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58742. Modelling a Multi-Ethnic Society
- Author:
- Dr. Renata Dwan
- Publication Date:
- 06-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EastWest Institute
- Abstract:
- Since 1992-93, the Institute for EastWest Studies (IEWS) has been organizing meetings of a 'Strategy Group for Strengthening Cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe'. The Strategy Group brings together representatives of the Central and Eastern European Associates of the European Union and Ukraine (and Western states and neighbouring countries where appropriate) to discuss the security challenges facing the region. The Strategy Group aims to foster the development of cooperative solutions to the problems facing Central and Eastern Europe. Participants in Strategy Group conferences and workshops come from diverse backgrounds, including governmental representatives, politicians, business people, academics and non- governmental representatives.
- Topic:
- Development and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and Maryland
58743. Subregional Relations in the Southern Tier: Prospects for Development
- Publication Date:
- 05-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EastWest Institute
- Abstract:
- Doubts were expressed as to the extent one could define the Caucasus and Central Asia as a single region, particularly for the purposes of exploring the potential for subregional cooperation to develop among its constituent states. External considerations (complex relationship between Russia and the states involved; presence of other outside actors; energy transit perspectives; influence of external conflict, i.e. Afghanistan) may point towards consideration of the Southern Tier as one region. However, internal perspectives, geographical, historical, political and cultural, suggest that treating subregionalism separately in the Caucasus and Central Asia might be a more realistic and potentially fruitful approach.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- New York, Europe, Eurasia, Eastern Europe, and Maryland
58744. Deposit Insurance Funds: An Instrument of Banking Stability and Issues of Authority, Information and Effectiveness
- Author:
- Eugene Spiro
- Publication Date:
- 03-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EastWest Institute
- Abstract:
- The EastWest Institute is interested in the issue of banking supervision as one of the primary goals of our Economics Program since 1990 has been to support the establishment of a reformed, market-based banking system in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU). As an integral component of our broader work in providing expert support to commercial bank managers and economic policymakers on the concrete aspects of implementing reform-oriented practices and strategies, we see the underlying stability and transparency of the banking system to be of critical importance. In Hungary as elsewhere, banks are indispensable to the smooth functioning of the economy, and the EWI has long subscribed to the view that the banking sector (e.g. in the context of privatisation) is a 'special' sector and requires special treatment.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, and Maryland
58745. Subregional Cooperation and the European Union
- Author:
- Dr. Renata Dwan
- Publication Date:
- 04-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EastWest Institute
- Abstract:
- Since 1992-93, the Institute for EastWest Studies (IEWS) has been organizing meetings of a 'Strategy Group for Strengthening Cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe'. The Strategy Group brings together representatives of the Central and Eastern European Associates of the European Union and Ukraine (and Western states and neighbouring countries where appropriate) to discuss the security challenges facing the region. The Strategy Group aims to foster the development of cooperative solutions to the problems facing Central and Eastern Europe. Participants in Strategy Group conferences and workshops come from diverse backgrounds, including governmental representatives, politicians, business people, academics and non- governmental representatives.
- Topic:
- International Organization and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Ukraine
58746. Globalisation: Challenges and Opportunities
- Author:
- G.B. Madison
- Publication Date:
- 01-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
- Abstract:
- Globalization is a multifaceted phenomenon. In this paper I seek to discern some of the challenges it poses, as well as some of the opportunities it offers. To this end, attention is focused on three major aspects of globalization: the economic, the cultural, and the political. Particular consideration is given to the political-economic lessons to be learned from the recent East Asian financial (and economic) crisis; the homogenizing and civilizing ramifications of globalization in the realm of culture; and the relation between economic globalization, the threat it poses to the traditional notion of national sovereignty, and the prospects for the development of civil society, the rule of law, and democratic governance. The paper concludes by arguing that, as a result of the emerging global economy, we are witnessing the emergence of a new form of capitalism, qualitatively different from both 19th-century laissez-faire capitalism and 20th-century “managed” capitalism.
- Topic:
- Economics, Globalization, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- East Asia and Asia
58747. Rival Views Of Postcommunist Market Society
- Author:
- Béla Greskovits
- Publication Date:
- 10-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for European Studies at Cornell University
- Abstract:
- While reviewing various interpretations of the postcommunist transformation it is demonstrated that the manner social scientists think about postcommunism has much in common with the ideas of their predecessors who faced the emergence of capitalism over the past centuries. What explains the continuity of the major views? Why did the debate on the perspectives of capitalism and on the nature of its strengths and weaknesses reappear in the new historical case of postcommunist market society? This author argues that neither the specific historical nor the systemic context of capitalist expansion can account for the prevalence of competing interpretations. Rather the latter is the standard way social scientists think about systems and systemic change in general. But the trench-war between rival views of postcommunist market society also reflects the impact of new psychological, political, and institutional factors specific to the mass-production of social science ideas towards the end of the XXth century.
- Topic:
- Communism and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe
58748. Building a Composite Polity: Popular Contention in the European Union
- Author:
- Sidney Tarrow
- Publication Date:
- 03-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for European Studies at Cornell University
- Abstract:
- While much research has focussed on the interest group process growing up around the institutions of European union, far less attention has been given to the contentious forms of politics appearing at the base of the process of European integration. Part of the problem lies in models of integration that either focus on single levels of the European Union — states or supranational entities — or on vertical policy networks and domains. But another important part results from the difficulty of systematically analyzing the reactions of ordinary people to EU directives. This paper both reports on a new, computer-assisted method of studying European contentious politics and draws on a case study of recent industrial conflict to demonstrate how supranational actors, national political elites, domestic social actors and the press are beginning to interact to produce a composite — and contentious — European polity.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe
58749. Efficiency of the Welfare State
- Author:
- Pierre Pestieau and Claudine Gouyette
- Publication Date:
- 01-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for European Studies at Cornell University
- Abstract:
- In general, when the concepts of efficiency and of welfare state are coupled, one first thinks of the effects of the welfare state, notably including the taxes it implies and the benefits it generates, on the efficiency of the economy. This topic has been widely discussed in recent works. One of the main charges addressed to modern welfare states is, indeed, that they would hurt economic performance and international competitiveness. Another charge just as widespread is that they would be inefficient in the provision of social services, and be responsible for the proliferation of transfer programs that are costly and miss their target populations. This charge is thus different from the first one, though not totally unrelated. It concerns the economic efficiency of the welfare state per se, and this is the topic of this paper.
- Topic:
