early forties. In Europe, the latter generation is about to take on political leadership and may still be aware of the ‘Idea of Europe’ as advocated by one of the fathers of the European Union, Jean Monnet: “No more war on this continent; we will build institutions and peace instead.” Today’s enrolling students probably do not remember this forceful idea; nor do they realise the significance of this inspiring idea in overcoming great difficulties to achieve a peaceful, democratic and prosperous EU. The freshmen of today may take this for granted while being rather more disturbed by the confusing world of globalisation, populist slogans such as ‘The War on Terror’, multilevel governance and a rippled sense of direction and political effectiveness in the EU or, for that matter, NATO; in other words, throughout the transatlantic world.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, NATO, Reform, and Transatlantic Relations
Political Geography:
Europe and United States of America

4673. ICE Officers Overwhelmingly Use Their Discretion to Detain LGBT Immigrants

Author:
Sharita Gruberg
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
On November 20, 2014, as part of President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, Secretary Jeh Johnson issued a memorandum that established priorities to guide all aspects of immigration enforcement regarding the apprehension, detention, and removal of unauthorized immigrants.1 Those priorities have focused government resources on addressing threats to public safety, national security, and border security rather than on unauthorized immigrants who have been in the United States for years without committing serious crimes. That memorandum, in addition to outlining enforcement priorities, clarified that certain categories of vulnerable people—unless subject to mandatory detention—should not be detained absent extraordinary circumstances.2 Although the memo does not specifically mention lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender—or LGBT—immigrants, due to their extreme risk of abuse in detention, they are recognized as a “special vulnerability” category by the DHS.3 Data obtained recently by the Center for American Progress through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that despite the priorities outlined in the memo, the DHS elected to detain a higher percentage of LGBT immigrants who were not subject to mandatory detention in fiscal year 2015 than the year before the memorandum was issued.4 These data indicate that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers ignored Secretary Johnson’s enforcement priorities when making custody decisions for LGBT immigrants.
Topic:
Migration, Immigration, Discrimination, LGBT+, Labor Policies, and Police
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4674. Veiled Repression: Mainstream Economics, Capital Theory, and the Distributions of Income and Wealth

Author:
Lance Taylor
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The Cambridge UK vs USA capital theory debates of the 1960s showed that the workhorse mainstream growth model relies on unsustainable assumptions. Its standard interpretation is not consistent with the last four decades of data. Part of an estimated increase in the ratio of personal wealth to income in recent years is due to higher asset prices. The other side of the accounts reveals that financialization and growing business debt partially offset the greater net worth of households. Attempts to interpret growth in wealth principally as a consequence of capitalization of rents are misleading. An alternative growth model based on Cambridge ideas can help correct these misinterpretations.
Topic:
Economics, Income Inequality, Economic Theory, Repression, Capital, Redistribution, and Wealth
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4675. The American Dual Economy: Race, Globalization, and the Politics of Exclusion

Author:
Peter Temin
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
I describe the American economy in the twenty-first century as a dual economy in the spirit of W. Arthur Lewis. Similar to the subsistence and capitalist economies characterized by Lewis, I distinguish a low-wage sector and a FTE (Finance, Technology, and Electronics) sector. The transition from the low-wage to the FTE sector is through education, which is becoming increasingly difficult for members of the low-wage sector because the FTE sector has largely abandoned the American tradition of quality public schools and universities. Policy debates about public education and other policies that serve the low-wage sector often characterize members of the low-wage sector as black even though the low-wage sector is largely white. This model of a modern dual economy explains difficulties in many current policy debates, including education, healthcare, criminal justice, infrastructure and household debts.
Topic:
Economics, Education, Globalization, Race, Capitalism, Exclusion, and Public Service
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4676. Inequality, Debt Servicing, and the Sustainability of Steady State Growth

