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841. The Great Regression? Financial Crisis in an Age of Global Interdependence

Author:
Vadim Kononenko, Raimo Väyrynen, Toby Archer, Kristian Kurki (ed.), and Matti Nojonen
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The financial crisis and the ensuing global economic downturn have been the focal point of news coverage and policy analysis for over a year now, and speculation has been rife about how things will pan out. At one extreme are those who shrug the situation off as a significant yet transient dent in economic development, with marginal repercussions on the global system. At the other end are those touting the crisis as the first step in an epoch-making transition in the global power balance, where rapidly expanding economies like China, Brazil and India will make gains on the hitherto dominant developed nations, shifting the distribution of power in the world. Whatever the eventual outcome, there is no denying that the crisis's impact on international relations will be significant.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Power Politics, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
China, India, and Brazil

842. The Dead Souls: How to deal with the Russian surplus?

Author:
Anna Korppoo
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The 10-15% reduction target by 2020 announced by Russia reflects neither the country's efficiency potential, nor modeled emissions trends. With emission reduction measures, Russia could commit to a target of ca. -30% by 2020. Transferring the surplus emission allowances Russia gained under the Kyoto Protocol due to the economic restructuring of the 1990s represents an extreme threat to both the environmental and market integrity of the Copenhagen agreement as it could be used to offset real domestic emission reduction measures in other countries. But it seems politically unlikely that Russia would join without transferring the surplus under the Copenhagen agreement. Countries should recognize the threat posed by the surplus, and offer a cooperative strategy to deal with it. However, pushing through a 'cancel or discount' approach to the surplus problem by three-quarter majority, which could be brought together without the co-operation of the surplus-holding countries, should be kept as a reserve strategy. More ambitious targets - beyond the 25-40% suggested by the IPCC - for the Annex I industrialized country group, especially for the surplus holding countries including Russia, could absorb the transferred surplus. However, given the current low pledges of Annex 1 countries, higher targets are unlikely to absorb the whole surplus, and therefore, a basket of approaches should be applied. To gain credibility on this issue of vis-à-vis Russia and to avoid Russia setting the tone, before Copenhagen the EU must adopt an internal solution to deal with the surplus of its new member states. If expecting to transfer the surpluses, the other surplus holding countries including Russia could announce national surplus use plans prior to the Copenhagen climate talks. In order to minimize a scenario of Russia blocking the Copenhagen process in the final hours, key countries should publically engage Russia on climate and the Copenhagen talks. Important Annex I countries, especially the US, should send very high-level representatives to Moscow like they have sent to China and India.
Topic:
Climate Change and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, India, and Asia

843. Global security in a multipolar world

Author:
Radha Kumar, Álvaro de Vasconcelos, Andrei Zagorski, Paulo Wrobel, Feng Zhongping, Robert Hutchings, Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, and Luis Peral
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
This is the second Chaillot Paper in a series exploring the various strands of a global topic: multilateralising multipolarity. Through the essays collected in the first study, we set out to assess the scope of change in the international system and how EU action could best be suited to bringing about a multilateral order. After the fall of the Berlin Wall brought about the end of bipolarity, the world has changed no less dramatically since the 1990s witnessed the Balkan wars and the first EU military crisis-management operations. Basically, the post-Cold War 'unipolar' world turned 'multipolar', and as a result the West can no longer tackle global issues – made more pressing indeed due to this very transformation – on its own any more than it can deal single- handedly with regional crises. The comparative analysis of the strategic vision of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the so-called BRICs, showed that the best policy mindset for the European Union, contrary to some suggestions, was not to try to become a normal hard-power player. It further concluded that, in a multi- polar world, this was simply not a viable option. For the European Union to survive and to influence the outcome of the international order, it must succeed in giving a multilateral dimension to the current multipolarity; in other words, Europe must be able to define together with other world and regional powers the norms and rules that are needed to drive concerted efforts to stay clear of some future clash of competing unilateralisms.
Topic:
Security, Globalization, Intelligence, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, India, and Brazil

844. India's Strategic Defense Transformation: Expanding Global Relationships

Author:
Brian K. Hedrick
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Following India's independence in 1947, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru embarked on a foreign policy that was based on principles of socialism and remaining noncommittal to the emerging struggle between the Soviet Union and the countries forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the post-World War II period. Eventually, this policy led to India becoming one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1955. In practical terms, it placed India in a position of securing bilateral international commitments only in situations that were clearly neutral in nature or in cases of lastresort. The basic principles of nonalignment also governed the military relationships of the Indian defense establishment, resulting in limited military-tomilitary contacts, usually through United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions or training at foreign military schools. These practices were generally followed by his successors until the early 1990s when a changing geopolitical structure and an internal economic crisis began to challenge these principles.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
India, Soviet Union, and United Nations

845. Problems to partnership: a plan for Australia-India strategic ties

Author:
Rory Medcalf
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
Strategic ties between Australia and India keep falling short of expectations, despite strong growth in trade. Controversy over the welfare of Indian students has added to differences over uranium exports to cloud what should be promising links between two countries with many common concerns. The relationship will weather recent turbulence. But without major diplomatic initiatives soon, the prospects for a truly strategic partnership between these Indian Ocean democracies will be set back for years.
Topic:
Education, International Cooperation, International Affairs, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
India, Australia, and Australia/Pacific

846. Indian FDI falls in global economic crisis: Indian multinationals tread cautiously

Author:
Jaya Prakash Pradhan
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Just over a year ago, outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from India seemed to be on a path of rapid and sustained growth. Its annual average growth of 98% during 2004–07 had been unprecedented , much ahead of OFDI growth from other emerging markets like China (74%), Malaysia (70%), Russia (53%), and the Republic of Korea (51%), although from a much lower base. Much of this recent growth had been fuelled by large-scale overseas acquisitions, however, and it faltered when the global financial crisis that started in late 2007 made financing acquisitions harder.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Foreign Direct Investment, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Malaysia, India, and Korea

847. A new geography of innovation – China and India rising

Author:
Gert Bruche
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
With some delay, the internationalization of business R is following the globalization of production. Starting on a small scale during the 1970s and 1980s, the emergence of globally distributed R networks of multinational enterprises (MNEs) accelerated rapidly in the 1990s. The “globalization of innovation” was facilitated and driven by a complex set of factors, including changes in trade and investment governance, improved intellectual property rights through TRIPS, the growing ease and falling cost of communicating and traveling around the globe, and the concomitant vertical industry specialization and unbundling of value chains. The growing and sustained level of cross-border M was one major direct driver, often having the effect that merged firms inherited multiple R sites in a number of countries.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

848. The Allure of the Radical: Understanding Jihadist Violence in the West

Author:
Kabir Sethi
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Grand proclamations of world peace and prosperity, so famously made by scholars and politicians alike in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, today seem naive and almost laughable. Francis Fukuyama, writing as the Berlin Wall came down, believed that we were witnessing “Not just the end of the Cold War…but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”1 For better or worse, that has not been the case. To use Benjamin Barber's words, we seem to be witnessing “retribalization” rather than “McWorld.” The fall of Communism as a global political movement did not bring an end to anti-Western sentiment in the world, as testified to by annual riots in India on Valentine's Day, anti-American rallies in South Korea and Japan, and Peru and Venezuela's explicitly anti-Western regimes. One violent movement in particular, though, has especially caught the imagination of the West, the movement that is commonly referred to as “Islamic terrorism,” “global jihad,” or “contemporary jihadist violence.” Part of what makes this movement so noticeable is its seemingly global reach and appeal. From bombings in Bali, Indonesia, to attacks in India, the Middle East, Europe, and all the way to the United States, “Islamic terrorism” seems to have spread across the world. This essay addresses the appeal of radical and violent interpretations of Islam in continental Western Europe and the United States.
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, India, and South Korea

849. China-Russia Relations

Author:
Yu Bin
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In contrast to the hectic third quarter of the Beijing Olympics and South Ossetia, the last quarter of 2008 was calmer for Russia and China. Their bilateral relations, nonetheless, seemed to become more substantive. The 13th annual Prime Ministerial Meeting in Moscow in late October and the 13th session of the Russian-Chinese Intergovernmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation in Moscow in early December provided some fresh impetus for the impasse in two important areas of bilateral relations: the long-awaited oil pipeline to China and military relations. Separately, the quarter also witnessed the final, albeit low-key, ceremony for settling the last territorial issue when Russia officially transferred to China control of one and a half islands of the disputed territory near Khabarovsk. However, the world around Russia and China was in turmoil not only because of the financial tsunami that was leaving no nation behind, but also because of regional crises between India and Pakistan as well as Israel and Palestine, and the stagnation in the Korea denuclearization process.
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, United States, China, India, Israel, Beijing, Palestine, and South Ossetia

850. U.S.-India and India-East Asia Relations

Author:
Satu Limaye
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
India's relations with the U.S. and East Asia during 2008 took place amidst remarkable flux domestically, within the South Asian region, and around the world – all of which directly and indirectly influenced developments in bilateral relations. The two issues that dominated U.S.-India relations during 2008 were the civilian nuclear cooperation deal and, at the end of the year, the U.S.-India-Pakistan triangle including the issues of terrorism and Kashmir. India's relations with East Asia were quiescent during 2008. A notable development was the completion of an India-ASEAN free trade agreement, although its economic implications remain uncertain. India accentuated the positive with Myanmar as bilateral relations became more cordial while relations with China seemed to be on hold for most of the year as the border dispute remained unresolved and India responded cautiously to the Chinese handling of unrest in Tibet.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, South Asia, India, and East Asia