Search

Begin New Search Publication Year within 3 Years Publication Year within 5 Years

11101. How Do Development Agencies Support Climate Action?

Author:
Rachael Calleja
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
This paper explores how development agencies are integrating climate action into development portfolios in response to calls to scale-up climate engagements in alignment with both the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. Using data compiled on all 30 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC), this paper maps and analyzes trends in both the scale and usage of official development assistance allocated to support climate activities and the tools and approaches used to integrate climate across development activities. This paper shows that while climate has become a key priority for development agencies, there remains scope for deepening integration by improving monitoring and reporting of climate and development results, integrating climate considerations across the life cycle of projects, and searching for complementarities across agencies.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Environment, and Green Transition
Political Geography:
Global Focus

11102. Nigerian Confraternities To Conquer The World

Author:
Corentin Cohen
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
While the Nigerian brotherhoods have become increasingly prominent in the media given the criminal threat they are said to represent, they have not been the subject of any field research in Nigeria or Europe. This media coverage is fueling a growing confusion between the legal and police categorizations that are used to define these brotherhoods and the pan-African practices and discourses of solidarity and emancipation that they promote. The socio-historical approach developed in this study makes it possible to put into perspective the global expansion of confraternities since the 2000s. It offers another perspective on the role of these secret societies and their inclusion in political economies and different territories. In Europe, the Nigerian confraternities are first and foremost social institutions for the youth and the diasporas. They ensure the reproduction of the power of traditional and political elites abroad by capturing incomes linked to migration (remittances), and therefore play a key role in the production of a form of globalization of Nigerian society from below. They participate in the establishment of moral and social institutions from the south of Nigeria in Europe. Behind a discourse of empowerment and solidarity, the confraternities are thus a transnational network which perpetuates a conservative order, a social hierarchy and the inequalities which they help to naturalize.
Topic:
Globalization, Diaspora, Inequality, transnationalism, and Pan-Africanism
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

11103. The Great Illusion: Foreign Policy Advocacy and the Problem of Knowledge

Author:
Claes G. Ryn
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Humanitas
Institution:
The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
Abstract:
An odd-sounding title? Bewildering, no doubt, to foreign-policy scholars and activists used to the nomenclature and intellectual emphases of their fields and subfields. But life defies academic and professional boundaries, as does the subject of this article. The following inter-disciplinary examination of a dubious but common notion of persuasion could not be more germane to the study of foreign policy, and yet the problem in question is not being addressed by those most directly concerned. This article will, after introducing the topic of advocacy—specifically, in an area of foreign affairs—give reasons why a widely shared understanding of knowledge and persuasion needs to be reconsidered. If we use measures of quantity and financial expenditure, a very large and important role is being played in American public life by intellectual activism intended to influence public debate and government policy. The vast array of advocacy organizations in the nation’s capital is merely the tip of an iceberg. Enormous sums are spent in what may be called the persuasion or advocacy business. Funders act on the assumption that target audiences can be affected through position papers, policy studies, public events, op-eds, and similar agitation.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Governance, and Advocacy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

11104. Church of Woke: Next American Religion?

Author:
Michael Vlahos
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Humanitas
Institution:
The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
Abstract:
What does it mean to be woke? First and foremost, “woke” is a religious signal that you have heard the Good News and Seen the Light. Awakening means both witnessing revealed truth and experiencing spiritual transformation. Today this has taken the form of a collective enunciation: Of a new national church, reformed and transformed, to replace the original American sect, which is wicked and corrupted. In simple, practical terms, the Church of Woke is pledged to the destruction of Racism, Patriarchy, and Heteronormativity. The original national religion—often called American Exceptionalism—and the Church of Woke are locked in a victory-or-death struggle. To understand this, two points are essential. First: America is a religion. American life and politics function in a religious milieu.[1] That should not surprise. In 1967, American sociologist Robert Bellah declared a national “civil religion”[2]—yet “civil religion” is a pleonasm. Greek “politics” and Roman “civil” both refer to the city, the national community of Antiquity. Hence today, in our national city, all citizens are part of an American religious congregation. Second, the full faith conversion of an empire is a transformation. Our distant past records just such a shift. 1700 years ago an entire civilization—the sacred world of the Greco-Roman Mundus[3]—was overthrown and replaced by something new. This transformation was the work of three generations, from 313-380. The first generation converted a Roman emperor who declared tolerance toward Christians. The second marched steadily toward the persecution of “pagans.” In the third generation there was a counter-coup by the apostate emperor Julian. He failed. What followed was the total proscription of all pagans (or Hellénikos). Likewise, the Church of Woke has began its Long March to transform American life in the mid-1960s. Like Christianity, it has burrowed deeply into elite society and the institutions of state power. Now we are locked in a culminating phase. The third generation of Woke—true to Late Roman antecedents—must cast down the Pantheon of American Exceptionalism, of Founders and Heroes, establishing a new divine order that will wash away America’s sins[4] of Racism, Patriarchy, and Heteronormativity. What follows puts Late Antiquity and Today’s world side-by-side. The reason to do this is compelling. Simply, we are facing a potential civilizational discontinuity.
Topic:
Religion, Culture, Racism, Heteronormativity, and Patriarchy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

11105. “The Same Procedure as Every Year”: U.S. Counterterrorism Policy since 9/11

Author:
Dorle Hellmuth
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Humanitas
Institution:
The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
Abstract:
The quote above refers to the recurring dialogue between Miss Sophie, a sophisticated English lady, and her butler James in a British comedy sketch from 1963. Miss Sophie every year celebrates her birthday by holding a festive dinner for her friends, Mr. Pomeroy, Mr. Winterbottom, Sir Toby, and Admiral von Schneider. Unfortunately, Miss Sophie has long outlived all her friends, so she is the only one seated at the table; her guests are represented by her butler James, who ends up waiting on the imaginary guests and consuming all of their alcoholic beverages while toasting Miss Sophie. All four courses of the dinner follow the same pattern: Miss Sophie will choose the beverage that best fits with the course, followed by James asking, “The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?” and Miss Sophie answering, “The same procedure as every year, James!” The exchange might also be used to describe U.S. counter-terrorism strategy since the 9/11 attacks. Even though Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump could not be more different in terms of their political outlooks, personalities, and leadership styles, there has been a remarkable continuity in their approaches. Since 9/11, U.S. counter-terrorism policies have focused on externalizing the terrorism threat, designed to prevent the enemy from coming close to the U.S. homeland, by means of border security and surveillance measures, and tie them up offshore, either on far away battlefields, at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, or in other overseas prisons.
Topic:
Security, Counter-terrorism, Leadership, 9/11, and War on Terror
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

11106. Was Irving Babbitt an Educational Counterrevolutionist?

Author:
Eric Adler
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Humanitas
Institution:
The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
Abstract:
Admirers of the work of Irving Babbitt (1865-1933), the chief figure associated with an informal school of literary and social criticism called New Humanism, have long recognized that many of Babbitt’s critics have failed to take seriously—or even to understand—his ideas. According to the political philosopher Claes Ryn, for example, even during Babbitt’s lifetime “reckless distortions of his ideas gained wide currency.” The caustic debates surrounding New Humanism that took place in the early decades of the twentieth century, it seems, encouraged critics to contribute tendentious and careless appraisals of Babbitt’s work. Such partisan and misleading critiques continue to influence assessments of Babbitt today. The one hundredth anniversary of Rousseau and Romanticism, arguably the author’s quintessential monograph, provides an excellent opportunity to revisit assumptions about Babbitt’s ideas. This article will make the case that some scholars of American higher education have proved especially egregious distorters of Babbitt’s thought.
Topic:
Education, Intelligence, Literature, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

