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36001. Pruebas Nucleares en el Sur de Asia: Las Razones y las Repercusiones

Author:
Varun Sahni
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
On May 11, 1998, India conducted three underground nuclear tests, followed by two more 48 hours later. Two weeks later, Pakistan responded with six nuclear tests of its own. The purpose of this document is to analyze the reasons behind the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests as well as their innumerable implications. To facilitate analysis, the study is divided into two parts. In the first, the reasons that propelled the governments of India and Pakistan to a posture of overt nuclearization are analyzed. In both cases, the nuclear tests were the result of diverse factors, ranging from security concerns to domestic political calculations to considerations of international prestige. In the second part of the document the impact of the Indian and Pakistani actions are analyzed on four well-defined levels: internal, bilateral, regional and global.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Middle East, and India

36002. Three and a Half Centuries of the Westphalian State System

Author:
Varun Sahni
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This short paper studies how the international system has evolved over the last 350 years through an identification of its most important features. The paper has a pedagogic rather than research orientation, and is divided into three sections. The first section analyzes the most significant features of international relations from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) to the Second World War. It demonstrates how, over the centuries, the evolution of alliances and the rise of a peace norm transformed a war system into a peace system, thereby mitigating the basic systemic condition of anarchy on the salient structural characteristics of the sovereign state system. The second section studies international relations during the Cold War, with the focus on the strategic, economic, ideological and cultural factors that defined the international system during that period. The third section of the paper analyzes international relations since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The various developments and trends that are leading to systemic change are examined. Despite the sundry challenges posed to the state by non-state actors, the rise of new issue-areas and sub-systemic supranational integration, the sovereign state and the Westphalian system is expected to endure.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Development, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Berlin and Westphalia

36003. Drug Trafficking in US-Mexican Relations: The Politics of Simulation

Author:
Jorge Chabat
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This document presents the hypothesis that the Mexican and U.S. governments are trapped in their current anti-drug strategy. This strategy causes high levels of violence and corruption in Mexican territory, and cannot be changed because it responds to pressures exerted by American public opinion on its own government. One of the consequences is that the U.S. government is compelled annually to certify the Mexican government's fight against drugs. This certification constrains an accurate evaluation of Mexico's combat against narcotrafficking, because it tends to underestimate failures and exaggerate accomplishments. Nevertheless, the possibility of change in the anti-drug strategy is limited, so this scenario is expected to endure for several years. In this sense on can also expect a better integration f Mexican and U.S. anti-drug policies in the near and medium term.
Topic:
International Relations, Crime, and Government
Political Geography:
United States, America, North America, and Mexico

36004. International Explanations for Stock Market Opening

Author:
Susan Minushkin
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
Most studies on financial market liberalization focus on wealthy countries, emphasizing international, economic or domestic political factors as explanations for financial liberalization or have specified the conditions under which one factor dominates in causal significance. They have not tested whether their arguments are applicable to the middle-income countries that comprise the 'emerging markets.' Focusing on these countries, this paper seeks to isolate and test a series of propositions derived from international approaches. The main contribution of this article is to provide some first-cut testing of the existing hypotheses, as a guide for other researchers in terms of the timing, pace and style of financial opening in middle-income countries.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Emerging Markets, and International Trade and Finance

36005. A Theoretical and Statistical Assessment of the Structural Reform in Latin America

Author:
Jorge A. Schiavon
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This working paper argues that the institutional variation between Latin American countries is one of the central variables that explains the huge differences in the implementation, and level of consolidation of the structural reform process in Latin America during the 1980s and 1990s, an issue still unexplained in a satisfactory way in the existing literature. The argument is tested and supported using a statistical model that includes macroeconomic indicators in the explained side of the equation (structural reform), and constitutional, electoral, and party system data on the explanatory side (institutional configuration).
Topic:
Development and Government
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and Central America

