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191. Contentious Politics in Afghanistan and the U.S. Efforts for Peace (2008-2018)

Author:
Rana Eijaz Ahmad
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Political Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
Afghanistan has been a battlefield for big powers for last four decades. In 1979, Russia invaded in Afghanistan and the U.S. fought a proxy war in the region with the help of Pakistan. Russian withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan under Geneva accord in 1988 caused disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991. The Taliban government emerged in Afghanistan in 1994 and a regime of contentious politics started in Afghanistan. It allegedly caused terrorism at local as well as international level. The U.S. alienated itself from the region after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. In September 2001, Osama Bin Laden purportedly attacked the U.S. security hub Pentagon and economic hub World Trade Centre. America retaliated with cruise missile and invaded in Afghanistan in 2001. After the U.S. claim for killing Osama in May 2011 in Abbotabad, Pakistan, decided to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan in 2014. The U.S. wishes to sustain peace in the region after its withdrawal. It intends to ensure all the conflicting parties that they should come on table for a peaceful bargaining. The U.S. is rehabilitating Afghanistan with her allies. Afghanistan was destructed during the war on terror. This paper is based on the theory of contentious politics introduced by three American sociologists, Sidney Tarrow, Charles Tilly, and Doug McAdam. The tipping point theory is also used in the backdrop of 9/11 incident. It is explained with primary as well as secondary sources.
Topic:
Politics, History, Afghanistan, and Peace
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, South Asia, North America, and United States of America

192. A hemispheric moral majority: Brazil and the transnational construction of the New Right

Author:
Benjamin Arthur Cowan
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
Abstract:
This essay posits Brazil as one critical locus for gestating the New Right. Often conceived of as a conservative reaction to the U.S. Civil Rights movement, the New Right actually developed transnationally, with determinative participation from Brazilian activists. In this article, I focus on a revelatory subset of those activists, who demonstrate collaboration that (1) linked elite reactionaries in Brazil, the United States, and elsewhere; (2) facilitated the rise of conservative Christianity as populist groundswell; and (3) transformed these two countries into power centers of a Right that adheres to the now-familiar Brazilian moniker “Bible, Bullets, and Beef.”
Topic:
Politics, Religious Right, and Neoconservatism
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, North America, and United States of America

193. U.S. Politics and Foreign Policy after the Midterm Elections

Author:
Andrzej Dąbrowski
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The Democratic Party won a majority in the House of Representatives in the U.S. “midterm” elections, although the Republican Party retained its majority in the Senate. The Republicans’ defeat will weaken President Donald Trump, who will have to seek common ground with the Democrats, for example, on the budget. The Democrats will try to undermine Trump administration policy using the powers of Congressional oversight and by obstructing legislation sent to the House by the Republican majority in the Senate.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, Politics, Elections, Domestic Politics, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

194. Can U.S. Democracy Policy Survive Trump?

Author:
Thomas Carothers
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
In President Donald Trump’s first year in office, U.S. policy relating to supporting democracy abroad became starkly divided. At the level of “high policy”—direct engagement and messaging by President Trump and his principal foreign policy advisers—the United States sharply downgraded its global pro-democratic posture. Trump’s praise of dictators, criticism of democratic allies, and anti-democratic actions at home recast the United States as at best an ambivalent actor on the global democratic stage. Yet at the same time, pro-democratic “low policy”—quiet but serious engagement by U.S. diplomats to counter democratic backsliding and support democratic advances overseas, and the extensive but generally low-profile domain of U.S. democracy assistance programs—largely carried on, making important contributions in many countries. During Trump’s second year, this policy schism has only widened. He has doubled down on his embrace of dictators and spurning of democratic partners, as well as his anti-democratic actions at home. His new secretary of state and national security adviser may not share his anti-democratic impulses, but they have done little to mitigate his anti-democratic actions and have reinforced a transactional foreign policy with little apparent commitment to the idea of democracy as a universal value. Still, U.S. pro-democratic low policy carries on, as American diplomats support democracy in various countries at important moments of political change, and as democracy assistance remains at pre-Trump levels of activity. Yet the manifest lack of commitment to democracy at the top is increasingly corroding the low policy domain. Under Trump, U.S. democracy high policy has reached its lowest ebb of at least the past forty years. If the United States continues its present course for two more years, it will end up stranded on the sidelines, or even on the wrong side, of the global democratic struggle, precisely at a time when that struggle is more acute than at any time in modern history. Nevertheless, democracy’s defenders—both inside and outside of the U.S. government—still have the opportunity to mitigate the damage.
Topic:
Politics, Democracy, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

