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Begin New Search Topic International Affairs Content Type Working Paper

82. Opportunities for Israel's Foreign Relations towards 2018, Mitvim's Annual Conference, Panel Summary

Author:
Mitvim
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Mitvim: The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies
Abstract:
The 2017 annual conference of the Mitvim Institute was held on 1 November 2017 in Jerusalem, in cooperation with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. As part of the conference, a public panel was held on opportunities for Israel’s foreign relations towards 2018. It featured Helit Barel, Prof. Elie Podeh, Dr. Thabet Abu Rass, and Eran Etzion who spoke about issues related to the Iran nuclear deal, Israel-US relations, Israel in the Middle East, the involvement of Israel’s Arab citizens in foreign affairs, Israeli-European relations, and the status of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Israel

83. European regional organizations and climate-related security risks: EU, OSCE and NATO

Author:
Niklas Bremberg
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
Research suggests that states and societies around the world are increasingly confronted by climate-related security risks. These risks are unavoidably transnational in character, and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) are instrumental in developing policy solutions and enhancing international cooperation. However, previous research highlights that knowledge about the conditions under which IGOs address climate security risks, and when they do so effectively, is incomplete. There is a need for further in-depth analysis of relevant IGOs in the field of climate security.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Europe

84. Multilateral peace operations and the challenges of organized crime

Author:
Jaïr van der Lijn
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
Multilateral peace operations are increasingly confronting a set of interrelated and mutually reinforcing security challenges that are relatively new to them, that do not respect borders, and that have causes and effects which cut right across the international security, peacebuilding and development agendas. As a result, the New Geopolitics of Peace Operations III: Non‑Traditional Security Challenges initiative seeks to enhance understanding about peace operations and non-traditional security challenges such as terrorism and violent extremism, irregular migration, piracy, organized crime and environmental degradation. As a part of this initiative, this SIPRI Background Paper explores the ‘non-traditional’ security challenges that organized crime presents to multilateral peace operations.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

85. Deputy Secretary of State Sullivan: U.S. to Lead on Humanitarian Issues

Author:
USIP
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The United States remains committed to its role as a global leader on humanitarian issues and will continue seeking to avert crises that spawn the need for humanitarian aid, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan said.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

86. UNRWA’s Educational System and Impact

Author:
John Mark Shorack
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Pal-Think For Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The United States government under President Trump recently announced the withdrawal of monetary aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, commonly referred to as UNRWA. This is a major blow to UNRWA’s finances considering the United States’ yearly contribution’s amounted to one-third of their budget. Since UNRWA’s founding it has been a leading force providing support of Palestinian refugees across the Middle East region mainly providing education and emergency medical assistance.
Topic:
Education, International Affairs, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Middle East

87. Intelligence and Policy Community Cooperation in the Libya WMD Disarmament Case

Author:
William H. Tobey
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:
As the Trump Administration prepares to negotiate with North Korea, a question has arisen as to what model Washington should follow. National Security Advisor John Bolton has suggested that the Libyan nuclear case represents the best example to emulate. Given the violence Libya suffered after it disarmed, this recommendation provoked criticism, not only from the North Korean government, but a number of American analysts. Anticipating the importance of this case, NPEC commissioned William Tobey, former Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration, to write a primary history. Mr. Tobey served on the National Security Council in the Bush (43) Administration when the Libyan nuclear case was being worked.
Topic:
Intelligence, International Affairs, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Libya

88. Avoiding a Nuclear Wild, Wild West in the Middle East

Author:
Henry Sokolski (ed)
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:
With the Trump Administration’s announcement last fall that it intended to negotiate a civil nuclear cooperative agreement with Saudi Arabia, a debate has ensued over how restrictive any such agreement should be over the enrichment of uranium and the reprocessing of plutonium. These nuclear activities can bring a country within weeks of making its first batch of bombs. This announcement immediately raised the question, how much economic sense it made for Saudi Arabia to invest in nuclear power. It also raised a number of security questions. Should the United States allow Riyadh to reprocess and enrich even though these activities could bring Saudi Arabia within weeks of acquiring nuclear weapons? If Washington acceded to this demand by Riyadh, what would be the implications for the terms of nuclear cooperation with the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Morocco? How would such an agreement impact efforts to tighten the terms of our nuclear understanding with Iran? Would such a permissive deal with Riyadh make it more difficult to say no to Seoul’s demand that we allow them to enrich uranium? All of these questions and more are discussed in this volume’s four sections
Topic:
International Affairs and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Middle East

89. The Medium-Run and Scale-Up Effects of Performance-Based Financing

Author:
Diana Ngo and Sebastian Bauhoff
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Rwanda’s performance-based incentives were effective for some indicators, but unconditional financing also induced improvements. The incentive effects persisted in the mediumrun and as the program was scaled-up. Additionally, the analysis demonstrates how observational research methods and secondary data can generate new insights on existing evaluations
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

90. The Peace Process: Will the Taliban give up its Insurgency in Afghanistan?

Author:
Ifran Yar
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
In the wake of the incipient peace process in Afghanistan, new hopes have emerged and an aura of optimism has spread across the country. After the first successful meeting with the Taliban, US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met recently with the insurgents to discuss the peace talks in Qatar. This comes after Russia, reasserting its influence in the region, hosted a landmark international conference aimed at spurring the peace efforts in its restive neighborhood. The meeting was attended by the Taliban and its adversaries and concluded without any formal breakthrough. Since 2010, many efforts have been made to broker a peace deal with the Taliban but to no avail. Will this peace process convince the Taliban to give up its insurgency?
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

91. Inauspicious Incident: Erdoğan’s Evolving Relationship with Turkey’s Military

Author:
Ben Tannenbaum
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
Turkey’s military has historically played an outsized role in the country’s politics. Since assuming power in 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have worked to limit the military’s political influence, a process that has damaged Turkish civil society. The military overthrew the previous AKP government in 1997, and Erdoğan sought to avoid a similar fate. However, after the first decade of Erdoğan’s rule, political loyalties shifted. His chief ally against the military, Fethullah Gülen, became Erdoğan’s principal rival. The drama escalated in 2016 when Gülen allegedly cultivated a cohort of military officers in an attempted coup against Erdoğan. Since thwarting the coup, Erdoğan has successfully re-escalated his quest to constrain the military’s domestic political role. Nevertheless, despite this political feuding, Erdoğan and the Turkish military do hold some common interests on foreign policy. Their overlapping goals have provided some basis for cooperation between Erdoğan and his military. Erdoğan has scored political gains from his relationship with the military, instituting policies that have harmed Turkey’s economy and threatened its democracy.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

92. Trump isn’t NATO’s Only Problem

Author:
Basel Ammane
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
During the last NATO Summit in Brussels in July, the first since the onset of the Trump presidency, observers were carefully watching in anticipation of any indicators about the state of commitment by the US to the alliance. Trump’s antics, such as the insults he levelled at Germany, the impudent demands he made, and the thinly-veiled threat he issued unsurprisingly dominated media coverage. This served as a reminder that the alliance and its members need to work vigorously to safeguard US commitment given that this president’s preoccupation with prodding allies into increasing military spending, though echoed by previous administrations, is much more forceful and borders on the nakedly belligerent. To make matters worse, a skeptical view of alliances that sees them through a transactional prism and portrays them as burdens seems to be a consistent view that President Trump has held for years. This further demonstrates that the risk of a declining US commitment to the alliance is real. But a shaky commitment by a US president is hardly the only source of problems for today’s NATO.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

93. Limited Justice for Syria on the Horizon

Author:
Basel Ammane
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
The recent attacks in Eastern Ghouta in which a swath of land housing a population of 400,000 was surrounded, shelled incessantly and later invaded have refocused the world’s attention on the events in Syria.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

94. Better Blending: Making the Case for Transparency and Accountability in Blended Finance

Author:
Transparency International
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Transparency International
Abstract:
As available resources for official development assistance have come under strain in the past ten years, blended finance has been hailed as a means to finance development in low- and middle-income countries. Governments and international organisations are increasingly advocating the use of blended finance to fill the “financing gap” between current commitments and target levels of investment needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Little consideration has been given to potential corruption risks in blended finance mechanisms. As a result, integrity issues in blended finance projects are understudied and poorly appreciated by many development practitioners, investors and regulators. As blended finance becomes an increasingly common instrument in development assistance, a richer understanding of the cause and impact of corrupt practices in this form of development finance is essential.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

95. Model Monitoring Agreement

Author:
Transparency International
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Transparency International
Abstract:
One of the oldest weapons in Transparency International’s anti-corruption arsenal is the Integrity Pact, designed specifically to tackle corruption in public procurement – one of the biggest areas of corruption risk for governments.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

96. Social Audit in 20 Steps

Author:
Transparency International
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Transparency International
Abstract:
Social audit is a powerful social accountability tool. It has led to the conviction of public officials for violating the right to information law in Guatemala, a 50 per cent reduction in the costs of public construction works in Peru, and cancelling an illegal education fee in Ghana. Social audit scrutinises public officials’ decisions and/or actions, looking for administrative or financial irregularities. It seeks to uncover discrepancies by comparing public documents, processes or services with how they should be. It can take many names and forms, ranging from social audits in Guatemala and anti-corruption brigades in Peru, to social auditing clubs in Ghana. This report extracts lessons from the social audits implemented by Acción Ciudadana in Guatemala, Proética in Peru and Ghana Integrity Initiative in Ghana. The report examines the social audit outcome reports and other records shared by the three Transparency International chapters, and includes an extensive review of the wider literature on social audits. Based on these experiences, the report outlines 20 key steps to implement an effective social audit.
Topic:
International Cooperation and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

