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8021. Always Strategic: Jointly Essential Landpower

Author:
Dr. Colin S. Gray
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
American Landpower is a strategic instrument of state policy and needs to be considered as such. This monograph explores and explains the nature of Landpower, both in general terms and also with particular regard to the American case. The monograph argues that: (1) Landpower is unique in the character of the quality it brings to the American joint team for national security; (2) the U.S. has a permanent need for the human quality in Landpower that this element provides inherently; (3) Landpower is always and, indeed, necessarily strategic in its meaning and implications—it is a quintessentially strategic instrument of state policy and politics; (4) strategic Landpower is unavoidably and beneficially joint in its functioning, this simply is so much the contemporary character of American strategic Landpower that we should consider jointness integral to its permanent nature; and, (5) notwithstanding the nuclear context since 1945, Landpower retained, indeed retains, most of the strategic utility it has possessed through all of history: this is a prudent judgment resting empirically on the evidence of 70 years’ experience. In short, the strategic Landpower maintained today safely can be assumed to be necessary for security long into the future. No matter how familiar the concept of strategic Landpower is when identified and expressed thus, it is a physical and psychological reality that has persisted to strategic effect through all of the strategic history to which we have access.
Topic:
National Security, Politics, History, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Landpower
Political Geography:
United States of America

8022. Assessing Egyptian Public Support for Security Crackdowns in the Sinai

Author:
Gregory Aftandilian
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
This monograph examines the terrorist groups in Egypt emanating from the Sinai and assesses the level of Egyptian public support for the government's security crackdown. These terrorist groups have not only targeted Egyptian security personnel and foreign tourists in the Sinai Peninsula but have attacked government installations and personnel in the Egyptian mainland. Because most Egyptians desire stability, want terrorism to end, and want their moribund economy to grow, and because they have few family ties to the Bedouin inhabitants of the Sinai, they have given the government wide berth to carry out a heavy-handed crackdown there. However, some of Egypt's draconian security policies (such as punishing whole Bedouin villages) can be counterproductive, often making more terrorist recruits out of disaffected Bedouin youth than would otherwise be the case. The monograph recommends enhanced U.S. counterterrorism assistance to the Egyptian military, with specialized courses for Egyptian military officers attending professional military education institutions in the United States and the training of whole Egyptian counterterrorism units either in the United States or in a friendly Arab country. The monograph also recommends the resumption of a U.S.-Egyptian strategic dialogue, to include U.S. Army officers and their Egyptian counterparts, where effective counterterrorism policies can be discussed frankly in a closed-door setting. In addition, the monograph advocates for new and enhanced social and economic policies in the Sinai that would aim to dissuade Beduion youth from assisting and joining the terrorist groups. These policies would involve recruiting properly vetted Bedouin youth into the local police forces, and a major jobs training program, with U.S. financial and administrative support, for these youth to prepare them for eventual employment in tourism and other legitimate economic sectors.

8023. Strategic Insights: Would a Post-2011 Residual U.S. Force in Iraq Have Changed Anything?

Author:
Dr. W. Andrew Terrill
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Currently, U.S. policy analysts and governmental leaders are examining the rise of the Islamic State (IS) organization, particularly its seizure of vast expanses of Iraqi territory in the summer of 2014. People legitimately ask what could have been done and would a residual U.S. force in Iraq have prevented the spread of IS from Syria to Iraq or at least its seizure of northern Iraq? Opponents of the decision to withdraw all U.S. forces often contend that a U.S. residual force could have prevented or mitigated the IS offensive in northern Iraq. Supporters of the decision to withdraw usually point out that the Iraqi government would not agree to a Status of Forces agreement (SOFA) that allowed U.S. forces to remain in that country without being subordinate to Iraqi domestic law. The second argument seems to accept the views of the critics, while suggesting that the withdrawal was required as part of an effort to respect Iraqi sovereignty. Both sides seem to agree that a residual force in Iraq was a good idea. They disagree on why it did not occur.

8024. New Realities: Energy Security in the 2010s and Implications for the U.S. Military

Author:
Dr. John R. Deni
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Revolutionary changes among energy producers and dramatically altered patterns of energy consumption across the planet are having profound implications for American national security in general and the U.S. Army specifically. The U.S. Army War College gathered experts from the policymaking community, academia, think tanks, the private sector, and the military services at the Reserve Officers Association in Washington, DC, in November 2013 to address first the major “new realities,” both geographically and technologically, and then the specific military implications. The chapters of this compendium are based on the presentations delivered at that conference, which was funded through the generous support of the U.S. Army War College Foundation.

8025. Do Fewer Resources Mean Less Influence? A Comparative Historical Case Study of Military Influence in a Time of Austerity

Author:
Dr. Mary Manjikian
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
As military conflicts come to an end, it is not uncommon for societies to expect a “peace dividend” and to engage in elite and popular conversations about how much defense spending is still needed. The issues are similar across countries and time periods: How can defense planners preserve capabilities, avoid the reversibility problem, and plan for the long term? How can they guide the development of technologies and doctrines in a climate of austerity? This manuscript draws lessons from previous historic situations and applies them to today.

8026. Strategic Insights: The China-CELAC Summit: Opening a New Phase in China-Latin America-U.S. Relations?

Author:
Dr. Evan Ellis
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Since the People’s Republic of China (PRC) began to open its economy in 1978, its relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean has passed through four phases. Prior to its 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), it conducted limited engagements through principally diplomatic and cultural vehicles aimed at building relationships and winning diplomatic recognition among countries of the region. As its commerce with the region began to take off in the years following WTO membership, the PRC increasingly benefitted from commodity purchases and the prospect of access to its markets in gaining the attention of political and business elites in the region. With the 2008 global economic crisis, Chinese loans and investment, and the activities of its companies in the region, assumed increasing importance in the relationship. Yet despite the interest declared in China’s 2008 white paper toward Latin America and the Caribbean,1 the Chinese government remained cautious in going beyond economic, scientific, and cultural bonds with the region.

8027. Constructing Quality: Producer Power, Market Organization, and the Politics of High Value-Added Markets.

Author:
Elizabeth Carter
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
Economists assume increased producer flexibility creates production advantages. So why do inefficient French quality wine producers dominate their flexible, efficient Italian counterparts? French AOC wine producers created “corporatist” producer organizations which served three purposes: encouraged increased product quality information across the supply chain; allowed for the emergence of a unique production style; and enabled producers to define their production methods as “quality” via state regulation. Italian DOC wine producers have fragmented political structures at both the regional and national levels, causing producers to rely more on the price mechanism and less on political structures to coordinate supply chain transactions. Market asymmetries persist across the supply chain, making it difficult for producers to guarantee quality and adversely shaping their potential production and brand strategies. Solving supply chain problems through representative political institutions yields superior economic outcomes than uncoordinated market transactions because the former corrects market power asymmetries.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, Politics, and Regulation
Political Geography:
France, Italy, and Global Focus

8028. Quality of Government and the Relationship between Natural Disasters and Child Poverty: A Comparative Analysis.

Author:
Adel Daoud, Bjorn Hallerod, and Debarati Guha Sapir
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
This paper explores the degree to which exposure to reoccurring natural disasters of various kinds explains seven dimensions of severe child poverty in 67 middle- and low-income countries. It also analyzes how certain institutional conditions, namely the quality of government (QoG), have moderating effects on the relationship between disasters and child poverty. Two main hypotheses are tested. The first is that disasters do have an adverse average effect on severe poverty. The second is that disasters reveal a positive coefficient (i.e., more disasters, more deprivation) but that higher levels of QoG negatively moderate this effect, i.e., the adverse effect of disasters is diminished by increasingly high QoG levels. From 70 possible combinations of relationships (7 types of deprivation combined with 10 types of natural disaster measures), 11 have the expected correlation between disasters and child deprivation and only one has the expected interactive correlation between quality of government, disasters, and child poverty. Several unexpected results could also be observed which are discussed in the paper along with recommendations for future research.
Topic:
Economics, Natural Disasters, Governance, Research, and Child Poverty
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8029. How the Eurobarometer Blurs the Line between Research and Propaganda

Author:
Martin Höpner and Bojan Jurczyk
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
This paper reviews Eurobarometer surveys from 1995 to 2010 and shows how Eurobarometer selects and frames questions in ways that systematically produce “integrationist” outcomes. The violations of the rules of good public opinion research concern incomprehensible, hypothetical, and knowledge-inadequate questions, unbalanced response options, insinuation and leading questions, context effects, and the strategic removal of questions that led to critical responses in previous Eurobarometer waves. It is highly unlikely that the violations happen unintentionally. Eurobarometer therefore blurs the line between research and propaganda.
Topic:
Sociology, Public Opinion, and Research
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8030. The Enduring Importance of Family Wealth: Evidence from the Forbes 400, 1982 to 2013

Author:
Philip Korom, Mark Lutter, and Jens Beckert
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The social science literature proposes two competing explanatory frameworks for the existence and longevity of super-fortunes: superstar or winner-take-all mechanisms, suggesting an increased dominance of new self-made billionaires; and mechanisms focusing on inherited advantages, suggesting an enduring importance of old family fortunes. Using panel data from the USA’s annual Forbes 400 ranking (1982–2013), this study analyzes factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of remaining listed among the American super-rich. We find initially that the percentages of self-made entrepreneurs among the highest wealth echelons of US society have increased significantly since 1982. Sectors that improved the most are finance (including hedge funds and private equity), new technology and mass retail. The decline of inheritance as a source of wealth and the rise of new tech and finance fortunes suggest low reproduction rates among superrich property owners. Family wealth, however, plays an important role if the longevity of fortunes is considered. While the literature predicts family fortunes to be taxed away, divided among a large number of heirs, or lost through incompetence, we find that scions of inherited great wealth (mostly up to the third generation) are more likely to remain listed in the Forbes 400 roster than self-made entrepreneurs. We conclude that even though entrepreneurship increasingly matters for becoming super-rich, it is first and foremost the ability of rich family dynasties to retain control over corporations and to access sophisticated financial advice that makes fortunes last.
Topic:
Economics, Science and Technology, Social Stratification, and Landpower
Political Geography:
United States of America

8031. Bringing Power Back In: A Review of the Literature on the Role of Business in Welfare State Politics.

Author:
Thomas Paster
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
What is the impact of business interest groups on the formulation of public social policies? This paper reviews the literature in political science, history, and sociology on this question. It identifies two strands: one analyzes the political power and influence of business, the other the preferences and interests of business. Since the 1990s, researchers have shifted their attention from questions of power to questions of preferences. While this shift has produced important insights into the sources of the policy preferences of business, it came with a neglect of issues of power. This paper takes a first step towards re-integrating a power-analytical perspective into the study of the role of business in welfare state politics. It shows how a focus on variation in business power can help to explain both why business interest groups accepted social protection during some periods in the past and why they have become increasingly assertive and averse to social policies since the 1970s.
Topic:
Human Welfare, Politics, History, Sociology, Landpower, and Business
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8032. The Rise of the European Consolidation State

