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1071. Restructuring the UN Secretariat to Strengthen Preventative Diplomacy and Peace Operations

Author:
Sarah Cliffe and Alexandra Novosseloff
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Peace Operations Review
Abstract:
ince 1945, the United Nations has helped support many successful peace processes and protected millions of civilians around the world. Peace operations deliver results: research estimates suggest that the presence of a UN peace keeping mission can reduce the risk of relapse into conflict by 75 – 85 percent;1 and that larger deployments diminish the scale of violence and protect civilians in the midst of fighting.2 Peace operations can be highly cost effective, with one General Audit Office assessment finding the cost to be roughly half of what a bilateral stabilization operation would cost.3 Different types of peace operations - from mediation and special envoys through to multidimensional peace-keeping and specialized justice and emergency health missions - have helped end long running conflicts and prevented violence from escalating or recurring in situations as diverse as Burkina Faso, Cambodia, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liberia, Namibia, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste. Yet in 2017 the UN’s peace and security pillar faces deep challenges. Three reviews in the past two years have highlighted serious inadequacies in UN peace and security responses at large. Many of the recent challenges are due to real world shifts in the nature of conflict and geopolitical dynamics – the tragedy of Syria, renewed fighting in Yemen and South Sudan, continued crisis in Libya, difficulties in preventing a political and humanitarian crisis in Burundi, longstanding missions that are struggling to deliver sustainable peace in DRC and Haiti, and newer missions in Mali and CAR where geography creates sustained cross-border security risks. These situations are also affected by divisions amongst Member States that have prevented agreement on action in some cases. Part of the weaknesses, however, are managerial and structural. The sense of urgency pervading Member States at the UN, together with a new Secretary-General who has signaled his determination to reform this area, provides the opportunity to take a more fundamental look at what would give the UN’s peace and security pillar the right form to deliver the functions that it is called to serve, now and in the future. The purpose of this report is to analyze options for organizational restructuring in the UN’s peace and security pillar. It focuses on headquarters structures since this has been identified as a primary source of overlap and competition: the purpose however is to deliver better results in the field, from prevention through crisis management to post-conflict recovery. It does not cover wider reforms across the UN’s three pillars, which are supported in other CIC work streams.4 Following an introductory section, Section II traces the history of UN peace and security structures since the UN’s founding (see Box). The UN has had no shortage of reform in the past, each designed to address specific weaknesses or new demands. Cumulatively, however, these changes have resulted in a structure that is no longer fit to fulfill the functions needed.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, United Nations, and Peace
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, Yemen, Haiti, Syria, North America, and South Sudan

1072. Can We Make UN Peacekeeping Great Again

Author:
Alexandra Novosseloff
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Peace Operations Review
Abstract:
If UN peacekeeping operations are “at a crossroads” as the Secretary-General told the Security Council on 6 April, then it is a policy and linguistic roundabout. This is the same phrase that a senior official used to describe the Brahimi report in 2000 and others used to characterize the work of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) in 2015. Does this mean that the policy debate that surrounds UN peacekeeping has just been going around in circles for the past twenty years? The recent declarations made by the US administration on possible cuts of its share of the peacekeeping budget and its push to cut individual missions at the time of mandate renewal (as observed in the case of MONUSCO already) has created uneasiness and has given new life to the old debate about the relevance of UN peacekeeping. But this in itself is not a new position. The HIPPO report has also argued for such a review of existing operations. Whether peacekeeping missions are “fit for purpose”, and what this actually means in practice, are questions numerous governments, delegations in New York, departments of the UN Secretariat, experts on the matter, non-governmental organizations and at times, international public opinion, have kept asking for years and even decades. The question was put on the table of the Security Council again by the new US administration during its presidency in April 2017. The goal, as outlined in its concept paper, was to review every single peacekeeping operation to “identify areas where mandates no longer match political realities.” The objective was to “propose alternatives or paths towards restructuring to bring missions more in line with achievable outcomes.”
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, United Nations, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

