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21. Oman, Ten Years After the Arab Spring: The Evolution of State-Society Relations

Author:
Yasmina Abouzzohour
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Oman is often portrayed as an “oasis of peace” that is immune to dissent. In fact, this assertion is an oversimplification and this paper provides a more discerning analysis of the relationship between the regime and opposition actors – such as youth groups, industrial workers, and intellectuals – that have led contestations in the last decade. It overviews the Omani political context, highlights recent episodes of contestation, and examines how the regime successfully contained them. It argues that in the coming years, the regime is likely to face heightened discontent triggered by socioeconomic hardship and it will be essential for the authorities to open the political sphere and stop repressing free speech.
Topic:
Civil Society, Social Movement, Arab Spring, and Protests
Political Geography:
Oman and Gulf Nations

22. Rural Sanitation Practices: A Rapid Assessment Study for Odisha

Author:
Anindita Mukherjee, Anju Dwivedi, and Neha Agarwal
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
The state of Odisha has made unprecedented strides in increasing access to individual toilets from 14% in 2011 to a purported 100% in 2019 under the Swachh Bharat Mission - Gramin. In light of the clarion call of a ‘Swachha Odisha, Sustha Odisha’, and the national imperatives set by the National Rural Sanitation Strategy, 2019-2029, the state has created a systematic framework towards the achievement of total sanitation in the form of the Odisha Rural Sanitation Policy, 2020. To inform the creation of the Policy and shape its contours for responding optimally to ground realities, we undertook a rapid assessment of the prevailing sanitation practices in three districts of the state. The present report discusses the resulting findings relating to varied aspects of rural sanitation - ranging from trends in toilet use and on-site sanitation systems to the availability and state of Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM) infrastructure.
Topic:
Infrastructure, Governance, Rural, and Sanitation
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

23. The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Public School Education

Author:
Accountability Initiative
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
This brief presents some of the key effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on India’s public school education, focussing specifically on children. It begins with a discussion of the pre-pandemic status of school education and key policy shifts over the past few years, and provides an overview of the principal issues arising from the pandemic and the resulting school closures. It then offers potential policy suggestions to address these challenges, and thereby ensuring quality education to all children.
Topic:
Education, Health, Children, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

24. Research in the Covid-19 Context: Adaptive Methods and Ethical Considerations

Author:
Mukta Naik
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
Resilience and adaptation have become buzzwords as governments, corporations and society find ways to survive the Covid-19 pandemic and, where possible, seek to develop processes and outcomes that improve on the pre-crisis status quo. Members of the Women, Work, and the Gig Economy research consortium have also thought deeply about strategies to continue research under these challenging conditions, while considering the ethics that must underpin research at a time of great distress for people across the world. This brief summarizes the conceptual and practical approaches that consortium members have taken to address ethical concerns as well as strategic and tactical shifts in research methods within the broader, geographically diverse and evertransforming context of Covid-19. These insights draw on the deliberations of an internal workshop held in September 2020 where consortium members presented and debated their respective approaches and perspectives. In particular, the team at LIRNEasia provided substantive takeaways from their colloquium on “Research methods in a pandemic.”
Topic:
Women, Ethics, Work Culture, COVID-19, and Gig Economy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

25. The Pandemic and Public Administration: A survey of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officers

Author:
Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Deepak Sanan, Karnamadakala Rahul Sharma, and Aditya Unnikrishnan
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused extraordinary hardship since India’s first case was reported in Thrissur, Kerala in January 2020. Individuals and communities have since then made drastic changes to their behaviours, daily routines and lives, quite often in response to announcements or regulatory direction provided by the state. Officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) are important actors at the forefront of framing, implementing and evaluating the state’s response to the pandemic, and uniquely positioned between the political executive and India’s massive frontline state. Their views on the state’s response, preparedness, the public and stakeholders in governance, and their positions on important normative debates underlying policy formulation and implementation therefore offer useful insights into both how the Indian state governs, and how it might govern better in the future. This report presents the results of a representative survey of over 500 IAS officers conducted between August and September 2020, 7-8 months into the pandemic. The survey sought to engage members of the IAS in reflecting on the critical challenges, decisions, and trade-offs that confronted public administrators charged with managing the state response at different levels. In doing so, it revealed both widely shared and sharply contested views on a range of subjects, including the role of the civil servant, executive and bureaucratic functioning in a crisis, and perceptions of and relations between the state, the public, and other important actors and institutions. The report finds that on the one hand, IAS officers are remarkably consistent in expressing high levels of motivation and public service commitment and endorse the view that the Indian state and bureaucracy galvanise resources and deliver reasonably well in times of crisis. On the other hand, there is a consistent tension between some strongly expressed ideals and the realities of administrative action, especially on engagement and communication with, and trust in the public. Finally, there is significant diversity among IAS officers when it comes to perceptions of key stakeholders (civil society, international agencies and the media) and a striking distrust of the private sector. The report also highlights the diversity in responses of officers across state cadres and seniority in several places through disaggregated analysis. This report, by the State Capacity Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research is part of a larger body of work on understanding the norms and values underpinning different state institutions in India. As we develop this body of work over the coming years, our goal is to continue to probe not just how the state performs, but how it perceives its own capacity, why and how it makes choices, imagines possibilities for governance, and engages with citizens.
Topic:
Governance, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