Author:
Wolfgang Streeck
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The rise of the consolidation state follows the displacement of the classical tax state, or Steuerstaat, by what I have called the debt state, a process that began in the 1980s in all rich capitalist democracies. Consolidation is the contemporary response to the “fiscal crisis of the state” envisaged as early as the late 1960s, when postwar growth had come to an end. Both the long-term increase in public debt and the current global attempts to bring it under control were intertwined with the “financialization” of advanced capitalism and its complex functions and dysfunctions. The ongoing shift towards a consolidation state involves a deep rebuilding of the political institutions of postwar democratic capitalism and its international order. This is the case in particular in Europe where consolidation coincides with an unprecedented increase in the scale of political rule under European Monetary Union and with the transformation of the latter into an asymmetric fiscal stabilization regime. The paper focuses on the developing structure of the new consolidation regime and its consequences for the relationship between capitalism and democracy.
Topic:
Debt, Monetary Policy, Democracy, Capitalism, and Financial Markets
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8033. Players and New Rules of the Game Politics as Organized Combat: New in Sweden.

Author:
Stefan Svallfors
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
As Hacker and Pierson (2010) have observed, politics is primarily organization: “organized combat.” To understand the outcomes of politics, we have to look at how it is organized over time: by whom and with what resources? I take Sweden as an example of how politics as organized combat has changed quite dramatically in recent decades. Sweden is often cited as an opposite to the United States among the rich capitalist countries, but it has experienced many encompassing policy changes which have not received the attention they deserve. The paper specifies how Swedish organized politics has changed fundamentally, including the dismantling of corporatist arrangements, changes in the economic policy decision-making framework, increased income inequality, weakened political parties and changes in their social bases, the decline of blue-collar union strength, the growth of the policy professionals category, the increased impact of multilevel politics, and the mediatization of politics. Today’s amorphous, invisible mode of elite-driven policy-making diverges greatly from the old corporatist structures and is accompanied by dramatically increasing inequality. Even in Sweden, the impact of money on politics has become stronger. The paper discusses what this implies for current politics and policy-making in Sweden.
Topic:
Economics, Politics, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Sweden and United States of America

8034. Culture’s Influence: Regionally Differing Social Milieus and Variations in Fertility Rates.

Author:
Barbara Fulda
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
How can we understand subnational differences in fertility rates? The most common explanations see the key to these differences in the socio-structural composition of a region’s population and its structural conditions. However, such explanations fail to account for fertility rate differences in regions with similar populations and structures. This paper analyzes two social milieus in southern Germany and argues that variations in their fertility rates can only be understood through their cultural differences. Family extension patterns as well as opportunity structures (such as the availability of childcare facilities) are substantially influenced by the regionally differing cultural norms formed and held by social milieu members. To better explain differences in fertility rates and to understand the regionally differing effects of family policy measures, demographic research therefore needs to include culture in its understanding of demographic behavior.
Topic:
Demographics, Sociology, Culture, Children, and Research
Political Geography:
Germany and Global Focus

8035. The UN Peacebuilding Architecture: Institutional Evolution in Context

Author:
Sarah Hearn, Alejandra Kubitschek Bujones, and Alischa Kugel
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
There is a broad agreement that the United Nations’ “Peacebuilding Architecture” (PBA) has failed to live up to the high hopes that existed when the 2005 World Summit agreed to establish the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and its related entities, the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) and the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). This paper explores why this is the case. We briefly review the initial logic and expectations of the PBA in part 1, and sketch out the factors that have affected the PBA’s impact both positively and negatively in part 2. We also think it is important to understand the PBA in the context of the evolution and expansion of wider UN peacebuilding efforts, and further detail the existing relationships with UN peace operations in part 3.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, United Nations, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8036. Peacebuilding and Institution-building

Author:
Sarah Hearn
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Ambassadors Review
Abstract:
This short paper provides an overview of the evidence on why institution-building is central to successful peacebuilding, and aims to stimulate fresh thinking on ideas for improving international institution-building efforts. The international community is moving at a slow pace to improve its performance in this area, despite a range of international commitments to building national institutions and ownership in conflict-affected countries. I argue that the UN could pursue more innovation, especially in the areas of south-south and triangular cooperation, setting norms for institution-building, and sustaining long-term attention to institution-building, as well as championing the development of a wider range of aid instruments and partnerships. Finally, I point to major data and evidence gaps, and suggest generating more north-south knowledge partnerships on the subject as a matter of priority – especially around building national ownership and supporting inclusive institution-building processes.
Topic:
Development, Regional Cooperation, United Nations, International Affairs, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8037. Keeping or Building Peace? The Challenges of Solving Armed Intra-state Conflicts