195. U.S. Foreign Policy for the Middle Class: Perspectives From Ohio

Author:
Salman Ahmed, Karan Bhatia, Wendy Cutler, David Gordon, Jennifer Harris, Edward Hill, Douglas Lute, Daniel M. Price, William Shkurti, Christopher Smart, Fran Stewart, Jake Sullivan, Ashley J. Tellis, and Tom Wyler
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
All U.S. administrations aim to conceive foreign policies that protect and enhance Americans’ safety, prosperity, and way of life. However, views now diverge considerably within and across political party lines about whether the U.S. role abroad is adequately advancing the economic well-being of the middle class at home. Today, even as the U.S. economy is growing and unemployment rates are falling, many households still struggle to sustain a middle-class standard of living. Meanwhile, America’s top earners accrue an increasing share of the nation’s income and wealth, and China and other economic competitors overseas reap increasing benefits from a global economy that U.S. security and leadership help underwrite. Policymakers need to explore ways to make U.S. foreign policy work better for America’s middle class, even if their economic fortunes depend largely on domestic factors and policies. However, before policymakers propose big foreign policy changes, they should first test their assumptions about who the middle class is, what economic problems they face, and how different aspects of U.S. foreign policy can cause or solve them. They need to examine how much issues like trade matter to these households’ economic fortunes relative to other foreign and domestic policies. They should acknowledge the trade-offs arising from policy changes that benefit some communities at the expense of others. And they should reach beyond the foreign policy establishment to hear from those in the nation’s heartland who have critical perspectives to offer, especially state and local officials, economic developers, small business owners, local labor representatives, community leaders, and working families. With these objectives in mind, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace launched a series of state-level case studies to determine whether significant changes to U.S. foreign policy are needed to better advance the economic well-being of America’s middle class. Ohio was chosen for the inaugural study because of its economic and political diversity and its well-known status as a bellwether state. Carnegie partnered with researchers at OSU to conduct the study and convened a bipartisan task force comprised of former senior policymakers to provide strategic guidance and shape the findings. Interviews were conducted in Cleveland, Columbus, Coshocton, Dayton, Lima, and Marion to solicit views in diverse conditions across the state.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, National Security, Politics, Class, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

196. The Mobilization of Conservative Civil Society

Author:
Richard Youngs, Gareth Fowler, Arthur Larok, Pawel Marczewski, Vijayan Mj, Ghia Nodia, Natalia Shapoavlova, Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, Marisa Von Bülow, and Özge Zihnioğlu
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
As the domain of civil society burgeoned in the 1990s and early 2000s—a crucial component of the global spread of democracy in the developing and postcommunist worlds—many transnational and domestic actors involved in building and supporting this expanding civil society assumed that the sector was naturally animated by organizations mobilizing for progressive causes. Some organizations focused on the needs of underrepresented groups, such as women’s empowerment, inclusion of minorities, and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights; others addressed broader societal issues such as economic justice, social welfare, and antipoverty concerns. In many countries, the term “civil society” came to be associated with a relatively bounded set of organizations associated with a common agenda, one separate from or even actively opposed by conservative political forces. However, in the past ten years, this assumption and outlook are proving increasingly incorrect. In many countries in the developing and postcommunist worlds, as well as in long-established Western democracies, conservative forms of civic activism have been multiplying and gaining traction. In some cases, new conservative civic movements and groups are closely associated with illiberal political actors and appear to be an integral part of the well-chronicled global pushback against Western liberal democratic norms. In other cases, the political alliances and implications of conservative civil society are less clear. In almost all cases—other than perhaps that of the United States, where the rise of conservative activism has been the subject of considerable study—this rising world of conservative civil society has been little studied and often overlooked. This report seeks to correct this oversight and to probe more deeply into the rise of conservative civil society around the world. It does so under the rubric of Carnegie’s Civic Research Network project, an initiative that aims to explore new types of civic activism and examine the extent to which these activists and associations are redrawing the contours of global civil society. The emerging role and prominence of conservative activism is one such change to civil society that merits comparative examination. Taken as a whole, the report asks what conservative civic activism portends for global civil society. Its aim is not primarily to pass judgment on whether conservative civil society is a good or bad thing—although the contributing authors obviously have criticisms to make. Rather, it seeks mainly to understand more fully what this trend entails. Much has been written and said about anticapitalist, human rights, and global justice civil society campaigns and protests. Similar analytical depth is required in the study of conservative civil society. The report redresses the lack of analytical attention paid to the current rise of conservative civil society by offering examples of such movements and the issues that drive them. The authors examine the common traits that conservative groups share and the issues that divide them. They look at the kind of members that these groups attract and the tactics and tools they employ. And they ask how effective the emerging conservative civil society has been in reshaping the political agenda.
Topic:
Civil Society, Politics, Political Activism, and Conservatism
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Europe, South Asia, Turkey, Ukraine, Caucasus, Middle East, India, Poland, Brazil, South America, Georgia, North America, Thailand, Southeast Asia, and United States of America

