Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Global Focus

4161. When Courts Plan: The Greening of Delhi's Autorickshaws

Author:
Atul Pokharel
Publication Date:
08-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Implementing municipal-scale policies is challenging in megacities. Despite this, between 1986 and 2006, Delhi converted its entire public transportation network of nearly 100,000 vehicles to use Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) instead of diesel and petrol. The use of CNG is widely assumed to have been ordered by the Supreme Court of India. But this overlooks how autorickshaws, privately owned and making up three-fourths of these vehicles, came to use CNG even though the court did not order it. Using two new sources of data, I show that the conversion of autos was jointly led by the largest private manufacturer together with the city government. The court facilitated coordination between several other actors, allowed them to experiment, and monitored progress over two decades leading up to the auto conversion. After capping the total number of autos, it ultimately refrained from passing judgment on two consequential aspects of greening them: vehicle ownership and fuel type. As a result, auto owners were buffeted by decades of incremental policy experimentation. Eventually, these experiments reconfigured auto ownership as some sold their operating permits to become renters, while state institutions remained indifferent to this shadow conversion underfoot.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4162. Cabal City: Regime Theory and Indian Urbanization

Author:
Patrick Heller
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
This paper explores the interaction of politics and business through the lens of the city. The power of business to influence politics in India would lead to a prediction that Indian cities are, in the classic sense of the term, growth machines. Yet we argue in this paper that fundamental problems of governance in India’s megacities have precluded the possibility of business coalitions exerting cohesive influence over investments policies in cities. The result has been the predominance of what we call cabals, that are expert at extracting rents from the city, but in the end fail to promote development in the sense of an institutionalized process of economic and social improvement in the city. Where there has been high growth, it has not been accompanied by the expansion of the cities’ infrastructure and overall coordination capacities. In the end, what is good for business and politicians had neither been good for capitalism in terms of dynamic accumulation nor for inclusion of middle and poorer social groups.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4163. Flexible Governance and Perceived Fairness: Evidence from Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems in Nepal

Author:
Atul Pokharel
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
What is the relationship between flexible governance and fairness? I examine this question in a new longitudinal dataset of irrigation canals in Nepal that were celebrated as paradigmatic cases of successful local governance. The prevalent explanation is that users have avoided knotty collective action problems by committing to rules and mutually monitoring compliance. These rules are understood to have been iteratively crafted over decades so as to render cooperative behavior reasonable. Embedded in a local context that is assumed to be common knowledge for users but ultimately impenetrable to outsiders, it is critical that locals discursively devise the rules and uniformly enforce them. Revisiting these cases three decades later, I first illustrate a distinction between two aspects of flexible governance: flexible rules and flexible enforcement. The former refers to changing rules over time, the latter to variations in enforcement. I document the predicted flexibility of the rules in these cases. I then show that a significant number of successes are associated with flexible enforcement. Whether flexible enforcement helps or hinders sustained collective action appears to depend on how fair users perceive the rules to be. Thus, discretionary enforcement may be related to the possibilities and limits of local governance in achieving fair outcomes, and not just for merely solving collective action problems.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4164. Neopatrimonialism and Democracy: An Empirical Investigation of Africa's Political Regimes

Author:
Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
One of the most common adjectives used to describe democracy in sub-Saharan Africa is "neopatrimonial". Characterized by strong executives, pervasive clientelism and use of state resources for political legitimation (Bratton and van de Walle 1997), neopatrimonial democracy has been (controversially) associated with a range of (mostly undesirable) social, political and economic outcomes. This paper offers an empirical assessment of neopatrimonialism in Africa's political regimes. We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, African regimes vary both quantitatively and qualitatively in their embodiment of neopatrimonial rule. Moreover, we find no clear evidence indicating that neopatrimonialism necessarily impedes the advancement or survival of democracy
Topic:
Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4165. Local Democracy and Economic Growth

Author:
Carl Henrik Knutsen, John Gerring, and Svend-Erik Skaaning
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem)
Abstract:
Theoretical work on the institutional sources of economic growth regards decentralization and democracy in a positive light. Despite this, empirical work shows that neither fiscal decentralization nor national democracy is a robust predictor of per capita GDP growth. We argue that these theories have failed to bear fruit because they ignore the linchpin of decentralization and democracy, namely local democracy. Democracy at a local level enhances economic growth by enabling decentralized policy selection and incentivizing local politicians to select policies that benefit economic development, including the provision of local public goods. We test for the relationship using a novel measure of local democracy with global coverage and time series extending from 1900 to the present. We find robust evidence that local democracy nurtures growth. This relationship holds up when accounting for country- and year-fixed effects, when controlling for democracy at the national level, and when we treat our measure of local democracy as an endogenous regressor. Additional tests reveal that the relationship is clearer in contexts where our argument suggests that it should operate more strongly, namely (national- level) democracies and in periods and regions where local-level institutions have a more pronounced role in policy-making.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4166. Outcome Report of Workshop on International Investment and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Author:
Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
On May 12, 2016, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment hosted a one-day workshop on international investment and the rights of indigenous peoples. This outcome document synthesizes the discussions that took place during the May 12 workshop. The workshop was part of a series of consultations undertaken to support the Special Rapporteur’s second thematic analysis on the impact of international investment agreements on the rights of indigenous peoples (available here). Held at the Ford Foundation in New York, the workshop brought together 53 academics, practitioners, indigenous representatives, and civil society representatives to explore strategies for strengthening the rights and interests of indigenous peoples in the context of international investment. The workshop provided an opportunity for participants to share their diverse perspectives, experiences, and insights regarding the intersection of international investment and human rights, and to discuss creative and pragmatic approaches to short and long-term reform of both the investment and human rights regimes, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that indigenous rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled.
Topic:
International Relations, Human Rights, and Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4167. Space for Local Content Policies and Strategies