Author:
Mark Setterfield, Yun K. Kim, and Jeremy Rees
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
We investigate the claim that the way in which debtor households service their debts matters for macroeconomic performance. A Kaleckian growth model is modified to incorporate working households who borrow to finance consumption that is determined, in part, by the desire to emulate the consumption patterns of more affluent households. The impact of this behavior on the sustainability of the growth process is then studied by means of a numerical analysis that captures various dimensions of income inequality. When compared to previous contributions to the literature, our results show that the way in which debtor households service their debt has both quantitative and qualitative effects on the economy’s macrodynamics.
Topic:
Debt, Inequality, Islamic State, Economic Theory, and Sustainability
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4677. Did Quantitative Easing Increase Income Inequality?

Author:
Juan Montecino and Gerald Epstein
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The impact of the post-meltdown Federal Reserve policy of ultra-low interest rates and Quantitative Easing (QE) on income and wealth inequality has become an important policy and political issue. Critics have argued that by raising asset prices, near-zero interest rates and QE have significantly contributed to increases in inequality, while practitioners of central banking, counter that the distributional impact have probably been either neutral or even egalitarian in nature due to its employment impacts. Yet there has been little academic research that addresses empirically this important question. We use data from the Federal Reserve’s Tri-Annual Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) and look at the evolution of income by quintile between the “Pre- QE period” and the “QE period” analyzing three key impact channels of QE policy on income distribution: 1) the employment channel 2) the asset appreciation and return channel, and 3) the mortgage refinancing channel. Using recentered influence function (RIF) regressions pioneered by Firpo et. al (2007) in conjunction with the well-known Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique, we find that while employment changes and mortgage refinancing were equalizing, these impacts were nonetheless swamped by the large dis-equalizing effects of equity price appreciations. Reductions in returns to short term assets added further to dis-equalizing processes between the periods. Bond price appreciations, surprisingly, had little distributional impact. We cannot know precisely how much of these changes are due to QE as opposed to other influences, but to assess potential causal effects we utilize a counter-factual exercise to assess the quantitative range of impacts of QE on the main channels. We conclude that, most likely, QE was modestly dis-equalizing, despite having some positive impacts on employment and mortgage refinancing. The modestly dis-equalizing impacts were due to both policy choices and deep seated structural problems, such as the long-term deterioration in labor market opportunities for many workers due to globalization and legal and political reductions in labor bargaining power that have contributed to long term wage stagnation. Finally, there is no support in our analysis, for the proposition that raising interest rates would be an efficient mechanism for improving income distribution, because of the likely costs in terms of employment and debt refinancing opportunities.
Topic:
Federal Reserve, Inequality, Income Inequality, Fiscal Policy, and Wage Growth
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4678. Innovative Enterprise or Sweatshop Economics? In Search of Foundations of Economic Analysis

