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81. The Fed moves to provide more transparency

Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Economics
Abstract:
The Federal Reserve has taken additional actions to make its monetary policy more transparent to markets. The latest moves include the release of FOMC members' expectatins for the federal funds rate at the end of each of the next few years and in the longer term. Another is an statement of strategy for meeting its dual mandates of price stability and full employment. Although the statement included an explicit target for inflation but not for unemployment, the equal weights given to each goal afford the Fed more discretion in setting monetary policy.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Global Recession, Monetary Policy, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States

82. Fixing Mortgage Finance: What to Do with the Federal Housing Administration?

Author:
Mark A. Calabria
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
While Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and private subprime lenders have deservedly garnered the bulk of attention and blame for the mortgage crisis, other federal programs also distort our mortgage market and put taxpayers at risk of having to finance massive financial bailouts. The most prominent of these risky agencies is the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Government, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States

83. Renewing Federalism by Reforming Article V: Defects in the Constitutional Amendment Process and a Reform Proposal

Author:
Michael B. Rappaport
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The constitutional amendment procedure of Article V is defective because the national convention amendment method does not work. Because no amendment can be enacted without Congress's approval, limitations on the federal government that Congress opposes are virtually impossible to pass. This defect may have prevented the enactment of several constitutional amendments that would have constrained Congress, such as amendments establishing a balanced budget limitation, a line-item veto, or congressional term limits. The increasingly nationalist character of our constitutional charter may not be the result of modern values or circumstances, but an artifact of a distorted amendment procedure. Article V should be reformed to allow two-thirds of the state legislatures to propose a constitutional amendment which would then be ratified or rejected by the states, acting through state conventions or state ballot measures. Such a return of power to the states would militate against our overly centralized government by helping to restore the federalist character of our Constitution. Moreover, a strategy exists that would allow this reform to be enacted.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, Law Enforcement, and Law
Political Geography:
United States

84. The Iraq We Left Behind

Author:
Ned Parker
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Nine years after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein and just a few months after the last U.S. soldier left Iraq, the country has become something close to a failed state. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presides over a system rife with corruption and brutality, in which political leaders use security forces and militias to repress enemies and intimidate the general population. The law exists as a weapon to be wielded against rivals and to hide the misdeeds of allies. The dream of an Iraq governed by elected leaders answerable to the people is rapidly fading away.
Topic:
Government and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Washington

85. The Missing Middle in American Politics

Author:
Reihan Salam
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
After Lyndon Johnson's victory over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 U.S. presidential election, the once-mighty Republican Party was reduced to a regional rump. The Democrats won overwhelming majorities in the House and the Senate, which they used to pass Johnson's Great Society legislation. Republicans, meanwhile, were at one another's throats, having endured the most divisive campaign in modern political history. Goldwater had managed to win the Republican presidential nomination over the impassioned opposition of moderate and progressive Republicans, who at the time may well have constituted a majority of the party's members. Moderates blamed Goldwater's right-wing views for the defection of millions of Republican voters.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States, China, and America

86. Not Time to Attack Iran

Author:
Colin Kahl
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
In "Time to Attack Iran" (January/February 2012), Matthew Kroenig takes a page out of the decade-old playbook used by advocates of the Iraq war. He portrays the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran as both grave and imminent, arguing that the United States has little choice but to attack Iran now before it is too late. Then, after offering the caveat that "attacking Iran is hardly an attractive prospect," he goes on to portray military action as preferable to other available alternatives and concludes that the United States can manage all the associated risks. Preventive war, according to Kroenig, is "the least bad option."
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and Iran

87. Attorney General of the United States, Eric H. Holder, Jr.

Author:
Eric H. Holder
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Columbia University World Leaders Forum
Abstract:
This World Leaders Forum program will feature an address by Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General of the United States, on the topic of the efforts to combat financial fraud by the Department of Justice.
Topic:
Crime, Government, Law Enforcement, and Law
Political Geography:
United States

88. An Unfulfilled Opportunity for Reconciliation: Israel and Turkey during the Arab Spring

Author:
Nimrod Goren
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
2011 brought an opportunity for Israel and Turkey to mend their bilateral relations. The re-election of Erdoğan in June 2011, coupled with the dramatic events of the Arab Spring, provided a new political and regional context in which the relations could be reevaluated. This context enabled Turkey and Israel, with US mediation, to make progress towards drafting an agreement between them – an agreement intended to enable the two countries to restore normal working relations following the 2010 flotilla incident. However, the draft agreement was eventually rejected by the Israeli government in August 2011, leading to a new cycle of escalating tensions between the two countries. This article analyzes the Israeli decision-making process and discourse regarding the crisis with Turkey, and examines the changing circumstances of 2011, including the impact of the Arab Spring and the contrasting Israeli and Turkish reactions to it; the dynamics leading to the Israeli decision to reject the draft agreement; and the possible next phases in Israel-Turkey relations, including the conditions that can provide a new opportunity for the two former allies to become less alienated.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States, Turkey, and Israel

89. Irak 2012

Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Termination of the US military presence in Iraq at the end of 2011, bring some problems for Iraq on military, domestic politics and economic area. Just a few months later US military withdrawal, escalating political tension began to delimitate coalition government built on a fragile structure and at the same time has led to emergence of some struggles with in the country. Discourses or expectations of many Iraqi leaders that Iraq will be saved from the problems which he faced and even new independent era will start with the year of 2012 have been turned upside down because of violence and political instability occurring at the beginning of this new independent era. Bombings, political and military strife between ethnic groups, struggle between national government and the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and particularly worsening of Iraq-Turkey relations forced Baghdad government to waste large part of its energy on these issues. In addition to this, natural resources having strategic importance for economic developments and Iraq's future stand out as a shaping factor of Iraq's foreign and domestic politics.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

90. State-controlled entities control nearly US$ 2 trillion in foreign assets

Author:
Karl P. Sauvant and Jonathan Strauss
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Developing country sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as players in the world foreign direct investment (FDI) market have received considerable attention. While outward FDI from emerging markets has indeed risen dramatically, that by SWFs has been negligible: their outward FDI stock is around US$ 100 billion (compared to a world FDI stock of US$ 20 trillion in 2010).
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Government, International Law, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States