197. Iron Curtain over the Arab world: Evaluating Trump’s inaction on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Author:
Adham Sahloul
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
The murder of Saudi Arabian columnist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2nd in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul has been a clarion call for the Washington foreign policy community, one that is redefining the United States’ relations with the Saudi Kingdom and, by extension, US strategy in the Middle East. The Khashoggi affair will outlive President Donald Trump; the reputation of Saudi’s leadership is beyond repair, and with Global Magnitsky sanctions and the newly proposed bipartisan Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act, the US Congress appears ready to act where the executive has fallen short. The CIA has concluded that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) ordered Khashoggi’s murder. Trump, who has threatened “severe consequences” for whomever is found responsible, seemed over the past month to be looking for a way out of naming, shaming, and punishing MbS himself. In his statement on November 20th, Trump confirmed many observers’ worst fears about this president’s worst instincts, saying that US security, economic, and political interests transcend this incident. For a sitting US president to balk at the notion of holding an ally accountable and making even a symbolic effort to address such a gruesome crime with clear chains of responsibility constitutes a new low in US foreign policy
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Crime, Human Rights, Politics, Trump, Journalism, and Crisis Management
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, North America, United States of America, and Gulf Nations

198. Q&A with Political Cartoonist Khalid Albaih

Author:
Vicki Valosik and Khalid Albaih
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Khalid Albaih (@khalidalbaih) is a Sudanese artist and political cartoonist born in Bucharest, Romania. Albaih is based in Doha, where he formerly served as Head of Public Art for Qatar Museums Authority. He currently lives and works in Denmark as the ICORN/PEN Artist in Residence for the city of Copenhagen. Albaih’s cartoons, published under the name “Khartoon!”—a play on the words “cartoon” and “Khartoum,” the capital of Sudan—have appeared widely in international publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, PRI, NPR, and BBC. In addition, Albaih has published social and political commentaries in The Guardian and Al Jazeera, among other places. His work has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions around the world, from New Delhi and Tokyo, to London, Boston, and Dearborn, to name only a few. Khalid is also the founder of @DohaFashionFridays and cofounder of Khartoum Art & Design Center.
Topic:
Politics, Arts, Internet, Social Media, and Arab Spring
Political Geography:
Middle East and United States of America

199. How Imran Khan Might Change Pakistan and its U.S. Relations

Author:
Michael Kugelman, Arif Rafiq, Tamanna Salikuddin, and Moeed Yusuf
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Middle East Institute (MEI)
Abstract:
Many anticipate that as the new prime minister, Imran Khan will change Pakistan and alter its relations with the United States and regional powers. Khan’s first speech to the nation was moderate in tone and substance. He has an ambitious reform agenda that above all promises to deal with corruption. What domestic constraints will he face? Will his being a successful populist, the first since the 1970s, embolden him to pursue transformative policies such as on taxation and land reform? How will his government handle Pakistan’s looming economic crisis? Will he inevitably butt heads with the military over its budget and Pakistan’s policies toward countering terrorism? Is Khan prepared to modify his deeply negative views on the U.S. role in Afghanistan? How far should he be expected to go curbing the Afghan Taliban and pushing it toward peace talks? Can he improve relations with India and also satisfy his religious-political base? These and other questions were addressed in a discussion among a distinguished panel of experts on Pakistan hosted by the Middle East Institute (MEI). The panelists are Michael Kugelman (Wilson Center), Arif Rafiq (Cizier Consulting), Tamanna Salikuddin (U.S. Institute of Peace) and Moeed Yusuf (U.S. Institute of Peace). MEI’s director for Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies, Marvin Weinbaum, moderated.
Topic:
Politics, Bilateral Relations, Reform, Taliban, and Economy
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Asia, and United States of America

200. The Electoral Impact of Newly Enfranchised Groups: The Case of Women’s Suffrage in the United States

Author:
Mona Morgan-Collins
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
Did the expansion of women’s suffrage make a dent in electoral politics? I theorize that while women’s suffrage has the potential to sway electoral tides in favor of the newly enfranchised, such effects are conditional on the strength of a social movement that represents their interests. A social movement defines the groups’ shared interests and helps to create an active, informed and mobilized pool of voters that can take electoral action to foster common policy goals. In testing this argument, I use evidence from the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in the United States and employ a difference in difference approach that exploits the heterogeneity in the proportion of women across counties. I find support for the argument. The findings have important implications for the study of representation of marginalized groups, as formal inclusion of previously disenfranchised groups may not be sufficient to secure their de facto representation.
Topic:
Politics, Elections, Women, Suffrage, and Electoral Systems
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America