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6191. How the Axis of Evil Metaphor Changes Iranian Images of the USA

Author:
Daniel Heradstveit and G. Matthew Bonham
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The respondents feared an American attack, and regarded their membership in «the Axis of Evil» as a stab in the back after Iranian help in Afghanistan. This demonisation was seen overwhelmingly in terms of American geopolitical designs, ignorance and downright irrationality – an expansionist superpower that is dangerously out of control. The WTC attack initially caused a strengthening of Iranian national unity and a more coherent foreign policy, but most of the respondents regard «the Axis of Evil» as killing the nascent dialogue with the USA stone dead and coming as a godsend to the conservatives and the ultras.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, America, Iran, and Middle East

6192. Nuclear Dimensions of the Iraqi Crisis

Author:
Morten Bremer Maerli
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
In accordance with Resolution 1441, unanimously passed by the UN Security Council, Iraq on November 7th, 2002, submitted a declaration of its activities concerning weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Copies of the declaration were forwarded to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and later to the permanent members of the Security Council. The declaration described the various methods used by Iraq in trying to produce nuclear material suitable for weapons, as well as the many sites involved in the nuclear program. In the nearly 12,000-page document Iraq claimed that it had no current WMD programs. However, intelligence analysts from the United States and other nations immediately began to scrutinize the document, and senior US officials quickly rejected the claims made by Iraq.
Topic:
Security, Nuclear Weapons, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

6193. Economic survey of Canada, 2003

Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Canada's economy has done comparatively well over the past two years, demonstrating a noticeably improved resilience to unfavourable shocks. Over the medium term the economy is poised to achieve growth rates that compare favourably with past performance, but that will not be enough to eliminate the per capita income gap with the United States. The fundamental challenge is to make Canada an even more attractive place to live, work and invest. While past reforms have begun to pay off, there is still unfinished business. To boost the employment rate further the government should reduce disincentive effects arising from the tax and benefit systems by, for example, making greater use of in-work benefits and reintroducing experience rating of Employment Insurance users. Faster productivity gains are more likely to be achieved in an economic environment conducive to innovation. A key to greater dynamism is strengthening competition by eliminating remaining foreign ownership limits and barriers to internal and external trade and continuing electricity deregulation. Investing in skills should also remain a priority, with a particular emphasis on adult education. The nation has benefited by importing human capital from abroad through immigration but needs to intensify its efforts to remove the obstacles that prevent immigrants from having their skills fully utilised in the labour market. Having introduced a sound fiscal framework and reformed its public pension system Canada is in a better position than most other countries in facing ageing-related fiscal challenges, but the trend rise in health-care costs remains a risk. With the recent budget the government chose to address the short-term needs of the existing system. But, ultimately, ways to control the rise in budgetary costs - whether through incentives to raise efficiency or through cost sharing - will need to be explored, otherwise the resources needed to finance the future burden should be set aside in advance, for example by setting a bolder debt reduction target. Finally, environmental sustainability will be enhanced with least cost to the economy if the ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction is achieved through market-oriented instruments rather than command and control measures or voluntary agreements.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Economics, International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and Canada

6194. The Underground Railroad In South Central Pennsylvania

Author:
Matthew Pinsker and Scott Hancock
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues
Abstract:
"Among historians," one scholar suggested just a few years ago, "the underground railroad has become a dead issue." As if to confirm that judgment, the most important recent study of runaway slaves contains only two index entries for the Underground Railroad. The authors of that widely acclaimed monograph, John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, are candid about the reasons for this decision. "Although historians continue to disagree about various aspects of the Underground Railroad," they write, "few deny that even today it is shrouded in myth and legend."
Topic:
Human Rights and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States

6195. Living at the Edge: America's Low-Income Children and Families

Author:
Hsien-Hen Lu, Younghwan Song, Mary Clare Lennon, and J. Lawrence Aber
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
By analyzing data from the Current Population Survey March Supplements, Living at the Edge explores the following questions about children in low-income families in the United States: What are the overall changes in the low-income and poverty rates for children over the past quarter century? How has the population of children in low-income families changed over the past decade? Which children are more likely to live in low-income families? How have changes in parental employment status affected the likelihood of children living in low-income families? What are the state by state variations in child low-income and poverty rates, and how have these changed in the last decade? How does a more inclusive definition of family income and expenses affect our understanding of the poverty and near-poverty rates of children in low-income families? This report helps document significant improvements in the child lowincome rate as well as the significant decrease in the proportion of children who relied on public assistance during the 1990s. However, Living at the Edge also finds a notable increase in the share of children who lived in near-poor families (those with incomes between 100 and 200 percent of the poverty line) among children in low-income families during the 1990s. Many disadvantaged groups of children, including those with young parents, minority parents, parents with limited education, or unmarried parents, were less likely to live in poor or lowincome families in the late 1990s than such children a decade earlier. The improvement in the child low-income rates of these disadvantaged groups was closely related to an increase in parental employment during the late 1990s. However, the low-income rate worsened for children whose more educated parent had a high-school diploma but no college education. For children of many disadvantaged social groups, parental employment appears to do less to protect them from economic hardship then it did a decade earlier. The groups that suffered the most in reduced economic security given parental employment status were those in the medium risk ranks (children in families with at least one parent between ages 25 to 39, children whose more educated parent had only has a high school diploma, and in father-only families). The report also notes that the official measure of poverty ignores the burden of medical and work related expenses as well as taxes and therefore tends to underestimate the share of children in near-poor and low-income families facing economic insecurity. Finally, we discuss the policy implications for our findings.
Topic:
Economics, Human Welfare, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States

