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431. Women’s Leadership Roles in Afghanistan

Author:
Aarya Nijat and Jennifer Murtazashvili
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
In the days after September 11, the international community’s desire to “rescue” Afghan women from their social, political, and economic fate was key to mobilizing global support to topple the Taliban regime. Since then, the Afghan government and the international community have invested vast resources seeking to improve the status of women in the country, primarily through programs to support women leaders in politics, business, and civil society. Drawn on interviews and focus group discussions with more than two hundred people, this report seeks to understand factors that contribute to the emergence of women leaders by identifying and assessing the past decade and a half’s efforts to promote women’s leadership.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Politics, Governance, and Social Movement
Political Geography:
Afghanistan

432. Building a Sustainable Afghanistan

Author:
Trent Ruder
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Drafted in 2012, the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework (TMAF) provides guidelines for Afghan reform and ongoing donor support and has proved useful, but it is hobbled by political, social, financial, and bureaucratic factors. The Ghani-Abdullah unity government, inaugurated in the autumn of 2014, is looking to refresh the agreement to fit an evolving political and economic context. Policy trade-offs are inevitable, however. They raise a critical question: Is the document intended to organize policy-level cooperation on all development efforts or is it a targeted and sequenced blueprint for enabling Afghan financial independence? This report examines the context and policy options of the TMAF and what it means for the future of Afghanistan.
Topic:
Economics, Politics, Governance, Reform, and Budget

433. Taxes: Price of Civilization or Tribute to Leviathan?

Author:
Lant Pritchett and Yamini Aiyar
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
There are two dominant narratives about taxation. In one, taxes are the “price we pay for a civilized society” (Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.). In this view taxes are not a necessary evil (as in the pairing of “death and taxes” as inevitable) but a positive good: more taxes buy more “civilization.” The other view is that taxes are “tribute to Leviathan”—a pure involuntary extraction from those engaged in economic production to those who control coercive power producing no reciprocal benefit. In this view taxes are a bane of the civilized. We consider the question of taxes as price versus tribute for contemporary India.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, Governance, and Budget
Political Geography:
India

434. Losing Control? Sovereignty in the Age of Globalization

Author:
Saskia Sassen
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Course Pack
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
What determines the flow of labor and capital in this new global information economy? Who has the capacity to coordinate this new system, to create some measure of order? What happens to territoriality and sovereignty, two fundamental principles of the modern state? And who gains rights and who loses rights? Losing Control? examines the rise of private transnational legal codes and supranational institutions, such as the World Trade Organization and universal human rights covenants, and shows that though sovereignty remains an important feature of the international system, it is no longer confined to the nation-state. Other actors gain rights and a kind of sovereignty by setting some of the rules that used to be within the exclusive domain of states. Saskia Sassen tracks the emergence and the making of the transformations that mark our world today, among which is the partial denationalizing of national territory. Two arenas in particular stand out in the new spatial and economic order by their capacity to set their own rules: the global capital market and the series of codes and institutions that have mushroomed into an international human rights regime. As Sassen shows, these two quasi-legal realms now have the power and legitimacy to demand action and accountability from national governments, with the ironic twist that both depend upon the state to enforce their goals. From the economic policy shifts forced by the Mexico debt crisis to the recurring battles over immigration and refugees around the world, Losing Control? incisively analyzes the events that have radically altered the landscape of governance in an era of increasing globalization.
Topic:
Debt, Globalization, International Political Economy, Sovereignty, World Trade Organization, Labor Issues, and Governance
Political Geography:
Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231106092
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

435. Russian Ideology After Crimea

Author:
Andrei Kolesnikov
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Following the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, the Russian public has embraced an increasingly conservative and nationalistic ideology. Any repudiation of this ideology, let alone the transformation of the country as a whole, will only happen if demand for change from the bottom coincides with a desire for modernization from the top. The new social contract demands that the Russian people surrender their freedom in return for Crimea and a sense of national pride. It seizes on changes that have already occurred in the minds of many Russians. The new ideology is based on a deliberate recycling of archaic forms of mass consciousness, a phenomenon that can be termed the sanctification of unfreedom. Confined to a besieged fortress, surrounded by external enemies, and faced with a domestic fifth column, the people of Russia have begun to experience Stockholm syndrome and have thrown their support behind the commander of the fortress, President Vladimir Putin. They have adopted his logic and even defended his interests, believing that they are members of his team. Freedom of expression has been significantly curtailed through a system of bans and strict forms of punishment, including criminal prosecution, which have both didactic and deterrent components. Pressure on democratic media outlets has also increased drastically. Ideology in Russia is a mass product that is easy to absorb; it is legitimized by constant references to the past, glorious traditions, and occasionally fictional historical events.
Topic:
Human Rights, Nationalism, Political Economy, Governance, and Authoritarianism
Political Geography:
Russia

436. Low-Cost Authoritarianism: The Egyptian Regime and Labor Movement Since 2013

Author:
Fatima Ramadan and Amr Adly
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Authoritarianism under military auspices has been reimposed in Egypt since mid-2013. The state has outlawed protests, strikes, and sit-ins in the public sphere and has subjected public spaces and private media to tight surveillance. It also has mounted repression of the independent labor movement. When taken together, these factors suggest that the labor movement is likely to wane in the near future. Whether this will last over the long term remains uncertain.
Topic:
Human Rights, Labor Issues, Governance, Authoritarianism, and Political Activism
Political Geography:
North Africa and Egypt

437. Kurdistan’s Politicized Society Confronts a Sultanistic System

Author:
Kawa Hassan
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The Kurdistan region of Iraq enjoys more stability, economic development, and political pluralism than the rest of the country. And public opinion under the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) demands rule-of-law-based governance. But power is concentrated in the hands of the ruling parties and families, who perpetuate a nondemocratic, sultanistic system. These dynamics could foster instability in Kurdistan and its neighborhood, but could also provide a rare window of opportunity for democratization.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, Political Economy, Governance, and Authoritarianism
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, and Kurdistan

438. Sector-Specific Decision Failures in Business and Government, and Potential Solutions

Author:
Nicolas Boulgaris
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Both the public and the corporate sector will inevitably take poor decisions from time to time. Mostly, this will be explained by already well-researched cognitive predispositions. Anchoring, overconfidence and confirmation biases come to mind among many others. However, having worked for seventeen years in the private sector with an academic background in international relations, I came to realise that there are also explanations for decision-making missteps that originate directly from the specific particularities of government and business.1 As an “Executive in Residence” at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, I recently had the opportunity to exchange my personal experience in the asset management industry with the practice of senior politicians, diplomats and military officials. This short paper is a summary of my reflections on some sector- specific roots of decision-making failures of the private and public areas and an attempt to draw thought-provoking conclusions on what both entities can learn, often from each other.
Topic:
Privatization and Governance

439. What Next for the IMF?

Author:
Edwin M. Truman
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
After the Obama administration's four failed attempts to win congressional approval of the 2010 quota and governance reform for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it is time to recognize that implementation of the agreement may be indefinitely delayed. The international community must therefore prepare for the likelihood of a new world order in which the IMF augments its funding and reforms its governing structure without US participation. This Policy Brief examines four options for the IMF: First, wait for the US Congress to pass the necessary legislation. Second, complete a new, augmented IMF quota and governance package and again wait for the United States to give its formal approval. Third, bypass the US Congress and risk losing the US veto over a few important decisions on the structure of the IMF. Fourth, let the Fund adopt a reform and financing package within a structure that potentially excludes US participation and eliminates the US veto in the new entity.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, International Monetary Fund, Governance, and Reform

440. The True Levels of Government and Social Expenditures in Advanced Economies

Author:
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Conventional wisdom holds that the United States lags behind many other advanced countries in its spending on social, health, and welfare programs. In this Policy Brief, Jacob Kirkegaard argues that conventional wisdom is faulty, in that it overlooks the role of tax systems and private spending in delivering social programs in different societies. Taking the full effects of tax systems and spending by private and public sources into account, Kirkegaard finds that the true level of US social expenditures is fully comparable to European spending—and yet yields worse outcomes than in Europe. High aggregate social spending in the United States has a very low impact on overall income inequality and healthcare outcomes, for example. The Policy Brief also concludes that the United States relies excessively on tax subsidization to the detriment of fiscal sustainability, transparency, and redistributive fairness
Topic:
Governance, Health Care Policy, and Budget