Showing papers in "Foreign Affairs in 2005"

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

Abstract: This paper is a book review of the book ‘The End of Poverty: Economic possibilities for our time’ written by Nobel Laureate Jeffrey Sacks (2005), an American renounced economist and director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University. In the book, Sachs talks about global poverty issues and their miseries in poor countries. Moreover, he provides statistics with examples of the many problems related to economic, educational, population, cultural, health and environmental issues. He narrates in detail the poverty of Malawi, Bangladesh, Kenya, India and Bolivia. The book compares and contrasts the economic histories of China, Russia and India. The book also narrates the current Chinese and Indian economic booms in the global context. The book contains economic histories of many countries; it has many suggestions for economic policy reforms and cooperation among rich and poor countries. It contains suggestions for improving donor funding plans, and strategies for ending poverty in poor countries. Jeffrey Sachs describes World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) activities and their wrong, stereotypical funding policies and strategies for different countries, particularly those in Africa. He identifies information technology (IT) flow, different technological innovations, technological change and its development (invention of the steam engine, use of coal, invention of the rail engine and railway, electrification of industry) and their contributions to world development. Poor countries are using less IT and technology; however. as a result, they get fewer benefits from them than rich countries. Hence there are needs for use of more IT in poor countries. The book suggests simultaneous trade investments in and aid to poor countries for their socio-economic development, in addition to technology and energy support to them. Moreover, at the end of the book, Jeffrey Sachs provides nine tips / actions / steps for ending poverty around the world: 1) adopt a plan of action; 2) raise the voice of the poor; 3) redeem the role of the United States in the World; 4) rescue the IMF and the World Bank (they have been misused as creditors; 5) run agencies, rather than international institutions, that represent all of the 182 member governments; 6) strengthen the United Nations; 7) harness global science; 8) promote sustainable development; 9) make a personal commitment. Author: Visiting Professor, Chittagong University, Bangladesh. Visiting Scholar, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Canada. Associate Professor, Noble International University, USA. However, to fulfill Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it is urgently necessary that rich countries donate the 0.7% Gross National per Capita (GNP) to poor countries that they committed to at the 1949 and other UN Conventions. Poverty exists in both poor and rich countries; therefore, it is necessary to challenge globalization with acts for proglobalization (good things) and initiate green social economic projects and services in rich as well as poor countries for the sake of ending their poverty.

The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent

Abstract: Research-driven and clearly written, bestselling economist Richard Florida addresses the growing alarm about the exodus of high-value jobs from the USA. Today's most valued workers are what economist Richard Florida calls the Creative Class. In his bestselling The Rise of the Creative Class, Florida identified these variously skilled individuals as the source of economic revitalisation in US cities. In that book, he shows that investment in technology and a civic culture of tolerance (most often marked by the presence of a large gay community) are the key ingredients to attracting and maintaining a local creative class. In The Flight of the Creative Class, Florida expands his research to cover the global competition to attract the Creative Class. The USA once led the world in terms of creative capital. Since 2002, factors like the Bush administration's emphasis on smokestack industries, heightened security concerns after 9/11 and the growing cultural divide between conservatives and liberals have put the US at a large disadvantage. With numerous small countries, such as Ireland, New Zealand and Finland, now tapping into the enormous economic value of this class - and doing all in their power to attract these workers and build a robust economy driven by creative capital - how much further behind will USA fall?

Dying to Win: the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism

Abstract: The commonly accepted interpretation is that a religious motive—the desire to please God—is the principal reason why people volunteer for suicide missions. American political scientist Robert A. Pape rejects this view. For him the common thread linking suicide bombers is a political objective— driving out an occupier from one’s homeland, which they see as furthering the common good of their society. In arriving at this theory, Pape relied on the concept of “altruistic suicide,” developed by French sociologist Emile Durkheim in his pioneering work Suicide (1897). These ideas are discussed in Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (2005), from which the passage below is taken.

