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761. United States—Senatorial Stability?

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
09-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
Debate surrounding the US elections in 2000 has centred on the contests for the presidency, and control of the House of Representatives. Far less attention has been placed on the partisan balance within the Senate. During the past two decades, the upper chamber has increased its influence over policy direction, a trend that appears likely to continue. Growing senatorial influence will act as a moderating force in US politics regardless of who occupies the White House or which party holds a majority in the House.
Topic:
Government and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

762. United States—Iraq Policy

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
08-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
In the past nine months, the United States and the United Kingdom have pursued a low-intensity military campaign against Iraq. Such actions have been made easier by a lack of political scrutiny. However, the US administration in particular now faces mounting criticism from France, China and Russia, who favour a relaxation of policy, and domestic US interest groups favouring a more activist stance. Despite these pressures, US President Bill Clinton is unlikely to change policy significantly in his remaining 18 months of office.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Iraq, United Kingdom, Middle East, and France

763. The U.S. Military and Civil Infrastructure Protection: Restrictions and Discretion under the Posse Comitatus Act

Author:
Gregory D. Grove
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
This article sets out the constraints of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (the “Act”), which generally prohibits active enforcement of civilian laws by the military, and describes the discretion of the military commander to assist civilian law enforcement in protecting America's information infrastructure against computer—assisted attack. A primary purpose of this article is to help legal advisors to commanders and DoD civilian officials better understand the boundaries of command discretion so that commanders and officials can feel free to exercise proper command discretion to assist law enforcement according to military interests and their professional and personal ethics and ideals. Another primary purpose of the article is to appraise Congress of the Act, its prohibitions, and its application to assist in framing the policy debate about how to constrain or expand the discretion of commanders and other officials to most productively serve the American public.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States

764. The Nonproliferation Regime under Siege

Author:
George Bunn
Publication Date:
09-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The nuclear nonproliferation regime was challenged in 1998 by nuclear-weapon tests in India and Pakistan, by medium-range missile tests in those countries and in Iran and North Korea, by Iraq's defiance of UN Security Council resolutions requiring it to complete its disclosure of efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and by the combination of “loose nukes” and economic collapse in Russia. Additional threats to the regime's vitality came in 1999 from the erosion of American relations with both China and Russia that resulted from NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia—with additional harm to relations with China resulting from U.S. accusations of Chinese nuclear espionage and Taiwan's announcement that it was a state separate from China despite its earlier acceptance of a U.S.-Chinese “one China” agreement. Major threats to the regime also came from the continued stalemate on arms-control treaties in the Russian Duma and the U.S. Senate, from a change in U.S. policy to favor building a national defense against missile attack, and from a Russian decision to develop a new generation of small tactical nuclear weapons for defense against conventional attack.
Topic:
International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, Economics, Government, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, United States, China, Europe, Iran, South Asia, Middle East, Israel, East Asia, Asia, and Korea

765. Social Funds in Stabilization and Adjustment Programmes

Author:
Giovanni Cornia
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Well before the introduction of adjustment-related Social Funds (SFs), many developing countries had developed a variety of safety nets comprising food subsidies, nutrition interventions, employment-based schemes and targeted transfers. Middle-income and a few low-income countries had also achieved extensive coverage in the field of social insurance. In countries committed to fighting poverty, these programmes absorbed considerable resources (2-5 per cent of GDP, excluding social insurance) and had a large impact on job creation, income support and nutrition: for instance, in 1983, Chile's public works programme absorbed 13 per cent of the labour force. Their ability to expand quickly depended on a permanent structure of experienced staff, good portfolios of projects, clear management rules, adequate allocation of domestic resources, supply-driven execution and, with the exception of food subsidies, fairly good targeting.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, South Asia, South America, Latin America, Central America, Caribbean, and Chile

766. Iraq's Transition: On a Knife Edge

Publication Date:
09-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The situation in Iraq is more precarious than at any time since the April 2003 ouster of the Baathist regime, largely reflecting the Coalition's inability to establish a legitimate and representative political transition process. The broad plan sketched out by UN Special Adviser Lakhdar Brahimi, the apparent willingness of the U.S. to delegate at least some political responsibility to the UN and the decision to loosen the de-Baathification decree are all steps in the right direction. But critical questions remain both unanswered and, in some cases, unasked.
Topic:
Demographics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Eastern Europe, and United Nations

767. Private Governance and Democracy in International Finance

Author:
William D. Coleman
Publication Date:
07-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
The governance arrangements in international finance mirror, in part, those found domestically by featuring a partnership between relatively autonomous state agencies and private actors. Where they depart from domestic arrangements is in the relatively stronger position of private actors, particularly global financial conglomerates, in decision-making. Given the importance of the governance arrangements in international finance for the welfare of individuals and firms throughout the world, it is important to ask whether these arrangements conform to accepted criteria for democratic decision-making. Five criteria are identified that might be applied to international sites of governance. These criteria are then applied to three groups of institutions, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), and “private regimes” especially predominant in the derivatives subsector. Based on this analysis, important gaps are found when these governance institutions are held up to democratic principles.
Topic:
Globalization, Government, International Cooperation, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

768. Conference on Comparative Citizenship

Author:
Kathleen Newland, Monique Wilson, Nicole Green, Deborah Ho, Lowell Barrington, George Ginsburgs, Jonathan Klaaren, David Martin, J. Donald Galloway, Gianni Zapalla, Rainer Baubock, Manuel Becerra Ramirez, Marco Martiniello, Aristide Zolberg, Ayelet Shachar, Douglas Klusmeyer, Miriam Feldblum, and T. Alexander Aleinikoff
Publication Date:
06-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The conference on “Comparative Citizenship,” held at the Airlie Center in Warrenton, Virginia on June 4–7, 1998, was sponsored by the International Migration Policy Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Twenty-five experts from around the world gathered to present and discuss citizenship policies as they relate to rights, access and participation in different non-Western European liberal-democratic states and the supranational European Union.
Topic:
Government, Migration, Nationalism, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, Israel, South Africa, Mexico, Virginia, and Western Europe

769. 10th Annual Bradley Lecture Series

Author:
James Q. Wilson, James W. Ceaser, David Frum, Everett Carll Ladd, Alan Charles Kors, Christina Hoff Sommers, Virginia Postrel, and Joshua Muravchik
Publication Date:
06-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The comedian Howie Mandel begins his speeches by clutching this little desk here and shouting: “Hey, if I'd known there was going to be a podium, I wouldn't have worn pants.” It's a well–worn joke, but I feel a certain proprietary claim to it. Howie Mandel is a fellow–Torontonian, and my father, in his first career as a dentist, fixed his teenage teeth.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

770. 9th Annual Bradley Lecture Series

Author:
Harvey C. Mansfield, Robert S. Royal, Hadley Arkes, Charles Taylor, Charles Murray, Richard Epstein, Samuel P. Huntington, and Charles R. Kesler
Publication Date:
06-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
For American conservatives, this is a strange period of anticlimax and indecision. Crime rates are down, welfare rolls are shrinking, the federal budget is in surplus, and there are fewer Democratic senators, congressmen, governors, and state legislators than in decades. Even more miraculously, the Soviet Union lies in history's dustbin. Yet despite these glad tidings, conservatives are not rejoicing or even gloating. Nor are they aggressively following up their successes, pressing liberalism on all fronts and striving for a decisive political breakthrough. Like General McClellan outside Richmond, conservatives are proud to have come so far — but, uncertain of the kind of victory they seek and feeling an infinite need for reinforcements, they are afraid to risk going much farther.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Soviet Union