Search

Begin New Search Topic Government Political Geography America Content Type Working Paper

31. The Central-Local Division of Power in the Americas and the Renewed Mexican Federalism (Old Institutions, New Political Realities)

Author:
Jorge A. Schiavon
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This research paper explores whether the central-local division of power is an important institutional variable in the operation of political systems in the Americas. It develops a typology of central-local divisions of power in the hemisphere based on two specific characteristics that differentiate them (federal-unitary and centralized-decentralized), and discusses the relevance of the institutional and partisan configurations of the system in the workings of this variable. Then, it constructs a veto gates and veto players model in order to analyze the causal mechanism through which the centrallocal division of power impacts political systems in the Americas. It then presents two examples (with variations in time and space) to support the argument that the central-local division of power's relevance depends on its type, the institutional configuration, and party composition of the system. In doing so, it analyses the Mexican federal system, arguing that renewed Mexican federalism and its consequences in terms of democratic governance and the efficient provision of public policies is a result of the concurrence of old institutions with the new political reality, that is, the intersection of the old institutional framework and the new partisan configurations of the Mexican political system.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
America and South America

32. How Terrorism Affects American Diplomacy

Author:
Thomas O. Melia
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:
Interviews with several dozen senior American diplomats-including ambassadors and others currently serving abroad-indicate that the daily conduct of U.S. diplomacy has recently been altered in significant ways by the elevated threat of terrorism against American interests made manifest on September 11, 2001; the worldwide War on Terror declared by President George W. Bush in consequence; and the prosecution of the war in Iraq, on which diplomats are as divided as other Americans regarding whether it is or is not part of the global War on Terror.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and America

33. Abusing History: A Critical Analysis of Mainstream International Relations Theory Misconduct

Author:
Anne Marie D'Aoust
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Raoul Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, Université du Québec à Montréal
Abstract:
In Political Science, the discipline of IR has been widely regarded as an “American Science” ever since Stanley Hoffman published his renowned essay in 1977. This “American Science” is mainly dominated by a single theoretical approach – that of Neorealism – which relies primarily on the concept of historical recurrence to ground its arguments. Other “new” theoretical approaches which challenge this parochialism, namely feminism, constructivism and Critical Theory, remain outside the “official boundaries” of the field. These boundaries are largely set by the Neorealist agenda and its variations, which rarely diverge from an unquestioned central rationalist-empiricist theme. Thus, with respect to its methodological and epistemological stance, Neorealist theory implicitly views History as a vast field of objective data and primary sources ready to reveal their truth to the social scientist. To test and/or prove the validity of Neorealist theory in the field of International Relations, one must refer to historical data and confront theory with “straight facts”. What I propose to do here is to analyze the ways in which the Neorealist approach to International Relations makes use of history, and subsequently to consider some crucial epistomological and theoretical debates in the field of History that are ignored by Neorealists like Waltz.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
America

34. The Iraqi Insurgency & Iraq Security Force Development

Author:
Carl Conetta
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
Progress toward a stable peace in Iraq and the withdrawal of US troops begins with the painful recognition that America's recent troubles are largely self-inflicted. This is due principally to the adoption of mission objectives that far exceed what is necessary or pragmatic.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Government, Politics, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and Middle East

35. In Liberty's Shadow: US Detention of Asylum Seekers in the Era of Homeland Security

Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
When I set foot on American soil, I had finally reached the land of liberty, the land of peace, and I had a strong feeling of gratitude toward the Most High who had allowed me to escape death and to reach a life of freedom…. After completing my statement [at the airport]…[an] officer arrived with handcuffs. Then he handcuffed my wrists, but I sincerely thought this was a case of mistaken identity. Later on he explained to me that this was the established procedure. We left for [a county] prison. They put me in a cell where it was really cold, and I had no blanket with me. The idea of a land of liberty was beginning to be cast into serious doubt in my mind.
Topic:
Security, Government, Human Rights, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States and America

36. Three Myths about Voter Turnout in the United States

Author:
John Samples
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Critics of American politics and elections often focus on low voter turnout in the United States. They argue that voter turnout is steadily declining largely because of voter cynicism caused by big money campaigns and negative political advertising. Voter turnout is lower than it was in the 1960s, but almost the entire decline happened between 1968 and 1974. Sophisticated and detailed studies of both public trust in government and the consequences of political advertising show that neither factor has a negative effect on voter turnout.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and America

37. CATO Institute: A Lesson in Waste: Where Does All the Federal Education Money Go?

Author:
Neal McCluskey
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Since the 1965 passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which concentrated unprecedented authority over American education in the hands of the federal government, federal lawmakers have passed increasingly restrictive laws and drastically escalated education spending, which ballooned from around $25 billion in 1965 (adjusted for inflation) to more than $108 billion in 2002.
Topic:
Economics, Education, and Government
Political Geography:
United States and America

38. Glocalization, Local Urban Culture and Change in West Africa: Toward Negotiating Socioeconomic Understanding with Foreign Companies and International Organizaations

Author:
Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:
The paper revisits the key problematics of conceptualizing culture, the ethnographic relevance of cross cultural communication in business management, and the theoretical and pragmatic differences between glocalization, Euro-American and West African business management ethics and socioeconomic change in NEPAD (The New Partnership for African Development) countries. Further, it examines the power dynamics of the local sub-cultures (manager, employee and local consumer) and the fundamental cultural differences between local and foreign managers and provides the contexts within which such core differences cultivate a hybrid business environment and enhance translocal negotiations. Finally, it discusses the triangular connection between hegemony, ICT and social change and identifies situations in urban W. African communities where local-foreign knowledge and technical resources promote globalization in the region.
Topic:
Development, Globalization, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa and America

39. Doubling the Global Work Force: The Challenge of Integrating China, India, and the Former Soviet Bloc into the World Economy

Author:
Richard B. Freeman
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
In 1985, the global economic world (N. America, S. America, Western Europe, Japan, Asian Tigers, Africa) consisted of 2.5 billion people. In 2000 as a result of the collapse of communism, India's turn from autarky, China's shift to market capitalism, global economy encompassed 6 billion people. Had China, India, and the former Soviet empire stayed outside, global economy would have had 3.3 billion.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa, Japan, China, America, India, Asia, and Western Europe

40. The Inefficient Use of Power: Costly Conflict with Complete Information

Author:
Robert Powell
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Recent work across a wide range of issues in political economy as well as in American, comparative, and international politics tries to explain the inefficient use of power — revolutions, civil wars, high levels of public debt, international conflict, and costly policy insulation — in terms of commitment problems. This paper shows that a common mechanism is at work in a number of these diverse studies. This common mechanism provides a more general formulation of a type of commitment problem that can arise in many different substantive settings. The present analysis then formalizes this mechanism as an “inefficiency condition” which ensures that all of the equilibria of a stochastic game are inefficient. This condition has a natural substantive interpretation: Large, rapid changes in the actors' relative power (measured in terms of their minmax payoffs) may cause inefficiency.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
America