The limits of international law

Abstract: 1. Introduction PART I: CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW 2. A Theory of Customary International Law 3. Case Studies PART II: TREATIES 4. A Theory of International Agreements 5. Human Rights 6. International Trade PART III: RHETORIC, MORALITY, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 7. A Theory of International Rhetoric 8. International Law and Moral Obligation 9. Liberal Democracy and Cosmopolitan Duty 10. Conclusion

From movements to parties in Latin America : the evolution of ethnic politics

Abstract: 1. Introduction: toward a comprehensive theory of ethnic party formation and performance 2. Institutions, party systems, and social movements 3. 'A reflection of our motley reality': Bolivian Indians' slow path to political representation 4. 'We are the government': Pachakutik's rapid ascent to national power 5. 'It is not a priority': the failure to form viable ethnic parties in Peru 6. Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela: unlikely cases of ethnic party formation and success 7. Conclusions and Implications.

A World Of Regions: Asia And Europe In The American Imperium

Abstract: PrefaceChapter 1. American Power in World Politics America and Regions Globalization and Internationalization Porous Regional Orders Cases and PerspectivesChapter 2. Regional Orders Regional Politics, Present at the Creation Ethnic Capitalism in Asian Market Networks Law and Politics in a European PolityChapter 3. Regional Identities Regional Identities in Asia and Europe East and West Germany and JapanChapter 4. Regional Orders in Economy and Security Technology and Production Networks in Asia and Europe External and Internal Security in Europe and Asia Regional Orders in Asia and EuropeChapter 5. Porous Regions and Culture Cultural Diplomacy of Japan and Germany Popular Culture in Asia and Europe A Very Distant World-Closed Regions in the 1930sChapter 6. Linking Regions and Imperium Connecting to the Center-Germany and Japan in the American Imperium Connecting to the Periphery-Subregionalism in Europe and Asia Two-Way AmericanizationChapter 7. The American Imperium in a World of Regions American Imperium Porous Regions in Europe and Asia The Americas Extending the Argument to South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East Predicaments and Possibilities of ImperiumBibliography Index

China's "Peaceful Rise" to Great-Power Status

Abstract: CHINA'S RAPID development has attracted worldwide attention in recent years. The implications of various aspects of China's rise, from its expanding influence and military muscle to its growing demand for energy supplies, are being heatedly debated in the international community as well as within China. Correctly understanding China's achievements and its path toward greater development is thus crucial. Since starting to open up and reform its economy in 1978, China has averaged 9.4 percent annual GDP growth, one of the highest growth rates in the world. In 1978, it accounted for less than one percent of the world economy, and its total foreign trade was worth $20.6 billion. Today, it accounts for four percent of the world economy and has foreign trade worth $851 billion-the third-largest national total in the world. China has also attracted hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment and more than a trillion dollars of domestic nonpublic investment. A dozen years ago, China barely had mobile telecommunications services. Now it claims more than 300 million mobile-phone subscribers, more than any other nation. As ofJune 2004, nearly loo million people there had access to the Internet.

China's Global Hunt for Energy

Abstract: AN UNPRECEDENTED need for resources is now driving China's foreign policy. A booming domestic economy, rapid urbanization, increased export processing, and the Chinese people's voracious appetite for cars are increasing the country's demand for oil and natural gas, in dustrial and construction materials, foreign capital and technology. Twenty years ago, China was East Asia's largest oil exporter. Now it is the world's second-largest importer; last year, it alone accounted for 31 percent of global growth in oil demand. Now that China is the work shop of the world, its hunger for electricity and industrial resources has soared. China's combined share ofthe world's consumption ofaluminum, copper, nickel, and iron ore more than doubled within only ten years, from 7 percent in 1ggo to 15 percent in 2oO; it has now reached about 20 percent and is likely to double again by the end of the decade. Despite calls by Prime Minister WenJiabao and other politicians to cut consumption of energy and other resources, there is little sign of this appetite abating. Justin Yifu Lin, director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University, in Beijing, says the country's economy could grow at 9 percent per year for the next 20 years. These new needs already have serious implications for China's foreign policy. Beijing's access to foreign resources is necessary both for

