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722. Is the Information Technology Agreement Facilitating Latecomer Manufacturing and Innovation? India's Experience
- Author:
- Dieter Ernst
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- East-West Center
- Abstract:
- A defining characteristic of today's international trading system is that plurilateral trade agreements like the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) are gaining in importance relative to the gridlocked Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations. These more selective trade agreements pose new and so far little understood challenges for the governance of the international trading system, especially with regard to the distribution of liberalization gains among participants which differ in their stage of development, their institutions, and their resources and capabilities.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- South Asia
723. Somalia: Puntland's Punted Polls
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Puntland is the first of Somalia's federal units to attempt transition from clan-based representation to directly-elected government, but poor preparations and last-minute cancellation of local elections in July underline the challenges of reconciling competing clan interests with a democratic constitution. Cancellation pragmatically averted violence, but societal tensions remain unaddressed. The presidential vote by a clan-selected parliament in January 2014 will thus be fraught. Weak political and judicial institutions will struggle to mediate, risking involvement by partisan arms of the state. Direct elections are no panacea for reducing the conflict risks, but hard-won incremental progress on the constitution and local democratisation must not be abandoned. The cancelled ballot's lessons should be instructive for promised elections in the rest of Somalia. Better technical preparations matter, but Puntland's experience shows that donors and other international actors also need to be heedful of local political realities, including support of elites, robustness of institutions and viability of electoral districts.
- Topic:
- Security, Political Violence, Civil Society, Democratization, Development, and Fragile/Failed State
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Somalia
724. Peacekeeping Reimbursements-Key Topics for the Next COE Working Group
- Author:
- Bianca Selway
- Publication Date:
- 01-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- With UN peacekeeping operating in more complex environments and taking on new tasks, peacekeepers need appropriate equipment to carry out their mandates. A central aspect to equipping peacekeepers is ensuring that member states are appropriately reimbursed for their contributions under a equipment reimbursement system, called the Contingent-Owned Equipment System(COE). Every three years the United Nations conducts a meeting to negotiate the terms and conditions of the financial reimbursements paid to member states for the equipment they provide to UN peacekeeping operations. Preparations and briefings to member states are already underway in New York for the next COE Working Group meeting, to be held January 20-31, 2014. With 98,311 military and police deployed with their related equipment in seventeen missions around the world, the financial implications of these tri-annual discussions can be significant. In MONUSCO alone, the mission's annual budget for reimbursements to troop-contributing and police-contributing countries for major equipment and self-sustainment in the fiscal years 2008/09, 2009/10, and 2010/11 were $144million, $160million, and$180million, respectively.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Security, Development, Armed Struggle, and Fragile/Failed State
- Political Geography:
- United Nations
725. Not a Rubber Stamp: Myanmar's Legislature in a Time of Transition
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Myanmar's new legislature, the Union Assembly formed in 2011 on the basis of elections the previous year, has turned out to be far more vibrant and influential than expected. Both its lower and upper houses have a key role in driving the transition process through the enactment and amendment of legislation needed to reform the outdated legal code and are acting as a real check on the power of the executive.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Development, and Law
- Political Geography:
- East Asia and Myanmar
726. Does Lean Capability Building Improve Labor Standards? Evidence from the Nike Supply Chain
- Author:
- Greg Distelhorst, Jens Hainmueller, and Richard M. Locke
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- This paper offers the first empirical analysis of the introduction of lean manufacturing as a "capability building" strategy for improving labor standards in global supply chains. Buyer interventions to improve supplier management systems have been proposed to augment existing, and widely deemed insufficient, private regulation of labor standards, but these claims have yet to be systematically investigated. We examine Nike Inc.'s multiyear effort to promote lean manufacturing and its associated high-performance work systems in its apparel supply base across eleven developing countries. Adoption of lean manufacturing techniques produces a 15 percentage point reduction in serious labor violations, an effect that is robust to alternative specifications and an examination of pre-trends in the treatment group. Our finding contradicts previous suggestions that pressing suppliers to adopt process improvements has deleterious effects on labor conditions and highlights the importance of relational contracting and commitment-oriented approaches to improving labor standards in the developing world.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Labor Issues