- Government and Political Economy
58750. Conflict in Kosovo: Failure of Prevention? An Analytical Documentation, 1992-1998.
- Author:
- Stefan Troebst
- Publication Date:
- 05-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
- Abstract:
- Not too much of inside knowledge of the Balkans was needed to realise that the winter of 1997/98 turned the formerly autonomous Yugoslav province of Kosovo inhabited predominantly by Albanians into one of the most violent-prone crisis zones in Europe. In September 1997, a massive protest movement of Albanian students gained momentum; from November 1997 on, an underground "Liberation Army of Kosovo" (UÇK)) with an estimated strength of several hundred fighters increased the number of attacks on and assassinations of Serbian officials and police officers; and the regime retaliated first by police violence, show trials, long-term sentences, and nationalist tirades, then by bringing more and more security forces into the central part of Kosovo. In January 1998, The Economist depicted Kosovo as "Europe's roughest neighbourhood”.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Ethnic Conflict, and International Organization
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe, Kosovo, Serbia, Balkans, and Albania
58751. Global Banking
- Author:
- Tom Barry, Martha Honey, and Christian Weller
- Publication Date:
- 05-1998
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy In Focus
- Abstract:
- International banking activities frequently result in financial instability and serious economic downturns as financial markets become more open and deregulated. Competition from multinational banks has reduced the availability of credit to small- and medium-sized enterprises, to low- and middle-income consumers, and to farmers. While economies experience financial instabilities and declining credit, governments are losing the means to protect their domestic markets.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance
58752. How Will the European Union Meet the 21st Century
- Author:
- Pal Dunay
- Publication Date:
- 08-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- The story of post-World War 2 European integration had started before integration theory gained popularity. One has to bear in mind, however, that the idea of European integration was launched with modest objectives in the 1950s. Except for some visionary statesmen, like Jean Monnet and some others, both the subject matters to be covered by integration and the geographical scope was limited. Six countries aimed at establishing a free trade zone and not much else was on their "plate" when they signed the Rome Treaty on 25 March 1957.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Europe
58753. Muddling Through? A Strategic Checklist for the United States in the Post-Cold War World
- Author:
- John Lewis Gaddis
- Publication Date:
- 08-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- The single most striking feature of the post-Cold War environment is the diffusion, not the disappearance, of threats. The half-century extending from 1941 to 1991 was, for the United States, one in which threats were both focused and obvious. From the time of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor until the final collapse of the Soviet Union exactly fifty years later, we knew who our enemies were, or at least might be. As a consequence, we abandoned the isolationism that had characterized most of our history in favor of an unaccustomed but - as it turned out - highly effective internationalism.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Europe
58754. Prospects for Europe and the Atlantic Alliance at Century's End
- Author:
- William I. Hitchcock
- Publication Date:
- 08-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- Ever since the end of the Cold War, analysts have engaged in long discussions about what sort of international order would replace it. Though these discussions have ranged widely in their assessments, they usually took as their starting point a common assumption: that the Cold War order and the basic structure of international relations it represented, was over and done for. From 1989 until about 1995, this assessment seemed accurate: the alliance was falling apart, war broke out in Europe, the western economies were in a tailspin, and the delicate architecture that bound Germany to the states of Western Europe seemed to be in jeopardy, overburdened by the arrival of a united, powerful Germany. Whatever order we had, it didn't seem like anything we had seen before.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Europe
58755. Security Issues for Russia in the New International Context
- Author:
- Yuri Nazarkin
- Publication Date:
- 08-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- The starting point for this paper is the National Security Blueprint of the Russian Federation approved by Presidential Decree No. 1300 dated 17 December 1997. As the Blueprint itself clarifies, it is "a political document reflecting the aggregate of officially accepted views regarding goals and state strategy in the sphere of ensuring the security of the individual, society and the state from external and internal threats of a political, economic, social, military, man-made (technogennyy), ecological, information or other nature, in the light of existing resources and potential." It is a conceptual document of a general nature which is intended to be the basis for the elaboration of specific programmes and organisational documents in the sphere of ensuring the national security of the Russian Federation.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Europe
58756. Conflict Management and European Security: The Problem of Collective Solidarity
- Author:
- Fred Tanner
- Publication Date:
- 08-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- The dynamics of European security has become considerably more difficult to comprehend in recent years. This is due primarily to two sets of developments. First an "amorphous threat-free post-Cold War security setting" has replaced the distinct Alliance-wide threat from the Soviet Union. Second, new risks and threats have increasingly affected European security from regions immediately adjoining Western Europe. Conflicts and notorious instability loom in the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Balkans and the Mediterranean region, including North Africa and the Middle East. As a consequence, security cooperation in Europe currently struggles to cope with these risks of non-military nature and ambiguous threat scenarios from the "out-of-area".
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Europe
58757. New Security Challenge or Old? Russia's Catch—22
- Author:
- William C. Wohlforth
- Publication Date:
- 08-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
- Abstract:
- The most important security threat Russia faces, and the main threat it poses to the rest of the world, is its own implosion. If traditional security has to do with the manipulation and managment of the use of military force by states, then Russia's major contemporary problems must be understood under the "new security" rubric. Because the world has never before had to deal with the breakdown of a nuclear superpower, the security challenges Russia presents are certainly novel. But if "new security" is supposed to encompass problems that are transnational in nature and challenge state-centric analysis, then it too does not capture today's Russian question. For at the root of Russia's security problems is the absence of an effective government. To be sure, all of these problems are made more complicated by globalization. Many of them would continue to pester world politics even if Moscow had a capable government. But the root of these problems and the reason they present such great potential dangers is the absence of a capable state in Russia.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Europe
58758. Ideas, Culture and Political Analysis Workshop
- Author:
- Thomas Risse, Sarah Mendelson, Neil Fligstein, Jan Kubik, Jeffrey T. Checkel, Consuelo Cruz, Kathleen McNamara, Sheri Berman, Frank Dobbin, Mark Blyth, Ken Pollack, George Steinmetz, Daniel Philpott, Gideon Rose, Martha Finnemore, Kathryn Skikkink, Marie Gottschalk, John Kurt Jacobsen, and Anna Seleny
- Publication Date:
- 05-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Social Science Research Council
- Abstract:
- The last decade or so has witnessed a resurgence in scholarship employing ideational and cultural factors in the analysis of political life. This scholarship has addressed political phenomena across a variety of national and international settings, with studies of European politics being particularly well represented. For example, the work of scholars like Peter Hall (1993), Peter Katzenstein (1996), Ronald Inglehart (1997), Robert Putnam (1994) and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (1995) has improved our understandings of European polities, societies and economies. Yet despite a recent rise in interest, ideational and cultural explanations still meet with skepticism in many quarters of the discipline. Some scholars doubt whether non-material factors like ideas or culture have independent causal effects, and others, who accept that such factors might matter, despair of devising viable ways of analyzing their impact on political life.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, International Relations, Security, Democratization, Economics, Government, Human Rights, International Cooperation, Nationalism, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Middle East, France, and Latin America
58759. Networks in International Capacity Building: Cases from Sub-Saharan Africa
- Author:
- Kenneth Prewitt
- Publication Date:
- 01-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Social Science Research Council
- Abstract:
- Networking is ubiquitous, Networks are not. By networks we have in mind professional and scientific collaborations unrestricted by geography—a group of scholars taking advantage of improved mobility and communication to work across institutional and national boundaries. This report draws from a conference that inquired into the role of networks in research, training and institution-strengthening in sub-Saharan Africa—terms commonly, if loosely, associated with "capacity building." Although the conference focused on networks that were making headway toward their declared goals, the purpose was not to celebrate success stories. It was to be analytic, with the intention of identifying generic questions and preliminary answers, particularly lessons of use to those involved in building, maintaining, strengthening and funding professional networks.
- Topic:
- Development and Third World
- Political Geography:
- Africa
58760. Emissions and Development in the United States: International Implications
- Author:
- Richard T. Carson and Donald R. McCubbin
- Publication Date:
- 01-1998
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
- Abstract:
- Concerns about the sustainability of resource use have no doubt been raised since civilization began. The most famous proponent of these concerns is Thomas Malthus (1976), who, in 1798, predicted that population growth would outstrip the ability of agriculture to supply food, and mass starvation would ensue. More recently, the widely read Limits to Growth report, by Meadows et al. (1974), presented a model of resource use and development that predicted humans would face unprecedented pollution and starvation, if current resource use patterns continued into the future. Of course, both reports' most dire predictions have not come true for several reasons. They failed to account for improvements in technology, the power of market prices to ration scarce resources, and the public's demand for environmental preservation when confronted with a perceived scarcity of environmental goods. Although the dire predictions failed to materialize, many believe that environmental quality will deteriorate as the world's economies grow, unless there are significant changes in human behavior. In this paper we make a modest attempt, using air pollution data, to examine the linkage between economic growth, human behavior, and environmental quality.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and Environment
- Political Geography:
- United States