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1. Rethinking the Concept of a “Durable Solution”: Sahrawi Refugee Camps Four Decades On

Author:
Carmen Gomez Martin
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The Sahrawi people, who have long lived in the western part of the Sahara, have been housed in refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, since 1975—the year that Morocco took de facto control of Western Sahara. Their situation poses many questions, including those regarding the status of their state-in-exile, the role of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and the length of their displacement. The conditions in the Tindouf camps present a paradigmatic case study of the liminal space inhabited by long-term refugees. Over the decades, residents have transformed these camps into a state-like structure with their own political and administrative institutions, which has enabled the international community to gain time to search for an acceptable political solution to the long-term conflict between the Polisario Front (the Sahrawi rebel national liberation movement) and the Moroccan government. The existence of a state-like structure, however, should not itself be understood as the ultimate solution for the thousands of people in these camps, who are currently living in extreme poverty, surviving on increasingly meager international aid, and enduring an exceptionally long wait for the favorable conditions whereby they may return to their place of origin. This essay is divided into three sections. First, it addresses the question of the Western Sahara from a historical point of view. The three major phases of the Sahrawi-Moroccan conflict provide the context for the formation and the current situation of the Sahrawi refugee camps. Second, it touches on the implementation of durable solutions for refugees living in camps and the supposedly transitional role of these spaces in such solutions. Finally, the essay applies an analytical framework to the paradigmatic case of the Sahrawi, demonstrating the contradictions between the theoretical model used to understand protracted refugee situations and the permanent problem regarding the rights of refugees.
Topic:
Poverty, Refugees, Displacement, Conflict, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Africa, Algeria, Morocco, and Western Sahara

2. Hunger, Food Security, and the African Land Grab

Author:
Richard Schiffman
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
If you were organizing dinner parties for the world, you would need to put out 219,000 more place settings every night than you had the night before. That is how fast the Earth's population is growing. But global agricultural production is currently f ailing to keep pace. A June 2012 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) sees trouble looming ahead, warning that "land and water resources are now much more stressed than in the past and are becoming scarcer."
Political Geography:
Africa

3. Introduction

Author:
Antonio Franceschet
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Within a short period the International Criminal Court (ICC) has become central to world politics. The dramatic diplomatic process that produced the Rome Statute in 1998 was followed by an unexpectedly rapid succession of state ratifications and the establishment of the court in 2002. As of late 2011 the ICC has indicted twenty-six individuals related to seven official investigations, all in Africa. Proceedings against one of these individuals were dismissed. Two other indictments, including one for Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, became moot because the individuals were killed before arrest or trial. The remaining list includes a sitting head of state, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, as well as Kenya's sitting deputy prime minister, Uhuru Kenyatta. The United Nations Security Council referred both the Sudan and Libya situations to the court; three African states requested investigations of their own situations. The ICC prosecutor independently started an investigation in Kenya. Despite efforts by Kenyan state officials to halt ICC proceedings related to the widespread violence and killings following the 2007 national elections, opinion polls suggest that 73 percent of Kenyans want the ICC to remain involved.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Kenya, Africa, Sudan, Libya, and United Nations

4. Addressing Poverty and Climate Change: The Varieties of Social Engagement

Author:
Simon Caney
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The world is marked by very great poverty and inequality. The lives of many of our fellow inhabitants of this planet are blighted by malnutrition, disease, and destitution. Yet mass suffering is often met by casual indifference or acceptance, and sometimes even by active support of the status quo. While tragedies occur elsewhere in the world, the vast majority of us continue in our daily tasks and, in the words of W. H. Auden, turn away " quite leisurely from the disaster. " It is in response to this reality that Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) asks: What, in light of mass poverty, are the responsibilities of academics?
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa

5. Beyond Charity: Helping NGOs Lead a Transformative New Public Discourse on Global Poverty and Social Justice

Author:
Martin Kirk
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
This article looks at the role that Northern nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can play in engaging domestic publics in efforts to eradicate mass global poverty. In doing so, it makes two assumptions about this relationship that are important to outline. First, it is assumed that what the public in Northern countries think or understand about mass global poverty is a relevant factor in alleviating or overcoming it. In other words, it is important that people in Ohio or the Scottish Highlands understand why, for example, a billion people live in absolute poverty in a world that has the physical resources to provide for all of humanity's basic needs. As long as Northern states dominate the G7, the G8, and the Bretton Woods institutions; dictate many of the terms of international trade; and consume far more than an equitable share of global resources, the social norms of these countries will directly inform global efforts against mass poverty. Further, the idea that the fight against mass global poverty is the job only of politicians and business leaders, and that the attitudes of the general public are not at all instrumental in or relevant to their decision-making, is clearly untenable. Indeed, public support for the policies that would bring transformational change is essential. As Paul Collier writes in The Bottom Billion , "Without an informed electorate, politicians will continue to use the bottom billion merely for photo opportunities, rather than promoting real transformation"
Topic:
Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa

6. Clean Trade in Natural Resources

Author:
Leif Wenar
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The "resource curse" can strike countries that derive a large portion of their national income from exporting high-value natural resources, such as oil, gas, metals, and gems. Resource-exporting countries are subject to four overlapping curses: they are more prone to authoritarianism, they tend to suffer more corruption, they are at a higher risk for civil wars, and they exhibit greater economic instability. The correlations between resources and such pathologies as authoritarianism, corruption, civil conflict, and economic dysfunction are evident in the list of the five major African oil exporters: Algeria, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, and Sudan. The recent histories of mineral exporters support the correlations: for example, "blood diamonds" fueled Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war, and the continuing conflict in the metal-rich eastern Congo has caused up to 6 million deaths. The phenomenon is not solely African: Burma, Yemen, and Turkmenistan, for example, are also resource cursed. Moreover, poor governance in resource-cursed countries can engender follow-on pathologies, such as a propensity to cause environmental damage both domestically (for example, through the destruction of forests) and globally (through increased greenhouse gas emissions). Most research on the resource curse has focused on the institutions of exporting countries. This essay focuses instead on importing countries, especially those in North America and Europe. I survey how the resource curse impedes core interests of importing states. I then discuss how the policies of importing states drive the resource curse, and how these policies violate their existing international commitments. The second half of the paper describes a policy framework for importing states that can improve international trade in resources for both importers and exporters.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Sudan, Libya, Algeria, Burma, North America, Nigeria, and Angola

7. "Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference"

Author:
Eva Hausteiner
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Recent books on empires—and there have been many—often have quite straightforward titles. Famous examples include Michael Doyle's Empires(1986), Niall Ferguson's Empire (2003), Herfried Münkler's Empires (2008), and Timothy Parsons'sThe Rule of Empires (2010). Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper's Empires in World History is no exception. One reason for this might be that the concept of empire is still not fully established in the scholarly vocabulary when it comes to describing the present. Speaking of empires in the past is widely accepted, but imperial structures as recurring and even contemporary political phenomena are still highly debated. The endeavor of bringing empire back in as a transhistorical concept of heuristic value, complementing existing notions of political order, such as the nation-state, and going beyond the analysis of imperialism, is far from concluded.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Eurasia

8. Briefly Noted

Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
This section contains a round-up of recent notable books in the field of international affairs.
Topic:
Security and Development
Political Geography:
Africa, New York, and Europe

9. Keeping the Peace in Africa: Why "African" Solutions Are Not Enough

Author:
Paul D. Williams
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Since the early 1990s, a variety of African and Western governments alike have often suggested that finding "African solutions to African problems" represents the best approach to keeping the peace in Africa. Not only does the empirical evidence from post-Cold War Africa suggest that there are some fundamental problems with this approach, it also rests upon some problematic normative commitments. Specifically in relation to the problem of armed conflict, the "African solutions" logic would have at least three negative consequences: it would undermine the UN; it would provide a convenient excuse for powerful Western states that wished to avoid sending their own soldiers to peace operations in Africa; and it would help African autocrats fend off international, especially Western, criticism of their policies. After providing an overview of the constituent elements of the "African solutions" approach, this article sets out in general terms the central problems with it before turning to a specific illustration of how these problems affected the international responses to the ongoing war in Darfur, Sudan. Instead of searching for "African solutions", policymakers should focus on developing effective solutions for the complex challenges raised by the issue of armed conflict in Africa. To this end, Western states in general and the P-3 in particular should give greater support to conflict management activities undertaken by the United Nations, develop clearer guidelines for how these should relate to regional initiatives, and facilitate the efforts of civic associations to build the foundations for stable peace in the continent's war zones.
Topic:
Cold War and United Nations
Political Geography:
Africa and Darfur

10. "The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers"

Author:
Joseph P. Joyce
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Woods is an insightful and thoughtful authority on the Bretton Woods institutions. In this book she examines their activities and focuses on their engagements with Mexico, Russia, and the sub-Saharan African nations.
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, and Mexico