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Begin New Search Topic International Affairs Content Type Research Paper

31. The Long March: Contentious Mobilization and Deep Democracy

Author:
Mohammad Ali Kadivar, Adaner Usmani, and Benjamin Bradlow
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Over the last several decades, dozens of authoritarian regimes have fallen and been replaced by formal democracies. These new democracies are not all of identical quality -- some have made substantially greater progress than others towards deepening democratic institutions. We make use of a new dataset which identifies five distinct dimensions of democratization in order to study this variation. We argue that prolonged unarmed contentious mobilization prior to transition drives democratic progress in each of these five dimensions. Mobilization matters because it generates a new, democratically-oriented political elite and because it furnishes non-elites with the capacity for autonomous collective action. In panel regressions spanning the 1950 to 2010 period and using original data, we show that the duration of antecedent anti-authoritarian mobilization is a significant and consistent predictor of subsequent democratic deepening. To illustrate the mechanisms, we present a historical analysis of democratic transition in Brazil. This case study shows how both formal political actors and non-elite collective actors, emboldened by prolonged mobilization, drove deepening of democracy post-transition.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

32. New Challenges to Public and Policy Engagement

Author:
Marc Lynch
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Engaging and influencing public policy debates on areas of their expertise is a core part of the mission of academics. The last decade has in many ways been the golden age of academic policy engagement. Social media, the proliferation of online publishing platforms, and a generational change in disciplinary norms and practices has unleashed an impressive wave of writing by academics aimed at an informed public sphere. The Project on Middle East Political Science has worked to promote such public and policy engagement, with hundreds of academics each year contributing their expertise on the Middle East on publishing platforms such as The Middle East Channel and The Monkey Cage and through direct policymaker engagement.
Topic:
International Security and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Middle East

33. Islam in a Changing Middle East: New Islamic Media

Author:
Marc Lynch
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
In years past, Islamist televangelists like Amr Khaled, Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Tareq Suwaidan seemed like the future of Arab media. Advancing a form of “soft Islam” focused on personal betterment and religiosity, these preachers were seen by some as a potential counterweight to extremist voices and by others as a sinister leading edge of radicalization. The contretemps between Amr Khaled and Yusuf al-Qaradawi over the Danish Cartoons Crisis of 2006 inspired numerous academic articles
Topic:
International Affairs and Social Media
Political Geography:
Middle East

34. Linking Heterogeneous Climate Policies (Consistent with the Paris Agreement)

Author:
Michael A Mehling, Gilbert E. Metcalf, and Robert Stavins
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The Paris Agreement has achieved one of two key necessary conditions for ultimate success—a broad base of participation among the countries of the world. But another key necessary condition has yet to be achieved—adequate collective ambition of the individual nationally determined contributions. How can climate negotiators provide a structure that will include incentives to increase ambition over time? An important part of the answer can be international linkage of regional, national, and sub-national policies—that is, formal recognition of emission reductions undertaken in another jurisdiction for the purpose of meeting a Party’s own mitigation objectives. A central challenge is how to facilitate such linkage in the context of the very great heterogeneity that characterizes climate policies along five dimensions: type of policy instrument; level of government jurisdiction; status of that jurisdiction under the Paris Agreement; nature of the policy instrument’s target; and the nature, along several dimensions, of each Party’s Nationally Determined Contribution. We consider such heterogeneity among policies, and identify which linkages of various combinations of characteristics are feasible; of these, which are most promising; and what accounting mechanisms would make the operation of respective linkages consistent with the Paris Agreement.
Topic:
Climate Change and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

35. Take the Money and Run

Author:
Jacqueline L. Hazelton
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
How can the United States best assure its interests abroad when a partner state faces an insurgency? The question has vexed policymakers, military officers, and scholars throughout the Cold War and into the post–9/11 era. When the United States finds its military might turned against itself by insurgents, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, thoughts often turn to the small U.S.-supported counterinsurgency campaign in El Salvador from 1979 to 1992. The Salvadoran government defended itself against Marxist-nationalist-liberal-socialist rebels in a civil war that ended in a peace deal. The small-footprint U.S. intervention is appealing as an alternative to the tens of thousands of troops deployed in bigger quagmires. Conventional wisdom says that the brutal, repressive Salvadoran government instituted liberalizing, democratizing reforms to defeat the insurgency. Analysis of contemporaneous documents and interviews with participants, however, reveals that the campaign is a poor model for future U.S. interventions, for three reasons. First, the government retained power by waging a war of terrorism and attrition against insurgents and civilians alike. Second, Salvadoran elites resisted U.S. pressure for reforms. Third, chance rather than U.S. choices played a significant role in the war's outcome, meaning that replication of the pattern of events is unlikely.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
America

36. Too Big to Fail: Egypt’s Large Enterprises After the 2011 Uprising

Author:
Amr Adly
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Large private enterprises are vital to Egypt’s economy and stability. After the 2011 uprising, they lost political sway due to their ties to the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak. However, Egypt’s economic crisis pushed successive regimes to reverse measures taken against these enterprises, affirming their role in economic revitalization. Though cut off from patronage networks after Egypt’s 2013 coup, enterprises are more autonomous from the state today. This may create advantageous openings if the state’s dependence on them grows.
Topic:
International Affairs, Global Markets, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Egypt

37. Iraq between Popular Momentum and Frozen Reforms

Author:
Cherine Chams El-Dine
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Since the end of July 2015 a major popular uprising has erupted in Iraq’s provinces – aside from the territories under the control of the so-called Islamic State (IS) and the Kurdish provinces. This protest movement, deemed to be the largest secular popular movement challenging the post-2003 political order in Iraq, has largely departed from the narrow sectarian paradigm that has so far monopolised the analysis of Iraqi politics. This paper examines the uprising’s actors, its slogans, its internal dynamics/organisational structure, and the Iraqi government’s frenetic response to popular demands.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Iraq

38. De-Urbanising the Syrian Revolt

Author:
Isam al Khafaji
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
The Syrian revolt, which has disintegrated into a bloody attrition war, has been largely viewed as that of a majority Sunni population trying to depose a regime belonging to the minority Alawite sect. While this view may present a partially true explanation, it fails to explain why the involvement of different Sunni regions in the revolt varied to a large extent and the rising gap between the anti-Assad urbanites on the one hand and the armed militants on the other. It further fails to account for the wide diversity within the rebellion camp and the hostilities among the mushrooming opposition groups.
Topic:
International Affairs and Popular Revolt
Political Geography:
Syria

39. Does Citizenship Abate Class? Evidence and Reflections from Bangalore, India

Author:
Ebony Bertorelli, Patrick Heller, Siddharth Swaminathan, and Ashutosh Varshney
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Drawing on data from a large household survey in Bangalore, this paper explores the quality of urban citizenship. Addressing theories that have tied the depth of democracy to the quality and effectiveness of citizenship, we develop an index of citizenship that includes various measures and then explore the extent to which citizenship determines the quality of services and infrastructure that households enjoy. Our findings show that citizenship and access to services in Bangalore are highly differentiated, that much of what drives these differences has to do with class, but we also find clear evidence that the urban poor are somewhat better in terms of the services they receive that they would be without citizenship. Citizenship, in other words, abates the effects of class.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

40. When Courts Plan: The Greening of Delhi's Autorickshaws

Author:
Atul Pokharel
Publication Date:
08-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Implementing municipal-scale policies is challenging in megacities. Despite this, between 1986 and 2006, Delhi converted its entire public transportation network of nearly 100,000 vehicles to use Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) instead of diesel and petrol. The use of CNG is widely assumed to have been ordered by the Supreme Court of India. But this overlooks how autorickshaws, privately owned and making up three-fourths of these vehicles, came to use CNG even though the court did not order it. Using two new sources of data, I show that the conversion of autos was jointly led by the largest private manufacturer together with the city government. The court facilitated coordination between several other actors, allowed them to experiment, and monitored progress over two decades leading up to the auto conversion. After capping the total number of autos, it ultimately refrained from passing judgment on two consequential aspects of greening them: vehicle ownership and fuel type. As a result, auto owners were buffeted by decades of incremental policy experimentation. Eventually, these experiments reconfigured auto ownership as some sold their operating permits to become renters, while state institutions remained indifferent to this shadow conversion underfoot.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus