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961. Spatial and Temporal Patterns in Civil Violence: Guatemala 1977-1986

Author:
Timothy R. Gulden
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
This paper examines detailed records from the civil conflict in Guatemala between 1977 and 1986. It reveals a number of novel patterns which support the use of complex systems methods for understanding civil violence. It finds a surprising, non-linear relationship between ethnic mix and killing; thereby inviting analysis based on group dynamics. It shows the temporal texture of the conflict to be far from smooth, with a power spectrum that closely resembles that of other, better understood, complex systems. The distribution of incident sizes within the data seems to fall into two distinct sets, one of which, corresponding to "regular" conflict, is Zipf distributed, the other of which includes acts of genocide and is distributed differently. This difference may indicate that that agents of the state were proceeding under different types of orders. These results provide an empirical benchmark for the modeling of civil violence and may have implications for conflict prevention, peace keeping, and the post-conflict analysis of command structures.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, Central America, and Guatemala

962. The IMF's Dilemma in Argentina: Time for a New Approach to Lending?

Author:
Carol Graham and Paul Robert Masson
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
In recent years, the international financial system has faced tremendous challenges, from the Asia, Russia, and Brazil crises in the late 1990s, to Argentina's default and ensuing economic collapse in 2002 to new worries about a possible default in Brazil. An increasing number of observers are questioning the way the international financial institutions manage these crises. An alternative approach that is endorsed in principle by many—including Horst Köhler, the new managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—is a move toward more selective lending with fewer conditions, with the decision to lend based on a more general and ultimately political assessment of the recipient government's capacity to deliver on its promises. Argentina provides a potential test bed for this approach.
Topic:
International Organization and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, Asia, Brazil, Argentina, South America, and Latin America

963. Earnings Insurance for Germany

Author:
Gary Burtless and Holger Schaefer
Publication Date:
07-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
For more than a decade, Germany has suffered high rates of unemployment and very slow employment growth. Workers who have lost their jobs face unusually long spells of unemployment, in part because the adverse incentives of the German unemployment compensation system provide strong impetus for unemployed workers to remain jobless.
Topic:
Government and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe and Latin America

964. Do Judicial Councils Further Judicial Reform? Lessons from Latin America

Author:
Linn Hammergren
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
JUDICIAL REFORM EFFORTS IN LATIN AMERICA, and by extension worldwide, seem to fall easily prey to magic bullets. In the past two decades, reformers in the region and aid providers from North America and Western Europe have seized upon a whole series of entry points for judicial reform—including model codes, accusatory criminal justice systems, court administration reforms, information technology, alternative dispute resolution, legal services, and constitutional courts. Sometime during the late 1980s, as the issue of judicial independence came to receive more serious attention, judicial councils joined the list, and nearly a dozen countries adopted them. It was not until the late 1990s that questions about their utility began to emerge. Although Latin America is beginning to reexamine its love affair with the councils, the model has been gaining ground in other regions. Western Europeans, who invented the mechanism, have been suffering their own doubts. This has not prevented their joining with U.S. reformers in recommending it to postcommunist nations in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The cautionary lessons from Latin America's several-decade experiment with judicial councils have not yet been analyzed and disseminated. This essay is a start in that direction.
Topic:
Democratization and Government
Political Geography:
America, Europe, France, South America, Latin America, and Central America

965. Politics and Parallel Negotiations: Environment and Trade in the Western Hemisphere

Author:
John Audley and Edward Sherwin
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
IN DECEMBER 1994, at the behest of then–U.S. president Bill Clinton, the leaders of the 34 Western Hemisphere democracies convened in Miami for the first comprehensive hemispheric summit in more than 25 years. The assembled heads of state pledged that their countries would forge a path toward regional integration based on four overarching principles: Governments should build strong democratic institutions, prosperity should be promoted through free trade and economic cooperation, poverty and discrimination should be eliminated, and the natural environment should be preserved through policies promoting sustainable development. “Future generations,” Clinton said at the time, “will look back on the Miami summit as a moment when the course of history in the Americas changed for the better.”
Topic:
Environment and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, America, South America, Latin America, Central America, and North America

966. Unsavory Bedfellows: Washington's International Partners in the War on Drugs

Author:
Ted Galen Carpenter
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The United States has made common cause with an assortment of dubious regimes around the world to wage the war on drugs. Perhaps the most shocking example was Washington's decision in May 2001 to financially reward Afghanistan's infamous Taliban government for its edict ordering a halt to the cultivation of opium poppies.
Topic:
International Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States, South America, Latin America, Central America, and Caribbean

967. Fixing Argentina

Author:
Kurt Schuler
Publication Date:
07-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Argentina's currency crisis and economic depression have been caused by the bad policies of its government—not by banks, speculators, the International Monetary Fund (despite the bad advice it has given), or other scapegoats. The De la Rúa and Duhalde governments have made several gigantic blunders, namely, increasing tax rates, freezing bank deposits, devaluing the peso, and forcibly converting dollar bank deposits and contracts into pesos (“pesofication”).
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Argentina, South America, and Latin America

968. U.S. Policy in the Andean Region

Author:
Michael Shifter
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Even within Latin America's generally gloomy economic and political outlook, the countries of the Andean region—Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia—stand out as especially problematic and unsettled. For the United States, this set of countries, with some 120 million citizens, poses enormous policy challenges. Fostering democracy, expanding trade, combating drugs, promoting stability, and advancing social development are just some of the challenges germane to this region which, in the context of globalization, post-September 11, become even more compelling.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Colombia, South America, Latin America, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia

969. Understanding Colombia: History and Background

Author:
Marco Palacios
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Ever more frequently, one hears that Colombia is at the point of disintegration. This concept could be developed in several ways. Let us look at two of them. A report in TIME magazine about a territory of 40 thousand square kilometers that President Pastrana marked out as a demilitarized zone in 1998, so as to proceed with peace negotiations with the FARC, claimed that: “Colombia is in danger of being divided into three parts, along lines dictated by the nation's mountain geography. The Marxist guerrillas are ascendant in the south; the government controls central areas and large urban centers; and right-wing, army backed paramilitary forces...hold sway in much of the north.” (Latin American Edition, September 28,1998).
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Colombia, South America, and Latin America

970. U.S. Interests and Options in Colombia: An Alternative Framework

Author:
Cynthia J. Arnson
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Over the last several months, and beginning most decisively in the spring of 2002, U.S. policy toward Colombia has gone through a significant shift. Traditionally defined in terms of counter-narcotics, and then expanded under Plan Colombia to include areas of democratic and economic strengthening and peace, U.S. policy is now focused squarely on security issues: improving the capacity of the Colombian government to combat left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries; establishing an effective military presence throughout the national territory on which other state programs depend; and fighting the drug trade that finances all illegal armed groups. To illustrate the shift, consider the statements of two high- ranking U.S. officials. In August 2001, Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman told a Bogotá press conference that “we support Plan Colombia because...Plan Colombia recognizes that a negotiated settlement is the only way to achieve peace.” By March 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a House subcommittee that “we have to help Colombia save its democracy from narcotraffickers and from terrorists.” The following discussion aims to understand how and why this shift came about, as well as its implications for U.S. interests and policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Colombia, South America, and Latin America