- Political Geography:
- India
727. Who Sets the Intellectual Agenda? Foreign Funding and Social Science in Peru
- Author:
- Richard Snyder, Kelly Bay, and Cecilia Perla
- Publication Date:
- 09-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- This article explores the political economy of social science research in the Global South by analyzing new bibliometric and survey data on Peru, a lower-middle income country with weak domestic funding and institutional support for scholarship. The results of the analysis show that although research in Peru is heavily dependent on foreign funding, the multiplicity of funding institutions gives scholars a surprising degree of autonomy. Still, dependence on foreign funding produces conditions with potentially harmful consequences for the quality and impact of research. Five conditions are considered: multiple institutional affiliations, hyperproductivity, forced interdisciplinarity, parochialism, and a weak national community of scholars.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Education, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- Latin America and Peru
728. The International Politics of Drugs and Illicit Trade in the Americas
- Author:
- Peter Andreas and Angelica Duran-Martinez
- Publication Date:
- 09-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
- Abstract:
- Illicit trade has long been a central feature of Latin America's engagement in the world. In this chapter we first briefly sketch the scope and dimensions of illicit trade in the region, and stress the importance of various types of power asymmetries. Drawing on illustrations primarily from drug trafficking (by far the most studied and documented case), we then outline in a preliminary fashion some of the key issues in understanding transnational illicit flows and their impact on Latin America foreign and domestic policy and governance. We concentrate on four themes: 1) the relationship between illicit trade and diplomatic relations with the United States; 2) the relationship between illicit trade and democratic governance; 3) the relationship between illicit trade and organized violence; and 4) the relationship between illicit trade and neoliberalism.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Democratization, Development, War on Drugs, Narcotics Trafficking, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, and Latin America
729. NATO in Afghanistan: Turning Retreat into Victory
- Author:
- Henrik Larsen
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Afghanistan forced NATO to undergo a long adaptive process to be able to operate in an unprecedented and harsh strategic theater. It differed fundamentally from NATO's previous peacekeeping missions in the Balkans because the traditional division of labor between civilian and military efforts could not be maintained in practice. The UN state building agenda (Afghanistan Compact) tied NATO specifically to the security pillar throughout the country, which proved to be a gross underestimation of the actual resources required for such an effort. NATO contributors initially preferred a "light footprint" approach with a limited number of boots on the ground to avoid repeating the Soviet Union's negative experience. It proved inefficient, however, and warlords and power brokers did not demobilize and arbitrate disputes through Western-style elections and centralized institutions.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, NATO, Development, and Peacekeeping
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Korea
730. Crucial Collaborators or Petty Players? The Globalization of R and the Rise of China and India
- Author:
- Andrew B. Kennedy
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Course Pack
- Institution:
- Center for the Advanced Study of India
- Abstract:
- In recent decades, research and development has become a key new arena of globalization. Whereas multinational corporations once conducted R primarily in their home countries, it is now often dispersed across multiple locations around the world. Has this process transformed economic ties between the world's dominant state and its would-be rising powers in ways that imply an important power shift? Focusing on China and India's growing collaboration with the U.S., this paper argues that it has not. China and India remain considerably more reliant on the globalization of R than the U.S. does, and this remains a potential source of leverage for Washington. This vulnerability mainly reflects the fact that U.S. R investments in China and India are far more important for these two Asian countries than they are for the U.S. These investments loom larger in the Chinese and Indian innovation systems than they do in their American counterpart, and it is difficult to imagine any country substituting for the U.S. in this regard. In contrast, the U.S. cannot derive a great deal of leverage as a platform for R Both China and India are considerably less dependent on the U.S. in this respect.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and India