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161. Factsheet: Kayleigh McEnany

Author:
Bridge Initiative Team
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Bridge Initiative, Georgetown University
Abstract:
Kayleigh McEnany is a political commentator, devout Christian, and vocal defender of U.S. President Donald Trump. She currently serves as the White House press secretary, and has previously worked for both CNN and Fox News. McEnany has a history of defending and making false, anti-Muslim statements.
Topic:
Politics, Islamophobia, Donald Trump, and Kayleigh McEnany
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

162. Harnessing artificial intelligence

Author:
Ulrike Franke
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
Artificial intelligence is impossible to disregard – it is set to transform society, the economy, and politics. Europe has not yet taken all the steps it needs to benefit from these advances or to protect itself from AI’s potentially dangerous aspects. The US, China, and Russia are alert to AI’s power to change modern warfare: they grasp the geopolitics of AI and may pursue techno-nationalist agendas in recognition of this. Europe can develop sovereignty in AI by beefing up the talent, data, and hardware it draws on; and as a “regulatory superpower” it can set standards the rest of the world will have to follow. If Europe does not address these difficult questions soon it will find itself surrounded by more powerful rivals deploying AI against it.
Topic:
Politics, Geopolitics, Economy, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, and United States of America

163. Unequal and Unrepresented: Political Inequality and the People’s Voice in the New Gilded Age, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E. Brady and Sidney Verba

Author:
Spencer Piston
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Who participates in American democracy? In particular, is it those with high levels of resources who most often vote, protest, contact elected officials, and discuss politics with friends? How unequal is political participation? Political scientists Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E. Brady, and Sidney Verba have contributed important answers to these questions over the past few decades. In their first book, Voice and Equality (1995) these scholars traced associations between resource possession and political participation, finding extensive evidence of inequalities in political voice. In their second book, The Unheavenly Chorus (2012), the authors reiterated and updated the analyses of the first. The authors also extended Voice and Equality in a number of ways, primarily by examining organizational-level as well as individual-level participatory inequalities, and by assessing the likely efficacy of various reform strategies. This third volume, Unequal and Unrepresented, “distill[s] two substantial books into a relatively short one…” (p. ix), repeating the core themes of the two earlier volumes. The presentation of the book is slightly different, foregrounding substance (even) more than before by relegating methodological details to footnotes. Thus, the book is perhaps best suited to an undergraduate audience.
Topic:
Politics, Inequality, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

164. Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder to Stay in Office, Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt

Author:
Kelly Dittmar
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
In this book Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt leverage an impressive data collection to make the case that women legislators are more active and more responsive to their constituents than men. Moreover, they offer a theoretical argument to explain why women appear to work harder to meet constituent needs and demands, suggesting that women legislators’ perceptions of their electoral vulnerability—even as incumbents—motivate them to focus their legislative efforts on proving to their constituents that they are worthy of re-election. The bulk of the text is dedicated to analyzing more than 12 measures of legislative activity and responsiveness—from the number and types of bills sponsored to the amount of mail sent to districts and staff allocated to district offices—in the 103rd to 110th Congresses (1993–2005). The analyses focus on between-gender differences in each chamber. Lazarus and Steigerwalt find the strongest evidence that women outwork and out-represent their male counterparts in the U.S. House of Representatives. Findings of gender differences are more limited in the U.S. Senate but still affirm the previous studies showing that women members are more likely to “bring home the bacon” in the form of earmarks (see Anzia and Berry 2011) and to sponsor and co-sponsor more bills and resolutions. The authors also find that women’s roll call behavior and committee assignments align more with constituent needs and interests than those of their male colleagues. Even with these differences by chamber, Lazarus and Steigerwalt fairly conclude that “electing women results in better substantive representation for all constituents” (p. 17). They effectively expand claims already evident in the women and politics literature that women members better represent women's interests by demonstrating how women’s presence in the Congress will better serve all citizens—men and women alike.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Politics, Women, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

