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11. Gridlock: Labor, Migration, and Human Trafficking in Dubai

Author:
Alexander Lee
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
In Gridlock, Pardis Mahdavi explores the social issues of labor migration in Dubai-a topic less visible than those that make up the daily headlines on the Middle East. The book is a mix of Mahdavi's personal experiences in the Emirate and a scholarly discourse on trafficking policy and its associated political pressures. Peppered throughout with the stories of labor migrants from a variety of backgrounds and working in a diversity of sectors, the book aims for both breadth and academic depth. The former goal works ultimately to the detriment of the latter, as Mahdavi retreads the same ground several times. Nevertheless, the book serves as an important look at a key international issue from a perspective that policy makers may be ignoring. Current U.S. policy regarding the issue of trafficking centers on the State Department's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report-the government's "principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking." Mahdavi's central thesis relates to her opinions on the use of this report which, at the time of her writing, was primarily used as a diplomatic tool for leveraging political bargaining power against countries such as Dubai with a "known" record of poor human rights. She believes that the TIP report holds a great deal of potential to expand beyond a bargaining tool and can instead be used for enacting true reform in trafficking and migration policy. For this to come about, however, Mahdavi believes that governments need a broader understanding of trafficking beyond their current focus on female sex workers. The accounts of labor migrants in her book serve as a survey of other types of trafficked persons. Though Gridlock's organization may feel more like a collection of essays than a singular, focused work, Mahdavi explores this complex, multifaceted issue from a unique perspective. The breadth of her research appears broader than the views of most policy makers involved in this issue and presents a compelling case for policy reform, with direct social consequences for a multitude of labor migrants from around the globe.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Middle East

12. Informality and Illegality in the Exploitation of Gold and Timber in Antioquia

Author:
Victoria Webster
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
Informality and Illegality in the Exploitation of Gold and Timber in Antioquia Jorge Giraldo Ramírez and Juan Carlos Muñoz Mora (Medellín: Centro de Análisis Político Universidad Eafit and Proantioquia, 2012), 197 pages. In Informality and Illegality authors Jorge Giraldo Ramírez and Carlos Muñoz Mora, both professors in Antioquia, Colombia, analyze how the gold and timber sectors have become a source of financing for armed groups. Rather than simply rehashing the old resource-curse debate, this slim, but dense, Spanish-language book performs a microlevel analysis of Antioquia's extractive supply chains and impressively identifies the precise mechanisms that incentivize illegal armed actors to enter the market. According to the authors, the confluence of informal extractive markets with high levels of socio-economic inequality and the absence of a well-functioning state incentivizes nonstate actors to assume the state's role and engage in criminal activity. This "criminal ecology" is a self-perpetuating system that is characterized by ineffective state intervention, weak regulation and penalization, and high levels of political and economic leverage by nonstate actors. Ramírez and Mora's findings are impressive, even if their data seems suspect: they find positive correlations between gold mining and the presence of illegal armed groups, informal land tenure, increased violence, and weak institutions. The authors' concluding discussion of contemporary policy recommendations, currently being debated in a variety of forums, including the country's mining code reform and ongoing institutional restructuring process- though appropriate-is too theoretical to be of much use. Moreover, given the dominant role multinational corporations (MNCs) play in Colombia's legal, security, and political spheres, their limited analysis of the relationship of MNCs with Antioquia's supply chain ignores a large part of the policy debate. Though repetitive and dry, Ramirez and Mora's work is a unique take on a polarizing debate. Their framework of the complex relationship between a traditionally informal economy, illegal crime, and the international demand for a scarce resource (gold), while specific to Antioquia, is widely applicable to any number of countries and contexts.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Middle East and Colombia

13. The Urban Battleground: Explaining Conflict in Global Cities

Author:
Samantha Hammer
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the town of Sidi Bouzid in December 2010, people across the Arab world identified with him, a person trying to make a decent life for himself but hobbled by a repressive government. As Tunisia erupted into a successful revolution, citizens throughout the Middle East and North Africa were inspired to follow. Over the course of the uprisings, images of protesters fiercely battling government forces in reclaimed city squares exemplified the importance of urban spaces as arenas for power struggles that can redefine national sovereignty.
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, and Tunisia

14. Perpetuating Communist Party Rule in China

Author:
Teresa Wright
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
On the heels of democratic uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), recent “mass incidents” (qunti shijian) in China have spurred renewed debate about the level of social dissatisfaction and the stability of authoritarian governance in the People's Republic of China. Yet, unlike in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries in the MENA facing widespread rebellion against their ruling regimes, protests in China have not been directed at central political leaders or the political system as a whole. By examining the similarities and differences between Chinese and Middle Eastern authoritarianism, this article seeks to uncover which factors underpin continued public acceptance of the Chinese Communist Party and which ones—if left unchecked—bode ill for the regime.
Topic:
Governance
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, North Africa, Egypt, and Tunisia

15. Interventions against a Dictator

Author:
Utz J. Pape
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
The Arab Spring, a wave of revolutions in nondemocratic countries in North Africa and the Middle East, forced some dictators to flee from their countries while others stayed and one faced intervention by an international coalition. Using a stylized game-theoretic model, this article analyzes the decision-making process of a dictator and explains the different outcomes. A rational dictator only leaves the country if the expected costs from punishment outweigh the benefits of staying. For the international coalition, the model identifies a trade-off between the cost of the intervention and the potential for economic benefit from a successful intervention. A higher number of participants in the coalition increases the probability of the intervention's success. However, if the intervention fails, coalition participants lose all economic benefits. Therefore, an intervening country benefits from the participation of other countries because it lowers the risk of failure. If the intervention succeeds, the economic benefits are shared among all intervening countries. Thus, an intervening country has the most to gain if it acts alone. Furthermore, a country can deliberately abstain from an intervention to benefit from higher shares of economic profit if the intervention fails and coalition members lose all economic benefits. The model can help explain the rarity of unanimous votes for an intervention and the complex and tedious bargaining process surrounding decisions to intervene.
Political Geography:
Middle East and North Africa

16. Unwrapping Russian Foreign Policy

Author:
Thomas J.R. Kent
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
A typical outsider's concept of Russian foreign policy might envisage Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin seated comfortably in the Kremlin, deciding what they want to accomplish, then skillfully selecting from an array of policy tools readily at their command: the military and security services, Gazprom's collections department, state-controlled media (i.e. drivers of public opinion), and state businesses ready to ship arms and build nuclear power plants wherever needed.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Middle East

17. A Missed Chance for Peace: Israel and Syria's Negotiations over the Golan Heights

Author:
Marwa Daoudy
Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
In the Middle East “no war is possible without Egypt, and no peace is possible without Syria,” as suggested by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. From 1991 to 2000, Syria entered into extensive peace negotiations with Israel, another key actor in the Middle East. The objective of this article is to understand these negotiations, which involved periods of intense discord as well as moments of rapprochement. Spectacular progress was made, for instance, between 1993 and 1995, when the “Rabin deposit,” Israel's promise to withdraw from the Golan Heights to the 4 June 1967 border and thus allow Syria to recover access to Lake Tiberias, was proposed to the U.S. mediator. The two actors came close to an agreement but failed to put an end to the Israeli-Syrian conflict at the Shepherdstown negotiations in January 2000 and the Asad-Clinton summit on 26 March 2000 in Geneva. What lessons can be drawn from the process which took place between 1991 and 2000 in terms of the actors' objectives, motivations and perceptions of each other? Why did the talks fail to produce an agreement? What was the weight of water in stimulating or blocking the process?
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Syria, and Egypt