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1. Journal of Public and International Affairs 2016

Author:
Megan Campbell, Geoff Cooper, Kathryn Alexander, Aneliese Bernard, Nastasha Everheart, Andrej Litvinjenko, Kabira Namit, Saman Rejali, Alisa Tiwari, and Michael Wagner
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Woodrow Wilson School Journal of Public and International Affairs
Institution:
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Abstract:
It is rare to find a journal that examines women’s participation in South Sudan in one chapter and the exploitation of outer space resources in the next; that dissects the effects of Chinese investment in Sub-Saharan Africa and demystifies the Ferguson effect. But the Journal of Public and International Affairs is not your average journal. It represents the very best of what graduate-level public policy students have to contribute to the pressing policy debates of today. It is wide-ranging in subject matter and trenchant in its recommendations. Founded in 1990, but with an ancestor publication dating back to 1963, the JPIA is based on the notion that students of public policy have important things to say about public affairs and that careful analysis and targeted critique can pave the way for meaningful change and progress. The graduate students published in this year’s JPIA combine practical experience from around the world with intensive academic study. They have spent the last year diving deep into the issues they are passionate about and have all been challenged by the need to move past descriptive analysis and towards concrete solutions. These papers represent the best of their scholarship.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, Government, Regional Cooperation, International Affairs, Foreign Direct Investment, Counter-terrorism, Women, Inequality, Protests, Policy Implementation, Rural, and Sanitation
Political Geography:
China, Iran, Middle East, India, Central America, West Africa, North America, South Sudan, Sahel, and United States of America

2. Court reform in Mexico — Central America's border squabbles — the Pacific Alliance

Author:
Jose Antonio Caballero
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Judiciary: The Courts in Mexico BY JOSÉ ANTONIO CABALLERO The steady process of change in judicial organizations in Mexico, which began in the mid-1990s, was given a major boost in the past few years with four constitutional amendments. The most significant is a 2008 amendment requiring that all state and federal judicial systems transition from a written-based inquisitorial system to an oral-based accusatorial one by 2016. This will bring greater transparency while better protecting the rights of the accused and allowing for the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Halfway into the transition phase, though, the processes' slow implementation poses a risk that states won't meet the 2016 deadline.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Colombia, Central America, Caribbean, and Mexico

3. The Ecuador Situation: The Relationship between the Government and the Media

Author:
Camilla Lanusse
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University
Abstract:
Long-standing tensions between the government of Ecuador and the private press culiminated in February with a Supreme Court decision, international outrage, and a presidential pardon. Arguing that the media have long acted as a powerful private interest in Ecuador, President Correa in recent months filed and won several lawsuits for criminal defamation against news media and individual reporters, and proposed legislation affecting coverage of political campaigns. The controversy surrounding these events contributed to the debate over freedom of expression and the press in Ecuador, as well as Independence of the judicial system.
Topic:
Development, Government, Media, and Judiciary
Political Geography:
Central America and Ecuador

4. Discourses on Violence in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua: Laws and the Construction of Drug- and Gender-Related Violence

Author:
Peter Peetz
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
In Central America, legislation aiming to reduce violence and crime has become an important topic in the security debate. Focusing on Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, this paper analyzes laws and other legal texts regarding the trade in and consumption of drugs on the one hand, and gender-related violence on the other. It shows how the content and the wording of legal texts contribute to the social construction of stereotyped offenders, such as youth gang members, drug users, or foreign nationals. The legal texts in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua reflect both the hegemonic and the counter-discursive influences on each country's legal discourse.
Topic:
Civil Society, Crime, and Government
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America

5. Justicia y decisión en el discurso presidencial argentino sobre la memoria (2003-2007)

Author:
Ana Soledad Montero
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
The claim for “memory” and “justice” regarding the crimes of the last military dictatorship took a central place in the agenda of Argentina's former president N. Kirchner (2003 - 2007). The purpose of this work is to analyze the tensions and complexities entailed in any process of construction of a collective memory within democracy: What is the role of the authority and the political decision? How can we find common tolerance principles to establish the limits of the political community? Finally, we wonder about the theoretical and practical possibility of justice, tolerance and pluralism in democracy and, particularly, about the main challenges faced by the Argentinean democracy in order to become a consolidated political community.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Argentina, South America, Latin America, Central America, and Spain