1073. Power and Crisis: Explaining Varieties of Commercial Banking Systems in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico

Author:
Sebastian Etchemendy and Puente Ignacio
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
In the early 1980s Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico had commer- cial banking sectors that were dominated by local banks. The largest countries in Latin America were subjected to common international economic pressures during both the neoliberal 1980s and 1990s – includ- ing the expansion of capital markets in the periphery and integration into the regional trade agreements NAFTA and Mercosur – and the post- 1998 financial turmoil. By 2015, however, the three countries had con- solidated alternative commercial banking systems: domestic private group dominated (Brazil), mixed (i.e., ownership more evenly divided among public, private domestic, and foreign banks (Argentina), and foreign bank dominated (Mexico). The article traces these alternative outcomes to the power of prereform private financial groups, the viru- lence of “twin crises” in the transition from fixed to floating exchange rates, and the (contingent) role played by government ideology.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Finance, Trade, and Banking
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, South America, Latin America, North America, and Mexico

1074. The Old Rules No Longer Apply: Explaining NarcoAssassinations of Mexican Politicians

Author:
Laura Ross Blume
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Between 2005 and 2015, organized criminal groups murdered 209 politicians in Mexico. This paper explains why. It argues that the two interwoven trends of political and criminal pluralization in Mexico fostered the conditions for a new type of criminal violence against politicians. Mexican politicians are now targeted for accepting illicit money as well as for standing up to criminals. Moreover, this violence is evidence of an alarming and persistent pattern in Mexico of politicians enlisting criminal organizations to eliminate their political competition. Using a zero-inflated negative binomial model, this paper shows there is a strong statistical relationship between the increase in assassinations and the increases in political pluralization and criminal fragmentation. The article concludes that the failure to protect local public officials creates greater opportunities for the emergence of subnational authoritarian enclaves and threatens democratic consolidation.
Topic:
Crime, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Assassination, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico

1075. The Limits of Material Benefits: Remittances and Pro-Americanism in Mexico

Author:
Convadonga Meseguer, Jaupart Pascal, and Javier Aparicio
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
We explore how the reception of remittances affects perceptions of the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States. Scholars have claimed that the economic benefits of the relationship with the US prevail over imperialistic concerns as a result of the asymmetry of power between the two countries. Empirical research shows that Latin American public opinion is indeed more supportive of the US than theory indicates. However, we identify two gaps in this literature. First, scholars have explored the determinants of generic expressions of sentiment toward the US, overlooking more concrete instances of cooperation between the two countries. Second, scholars have focused on trade and investment and have ignored how the material gains of emigration shape attitudes toward the US. The present paper fills these two gaps by using novel survey data on the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the US. On one hand, we find that while the reception of remittances correlates positively with good sentiments toward the US, the recipients of remittances are consistently more opposed to cooperation with the US in the fight against drug trafficking. We argue that this finding can be explained by the different nature of the migratory phenomenon, and the connection between anti-drug trafficking policies and the close scrutiny of illegal flows of money and people.
Topic:
Imperialism, Migration, Regional Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, Trafficking, Borders, and Drugs
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, North America, and Mexico

1076. Unusual Bedfellows? PRI– PVEM Electoral Alliances in Mexican Legislative Elections

Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
We examine the electoral alliances between two Mexican political parties – the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and the Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM). Despite the PRI’s electoral dominance, it has entered into preelection agreements with the PVEM since 2003. These electoral pacts are unusual for several reasons: the parties do not share an ideology; their bases of support come from different social sectors; and the PRI’s survival as a party does not depend on these pacts. Using electoral data from 2006 to 2015, we examine the electoral districts in which the PRI and the PVEM ran joint candidates in federal legislative elections. We find that the ultimate goals of each party, their past electoral performances at the legislative district level, and the presence of PRI–PVEM alliances in gubernatorial elections explain the parties’ choices to collaborate in certain districts. Our findings have important implications for understanding the behavior of parties in newer democracies.
Topic:
Elections, Legislation, Local, Domestic Policy, and Party System
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico

1077. Armed Forces, Police and Crimefighting in Latin America

Author:
David Pion-Berlin and Miguel Carreras
Publication Date:
08-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Over the past two decades, the armed forces have increasingly been asked to take an active role in the fight against the rampant crime in Latin America. Since the militaries in this region are not always trained to conduct themselves with restraint, the possibility of excesses and human rights violations is always latent. Despite that prospect, there is a high level of public support for military counter-crime interventions throughout the region. The key argument in this article is that when the Latin American public supports military interventions to combat crime, it makes a comparative judgment call about the relative efficacy of military vs. police conduct in domestic security roles. Latin American citizens have very low confidence in the capacity of the police to fight crime effectively and to respect human rights. They place more trust in the armed forces as an institution capable of performing effectively and in accordance with human rights standards and the rule of law. This study develops these arguments in greater detail and then turns to recent Americas Barometer surveys that clearly show that Latin American citizens place more trust in the armed forces than the police as an institution capable of effectively and humanely fighting criminal violence.
Topic:
Crime, Law Enforcement, Police, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and North America

1078. The weight of ideology on the attitude of Latin American countriestoward the United States

Author:
João Carlos Amoroso Botelho and Vinícius Silva Alves
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI)
Abstract:
The article tests the effect of ideology on the attitude of Latin American countries toward the United States, as well as alternative explanations, to respond to the expectation that left-wing governments are critical of the US and right-wing governments are friendly. The findings are that the alternative explanations are less relevant and that ideology has the expected effect.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Politics, and Ideology
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and United States of America

1079. Evaluation of Trump’s First 100 Days of Action

Author:
An Gang
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Pangoal Institution
Abstract:
April 30th 2017 marks the US President Donald Trump's 100th day in office. In US political tradition, the first one hundred days of a first-term presidency are usually called the “observation period” or “honeymoon period,” during which the new leader in Washington acts with great expectations from the public and a moderate thaw in relations with Congress. The new administration tends to face little resistance, and the media usually avoids jumping to conclusions about its course and capability. Hence, the new president takes full advantage of looser constraints and favorable conditions during this period, attempting to remove as many “legacies” lingering from the previous administration as possible (if the two administrations are from different parties), delivering on the promises made during the election campaign, charting the future for the US and the world as clearly as possible, and laying a foundation for policies and performance in the first term. On November 21st 2016, the third day after he won the presidential election, Trump unveiled plans for his first 100 days in office via video, mainly including proposals related to immigration, trade, defense policy, and the political environment in Washington. Trump pledged to “make America great again,” and beat drums for the doctrine of “America first,” attempting to restructure the US economy, trade, and foreign policies. As he stated, “whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America—creating wealth and jobs for American workers.” As we head into the 100th day of the Trump’s presidency, has Trump achieved a good start? Has he proved that he could end up being a “great president”? Is it possible for Trump to create the new America that he has promised?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Elections, Donald Trump, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

1080. How buzz on Russia dossier undermines bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington

Author:
Andrei Korobkov
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Rethinking Russia
Abstract:
The buzz surrounding the so-called “Russian trace” in the U.S. elections, started by former presidential candidate from the Democratic party Hillary Clinton during her 2016 failed presidential campaign, continues to evolve. New accusations spring up, leading to new investigations. Started in mid-2016 by Clinton’s claims about the Russian hackers, who allegedly disclosed information contained on the Democratic Party National Committee servers, it increasingly targets the members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle, including some of his family members. Appointed to deal initially with a narrow set of issues, the Independent Prosecutor Robert Mueller, the former FBI Director, has to deal with the quickly expanding set of claims and accusations.
Topic:
Intelligence, Bilateral Relations, Elections, Domestic politics, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, North America, and United States of America