Author:
William Lazonick
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
By integrating the history of industrial development in Britain and the United States with the ideas of leading economic thinkers, this essay demonstrates the absurdity of perfect competition as the ideal of economic efficiency. In Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Joseph Schumpeter asserts: “perfect competition is not only impossible but inferior, and has no title to being set up as a model of ideal efficiency.” For neoclassical economists, the large corporation is a “market imperfection” that, compared with “perfect competition,” should result in higher product prices and lower industry output. Yet business history reveals the capability of the most productive enterprises to generate massive quantities of output at low costs to attain large market shares with buyers benefiting from low prices even as employees receive higher pay and shareholders ample dividends. By integrating the history of industrial development in Britain and the United States with the ideas of leading economic thinkers, this essay demonstrates the absurdity of perfect competition as the ideal of economic efficiency. Indeed, I show that, in their desire to make the market rather than the firm the main arbiter of resource allocation, neoclassical economists have enshrined the sweatshop as the foundation of their analysis, with profoundly negative consequences for understanding how a modern economy actually operates and performs. In doing so, neoclassical economists ignore not only the economic history of capitalism but also the intellectual history of their own discipline. I conduct a journey through two hundred years of economic thought – from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776) to Alfred Chandler’s The Visible Hand (1977) – to derive analytical foundations for a theory of innovative enterprise that can explain and explore firm- level sources of productivity growth in the economy. What then do more sophisticated theories of the firm rooted in the neoclassical tradition have to offer? In a section of this essay that I call (borrowing a phrase from Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means) “Economic Theory for ‘an Era of Corporate Plundering’,” I outline the shortcomings of Williamsonian transaction-cost theory and Jensenian agency theory for analyzing the role of the business corporation in the operation and performance of the economy. From the perspective of the theory of innovative enterprise, I demonstrate how the methodology of constrained optimization trivializes the business enterprise while the ideology that companies should be run to maximize shareholder value legitimizes financial predators, many senior corporate executives among them, in the looting of the industrial corporation. The “era of corporate plundering” since the mid-1980s has contributed to extreme concentration of income among the richest households and the erosion of middle- class employment opportunities. Finally, I call for a transformation of economic thinking so that the innovative enterprise is at the center of economic analysis. The theory of innovative enterprise exposes as costly intellectual failures “perfect competition” as the ideal of economic efficiency, “constrained optimization” as the prime tool of economic analysis, and “maximizing shareholder value” as the ideology of superior corporate governance. The theory of innovative enterprise provides, moreover, a clear and compelling rationale for sharing the gains of business enterprise among stakeholders in the broader community, in conjunction with government policies that seek to support sustainable prosperity, characterized by stable and equitable economic growth.
Topic:
Economics, Business, Economic Growth, Innovation, and Industry
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4679. The Cyclically Adjusted Budget: History and Exegesis of a Fateful Estimate

Author:
Orsola Costantini
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
This paper traces the evolution of the concept of the cyclically adjusted budget from the 1930s to the present. The idea of balancing the budget over the cycle was first conceived in Sweden in the 1930s by the economists of the Stockholm School and was soon reinterpreted and incorporated into the fiscal program of the American political coalition supporting the New Deal, especially by the Committee for Economic Development during and after World War II. In the 1960s, Keynesian economists associated with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations reformulated the notion. Despite their claims at the time, their version differed only in degree from the earlier CED approach, the transformation being largely conditioned by changing political circumstances. In the 1980s, however, the concept changed substantially. Methods for calculating it transformed dramatically, as the notion became a device to limit and direct governments’ fiscal policies in a wide sense, that is, including institutional (or “structural”) reforms. The final section of the paper considers the shifting uses of the notion in the European Growth and Stability Pact.
Topic:
Economics, Budget, Economic Growth, and Fiscal Policy
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, and United States of America

4680. When Credit Bites Back: Leverage, Business Cycles and Crises

Author:
Oscar Jorda, Moritz Schularick, and Alan Taylor
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
This paper studies the role of credit in the business cycle, with a focus on private credit overhang. Based on a study of the universe of over 200 recession episodes in 14 advanced countries between 1870 and 2008, we document two key facts of the modern business cycle: financial-crisis recessions are more costly than normal recessions in terms of lost output; and for both types of recession, more credit-intensive expansions tend to be followed by deeper recessions and slower recoveries. In additional to unconditional analysis, we use local projection methods to condition on a broad set of macroeconomic controls and their lags. Then we study how past credit accumulation impacts the behavior of not only output but also other key macroeconomic variables such as investment, lending, interest rates, and inflation. The facts that we uncover lend support to the idea that financial factors play an important role in the modern business cycle.
Topic:
Economics, Business, Fiscal Policy, Private Sector, and Credit
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4681. Wealth Concentration, Income Distribution, and Alternatives for the USA