Torture and truth : America, Abu Ghraib, and the war on terror

Abstract: In the spring of 2004, graphic photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American soldiers in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison flashed around the world, provoking outraged debate. Did they depict the rogue behavior of "a few bad apples"? Or did they in fact reveal that the US government had decided to use brutal tactics in the "war on terror"? The images are shocking, but they do not tell the whole story. The abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents but the result of a chain of deliberate decisions and failures of command. To understand how "Hooded Man" and "Leashed Man" could have happened, Mark Danner turns to the documents that are collected for the first time in this book. These documents include secret government memos, some never before published, that portray a fierce argument within the Bush administration over whether al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were protected by the Geneva Conventions and how far the US could go in interrogating them. There are also official reports on abuses at Abu Ghraib by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by US Army investigators, and by an independent panel chaired by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger. In sifting this evidence, Danner traces the path by which harsh methods of interrogation approved for suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Guantanamo "migrated" to Iraq as resistance to the US occupation grew and US casualties mounted. Yet as Mark Danner writes, the real scandal here is political: it "is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act." For once we know the story the photos and documents tell, we are left with the questions they pose for our democratic society: Does fighting a "new kind of war" on terror justify torture? Who will we hold responsible for deciding to pursue such a policy, and what will be the moral and political costs to the country?

Making sense of suicide missions

Abstract: Foreword 1. Kamikaze 1943-5 2. Tamil Tigers 1987-2002 3. Palestinians 1981-2003 4. Al Qaeda, September 11, 2001 5. Dying Without Killing: Self-Immolations 1963-2002 6. Killing Without Dying: The Absence of Suicide Missions 7. Motivations and Beliefs in Suicide Missions 8. Can We Make Sense of Suicide Missions? References

Himalayan ‘People’s War’: Nepal’s Maoist Rebellion

Abstract: The outside world still understands Nepal imperfectly. The emergence of a violent Maoist insurgency there during the late 1990s met with bewilderment even among many of those who claimed to know the country well. Nepal's so-called "people's war" was launched in 1996 by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in an attempt to overthrow the political establishment, including the monarchy, and establish a Maoist regime. This work covers its historical depth and socio-cultural background. Using brutal tactics similar to those of Peru's Shining Path in the 1980s, guerrillas have murdered many civil servants and supporters of the government and other political parties. Initially, the rebels numbered a few hundred, mainly poor peasants, former soldiers and unemployed youths, drawn to the movement by Nepal's poverty and disenchantment with its corrupt politicians, but have since grown to more than 25,000, with training camps in the remote rhododendron forests of western Nepal.

Why Did They Kill?: Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide

Abstract: Of all the horrors human beings perpetrate, genocide stands near the top of the list. Its toll is staggering: well over 100 million dead worldwide. Why Did They Kill? is one of the first anthropological attempts to analyze the origins of genocide. In it, Alexander Hinton focuses on the devastation that took place in Cambodia from April 1975 to January 1979 under the Khmer Rouge in order to explore why mass murder happens and what motivates perpetrators to kill. Basing his analysis on years of investigative work in Cambodia, Hinton finds parallels between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi regimes. Policies in Cambodia resulted in the deaths of over 1.7 million of that country's 8 million inhabitants - almost a quarter of the population - who perished from starvation, overwork, illness, malnutrition, and execution. Hinton considers this violence in light of a number of dynamics, including the ways in which difference is manufactured, how identity and meaning are constructed, and how emotionally resonant forms of cultural knowledge are incorporated into genocidal ideologies.

How to Help Poor Countries

Abstract: THE YEAR 2005 has become the year of development. In September, at the UN Millennium Summit meeting of heads of state, in NewYork, leaders of wealthy nations will emphasize their commitment to deeper debt relief and increased aid programs for developing countries. The Millennium Development Goals, the centerpiece of the conference's program, call for halving the levels of world poverty and hunger by 2015. The summit will focus on increasing international aid to 0.7 percent of donors' gross national product to finance a doubling of aid transfers to especially needy areas, particularly in Africa. With respect to global trade, efforts will center on the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations and opening markets to important exports (such as cotton) from developing countries. The discussions will thus proceed based on two implicit but critical underlying assumptions: that wealthy nations can materially shape development in the poor world and that their efforts to do so should consist largely of providing resources to and trading opportunities for poor countries. These assumptions ignore key lessons of the last four decades and of economic history more generally. Development is something

