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57881. 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

57882. 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

57883. 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

57884. 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

57885. The Future of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy

Author:
Rebecca Johnson, Fraser Cameron, Alberto Navarro, Thierry Tardy, Sophia Clement, Glenys Kinnock, Tom Spencer, John Palmer, Joao de Deus Pinheiro, Christian Kudlich, Paolo Foresti, Hubert Heiss, Peter Ricketts, Elie Marcuse, Johannes Swoboda, Patricia Chilton, Maj Theorin, Stelios Stavrides, Thomas Eckert, Karen Smith, Krister Bringeus, Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, Ognyan Minchev, Janos Vandor, Eric Remacle, Pauline Neville-Jones, Vasilij Likhachev, Peter Truscott, Jannis Sakellariou, Jesus Nunez, Claire Spencer, Birchara Khader, Alain Gresh, Lotte Leicht, Tim Hancock, David Nyheim, Francisco Rey, Bronwyn Brady, Geraldine O'Callaghan, Peter Saveiys, Brian Wood, Kiflemariam Gebrewold, Bernd Hemingway, and Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:
09-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Security Information Service
Abstract:
In his opening remarks as Chair of the conference, Tom Spencer, Chair of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, congratulated the organisers on their excellent timing. The European Union was now in a phase of 'pragmatic' evolution of CFSP and he believed the next nine months presented opportunities for progress.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

57886. The Regulation of Political Conflict: A Game Theoretic Analysis

Author:
Ali Carkoglu
Publication Date:
03-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Studies Association
Abstract:
Conflict and cooperation constitute the basis of much interest in political analysis. Nevertheless, political theory abounds in disagreement as to which predominates, which constitutes the norm and as to the reasons for their occurrence. Game theoretical models have been applied to these problems with some success. The proposed article aims to contribute to our understanding of the phenomena of creating cooperation, and thus regulating a situation of conflict between two actors by a third party. A third party will be introduced to a prisoners' dilemma game and conditions for its cooperation creating regulatory strategies will be derived. The impact of informational and institutional structures on the prospects for cooperative outcomes will be discussed. Applications to governments' policies in regulating domestic conflict and to a hegemon's problem of maintaining order in the international arena will be shortly discussed.
Topic:
International Relations and International Law

57887. Rise and Fall: East–West Synchronicity and Indic Exceptionalism Reexamined

Author:
Christopher Chase-Dunn, Thomas D. Hall, and Susan Manning
Publication Date:
03-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Studies Association
Abstract:
All world–systems with at least a chiefdom level of political organization exhibit a pattern of the rise and fall of large polities. Among chiefdoms this pattern has been referred to as "cycling". In state–based systems it is known as the rise and fall of empires. And in the modern system it is called the "power cycle" or the "hegemonic sequence." This paper reexamines the question of synchronicities of rise and fall in systems linked only by very long distance prestige goods trade. Earlier research found that increases and decreases in the territorial sizes of empires and the population sizes of cities were highly correlated in East Asia and West Asia/Mediterranean regions from about 600 BCE to 1500 CE. Though data were somewhat scarce for South Asia, it appeared that Indic civilization did not rise and fall in tandem with the East and the West. In this paper we report an improved test of the synchronicity of empire sizes and the different pattern found in India
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
South Asia and East Asia

57888. Japan's Preference toward Bilateral Dispute Settlement Mechanisms with the United States

Author:
Young Jong Choi
Publication Date:
03-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Studies Association
Abstract:
Japan's preference toward regional institutions has received a great attention in recent years in relation to the development of regional institutions in Asia (exclusively East Asia) and the Pacific (the broader Asia-Pacific region). Japan's policy toward Asia and the Pacific has often been characterized by "hegemonic defection" and Japan as a "reactive state". The former indicates the absence of Japan's leadership in regional institution building (Mack and Ravenhill 1995: 8). The latter portrays Japan as incapable of pursuing pro-active policies in regional affairs because of its consensus-oriented culture, historical legacy of colonialism, domestic political gridlock and most of all extreme dependence upon the U.S. security umbrella (Calder 1988; Hellmann 1988; Pyle 1992; Curtis 1993).
Topic:
Diplomacy
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, East Asia, and Asia

57889. U.S. Foreign Policy: Long Cycles — What Might They Mean for World Long Cycles?

Author:
Jack E. Holmes, Kevin Joldersma, and Aaron Keck
Publication Date:
03-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Studies Association
Abstract:
The author has studied U.S. foreign policy long cycles for two decades and has an extensive database covering 1776-1990. A good deal of attention has been paid to U.S. foreign policy in the post-1945 setting where the U.S. is a world superpower. Now that the U.S. has been freed from the immediate demands of the Cold War, it is important to study American policy over the long run, especially the period before 1945. This paper uses conclusions from the author's previous work to raise issues which have implications for the study of world long cycles. Particular attention is given to consensus (societal/governmental) variables since the U.S. is one of the few countries with a long history under the same written constitution. The American experience indicates that the U.S. is inclined toward independent action as sometimes dictated by domestic considerations. While it is clear that the U.S. will act as a superpower in part due to the nature of the international system, it is important to consider some uniquely American features which also have an important impact on policy. The author's work includes two books on long-term American foreign policy trends. The first one, The Mood/Interest Theory of American Foreign Policy, was published in 1985. It presented a general theory regarding how and why introvert and extrovert foreign policy moods alternate every two decades. This theory, as well as the dates of the cycles, is based on the work of Frank L. Klingberg (1952). Klingberg elaborates on his cycles in later works (1983 and 1996). Since the 1985 work contained a good deal of theory, it was thought that a more empirical study of these trends would be in order. Toward this end, the author created over 150 variables which have been given annual values for at least 150 years. These variables were based on the work of other authors and compilations of data. The resulting work, Ambivalent America, which has been the basis for several convention papers and is nearing completion as a book, raises a second set of conclusions which supplement those of the first book. At the same time, several authors have investigated world long cycles and raised a number of important issues. Most of these authors emphasize the period since the start of major European influence on the world while others go back prior to that period. With the exceptions of works by Klingberg and this author, however, similar attention has not been given to American trends. Pollins and Schweller (1997) do explore some issues relating to interactions of American and world cycles. The author believes that a conceptual comparison of American long cycles with world long cycles will raise some important issues, and that is the purpose of this paper.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States

57890. Fearful, but not MAD — Modeling the Security Dilemma of Conventional Conflict

Author:
Erik Melander
Publication Date:
03-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Studies Association
Abstract:
This paper presents a simple and straightforward model of the security dilemma in settings in which the parties lack secure second–strike capabilities with weapons of mass destruction. The model includes first–strike advantages and incomplete information as to the antagonist's preference ordering. Imperfect information is used to simulate mutual fear of surprise attack.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Government

57891. Focal Points and International Financial Markets: The Maastricht Convergence Criteria

Author:
Layna Mosley
Publication Date:
03-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Studies Association
Abstract:
A central research problem in comparative and international political economy concerns the implications of economic globalization - and more specifically, of international capital mobility - for national economic policy choice. A large body of recent literature suggests that governments are, at least to some extent, constrained by relatively high levels of international capital mobility (Garrett, 1998; O'Brien, 1992). At the very least, the asset allocation decisions of financial market participants affect interest rate levels, and, therefore, the cost of borrowing for governments and private actors.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Europe

57892. The Growth Of Civil Society And Citizen Input To Foreign Policymaking: The Case Of Korea

Author:
Tong Whan Park
Publication Date:
03-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Studies Association
Abstract:
Though a half century has passed since the creation of a modern nation-state, Korea lags far behind Western European nations in the development of a civil society. It may be due to a number of factors, the most important of which could be the different path to modernization Korea has taken and the forced imposition of the nation-state system on a Confucian social structure. As such, the Seoul government's decision-making in general and foreign policymaking in particular have often lacked sensitivity to what the citizens may think and desire.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:
Israel, Korea, and Western Europe

57893. The Structure of Structural Violence Revisited: Rules, Rational Choices, and the Physical Basis of Life

Author:
James C. Roberts
Publication Date:
03-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Studies Association
Abstract:
In 1969, Johan Galtung proposed that physical violence be measured as the difference between actual and potential life expectancy. Structural violence occurs when the cause of this difference is caused by the economic structure of society. Measuring actual life expectancy is not difficult but potential life expectancy cannot be observed, it can only be projected.
Topic:
International Relations and Peace Studies

57894. Carter Center Delegation Report: Village Elections in China and Agreement on Cooperation with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, People's Republic of China 2 Mar 1998

Publication Date:
03-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
At the invitation of the government of the People's Republic of China, The Carter Center sent a delegation to observe village elections in China from March 2-15, 1998. In addition to evaluating nine village elections in Jilin and Liaoning provinces, the nine-person team, led by Carter Center Fellow Dr. Robert Pastor, reached a long-term agreement with the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) on election-related projects.
Topic:
Civil War, Democratization, and International Organization
Political Geography:
China

57895. Can U.N. Conferences Promote Poverty Reduction? A Review of the Istanbul Declaration

Author:
David Satterthwaite
Publication Date:
07-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
In considering how the Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements and the Habitat Agenda, the two key documents agreed upon at the Habitat II Conference, deal with poverty (and with other important issues, such as sustainable development1), it is easy to point to a lack of precision in some of the language used, the repetition, and the tendency toward long lists of "problems" with little consideration of their linkages (and often their underlying causes). But this might also be an inevitable result of any document that had to be endorsed by representatives of so many different governments. Where the wording on some controversial issue appears unclear or imprecise, this may be because any greater clarity or precision prevented agreement by some representative of a government or some group of countries, such as the Group of 77 or the European Union.
Topic:
Security, Industrial Policy, Poverty, and United Nations