97. State Capacity, Democracy and Public Good Production: The case of Child Mortality

Author:
Marina Nistotskaya and Michelle D'Arcy
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg,
Abstract:
The institutional literature on development has emphasized the need to check abuse of power, but overlooked whether the state has power in the first place. Bridging the state capacity and collective action literatures, we argue that since public goods critical for development, such as public health provision, constitute collective action problems (CAPs), and solving CAPs in groups the size of countries requires state high infrastructural power that makes individual behaviour observable/legible, so that it can be monitored and compliance enforced. It is only when democracy is institutionalized within such a state that it can have a positive effect on public goods provision. We test this argument using a novel measure of accumulated infrastructural power – the age, extent and quality of cadastral records – for over 1,000 years for 155 countries. Our analysis shows that this variable has an independent positive effect on infant and child mortality, and it also conditions the effect of democracy. This research has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 339571) and the Swedish Research Council (grant agreement D0112101). The authors thank Robert Ellisa for excellent research assistance.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

98. Public Bureaucracy and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Russia’s Regions

Author:
Anna Khakhunova and Marina Nistotskaya
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg,
Abstract:
New Public Management (NPM) reforms have been adopted worldwide since the mid-1970s to improve government effectiveness and efficiency. The basic premise of NPM reforms is that market orientation and management focus in the public sector will enhance effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery (Christensen and Lægreid 2010). Although NPM reforms have existed for a quarter century, we still have limited understanding of whether NPM reforms fulfill their expectations. Most importantly, very few empirical studies have been conducted that actually assess the impact of NPM reforms on performance (Alonso, Clifton, and Díaz-Fuentes 2015, Dahlström, Nistotskaya, and Tyrberg 2016, Hammerschmid and Van de Walle 2011). This study helps fill this gap by examining the effect of different NPM-type reforms on municipal performance. In particular, we assess the impact of NPM reforms on three dimensions of municipal performance – gender equity, efficiency and effectiveness – by using a data set of 810 city-level Japanese municipalities. Findings show that municipalities’ overall effort to create NPM reforms is not associated with gender equity and effectiveness in revenue expansion. However, findings suggest that municipalities with a higher commitment to various NPM- type reforms are likely to operate with lower administrative overhead costs. Results also suggest that municipalities’ efforts supporting individual reform, including outsourcing and municipal assets and debt management reform, are associated with higher efficiency in overhead costs and increased revenues from selling municipal assets. This study tests the impacts of NPM-type reforms on municipal performance in an understudied Asian developed setting.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

99. The electoral consequences of institutional failure: A comparative study of audits, rulers, and voters in Swedish municipalities

Author:
Sofia B. Vera
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg,
Abstract:
The literature studying citizen responses to exposed political corruption is rapidly growing. While some studies explore how information credibility and group identities can reduce the electoral impact of the exposure of corruption, this article addresses different mechanisms for weak electoral accountability for corruption: public works provision and corruption prevalence. It uses a vignette experiment embedded in a national survey in Peru to isolate the causal effect of political corruption on electoral support. The results suggest that even types of corruption with side benefits would be harshly punished when attributed to incompetent politicians. They also indicate that while voters punish corruption more leniently when a candidate is competent, they respond negatively to corruption regardless of the prevalence of corruption, which casts doubt on the idea that voters in highly corrupt environments are tolerant of corruption
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

100. Moving Beyond Categorial Measures of Gender in Corruption Research

Author:
Lena Wängnerud
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg,
Abstract:
There are a growing number of studies with the ambition to present causal reasoning linking the presence of women in political organizations to reductions in levels of corruption. The theoretical mechanisms proposed are however seldom directly tested, instead scholars tend to use designs where a large number of control variables are introduced in order to “rule out” rivalry hypotheses. These designs leave us with a number of loose ends that needs to be more carefully dealt with. The aim of this paper is to introduce a new and comparatively simple way of measuring degrees of femininity and masculinity and discuss whether this approach could add to the understanding of gender effects found in research on corruption. The analysis show that femininity is linked to pro-social values and the suggestion is for future research to focus more on indirect effects on corruption from the inclusion of women in political organizations. Exposure-based theories highlight mechanisms such as changed group norms that may pave the ground for an increased focus on the public good. The data used draws on a large-scale survey among Swedish citizens in 2013.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus