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Begin New Search Topic International Affairs Content Type Special Report

241. Challenges to the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union: Black Sea Region (Crimea) and Syria

Author:
Plamen Pantev
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
A shorter version of this Research Study was presented at the International Conference: “Bulgaria. Ten Years After Its Integration in the EU and the Upcoming Presidency of the EU Council 2018”, convened on 21-22 November 2017 in Berlin, Germany, and organised by the Southeast Europe Association, Germany, The German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. The activity of Bulgaria and the EU during the Presidency of Sofia in the first half of 2018 proved the consistency of the assessments in the presented paper a year earlier. New developments and facts confirmed the growing complexity of the global strategic situation, the rising need of the Union to keep its unity in the intensifying competition of the global centers of power, the necessity of clear definition of the strategic autonomy of the EU. The slogan of the Bulgarian Presidency – “United We Stand”, vividly illustrated the correct Bulgaria’s perception of the evolving international political environment
Topic:
International Cooperation and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Europe

242. Carbon Market Cooperation in Northeast Asia: Assessing Challenges and Overcoming Barriers

Author:
Jackson Ewing
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
ACROSS ALL ERAS AND IN ALL PLACES, POLICYMAKERS MAKE DECISIONS on incomplete information. It is fundamental to public leadership—particularly at the highest levels—that decisions taken reflect some personal judgment of the existing evidence and arguments at hand. Uncertainty of outcome and the risk of unintended consequences are ever-present
Topic:
International Affairs and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Global Focus

243. Ties That Bind: Quantifying China’s public diplomacy and its “good neighbor” effect

Author:
Samantha Custer and et al
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
This paper aims to increase the understanding of scholars, practitioners, and observers of Chinese public diplomacy regarding which tools Beijing deploys, with whom, and with what effects. To this end, AidData—a research lab at William & Mary—in collaboration with the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), collected both qualitative and quantitative data on Chinese public diplomacy activities in the EAP region from 2000 through 2016
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

244. Development as Dignity

Author:
Dapo Oyewole, Andrew Quinn, and Holly Kear
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
What is development? What does it look like? Development means different things to different people and in an increasingly polarized world, voices from the Global South are urgently needed to provide a balance of perspectives, lest we hear mostly one side of a multifaceted story. The Aspen New Voices Fellows writing in this anthology all agree that fundamentally, development is about dignity. Dignity of people. Dignity of planet. Dignity of life. The stories in this collection reflect this quest for dignity and share engaging insights and moving stories from diverse countries in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. The authors challenge us, inspire us and force us to open our eyes to the many ways we can truly see and foster ‘development as dignity.’
Topic:
International Affairs and International Development
Political Geography:
Global Focus

245. Global Magnitsky Sanctions: Raising the Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Bar

Author:
Samantha Sultoon
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Economic sanctions have become a policy tool-of-choice for the US government. Yet sanctions and their potential pitfalls are often misunderstood. The Economic Sanctions Initiative (ESI) seeks to build a better understanding of the role sanctions can and cannot play in advancing policy objectives and of the impact of sanctions on the private sector, which bears many of the implementation costs.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

246. The Citizens’ Opinion of the Police in Serbia

Author:
Bojan Elek and Sasa Djordjevic
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Belgrade Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Six out of ten citizens trust the police (61%), which positions this Serbian institution at the world average: between 60 and 90 percent. At the same time, seven out of ten citizens believe that police officers are corrupt (69%), while three quarters are convinced that their interests are subordinated to those of politics (72%).
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Serbia

247. Water Crises, Security and Climate Change

Author:
Geoffrey Kemp and Luke Hagberg
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Abstract:
The historically severe drought in Syria from 2006-2011 led to the migration of rural communities to already overburdened urban centers, which concurrent with the state’s mismanagement of freshwater resources, helped foment the social unrest and the uprisings against President Bashar al-Assad. The ongoing conflict has had repercussions around the globe with refugees fleeing to, and having an unmistakable political impact upon, neighboring states and Europe. The war in Yemen was rooted in the Arab Spring, but while the attempts to overthrow President Ali Abdullah Saleh were eventually successful, the political transition was not. The overextraction of Yemen’s groundwater led to an unprecedented water crisis that has been exacerbated by the civil war. Terrorist cells, militant insurgencies, and foreign interventions have undermined efforts to reform the Yemeni government and address this humanitarian catastrophe.
Topic:
International Security, International Affairs, and Water
Political Geography:
Global Focus

248. American Policy and Changing Alignments in the Middle East

Author:
Geoffrey Kemp
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Abstract:
America’s Middle East policy must adapt to a changing region. The lack of an overarching theory of vital U.S. interests in the Middle East and of a strategy narrowly tailored to defending them has rendered U.S. policy reactive and largely incoherent. To the extent that it has coherence, it is driven by a strategy of primacy—by a complex of ideas in which active, armed American management of the region is essential for stability, in which states do not have a strong tendency to seek balance against threats, and in which increasing U.S. involvement will generally increase stability—and do so at costs acceptable to the United States. This strategy has undergirded costly choices like striking Libya, invading and occupying Iraq, putting American boots on the ground in Syria, and supporting unsavory partners against their internal opponents. This strategy faces building headwinds: public frustration, a growing national debt, and better-armed foes. Primacy comes at a growing opportunity cost: power tied up in the Middle East is unavailable to address a rising China or a more active Russia. And this strategy seems out of step with the region’s rapidly shifting strategic alignments. The time is ripe to go back to the basics, prioritizing the threats that require U.S. action in relation to the other international crises that affect vital U.S. interests, especially in East Asia and Europe
Topic:
International Cooperation and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Middle East

249. Extended Deterrence in a Changing Asia: A U.S.–Japan–South Korea Dialogue

Author:
Paul Saunders
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Abstract:
2012 was a year of political transitions in East Asia, with important elections in Japan and South Korea, a major Communist Party Congress in China to select a new leadership team, and a consolidation process underway in North Korea following the death of Kim Jong-il in late 2011. It was also of course a year of political campaigns in the United States that concluded with President Barack Obama’s re-election. And finally, perhaps due to these many simultaneous transitions, 2012 was a year of hope and anxiety; uncertainty about the future drove questions and speculation, intensifying the contest between possibility and destiny that underlies so many discussions of whether and how our choices can shape the world in which we live.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

250. A new Direction in U.S- Russia Relations?

Author:
Paul Saunders
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Abstract:
America’s relationship with Russia was among the most controversial foreignpolicy issues of the 2016 presidential campaign, and has remained so in the Trump administration’s initial weeks. Much of the controversy has been strictly political, focused primarily on exploiting anger and suspicion toward Moscow as a weapon during the election campaign and, more recently, in confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump’s key foreign-policy and national-security nominees. That said, public discussion before and after the November election has also exposed sharp differences over U.S. policy toward Russia and the assessments of U.S. and Russian interests, objectives and values that shape Washington’s choices. This volume seeks to contribute to that debate by exploring U.S. options in pursuing President Trump’s stated intent to engage with Moscow
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Japan and America