Search

Begin New Search Topic Government Publication Year within 25 Years

611. Echoes of a Forgotten Past: Mid-Century Realism and the Legacy of International Law

Author:
Oliver Jütersonke
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Those studying the work of Hans J. Morgenthau, widely considered the “founding father” of the Realist School of International Relations, have long been baffled by his views on world government and the attainment of a world state—views that, it would appear, are strikingly incompatible with the author's realism. In a 1965 article in World Politics, James P. Speer II decided that it could only be “theoretical confusion” that explained why Morgenthau could on the one hand advocate a world state as ultimately necessary in his highly successful textbook, Politics Among Nations, while writing elsewhere that world government could not resolve the conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States by peaceful means. According to Spee Morgenthau posits at the international level a super-Hobbesian predicament, in which the actors on the world scene are motivated by the lust for power, yet he proposes a gradualist Lockean solution whereby the international system will move, through a resurrected diplomacy, out of a precarious equilibrium of balance-of-power anarchy by a “revaluation of all values” into the “moral and political” bonds of world community, a process whose capstone will be the formal-legal institutions of world government.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States and Soviet Union

612. The Dutch Political Experiment: Phase Three

Author:
Omar El Zoheiry
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Macalester International
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
In the past two decades, many Western liberal democracies have undergone fundamental political transformations. Faced with the challenges of adapting to globalization and the world's increasingly interconnected financial system, many of these democracies have found it necessary to implement a technocratic form of governance. The distance between the political elite and the people was allowed to grow under these regimes in order to achieve the much-needed efficiency in policy formulation and international integration. This article utilizes the case study of the Netherlands to analyze the implications of this gap, perhaps the most significant of which being the rise of “contemporary populism.” It attempts to make sense of seemingly random and unrelated events that have recently shocked Dutch society and politics within a framework of structural change instead of treating these events as temporal occurrences. It demonstrates how such a framework is necessary in understanding the true reason behind these events and why a temporal argument might lead to superficial conclusions.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Netherlands and Dutch

613. Country Economic Forecasts: Czech Republic

Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Economics
Abstract:
GDP fell by a larger than expected 1% on the quarter in 2012Q1 according to initial data released in mid-May. As a result, we now expect GDP will fall 1.1% in 2012. On the political side, the government has avoided a snap election by surviving a confidence vote on 27 April. However, it will find it harder to stick to its austerity plans as its majority was weakened by the vote. Under current policies, we now expect the fiscal deficit to rise to 3.6% of GDP in 2012 from 3.1% in 2011 due to the weakness of the economy.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, Government, International Trade and Finance, Politics, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Czech Republic

614. America the Undertaxed

Author:
Andrea Louise Campbell
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Compared with other developed countries, the United States has very low taxes, little income redistribution, and an extraordinarily complex tax code. If it wanted to, the government could raise taxes without crippling growth or productivity. Tax reform is ultimately a political choice, not an economic one -- a statement about what sort of society Americans want.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States and America

615. Government, Geography, and Growth

Author:
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
According to Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's Why Nations Fail, economic development hinges on a country's political institutions. But their monocausal analysis ignores other important factors (such as geography) that can also affect growth.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Europe

616. Social Movements in the Middle East: A Sociological Analysis

Author:
Khalilollah Sardarnia
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:
The prevailing outlook among analysts before the advent of the recent social movements in North Africa and a number of Arab Middle Eastern countries indicated that the region will continue to resist the wave of democratization. The fall of several authoritarian regimes and continuity of social movements has generated serious doubts in this outlook, leading to the appearance of promising horizons for democratization. This paper argues that these social movements originate from the exacerbating legitimacy crisis of authoritarian governments and rising political, social and economic dissatisfaction of the general public, including the youth and the modern middle class. This work seeks to answer the question: what are the major sociological origins and precipitating factors influencing the advent of social movements in the Middle East and North Africa? In response, it can be argued that the advent of social movements in a number of Middle East and North African countries is rooted in the legitimacy crisis, as well as rising political, social and economic dissatisfaction of the general public, the youth and the modern middle class in recent decades. The web-based social networks and cell phones acted as precipitating factors in the massive mobilization and integration of mass protests and those of the modern middle class and the fall of a number of authoritarian regimes. These movements are notably characterized by being comprehensive, Islamic, democratic, anti-despotic, independence-seeking, and highly reliant on new information and communications technologies. The web-based social networks served as a precipitating factor in massive mobilization of the aforementioned strata within the context of an exacerbated legitimacy crisis and the gap between the state and the society rather than as a structural deep-rooted factor.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, Government, Islam, and Social Movement
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa

617. Making Migrant–Government Partnerships Work: Insights from the Logic of Collective Action

Author:
Gustavo A. Macías
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
GUSTAVO A. FLORES-MACÍAS analyzes government efforts to attract col¬lective remittances for development. Building on insights from the literature on collective action and illustrating with the cases of Mexico and El Salvador, he concludes that leadership incentives, positive inducements in the form of private good, and certain trust-enhancing rules play a key role in the success of government–migrant partnerships.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Mexico

618. The SO2 Allowance Trading System: The Ironic History of a Grand Policy Experiment

Author:
Robert N. Stavins and Richard Schmalensee
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Two decades have passed since the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 launched a grand experiment in market-based environmental policy: the SO2 cap-and-trade system. That system performed well but created four striking ironies. First, by creating this system to reduce SO2 emissions to curb acid rain, the government did the right thing for the wrong reason. Second, a substantial source of this system's cost-effectiveness was an unanticipated consequence of earlier railroad deregulation. Third, it is ironic that cap-and-trade has come to be demonized by conservative politicians in recent years, since this market-based, cost-effective policy innovation was initially championed and implemented by Republican administrations. Fourth, court decisions and subsequent regulatory responses have led to the collapse of the SO2 market, demonstrating that what the government gives, the government can take away.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Government, Markets, Treaties and Agreements, and Law

619. Governance Reforms in Pakistan's Tribal Areas: The Long Road to Nowhere?

Author:
Joshua T. White and Shuja Ali Malik
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) remain mired in an archaic century-old system of indirect governance that provides space in which militant movements have thrived. President Asif Ali Zardari recently announced the FATA Local Governance Regulation 2012, establishing a system of local councils in the troubled tribal region. Although the regulation is disappointingly vague, and retains the sweeping prerogatives of the central government, it appears to have been driven in part by the army's interest in building civilian governance capacity in conflict-torn areas. The governments of Pakistan and the United States, along with local and international stakeholders, should advocate for continuity of implementation, insist on party-based local council elections, encourage experimentation within the bounds of the regulation, link the new councils to existing development structures, press the government to articulate a longer-term political vision for the FATA, and be realistic about the necessity of the army's active involvement in shaping governance policy in the tribal areas.
Topic:
Political Violence, Corruption, Government, Islam, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, and South Asia

620. Political Budget Cycles and Intergovernmental Transfers in a Dominant Party Framework: Empirical Evidence from South Africa

Author:
Verena Kroth
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper tests the theory of context-conditional political budget cycles in South Africa's dominant party framework and demonstrates that the central government has both an incentive and the ability to implement PBCs on the subnational level. Using a unique panel dataset comprising South Africa's nine provinces over the period 1995–2010 generates two main results: First, provinces where the national ruling party faces greater electoral competition receive higher per capita transfers in the year before an election. Second, this increase is driven by the conditional grant, which is the nonformula-based component of total the intergovernmental transfer. The ability to implement political budget cycles is successfully constrained when it comes to the formula-based equitable share component of the total transfer for which no evidence of electorally-induced funding is found. Overall, the results suggest that even in a dominant party framework, political competition can function as an incentive to implement political budget cycles.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, Government, and Governance
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa