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801. The Russian Handicap to U.S. Iran Policy

Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
There are voices in the Obama Administration who believe that the Kremlin is able and willing to exert pressure on Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, perceived geopolitical and economic benefits in the unstable Persian Gulf, in which American influence is on the wane, outweigh Russia's concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran. The Kremlin sees Iran not as a threat but as a partner or an ad-hoc ally to challenge U.S. influence. Today, both Russia and Iran favor a strategy of "multipolarity," both in the Middle East and worldwide. This strategy seeks to dilute American power, revise current international financial institutions, and weaken or neuter NATO and the OSCE, while forging a counterbalance to the Euro-Atlantic alliance. Russian technological aid is evident throughout the Iranian missile and space programs. Russian scientists and expertise have played a direct and indirect role in these programs for years. According to some reports, Russian specialists are helping to develop the longer-range Shahab-5, and Russia has exported missile production facilities to Iran. Moscow has signed a contract to sell advanced long-range S-300 air-defense systems to Iran. Once Iran has air defenses to repel Israeli or American air strikes and nuclear warheads for its ballistic missiles, it will possess the capacity to destroy Israel (an openly stated goal of the regime) and strike targets throughout the Middle East, in Europe, and the Indian subcontinent. Beyond that, if and when an ICBM capability is achieved, Tehran will be able to threaten the U.S. homeland directly. Given the substantial Russian interests and ambitions, any grand bargain would almost certainly require an excessively high price paid by the United States to the detriment of its friends and allies. Russia simply does not view the situation through the same lens as the U.S.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Economics, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Iran, and Middle East

802. The Politics of Adjustment and Coordination at the Regional Level: The Basque Country

Author:
Sebastian Royo
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Is globalization forcing non-“Coordinated Market Economies” such as Spain to converge on an Anglo-American model? This paper seeks to build on the hypotheses generated by the literature on “Varieties of Capitalism” to analyze the challenges of developing and sustaining coordination while adjusting for economic change. In particular it seeks to explore ways in which subnational factors promote the ability of socioeconomic actors to develop public-private institutions. By focusing on a particular autonomous region of Spain, the Basque Country, this paper will explore the role of institutional arrangements at the regional level in determining national adjustment. In the Basque Country the relative power and the particular interests of the regional state have been central factors in promoting distinctive patterns of coordination. At the same time, actors' preferences and policy outcomes have been constrained by the differences in the quality and configuration of institutional frameworks, political deals, and the existing economic structure.
Topic:
Economics and Markets
Political Geography:
America, Europe, and Spain

803. Close to Home: UK poverty and the economic downturn

Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The major social policy challenge of the current economic recession is how to prevent a precipitous rise in poverty in the UK. In addition to limiting the numbers of people plunged into poverty because of the recession, government must also mitigate the impact on people already living below the poverty line. But, this paper will argue, response s to the recession present an opportunity to make a step-change, ensuring that actions taken also help build a fairer, more sustainable society in which poverty is ended in the long-term.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Poverty, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
Europe

804. The G20 Meetings: No Common Framework, No Consensus

Author:
Michael Pettis
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Participants in the recently completed G20 meeting in London agreed on a number of measures, some substantial and some merely symbolic, but they sidestepped the real issues dividing the major economic powers and, in so doing, failed to address the root causes of the global trade and investment imbalances. This was almost inevitable. China, Europe, and the United States have incompatible conceptual frameworks for understanding the causes of the global financial crisis; furthermore, their conflicting domestic political constraints make agreement on solutions hard to reach. Europeans believe that the root cause of the crisis was excessively deregulated financial systems, and they are skeptical about U.S. and Chinese calls for fiscal expansion, worrying that excessive spending would prolong the imbalances and make the ultimate adjustment more difficult. China also believes that the roots of the crisis lie within the structure of the global financial system, although Beijing insists that it was mainly the reserve status of the U.S. dollar that permitted imbalances to develop to unsustainable levels. China is particularly vulnerable to trade protection and seeks to maintain open markets for its continued export of domestic overcapacity. Like the United States, it is pushing for more aggressive, globally coordinated fiscal expansion. However, because of rigidities in its financial system and development model, its fiscal response to the crisis may exacerbate the difficult global adjustment and may, ironically, increase the chances of trade friction. In a time of contracting demand, the United States controls two-thirds of the most valuable resource in the world: net demand. Consequently, it is U.S. policies that will determine the pace and direction of the global recovery, along with the institutional framework that will govern trade and investment relationships for decades to come. The crisis puts the United States more firmly at the center of the emerging world order than ever. So far, the United States has not understood the need to consider the global outcomes of its recovery policies. Until the major powers can reach consensus about the roots of the imbalance and cooperate on policies to promote recovery, it is likely that the world economy will get worse before it gets better. The United States will drive the recovery process, but in order to do so effectively it will need to recognize its position of strength and negotiate the appropriate agreements with other major powers, especially China, on the pace and nature of the adjustment.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, and London