26. R2P Monitor, Issue 55, 15 January 2021

Author:
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
R2P Monitor is a bimonthly bulletin applying the atrocity prevention lens to populations at risk of mass atrocities around the world. Issue 55 looks at developments in Afghanistan, Cameroon, the Central Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger), China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Nigeria and South Sudan.
Topic:
International Law, Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and Atrocities
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, China, Yemen, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Syria, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali, Myanmar, South Sudan, Cameroon, Sahel, Central African Republic, Global Focus, Niger, and Burkina Faso

27. The United States at a Crossroads: The Biden Administration, Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention

Author:
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Abstract:
After four dark years during which President Donald Trump systematically weakened the United States’ commitment to multilateralism, international law and universal human rights, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect congratulates President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their impending inauguration. As an international civil society organization with its headquarters in New York, we join human rights defenders both here and abroad who view this historic moment with relief and hope. President Biden and Vice President Harris will be sworn in at a time of unprecedented crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused tremendous suffering around the world and killed over 380,000 Americans. Globally, more than 80.3 million people are also currently displaced by conflict, persecution and atrocities, the highest number since the Second World War. In all too many countries the laws, institutions and individuals who defend human rights appear to be under threat. This includes the United States, where disturbing political developments over the last four years led to the proliferation of online hate speech, the criminalization of asylum seekers and a prejudicial “Muslim Ban” aimed at refugees.
Topic:
Human Rights, Elections, Responsibility to Protect (R2P), Atrocities, and Joe Biden
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

28. Coronavirus in the Arab World

Author:
Haizam Amirah-Fernandez
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic is shaking Arab countries hard at a time when the region is already under great pressure. The responses of Arab states to the threat of the coronavirus, added to the uncertain international context generated by the pandemic, is aggravating existing problems in the Middle East and the Maghreb. This current global emergency and its ramifications has the potential to turn socioeconomic challenges into political crises and intensify demands for change that have spread through multiple countries in the region over the past decade. Until an effective vaccine against the pandemic is made available and widely accessible, the economic and social costs of the drastic restrictions being imposed by Arab governments during the successive waves of the pandemic may be overwhelming and, ultimately, unbearable.
Topic:
Politics, Arts, Culture, COVID-19, and Demonstrations
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arab Countries, and North Africa

29. The Emergence of a Latino Political Ethnicity: 1990 to the Era of Trump

Author:
Alan Yang
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Alan Yang examines how ordinary U.S. Latinos of different national origin ancestries have become an increasingly cohesive panethnic political group since the time of the 1990 Latino National Political Survey. He argues that this trend towards increasing convergence across national origin has been both reinforced and disrupted on questions related to politically relevant sentiments and perceptions two years into the Trump presidency.
Topic:
Politics, History, Ethnicity, Political Science, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

30. Vengeful Citizens, Violent States: A Theory of War and Revenge, Rachel Stein

Author:
Peter Liberman
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
By showing that mass vengefulness helps democratic leaders bring their nations to war, this wonderful book significantly advances our understanding of how cultural values affect international politics. Its most important contribution is demonstrating that democracies that retain death penalty laws were significant more likely to initiate the use of force than non-death-penalty democracies in the 1945–2001 period. The finding is robust to a variety of control variables and specifications, although skeptics may wonder whether it might be inflated by ethnocentrism, beliefs about the utility of violence, or other unmeasured potential covariates. Rachel Stein attributes the belligerence of death penalty states to cross-national differences in vengeful cultures, on the grounds that citizens’ vengefulness predicts both cross-sectional support for the death penalty and cross-national differences in the penalty’s retention. Her rigorous analysis greatly strengthens the case that the unusual bellicosity of retributivists, observed by Stein and other researchers, affects actual interstate conflict.
Topic:
War, Prisons/Penal Systems, Leadership, Book Review, Elites, and Capital Punishment
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and United States of America