Author:
Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
This paper explores both the role that local content measures can play in advancing sustainable development, and the impact that trade and investment treaties concluded over the past 20 years have had and will continue to have on the ability of governments to employ those tools. Certain local content measures had been restricted under the WTO due to wide agreement by negotiating parties that their costs outweigh their benefits. But the WTO also left a number of local content measures in governments’ policy toolboxes. As is discussed in this paper, however, that is changing, with the range of permissible actions for many countries being significantly smaller than it was even a decade ago. This narrowed policy space, in turn, can limit the steps governments can take to make progress on the universally adopted Sustainable Development Goals.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4168. Employment from Mining and Agricultural Investments: How Much Myth, How Much Reality?

Author:
Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Olle Östensson, and Perrine Toledano
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Employment creation is often seen as a key benefit of investment in natural resources. However, this benefit sometimes falls short: job estimates may be inflated, governmental policies may fail to maximize employment generation, and, in some cases, investments may lead to net livelihood losses. A more thorough examination of employment tied to mining and agricultural investments is thus useful for assessing whether and how employment from natural resource investments contributes to sustainable economic development—a particularly timely topic as countries consider how they will achieve the Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015.
Topic:
Agriculture, International Affairs, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4169. Mapping Mining to the Sustainable Development Goals: An Atlas

Author:
Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
CCSI has been working with the World Economic Forum, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) to create a shared understanding of how the mining industry can most effectively contribute to the SDGs. The report will help mining companies navigate where their activities – from exploration, through operations and mine closure – can help the world achieve the SDGs. Governments, civil society and other stakeholders can also identify opportunities for shared action and partnership with the industry.
Topic:
International Development
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4170. Linkages to the Resource Sector: The Role of Companies, Governments, and International Development Cooperation

Author:
Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
With support from GIZ, CCSI prepared a report titled “Linkages to the Resource Sector: The Role of Companies, Governments, and International Development Cooperation.” It outlines options for how these stakeholders can increase the economic linkages to the extractive industries sector not only in terms of ‘breadth’ (number of linkages) but also in terms of ‘depth’ (local value added). Apart from providing the theoretical framework for linkage creation and an overview of existing literature on this topic, the study highlights successful case study examples. Recommendations are provided for the three types of stakeholders.
Topic:
Government, International Political Economy, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4171. A Policy Framework to Approach the Use of Associated Petroleum Gas

Author:
Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
CCSI developed A Policy Framework to Approach the Use of Associated Petroleum Gas. Associated Petroleum Gas (APG) is a form of natural gas that is found associated with petroleum fields. APG is often flared or vented for regulatory, economic or technical reasons. The flaring, however, is problematic from health and environmental perspectives. Moreover, flaring and venting APG wastes a valuable non-renewable resource that could be re-injected into the oil field or used for local and regional electricity generation. This framework aims at providing guidance for regulators, policymakers, and industry leaders seeking to develop practical approaches to unlock the economic value of APG.
Topic:
Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4172. Land Deal Dilemmas: Grievances, Human Rights, and Investor Protections

Author:
Kaitlin Y. Cordes
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Land-based investments can create significant grievances for local individuals or communities, and host governments seeking to address those grievances must navigate a complicated landscape of legal obligations and pragmatic considerations. This report, funded by UK aid from the Department for International Development, focuses on practical solutions for governments confronting grievances that arise from large-scale investments in agricultural or forestry projects. The report considers such solutions in the context of governments’ legal obligations, particularly those imposed by international investment law, international human rights law, and investor-state contracts. Understanding the implications of this diverse range of legal obligations is particularly important in light of investors’ growing recourse to international investment arbitration, which can expose a government to liability under an international investment treaty for actions that may be in the best interest of a country and its citizens. Analyzing such obligations is a useful first step for a government seeking to protect its citizens against the negative impacts of land-based investments.
Topic:
International Development
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4173. Guide to Land Contracts: Agricultural Projects

Author:
Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Agricultural investment contracts can be complex, with complicated provisions that are difficult to understand. This Guide provides explanations for a range of common provisions, and includes a Glossary of legal and technical terms. It assists non-lawyers in better understanding agricultural investment contracts, such as those available on OpenLandContracts.org. The Guide was prepared by International Senior Lawyers Project staff and volunteers in collaboration with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment.
Topic:
Agriculture and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4174. The Use of Force Against the Islamic State

Author:
Tamás Lattmann and Veronika Bílková
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute of International Relations Prague
Abstract:
The Islamic State (IS) must not be recognized as a State. It is an illegitimate non-state actor engaged in serious violations of international law. The use of force against the IS does not have a uniform legal basis. Some of the related actions can be justified on the grounds of the consent of the territorial State (this is the case with the US in Iraq, and Russia in Syria). The legality of other actions against the IS (those of Turkey in Iraq, and of the US in Syria) remains doubtful. The IS is likely to be defeated in the upcoming months. The situation does not require a more active engagement by the Czech Republic beyond what it is already doing (provision of weapons, training of armed and police personnel, etc.).
Topic:
International Security and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4175. Lost Hopes: Where to Go after the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons?

Author:
Miroslav Tuma
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute of International Relations Prague
Abstract:
The 9th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was held from 27 April to 22 May 2015 at the UN Headquarters in New York, but it failed. The Czech Republic should engage in urging other countries to achieve progress in nuclear disarmament through a compromise approach known as “the building blocks”. In parallel, it should also actively support the process of emphasizing the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. Also, the Czech Republic’s good relations with Israel should focus on the support for holding a Middle East conference on the creation of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction, a project enjoying long-term EU support. It would also be desirable for the Czech Republic to continue with its strong support for the achievement of the NPT’s universality, the early entry of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty into force and the start of a substantive debate about the main points at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4176. Transfers and Transparency

Author:
Irene Pavesi
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
This Update provides an overview of the international trade in small arms and light weapons in 2013. The first section of the Update reports on the total values and main categories of small arms1 transferred by top and major exporters and importers. This section also assesses changes in trade patterns from 2012 to 2013. The second section presents the 2016 edition of the Small Arms Trade Transparency Barometer, whose methodology and sourcing have been revised. As explained below, the Barometer now includes a new source—the Regional Report on Arms Exports, prepared by of the South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms (SEESAC).
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, Weapons, and Arms Trade
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4177. A Guide to the Small Arms Process

Author:
Sarah Parker and Marcus Wilson
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
UN member states adopted the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime in November 2000.3 UNTOC was supplemented by three protocols that address trafficking in persons, the smuggling of migrants, and the illicit manufacture of and trafficking in firearms. The third of these—the UN Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, known as the Firearms Protocol—was adopted on 31 May 2001 by General Assembly Resolution 55/255 and entered into force on 3 July 2005 (UNGA, 2001c). For states that have ratified or otherwise formally expressed their consent to be bound by it, the Firearms Protocol is legally binding.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, United Nations, Weapons, and Arms Trade
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4178. Regional Organizations and the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms

Author:
Eric G. Berman and Kerry Maze
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
The UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA) provides an increasingly critical framework for governments and civil society. Armed groups continue to illegally access and use illegal weapons to mount mass attacks on civilians and terrorize cities and communities, commit human rights violations and banditry, and incite and prolong armed conflicts. Some 60 million people are displaced due to war and insecurity (UNHCR, 2016). Armed attacks and kidnappings directed at humanitarian workers are at record highs. Armed groups are increasingly disregarding international humanitarian law and, as a result, are blocking much needed assistance to populations at risk.1 The vast majority of deaths from armed violence do not occur in conflict settings, however. Of the more than 500,000 lives that are lost annually to armed violence, in some countries small arms––many of them illicit––are used in more than three out of four homicides (Geneva Declaration Secretariat, 2015).
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, International Security, Governance, Weapons, and UNDP
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4179. A New Development Agenda: Bridging the Development–Security Divide

Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Weapons play a pivotal role in violence and insecurity worldwide: around 44 per cent of all violent deaths involve the use of firearms (Geneva Declaration Secretariat, 2015, p. 2). Given their typically long life spans, small arms can circu- late in a region or between regions over dec- ades, while in the wrong hands even small quantities of arms and ammunition can have destabilizing effects. In particular, the illicit proliferation of arms and ammunition is a driver of modern armed conflicts, often pro- longing their effects (Anders, 2015; Diehl and Jenzen-Jones, 2014; Florquin and Leff, 2014). Flows of illicit arms also affect countries sup- posedly ‘at peace’, contributing to high levels of violence (Schroeder, 2013; 2014; 2016).
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, International Security, Military Strategy, Armed Struggle, Military Affairs, and Weapons
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4180. A New Development Agenda: Bridging the Development–Security Divide

Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Weapons play a pivotal role in violence and insecurity worldwide: around 44 per cent of all violent deaths involve the use of firearms (Geneva Declaration Secretariat, 2015, p. 2). Given their typically long life spans, small arms can circu- late in a region or between regions over dec- ades, while in the wrong hands even small quantities of arms and ammunition can have destabilizing effects. In particular, the illicit proliferation of arms and ammunition is a driver of modern armed conflicts, often pro- longing their effects (Anders, 2015; Diehl and Jenzen-Jones, 2014; Florquin and Leff, 2014). Flows of illicit arms also affect countries sup- posedly ‘at peace’, contributing to high levels of violence (Schroeder, 2013; 2014; 2016).
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, International Security, Military Strategy, Armed Struggle, Military Affairs, and Weapons
Political Geography:
Global Focus