Search

Begin New Search Topic Globalization Political Geography United States

101. The Default Power

Author:
Josef Joffe
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Every ten years, it is decline time in the United States. In the late 1950s, it was the Sputnik shock, followed by the "missile gap" trumpeted by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential campaign. A decade later, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sounded the dirge over bipolarity, predicting a world of five, rather than two, global powers. At the end of the 1970s, Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech invoked "a crisis of confidence" that struck "at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will." A decade later, academics such as the Yale historian Paul Kennedy predicted the ruin of the United States, driven by overextension abroad and profligacy at home. The United States was at risk of "imperial overstretch," Kennedy wrote in 1987, arguing that "the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is nowadays far larger than the country's power to defend them all simultaneously." But three years later, Washington dispatched 600,000 soldiers to fight the first Iraq war -- without reinstating the draft or raising taxes. The only price of "overstretch" turned out to be the mild recession of 1991. Declinism took a break in the 1990s. The United States was enjoying a nice run after the suicide of the Soviet Union, and Japan, the economic powerhouse of the 1980s, was stuck in its "lost decade" of stagnation and so no longer stirred U.S. paranoia with its takeover of national treasures such as Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center. The United States had moved into the longest economic expansion in history, which, apart from eight down months in 2001, continued until 2008. "Gloom is the dominant mood in Japan these days," one Asian commentator reported in 1997, whereas "American capitalism is resurgent, confident and brash." That year, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that "the defining feature of world affairs" was "globalization" and that if "you had to design a country best suited to compete in such a world, [it would be] today's America." He concluded on a triumphant note: "Globalization is us."
Topic:
Globalization
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and Washington

102. Thinking Big New York and London: Heading Back to the Top

Author:
Michael Bloomberg and Boris Johnson
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Columbia University World Leaders Forum
Abstract:
His program, featuring Mayors Michael Bloomberg of New York and Boris Johnson of London, is the keystone of a three-day conference in New York planned as the kickoff for continuing discussion between these two great cities. During the conference and beyond, invited participants will focus on major issues facing New York and London: the future of their financial sectors, the diversification of their economies, building and maintaining their capital plants, and expanding housing affordability.
Topic:
Globalization, International Political Economy, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, New York, United Kingdom, Europe, and London

103. U.S.-Japan-India Strategic Dialogue December 4 – December 6, 2009

Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Japan Institute Of International Affairs (JIIA)
Abstract:
Recognizing the strategic potential for expanding cooperation on regional and global challenges and the shared values among the United States, Japan and India, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), and the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA) initiated the U.S.-Japan-India Strategic Dialogue in June 2006.
Topic:
Globalization, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and India

104. National Courts, Domestic Democracy, and the Evolution of International Law: A Reply to Eyal Benvenisti and George Downs

Author:
Tom Ginsburg
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The application of the tools of international relations, particularly those associated with rational choice analysis, to problems of international law has generated many important insights in the last two decades. In a recent issue of this Journal, Eyal Benvenisti and George Downs, two scholars who individually and jointly have contributed much to this research programme, provide a fascinating interpretation of a recent trend in democracies toward judicial constraint of executives in foreign affairs matters. Placing this development in the broader context of inter-judicial cooperation and globalization, they argue that courts are increasingly coordinating across borders to constrain their national executives. This requires resolution of a transnational collective action problem among judges. The piece is creative, well-argued, and might even be correct. But, as I will argue, it might not be. The fact that courts cooperate and coordinate is observationally equivalent to other plausible theories of what courts are doing. These theories are simpler and also consistent with the basic story Benvenisti and Downs want to tell.
Topic:
Globalization
Political Geography:
United States

105. THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL HEALTH: Ingredients for a Bold Effective U.S. Initiative

Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Africa Policy Information Center
Abstract:
Major accomplishments in global health over the last decade demonstrate that adequately resourced programs, focused on achieving specific results, can improve health outcomes for millions and support economic progress. They also show that distinct public health challenges are closely interconnected and that a comprehensive and integrated strategy is needed to ensure that ambitious health goals are met.
Topic:
Globalization, Health, Human Welfare, and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
United States

106. Brazil's Rise as an Emerging Power: Implications for the U.S. and Europe

Author:
Stefan A. Schirm
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Transatlantic Relations
Abstract:
The last 20 years have witnessed the economic emergence of several countries, which are considered today to be “pivotal states”, “regional powers”, and “emerging powers” in world politics. These emerging powers encompass countries such as China, India, Brazil and Russia, (the BRICs), which have in common both that they have experienced rapid economic growth and that they seek to influence the global economy and world politics to a greater degree than they did before their rise. The BRICs have become leading exporters and lenders (especially China to the US) as well as holders of currency reserves, and they (plus Mexico) are expected to surpass the GNP of the G7 industrialized countries by the year 2040. The reasons for the assignment of a new role, and often of increased power, to these states are their demographic and geographic size, their economic and military capacities, and their political aspirations.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and Globalization
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, India, Brazil, and Latin America

107. China's Economic Rise -- Fact and Fiction

Author:
Albert Keidel
Publication Date:
07-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
China's economy will surpass that of the United States by 2035 and be twice its size by midcentury, a new report by Albert Keidel concludes. China's rapid growth is driven by domestic demand—not exports—and will sustain high single-digit growth rates well into this century. In China's Economic Rise—Fact and Fiction, Keidel examines China's likely economic trajectory and its implications for global commercial, institutional, and military leadership.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

108. The Shape of the World to Come

Author:
Laurent Cohen-Tanugi
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Contrary to an optimistic vision of a world "flattened" by the virtues of globalization, the sustainability and positive outcomes of economic and political homogenization are far from guaranteed. For better and for worse, globalization has become the most powerful force shaping the world's geopolitical landscape, whether it has meant integration or fragmentation, peace or war. The future partly depends on how new economic giants such as China, India, and others make use of their power. It also depends on how well Western democracies can preserve their tenuous hold on leadership, cohesion, and the pursuit of the common good. Offering the most comprehensive analysis of world politics to date, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi takes on globalization's cheerleaders and detractors, who, in their narrow focus, have failed to recognize the full extent to which globalization has become a geopolitical phenomenon. Offering an interpretative framework for thought and action, Cohen-Tanugi suggests how we should approach our new "multipolar" world—a world that is anything but the balanced and harmonious system many welcomed as a desirable alternative to the "American Empire."
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus

109. Policy Liberalization and FDI Growth, 1982 to 2006

Author:
Matthew Adler and Gary Clyde Hufbauer
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Over the last three decades the global economy has expanded in a remarkable fashion. While nominal world GDP has increased four times, world bilateral trade flows have grown more than six-fold, and the stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown by roughly 20 times since 1980. The sources of global trade and investment growth are well known—general economic expansion, policy liberalization, and better communications and technology—but the impact of each source is unclear. In this paper we attempt to uncover the contribution of policy liberalization to the rising ratios of US inward and outward FDI stocks to GDP over the last three decades.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

110. European Multinationals: A Globalization Scorecard

Author:
Stephen Thomsen
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Global competition requires a global response, and European firms are now at the forefront of attempts to become internationally diversified multinational enterprises. European firms have been accused at various times of being too focused on their integrating regional market or too tied by historical links with certain countries or regions to develop a genuinely global strategy. Yet figures for foreign direct investment suggest not only that European firms have invested far more abroad than their American and Japanese rivals, but that they have also done so in far more countries. Of particular relevance for long-term profitability, European enterprises have a much stronger presence in emerging markets than either US or Japanese firms. Europe has in turn received more inward investment from those countries than either the United States or Japan. These growing links between Europe and emerging economies could provide European firms with a competitive edge in what are the most promising markets of the future.
Topic:
Globalization and Markets
Political Geography:
United States and Europe