Author:
Michael von der Schulenburg
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
On 11 June 2014, the UN Secretary-General, speaking in the UN Security Council, expressed his concerns about what he perceived as unprecedented violence and complexity facing present UN peacekeeping operations around the world. He suggested a thorough review of all UN peace operations was necessary; this paper is intended to make a contribution to this review. The Secretary-General’s concerns were triggered by a number of recent setbacks in peacekeeping operations and by repeated attacks on UN peacekeeping operations that resulted in the deplorable deaths and injuries to a number of peacekeepers. He gave three problem areas as the reasons for this adverse situation: (i) UN peacekeeping was increasingly mandated to operate where there is no peace to keep; (ii) some UN peacekeeping operations are being authorized in the absence of clearly identifiable parties to the conflict or a viable political process and (iii) UN peacekeeping operations are increasingly operating in more complex environments that feature asymmetric and unconventional threats.
Topic:
Political Violence, United Nations, and Peacekeeping

8038. The Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals: a historic opportunity

Author:
Sarah Hearn and Jeffrey Strew
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were a game-changer because they channelled aid and developing countries’ revenues into a discrete package of priorities for eradicating extreme poverty. Undeniably, significant progress was made across peaceful developing countries against the eight MDGs (see box). According to the World Bank, absolute poverty has been halved (although not evenly in each country and region). In 1990, 43.1 per cent of the population in developing countries lived on less than 1.25 US dollars (USD) a day; by 2010, this rate dropped to 20.6 per cent. The world is close to attaining universal primary education too – 90 per cent of children in developing countries are completing primary education (although sub-Saharan Africa is behind at 70 %) (World Bank, 2014).
Topic:
Education, Human Welfare, Poverty, World Bank, Children, and Millennium Development Goals
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8039. Russia’s New “Frozen” Borderlands: Ukraine, Disputed Sovereignty and Governance Across the Post-Soviet Space

Author:
Alexander Cooley
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
Abstract:
Alexander Cooley places the current conflict in Ukraine within a wider context, comparing it to other “frozen” conflicts in the states that emerged from the detritus of the Soviet Union. Is the Ukraine crisis yet another manifestation of a familiar pattern in the post-Soviet states, or is it fundamentally different?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Sovereignty, Governance, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Russia and Ukraine

8040. Ukraine’s relations with Russia, the EU and the US: The background, the current crisis and what must be done

Author:
Volodymyr Dubovyk
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
Abstract:
Since the beginning of Euromaidan (Maidan II), Ukraine finds itself entangled in a deep crisis, which, while not necessarily existential, dramatically alters the country’s internal dynamics and international positioning vis-à-vis its neighbors and other significant regional and global players. To handle this crisis, Ukraine must find the right method of dealing with international players, especially the Russian Federation, the European Union and the United States of America. Ukraine should take certain actions against the new super-assertive and aggressive Russia. The European Union unquestionably has provided significant aid to Ukraine during these turbulent times. However, there remains great potential for cooperation, and questions linger regarding whether the EU is prepared to foot the bill for pulling Ukraine’s economy away from the brink indefinitely. Finally, the United States should by all means continue doing its good work in bringing attention to the situation in and around Ukraine in a variety of ways, including multilateral venues, unilateral initiatives, and bilateral frameworks. The fact that Ukraine is located in Europe does not make this crisis a mere European problem but a conflict with global repercussions.
Topic:
International Relations, International Political Economy, International Security, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, and European Union