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2341. China's Social Unrest: The Story Behind the Stories

Author:
Albert Kiedel
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
China is confronting widespread violent and even deadly social unrest, raising Communist Party alarms about national security. Some observers speculate that unrest could undermine China's national leadership, as it did in the Ukraine and the Philippines. Some U.S. policy makers might welcome unrest in China as a path to democracy and “freedom.” But rather than an opportunity to transform China's political order, China's social unrest should be understood as the unavoidable side effects—worsened by local corruption—of successful market reforms and expanded economic and social choice. Managing this unrest humanely requires accelerated reform of legal and social institutions with special attention to corruption. More violence would generate more suffering, potentially destabilizing East Asia and harming U.S. interests. The United States should encourage China to strengthen its social reconciliation capabilities, without making electoral political reform a prerequisite for intensifying engagement across the board.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, China, Ukraine, East Asia, and Asia

2342. The Saudi Labyrinth: Evaluating the Current Political Opening

Author:
Amr Hamzawy
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Recent years have witnessed unprecedented political dynamism in Saudi Arabia. Since 2002, the government has pursued various reform policies. Its most relevant measures have included reforming the Shura Council, holding municipal elections, legalizing civil society actors, implementing educational reform plans, and institutionalizing national dialogue conferences. Although these measures appear less significant when compared with political developments in other Arab countries, such as Lebanon and Egypt, they constitute elements of a meaningful opening in Saudi authoritarian politics.</p
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Egypt

2343. Evaluating Egyptian Reform

Author:
Michele Dunne
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The political opening that began in late 2004 in Egypt has been unlike any seen in the country in at least twenty years, perhaps in a half century. It has resulted so far in Egypt holding its first-ever presidential election as well as parliamentary elections that were significantly fairer and more transparent than in the past, although marred by violence. Political dissidents are making bolder demands, most of the taboos on criticizing the regime have been swept away, and there is now more opposition representation in Parliament than at any time since the 1952 Free Officers' coup. The Muslim Brotherhood, an illegal organization but also the only effective opposition party, made dramatic gains in the fall 2005 elections. Yet many observers inside and outside Egypt view the political reform steps made in 2004 and 2005 as no more than cosmetic measures taken to preserve rather than change an essentially authoritarian order. Has Egypt entered an era of irreversible momentum toward democratization, or is it merely undergoing a brief liberal episode that will not fundamentally change the way political power is exercised?
Topic:
Democratization, Development, and Politics
Political Geography:
Africa and Egypt

2344. Lebanon: Finding a Path from Deadlock to Democracy

Author:
Julia Choucair
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Lebanon is arguably the most democratic Arab state. Under parliamentary rule since becoming independent in 1943, it has regular elections, numerous political parties, and relatively free and lively news media. Lebanon also has one of the most complex political systems in the Middle East, based on the premise that a careful balance in all aspects of political life must be maintained among the seventeen recognized religious communities. While this confessional system has spared Lebanon the authoritarianism experienced by many Arab regimes in the twentieth century, paradoxically it has also prevented the transition to a truly democratic state. Nor has the confessional system eliminated the factional strife it was designed to avoid.
Topic:
International Relations, Democratization, and Development
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arabia, and Lebanon

2345. Cato Education Market Index Full Technical Report

Author:
Andrew J. Coulson
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The index presented in this report attempts to measure how closely existing school systems resemble free markets and rates education policy proposals on how conducive they are to the rise of competitive marketplaces. We define an education market as a system that provides the freedom for producers and consumers to voluntarily associate with one another, as well as the incentives that encourage families to be diligent consumers and educators to innovate, control costs, and expand their services. It is a system in which schools can offer instruction in any subject, using any method, for which families are willing to pay.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, and Markets

2346. The Cato Education Market Index

Author:
Andrew J. Coulson
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The index presented in this report attempts to measure how closely existing school systems resemble free markets and rates education policy proposals on how conducive they are to the rise of competitive marketplaces. We define an education market as a system that provides the freedom for producers and consumers to voluntarily associate with one another, as well as the incentives that encourage families to be diligent consumers and educators to innovate, control costs, and expand their services. It is a system in which schools can offer instruction in any subject, using any method, for which families are willing to pay.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, and Markets

2347. CATO Institute: KidSave: Real Problem, Wrong Solution

Author:
Michael Tanner and Jagadeesh Gokhale
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
There is growing bipartisan recognition that the pathway out of poverty is not through consumption but through saving and accumulation. That idea has led to a number of interesting and innovative experiments by state and local governments and by private charitable organizations and has helped fuel the drive for personal accounts as part of Social Security reform.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Development, Economics, and Government

2348. Matisse at Vence: An Epilogue to Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art

Author:
Kenneth E. Silver
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
Silverman's intent is to emphasize the "critical role of religion in the development of modernism." As an addendum to that pursuit, it should be pointed out that, well into the twentieth century, religion remained crucial to artistic innovation and development (and still is). We now recognize how important apocalyptic imagery was to Wasily Kandinsky's abstraction. In the wake of the Second World War, and French occupation by the Germans, religion made a powerful reappearance in the art of the avant-garde. Henri Matisse's Chapel of the Rosary at Vence is one of the great works of this period; it is worth briefly examining the ways in which Matisse understood the intersection between modern art and his reengagement with Catholicism.
Topic:
Development and War
Political Geography:
Germany

2349. Les débats autour du mouvement pour la décroissance

Author:
Françoise Gollain
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
The last four years have seen the rise of a movement on the French radical left positing a fundamental conflict between economic growth and ecological sustainability and calling for a reversal of growth (décroissance) against the current consensus around the concept of sustainable development. This challenge to the growth imperative and, more widely, of the ideology of progress, represents a return to the explicitly antiproductivist approaches that emerged in the early 1970s with the rise of radical political ecology. This article charts the birth of the décroissance movement, which is comprised of two components: anticonsumerist and antidevelopment. It also contrasts the movement with other closely- related ideological elements of the French antiglobalization and anticapitalist movements, elements that belong to the dominant, mainly Marxist tradition, whose anticapitalist struggle builds on the legacy of the Enlightenment period. The article concludes that, by placing antieconomicist and antiutilitarian thought drawn from social sciences on the agenda of the French radical Left, the décroissance movement could potentially generate a major paradigm shift founded on a critical evaluation of the heritage of modernity.
Topic:
Development

2350. WHO's Comprehensive HIV Treatment Failure - Will We Learn the Real Lessons from 3 by 5?

Author:
Roger Bate and Lorraine Mooney
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
It should be a cause for celebration that over 1.6 million people in the poorest parts of the world are now on antiretroviral treatment to halt the advance of HIV. But in a rush to improve access mistakes have been made. These mistakes, many of which were predictable, will be costly in terms of money and lives as drug resistance accelerates and more advanced (second-line) drugs may be unaffordable in poor countries.
Topic:
Development, Health, and Poverty