6196. Factional Politics and Credit Networks in Revolutionary Vermont

Author:
Henning Hillmann
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Studies of state formation tend to emphasize the demise of localism through centralization. This article specifies empirically the social structural conditions that strengthen localism understate formation. The historical case is the creation of Vermont during the Revolutionary War and the local factionalism it involved. Probate records are used to reconstruct credit networks that provided the relational foundation for localism and factional identities. The evidence demonstrates that network segregation between factional regions intensified over time, and was supported by strong cohesion within these regions. Local brokers who forged cohesion within factions consistently attained important political offices while mediators between opposing factions increasingly failed to obtain offices. This structural process coincided with the shift of Vermont's domestic politics into national level conflicts between Federalists and Jeffersonians. Within this escalation local and national factions crystallized around equivalent pairs of binary categorical oppositions. T h e evocation of national politics directly resonated with local lines of conflict, and reinforced factional identities and localism.
Topic:
Government, Human Welfare, Politics, and War
Political Geography:
United States

6197. Unbreakable Bond: Serbs and Kosovo

Author:
Vladimir Matic
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Public International Law Policy Group
Abstract:
Nationalism remains a potent force in Serbia, strongly affecting the politicking within the political elite regarding final status issues in Kosovo. The democratic forces are not immune from Kosovo-related nationalism and have at times adopted hardline positions to diminish their vulnerabilities in the political struggle. Since the end of the Kosovo war the West has done nothing to dispel the perception in Belgrade that Serbia's legal claim of sovereignty over Kosovo remains valid in principle and of equivalent standing as an issue “on the table” with Kosovo Albanians' insistence on independence in the prelude to negotiations. Belgrade ignores the fact that, with virtually no Albanians in Kosovo willing to work with them, they have no Albanian partners in pursuing this goal. Kosovo Serbs also display considerable mistrust of Belgrade's concern for their interests. The EU and UNMIK have attempted to create a framework for progress on the issue, but success will hinge on the willingness of the United States to exercise diplomatic leadership to resolve the deadlock.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Kosovo, Serbia, and Albania

6198. Reversing the Decline in the Balkans: Recommendations for Western Policy

Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Public International Law Policy Group
Abstract:
The results of Serbia's December 2003 parliamentary elections accelerated concerns that the situation in the Balkans is seriously deteriorating. On 2 March 2004 the Public International Law Policy Group and The Century Foundation convened a roundtable of sixteen people deeply involved in Balkan issues from the region, Europe, and the United States to review the general situation in the Balkans and examine the approach of the United States and European Union (EU) to the region.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Politics, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Serbia, and Balkans

6199. Serbia After Djindjic: Can Invigorated Reforms Be Sustained?

Author:
Vladimir Matic
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Public International Law Policy Group
Abstract:
The assassinated prime minister of Serbia, Zoran Djindjic, appears to have won in death much of what he could not achieve in life. His concept of Serbia's way out of the domestic political and economic crisis through reform and membership in a democratic Europe has prevailed over one representing the past; Serbia is finally open to cooperation with the world. But the national consensus he was dreaming about does not yet exist. The prevalence and reach of networks of organized crime and corruption limit prospects for significant further structural change and more serious consolidation of the rule of law. The Serbian people have put aside for the moment their infatuation with radical nationalism rather than exorcising it from their society and intellectual culture. The success of such reform as has been implemented is far from secured. For the time being the joint efforts of the leading pro-democratization parties of Serbia and Montenegro have brought about the beginning of long-postponed changes in the army and initiated far-reaching reforms. This allows continuation of reforms in Serbian services and strengthening of the basic institutions of democracy. If continued, expanded and intensified, this course will take both Serbia and Montenegro irrespective of the final destiny of their Union closer to democracy and to the European Union and the United States.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Serbia

6200. The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Future With Hope

Author:
James Lilley
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Public International Law Policy Group
Abstract:
You have clearly worked over the complicated relationship between Taiwan and China. I can only try to build on what Dr. Lin Chong--pin and Mr. Rostow have already described so lucidly. I would like to point out first that China chooses, for both tactical and emotional reasons, to place a special heavy emphasis on its relationship with Taiwan and to its point that Taiwan is part of China. Emotional, because this stirs up nationalism among a skeptical Chinese elite who have lost ideology. Tactical, because driving home the unity and sovereignty themes forces the U.S. on the defensive, i.e., the U.S. interferes in China's internal affairs, a cardinal sin in China's own lexicon. In reality, however, China has been practical. For almost fifty years Chinese propaganda has focused on Taiwan as a pure target, but objective circumstances have changed and so has China's strategy. China took over the Ta Chen Islands peacefully in 1954, its last significant territorial acquisition in the Taiwan Strait. Its later more militaristic approach against a well--defended Quemoy (Chin men) failed in 1958, and China retreated with much bluster and firing of cannons, many of them empty.
Topic:
Politics and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, China, Taiwan, and Asia