11107. American Statesmanship: Contrasting Views of Leadership

Author:
Michael P. Federici
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Humanitas
Institution:
The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
Abstract:
As George Washington contemplated attending the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he worried that if the meeting failed it would stain his reputation and jeopardize his place as father of the American republic. Given the support for and failures of the Articles of Confederation, Washington had good reason to worry that either the convention would not produce an alternative to the Articles or that it would produce one that was as ineffective and short-lived. However much Washington may have been motivated by vanity, he was predisposed to expect that failure was a common outcome of politics, in some cases because providence or fate controlled the outcome, not human agency. In instances when and to the degree that outcomes depended on human agency, Washington knew that human beings were prone to vices that were contrary to the higher ends of politics. Thus, he was not inclined to overestimate the possibilities of politics even though he had reasons to believe that providence was on his side
Topic:
Security, Development, Governance, and Leadership
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

11108. History, Social Science, and the ‘Literary Conscience’

Author:
Richard Jordan
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Humanitas
Institution:
The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
Abstract:
As social science has grown more sophisticated, so has its awareness of its own methodological shortcomings. Many of the leading journals publish extensively (sometimes, exclusively) on new devices to circumvent these difficulties. At least some social scientists, though, seem aware that they will never devise mathematical tools capable of overcoming certain ceilings on their knowledge. There is an increasing demand for other ways to ask and answer questions. As the social sciences knock vainly against these ceilings—and as they dwindle into increasing policy irrelevance—more humanistic scholars recommend a return to history. This remedy, though, is incomplete. The old saw that “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” has hidden history’s most difficult problem: its lessons are not obvious. History is too contingent, and its cases too few, for the states-man to derive general lessons with any confidence. The statesman must learn from it, but what he must learn is not often clear.
Topic:
Intelligence, History, Literature, and Social Science
Political Geography:
Global Focus

11109. Successful Failure in Public Policy Work

Author:
Matt Andrews
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
It matters if public policies succeed in solving societal problems, but a dominant narrative holds that policies fail ‘often’. A large-sample study discussed in this paper suggests that this is not accurate, however. The most common policy result in this study is more ambiguous—what I call ‘successful failure’. Such result is achieved when a policy delivers enough low-level, short-term product to promise success, but ultimately (and repeatedly) fails to contribute to sustained highlevel, long-term impact (addressing the problems citizens care about). Such ‘successful failure’ is endemic to public policy work, and a more pernicious result than outright failure: It allows policy design and implementation actors to associate with incomplete near-run success but insulate themselves from future failure (which they blame on factors and actors beyond their control) and simultaneously enjoy repeated demand for work (because problems are never really solved.
Topic:
Government, Public Policy, and Problem Solving
Political Geography:
Global Focus

11110. New Avenues for Colombia’s Internationalization: Trade in Tasks

Author:
Ricardo Hausmann and Sebastian Bustos
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
One of the consequences of COVID-19 is the recognition that many tasks can be done from home. But anything that can done remotely, can be done from abroad. Given large salary differences between white collar workers across countries, it would make sense for value chains to try to exploit them. This opens an opportunity for Colombia to further promote its integration into the world global value chains and access new markets. This paper explores the possibility of exporting teleworkable services from Colombia. The goal is to provide useful information to guide strategic interventions to speed-up the development of such service industries in Colombia. We first introduce a definition of teleworkable jobs and describe its occupations and industries along different dimensions. We show that there are many teleworkable jobs in the US, representing a significant share of industry costs. Then, we show that many industries intensive in teleworkable jobs are currently traded across borders. To quantify Colombia’s advantage providing teleworkable services, we study the cost structure of industries and quantify the potential savings in overall costs if the tasks were performed by Colombians. Given Colombia’s current presence and the density around teleworkable industries we can calculate a proxy of the latent advantage in teleworkable services. We propose an index that summarize these dimensions and rank the potential gains from including telework from Colombia in an industry. We end with a set of policy recommendations to move this agenda forward.
Topic:
Human Capital, COVID-19, Labor Market, Skills, and Telework
Political Geography:
Colombia, South America, and Latin America