805. Tectonic Shifts and Systemic Faultlines: A Global Perspective to Understand the 2008-2009 World Economic Crisis

Author:
Bülent GÖKAY
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
Institution:
Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
Abstract:
The last months of 2008 witnessed what is being called the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1929-30. The first indications of a serious crisis appeared in January 2008. On 15 January, news of a sharp drop in the profits of the Citigroup banking led to a sharp fall on the New York Stock Exchange. On 21 January a spectacular fall in share prices occurred in all major world markets, followed by a series of collapses. A number of American and European banks declared massive losses in their 2007 end of the year results.
Topic:
Economics and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
New York, America, and Europe

806. How the market for standards shapes competition in the market for goods: Sustainability standards in the cut flower industry

Author:
Lone Riisgaard
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Sustainability initiatives have proliferated in many industries in recent years. This has led to a plethora of standards that exist in parallel to each other seeking to address more or less the same social and environmental issues. Sustainability standards are not neutral tools but institutional mechanisms that differ in the way they seek to implement their objectives and in the impact they have on intended beneficiaries and other value chain actors. In this paper I explore the emergence of multiple standards seeking to regulate the social conditions in the production of cut flowers aimed at the EU market. I investigate developments in the focus and function of these standards and the effect of standards and standard harmonization attempts on the terms of competition in the cut flower value chain. The analysis shows that the harmonization of flower standards has a potential to 'lift the standard bar' by transforming risk management standards into product differ-entiation standards. The paper also shows how the market for standards can shape competition in the market for flowers by altering the terms of participation in the growing market segment for 'sustainable' flowers. Through the new standard harmonization initiative Fair Flowers Fair Plants, Dutch growers are now able to compete in the market for socially labelled flowers which before was restricted to Southern producers.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
Europe

807. Political or Economic Crisis?

Author:
Raúl de Arriba Bueno
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Romanian Journal of Political Science
Institution:
Romanian Academic Society
Abstract:
This study analyzes why the presence of economic policy on rural development is justifiable and the recommendable modes of intervention from the perspective of rural area needs and diversification opportunities of the rural economy in the European context. This reflection on the role of economic policy in rural change and the structure of the paper are organized around the following questions: what is the importance and specificity of the rural sphere? What does rural development mean? What arguments justify the intervention of the State in the rural sphere? Which objectives and what forms must this intervention adopt?
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Europe

808. Why the European Union Needs a 'Broader Middle East' Policy

Author:
Edward Burke, Ana Echagüe, and Richard Youngs
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
European foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a highly fragmented construction. Since the mid-1990s the EU's policies with Maghreb and Mashreq countries have been pursued under the rubric of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and now the Mediterranean Union. This plethora of highly institutionalised initiatives has been developed with negligible linkage to policy in the rest of the Middle East. Relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council remain low key and strikingly disconnected from the EMP. Contrary to its rhetorical emphasis on supporting regional integration around the world, the EU has failed to build its strategy towards Iran and Iraq into a regional security framework. Even more reproachable, given its credibility and influence in the economic sphere has been the EU's inability to foster regional economic integration between the Mediterranean and the Gulf.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa

809. The multiple paradoxes of the agriculture issue in Central Asia

Author:
Sébastien Peyrouse
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
Agriculture constitutes one of the main sectors in the economies of Central Asia: cotton production and export, mainly in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and to a lesser extent in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan; a booming grain sector in Kazakhstan; and a long tradition of vegetable cultivation throughout the region. The agrarian question is a sensitive one since the population is still predominantly rural in four of the five republics (all except Kazakhstan) and because food safety is not ensured in the two poorest states (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan). Land reform would be a priority for the growth of investment, increased productivity, and, consequently, the reduction of rural unemployment and poverty. However, pressed by the choice of cotton versus self-sufficiency in food production, the Central Asian states remain hesitant. They must also manage many structural problems, including high levels of corruption in the agrarian administrative organs, the opacity of decisionmaking structures for the export of production, quasi-slavery in some impoverished rural areas, child labour, and serious environmental problems related to the overuse of the soil.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan

810. Who can be trusted after the financial crisis?

Author:
Felix Roth
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
The financial crisis has damaged citizens' trust in public institutions, especially the confidence that European citizens invest in the European institutions. The results of major public opinion surveys show a severe decrease in citizens' trust in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis with a slight recovery nine month later. In particular, citizens' net trust in the European Central Bank hit an historical low point in the aftermath of the financial crisis with a majority of people distrusting that institution. A variety of other surveys also show that confidence levels in the free market economy have decreased in most of the largest economies and demand for stronger state regulation has increased on both sides of the Atlantic. The key question now is whether this loss of confidence is a temporary or permanent phenomenon, which would have important consequences for the economy and for the proper working of the European institutions.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe