Search

Begin New Search Topic Government Political Geography United States

371. PolicyWatch #1304: How to Handle Terrorist Suspects: No Easy Answer

Author:
Michael Jacobson
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On October 22, a U.S. government case against the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and five of its officials -- accused of financing Hamas -- ended in a mistrial when jurors deadlocked on nearly all of the 197 counts. A week later, Spanish judges acquitted a number of defendants charged with involvement in the 2004 Madrid train attacks. These are only the latest examples of the difficulties Western countries have faced in prosecuting terrorist suspects since September 11. Efforts to handle terrorism suspects outside of the criminal justice system have also encountered significant obstacles, making clear that there are no easy answers for how to treat suspected terrorists.
Topic:
Government and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

372. PolicyWatch #1298: Democracy in Slow Motion: Oman Goes to the Polls

Author:
J. Scott Carpenter and Simon Henderson
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Tomorrow, around 400,000 Omani men and women are expected to vote in elections for eighty-five seats on the nation\'s Majlis al-Shura, or Consultative Council. Among the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf region, Oman -- a key U.S. ally and exporter of oil and gas, strategically positioned opposite Iran -- is often considered to be the most politically progressive, perhaps even evolving slowly toward a constitutional monarchy. But the country remains dominated by its ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, and for now, the council is limited to advice on public services and infrastructure.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, Politics, and Elections
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Arabia, and Oman

373. PolicyWatch #1295: Transforming U.S. Efforts to Fight Transnational Terrorist Networks

Author:
Michael Jacobson
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
The FBI recently announced that it is engaged in a comprehensive realignment of its counterterrorism division -- the largest such reorganization since the September 11 attacks. Although the proposed reorganization is unlikely to achieve the desired fundamental transformation, it should improve the bureau's ability to combat the increasingly complex threat posed by transnational terrorist networks.
Topic:
Government and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

374. PolicyWatch #1293: The PKK and the Armenian Genocide Resolution: U.S.-Turkish Relations at a Critical Juncture

Author:
Soner Cagaptay
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On October 21, Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) operatives carried out an attack from northern Iraq into Turkey, killing twelve Turkish soldiers. This incident followed the killing of more than thirty people in recent weeks, including an incident in which the PKK pulled a dozen civilians off a public bus and shot them. The Turkish public has responded to the attacks by calling for incursion into northern Iraq to eliminate PKK camps there.
Topic:
Government, Islam, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Turkey, Middle East, and Armenia

375. Angolan Progress and Prospects: A Conference on Development and Reconstruction

Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
On May 9, 2007, a conference and celebration were held honoring Angola Day. The organizers and supporters were the Africa Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWICS), the Angolan Embassy, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S.-Angola Chamber of Commerce, with further sponsorship by an array of Angolan and international companies. The conference sought to share progress, challenges and opportunities facing Angola, now in its fifth year of peace following a brutal 27-year civil war. The celebratory nature of the event was not limited to the reception and cultural entertainment which took place at the WWICS that day, but also reflected the social, economic and political progress in Angola over these five years. For example, panelists in the conference shared information regarding an ambitious rehabilitation program of social infrastructure, steady economic growth, stabilizing political institutions and improved security conditions. They further cited specific opportunities for partnership with the United States, through international cooperation, private investment and increased trade. Scheduled to hold their first legislative and presidential elections since the end of the civil war in 2002, Angola is poised to become “a model of post-conflict democratic transition, and has the resources—human capital and natural endowments—to be a regional and global leader in world affairs” (Jendayi Frazer, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
Topic:
Development, Government, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Angola, and Khartoum

