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17411. South Africa's AIDS Diplomacy

Author:
Pieter Fourie
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
When the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized countries decided at their 2001 meeting in Genoa to establish the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria to increase international funding for interventions against the three diseases, the United States was a leading supporter. The fund was a public-private partnership set up in 2002 with formal status as a foundation under Swiss law. In the fund's first two years, the United States accounted for nearly half the total amount pledged and challenged other donors to increase their contributions. By 2008 the Global Fund had committed $15.6 billion to AIDS activities in 140 country.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, Health, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
United States and South Africa

17412. CARE and Cargill: An Innovative NGO-Private Sector Partnership to Fight Global Poverty

Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Formed in 2008, the Rural Development Initiative is a five-year, $10 million partnership between CARE, a prominent humanitarian organization, and Cargill, an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial, and industrial products and services. CARE partners with Cargill employees in local communities and along the company's supply chains to improve crop yields, access to markets, and incomes for farmers; enhance the attendance and quality of education programs; and increase access to health care, nutritional programs, and safe drinking water in rural communities. With projects in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, India, Honduras, Guatemala, and Brazil, the CARE-Cargill partnership seeks to help 100,000 people lift themselves out of poverty by 2013. Through the Rural Development Initiative, CARE and Cargill leverage their respective strengths to improve livelihoods, while at the same time improving Cargill's competitive advantage and fulfilling CARE's mandate.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Humanitarian Aid, and Markets
Political Geography:
India, Brazil, Egypt, Honduras, Guatemala, and Ghana

17413. Subnational Governance, Service Delivery, and Militancy in Pakistan

Author:
Robert D. Lamb and Sadika Hameed
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
This report presents the results of a study on the link between the rise of militants and the quality of subnational governance in Pakistan: whether a link exists and, if so, what the United States can do about it, if anything. Its basic finding is that Pakistan's governance problems are not caused by militancy, and its problems with militancy are not directly caused by its governance problems, but improving governance will be necessary (though not sufficient) to counter militancy. Pakistan's governance problems are extensive and will take a long time to overcome. But they are not insurmountable, and recent trends offer reason for hope: the military's prestige has declined, the civilian government is likely to complete its full term, the judiciary is increasingly independent, civil society is increasingly confident even in the face of militant intimidation, and recent reforms—the Local Governance Ordinance of 2001 and the Eighteenth Amendment to the constitution—have put in place a set of institutions and incentives that are likely to contribute to improvements in the future.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Corruption, Democratization, Development, Armed Struggle, Bilateral Relations, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, and South Asia

17414. Joshua Cohen: Rousseau: a Free Community of Equals (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)

Author:
Valentin Stoian
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Joshua Cohen's book, Rousseau: a Free Community of Equals interprets Rousseauan political thought with the tools of analytical philosophy. It is part of a wider project of “translating” the works of early modern philosophers into contemporary academic speech. Moreover, together with Rawls's Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, Cohen's book represents a radical turn in the interpretation of Rousseau's philosophy. Similarly to Rawls, Cohen's book seeks to challenge an older generation of Rousseau's exegetes. Cohen's central thesis is that Rousseau's philosophy does not represent the blueprint for a non-democratic oppressive society. For Cohen, Rousseau is the designer of a deliberative democracy composed of public-minded, free and equal citizens.
Political Geography:
New York

17415. Jeffrey Stout, Blessed Are the Organized. Grassroots Democracy in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010)

Author:
Daniel Sandru
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Alongside theories of democracy and the evolution of its forms from the 5th century B.C. there is a rich tradition of political reflection. The latter aims to reveal the functioning of such a regime at the often ignored level of common citizens. In the political theory of democracy, researchers distinguish between normative and empirical approaches. However, the above mentioned tradition seems to be less characterised by a methodological approach (be it normative or empirical), theoretical-political in nature, and more anthropologically oriented. In this direction, the most meaningful example seems to be Alexis de Tocqueville's who, although seen as an outstanding theorist of democracy, may also be described as an “excursionist” in search of real, palpable democracy, of a democracy that is being built every day, and whose main promoters are not politicians and government decision-makers but common people.
Political Geography:
America

17416. John Fenwick and Janice McMillan (eds.), Public Management in the Postmodern Era: Challenges and Prospects (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Author:
Jiří J. Šebek
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Applying “postmodern” and “public management” in one sentence, albeit one book title, is a challenge that editors John Fenwick and Janice McMillan acknowledge in their introduction (pp. 3-11) and concluding remarks (pp. 192-212) to this neat book which groups nine essays on public management by subject in the theory, application and resolution sections. The anthology collects essays by Wayne Parsons, Paul H.A. Frissen, Mark Evans, Andrew Massey, David Farnham, B. Guy Peters and Henrik P. Bang. Each author takes a distinctly different approach to solving the puzzle set out by the two editors of the book which belongs to the New Horizons in Public Policy series.

17417. Eldar Sarajlic and Davor Marko (eds.), State or Nation? The Challenges of Political Transition in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo: University of Sarajevo, 2011)

Author:
Maja Nenadovic
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
This edited volume brings together “the coming generation of Balkan social scientists” in an effort to open up discussion and shed light in various elements of Bosnia-Herzegovina's troubled post-conflict transition processes. The book, like others focusing on the same subject, illustrates why Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) remains the most intriguing piece in the puzzle of Yugoslavia's disintegration. In the most ethnically diverse republic of Yugoslavia, the particularly bloody conflict shocked the world that was watching in disbelief as international community scrambled to respond to the escalating crisis. The Dayton Peace Agreement put an end to the war but put into place a dysfunctional political system fashioned with consociational characteristics that resulted in ethnicization of politics, education and just about every other aspect of life in the country. Finally, the unprecedented international intervention that culminated in the institution of 'international administration', as embodied by the Office of the High Representative (OHR), made BiH the 'perfect' social experiment in the making. As an extreme or crucial case study, it attracted hordes of social scientists analyzing peace building, intervention, state building, nation-building and post-conflict reconstruction. With the international administration now in its sixteenth year of presence on the ground and with the political situation spiraling out of control to the point of talk among (nationalist) political elites of renewed conflict, it is not difficult to understand why the country is a mess that continues to fascinate.
Political Geography:
Bosnia, Yugoslavia, and Balkans

17418. Jessica C.E. Gienow–Hecht and Mark C. Donfried (eds.), Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010)

Author:
Oana Elena Brânda
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Cultural diplomacy is usually limited spatially to the European and American areas and most is mostly investigated for the period of the Cold Wr. What the two intend to do is extend both the geographical and temporal limits to African and Asian continents as well as back to the middle of the 19th century, as is the Japanese case. What Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hect and mark C. Donfried attempt in this work is to offer a comprehensive view of the term "cultural diplomacy" not only by looking as its multiple aspects, but also offering throughout time and space various examples of such a practice. As "cultural diplomacy" is not only a term, but also a valuable practice employed by both state and non-state actors.
Topic:
Non State Actors
Political Geography:
Africa, New York, America, and Europe

17419. The FY2013 Defense Budget, the Threat of Defense Cuts and Sequestration and the Strategy-Reality Gap

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman and Robert M. Shelala II
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The US may not face peer threats in the near to mid term, but it faces a wide variety of lesser threats that make maintaining effective military forces, foreign aid, and other national security programs a vital national security interest. The US does need to reshape its national security planning and strategy to do a far better job of allocating resources to meet these threats. It needs to abandon theoretical and conceptual exercises in strategy that do not focus on detailed force plans, manpower plans, procurement plans, and budgets; and use its resources more wisely. The US still dominates world military spending, but it must recognize that maintaining the US economy is a vital national security interest in a world where the growth and development of other nations and regions means that the relative share the US has in the global economy will decline steadily over time, even under the best circumstances. At the same time, US dependence on the security and stability of the global economy will continue to grow indefinitely in the future. Talk of any form of "independence," including freedom from energy imports, is a dangerous myth. The US cannot maintain and grow its economy without strong military forces and effective diplomatic and aid efforts. US military and national security spending already places a far lower burden on the US economy than during the peaceful periods of the Cold War, and existing spending plans will lower that burden in the future. National security spending is now averaging between 4% and 5% of the GDP -- in spite of the fact the US has been fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- versus 6-7% during the Cold War.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Economics, Government, and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

17420. Nuclear Notes

Author:
Sarah Weiner
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia is experiencing the most significant level of public dissatisfaction with Vladimir Putin since he assumed power a decade ago. While the sizeable street protests in Russia may well signal a political and social watershed moment for the country, a more minor political event a few months ago provided a telling sign regarding one of the regime's most important projects—a massive program for military modernization.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Europe