International governance of war-torn territories : rule and reconstruction

Abstract: Introduction 1. Forms of International Administration PART 1: INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE 2. Public Order and Internal Security 3. Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons 4. Civil Administration 5. Political Institution-Building 6. Economic Reconstruction and Development PART 2: CRITICAL ISSUES FOR INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 7. Planning Operations 8. The Exercise of Executive Authority 9. Accountability 10. Exit Strategies 11. Enhancing Effectiveness Conclusions

The Iraq Syndrome

Abstract: AMERICAN TROOPS have been sent into harm's way many times since 1945, but in only three cases-Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq-have they been drawn into sustained ground combat and suffered more than 300 deaths in action. American public opinion became a key factor in all three wars, and in each one there has been a simple association: as casualties mount, support decreases. Broad enthusiasm at the out set invariably erodes. The only thing remarkable about the current war in Iraq is how pre cipitously American public support has dropped off. Casualty for casualty, support has declined far more quickly than it did during either the Korean War or the Vietnam War. And if history is any indication, there is little the Bush administration can do to reverse this decline. More important, the impact of deteriorating support will not end when the war does. In the wake of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, the American public developed a strong aversion to embarking on such ventures again. A similar sentiment-an "Iraq syndrome"-seems to be developing now, and it will have important consequences for U.S. for eign policy for years after the last American battalion leaves Iraqi soil.

Addressing State Failure

Abstract: IN TODAY'S increasingly interconnected world, weak and failed states pose an acute risk to U.S. and global security. Indeed, they present one of the most important foreign policy challenges of the contemporary era. States are most vulnerable to collapse in the time immediately before, during, and after conflict. When chaos prevails, terrorism, narcotics trade, weapons proliferation, and other forms of organized crime can flourish. Left in dire straits, subject to depredation, and denied access to basic services, people become susceptible to the exhortations of demagogues and hatemongers. It was in such circum stances that in 2001 one of the poorest countries in the world, Afghanistan, became the base for the deadliest attack ever on the U.S. homeland, graphically and tragically illustrating that the problems of other countries often do not affect them alone. The international community is not, however, adequately organized to deal with governance failures. The United States and the rest of the world need to develop the tools to both prevent conflict and manage its aftermath when it does occur. Such efforts will entail not just peacekeeping measures, but also influencing the choices that troubled countries make about their economies, their political systems, the rule of law, and their internal security. Weak countries are unable to take advantage of the global economy not just because of a lack of resources,

Europe's Angry Muslims

Abstract: Fox NEWS and CNN'S Lou Dobbs worry about terrorists stealing across the United States' border with Mexico concealed among illegal immigrants. The Pentagon wages war in the Middle East to stop terrorist attacks on the United States. But the growing nightmare of officials at the Department of Homeland Security is passport-carrying, visa-exempt mujahideen coming from the United States' western European allies. Jihadist networks span Europe from Poland to Portugal, thanks to the spread of radical Islam among the descendants of guest workers once recruited to shore up Europe's postwar economic miracle. In smoky coffeehouses in Rotterdam and Copenhagen, makeshift prayer halls in Hamburg and Brussels, Islamic bookstalls in Birmingham and "Londonistan," and the prisons of Madrid, Milan, and Marseilles, immigrants or their descendants are volunteering for jihad against the West. It was a Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent, born and socialized in Europe, who murdered the filmmakerTheo van Gogh in Amsterdam last November. A Nixon Center study of 373 mujahideen in western Europe and North America between 1993 and 2004 found more than twice as many Frenchmen as Saudis and more Britons than Sudanese, Yemenites, Emiratis, Lebanese, or Libyans. Fully a quarter of the jihadists it listed were western European nationals-eligible to travel visa-free to the United States.

Chasing dirty money : the fight against money laundering

Abstract: National and international efforts to reduce money laundering were originally developed to reduce drug trafficking and have broadened over the years to address many other crimes and, most recently, terrorism. They now constitute a formidable regime applied to financial and nonfinancial institutions and transactions throughout much of the world. In this study, the authors (1) explore what is known about the scale and characteristics of money laundering, (2) describe the current anti-money laundering regime, (3) develop a framework for assessing the effectiveness of the regime, and (4) use that framework to assess how well the current system works and make proposals for its improvement.

Remapping East Asia : the construction of a region

Abstract: An overarching ambiguity characterizes East Asia today. The region has at least a century-long history of internal divisiveness, war, and conflict, and it remains the site of several nettlesome territorial disputes. However, a mixture of complex and often competing agents and processes has been knitting together various segments of East Asia. In Remapping East Asia, T. J. Pempel suggests that the region is ripe for cooperation rather than rivalry and that recent "region-building" developments in East Asia have had a substantial cumulative effect on the broader canvas of international politics. This collection is about the people, processes, and institutions behind that region-building. In it, experts on the area take a broad approach to the dynamics and implications of regionalism. Instead of limiting their focus to security matters, they extend their discussions to topics as diverse as the mercurial nature of Japan's leadership role in the region, Southeast Asian business networks, the war on terrorism in Asia, and the political economy of environmental regionalism. Throughout, they show how nation-states, corporations, and problem-specific coalitions have furthered regional cohesion not only by establishing formal institutions, but also by operating informally, semiformally, or even secretly.

Can Democracy Stop Terrorism

Abstract: THE UNITED STATES is engaged in what President George W Bush has called a "generational challenge" to instill democracy in the Arab world The Bush administration and its defenders contend that this push for Arab democracy will not only spread American values but also improve US security As democracy grows in the Arab world, the thinking goes, the region will stop generating anti-American terrorism Promoting democracy in the Middle East is therefore not merely consistent with U S security goals; it is necessary to achieve them But this begs a fundamental question: Is it true that the more democratic a country becomes, the less likely it is to produce terror ists and terrorist groups? In other words, is the security rationale for promoting democracy in the Arab world based on a sound premise? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be no Although what is known about terrorism is admittedly incomplete, the data available do not show a strong relationship between democracy and an absence of or a reduction in terrorism Terrorism appears to stem from factors much more specific than regime type Nor is it likely that democ ratization would end the current campaign against the United States Al Qaeda and like-minded groups are not fighting for democracy in the Muslim world; they are fighting to impose their vision of an Islamic state Nor is there any evidence that democracy in the Arab world would "drain the swamp," eliminating soft support

Decentralization and democracy in Latin America

Abstract: When the Spanish invaded the Inca empire in 1532, the cult of the ancestors was an essential feature of pre-Columbian religion throughout the Andes. The dead influenced politics, protected the living, symbolized the past, and legitimized claims over the land their descendants occupied, while the living honored the presence of the dead in numerous aspects of daily life. A central purpose of the Spanish missionary endeavor was to suppress the Andean cult of the ancestors and force the indigenous people to adopt their Catholic, legal, and cultural views concerning death. In her book, Gabriela Ramos reveals the extent to which Christianizing death was essential for the conversion of the indigenous population to Catholicism. Ramos argues that understanding the relation between death and conversion in the Andes involves not only considering the obvious attempts to destroy the cult of the dead, but also investigating a range of policies and strategies whose application demanded continuous negotiation between Spaniards and Andeans. Drawing from historical, archaeological, and anthropological research and a wealth of original archival materials, especially the last wills and testaments of indigenous Andeans, Ramos looks at the Christianization of death as it affected the lives of inhabitants of two principal cities of the Peruvian viceroyalty: Lima, the new capital founded on the Pacific coast by the Spanish, and Cuzco, the old capital of the Incas in the Andean highlands. Her study of the wills in particular demonstrates the strategies that Andeans devised to submit to Spanish law and Christian doctrine, preserve bonds of kinship, and cement their place in colonial society. "Rapid and widespread death decimated the descendants of the Inca Empire, but the mere number of the dead does not tell the story. Rather, Ramos brilliantly demonstrates that, beginning with the execution of Atahualpa, death and the dead were one of the great colonial sites of ongoing contestation about both the here and now and the hereafter. In an exquisitely researched study, Ramos traces the shift from pre-Columbian to colonial Andean funerary rituals and the differing ways that they became the center of how 'Andeans and Europeans communicated and exchanged their visions of power and the sacred,' in a true dance of death." --Thomas B. F. Cummins, Harvard University "Death and Conversion in the Andes is a highly innovative study that looks at the conquest period in a new light. By analyzing how the conception of death and death rituals changed during the early colonial period, Gabriela Ramos is able to gain many new insights into how the conquest modified indigenous beliefs. For those interested in ethnohistory and the effects of colonialism in Spanish America, this is a must read." --Erick D. Langer, Georgetown University

