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221. The China Tariff Mess

Author:
Martin S. Feldstein
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The cost to US consumers and firms imposed by tariffs on Chinese imports is not large relative to the gain that would be achieved if the US succeeds in persuading China to stop illegally taking US firms’ technology. But the Trump administration should state that this is the goal, and that the tariffs will be removed when it is met.
Topic:
International Cooperation, International Political Economy, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

222. Turkish-German Relations From Conjunctural Cooperation to the Solution of Structural Issues

Author:
Zeliha Eliaçık
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
To the contrary of its relatively “new” relations with the United States of America, Turkey’s relations with the West have been established and continued via Europe since the period of the Ottoman Empire.1 The military alliance and cooperation initiated between Turkey and Germany in the late 19th century have gained a human dimension in the frame of the “Turkish Labor Force Agreement” signed upon the settlement of Turkish workers in Germany in the 20th century. Bilateral relations have been maintained without interruption despite occasional fluctuations in the intensity of these relations. Recently, the two countries have maintained closer ties as they both are affected by the U.S. sanctions and “trade wars.”
Topic:
International Relations, International Cooperation, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Turkey, Germany, and Global Focus

223. Toward data driven education systems

Author:
Samantha Custer, Elizabeth M King, Tamar Manuelyan Atinc, Lindsay Read, and Kabir Sethi
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Today, 650 million children around the globe are at risk of being left behind as they fail to learn basic skills. Inequitable access to education is part of the problem, but even when children are in school, they may not be learning. In Uganda, for instance, barely half of grade 6 children read at a grade 2 level (Uwezo, 2016). In India, just one in four children enrolled in grade 5 can read a simple sentence or complete simple division problems (ASER Centre, 2017).
Topic:
Education and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

224. Mainstreaming Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas

Author:
Imtiaz Ali
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Pakistan’s government has recently approved mainstreaming of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in an effort to bring the FATA region within the legal and governance structures of the rest of Pakistan and place it on a footing of parity. The mainstreaming should aid the FATA people economically and reduce militancy in the region, which would contribute greatly to Pakistan’s peace and security. Despite government approval and repeated assurances by the country’s top leadership that changes in the FATA governance system is a must and the status quo must end, the process has been stalled, as there are differences in opinion on the future status of FATA. Still, many tribesmen are hopeful the government will go ahead with the approved plan of mainstreaming FATA and their agony will end.
Topic:
International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

225. International Justice on Trial?

Author:
Carolyn Kenney and John Norris
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
International justice is at a critical crossroads, offering a perfect moment to examine its key accomplishments, shortcomings, and challenges moving forward.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Transitional Justice, Justice, and International Criminal Court (ICC)
Political Geography:
Global Focus

226. Domestic Politics and the Design of International Institutions

Author:
Linda Allen
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Scholars are increasing focused on how and why states design international institutions. International relations theories have historically guided research on these institutions, but have not provided adequate insights into the theoretical bases for their design. Rationalists’ theories of domestic politics offer an alternative approach to understanding institutional design. This study utilizes the positive theory of public bureaucracies to examine the design of an international institution, the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC), and contends that the institutional choices states make are ultimately strategic choices about anticipated institutional outcomes. Research results demonstrate that institutional choices for bureaucratic structure, organizational mandates, and decision-making authorities for CEC are consistent with the theory of public bureaucracies. Politicians, interest groups, and bureaucrats sought or supported specific institutional features that were driven by their preference for the content and direction of policy that would emerge out of the institution.
Topic:
Environment, International Cooperation, Domestic Politics, and International Institutions
Political Geography:
Global Focus

227. A (Neo)realist Explanation of the Post- unipolar International System

Author:
Alessio Stilo
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Since the end of the Cold War, old-fashioned power plays have been back in international relations, as confirmed by recent events and trends. Despite the growth of interdependence among states, borders are not crumbled and international actors continue to pursue their interests through the use of all the necessary means. Paradoxically, the liberal order has strengthened some realist principles and confirmed realism as a practical theory that has not necessarily a state -centric vision and does not deny any progress in international cooperation and change resulting from interdependence. The ability of governments to pursue domestic policies effectively is increasingly influenced by developments in the international system. Moreover, the return of geopolitics and power politics supports the (neo)realist postulate according to which the system tends towards the balance of power between the declining hegemon (U.S.) and the rising powers (China, Russia, India, Japan, Brazil, Germany, etc), given the fact that every rising power is used to seeking to revise the status quo. This article provides an empirical explanation of the (proto)multipolar order in the light of the assumptions of political realism in its neoclassical declination.
Topic:
Globalization, International Cooperation, Political Power Sharing, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Global Focus

228. Modification of Renewable Energy Support Schemes Under the Energy Charter Treaty: Eiser and Charanne in the Context of Climate Change

Author:
Tomas Restrepo
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Institution:
The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Abstract:
Nearly half of the claims brought under the Energy Charter Treaty1 raise issues related to the modification of the Renewable Energy Support Schemes (RESs), but only two decisions have been published: Charanne and Eiser. This paper evaluates these decisions in light of the existing general practice on expropriation and Fair and Equitable Treatment, as well as from a pragmatic perspective in the context of climate change. The article concludes that tribunals should recognize reinforced stability to RESs under the ECT.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, International Cooperation, International Law, and Renewable Energy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

229. Can We Make UN Peacekeeping Great Again

Author:
Alexandra Novosseloff
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Peace Operations Review
Abstract:
If UN peacekeeping operations are “at a crossroads” as the Secretary-General told the Security Council on 6 April, then it is a policy and linguistic roundabout. This is the same phrase that a senior official used to describe the Brahimi report in 2000 and others used to characterize the work of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) in 2015. Does this mean that the policy debate that surrounds UN peacekeeping has just been going around in circles for the past twenty years? The recent declarations made by the US administration on possible cuts of its share of the peacekeeping budget and its push to cut individual missions at the time of mandate renewal (as observed in the case of MONUSCO already) has created uneasiness and has given new life to the old debate about the relevance of UN peacekeeping. But this in itself is not a new position. The HIPPO report has also argued for such a review of existing operations. Whether peacekeeping missions are “fit for purpose”, and what this actually means in practice, are questions numerous governments, delegations in New York, departments of the UN Secretariat, experts on the matter, non-governmental organizations and at times, international public opinion, have kept asking for years and even decades. The question was put on the table of the Security Council again by the new US administration during its presidency in April 2017. The goal, as outlined in its concept paper, was to review every single peacekeeping operation to “identify areas where mandates no longer match political realities.” The objective was to “propose alternatives or paths towards restructuring to bring missions more in line with achievable outcomes.”
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, United Nations, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

230. After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex World Order

Author:
Amitav Acharya
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
“The dominance of a single great power,” wrote American scholar Robert Keohane in his widely acclaimed book After Hegemony, “may contribute to order in world politics, in particular circumstances, but it is not a sufficient condition and there is little reason to believe that it is necessary.”1 This proposition has never been put to a greater test as it is now. Since the election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. president in November 2016 there has been a vast outpouring of anxiety over the future of the liberal world order.2 But the myths, limitations, and decline of this order have been anticipated and forewarned for some time, even though its proponents have not acknowledged it. The “first myth” about the U.S.-led liberal hegemonic order, as I have written elsewhere, is “how far it extended for much of its history, especially during the Cold War period.” I pointed out that “the Soviet bloc, China, India, Indonesia, and a good part of the ‘third world’ were outside of it . . . . Despite the exalted claims about its power, legitimacy, and public goods functions, that order was little more than the US-UK-West Europe-Australasian configuration.”3 Noting that the liberal order was hardly benign for many countries in the developing world, I argued that it should be seen as a limited international order, rather than an inclusive global order. Joseph S. Nye, one of the staunchest champions of the liberal order, made a similar point when he wrote in the January/February 2017 issue of Foreign Affairs that the liberal order “was largely limited to a group of like-minded states centered on the Atlantic littoral” and “did not include many large countries such as China, India, and the Soviet bloc states, and . . . did not always have benign effects on nonmembers.”4 The liberal order did expand and strengthen with the economic reforms in China and India, and with the end of the cold war. And while the champions of that order celebrated its expansion, they still generally assumed that the main challenge to it would come from the rising powers, led by China. Their assumptions notwithstanding, precisely at a time when many of these powers today are not doing all that well, the liberal order appears to be imploding. Trump’s victory and Brexit suggest that the current challenge to the liberal order is as much, if not more, from within as from without. Precisely at a time when many of the rising powers are not doing all that well, the liberal order appears to be imploding. The domestic challenges to the liberal order led by Trump and his supporters could be overstated, however. After all, Hillary Clinton won a majority of the popular vote, and the Brexit referendum only passed by a slim margin. More importantly, however, the crisis of the liberal order has deeper roots, owing to long-term and structural changes in the global economy and politics. As such, Trump’s ascent to power is a consequence—not a cause—of the decline of the liberal order, especially of its failure to address the concerns of domestic constituents left behind by the global power shift. Given these factors, Trump is unlikely to reverse the decline of the liberal order even if he wanted to. Instead, he may well push it over the precipice. In what follows, I first describe the foundations of the liberal order, and show that the ground on which it was built has been eroding for some time, though Trump’s rhetoric and policies are also damaging. Next, I argue that for now the rising powers are not in a position to overturn the current order completely, and in fact they may wish to preserve some elements of it in the near and medium term. I describe a “multiplex world” in which elements of the liberal order survive, but are subsumed in a complex of multiple, crosscutting international orders. Finally, I offer some suggestions on how scholars and policymakers can manage the transition to such a multiplex world.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Hegemony, Reform, and Liberal Order
Political Geography:
Global Focus