57896. Explaining the Emergence of Human Rights Regimes

Author:
Andrew Moravcsik
Publication Date:
12-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Formal international human rights regimes differ from most other forms of international cooperation in that their primary purpose is to hold governments accountable to their own citizens for purely domestic activities. Many establish international committees, courts, and procedures for this purpose. Why would governments establish an arrangement that invades domestic sovereignty in this way? Current scholarship suggests two explanations. A realist view asserts that the most powerful democracies seek to externalize their values, coercing or enticing weaker and less democratic governments to accept human rights regimes. A ideational view argues that the most established democracies externalize their values, setting in motion a transnational process of diffusion and persuasion that socializes less democratic governments to accept such regimes.
Topic:
Democratization, Human Rights, International Cooperation, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe

57897. A New Statecraft? Supranational Entrepreneurs and International Cooperation

Author:
Andrew Moravcsik
Publication Date:
08-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Studies of international regimes, law, and negotiation, as well as regional integration, near universally conclude that political entrepreneurship by high officials of international organizations—“supranational entrepreneurship”—decisively influences the outcomes of multilateral negotiations. Studies of the European Community (EC) have long stressed their informal agenda-setting, mediation, and mobilization. Yet the studies underlying this interdisciplinary consensus tend to be anecdotal, atheoretical, and uncontrolled. The study reported here derives and tests explicit hypotheses from general theories of political entrepreneurship and tests them across multiple cases (the five most important EC negotiations) while controlling for the actions of national governments. Two findings emerge: First, supranational entrepreneurship is generally redundant or futile; governments can almost always efficiently act as their own entrepreneurs. Second, rare cases of entrepreneurial success arise not when officials intervene to help overcome interstate collective action problems, as current theories presume, but when they help overcome domestic(or transnational) collective action problems. This suggests fundamental refinements in the core assumptions about transaction costs underlying general theories of international regimes, law, and negotiation.
Topic:
International Relations and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe

57898. International Capital Mobility and Monetary Politics in the U.S. Congress, 1960–1997

Author:
J. Lawrence Broz
Publication Date:
10-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Prevailing approaches to the politics of monetary policy in the United States are based on closed economy assumptions, which is appropriate for analyzing the period before about 1980. However, the opening of U.S. and foreign financial markets since the early 1980s has had a profound effect on domestic monetary policy and domestic monetary politics. The major policy effect is that the transmission channels of monetary policy now include the exchange rate. The major political effect is that the exchange rate has become a focus of concern for well-organized industries in the traded goods sector and, by extension, for Congress. This paper presents statistical evidence showing that the forces driving congressional activity on monetary policy have changed dramatically with the international financial integration of the U.S. economy. Exchange rates, as opposed to interest rates, now largely determine congressional attentiveness to monetary policy and the Federal Reserve.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

57899. Negotiating Economic Transitions in Liberizing Polities

Author:
Frances Hagopian
Publication Date:
05-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
How do governments struggling to consolidate new democracies enact effective stabilization and adjustment policies, reform the public sector, and deregulate markets? And what has been the impact of economic liberalization on political institutions and systems of political representation? Treating economic and political transitions as mutually interdependent, this paper couples these questions to suggest a reformulation of the conventional wisdom about how economic liberalization proceeds and how political interests are determined. It challenges the assumption that neoliberal reform is most readily achieved in liberalizing polities when visionary political leaders surrounded by coherent economic teams with comprehensive programs in place act with a wide margin of autonomy from society. It also questions the contention that structures of political representation are the outgrowth of either economic organization or the product of state engineering. The paper makes two arguments. Its central argument is that economic reform is accomplished most readily when government reformers, acting through available clientelistic, corporatist, and party-based networks of mediation, negotiate the compliance of public and private sector representatives of social actors for the introduction of market-oriented reforms. They trade public resources or legislation favoring the representational status of political or social actors in the present for the agreement of those actors to accept diminished state resources for their organizations or constituents in the future. The use of specific networks of negotiation, moreover, influences the design of liberalization policies and helps to account for national differences in the pace and sequence of economic reform measures. The paper's second argument is that those systems of political representation that are strengthened as a result of the temporary advantages that accrue to them during the process of state retreat will endure even when they are incompatible with economic liberalism. This is so because the politicians and group leaders who manage these networks have the opportunity to design institutions that will allow them to accommodate themselves and adapt their power bases to economies in which the market plays a larger role.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, Central America, and North America

57900. Curbed Markets?

Author:
Kellee S. Tsai
Publication Date:
05-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Our country does not permit the establishment of private banks. We must continue to investigate and impose discipline on non-banking financial institutions and other creditors that charge high interest rates. This is clearly one of the most important measures for ensuring order in the entire financial system.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
China and Asia