Search

Begin New Search Topic International Relations

721. American Views of the United Nations

Author:
Dina Smeltz
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Abstract:
The 69‎th session of UN General Assembly is being held against the backdrop of international crises that include the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, ISIS military gains in Iraq and Syria, and continuing negotiations with Iran. According to the recently released 2014 Chicago Council Survey of American opinion on foreign policy, majorities are confident in the UN’s ability to carry out humanitarian efforts and peacekeeping. They are more skeptical, however, of the UN’s effectiveness when it comes to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, resolving international conflicts, and sanctioning countries that violate international law.
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

722. Iraq Between Maliki and the Islamic State

Author:
POMEPS
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Iraq’s long-simmering political conflicts and violence erupted in June with the stunning capture of Mosul and advances toward Baghdad by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The collapse of the Iraqi army and the rapid seizure of territory by ISIS took most observers by surprise, but the crisis had been developing for years. This POMEPS Briefing collects more than a dozen recent articles by academics writing for The Monkey Cage and other leading online publications that explore both the immediate crisis and its underlying causes.
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Iraq

723. Turkey’s Turmoil

Author:
POMEPS
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan occupied a dominant political position not too long ago. In June 2011, his Justice and Development Party (AKP) won nearly 60 percent of the seats in parliament while expanding its lead over its closest competitor. Turkey seemed well primed to take advantage of the Arab uprisings, with its independent foreign policy and criticism of Israel playing well with Arab audiences. Erdogan even seemed keen to find a resolution to the long-running struggle with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and reconcile with the country’s Kurdish citizens. Those days seem distant indeed. For at least the last six months, Erdogan has struggled to respond to sustained popular protests, a growing corruption scandal, a stalled peace process with the PKK, a deeply unpopular and ineffective Syria policy, and dissent from within his own party. How did Erdogan’s fortunes reverse so quickly? Are his problems primarily the natural decay of a leader too long in power or do they speak to deeper problems with his party’s ideology or the foundations of Turkish democracy? The 14 deeply researched and analytically powerful Foreign Policy Middle East Channel essays collected in this POMEPS Briefing go deeply into the origins, dynamics, and likely implications of Turkey’s new political scene.
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Turkey

724. Implications of the 2011-13 Syrian Uprising for the Middle Eastern Regional Security Complex

Author:
Fred H. Lawson
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Center for International and Regional Studies: CIRS
Abstract:
By the autumn of 2013, the Middle Eastern regional security complex (RSC) had taken on a new configuration, which was substantially different from—and much more explosive than—the one that existed prior to the large-scale popular uprisings that broke out across the Arab world in the winter of 2010-11. Foreign policies adopted between 2000 and 2010 by the Ba‘thi regime in Damascus, the leaderships of Hizbullah and HAMAS, and the Israeli government to parry overlapping internal and external threats created an unprecedented patchwork of strategic rivalries and alignments. Large-scale popular unrest in Iraq and Egypt in early 2011, along with the outbreak of full-scale civil war in Syria later that same year, generated an even more intricate web of interstate security dynamics. The reconfigured RSC that emerged out of the “Winter of Arab Discontent” is only beginning to be explicated, and can best be addressed by tracing the connection between domestic political conflicts and shifts in external belligerence and alignment across the region.
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Syria

725. Afghanistan: transition to transformation, National and external stakeholder interests

Author:
Ian Dudgeon
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
On 31 December 2014 Afghanistan will move from a UN-led period of ‘transition’ (2001- 2014) to an Afghan-led and owned ‘transformation decade’ (2015-2024). During transition, the UN has sought to rebuild the basic political, security, economic and societal institutions and infrastructure of Afghanistan, which were all but destroyed by the previous Taliban government, but are essential prerequisites for the restoration of Afghanistan as a functional nation. Transformation will seek to consolidate and build on the outcomes of transition and ensure that Afghanistan achieves the goal of being not only a functional nation, but also a stable and durable nation.
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Afghanistan

726. II Informe sobre el estado de la cultura en España 2014: la salida digital

Author:
Enrique Bustamante
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Fundación Alternativas
Abstract:
Han transcurrido tres años desde que la Fundación Alternativas elaboró el primer informe sobre el estado de la Cultura en España. En aquella ocasión, después de hacer un repaso de la situación en los diferentes sectores culturales, se llegó a la conclusión de que nuestras políticas culturales obtenían un aprobado raspado, pues nunca ha sido nuestro fuerte, como país, dedicar la debida atención en medios, al mundo de la cultura. A tenor de este II Informe que, con el título «La salida digital», publicamos ahora, seguramente no obtendría, nuestra cultura, ni tan siquiera un modesto aprobado y quiero dejar claro, con el fin de evitar confusiones, que cuando hablamos de la situación o estado de la cultura no nos referimos a los creadores culturales que los hay en abundancia y de gran mérito, sino a las políticas culturales que se realizan, ya sea desde el ámbito público como privado. He sostenido, desde hace tiempo, que España reúne las mejores condiciones para ser una potencia cultural, aunque solo fuera por ese arma formidable que es su lengua, la segunda más hablada del mundo y con tendencia a la expansión. No obstante, desde los poderes públicos y desde instancias privadas, no se le presta el apoyo debido, ya sea en términos de legislación, de fiscalidad, de patrocinio o institucional. No es normal que en un momento de grave y sostenida crisis económica, como la actual, se haya castigado fiscalmente a nuestras industrias culturales, se haya recortado de manera drástica la inversión en cultura, se hayan deteriorado las condiciones laborales de sus actores o se haya eliminado el Ministerio de las Culturas, por solo mencionar algunos estragos.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Spain

727. The New Challenges to the EuroAmerican Relationship: Russia and the Middle East

Author:
Guido Lenzi
Publication Date:
11-2014
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
We have not reached the “end of history”, but this is one of its crossroads, a hinge, like Westphalia in 1648, Vienna in 1815, Versailles in 1919, San Francisco 1in 1945 (or the soon forgotten Paris in 1990). We are all, in other words, once again „present at the creation‟. Not much further than the square one that Roosevelt and Truman established seventy years ago. The “winds of change” that Harold MacMillan detected in 19561 are blowing anew. International relations have to cope with unprecedented situations, in what is essentially a systemic transition from traditional power-politics to global cooperative endeavors. Having discovered that military might is not decisive anymore, that deterrence cannot apply to non-state troublemakers and terrorists, and that, both regionally and globally, self-protective instincts prevail over international solidarity. While borders do not mean much anymore, state sovereignty makes a comeback. A mixture of inherent contradictions, that only a new international paradigmcan cope with, and that only „the West‟ appears able, if less willing, to provide
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Global Focus

728. US-Cuba: A New Public Survey Supports Policy Change

Author:
Jason Marczak and Peter Schechter
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Why is now the right moment to commission a poll on the US public's views toward Cuba and US-Cuba relations? Why is a new, nonpartisan Latin America center reaching out to grab the third rail of Latin American foreign policy in the United States? Both good questions. Sometimes in foreign policy, structural impediments or stark policy differences will stymie progress in a certain area. Relations with China could not proceed until the United States recognized a “one China” policy that forever downgraded US relations with Taiwan. An activist foreign policy with Africa was impossible until the United States denounced apartheid.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Reform
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, China, Cuba, and Latin America

729. Regime Change, Democracy, and Growth

Author:
Caroline Freund and Mélise Jaud
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
The empirical literature on the relationship between democracy and growth has yielded conflicting results. Cross-country studies have failed to identify a significant impact of democracy on growth, while within-country studies have found a strong positive effect of the transition to democracy on growth. We reconcile the conflicting evidence by showing that the positive effect of democratic transitions results from regime change as opposed to democratization. We identify over 100 transitions in the last half-century with various outcomes: to and from democracy, some partial, and some failed. The variety of experiences allows us to compare the growth outcome of democratic transitions with that of other transitions rather than with a no-transition counterfactual. Conditioning on regime change filters out selection effects and shows that transition to democracy yields no growth dividend compared to other types of regime change. We also show that countries that democratize slowly do not gain from regime change. These results suggest that the growth dividend from political transition results from swift regime change rather than from democratization.
Topic:
International Relations, Democratization, and Economics
Political Geography:
Brazil

730. Recent Trends in the South China Sea and U.S. Policy

Author:
Gregory B. Poling
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Tensions in the South China Sea have continued to build over the last year, with the Philippines submitting its evidence against Chinese claims to an arbitration tribunal, Beijing parking an oil rig in waters claimed by Vietnam, and Malaysia growing increasingly anxious about Chinese displays of sovereignty at the disputed James Shoal. These and other developments underscore just how critical managing tensions in the South China Sea are, for the region and for the United States.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, Sovereignty, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
United States, China, Malaysia, Beijing, and Asia