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42. Painter Bryan Larsen on His Artwork and Ideas
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 06-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- I recently had the great pleasure of speaking with Bryan Larsen about his work, how he became a painter, who and what inspires him, and why his subjects always look so beautifully purposeful. Mr. Larsen's work can be seen and purchased through the Quent Cordair Fine Art gallery in Napa, California. His painting, Liberty, adorns the cover of this issue of The Objective Standard.
- Political Geography:
- California
43. The Audacity of the Texaco/Calasiatic Award: René-Jean Dupuy and the Internationalization of Foreign Investment Law
- Author:
- Julien Cantegreil
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The Texaco Overseas Petroleum Company and California Asiatic Oil Company v. The Government of the Libyan Arab Republic awards refer to concession contract provisions and a political context that are now obsolete. Thus, this article argues on the one hand that the award on the merits, delivered in January 1977, provides an unparalleled opportunity to survey almost every facet of the world of international investment arbitration of the past. On the other hand, the award must nevertheless also be read as forward-looking. By fostering a shift from the traditional hegemony of national jurisdiction in international investment law to the internationalization of international contracts, the article underlines that the award on the merits remains the finest example of René-Jean Dupuy's long-lasting contribution to international law doctrine. By way of conclusion, it suggests that it provides the very best expression and point of entry into Professor Dupuy's understanding and shaping of what he coined 'la communauté'.
- Topic:
- Government and International Law
- Political Geography:
- Asia, Libya, California, and Arabia
44. Will Oil Drown the Arab Spring?
- Author:
- Michael L. Ross
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Summary: No state with serious oil wealth has ever transformed into a democracy. Oil lets dictators buy off citizens, keep their finances secret, and spend wildly on arms. To prevent the “resource curse” from dashing the hopes of the Arab Spring, Washington should push for more transparent oil markets -- and curb its own oil addiction. MICHAEL L. ROSS is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of the forthcoming book The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations. Even before this year's Arab uprisings, the Middle East was not an undifferentiated block of authoritarianism. The citizens of countries with little or no oil, such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia, generally had more freedom than those of countries with lots of it, such as Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. And once the tumult started, the oil-rich regimes were more effective at fending off attempts to unseat them. Indeed, the Arab Spring has seriously threatened just one oil-funded ruler -- Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi -- and only because NATO's intervention prevented the rebels' certain defeat. Worldwide, democracy has made impressive strides over the last three decades: just 30 percent of the world's governments were democratic in 1980; about 60 percent are today. Yet almost all the democratic governments that emerged during that period were in countries with little or no oil; in fact, countries that produced less than $100 per capita of oil per year (about what Ukraine and Vietnam produce) were three times as likely to democratize as countries that produced more than that. No country with more than a fraction of the per capita oil wealth of Bahrain, Iraq, or Libya has ever successfully gone from dictatorship to democracy. Scholars have called this the oil curse, arguing that oil wealth leads to authoritarianism, economic instability, corruption, and violent conflict. Skeptics claim that the correlation between oil and repression is a coincidence. As Dick Cheney, then the CEO of Haliburton, remarked at a 1996 energy conference, "The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas reserves where there are democratic governments." But divine intervention did not cause repression in the Middle East: hydrocarbons did. There is no getting around the fact that countries in the region are less free because they produce and sell oil.
- Topic:
- NATO, Government, and Oil
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Ukraine, Middle East, Kuwait, Libya, Vietnam, California, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and Tunisia
45. Bridging the Gap in Urban Health and Poverty Research
- Author:
- Mojgan Sami
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Wilson Center
- Abstract:
- Urban health tends to be perceived as measures ensuring access to fresh food, parks, sidewalks and good air quality. In the last decade, donors such as The California Endowment have initiated place-based plans to “build healthy communities” through participatory action planning. While these endeavors are steps in the right direction, the overall approach to healthy urban development tends to narrowly focus on the physical and built environment, and does not pay adequate attention to the social determinants of health, or what the World Health Organization calls “causes behind the causes” of health (WHO 2008). In part, the challenge lies in the difficulty of understanding the complexity of social reality and the diverse social constructions of health and poverty that exist in multi-cultural cities throughout the world. To control for such complexity, planners tend to favor quantitative, standardized approaches to research whereby they can generalize impacts and solutions to a wider population. However, by overly de-contextualizing urban health research, planners miss the opportunity of obtaining deeper understanding and insight into the age-old problems that have plagued cities from the beginning of the planning profession; namely, inequity and inequality (Hall 2002).
- Topic:
- Development, Health, Poverty, and Food
- Political Geography:
- California
46. Interview with the Author: Dictators' Race to the Bottom
- Author:
- Alastair Smith
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- In their new book, The Dictator's Handbook, New York University professors Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith argue that to understand how dictators monopolize power, we need to look no further than our local city council. The book begins in Bell, California, where a scandal erupted in 2010 over the city manager's $787,000 annual salary. For seventeen years, Robert Rizzo swindled thousands of dollars from his constituents, a quarter of whom lived below the poverty line. Bueno de Mesquita and Smith discovered that Rizzo behaved as all politicians do, whether democrats or dictators, securing his hold on power by reducing the size of his electorate. Rizzo manipulated the timing of elections to ensure low voter turnout and held special elections on policies that would give the city council greater control of the budget. In a conversation with the Journal's Rebecca Chao, Smith explained how dictators act in very much the same way, and discussed how the book's unconventional and pessimistic take on governance provides us with a more informative method for classifying regimes.
- Topic:
- Governance
- Political Geography:
- New York and California
47. AB 32 and Climate Change: The National Context of State Policies for a Global Commons Problem
- Author:
- Robert N. Stavins
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Why should anyone be interested in the national context of a state policy? In the case of California's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), the answer flows directly from the very nature of the problem— global climate change, the ultimate global commons problem. Greenhouse gases (GHGs) uniformly mix in the atmosphere. Therefore, any jurisdiction taking action—whether a nation, a state, or a city—will incur the costs of its actions, but the benefits of its actions (reduced risk of climate-change damages) will be distributed globally. Hence, for virtually any jurisdiction, the benefits it reaps from its climate-policy actions will be less than the cost it incurs. This is despite the fact that the global benefits of action may well be greater—possibly much greater—than global costs.
- Topic:
- Climate Change and Environment
- Political Geography:
- United States and California
48. Estimating ObamaCare's Effect on State Medicaid Expenditure Growth
- Author:
- Jagadeesh Gokhale
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Unless repeal attempts succeed, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ObamaCare) promises to increase state government obligations on account of Medicaid by expanding Medicaid eligibility and introducing an individual health insurance mandate for all US citizens and legal permanent residents. Once ObamaCare becomes fully effective in 2014, the cost of newly eligible Medicaid enrollees will be almost fully covered by the federal government through 2019, with federal financial support expected to be extended thereafter. But ObamaCare provides states with zero additional federal financial support for new enrollees among those eligible for Medicaid under the old laws. That makes increased state Medicaid costs from higher enrollments by "old-eligibles" virtually certain as they enroll into Medicaid to comply with the mandate to purchase health insurance. This study estimates and compares potential increases in Medicaid costs from ObamaCare for the five most populous states: California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas.
- Topic:
- Government, Health, Markets, and Health Care Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States, New York, California, and Florida
49. Editor's Note
- Author:
- Ahmed I. Samatar
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
- Institution:
- Macalester College
- Abstract:
- Greetings to all of you! As we celebrate the tenth anniversary of Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies, I would like to, one more time, express my gratitude to the five institutions that helped establish the journal: Macalester College, Wellesley College, the University of Pennsylvania, the College of the Holy Cross, and California State University, Chico.
- Political Geography:
- California
50. The Economic Impact of International Students from a Cross-National Perspective
- Author:
- Robert Gutierrez, Patricia Chow, Jason Baumgartner, and Yuriko Sato
- Publication Date:
- 05-2009
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Institute of International Education
- Abstract:
- IIE Open Doors Data on U.S. International Educational Exchange. Project Atlas: Global Student Mobility. International Student Economic Impact in the U.S. Comparison of International Student Economic Impact in USA, Japan and Australia.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Economics, Markets, and Migration
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, China, Asia, California, Australia, and Texas