Search

Begin New Search Topic Development Political Geography United States

111. Media and the Law: An Overview of Legal Issues and Challenges

Author:
Peter Noorlander
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
The legal environment in which a media outlet operates is a crucial factor in its success. Rules and regulations can hinder or enable the growth of media and restrict or promote particular kinds of content. A liberal and empowering legal regime will allow media to publish hard-hitting investigative reports and fulfill their function as watchdog of democratic society without fear of legal sanction, thus helping to make governments more accountable. This is a public good lost to citizens of countries with restrictive legal regimes.
Topic:
Development, Terrorism, Third World, Mass Media, and Law
Political Geography:
United States and United Kingdom

112. Family Planning and U.S. Foreign Policy: Ensuring U.S. Leadership for Healthy Families and Communities and Prosperous, Stable Societies

Author:
Isobel Coleman and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Global demographic and health trends affect a wide range of vital U.S. foreign policy interests. These interests include the desire to promote healthy, productive families and communities, more prosperous and stable societies, resource and food security, and environmental sustainability. International family planning is one intervention that can advance all these interests in a cost-effective manner. Investments in international family planning can significantly improve maternal, infant, and child health and avert unintended pregnancies and abortions. Studies have shown that meeting the unmet need for family planning could reduce maternal deaths by approximately 35 percent, reduce abortion in developing countries by 70 percent, and reduce infant mortality by 10 to 20 percent.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, Environment, and Health
Political Geography:
United States

113. Looking for Help: Will Rising Democracies Become International Democracy Supporters?

Author:
Thomas Carothers and Richard Youngs
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The emergence of a multipolar world gives Western democracy advocates cause for both optimism and anxiety. China's success sparks fears of the spread of an autocratic development model. Yet democratic states such as Brazil, Indonesia, India, South Africa, and Turkey are also gaining ground. These countries serve as powerful examples of the universal appeal of democracy and possess unique experiences with democratization. The United States and Europe understandably hope that rising democracies will use their growing prominence to defend democratic values abroad, potentially revitalizing international democracy support.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Human Rights, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, China, Indonesia, Turkey, India, South Africa, and Brazil

114. China and the United States: a succession of hegemonies?

Author:
Ian Clark
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
This article is written in the general spirit of contributing to the development of the English School (ES) approach to International Relations (IR), and from the specific perspective of the work of Martin Wight. The literature on international society has greatly enriched our understanding of international order. However, it falls short in what it offers to one important contemporary debate. This deficiency results from its evasion of a central dilemma: how is the role of the Great Powers in managing international order best sustained when their number approximates to one single Great Power? Given the English School's attachment to the role of the Great Powers, it cannot afford to ignore this question. This article adapts ES theory to reflect a world characterized by a concentration of power. The concept of hegemony is central, and will be applied to the arguments about a putative succession between the United States and China. The case is made that their respective power trajectories need to be plotted, not just against relative material capabilities, but taking into account also the appeal of the international orders they come to represent.
Topic:
International Relations and Development
Political Geography:
United States and China

115. Private School Chains in Chile: Do Better Schools Scale Up?

Author:
Gregory Elacqua, Humberto Santos, Dante Contreras, and Felipe Salazar
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
There is a persistent debate over the role of scale of operations in education. Some argue that school franchises offer educational services more effectively than do small independent schools. Skeptics counter that large, centralized operations create hard-to-manage bureaucracies and foster diseconomies of scale and that small schools are more effective at promoting higher-quality education. The answer to this question has profound implications for U.S. education policy, because reliably scaling up the best schools has proven to be a particularly difficult problem. If there are policies that would make it easier to replicate the most effective schools, systemwide educational quality could be improved substantially.
Topic:
Development, Education, and Governance
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and Chile

116. The Commander's Emergency Response Program in Afghanistan: Five Practical Recommendations

Author:
Vijaya Ramachandran, Gregory Johnson, and Julie Walz
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The U.S. military has become substantially engaged in economic development and stabilization and will likely continue to carry out these activities in in-conflict zones for some time to come. Since FY2002, nearly $62 billion has been appropriated for relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan. The Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP), which provides funds for projects to address urgent reconstruction and relief efforts, is one component of the military's development operations. In this analysis, we take U.S. military involvement in development as a given and concentrate on providing recommendations for it to operate more efficiently and effectively. By doing so, we are not advocating that the U.S. military become involved in all types of development activities or that CERP be used more broadly; rather, our recommendations address the military's capacity to carry out what it is already doing in Afghanistan and other in-conflict situations.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, Economics, War, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and United States

117. David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order

Author:
Willem Oosterveld
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
David Ekbladh's first book, The Great American Mission, deals with the role of development policy in American foreign relations during the Cold War. More specifically, it discusses modernization as a developmental approach, tracing its rise and fall over a period of about forty years. In Ekbladh's view, modernization theory fused political, ideological and strategic objectives at a time when the United States waged what was, in essence, a global struggle over ideas.
Topic:
Cold War and Development
Political Geography:
United States and America

118. An Interview with Governor Gary Johnson on What He Would Do as President

Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Gary Johnson currently campaigns as a candidate for U.S. president with the same outspoken fidelity to free markets, limited government, and fiscal responsibility that guided his two terms as governor of New Mexico. Aside from making headlines earlier this year with his strong opposition to an antihomosexual Republican-circulated marriage pledge, which he called “offensive” and “un-American,” he has been neglected by the mainstream press and has been excluded from several televised debates. He presses on in a struggle from which higher-polling candidates have already dropped out. Johnson started a one-man handyman company in 1976 and over the next two decades developed it to employing one thousand people. Against the odds, he launched his campaign for governor in 1994 and carried his win to a second term, a governorship marked by his stand for “freedom across the board.” During his eight years in office, his main focus was responsible management of the government pocketbook, and he earned the nickname “Governor Veto” by vetoing more bills than the other forty-nine governors combined. He cut twelve hundred state job positions, cut taxes, reformed Medicaid, promoted school vouchers, privatized prisons, and helped eliminate the state's budget deficit. An unconventional Republican, he supports the right to abortion, the legalization of marijuana, and legal equality for homosexuals. Today he retains popularity among New Mexico's voters. Goal-driven, independent, and with a zest for life, he has competed in multiple Ironman Triathlons, summited Mt. Everest, and personally built his current home in Taos, New Mexico. He's a divorced father of two and lives with his fiancée. I spoke with him just before his strong campaign push in New Hampshire at the end of August. —David Baucom David Baucom: Thank you for speaking with me, Governor Johnson. Gary Johnson: Absolutely. DB: With the decline of the U.S. economy and the emergence of the Tea Party movement, people in America are finally asking questions to the effect of, What is the proper role of government? As a candidate for president of the United States, what do you regard as the proper purpose of government? GJ: The proper purpose of government would be to protect you and me against individuals, groups, corporations that would do us harm, whether that's from a property perspective or physical harm. And that would also apply to other countries. DB: Relating to that, how would you define “rights,” and where would you draw the line for what individuals can properly claim as a right? GJ: You know, my definition of it, I guess, is the whole notion that we have too many laws. And that when it comes to rights, that they really have a basis in common sense, that they really have a basis in natural law, if you will. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. That government gets way, way, way too involved in trying to define that, as opposed to you and me working that out. DB: President Obama calls for “sacrifice” from everyone, but especially from “rich” individuals and corporations, whose taxes he wants to raise. You've said you don't think raising taxes on the rich is the way to deal with the financial crisis. As president, what would be your solution to the crisis? GJ: Well, I'm advocating the FairTax. I think we should scrap the entire tax system that we have and replace it with the FairTax. I'm talking about FairTax.org, for those who aren't aware of this proposal that I think has been around now for about ten years. By all free market economists' reckoning, it is what it is: it's fair, and it simplifies the existing tax system. So, by “simplify [the] existing tax system,” it abolishes the IRS and does away with all existing federal taxes: income tax, Social Security withholding, Medicare withholding, unemployment insurance, business-to-business tax, corporate tax. Replacing the current system would be a one-time federal consumption tax of 23 percent, which is meant to be revenue neutral, so we would still need to cut our spending by 43 percent, believing that part of revitalizing this country is balancing the federal budget and replacing it with the FairTax. . . .
Topic:
Development
Political Geography:
United States and America

119. Shaping global business conduct: The 2011 update of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

Author:
Manfred Schekulin
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
On May 25, 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined ministers from members of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and developing economies to celebrate the Organisation\'s 50th anniversary and agree on an update of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the fifth revision since their adoption in 1976. This marked the culmination of an intense one-year negotiating process involving a large number of stakeholders, international organizations and emerging economies.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Cooperation, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States

120. The Paradox of Proximity: India's approach to fragility in the neighbourhood

Author:
Nitin Pai
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The risks posed by fragile states have moved to the centre-stage of Western security consciousness only in recent years, fundamentally as the result of globalisation and precipitously due to the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The threats posed by fragile states to the Western countries are palpable and proximate-for instance, in the form of terrorist plots, influx of refugees and organised crime-but the origins of the threats are relatively remote. Western policymakers and publics, therefore, enjoy a certain geographical and temporal insulation, not only allowing for detached analysis but also allowing a broader range of policy options.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Political Violence, Development, International Affairs, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, and India