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12571. Russia vs Georgia: The Fallout - Europe Report N°195

Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The Russia-Georgia conflict has transformed the contemporary geopolitical world, with large consequences for peace and security in Europe and beyond. Moscow's initial moves into South Ossetia as large-scale violence broke out there on 7-8 August were in part a response to a disastrous miscalculation by a Georgian leadership that was impatient with gradual confidence building and a Russian-dominated negotiations process. But Russia's disproportionate counter-attack, with movement of large forces into Abkhazia and deep into Georgia, accompanied by the widespread destruction of economic infrastructure, damage to the economy and disruption of communications and movement between different regions of the country, constitutes a dramatic shift in Russian-Western relations. It has undermined regional stability and security; threatened energy corridors that are vital for Europe; made claims with respect to ethnic Russians and other minorities that could be used to destabilise other parts of the former Soviet Union, with Ukraine a potential target; and shown disregard for international law.
Topic:
NATO, International Political Economy, and War
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Ukraine, Asia, Soviet Union, Moscow, Georgia, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia

12572. Implementing Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement; Prospects and Challenges

Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
On September 11th, 2006, just over a year after the passing of John Garang, and 18 months after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on January 9, 2005, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Defense University convened a conference to assess the progress that had been made in implementing Sudan's landmark CPA. The conference brought together experts and policymakers to discuss the state of CPA implementation, the relationship between the CPA and political developments elsewhere in Sudan, notably in Darfur, and the ways in which the international community might assist in building a sustainable peace in Sudan.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

12573. Assessing the Nigeria Elections: Can Democracy Emerge from a Badly Flawed Process?

Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Because of the significance of Nigeria to the entire African continent, and because of growing concern that the United States had paid insufficient attention to the signs of growing tensions and instability within Nigeria on the lead-up to the 2007 national elections, a consortium of primarily Washington-based institutions (the Wilson Center, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Africa Program at John Hopkins' School for Advanced and International Studies, and the Council on Foreign Relations) organized a series of programs designed to engage both Nigerian and American policymakers in an examination of “The Pending Nigerian Elections: A Step Toward Democratic Consolidation or Descent into Chaos?” Three of these programs were held prior to the elections, and focused on “Nigeria's Political Outlook: The 2007 Elections and Beyond,” “The Niger Delta: Prospects for Elections and the Future Reform Agenda,” and “Nigeria: On the Eve of National Elections.” This paper reports on the fourth program, “A Post- Elections Assessment,” which was hosted by the Wilson Center.
Topic:
Democratization and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa, Washington, and Nigeria

12574. Democracy, Parties and Political Finance in Latin America

Author:
Eduardo Posada-Carbó
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper tries to link the topic of political finance to the wider question of democracy and political parties in Latin America. By doing so, it aims at providing a conceptual framework within which the subject of political finance could acquire some centrality, hitherto missing in both the academic literature and current debates. The first section examines the extent to which, in spite of renewed democratic developments in Latin America during the last two decades, dominant views of democracy in the region continue to neglect and even undermine the significance of political parties and elections in the workings of democracy. This is followed by a discussion of how prevalent concepts of democracy can impinge on the course of political reform. Admittedly any attempt at establishing such a link is fraught with difficulties, and I only venture a few suggestions by looking at the debate among opinion makers and legislators regarding the prospects for political reform in a single country: Colombia. In the last section, I discuss how public funding—a trend visible in most Latin American countries, apparently adopted to fight corruption and to guarantee equality—may be affecting political parties and party systems in the region. A central, underlying assumption of this paper is that ideas are paramount in shaping the course of policy making, thus conditioning any process of political reform.
Topic:
Government and Politics
Political Geography:
Colombia and Latin America

12575. Democracy and Populism in Latin America

Author:
Ignacio Walker
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
There appears to be an inherent tension between populism, old and new, and the institutions of representative democracy. This paper focuses on those intrinsic contradictions through a systematic analysis of old and new populism and of its relationship with political democracy. At the core of those tensions is the question of personalization versus institutionalization of power. “Old populism,” as I term it, appears as the most salient and paradigmatic Latin American response to the crisis of oligarchic rule in the 1930s and 1940s. The continuing process of “desoligarquización” may help us to explain the emergence of “neopopulism.” In contrast to old populism, which emerged in the middle of an authoritarian wave, neopopulism has emerged in the middle of a democratic wave, and thus out of the dynamics of electoral democracy. No doubt neopopulist leaders have a formal democratic legitimacy. However, neopopulist regimes appeal to the superior quality of the leader, who appears as the redeemer and the embodiment of the people and the nation. Populism is not the real problem in Latin America; rather, the real problem is the factors that cause populism, namely, the persistence of poverty and inequality, and the decomposition of traditional political institutions and elites in the region. Finally, I shall argue that Hugo Chávez is not Latin America, and Latin America is not Chávez. He may be the most visible and strident political figure, but he is not the most representative one. In fact, he is the exception and not the rule.
Topic:
Civil Society and Government
Political Geography:
Latin America

12576. Institutions and Politicians: An Analysis of the Factors that Determine Presidential Legislative Success

Author:
Manuel Alcántara and Mercedes García Montero
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This study questions the level of influence that different Latin American presidents have on the making of laws. In order to delimit this analysis, it is necessary to understand the factors that affect decision making in Latin American parliaments. Many of the theoretical approaches that tackle the study of decision making within legislative bodies maintain that the laws that arise from this decisional process, in addition to depending on the institutional organization of the parliament itself, depends on the political actors taking part, on their strategies when adapting to this institutional framework, and on their interests as well as on their collective and individual preferences.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Latin America

12577. Political Catholicism in Revolutionary Mexico, 1900–1926

Author:
Robert Curley
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper argues that the Mexican revolution played a formative role in the construction of modern Mexican Catholicism, while Catholic politics fundamentally shaped the outcome of the 1910 revolution. The argument analyzes several distinct but related moments and their constitutive movements. Catholic social and political movements sought to 1) restore religion to secular society, 2) govern, 3) protest revolutionary fiat, 4) confront anticlericalism, 5) mobilize emerging civil society in an era of mass politics through organized labor, and 6) ultimately channel this legacy of religious-based identity through defense leagues that opted for armed conflict over political negotiation. Catholic lay associations included the Guadalupan Workers, a vanguard movement of provincial intellectuals that operated between 1909 and 1914; the National Catholic Party, which competed electorally and governed in western Mexico between 1911 and 1914; sustained parish-based movements of protest, boycott, and civil disobedience in the western Mexican state of Jalisco between 1917 and 1919; a Catholic labor confederation, which organized urban and rural working people in competition with pro-government unions between 1920 and 1925; the Popular Union, a decentralized religious defense league that operated between 1924 and 1927; and the National League in Defense of Religious Liberty, which attempted to provide leadership for Catholic armed rebellion as of 1925 and beyond. The main conclusions concern the political grounding of religiosity, the weight of state-Church conflict, and the broader historical process of secularization as a main organizing concept for interpreting the Mexican revolution. In the end, I demonstrate how Catholic militants were central to the construction of a modern state in Mexico, a state that, ironically, would be defined by their exclusion as a political group.
Topic:
Civil Society, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
Mexico

12578. The Durability of Constitutions in Changing Environments: Explaining Constitutional Replacements in Latin America

Author:
Gabriel L. Negretto
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Given the costs entailed in replacing a constitution, most works on political institutions assume that constitutions are a stable set of rules that become self-enforcing over time. The durability of constitutions is, however, subject to variation. I argue that this variation depends on specific institutions and on the relative stability of the political environment that the constitution is supposed to regulate. Using a duration analysis of constitutions in eighteen Latin American countries between 1946 and 2000, this paper finds that while the lifespan of constitutions is negatively affected by political and social instability, institutions that diffuse power and make possible the flexible adaptation of the constitution to changing circumstances decrease the risk of constitutional replacement. It also shows that for the Latin American region, the durability of constitutions tends to decrease rather than increase over time.
Topic:
Government and Politics
Political Geography:
Latin America

12579. Thailand: Political Turmoil and the Southern Insurgency

Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The government of Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej is struggling for political survival and has handed the military full responsibility for tackling the violent insurgency in the Muslim-dominated Deep South, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives in the past four years. The military has restructured its operations and has made headway in reducing the number of militant attacks, but temporary military advances, though welcome, do nothing to defuse the underlying grievances of the Malay Muslim minority. For that to happen, the otherwise preoccupied government needs to find the will and energy to undertake a serious policy initiative.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Political Violence, Government, and Islam
Political Geography:
Asia and Thailand

12580. Round Two in Gaza

Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Step by methodical step, Hamas is consolidating its control over the Gaza Strip. The latest development followed a 25 July explosion that killed five of the movement's military leaders in addition to a young girl. In response, the Islamist movement mounted a broad campaign during which it overran the Hillis family, one of Gaza's most powerful and which includes prominent Fatah leaders; arrested hundreds of political activists; and raided more than 200 organisations and offices. The campaign largely wiped out the remains of the Palestinian Authority's security services in Gaza, brought families and smaller political factions to heel, further encroached on civil society and crippled Fatah's already limited political and military capacities to mobilise. In Arab capitals, there is continued talk of Palestinian reconciliation. In the U.S., there is discussion of a possible peace agreement between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert. On the ground, in both Gaza and the West Bank, events are taking a decisively different turn.
Topic:
Terrorism
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza