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17281. How Academics Can Help People Make Better Decisions Concerning Global Poverty

Author:
Keith Horton
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
As other contributions to this special issue amply demonstrate, there is a variety of ways in which academics could have a greater impact on global poverty than they do today. In this essay I focus on just one of those ways: by doing more to help people make wise decisions about issues relevant to such poverty. Many different groups of people have to make such decisions, including those who work for certain international organizations, policy-makers and government employees of various kinds, and the global poor themselves. Many of those decisions involve difficult issues that academics generally have more time and other resources than others to study. If academics conduct the right kind of research on those issues, then, and share what they have learned with the relevant decision-makers in accessible ways, those decision-makers should be able to make better decisions. And this in turn should have a positive impact on global poverty. Moreover, given that doing so would only require academics to perform activities that are already taken to be a standard part of their role — conducting research and disseminating what they have learned — this seems one of the most straightforward and least controversial ways in which academics could have a greater impact on global poverty.
Topic:
Poverty
Political Geography:
United States and United Kingdom

17282. The Arc of the Moral Universe and Other Essays

Author:
Michael Blake
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
This volume collects eleven of Joshua Cohen's essays, each of which deals in some way with the nature and role of political justice and its relationship to ideals of democratic self-government. Within this general set of interests, the essays range over a variety of topics, from commentary on specific democratic thinkers to the morality of international political institutions. If the essays are diverse in their subject matter, they are linked by the sensibility of the author, who is rightly celebrated as one of our most insightful and subtle political thinkers. Although I disagree with parts of Cohen's argument, none of these disagreements diminish my admiration for his project; those of us who care about justice, whether at home or abroad, would do well to give his ideas a closer examination.
Political Geography:
United States

17283. Hegemony in International Society

Author:
Barry Buzan
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
This book is the third in a series, following Legitimacy in International Society (2005) and International Legitimacy and World Society (2007), in which Ian Clark has applied the concept of legitimacy to the English School's way of thinking about both international society (the society of states) and world society (global civil society mainly in the form of nonstate actors). For Clark, legitimacy is what defines both rightful conduct and rightful membership in society. Following the English School tradition, his main focus in terms of rightful conduct is on the primary institutions of international society: such deep practices as sovereignty, nationalism, diplomacy, the balance of power, great power management, and the like that constitute both the actors and the rules of the game of international society. This approach contrasts with the focus on secondary institutions—intergovernmental organizations, regimes, and other consciously constructed, instrumental entities—that is characteristic of liberal approaches to International Relations.
Topic:
International Relations and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
United States

17284. The Invention of International Relations Theory: Realism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the 1954 Conference on Theory, Edited by Nicolas Guilhot

Author:
Robert E. Williams Jr.
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The Conference on International Politics, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and convened in Washington, D.C., in May 1954, brought together many of the leading lights of postwar realism: Hans Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr, Walter Lippmann, Paul Nitze, and Arnold Wolfers, among others. A young Kenneth W. Thompson organized the meeting and participated in the discussions; an even younger Kenneth Waltz served as the group's rapporteur. Rockefeller Foundation president Dean Rusk presided. The meeting was to international relations theory what that summer's All-Star Game in Cleveland, featuring Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, and Stan Musial, was to baseball—or it would have been, if its documentary record had not been buried in the Rockefeller Foundation archives for over half a century.
Political Geography:
Washington

17285. Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II by Michael Burleigh

Author:
Cathal J. Nolan
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Michael Burleigh is a prolific writer on issues of ethics in history, notably the crimes of Nazi Germany and other totalitarian regimes. In this popular survey of some of the larger moral demands and dilemmas of fighting World War II, he is never boring and quite often right. He is also, far too frequently, surprisingly uninformed.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Germany

17286. The Demise of Ares: The End of War as We Know It?

Author:
Bruno Tertrais
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In 1990, U.S. political scientist John Mearsheimer predicted that we would soon ''miss the Cold War.'' In the months and years that followed, the eruption of bloody conflicts in the Balkans and in Africa gave birth to fears of a new era of global chaos and anarchy. Authors such as Robert Kaplan and Benjamin Barber spread a pessimistic vision of the world in which new barbarians, liberated from the disciplines of the East—West conflict, would give a free rein to their ancestral hatreds and religious passions. Journalists James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg chimed in that violence would reassert itself as the common condition of life. Former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned that the planet was about to become a ''pandemonium.''
Political Geography:
Africa and United States

17287. What if Europe Fails?

Author:
Thomas Wright
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The European Union is engaged in a ferocious political, diplomatic, and economic struggle to preserve the future of the single currency, the Euro, and the viability of what has become known simply as ''the project,'' namely the process of integration that has been the bedrock of Western European politics for over half a century. It is distinctly possible that its members' efforts may fail, either in the short or long term, and give way to an era of disintegration. Some have sounded the alarm: German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously remarked, ''If the Euro fails, Europe fails.'' Former president Nicolas Sarkozy of France predicted, ''If the euro explodes, Europe would explode. It's the guarantee of peace in a continent where there were terrible wars.'' Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski warned the Euro's collapse could cause an ''apocalyptic'' crisis. Harvard economist Dani Rodrik cautioned ''the nightmare scenario would . . . be a 1930's-style victory for political extremism.'' After all, ''fascism, Nazism, and communism were children of a backlash against globalization.'' The erosion of democracy in Hungary and the rise in support for populist parties in Greece, the Netherlands, Finland, and France appears to some to be the beginning of the end.
Political Geography:
Europe, Finland, Greece, France, Germany, and Netherlands

17288. The Mystery of Phantom States

Author:
Daniel Byman and Charles King
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In almost every region of the globe, there is a phantom state hovering like an apparition among the more corporeal members of the international system. Some of their names sound like the warring kingdoms of a fantasy novel: Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Nagorno—Karabakh and the Dniester Moldovan Republic. Others, such as Gaza/Palestine, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, or Taiwan, dominate the headlines. These polities look like real countries to their inhabitants, who salute their flags and vote in their elections. Some even field armies, issue visas, and collect taxes. But they are largely invisible to international legal institutions, multilateral organizations, and global trade regimes. The reason is that they lack formal recognition, or what a political scientist would call ''external sovereignty.''
Political Geography:
Turkey, Taiwan, and Cyprus

17289. Israel's National Security Amidst Unrest in the Arab World

Author:
Ephraim Inbar
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Despite all the optimism accompanying the uprisings of 2011, the Arab Middle East remains a stagnant region in deep socio—political crisis with little chance for positive change anytime soon. The current regimes may stay in power or get replaced by new dictatorships, moderate or radical. Either way, in the near future, weak states will continue to grapple with domestic problems and the direction of their foreign policies. For good reason, this situation has Israeli leaders worried about the implications for their country's national security. The changing regional balance of power favors Turkey and Iran, both of whom encourage radical elements in the region, not Israel, while the seeming decline in U.S. clout has negatively affected both the Arab—Israeli peace process and Israel's deterrent power.
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, and Arabia

17290. China's Geostrategic Search for Oil

Author:
John Lee
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In 2000, Asia analyst Robert A. Manning presciently argued that the likelihood of future conflict over energy resources would increase as rising Asian giants such as China shifted away from an economic toward a strategic approach to energy security.Since then, as China's energy consumption has expanded and its rise has become the dominant geopolitical issue of our time, Beijing's energy security policy has become one of the major discussion topics.
Political Geography:
China, Beijing, and Asia