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171. In Focus: Central Asia: Aral Sea Problem

Author:
Erika Weinthal
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
U.S. foreign policy is geared toward oil development in Central Asia. The Aral Sea crisis has offered a safe issue-area in which to exert U.S. foreign policy in Central Asia. Effectively mitigating the Aral Sea crisis in Central Asia has proven more difficult than originally conceived by U.S. and Central Asian policymakers.
Topic:
Security, Environment, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States, Central Asia, and Asia

172. The Role of International Organisations in the Mediterranean

Author:
Roberto Aliboni
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The Mediterranean is an area where many different political, societal and cultural entities happen to stay in touch with one another. In some respects it may be regarded as a region in itself, in particular because of environment and a number of dwindling premodern, subcultural similarities. In general, though, it can hardly be regarded as a regional entity, i.e. endowed with a significant inner coherence. There is no doubt, that what characterises the Mediterranean area is its quintessential inter-regional structure. If we look at the initiatives to institutionalise inter-Mediterranean relations in the last few decades, we see that they are in fact of both regional and inter-regional character. In the functional realm, a clear example of Mediterranean regional organisation is the “Blue Plan”, set out within the framework of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) with a view to manage common environmental resources relating to the sea. An example referring to the political realm can be drawn from the Cold War, namely the Mediterranean component of the Non-Aligned Movement. At that time, within that Movement there was a Mediterranean feeling shared by Southern European as well as Third World countries belonging to the area. Such common feeling was motivated by the perception of a cultural and political oppression enforced by imperialist quarters (the West, USA, NATO). This gave way to a search for a Mediterranean region de-linked from Western dominance.
Topic:
Security, Environment, and International Organization
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

173. Designing an Efficient International Regime for Global Protection of Coral Reefs

Author:
Svetlana Morozova
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Studies Association
Abstract:
International regimes have been a major focus of research in International Relations and Political Economy since the end of the 1970s. Theoretical regime studies owe a great deal of progress to the scholars researching international environmental protection, such as Peter Haas (1989, 1992, 1993), Oran Young (1977, 1982, 1989), Robert Keohane and Marc Levy (1993). From the Young's model of institutional bargaining (1989) to Haas's research on epistemic community activities (1989), we observed the importance of environmental decision-making structures for stimulating the study of institutional birth, maintenance and decline of international regimes.
Topic:
Environment, Globalization, and International Law
Political Geography:
United States

174. The Right Role for the IMF in Development

Author:
Nancy Birdsall, John W. Sewell, and Kevin Morrison
Publication Date:
05-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Overseas Development Council
Abstract:
Horst Köhler faces immense challenges as the new Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). But no challenge is more crucial than making sure the IMF plays the right role in developing countries. Too often, it is not playing that role now. The IMF's activities in the developing world have grown radically. Today, much of its work goes beyond macroeconomic issues and crisis prevention and management, into deeper structural issues. And as a major provider of long-term development finance, it is significantly involved in efforts to reduce poverty. But the IMF lacks expertise in the wide-ranging policy and institutional complexities of development and poverty reduction. Its expertise lies in macroeconomic policy and restoring stability amid financial crises. Macroeconomics is the same for poor and rich countries alike, as IMF First Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer has said. But much of what the IMF is involved in now is not macroeconomics. The Fund should focus on: short-term liquidity lending to all countries hit by macroeconomic crises; advising through policy dialogue; and collecting, assessing, and distributing information on countries with regard to macroeconomic policy and financial markets. While poor countries need access to the Fund's short-term lending and macroeconomic advice, the IMF should leave long-term development lending to the World Bank and to other lenders and donors expert in poverty reduction.
Topic:
Environment, International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and International Monetary Fund
Political Geography:
United States

175. Reviewing U.S.-Nigeria Relations: New Links to Reinforce Democracy

Author:
Princeton Lyman and Linda Cotton
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Overseas Development Council
Abstract:
Emerging from 15 years of military rule, the Republic of Nigeria is struggling to build a stable, peaceful democratic nation from its 200 ethnic groups divided among 36 states. In May 1999, retired General Olusegun Obasanjo was elected President-a repeat performance of his earlier role as catalyst for democratic change. In 1979, Obasanjo presided over the only transition to civilian rule until now. His democratic instincts won him three years in jail under former President Sani Abacha's brutally repressive military regime.
Topic:
Environment, International Organization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Nigeria

176. The Carter Center News, July-December 2000

Publication Date:
07-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The eyes of the world were fixed on recounts and judicial twists in the 2000 U.S. presidential election for weeks last fall. When the suspense finally lifted and a winner emerged, the experience left Americans wiser and more educated about their own democracy.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Human Rights, Migration, Science and Technology, and Third World
Political Geography:
United States and America

177. Gas For Oil Markets

Author:
Koji Morita
Publication Date:
02-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Public projections by the International Energy Agency, the US Energy Information Administration and the European Commission suggest that, with present policies, world consumption of gas will roughly double by 2020, taking about 5% of the primary energy market from other fuels. About half this gain will be at the expense of more carbon-intensive fossil fuels, mainly coal, but the other half will replace carbon-free nuclear energy. The net effect on the growth of greenhouse gas emissions will therefore be small. For comparison, gas consumption increased in the past 20 years by almost 80%, at the expense of other fossil fuels. Half the increased gas demand is projected for developing countries, compared with 45% of the increase over the past 20 years and their present share of about a quarter of total world gas consumption.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Energy Policy, and Environment
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

178. Reinventing The Climate Negotiations: An Analysis of COP6

Author:
Christian Egenhofer and Jan Cornillie
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
With the cancellation of the Oslo ministerial mini-summit, the prospects for an early entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol are rapidly fading. Even if the US agrees to an outcome at a resumed COPbis in July, continued Congressional opposition and unresolved questions concerning the developing countries' commitments make US ratification highly implausible.
Topic:
Environment, International Law, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

179. States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World

Author:
Colin Kahl
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
Abstract:
Since the early 1990s, the National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States has identified civil strife in developing countries as an important threat to American interests and pointed to demographic and environmental pressures as potential sources of these conflicts. As the Clinton administration's 1996 NSS notes, “America's security imperatives... have fundamentally changed. The central security challenge of the past half century—the threat of communist expansion—is gone. The dangers we face today are more diverse... [L]arge-scale environmental degradation, exacerbated by rapid population growth, threatens to undermine political stability in many countries and regions.”President Clinton echoed these sentiments in a speech before the United Nations on June 26, 1997, declaring that efforts to preserve the planet's natural resources were “crucial not only for the quality of our individual environments and health, but also to maintain stability and peace within nations and among them.” Similar concerns have been voiced outside Washington. In 1991, for example, then NATO secretary general Manfred Worner argued that “[t]he immense conflict potential building up in the Third World, characterized by growing wealth differentials, an exploding demography, climate shifts and the prospect for environmental disaster, combined with the resource conflicts of the future, cannot be left out of our security calculations...”And, in an influential and particularly apocalyptic article entitled “The Coming Anarchy,” Robert Kaplan went so far as to suggest that the environment was “the national-security issue of the early twenty-first century. The political and strategic impact of surging population, spreading disease, deforestation and soil erosion, water depletion, air pollution, and, possibly, rising sea levels in critical, overcrowded regions... will be the core foreign-policy challenge from which most others will ultimately emanate...”
Topic:
Security, Economics, Environment, International Political Economy, and Third World
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Washington

180. Start the Trade and Labor Dialogue

Author:
David Weiner
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Overseas Development Council
Abstract:
The debate over trade and labor standards is one of the most divisive in relations between industrial and developing countries. Concern about the impact of trade on workers is undermining support for trade liberalization worldwide.
Topic:
Environment, International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and World Trade Organization
Political Geography:
United States