6. Las autodefensas y el paramilitarismo en Colombia (1964-2006)

Author:
Pedro Rivas Nieto and Pablo Rey García
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
This paper studies the phenomenon of the Colombian paramilitarism from its formal emergence, in the sixties, up to its formal disappearance, in 2006. This analysis comprises the evolution and the relations with diverse social groups that constituted the paramilitary movements, specially ranchers, drugs traffickers and the Armed Forces. Special emphasis is given to the change produced among the “self-defence groups” -legitimate defence supported by the State- and the paramilitary groups, whose purpose in the beginning was to finish with the insurgency, but at the end both of them were dedicated to criminal activities.
Topic:
Civil Society, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Colombia, Central America, and Spain

7. In the multicultural edge: A linguistic political evaluation of the Mexican State around its indigenous communities

Author:
Roberto Morris Bermúdez
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:
The goal of this dissertation is to assess to what extent Mexican language policy towards indigenous minorities is congruent with the guidelines that multicultural, language policy and language planning theory prescribe. These theories were chosen because current legislation indicates that these are the ideals which Mexico, as a country, The aim of this research is to present a comparison of current Mexican multicultural language policies and how these diverge from multicultural theory, this in order to make inferences applicable to further developing multicultural language policies in Mexico.
Topic:
Civil Society, Demographics, and Government
Political Geography:
Central America and Mexico

8. Guatemala in the 1980s: A Genocide Turned into Ethnocide?

Author:
Annika Oettler
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
While the Guatemalan Truth Commission came to the conclusion that agents of the state had committed acts of genocide in the early 1980s, fundamental questions remain. Should we indeed speak of the massacres committed between 1981 and 1983 in Guatemala as “genocide”, or would “ethnocide” be the more appropriate term? In addressing these questions, this paper focuses on the intentions of the perpetrators. Why did the Guatemalan military chose mass murder as the means to “solve the problem of subversion”? In Guatemala, the discourses of communist threat, racism and Pentecostal millenarism merged into the intent to destroy the Mayan population. This paper demonstrates that the initial policy of physical annihilation (genocidal option) was transformed into a policy of restructuring the sociocultural patterns of the Guatemalan highlands (ethnocidal option).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Government, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Central America and Guatemala

9. A Conversation with Henry Kissinger

Author:
Nermeen Shaikh
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
Henry Kissinger was US Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977. He served as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from 1969 to 1975. In July 1983 he was appointed by President Reagan to chair the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America until it ceased operation in January 1985, and from 1984-1990 he served as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. From 1986-1988 he was a member of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy of the National Security Council and Defense Department. Among the awards Dr. Kissinger has received have been the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973; the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the nation's highest civilian award) in 1977; and the Medal of Liberty (given one time to ten foreign-born American leaders) in 1986. Dr. Kissinger was born in Germany and came to the United States in 1938 and was naturalized a US citizen in 1943. He served in the army from 1943 to 1946. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1950 and received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1952 and 1954. At present, Dr. Kissinger is Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc., an international consulting firm. This interview with AsiaSource was conducted by Nermeen Shaikh prior to the Asia Society 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner of which Dr. Kissinger was an honorary chairman.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, and National Security
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Central America

10. Bush's Dysfunctional Cuba Policy

Author:
Wayne S. Smith
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
The Bush administration's Cuba policy has reached a dead end, with no hope of success. Its objective is nothing less than to bring down the Castro regime. Or, as then-Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega put it on October 2, 2003: "The President is determined to see the end of the Castro regime and the dismantling of the apparatus that has kept him in office for so long." President George W. Bush then appointed a Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba with the goals of bringing about "an expeditious end of the dictatorship," and developing a plan to achieve that goal. In May 2004, the Commission came out with a near-500- page plan whose basic premise was that the Castro regime was near collapse and that another shove or two would bring it down--a few more Radio Marti broadcasts, a few more travel restrictions, another economic sanction or two and it would all be over. The plan also read like a blueprint for an American occupation that would make the trains run on time, show the Cubans how to run their school systems and grow their crops--so much so that it offended many Cubans who read it, even those who didn't necessarily agree with the Castro government. To correct that, the new--and shorter--report issued by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Transition Coordinator Caleb McCarry, on July 10 this year stressed that its purpose was simply to assist Cubans on the island. Solutions must come from them, it insisted, adding that the U.S. stood ready and willing to support those initiatives. But having said that, the report went on with page after page of recommended actions--always provided that Cubans on the island wished to initiate them.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Cuba and Central America