Author:
Lance Taylor, Özlem Ömer, and Armon Rezai
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
US household wealth concentration is not likely to decline in response to fiscal interventions alone. Creation of an independent public wealth fund could lead to greater equality. Similarly, once-off tax/transfer packages or wage increases will not reduce income inequality significantly; on-going wage increases in excess of productivity growth would be needed. These results come from the accounting in a simulation model based on national income and financial data. The theory behind the model borrows from ideas that originated in Cambridge UK (especially from Luigi Pasinetti and Richard Goodwin).
Topic:
Inequality, Income Inequality, Tax Systems, Redistribution, and Wealth
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4682. Wealth Concentration, Income Distribution, and Alternatives for the USA

Author:
Lance Taylor, Özlem Ömer, and Armon Rezai
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
US household wealth concentration is not likely to decline in response to fiscal interventions alone. Creation of an independent public wealth fund could lead to greater equality. Similarly, once-off tax/transfer packages or wage increases will not reduce income inequality significantly; on-going wage increases in excess of productivity growth would be needed. These results come from the accounting in a simulation model based on national income and financial data. The theory behind the model borrows from ideas that originated in Cambridge UK (especially from Luigi Pasinetti and Richard Goodwin).
Topic:
Inequality, Income Inequality, Tax Systems, Redistribution, and Wealth
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4683. Beyond Competitive Devaluations: The Monetary Dimensions of Comparative Advantage

Author:
Paul R. Bergin
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
Motivated by the long-standing debate on the pros and cons of competitive devaluation, we propose a new perspective on how monetary and exchange rate policies can contribute to a country’s international competitiveness. We refocus the analysis on the implications of monetary stabilization for a country’s comparative advantage. Motivated by the long-standing debate on the pros and cons of competitive devaluation, we propose a new perspective on how monetary and exchange rate policies can contribute to a country’s international competitiveness. We refocus the analysis on the implications of monetary stabilization for a country’s comparative advantage. We develop a two-country New-Keynesian model allowing for two tradable sectors in each country: while one sector is perfectly competitive, firms in the other sector produce differentiated goods under monopolistic competition subject to sunk entry costs and nominal rigidities, hence their performance is more sensitive to macroeconomic uncertainty. We show that, by stabilizing markups, monetary policy can foster the competitiveness of these firms, encouraging investment and entry in the differentiated goods sector, and ultimately affecting the composition of domestic output and exports. Panel regressions based on worldwide exports to the U.S. by sector lend empirical support to the theory. Constraining monetary policy with an exchange rate peg lowers a country’s share of differentiated goods in exports between 4 and 12 percent.
Topic:
Monetary Policy, Monopoly, Strategic Competition, and Financial Stability
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4684. Two Paths to War: The Origins of the First World War versus the Dynamics of Contemporary Sino-American Confrontations

Author:
James Kurth
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
During the past year, there have been numerous and somber reflections, rather like those during a traditional period of mourning, about the great and tragic events that occurred just 100 years ago – the beginning of the First World War. And in the course of these melancholy reflections about the past, there naturally have arisen anxious concerns about the future. Is it possible that we may once again be entering into an era of great conflicts, or even of a great war, between the great powers of the time? Are there important and ominous similarities between the international situation before the First World War and the international situation of today?
Topic:
Development, Government, Politics, History, and Inequality
Political Geography:
China and United States of America

4685. Anarchic East Asia on an American Tether—and Cushion

Author:
Bruce Cumings
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The usual explanation for the recent turmoil in East Asia goes under the rubric of “the rise of China.” For practitioners of the “realist” school, like John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago or the late Samuel Huntington of Harvard, all this is merely, and entirely, predictable: “rise” is what budding great powers do, just as in the fullness of time, a war with the leading great power is only to be expected (as both predicted in their most famous books—The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and The Clash of Civilizations). Realists of the containment school take this a bit further, to a strategy for America: contain rising China. This was certainly the policy of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, lining up publicly as she did with the Philippines and Japan against Chinese island encroachments—which may also turn out to be the policy of President Hillary Clinton in 2017. And this is unquestionably how nearly all experts in China see American policy: containment, encirclement, all in the interests of keeping rising China . . . down. Of course, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry fall all over themselves to deny that containment is the policy—and under their (questionable and unsteady) leadership, perhaps it isn’t. Instead the overriding Obama strategy is benign neglect of the political and the military, thus to engage China in the overarching global commons, neo-liberalism, bringing it ever deeper into capitalist practice and the world economy thus to muffle if not contain its insurgent impulses. But then that has been American policy since Richard Nixon ended the Cold War between Washington and Beijing, supported all along by a quiet but very secure bipartisan coalition in Washington embracing Democrats and Republicans, and more broadly Wall Street and multinational corporate leaders. Everybody has been making money in China, even recently-bankrupt General Motors (China now has the largest auto market in the world, and Chinese like to buy GM’s Buicks even though hardly anyone else does, perhaps because forefather Sun Yat Sen drove a Buick). The watchword here is neo-liberal interdependence, but the practice is to let the colossal dailiness of Sino-American exchange fly under the radar, or remain sotto voce, unacknowledged, even secret—hoping no one pays too much attention.
Topic:
Development, Government, Politics, History, and Finance
Political Geography:
East Asia and United States of America

4686. Severing the Innovation-Inequality Link: Distribution Sensitive Science, Technology and Innovation Policies in Developed Nations

Author:
Amos Zehavi and Dan Breznitz
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
Innovation is essential to economic growth. However, it appears that the ways in which we pursue innovation policies have aggravated inequality. Inequality is an increasingly contentious political issue in both wealthy and emerging economies. Yet, it is becoming clear that use of traditional state instruments to alleviate inequality by redistributive means, is no longer sufficient. For those reasons, in this paper we consider other state instruments that are rarely associated with distributive goals. Specifically, we inquire whether we can successfully devise and employ Distributive-Sensitive Science and Technology and Innovation Policies focused on disadvantaged groups of users and consumers of technology. Following an exploratory theoretical approach, the paper first develop four types of such programs, and then utilize a comparative approach to analyze existing programs that fit into these categories, first, in Israel, and then, in the United State, Germany, and Sweden. We conclude by arguing that although these programs are currently driven primarily by economic efficiency concerns and not by distributive ones, they show the promise of our approach of utilizing innovation policy to reach social policy goals.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Science and Technology, Inequality, Economic Growth, and Innovation
Political Geography:
Israel, Germany, Sweden, and United States of America

4687. The New York Times and American Tax Policy: Representing Citizens or Echoing Elites?

Author:
Daniel Chomsky
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
A recent New York Times article observed that Americans want action to address inequality. 2016 presidential candidates from both parties also acknowledge that inequality is a pressing concern. But not one of the candidates has proposed to do anything meaningful about it, sharing wealthy Americans’ (understandable) opposition to any solution (Scheiber 2015). Perhaps nothing has been done because there is nothing to do about it. Some treat inequality as an inevitable or intractable feature of the global economy, or at least impossible to alter at acceptable cost (Cowen 2013). But inequality may be subject to political circumstances, and public policies including progressive taxes might reduce it without adversely affecting economic growth (Diamond and Saez 2011, Piketty 2014). It may be that Americans are just unwilling to support policies that would reduce inequality. Progressive taxation and other policies may reduce inequality. But policy reflects public preferences (Stimson, Mackuen, and Erikson 2002), and the American people just hate taxes. Martin Gilens (2012) effectively demonstrated that policy makers favor the wealthy over the majority when opinions diverge. Yet he accepted that the Bush tax cuts in the early 2000s reflected broad consensus opinion. Public opposition to taxes is seen as so powerful that even observers seeking programs to promote economic equality often abandon progressive taxes as a remedy (Kenworthy 2013).
Topic:
Race, Science and Technology, History, Culture, Ethics, Philosophy, Tax Systems, and Innovation
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4688. How Money Drives US Congressional Elections: More Evidence