36006. Brazil, India and South Africa: Three Pathways to Regional (In)security

Author:
Varun Sahni
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the regional security problems of Brazil, India and South Africa in the Southern Cone of South America, South Asia, and southern Africa, respectively. The three states are treated as emerging powers, i.e., middle powers that have the capability and intention to maneuver their way into great power status. a study of the regional distributions of military and socioeconomic capability suggest Brazilian regional primacy, Indian regional dominance and South African regional supremacy. Furthermore, while Brazil's neighbors ignore its regional status, India's neighbors contest it and South Africa's neighbors acknowledge it. In the first three sections of the paper, the three regional powers studied in their respective regions, with emphasis on the geographical boundaries, historical evolution, cultural characteristics and power dynamics of each region. A comparative analysis of the nuclear option chosen by each emerging power is presented in the section immediately following the three case studies. The final section situates the regional security of the emerging powers in the context of U.S. grand strategy and analyzes security cooperation between Brazil, India, South Africa and the U.S. It is concluded that in their quest to transcend their regional bounds and have a global impact, the regional security context is a critical factor for the emerging powers.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States, South Asia, India, South Africa, Brazil, and South America

36007. EMU Effects on International Trade and Investment

Author:
Harry Flam and Per Jansson
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The partial effect of nominal exchange rate volatility on exports from each EMU member to the rest of the EMU is estimated on annual data for 1967-97, using modern time-series methods. The long-run relations between exchange rate volatility and exports are mostly negative and in several cases insignificantly different from zero. Thus, these estimates do not provide much support for the hypothesis that the elimination of nominal exchange rate volatility will significantly increase trade within the EMU. However, the EMU will presumably lead to geographical concentration of production and therefore indirectly to increased trade within the EMU and, during a transitional stage, to increased foreign direct investment, both within the EMU and between the EMU and the rest of the world.
Topic:
Economics, Government, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe

36008. The Impact of EMU on European Transition Economies

Author:
David Begg
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
An interesting theory of transition must give a convincing account of structural adjustment and supply side improvement. In this paper, I discuss the incentives for government to undertake costly supply side improvement and how these relate to incentives governing the design of monetary and fiscal policy during transition. The government cares about deviations of inflation, output and government spending from their ideal levels, is subject to a budget constraint in which inflation yields some real revenue, and recognizes the distortionary effects of excess levels of taxation. Costly structural adjustment enhances future output by reducing supply side distortions.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe

36009. From Rhetoric to Policy: Towards Workable Conflict Prevention at the Regional and Global Levels — Report on a Workshop

Author:
David Carment, Albrecht Schnabel, and Abdul-Rasheed Draman
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This piece constitutes a report of the workshop “From Rhetoric to Policy: Towards Workable Conflict Prevention at the Regional and Global Level” held at INSTRAW, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic from December 14-16, 1998. Jointly organised by the United Nations University and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, the workshop drew participants from the UN system, the academic community and practitioners in the field. The workshop, which represents the second stage of a general project aimed at 'Translating Rhetoric into Policy,' focussed on examining training needs for conflict prevention through the involvement of local actors.
Topic:
Security, Peace Studies, and United Nations

36010. EMU and the Developing Countries

Author:
Benjamin J. Cohen
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to explore economic and political implications of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) for developing countries. In strictly economics terms, influences will be communicated through both trade and financial channels. Economies in the developing world will be affected by changes in European growth rates as well as by EMU's impact on transaction costs and enterprise competitiveness within Europe; they will also be impacted by changes in the structure and efficiency of Europe's capital markets. Modifications may be anticipated in borrowing and investment practices at the private level as well as in reserve and debt-management policies at the official level. In political terms, developing countries will be most directly influences by the anticipated rivalry between Europe's new single currency, the euro, and the dollar, which will compel developing countries to reconsider their own national currency strategies. Three conclusions stand out. First, except for selected groups of countries with particularly close ties to the EU, most economic linkages appear marginal at best. It is much easier to enumerate possible channels of transmission than to find many that appear quantitatively significant. Second, among economic effects of EMU, financial channels seem to matter more than trade channels. And third, across the full range of possible linkages, the most lasting influences for developing countries may well turn out, notably, to be political rather than either trade or financial. Significant changes are likely in exchange-rates regimes in many parts of the developing world.
Topic:
Emerging Markets, Government, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe