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431. Hedging Against an Unstable China: Measures to Enhance Regional and Global Resilience

Author:
Alexandre Catta, Aladdin Diakun, and Clara Yoon
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Mainstream analysis on China tends to be overly optimistic, leaving a blind spot in strategic planning. While the country's socio-economic landscape has been transformed over several decades of uninterrupted growth, it faces significant domestic and international risks and constraints. Chief among these are labour insecurity and imbalances, environmental constraints and rising climatic risks, and food insecurity, all coupled with rising popular expectations for a higher overall standard of living. Major soy producers (Argentina, Brazil and the United States) should take steps to ensure the stability of China's supply. In particular, these countries should set aside reserves to help mitigate future supply shocks and price spikes resulting from climate change. Manufacturers operating in or with China should immediately begin mapping their supply chains to identify vulnerabilities associated with crisis scenarios in the country. Where specific risks are identified, they should explore supply-chain diversification to boost resilience among major trading partners. To deter China from externalizing internal stresses, international actors should raise the political costs of nationalistic unilateralism by opening more channels for dialogue, deepening institutional integration and buttressing cooperative security norms.
Topic:
Security, Agriculture, Climate Change, Development, Economics, Environment, and Food
Political Geography:
China and Israel

432. Productive Power and Policy Change in Global Finance: An Analysis of China's Financial Policy Framing in the Bretton Woods Institutions

Author:
Sandra Heep
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Against the backdrop of China's increasingly influential role in global finance and the debate on the emergence of a “Beijing Consensus,” this paper examines whether the ideology that China promotes in the Bretton Woods institutions is conducive to the initiation of financial policy change at the international level. Drawing on Barnett and Duvall's (2005) conceptualization of productive power, Snow and Benford's (1988) framing theory and Freeden's (1996) understanding of ideology, the paper develops a theoretical framework for the analysis of international policy framing. Following an overview of China's rise in global finance, it identifies the core elements of the ideology that has been promoted by Chinese government officials in the Bretton Woods institutions since the onset of the global financial crisis. The paper argues that China's ruling elites will only be able to initiate a shift in the global consensus on acceptable financial policies if the frames that they propagate succeed in striking a balance between ideological continuity and change.
Topic:
Communism, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
China and Israel

433. Informal Institutions in Autocracies: Analytical Perspectives and the Case of the Chinese Communist Party

Author:
Patrick Köllner
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Analyses of the shape and functioning of systems of political rule need to address informal institutions, which exist alongside and can relate to formal institutions in various ways. In this paper, I first discuss some analytical foundations of the study of such institutions. I then suggest that a focus on political regimes – understood as the configuration of formal and informal institutions shaping and reflecting the access to and the exercise of political power – can be particularly useful for analysing the shape and functioning of autocracies. Finally, I use such a regime focus to study the Chinese Communist Party and its leadership succession process, which is characterised by increasing institutionalisation and complementary as well as substitutive relations between formal and informal institutions.
Topic:
Communism, Political Economy, Political Theory, and Governance
Political Geography:
China and Israel

434. Just War Theory and the 2008–09 Gaza Invasion

Author:
Michael L. Gross, Jerome Slater, Davis Brown, and Tamar Meisels
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Jerome Slater's normative treatment of Israel in the 2008–09 Gaza War spotlights an often misunderstood domain of the security studies field: just war theory. This is a largely understudied area, given its normative framework of analysis in a field that historically is largely devoid of norms. My sense is that this journal may be becoming a forum for the reintroduction of this framework to the field, thanks to Slater's article and Robert Pape's call for a revised standard for humanitarian intervention. As a student of the ethics of war, I welcome this development. But precisely because just war theory is understudied, it is still highly prone to oversimplification and abuse. Slater regrettably engages in both in his attempt to apply it to the conduct of Israel in the Gaza War.
Political Geography:
Israel

435. The Sum of all Fears: Israel's Perception of a Nuclear-Armed Iran

Author:
Ehud Eiran and Martin B. Malin
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Thucydides' ancient logic still governs: uncertainty (over Iran's nuclear intentions) and the fear this inspires (in Israel) increases the risk of another war (in the Middle East). Even if Israel's response to the Iranian nuclear program does not lead the region into a war, Israel's fears will be crucial in shaping Middle Eastern politics and will help to determine the stability of the region in the years ahead.
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, and Israel

436. Social Capital and Disaster Recovery: Evidence from Sichuan Earthquake in 2008

Author:
Chun Wing Tse, Jianwen Wei, and Yihan Wang
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Social capital can help reduce adverse shocks by facilitating access to transfers and remittances.This study examines how various measures of social capital are associated with disaster recovery after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. We find that households having a larger Spring Festival network in 2008 do better in housing reconstruction. A larger network significantly increases the amount of government aid received for housing reconstruction. Furthermore, households having larger networks receive monetary and material support from more people, which also explains the positive impacts on recovery from the earthquake. As for other measures of social capital, connections with government officials and communist party membership do not significantly contribute to disaster recovery. Human capital, measured by the years of schooling of household head, is not positively correlated with housing reconstruction.
Topic:
Economics, Humanitarian Aid, Natural Disasters, and Governance
Political Geography:
China and Israel

437. Iran's Present Day Military Capabilities and Military Aspirations in the Middle East

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Far too much of the analysis of Iran's search for nuclear weapons treats it in terms of arms control or focuses on the potential threat to Israel. In reality, Iran's mix of asymmetric warfare, conventional warfare, and conventionally armed missile forces have critical weaknesses that make Iran anything but the hegemon of the Gulf. Iran's public focus on Israel also disguises the reality that its primary strategic focus is to deter and intimidate its Gulf neighbors and the United States – not Israel. It has made major progress in creating naval forces for asymmetric warfare and developing naval missiles, but it has very limited air-sea and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (IS) capabilities. It lacks modern conventional land, air, air defense and sea power, has fallen far behind the Arab Gulf states in modern aircraft and ships, and its land forces are filled with obsolete and mediocre weapons that lack maneuver capability and sustainability outside Iran. Iran needs nuclear weapons to offset these facts.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Arabia

438. A more in-depth, technical Q from Siegfried Hecker on North Korea

Author:
Siegfried S. Hecker
Publication Date:
04-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
North Korea announced on April 2, 2013, that it would restart its nuclear facilities, including its 5 megawatt-electric (MWe) nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, north of the capital, which had been disabled and mothballed since an agreement in October 2007.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and North Korea

439. U.S. Students in China: Meeting the Goals of the 100,000 Strong Initiative

Author:
Raisa Belyavina
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
The 100,000 Strong Initiative, announced in November 2009 by President Obama, aims to increase to 100,000 the cumulative number of Americans studying in China over a four - year period. While the number of American students studying abroad for credit in Chin a has increased nearly fivefold in the last decade, the types of educational experiences undertaken by American students going abroad have changed as well. More than ever before, American students are going abroad on shorter, not - for - credit programs such a s study tours, internships, and volunteering abroad. The 100,000 Strong Initiative encourages all types of educational experiences for students in U.S. high schools, colleges, and universities.
Topic:
Education, Foreign Exchange, International Cooperation, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
United States, China, America, and Israel

440. Patient Copayments, Provider Incentives and Income Effects: Theory and Evidence from China's Essential Medications List Policy

Author:
Brian K. Chen
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
How do demand - and supply - side incentives interact, when there are potentially large provider income effects? We develop a simple model and empirically test it with data from China's Essential Medications List (EML) policy, which reduced patient copayments and changed provider incentives by removing a large source of revenue from primary care providers: drug dispensing revenues. Using a panel of patient - level spending and clinical data for Chinese patients with diabetes or hypertension over two and a half years, we find evidence of strategic provider response that dampened the impact of patient copayment reductions. Resource use and patient out - of - pocket spending did not change, when taking account of patient utilization outs ide primary care.
Topic:
Communism, Health, and Governance
Political Geography:
China and Israel