165. Protectionism under Trump: The China Shock, Intolerance, and the "First White President"

Author:
Marcus Noland
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
In 2016, the United States elected an avowedly protectionist president. This paper uses US county-level electoral data to examine this outcome. The hypothesis that support for protectionism was purely a response to globalization is rejected. Exposure to trade competition encouraged a shift to the Republican candidate, but this effect is mediated by race, diversity, education, and age. If the turn toward protectionism is due to economic dislocation, then public policy interventions could mitigate the impact and support the reestablishment of a political consensus for open trade. If, however, the drivers are identity or cultural values, then the scope for constructive policy intervention is unclear.
Topic:
Economics, Politics, Donald Trump, and Protectionism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

166. Leading the free world: How America benefits

Author:
Paul D. Miller
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
What is “world order” and why should Americans care? Less than half of all Americans have a passport, and less than five percent travel internationally. Only 26 percent of US gross domestic product (GDP) comes from international trade. Since the end of the Cold War most Americans probably feel safe from foreign threats most of the time: they feel little sense of danger or threat from the world. Even the terrorist attacks of 2001 have receded into memory and increasingly feel like an aberration rather than a precedent. Americans may feel a sense of unease about the world, but we are confident that even the nation’s wars safely take place “over there,” not here at home. If the United States can afford to tune out much of the world because of its geography, wealth, and power, why should we care? Americans have been the unconscious beneficiaries of a world order that would not exist without them. Just as we take for granted electricity and indoor plumbing without thought to the wiring and piping that make them possible, so too we take for granted the peace, prosperity, and stability of our world without thought to the infrastructure of the free world. The free world exists because the most powerful states in the world are open societies: liberal capitalist democracies who largely see the world the same way and have worked together to keep the peace and build wealth. That order is now imperiled. The United States no longer enjoys an unquestioned advantage over its rivals, Russia and China, as it once did. North Korea and Iran threaten the United States with nuclear weapons and support for terrorism. Perhaps most threatening of all: rising nationalist and populist movements around the world, including in the United States, are undermining popular support for international cooperation, free trade, and collective security. This report is about the free world: what it is, why it is imperiled, why Americans should care, and what we can do about it. Some skeptics have criticized the international order. President Donald Trump regularly criticizes “globalism,” and many Americans seem inclined to believe that the United States is losing its sovereignty and that the world is taking advantage of America’s generosity. We respectfully disagree. The free world, and American leadership of it, is good for America and good for the world. It helps keep us safe and give us opportunity. Far from eroding America’s sovereignty, it is a tool of American influence. Most importantly, the aspirations of the free world are just. It is a system of ordered liberty among nations, a tool or mechanism for allowing nations and individuals to flourish in freedom and safety. Investing in the free world is an investment in our values and our common values.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Nationalism, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, China, North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

167. The Future of the European Union: Scenarios for the Start of the New Legislature

Author:
Ferdinando Nelli Feroci
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
A few months after the European Parliament elections, and a few weeks before a new European Commission is fully operational, the European Union is facing old and new challenges, both domestic and international. Internally, the EU will soon be testing these new institutions. In the recently elected European Parliament, nationalist and Eurosceptic political forces are a minority, but pro-European mainstream parties, which have the numbers to control the proceedings of the Parliament, have not been able to consolidate a stable and comfortable majority. The new European Commission has encountered setbacks in the confirmation procedure of three of its members and will therefore fully assume its responsibilities with some delay on 1 December.
Topic:
Government, Nationalism, Politics, Elections, and Transatlantic Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, United States of America, and European Union

168. A Long-Term Perspective on NATO and the Multinational Order

Author:
Sinan Ülgen
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The evolving external threat environment is impacting the internal political dynamics of NATO nations and is accentuating a series of already existing trends – differences in threat perceptions, burden-sharing difficulties, challenges to respond to sub-threshold threats and the rise of populism – which altogether affect the cohesiveness and potentially the effectiveness of NATO as a political and military alliance. NATO’s operational future over the next decades will be shaped by the ingenuity of the transatlantic leadership in developing new arrangements of institutional cooperation between the Alliance and the burgeoning forms of the “coalition of the willing”. The Alliance should nonetheless remain the main transatlantic political forum, given Brexit as well as the rising need for a common political response to the many challenges ranging from migration to failed states. NATO has been relatively successful in adapting to the changing security environment. Its military capabilities remain unparalleled and unrivalled. The more interesting question is however the political one. Namely how the politics of sustaining this Alliance are being shaped by the underlying dynamics that are transforming the global political, economic and military context. The paper is divided in three chapters.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Politics, Institutions, and Transatlantic Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, United States of America, and European Union

169. How Europe Should Approach China

Author:
Nicola Casarini
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Should the EU enforce a containment policy towards the People’s Republic of China (PRC – or simply China), joining efforts undertaken by US President Donald Trump, who has unleashed a trade and technological war against Beijing with the aim of permanently subordinating the Asian giant to the West? Or should the EU continue its engagement policy towards Beijing – and even seek to maximise Sino-European ties to put limits on those US unilateral policies that are detrimental to Europe’s interests and fundamental values? What would be the best policy mix of engagement and containment for EU–China relations? And to what extent should the EU align its China policy with that of the US?
Topic:
International Relations, Politics, and Institutions
Political Geography:
China, Europe, Asia, United States of America, and European Union

170. U.S. Foreign Policy for the Middle Class: Perspectives from Colorado

Author:
Salman Ahmed, Allison Gelman, Wendy Cutler, Rozlyn Engel, David Gordon, Jennifer Harris, Brian Lewandowski, Douglas Lute, Daniel M. Price, Christopher Smart, Jake Sullivan, Ashley J. Tellis, Richard Wobbekind, and Tom Wyler
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The American middle class is already taking center stage in the 2020 presidential electoral campaign, even in relation to debates about foreign policy. While the U.S. economy has been growing and unemployment rates have fallen, too many Americans still struggle to sustain a middle-class lifestyle. Meanwhile, major multinational corporations, China, and other foreign competitors reap enormous benefits from a global economy that U.S. leadership and security has helped underwrite. Therefore, candidates on both sides of the aisle have ample cause for debating whether changes to U.S. foreign policy are required to better advance the economic well-being of America’s middle class, even if middle-class fortunes largely depend on domestic factors and policies. This debate will be relevant long after the electoral cycle is over, however, and will influence the trajectory of U.S. global leadership and international affairs for decades to come. National security and foreign policy professionals in government need to be fully involved in this discussion, yet many are understandably consumed by geopolitical and security developments abroad and are, therefore, often distant or disconnected from economic realities at home. They rarely get to hear what Americans beyond Washington, DC, think about how U.S. foreign policy–related efforts may or may not intersect with these realities. Thus, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace initiated a new line of research on “foreign policy for the middle class” to help address this gap and bridge an important divide. In 2017, Carnegie convened a bipartisan task force of former senior policymakers to provide strategic direction to this research and ultimately make concrete recommendations. To inform these recommendations, the task force and a research team—including Carnegie scholars and university researchers—are gathering data on both the perceived and measurable economic effects of U.S. foreign policy on the middle class in three U.S. states in the nation’s heartland (Ohio, Colorado, and Nebraska). This report on Colorado, prepared with economists at the University of Colorado Boulder, is the second of the three case studies. The first study on Ohio, undertaken with The Ohio State University, was published in December 2018.1 Across multiple locales in Colorado, the research team conducted interviews and focus groups with state and local officials, economic developers, small business owners, employees, community leaders, teachers, nurses, tradesmen, and others who comprise, employ, and/or advance the interests of middle-class households. The conversation focused on how those interviewed assessed the economic well-being of Colorado’s middle class and whether they believed any significant changes in U.S. foreign policy could yield a better outcome. The interviews and focus groups took place between February and May of 2019, reflecting the events and policies up to that time.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Politics, Economy, Class, and Defense Industry
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America