The flawed architect : Henry Kissinger and American foreign policy

Abstract: Henry Kissinger dominated American foreign relations like no other figure in recent history. He negotiated an end to American involvement in the Vietnam War, opened relations with Communist China, and orchestrated detente with the Soviet Union. Yet he is also the man behind the secret bombing of Cambodia and policies leading to the overthrow of Chile's President Salvador Allende. Which is more accurate, the picture of Kissinger the skilled diplomat or Kissinger the war criminal? In The Flawed Architect, the first major reassessment of Kissinger in over a decade, historian Jussi Hanhimaki paints a subtle, carefully composed portrait of America's most famous and infamous statesman. Drawing on extensive research from newly declassified files, the author follows Kissinger from his beginnings in the Nixon administration up to the current controversy fed by Christopher Hitchens over whether Kissinger is a war criminal. Hanhimaki guides the reader through White House power struggles and debates behind the Cambodia and Laos invasions, the search for a strategy in Vietnam, the breakthrough with China, and the unfolding of Soviet-American detente. Here, too, are many other international crises of the period-the Indo-Pakistani War, the Yom Kippur War, the Angolan civil war-all set against the backdrop of Watergate. Along the way, Hanhimaki sheds light on Kissinger's personal flaws-he was obsessed with secrecy and bureaucratic infighting in an administration that self-destructed in its abuse of power-as well as his great strengths as a diplomat. We see Kissinger negotiating, threatening and joking with virtually all of the key foreign leaders of the 1970s, from Mao to Brezhnev and Anwar Sadat to Golda Meir. This well researched account brings to life the complex nature of American foreign policymaking during the Kissinger years. It will be the standard work on Kissinger for years to come.

Energy and security : toward a new foreign policy strategy

Abstract: For more than a century, energy and its procurement have been central to the U.S. position as a world power. How can U.S. relations with established producer nations ensure the stability of energy supplies? How can non-OPEC resources best be brought to the international marketplace? And what are the risks to international security of growing global reliance on imported oil? In Energy and Security: Toward a New Foreign Policy Strategy, Jan H. Kalicki and David L. Goldwyn bring together the topmost foreign policy and energy experts and leaders to examine these issues, as well as how the U.S. can mitigate the risks and dangers of continued energy dependence through a new strategic approach to foreign policy that integrates both U.S. energy and national security interests. Contributors include Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, Kevin A. Baumert, Michelle Billig, Loyola de Palacio, Jonathan Elkind, Michelle Michot Foss, Leon Fuerth, Lee H. Hamilton, Evan M. Harrje, John P. Holdren, Paul F. Hueper, Amy Myers Jaffe, J. Bennett Johnston, Donald A. Juckett, Viktor I. Kalyuzhny, Melanie A. Kenderdine, William F. Martin, Charles McPherson, Kenneth B. Medlock III, Ernest J. Moniz, Edward L. Morse, Julia Nanay, Shirley Neff, Willy H. Olsen, Bill Richardson, John Ryan, James R. Schlesinger, Gordon Shearer, Adam E. Sieminski, Alvaro Silva-Calderon, Luis Tellez Kuenzler, J. Robinson (Robin) West, Daniel Yergin, and Keiichi Yokobori.