Since the surge in foreign direct investment in the United States in the late 1980's, much attention has focused on the role of foreign-owned firms in the U.S. economy, particularly in manufacturing. A question that is frequently posed concerns the degree to which U.S. affiliates of foreign companies are integrated into the U.S. economy through their sourcing behavior and value-added activity. A related question is whether U.S. manufacturing affiliates in comparison with domestically owned firms are more oriented toward producing for the U.S. market or for their home-country and other foreign markets.
So declared Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali in 1994. Indeed, peacekeeping emerged in the post-Cold War period as the "most prominent U.N. activity." The organization was freed of the shackles placed upon it by superpower rivalry, that heretofore had rendered U.N. machinery inoperative in coping with local crises and was suddenly becoming "the center of international efforts to deal with unresolved problems of the past decades as well as the array of present and future issues." Between 1988 and 1993, more than a dozen new peacekeeping operations were launched, involving more than 70,000 military and civilian personnel for field operations, at an annual cost to the United Nations in excess of $3 billion.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Law, and International Organization
China's emergence begs a fresh look at power in world affairs—more precisely, at how the spread of freedom and the integration of the global economy, due to the information revolution, are affecting the nature, concentration, and purpose of power. Perhaps such a look could improve the odds of responding wisely to China's rise.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Government, and International Law
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Humanitarian action in the Caucasus is shaped by the political, social, and security contexts of the region which, in many ways, constitute a case study in the lasting legacies of forced migration and social engineering. Without discounting the historical underpinnings of conflict that often date back several centuries, fears of persecution and deeply-rooted feelings of injustice are contemporary sources of tension and have been overlaid and complicated in the past decade by profound upheaval in the economic, social, and political spheres. The collapse of the Soviet system left the economies of the region in tatters.
David Cortright, Larry Minear, Thomas G. Weiss, George A. Lopez, and Julia Wagler
Publication Date:
01-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Increased concerns about the negative humanitarian consequences of multilateral sanctions have prompted calls for reform. Drawing upon expertise in both humanitarian activities and sanctions scholarship, the report by independent analysts offers a series of recommendations to the United Nations system for ameliorating the adverse humanitarian consequences of sanctions and making their implementation more effective and accountable. The authors call for greater transparency in the functioning of UN sanctions committees and urge that the present ad hoc policy be replaced by a more regime-like system characterized by agreed principles, rules, and procedures.
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
This occasional paper explores the relationships between emergency and development assistance. These relationships are important because the development community has seen much of its investment eroded or negated in recent years by war and governmental collapse and because relief agencies have recognized the need for sustainable peace if their work is to have long-term significance. Understanding the connections is also important because of evidence that emergency assistance can be inappropriate or even dangerous and that development aid, like emergency assistance itself, has in some cases contributed to fueling and igniting conflict.
Chantal Mouffe, Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Bert A. Rockman, Doreen Massey, Tony McGrew, Kimberly Hutchings, and Niels Jacob Harbitz
Publication Date:
09-1998
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster
Abstract:
Ideological disputes about the respective domains of the state and the market have convulsed much of the twentieth century. Yet recent research and experience suggest that the interaction between politics and economics, between the state and the market, is complex and systemic. An understanding of these systemic properties is crucial for effective democratic reconstruction. This is especially so in countries with a legacy of communism - such as the transition states of the former Soviet Union and East-Central Europe - where not only the market but the state, and indeed society, may have to be reconstructed, if not reinvented.
Chantal Mouffe, Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Bert A. Rockman, Doreen Massey, Tony McGrew, Kimberly Hutchings, and Niels Jacob Harbitz
Publication Date:
09-1998
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster
Abstract:
Does the power of the media threaten democracy (understood as the participation of the people in political debate and decision- making)? In answering this question we need to distinguish between three kinds of power: political, economic, and intellectual.
Since the beginning of the atomic age in 1945, the possession and deployment of nuclear weapons has become the dominant factor in the international system. Those countries that acquired nuclear weapons have become (or maintained their status as) primary world powers, but as the number of such countries grew, the potential for the use of nuclear weapons also increased. In the early 1960s, President Kennedy warned that unless immediate and significant action was taken, within a decade there would be as many as 20 nuclear powers. The process of proliferation was seen as one of the most dangerous and destabilizing aspects of the nuclear era.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
"Transition" is surely the most hackneyed concept among commentators on Korea over the last decade. In this post-modern world of increasingly rapid change, it is fair to say that the Republic of Korea (ROK) is in a constant state of transition from one thing to something else. The two broad areas that most frequently appear in discussions of Korea's transition are economic and political development. In the first case, analysts trace the transition of the ROK from a backward, largely agrarian economy to an industrial and now even post-industrial powerhouse that competes at a high level in the world marketplace. In the latter case, scholars examine the transition from an authoritarian system to a democratic one. Until the economic slide of last fall and the subsequent election to and assumption of the presidency by former opposition leader Kim Dae Jung, most observers would have conceded that the political transition is at an earlier and more precarious stage than the economic. Kim's smooth rise to the ROK's highest office demonstrated powerfully that the way Koreans in the south conduct themselves politically has changed fundamentally over the last generation.