Author:
Thomas Ferguson, Paul Jorgenson, and Jie Chen
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The protesters who swirled into parks, churches, and town squares around the world in the fall of 2011 to challenge the primacy of the “1%” hammered relentlessly on one theme above all others: that economic inequality has deep roots in the political system. Many social scientists and intellectuals who have picked up from where the Occupy movement left off share this conviction; they, too, have broken with the taboos that for so long segmented discussions of politics from economics. Piketty, in his monumental study, for example, avows that income distribution is a basically a question of “political economy” not pure economics. Stiglitz in The Price of Inequality is equally forthright – “increasingly, and especially in the United States, it seems that the political system is more akin to ‘one dollar one vote’ than to ‘one person one vote.’”
Topic:
Government, Politics, Science and Technology, History, Elections, Inequality, and Money
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4689. Fragile States Index 2015 – Annual Report

Author:
J. J. Messner, Nate Haken, Patricia Taft, Kendall Lawrence, Felipe Umana, Sebastian Pavlou, and Hannah Blyth
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Fund for Peace
Abstract:
The Fragile States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure. By highlighting pertinent issues in weak and failing states, The Fragile States Index—and the social science framework and software application upon which it is built—makes political risk assessment and early warning of conflict accessible to policy-makers and the public at large.
Topic:
Reform, Ebola, Democracy, Fragile States, Domestic Politics, Sustainability, Health Crisis, Instability, and Uprising
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, Iran, Ukraine, Middle East, Finland, Eastern Europe, Greece, Libya, Cuba, North Africa, Lebanon, West Africa, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Global Focus, and United States of America

4690. The Applicability of International and Domestic Immigration Law to Relocated Guantanamo Detainees

Author:
Sarah Weiner
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
Abstract:
The physical relocation of detainees from Guantanamo to the United States would not meaningfully alter U.S. obligations under domestic immigration law or international law concerning refoulement. Domestic immigration law would not affect U.S. authority to bring aliens into the United States and to detain those aliens under the laws of war. Detainees would not enter the United States as immigrants, but rather would remain legally “at the border” during their detention. If a detainee secures his release from law-of-war detention, then the United States would be prohibited from transferring the former detainee to a country where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. This obligation applies equally to detainees held at Guantanamo and in the United States. If the United States could not find a suitable country to accept the former detainee, then the United States may have the authority to hold the alien indefinitely in immigration detention, provided that his custody meets statutory requirements. This authority is constitutionally untested and potentially inconsistent with obligations under international law, but these concerns would apply equally to both Guantanamo- and U.S.-located former detainees.
Topic:
International Law, Immigration, Law, Guantanamo Bay, and Detainees
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4691. Security ties or electoral connections? The US Congress and the Korea–US Free Trade Agreement, 2007–2011

Author:
Jungkun Seo
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
Conventional wisdom is that trade policy is often guided by geopolitical security considerations. A growing body of research addresses the security–trade linkage as a plausible cause for executive negotiations over the Korea–US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) in 2007. Yet, the approval of a trade deal with the Asian ally by America's legislature in 2011 features not only ‘security ties’ but also ‘electoral connections’. This paper seeks to examine the question of whether alliance relationships would inevitably translate into domestic commitments. Bringing domestic politics into consideration, this article also fills the gap in the literature on Congress-focused research of the KORUS FTA and sheds light on how lawmakers strike a balance between the principle of US foreign policy and the reality of conflicting domestic interests.
Topic:
Security, Geopolitics, and Free Trade
Political Geography:
Asia, North America, Korea, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America

4692. Working With a Rising India

Author:
Charles R. Kayne, Joseph S. Nye Jr., and Alyssa Ayres
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
“A rising India offers one of the most substantial opportunities to advance American national interests over the next two decades,” asserts a new Independent Task Force report sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Working With a Rising India: A Joint Venture for the New Century. Over the past ten years, India, the world's largest democracy, has lifted more than 130 million people out of poverty. The country has rebounded from a recent economic growth slump, surpassing China this year to become the world's fastest-growing major economy. “If India can maintain its current growth rate, let alone attain sustained double digits, it has the potential over the next two to three decades to follow China on the path to becoming another $10 trillion economy,” notes the Task Force. With Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's prioritization of economic growth and foreign policy revitalization, the country now has a window of opportunity to either make the necessary reforms or risk being left behind. “[India] will have to decide whether it wants to become a major part of global trade flows and deeply integrated into global supply chains. Doing so would boost India's efforts to grow its manufacturing sector and its economy; choosing not to will make that ambition harder to achieve.” Because India does not seek an alliance with the United States and closely guards its policy independence, U.S.-India relations will not resemble those Washington has with its conventional allies. For that reason, the Task Force recommends that “U.S. policymakers [should] explicitly emphasize a ‘joint-venture’ model for U.S.-India relations, focused on a slate of shared pursuits on which interests converge—and with clear mechanisms for coordinating and managing the known and expected disagreements.” The bipartisan Task Force is chaired by Charles R. Kaye, co-chief executive officer of the private equity firm Warburg Pincus and former chairman of the U.S.-India Business Council, and Joseph S. Nye Jr., distinguished service professor and former dean of the Harvard Kennedy School. Directed by CFR Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia Alyssa Ayres, the Task Force is composed of sixteen prominent experts from government, academic, nonprofit, and other sectors.
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Bilateral Relations, Democracy, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:
India, Asia, North America, and United States of America

4693. Implications of Operation Decisive Storm

Author:
Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Abstract:
Saudi Arabia, along with nine of its allies, has launched an offensive on the Houthi groups in Yemen. This offensive will have implications on not only Saudi Arabia and its immediate neighbours, but also on other international actors, including Iran and western countries such as the United States. This paper addresses the repercussions of this operation in light of growing Iranian expansion in the Arab world.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Military Intervention, and Houthis
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America

4694. Operation Decisive Storm: Reshuffling Regional Order

Author:
Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Abstract:
Operation Decisive Storm is being interpreted as a first step towards curbing Iranian expansion in the Arab world rather than a step towards protecting Yemen and its legitimacy. Pakistan and Turkey’s support for this operation is significant in light of the US’ visible withdrawal from the region. With the operation still in its early days, it has become imperative to re-examine its goals, their feasibility, and implications of the attacks.
Topic:
Military Affairs, Military Intervention, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Turkey, Middle East, Yemen, and United States of America

4695. Realized Bank Risk during the Great Recession

Author:
Yener Altunbas, Simone Manganelli, and David Marques-Ibanez
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
In the years preceding the 2007-2009 financial crisis, forward-looking indicators of bank risk concentrated and suggested unusually low expectations of bank default. We assess whether the ex-ante (i.e. prior to the crisis) cross-sectional variability in bank characteristics is related to the ex-post (i.e. during the crisis) materialization of bank risk. Our tailor-made dataset crucially accounts for the different dimensions of realized bank risk including access to central bank liquidity during the crisis. We consistently find that less reliance on deposit funding, more aggressive credit growth, larger size and leverage were associated with larger levels of realized risk. The impact of these characteristics is particularly relevant for capturing the systemic dimensions of bank risk and tends to become stronger for the tail of the riskier banks. The majority of these characteristics also predicted bank risk as materialized before the financial crisis.
Topic:
Global Recession, Financial Crisis, Risk, and Banking
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4696. Identifying Foreign Suppliers in U.S. Import Data

Author:
Fariha Kamal and Ryan Monarch
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Relationships between firms and their foreign suppliers are the foundation of international trade, but data limitations and reliability concerns make studying such relationships challenging. We evaluate and enhance supplier information in U.S. import data and present new facts about importer-exporter relationships. Count of foreign exporters from U.S. import data tends to exceed those from source country data, especially from China. The pattern of U.S. imports from origin countries changes substantially by tracing trade back to the supplier's location instead. Related-party relationships trade more, while larger countries have more relationships.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Foreign Direct Investment, Business, Trade, Data, and Imports
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4697. A Frustrating Start to 2015 for the US

Author:
Brad Glosserman and Ralph A. Cossa
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Pacific Forum
Abstract:
President Obama initiated his long-awaited (and long overdue) quest for “fast track” or Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) from the US Congress, understanding that final negotiations and eventual passage (or not) of his Asian “rebalance” economic centerpiece, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement, rests upon achieving TPA. Without TPP, Obama’s already tarnished leadership image will be severely damaged, his “lame duck” status will be solidified at home and abroad, and his Asian pivot will be seen not as the multidimensional strategy it was intended to be but largely a unidimensional (security) single-focused (China) strategy. Meanwhile, China continued to tarnish US and ASEAN leadership through its accelerated island-building projects in the South China Sea, while Washington’s badly managed response to China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank initiative provided another (self-inflicted) wound. Washington’s questions were the right ones, but its seemingly “choose between us and China” approach resulted in most US partners and allies choosing Beijing. Finally, US-DPRK and North-South relations went through cycles of hope and despair with no real progress in sight, as speculation runs rampant as to why Kim Jong-Un decided not to go to Moscow.
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Hegemony, and Free Trade
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

4698. US-Japan Relations: Strategic Alignment

Author:
Michael J. Green and Nicholas Szechenyi
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Pacific Forum
Abstract:
Benefiting from a window of political stability, the Abe government continued to focus on the twin pillars of economic strategy and defense policy reform. Bilateral engagement on security, trade, and regional and global issues informed the agenda for the prime minister’s official visit to Washington in late April, the first by a Japanese leader in nine years. Abe also became the first Japanese leader to address a joint session of Congress and relayed the main themes from his summit with President Obama by reflecting on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, celebrating the evolution of the US-Japan alliance, and outlining a strategic vision for the future.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Bilateral Relations, Governance, and Political stability
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, North America, and United States of America

4699. DPRK Nuclear and Missile Threat Looms

Author:
Stephen Noerper
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Pacific Forum
Abstract:
The early months of 2015 saw little change in US-DPRK relations while there were several positive developments in US-ROK relations. There were new US sanctions on North Korea over the Sony Pictures cyber-hacking incident and increased concern about North Korean advances in nuclear and missile technology as the US and others continued to criticize the DPRK’s human rights record. Meanwhile, South Korea and the US held their annual military exercises and concluded a new civilian nuclear agreement. Distractions from the positive trajectory in US-ROK relations included the debate over the value of deploying the THAAD system in South Korea and the unfortunate attack on US Ambassador Mark Lippert.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Diplomacy, Military Strategy, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

4700. South China Sea Wariness

Author:
Sheldon Simon
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Pacific Forum
Abstract:
In the first four months of 2015, senior State and Defense Department officials as well as flag-rank military officers visited Southeast Asia, all emphasizing ASEAN’s importance for the Obama administration’s rebalance policy. The US is building a rotational force deployment capacity in the region along with military assistance to allies and partners, especially for increasing their maritime security capabilities. Washington and Manila await a Supreme Court decision regarding the constitutionality of the April 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which will permit better access for US forces. Washington has also emphasized Vietnam’s importance to the rebalance, currently concentrating on improving coast guard relations. However, the US was dismayed that Hanoi permitted Russian tanker aircraft to fly out of Cam Ranh Bay to refuel bombers that flew near US bases in Guam. The Indonesian Navy has shown interest in more naval exercises with the US around the Natuna Islands. Problems persist in US-Thai relations as the military consolidates its rule. Although the annual Cobra Gold exercise took place in February, Washington scaled back US participation and significantly reduced the kinetic component. Planning for next year’s exercise is in limbo. Finally, Japan and India have shown support for maritime security buildups and an enhanced naval presence in the South China Sea.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Hegemony, Conflict, and Rivalry
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America