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34051. Cities as Economic Development Tools

Author:
Nigel Harris
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Increasing globalization – the economic integration of national economies – and the resulting governmental decentralization have obliged cities in many countries to take seriously the economy of the city. On the other hand, unless cities can be made to work, national economic growth is seriously impeded. Hence, city managers become increasingly important in economic management. The old fatalism – that economic growth is a matter exclusively for national governments – comes under threat.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Government, and Politics

34052. Against the Feminization of Policy

Author:
Ananya Roy
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
In recent times, there has been avid policy interest in paradigms of enablement. From declarations that the poor are “heroic entrepreneurs” (de Soto 2000) to recommendations on how to capitalize on the social capital of poverty, there is a loud call to help the poor help themselves. I want to focus on a key characteristic of the enablement framework: the attention to women. The policy investment in poor women now spans a range of institutional actors – a kinder and gentler World Bank, the UN shelter debates, and the NGOs that crowd the stage of development. Microcredit programs targeting women, mothers' clubs in squatter settlements, female farming cooperatives have become standard fare. One could say that women have become the currency of this latest round of development, the “instrument,” as Jackson (1999) puts it, of enablement. Drawing upon a rich corpus of feminist research, I want to critically examine the implications of this feminization of policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Civil Society, Development, and Politics

34053. La calidad del ciudadano. Past and Present. The Nature of Citizenship in Mexico and the United States- 1776-1912

Author:
Erika Pani
Publication Date:
07-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Mexico's transition to democratic rule has triggered much debate about the legacies of the past under which Mexicans must labor. Mexico is seen as emerging from a monolithic, murky and only rarely interrupted authoritarian past, from the Aztec tlatoanis to the PRI. Mexican “political culture” is seen as both the underlying principle and the creature of this historical experience. Some characterize Mexicans as lacking democratic values, with no electoral culture and with their families structured along patriarchic and authoritarian lines. Ironically, this approach, which tries to explain the present by understanding the past, is blatantly unhistorical. It speaks of static, eternal core values, of an unchanging México Profundo that has supposedly lurked inside every Mexican through the ages regardless of class or regional origin. Thus, writes one scholar, “behind an image of modernity and values, lies hidden the arithmetic relationship of dominion and subordination.” The trappings of a modern society barely cover one that is deeply traditional, whose real values and practices are rooted in “the ancient Mesoamerican civilizations.”
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

34054. Mobility in Bulgaria and the European Union: Brain Drain, Bogus Asylum Seekers, Replacement Migration, and Fertility

Author:
Kristen Ghodsee
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
The collapse of communism in 1989 in Bulgaria was initially uneventful. Todor Zhivkov, the longest ruling leader in the Eastern Bloc, simply resigned. Democratic elections were held. Bulgaria had none of the wide-scale violence and chaos that characterized the transitions of the other Balkan states, most notably Romania and Yugoslavia. The effects of the social, political, and economic changes in Bulgaria, however, were just as devastating. The communists renamed themselves “socialists” and won the elections as the Bulgarian economy began a drastic contraction from which it has never recovered. The standard of living for ordinary Bulgarians dropped severely and new criminal elements appeared in society for the first time. The so-called “robber Barons” of Bulgaria pillaged what was left of the state's assets and set themselves up as the country's new elite. Meanwhile, the nearby wars and embargoes in the former Yugoslav republics gave the new Bulgarian Mafia ample opportunities to solidify their positions by smuggling arms and fuel into neighboring Yugoslavia.
Topic:
Government, International Organization, Migration, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria

34055. U.S. Policy Toward the Former Yugoslavia

Author:
Steven E. Meyer
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
As long as the Cold War framed the international arena, relations between the United States and Yugoslavia were—for the most part—fairly clear and predictable. Both sides played their assigned roles well in the larger East-West drama. For the U.S., Yugoslavia—after Tito and Stalin split in 1948—was the useful, even reliable, strategically-placed, communist antagonist to the Soviet Union. Certainly, Washington complained at times about Yugoslavia's preference for nonalignment and lamented the fact that it was not part of the Western alliance. The fact that Yugoslavia was indeed a communist state that Moscow could not control, however, more than compensated for these “short comings.” As a reward, the U.S. courted Tito, provided economic aid, and paid virtually no attention to how he ran the country—even his brutal rise to power after World War II was of little consequence.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Cold War, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Washington, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia

34056. NATO as a Factor of Security Community Building: Enlargement and Democratization in Central and Eastern Europe

Author:
Corneliu Bjola
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
This analysis is primarily concerned with examining the building blocks and mechanisms through which NATO extends its institutional and normative influence and contributes (or not) to reducing chances for military conflict and political tension in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by integrating the region into the Western security community. In terms of political stakes, the prospects of forming a CEE security community would be seriously undermined if NATO enlargement and partnership programs were perceived as facilitating the evolution of a regional arms race, driven by aggressive foreign policies and sponsored by widespread nationalism and regional mistrust. The formation of the CEE security community would be more likely if the institutional and normative adjustments induced by NATO's cooperative security arrangements were viewed as promoting the democratic development of the political-military structures driven by non-nationalist and region-wide, cooperative attitudes.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, NATO, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Europe

34057. The Politics of European Enlargement: NATO, the EU and the New U.S.-European Relationship

Author:
Howard J. Wiarda
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Cold War, the main issues in Eastern and Central Europe, and in U.S. and European policy toward the area, have focused on achieving peace and stability, building democracy, accomplishing economic and institutional reform, accelerating growth and modernization, and anchoring and integrating the countries of the area into Europe and its two great “clubs”: the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It could be said that the last three goals listed–democracy, economic and institutional reform, and European integration–were all means to the end of achieving peace and stability in this critical area, not known historically for its stable, peaceful politics, as well as to the end of securing a buffer zone on Europe's eastern frontiers that would also function as a means to hem in and limit any future Russian resurgence. What may have begun in strategic planners' eyes as a means to an end, however, has since then taken on a life of its own.
Topic:
International Relations, NATO, Cold War, and International Organization
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and North Atlantic

34058. Toward a North American Community? - A Conference Report

Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
The “Toward a North American Community?” conference hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on June 11, 2002, examined the current relationships between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and investigated the future of North American integration.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
North America

34059. Fire Water: Technologies, Institutions, and Social Issues in Arms Control and Transboundary Water-Resource Agreements

Author:
Aaron T. Wolf, Peter H. Gleick, Elizabeth L. Chalecki, Kelli L. Larson, and Arian L. Pregenzer
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
The world of environmental security is bringing the science of natural resources in ever-closer contact with the policy issues of international stability and foreign affairs. Many U.S. and international agencies—including the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Southern African Development Community— now analyze foreign policy in part through the lens of environmental resources. In October 2001, three organizations—the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security; the Department of Geosciences of Oregon State University; and the Cooperative Monitoring Center (CMC) at Sandia National Laboratories—sponsored a workshop designed to highlight the closeness of national security and environmental concerns through explicitly comparing the technologies, institutions, and social issues in two seemingly disparate fields: arms control and transboundary water resources. With generous support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, “Fire Water” workshop participants compared and contrasted these two fields and then identified questions for further analysis. Workshop sessions focused on three specific topics: (a) scientific and technological advances, (b) treaties and institutions, and (c) social and cultural issues.
Topic:
Security, Environment, Migration, and Poverty

34060. In Defense of Environment and Security Research

Author:
Richard A. Matthew
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
Since the end of the Cold War, many policymakers and researchers have been rethinking and pushing the boundaries of the definition of security. Perhaps the most extensive and controversial part of this project has been the numerous and varied attempts to identify links among environmental change, conflict, and security. But concern has recently been raised about whether a decade of environmental security research, debate, and policy experimentation has produced worthwhile results. This article argues that such concern is premature. Environmental security has (a) reinvigorated important elements of security research and policy; (b) made pioneering contributions to understanding the shifting sources of global violence and the changing requirements of security; (c) contributed to a broader debate about the social and political effects of transnational change; and (d) been a conceptual and political boon for the environmental movement. Now is the time to build on these gains instead of abandoning them.
Topic:
Security, Environment, Migration, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States