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5021. Could the EU deliver on its military ambitions after Brexit?

Author:
Douglas Barrie, Ben Barry, Henry Boyd, Marie-Louise Chagnaud, Nick Childs, Bastain Giegerich, Christain Möelling, and Torben Schutz
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
he ability of the European Union to act in defence, today and in the future, is an important reference point in the debate about EU strategic autonomy in the context of Brexit. The EU has set itself a military level of ambition. Under the heading of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), EU member states want to be able to conduct a range of military operations. Together with the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), this study assesses to what extent the EU is able to fulfil this level of ambition, today and with an outlook towards 2030. The IISS and DGAP have developed policy-compliant scenarios to assess where possible capability shortfalls lie. Our findings benchmark existing and future EU member state capabilities against the force requirements the EU level of ambition generates.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, European Union, and Brexit
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, London, and Germany

5022. China’s pursuit of advanced dual-use technologies

Author:
Helena Legarda and Meia Nouwens
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In its quest to become a global ‘science and tech superpower’ and to build a strong military that can fight and win wars, China has embarked on a major process to achieve civil–military integration (CMI) and develop advanced dual-use technologies. Using various methods both to promote indigenous innovation and to access foreign technology and know-how, China’s goal is to leapfrog the United States and Europe and achieve dominance in these technologies, which will have major civilian and military implications in the future. The EU does not have strong, coordinated strategies to promote the development of indigenous dual-use technologies or to protect Europe’s indigenous innovation. As a result of this patchwork regime, China is either catching up to, or surpassing, European capabilities regarding most of these technologies through a ‘whole-of-government’ regulatory framework and financial investment, as well as by accessing European innovation and technology through a variety of means. For Europe, the incentive to keep up with China’s progress in these technologies, and to protect its own innovation in this field, is one with military, but also commercial and economic, imperatives. At a time when China is increasing its commitment to this process of developing advanced, dual-use technologies, it is high time for Europe to think strategically and take action to leverage its own competitive advantages.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, Science and Technology, Military Strategy, and European Union
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, and Asia

5023. Patrons of Women: Literacy Projects and Gender Development in Rural Nepal

Author:
Esther Hertzog
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
Assuming that women’s empowerment would accelerate the pace of social change in rural Nepal, the World Bank urged the Nepali government to undertake a “Gender Activities Project” within an ongoing long-term water-engineering scheme. The author, an anthropologist specializing in bureaucratic organizations and gender studies, was hired to monitor the project. Analyzing her own experience as a practicing “development expert,” she demonstrates that the professed goal of “women’s empowerment” is a pretext for promoting economic organizational goals and the interests of local elites. She shows how a project intended to benefit women, through teaching them literary and agricultural skills, fails to provide them with any of the promised resources. Going beyond the conventional analysis that positions aid givers vis-à-vis powerless victimized recipients, she draws attention to the complexity of the process and the active role played by the Nepalese rural women who pursue their own interests and aspirations within this unequal world. The book makes an important contribution to the growing critique of “development” projects and of women’s development projects in particular.
Topic:
Development, Gender Issues, Women, and Anthropology
Political Geography:
Asia and Nepal

5024. Optimizing the German Workforce: Labor Administration from Bismark to the Economic Miracle

Author:
David Meskill
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
During the twentieth century, German government and industry created a highly skilled workforce as part of an ambitious program to control and develop the country’s human resources. Yet, these long-standing efforts to match as many workers as possible to skilled vocations and to establish a system of job training have received little scholarly attention, until now. The author’s account of the broad support for this program challenges the standard historical accounts that focus on disagreements over the German political-economic order and points instead to an important area of consensus. These advances are explained in terms of political policies of corporatist compromise and national security as well as industry’s evolving production strategies. By tracing the development of these policies over the course of a century, the author also suggests important continuities in Germany’s domestic politics, even across such different regimes as Imperial, Weimar, Nazi, and post-1945 West Germany.
Topic:
National Security, Science and Technology, Labor Issues, Domestic politics, and Labor Policies
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, Berlin, and Central Europe

5025. JUDGING 'PRIVILEGED' JEWS Holocaust Ethics, Representation, and the 'Grey Zone'

Author:
Adam Brown
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
The Nazis’ persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust included the creation of prisoner hierarchies that forced victims to cooperate with their persecutors. Many in the camps and ghettos came to hold so-called “privileged” positions, and their behavior has often been judged as self-serving and harmful to fellow inmates. Such controversial figures constitute an intrinsically important, frequently misunderstood, and often taboo aspect of the Holocaust. Drawing on Primo Levi’s concept of the “grey zone,” this study analyzes the passing of moral judgment on “privileged” Jews as represented by writers, such as Raul Hilberg, and in films, including Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Negotiating the problems and potentialities of “representing the unrepresentable,” this book engages with issues that are fundamental to present-day attempts to understand the Holocaust and deeply relevant to reflections on human nature.
Topic:
Mass Media, Film, Holocaust, World War II, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, California, Germany, and Central Europe

5026. IMPOTENT WARRIORS Perspectives on Gulf War Syndrome, Vulnerability and Masculinity

Author:
Susie Kilshaw
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
Gulf began to surface. This mysterious illness was given the name “Gulf War Syndrome” (GWS). This book is an investigation into this recently emergent illness, particularly relevant given ongoing UK deployments to Iraq, describing how the illness became a potent symbol for a plethora of issues, anxieties, and concerns. At present, the debate about GWS is polarized along two lines: there are those who think it is a unique, organic condition caused by Gulf War toxins and those who argue that it is probably a psychological condition that can be seen as part of a larger group of illnesses. Using the methods and perspective of anthropology, with its focus on nuances and subtleties, the author provides a new approach to understanding GWS, one that makes sense of the cultural circumstances, specific and general, which gave rise to the illness.
Topic:
Health, Gulf War, Masculinity, and PTSD
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, United Kingdom, Europe, and Middle East

5027. Do financing constraints matter for the direction of technical change in energy R&D?

Author:
Joëlle Noailly and Roger Smeets
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:
The objective of this study is to examine the impact of firms' financing constraints on innovation activities in renewable (REN) versus fossil-fuel (FF) technologies. Our empirical methodology relies on the construction of a firm-level dataset for 1,300 European firms over the 1995-2009 period combining balance-sheet information linked with patenting activities in REN and FF technologies. We estimate the importance of the different types of financing (e.g. cash flow, long-term debt, and stock issues) on firms' patenting activities for the different samples of firms. We use count estimation techniques commonly used for models with patent data and control for a large set of firm-specific controls and market developments in REN and FF technologies. We find evidence for a positive impact of internal finance on patenting activities for the sample of firms specialized in REN innovation, while we find no evidence of this link for other firms, such as firms conducting FF innovation or large mixed firms conducting both REN and FF innovation. Hence, financing constraints matter for firms specialized in REN innovation but not for other firms. Our results have important implications for policymaking as the results emphasize that small innovative newcomers in the field of renewable energy are particularly vulnerable to financing constraints.
Topic:
Environment, Sustainable Development Goals, Green Technology, Renewable Energy, and R&D
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5028. Taking stock of international law responses to resource wars

Author:
Lys Kulamadayil
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:
In the last 20 years, a significant body of literature has evolved around the phenomenon of resource wars. The term “resource war” is used to describe different linkages between natural resources and conflict. It refers to: (1) conflicts that are fought over access and control of scare, or valuable resources; (2) conflicts sustained through the trade with resources; (3) conflicts that involve the looting of the natural resources by an occupying power, and finally; (4) conflicts where the destruction of the environment or of industrial facilities serving resource exploitation is used as a strategy of warfare. Resource wars certainly have diverse legal implications, yet international law norms have primarily developed in response to the following sets of issues.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, War, Natural Resources, Conflict, and Law of Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
United States and Sierra Leone

5029. The new US tax credits and carbon negative technologies

Author:
Tim Flannery
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:
It is no longer possible to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement – of keeping average global temperatures to ‘well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C1 - without removing large volumes of CO2 from the atmosphere.2 This will involve the development and deployment of carbon negative technologies at the gigatonne scale. Because developmental pathways for such technologies are likely to be decades-long, it is necessary that largescale investment begin now, if we hope to have mature technologies operating at the appropriate scale by 2050.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Industrial Policy, Capitalism, Economic growth, and Global Warming
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5030. The perils of development aid in resource-rich countries

Author:
Chiara Ravetti
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:
The emergence of China and other new donors offering foreign assistance to mineraland land-rich African countries has spurred a renewed interest in the relationship between international aid and natural resources (Dreher and Fuchs, 2015; Dreher et al., 2018). Many low-income countries with valuable natural resources have historically received large amounts of aid from OECD donors (Fig. 1). Poor countries endowed with abundant fossil fuels or mineral reserves can have difficulties in converting their resource wealth into other forms of physical or human capital, because these subsoil assets take time to be managed, extracted and traded. Foreign aid can thus provide a complementary source of immediate liquidity for development. On the other hand, the provision of external finances has the potential to hinder political accountability, and ultimately economic development especially in countries with weak institutions.h countries
Topic:
Development, Humanitarian Aid, Foreign Aid, and Development Aid
Political Geography:
Global Focus