376. The Case for Wage Insurance

Author:
Robert LaLonde
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
An important component of U.S. productivity growth and economic competitiveness is a flexible labor market that shifts workers quickly into the jobs where they are most needed. Much of the time, this job shifting is fairly painless: Workers quickly find new positions that pay at least as much as their previous ones, often without an intervening spell of unemployment. But prime-aged and older workers can sometimes suffer large, long-term income losses. Such workers' well-founded fears about job displacement lead them and their advocates to resist policies such as free trade that are sometimes blamed for the job shifting. This resistance harms the majority of households because trade helps to lower prices, raise real incomes and promote economic growth. It also has foreign policy consequences since it threatens the United States' ability to play its traditional post–World War II role as the bulwark of a relatively open international trading system. And by reducing the dynamism of the U.S. economy, resistance to trade and other pro-growth policies can weaken the nation's long-term ability to exert global leadership.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States

377. Red world, Blue world

Author:
Joshua Brook
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
World Policy Institute
Abstract:
Since the 2000 presidential election, political scientists, commentators, and intellectuals have seized on the "red state"/"blue state" divide to explain American politics. The United States is described as a single country with two distinct cultures. Red Americans tend to oppose abortion, regard homosexuality as moral deviance, respect the military, and look kindly on public displays of religious faith. Blue Americans, on the other hand, support environmentalism, abortion rights, gender equality, and gay rights, while opposing militarism and overt displays of patriotism and religious zeal.
Topic:
Globalization, Government, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and America

378. "I'm just talking about the law": Guantánamo and the Lawyers

Author:
Marten Zwanenburg
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Human Rights and Human Welfare - Review Essays
Institution:
Josef Korbel Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver
Abstract:
“Because the legal advice was we could do what we wanted to them there”. This is how a top-level Pentagon official, in David Rose's Guantánamo: The War on Human Rights, explains why detainees held by the United States have been detained at Guantanamo Bay. It is just one illustration of the important role that lawyers have played in the “War on Terror”—a role, along with factors that have or that may have influenced it, that forms the topic of this essay.
Topic:
Government, Human Rights, and Torture
Political Geography:
United States

379. Winning is Everything: The Presidency of George W. Bush

Author:
Richard E. Hartwig
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
After the events of 9/11/01, the United States rallied around President George W. Bush. An administration that was initially weak and semi-legiti-mate came to directly control the executive and legislative branches of government and gradually strengthen its influence over the judiciary. Bush and the Republican majority in Congress attained hegemony domestically as well as internationally. Having acquired the power to ignore the rules, they often proceeded to do so. A semi-idealistic “winning is everything” approach to foreign policy led the United States into a quagmire in Iraq. An unempirical “winning is everything” approach to domestic policy, which often distorts the rules (law, science, and standard economics) and ignores the “referees” (the GAO, the CBO, the IMF), has created potentially disastrous medium and long-term problems for the United States.
Topic:
Government, Politics, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

380. Program for the Study of Biofuels, Poverty and Food Security

Author:
Jikun Huang, Mark Rosengrant, Rosamond Naylor, Walter P. Falcon, David Victor, Kenneth Cassman, and Scott Rozelle
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The recent global expansion of biofuels production is an intense topic of discussion in both the popular and academic press. Much of the debate surrounding biofuels has focused on narrow issues of energy efficiency and fossil fuel substitution, to the exclusion of broader questions concerning the effects of large-scale biofuels development on commodity markets, land use patterns, and the global poor. There is reason to think these effects will be very large. The majority of poor people living in chronic hunger are net consumers of staple food crops; poor households spend a large share of their budget on starchy staples; and as a result, price hikes for staple agricultural commodities have the largest impact on poor consumers. For example, the rapidly growing use of corn for ethanol in the U.S. has recently sent corn prices soaring, boosting farmer incomes domestically but causing riots in the streets of Mexico City over tortilla prices. Preliminary analysis suggests that such price movements, which directly threaten hundreds of millions of households around the world, could be more than a passing phenomenon. Rapid biofuels development is occurring throughout the developed and developing world, transforming commodity markets and increasingly linking food prices to a volatile energy sector. Yet there remains little understanding of how these changes will affect global poverty and food security, and an apprehension on the part of many governments as to whether and how to participate in the biofuels revolution.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Economics, Globalization, Government, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico