Showing papers in "Harvard international review in 2008"

Africa's Science Decline: The Challenge of Building Scientific Institutions

Abstract: The central role of the modern research university within the knowledge economy is now generally appreciated. although it is recognized that knowledge is also produced outside the university, there is--if anything--greater appreciation today of the critical role and function of the university in the production of scientific knowledge. There is every indication that the central role of the university in modern day knowledge economies will only increase as the economy and society become even more reliant on knowledge. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] However, it is not self-evident that this trend necessarily applies to universities in many poor developing countries and specifically not to many sub-saharan African countries. In many of these countries the university is often the main, if not only, site of scientific knowledge production. Unlike many of the developed countries in the North, these countries do not have an abundance of private research laboratories, well-resourced by government institutes. Such countries rely heavily on these universities for producing basic research as well as for being a reservoir of applied and problem-solving research and the production of highly skilled knowledge workers. Unfortunately, over the last thirty years, the research capacity at many of these institutions has been gradually eroded to the extent that one could not refer to these universities as vibrant and sustainable scientific institutions. In fact, one could claim that science in many African countries has, in the recent past, been systematically de-institutionalized. This currently has and will continue to have negative effects on scientific innovation in Africa. The Decline of University Research in Africa Various international forces associated with the globalization and internationalization of trade in the 1980s and 1990s have had a devastating effect on the economies of many African countries. The decline in export volumes and the relative decline in the price of primary products in world trade in the 1980s and 1990s, combined with the mishandling of exchange rates and of external reserves, and the huge external debt overhand together created major resource gaps for the countries of Africa. This put serious pressure on their import capacity and the availability of resources for essential economic and social investment. The result was an increased dependence of the typical sub-Saharan African country on aid from developed countries. At the same time, international agencies, most notably the World Bank, decided to privilege expenditure on basic education at the expense of support for higher education. This policy position was based on two premises. The first was the belief that the returns on investments in primary and secondary education are higher than those to higher education. The second reason relates to concerns that equity and access to basic education would naturally lead to an emphasis on primary education, which increased exponentially in many universities thrown into financial crisis, laboratories and libraries not receiving any maintenance, overcrowded lecture rooms, and flight of the top academics from these institutions. Research and scholarship would be one of the main losers during these years. Africa's share of world science, as measured in papers published in the citation indexes of the Institute for Scientific Information, have been declining steadily over the past decade. Bibliometric studies done at the University of Leiden's Centre for Science and Technology Studies show that sub-Saharan Africa's share of world scientific papers declined from one percent in 1987 to 0.7 percent in 1996. These diminishing shares of African science overall do not reflect a decrease in an absolute sense, but rather an increase in publication output less than the worldwide growth rate. Africa has lost 11 percent of its share in global science since its peak in 1987; sub-Saharan science has lost almost a third (31 percent). …

Assessing Globalization: Benefits and Drawbacks of Trade and Integration

Abstract: Globalization continues to be a divisive subject among political activists, academics, business leaders, and policymakers. Some look at the rapid economic and political changes taking place around the world and see injustice. Others observe these same changes and see progress. On both sides of the debate, however, much of the discussion takes place among elites. What do average citizens around the world think about the powerful global forces transforming their societies? Survey research suggests that most people embrace the idea of a globalized world, albeit cautiously. The main economic premises of globalization are generally accepted in regions throughout the world. People tend to believe their countries will benefit from trade, free enterprise, and investment by foreign companies. These views are especially common in many of the world's poorest countries, including nations in sub-Saharan Africa. However, enthusiasm for economic globalization has waned considerably over the last few years in many wealthy nations, especially in Western Europe and the United States. In nations both rich and poor, however, people worry about globalization's downsides. Many are concerned about the disadvantaged in society who are left behind by the economic growth globalization can bring. Increasingly, they are alarmed by the negative effects of growth on the environment. Nearly everywhere, people worry about the potential loss of their own traditions and cultures in an interconnected world. Many are also troubled by the growing flow of immigrants across national borders. So global publics do not fit neatly into either anti-or pro-globalization boxes. They largely reject the critiques of the strident anti-globalization protestors who have garnered considerable international media attention in recent years with their colorful--and sometimes violent--protests at international conclaves in Seattle, Prague, Davos, and elsewhere. At the same time, average citizens are more apprehensive about globalization than are the business and political elites who are often its greatest champions. Support for Economic Globalization In countries throughout the world, there is broad support for key economic features of globalization. The 47-country 2007 Pew Global Attitudes survey found strong support for international trade, multinational corporations, and free markets. However, the survey, conducted among representative national samples in 39 countries and disproportionately urban samples in 8 countries, also found important differences across various countries and regions. Perhaps the most notable among these are the increasing signs of economic anxiety among the wealthy nations of the West. International trade is at the heart of globalization. The tremendous expansion of global trade over the last few decades has driven economic growth in many developing countries, while providing more diverse and less expensive products to consumers in the developed world. At the same time, it has created dramatic upheaval, as workers in poor countries have moved to cities in search of new jobs, while some in wealthier nations have lost jobs that have moved overseas. The 2007 Pew Global poll shows that, all things considered, people consistently endorse international trade. Sizeable majorities in all 47 countries said growing trade ties between countries are having a positive impact on their country. In 9 countries, at least 90 percent of those surveyed took this position. Favorable views are especially common in sub-Saharan Africa, the world's poorest region. In all 10 African countries included in the survey, over 80 percent said trade was having a positive impact. Large majorities also back trade in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, but the trend in these developed nations is clearly headed in a negative direction. For example, both Italy and France have seen double digit declines in support for trade since 2002. …

The Impossible Dream: Education and the MDGs

Abstract: For international aid and development agencies working in the social sectors, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) shape their flagship programs and budgets, notably in education and health Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000, the goals constitute an ambitious, dynamic, and integrated strategy for poverty reduction by the year 2015 Major global organizations, not least the World Bank and other specialized UN agencies, now routinely frame their policies and interventions in terms of the MDGs, an approach also highly visible in the aid programs provided by major Western donor countries, and, perhaps more predictably, by prominent non-governmental organizations committed to poverty reduction [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For education, much work has been done to quantify progress over the 2000-2008 period and to assess prospects for the years leading to 2015 But at this midpoint, it is timely to reconsider the ongoing policy priorities implied in the MDGs themselves At their heart is the notion of education for all (EFA) The language surrounding EFA is the language of idealism, not simply because the MDG education targets are ambitious but because the impossibility of reaching the MDG education targets right across the developing world is now a certainty The 2005 deadline for gender equity in education has come and gone, and in 2015 as many as 70 countries will still be short of providing a basic education to each of its young people, some seriously so Idealism in Educational History The history of education is deeply embedded in attempts to achieves an ideal society through educational provision Utopian visions are numerous; even more numerous are attempts at social reform by promoting widespread religious commitment Political revolutions also frequently saw in education a pathway to their sustainability, and we are well used to attempts to achieve social cohesiveness, equity, and stability by educational means Given its potentially transcendent nature, it is understandable that education is so often clothed in the talk of idealists More than this, universal education has become an ideal in itself, and not merely a means to idealized ends In the West, the rise of mass schooling that followed the Industrial Revolution saw a tempering of much historical idealism As soon as the idea of mass education took hold, idealism had to yield some ground to more realistic concerns of ways and means--not least how many young people society could place in school, as well as what form and duration their schooling should take Whether or not it was government that was looked to as the guarantor of universal access to education, it was clear from the very beginnings of mass expansion that the rate of growth would be tempered by resource and capacity constraints Such concerns impinged directly on the very purposes of mass schooling, these now being subjected to the discipline of economic scrutiny So there opened up that great divide in modern education--tension between the moral and material We know from recent history that material concerns seem to count most in the construction of educational priorities and budgets Economic rationales for education have shaped enrollment patterns, the content of curriculum, and the very way the purposes of education are understood This has proven to be universally the case--in the developed world, in the transition economies of the old Soviet bloc, and across the developing world of the South Yet the idealism of education as a potentially transcendent enterprise refuses to go away, and individual learners, their families, and their communities seem unshakeable in belief that education can be an endeavour that transcends the confines of material existence One prominent expression of this belief is the idea of education as a fundamental human right, famously included in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights The chief obstacle to putting the ideal into effect is less a matter of moral acceptance than the obstacle of capacity …

A New Approach: The Need to Focus on Failing States

Abstract: In the post-9/11 security paradigm, failed states are considered one of the main threats to international and regional security. However, there remains much debate over what exactly constitutes a failed state. The first point of contention lies in the problem of identifying the indispensable functions of a state. The second lies in the controversy over the degree of failure in key functions that makes a state a failed state. Most would generally agree that a state must be able to exert a monopoly on the use of force within its borders, provide a legitimate political and legal order, and offer essential services in health, education, and physical infrastructure. The consensus ends here, however, with academics and policymakers disagreeing on the more detailed requirements of the definition. How deep and comprehensive must the monopoly on the use of force be? What constitutes the legitimacy of a political order? Which social services are essential? What factors account for the failure of a state? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In a 2007 study on international state building, Ulrich Schneckener draws a clear distinction between failed states and failing states. Failing states like Colombia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Georgia, and Nigeria are unable to completely control their territories, but they still deliver public services to the majority of the population and have some degree of political legitimacy. In failed states, however, none of the functions mentioned above is effectively performed. The most prominent example of a failed state is Somalia. Although I acknowledge that the breakdown of regional security might have serious repercussions on international security, I argue that ultimately, it is the failing state, not the failed state, that encourages international terrorism and organized crime. The failed state, in contrast, poses more threats to regional security than to international security. International Security As crucial as these differentiations between failed states and failing states are for a proper understanding of state failure, decision-makers who are concerned with failed states as security risks to Western societies rarely refer to them. Although their overall perception of failed states has only slightly been influenced by the academic debate on failed states, there have been two exceptions. They have taken into consideration the concrete examples of failed states, such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the total incapability of these states to control their territories. According to conventional wisdom, these failed states enable international terrorists and organized crime to seek haven and run their training camps and operational bases within their territories. This assumption, however, hardly passes the reality check. Despite the widespread rumors about al Qaeda cells in Somalia, the links between Somali factions and warlords and the terrorist network are rather loose. So far, Somalis have not played a prominent role in international terrorist attacks outside the African region. The case of Afghanistan also illustrates the threat posed by failing states. Here it must be stated that at the time al Qaeda was most successfully running its training camps in Afghanistan, the country was closer to the model of an effective state than it was in the prior two decades. As illegitimate as the rule of the Taliban was in the view of the Western world, the regime controlled greater pieces of the Afghan territory (where it allowed al Qaeda to operate in exchange for financial and military support), provided a more reliable political and legal order, and offered better social services than the preceding regimes. The same assumption holds true for organized crime, which cannot flourish in a stateless environment. Organized crime needs a legal order to subvert in order to make real profit as well as a certain minimum of financial, economic, and physical infrastructure in order to flourish. …

An Unbreakable Link: Peace, Environment, and Democracy

Abstract: The reality that sustainable development, democracy, and peace are indivisible concepts should not be denied. Peace cannot exist without equitable development, just as development requires sustainable management of the environment in a democratic and peaceful space. In order to advance peace, we must promote its underlying democratic institutions and ideals. In large part, this is only possible if management of the environment is pursued as a universal priority. Only a holistic approach that takes these interlinked factors into account can ensure effective, ecologically sustainable development. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Norwegian Nobel Committee challenged the world to appreciate this link and, in doing so, broadened our understanding of peace and security. The task at hand is to act on this challenge. This entails motivating leaders to build fair and just societies in which resources are shared equitably; to protect the environment to ensure that the needs of future generations are not compromised; and to expand democratic space, particularly for women and minorities, so that minority representation can exist alongside majority rule. Setting a foundation for peace and development requires that citizens feel vested in a common future and empowered to realize their own potential in addressing the problems they face. Sustainable Development and the Environment In many developing countries, particularly in Africa, environmental problems are relegated to the periphery because they do not appear to be as urgent as other issues. Protecting the environment is often seen as a convenient luxury when, in reality, it is a question of life and death. People cannot survive without clean drinking water, which comes from the forested mountains, or live without the food that is grown in fertile fields watered by the rains. Even the air we breathe needs trees to provide oxygen and recycle carbon dioxide. Our very survival depends on the survival of our fragile ecosystems. The Green Belt Movement (GBM) was initiated in 1977 with the planting of seven trees on World Environment Day. It was conceived as a practical way to address the needs that rural women were facing, specifically for clean drinking water, nutritious food, firewood, and fodder. These are all benefits that come from the land. Simple methods of caring for the environment have a huge impact on the health of communities as well as on economic empowerment and growth. Because the land had been so degraded, an obvious solution was to rehabilitate it by planting trees. Trees stop soil erosion, thus conserving water. In addition, tree planting is a simple and realistic goal which guarantees successful results within a reasonable amount of time. In the Green Belt Movement model, trees provide women with the basic needs they require to sustain their families--food, fuel, shelter, and income--since women receive monetary compensation for every tree that survives up to three months. Working with women to teach them how to plant and care for trees was a natural choice. Throughout Africa, women are the primary caretakers, tilling the land and feeding their families. As a result, they are often the first to feel the effects of environmental damage as vital resources become scarce and even unusable. Environmental degradation forces them to walk farther to attain wood for cooking and heating, to search for clean water, and to find new sources of food as old ones disappear. When the environment is destroyed, plundered, or mismanaged, it is their quality of life, and that of their children and families, that is ultimately undermined. In addition to planting and nurturing new trees, it is imperative to protect and conserve the trees that still stand in forests around the world. Forests are catchment areas for water; without them, flash floods would carry away the soil and nutrients needed for agriculture. Forests also serve as major carbon sinks, trapping carbon dioxide and thus helping to maintain the climate. …

Responsible Competitiveness: Making Sustainability Count in Global Markets

Abstract: The need for a more responsible basis on which businesses and economies compete in international markets has never been greater. Global corporations with global strategies contribute to rising inequality and falling economic opportunities for lower-income communities across the developed world. Low wages and poor working conditions are sources of international competitiveness for businesses from Dhaka to Johannesburg, and weak environmental regulatory enforcement continues to deliver profitable opportunities to many firms, whether they are mining copper, shipping oil, or cutting down forests. Such markets that reward poor social and environmental behavior will impede our collective efforts to address today's greatest challenges, from water scarcity and food insecurity to civil unrest and the rise of fundamentalism. Economic protectionism, underpinned by xenophobia and racism, is the consequence of diminished confidence that open international markets can deliver the goods. A generation of innovative business strategies and practices are emerging that deliver profits from more responsible behavior. At their minimum, they protect companies' reputations and brands, reducing the risks of consumer boycotts, recruitment bottlenecks in the face of bad press, or restricted or more expensive access to capital. Beyond this, companies have enhanced productivity through improved working conditions and driven product innovations by engaging with communities and understanding their issues and needs. Global leaders like General Electric have built multibillion dollar businesses offering energy-efficient products, and last year UK consumers alone purchased around US$60 billion worth of goods and services marketed with ethical virtues such as child labor, human rights, and arms control. The challenge is to move beyond the exceptional and exemplary cases of responsible behavior to establish new norms of "responsible competitiveness" in global markets. Exceptional cases of responsible business behavior are important sources of insight and inspiration but will only deliver significant impact if they serve to reshape how markets more systematically reward and penalize all businesses' social and environmental impacts. Nike and Levi's, as premium brands appealing to socially and environmentally-conscious consumers, may successfully secure a competitive edge through improved labor standards. But achieving such standards across the whole apparel and footwear sector, including cheaper brands selling to more price-conscious consumers, requires accepted and enforced market rules. Ikea or Home Depot, similarly, might ensure that their wood products are made from sustainable forest reserves, but this will have little impact unless such practices are scaled up across all wood products. Achieving responsible competitiveness across global markets requires the right combination of business, government and civil society policy and action. Since 2002, AccountAbility has built a framework enabling the measurement and analysis of factors that advance the responsible competitiveness of nations. Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, summarizes the key drivers in his overview of this work in identifying the need for "forward looking corporate strategies, innovative public policies and engaged and vibrant civil societies." Innovative means of combining these three drivers of responsible competitiveness have emerged over the last decade. In particular, a host of collaborative initiatives, involving businesses, NGOs, and public institutions including governments and international agencies like the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO), have emerged to set voluntary rules, providing codes of conduct and standards for reporting and consumers labels. For example, factory conditions for millions of people working in the global supply chains of apparel and textiles sectors have improved over the last decade through several such initiatives, including the Fair Labor Association, the Ethical Trading Initiative, and Social Accountability International. …

Economic Security: Expanding Women's Participation in US Science

Abstract: As US competitiveness is increasingly challenged on all sides, the forced attrition of women from the science, engineering, technology, and mathematics (STEM) workforce represents an annual cost of billions of dollars. This loss comes at a time when the United States is facing an absolute decline in entry-level engineers and growing rivalry from foreign innovators. Most discussions hold that gender equality is the primary benefit of, and reason for, getting more women into science. But this is not the primary benefit. Instead, the failure to expand women's participation in science is not simply an issue of "feminism" or civil rights but increasingly a problem for US economic security. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Problem: Decline in US Technological Capabilities For the last decade, a parade of reports has documented a slow erosion of the United States' relative advantage in science and technology. The alarm sounded by the National Academy of Sciences analysis, "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," is only the latest of these troubling surveys. After almost a century of near technological predominance, the United States has become a consistent net importer of high technology, shifting slowly from a US$22.4 billion high-tech trade surplus in 1990 to a US$134.6 billion trade deficit by 2005. The United States' share of world science and engineering research publications has also fallen; while the United States now trails even in the use of high technologies, most of which were US inventions, including (percapita) the internet (9th), broadband (12th), and cellular phones (53rd). The implications for US competitiveness should be clear to all. National strength in science and technology directly feeds US economic growth, industrial prowess, military might, and increasing living standards. Economists estimate that half of US economic growth since World War II has come from new technology, creating productivity improvements in every sector of its economy. After peaking during the 1990s, the wellspring of US science and technology appears to have slipped into relative decline and is evident in the broader economy. Over the last decade, US patents as a percentage of world patents have fallen by one percent each year. And while per capita patenting rates are climbing within the United States (1.66 percent annually during 1996-2005), innovation rates are rising even faster outside the United States (2.31 percent annually from 1996-2005). Perhaps more worrying is the fact that US high-technology small business formation has dropped in every sector. This is important because small business formation represents the traditional seedbed for new technologies and industries. Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Apple, and Google all began in garages and university dorms as small businesses, as did many of the telecom, internet, alternative energy, and even some of the biotechnology firms of the 1990s. In contrast, foreign firms have vastly improved their scientific and technological capabilities. We have seen the rise of technological competitors in Ireland, Israel, Finland, Taiwan, South Korea, and a half-dozen other countries. Toyota and Honda now mass-produce the most advanced hybrid automobiles. Spain is home to Europe's first commercial concentrating solar power plant and is a lead producer of wind power technologies, and Israel's Checkpoint is the inventor and market leader of network security "firewalls." China, according to most analysts, now looms as the next major technological competitor to the United States. Although the data remain cloudy, China produces at least twice the number of engineers as the United States. In published research, China now ranks second in engineering and chemistry and third in physics and mathematics. High-tech production has been outsourced to take advantage of this labor supply, making China the world's biggest exporter of telecom equipment, computers, electronic components, and now even the world's largest producer of solar panels. …

Fixing Failed States: A Cure Worse Than the Disease?

Abstract: The bipartisan Beltway consensus that sponsored the Iraq war is in the uncomfortable and unfamiliar position of having to justify its most basic tenets. After the Washington foreign policy community all but unanimously assured Americans of the prudence and necessity of starting a war with Iraq, other articles of faith in foreign policy circles are coming under attack. Perhaps most pernicious among them is the consensus view that the United States must reconstitute its national security bureaucracy in order to develop the capacity to fix failed states. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The fetish for fixing failed states is found in Democrats and Republicans alike. Take, for one example, former national security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger's 2005 article in The National Interest titled "In the Wake of War." There, Scowcroft and Berger assure us that "action to stabilize and rebuild states emerging from conflict is not 'foreign policy as social work,' a favorite quip of the 1990s. It is equally a national security priority." This is argument by assertion. A better-founded argument would at least go to the trouble of defining its terms. Alas, any attempt to define terms would also demonstrate the unconvincing nature of the thesis. Failed states rarely present threats to the United States, and attempting to "fix" them portends serious problems for US policy. To assess whether or not failed states pose a threat to US national security, we must first define "state failure" and then examine the historical cases that meet that definition. Failure Is in the Eye of the Beholder The most comprehensive and analytically rigorous study of state failure was a task force report commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Intelligence in 2000. The report's authors sought to quantify and examine episodes of state failure between 1955 and 1998. Working from their first definition of state failure (when "central state authority collapses for several years"), the authors only found 20 cases of bona fide state failure--too small a number to produce statistically significant conclusions. As a result, the authors chose to broaden the definition. After establishing those new criteria, the authors found 114 cases of state failure between 1955 and 1998. The new methodology increased the number of failed states nearly sixfold by changing the definition of what constituted state failure. Although the authors made the change to achieve a degree of statistical significance, they contended that the new methodology was appropriate because "events that fall beneath [the] total-collapse threshold often pose challenges to US foreign policy as well." That speculative and highly subjective standard produced a list that characterized China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Israel, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, and Turkey as failed states as of December 1998. A data set that includes such disparate countries does little to inform US policy toward failed states. It is less useful as a heuristic for guiding national policy than is blithely declaring that "states that begin with the letter I pose challenges to US foreign policy." More recent efforts offer little encouragement. A 2007 update of the Fund for Peace/Foreign Policy magazine "Failed States Index" promises on the magazine's cover to explain "why the world's weakest countries pose the greatest danger." In what can only be described as false advertising, the article does little to prove or even argue this claim. It instead concedes that "failing states are a diverse lot" and that "there are few easy answers to their troubles." But since the concept of "failedness" tells us so little about these states, why assemble such a category at all? One could imagine any number of arbitrary distinctions that would group together less disparate states than those that receive the designation "failed." Still, with the problem diagnosed as failure, the proposal is to fix the failure. …

A Disciple Becomes the Guru: Should the United States Learn from India?

Abstract: American businesses are increasingly moving their research and development operations to India and China. Debates rage in the United States about whether this will lead to greater prosperity or threaten this will lead to greater prosperity or threaten the country's global economic leadership. There are few facts in the debate, yet business and political leaders appear to be reaching consensus on how to respond to the rise of India and China: have more American children study math and science, and graduate more engineers and scientists. This remedy's most common justification is the supposed statistic that China and India between them graduate twelve times the numbers of engineers the United States does. Business executives such as Microsoft chairman Bill Gates say that they have no choice but to move their research and development operations abroad because a deficient US education system has resulted in a severe shortfall of engineers. The Global Engineering and Entrepreneurship project team at Duke University has been researching this topic. We found that the graduation statistics in common use were misleading, as they were based on faulty comparisons. Our interviews with the executives of technology and engineering companies engaged in outsourcing research and development (R&D) to India and China revealed that their primary motivation in moving operations abroad was not a shortage of engineers but rather lower cost and the proximity of growth markets. Furthermore, we found that there were serious issues with the quality of engineering education in China and India. Yet India is racing ahead to become a global hub for advanced R&D in several industries. In trying to understand how India is achieving this feat, we learned that the India private sector has found a way to overcome deficiencies in its education system through innovative programs of workforce training and development. These have transformed workers with a weak educational foundation into R&D specialists. In response, then, the United States needs learn from India and upgrade its workforce. Engineering education Various articles in the popular media, speeches by policy makers, and reports to Congress have stated that the US graduates roughly 70,000 engineers annually, while China graduates 600,000 and are India 350,000. Even the National Academies and the US Department of Education have cited these numbers. But no one has compared apples with apples. In China, the word "engineer" does not translate well into different dialects and has no standard definition. An "engineer could be a motor mechanic or a technician. Chinese graduation numbers included all degrees related to information technology and to specialized fields such as shipbuilding. They also included two-and three-year degrees, making them equivalent to US associate degrees. Nearly half of China's reported engineering degrees fell into this category. The Indian definition of "engineer" was equivalent to the US one, but included information-technology and computer-science degrees. When we counted on a more consistent basis, we found that in 2004, the United States and India each graduated approximately 140,000 engineers, and China graduated 360,000. Chinese graduation rates have, however, been increasing dramatically since 1999. We found a similar trend in Masters and PhD degrees. In 2005, China graduated 63,514 Masters and 9427 PhDs in engineering, exceeding corresponding US numbers: 53,549 and 7,720, respectively. India's graduation numbers were unimpressive: 18,439 Masters and fewer than 1,000 PhDs in engineering. In fact, India wasn't graduating enough PhDs to meet the growing staff requirements of its universities. However, China's increasing numbers came at the cost of quality: enrollments are increasing at all but the top universities without corresponding increases in faculty and infrastructure. The growth in India's graduation rates was coming largely from private educational institutions, the quality of which varied significantly: some provided good-quality education while the majority, did not. …

The Problem with Patents: Traditional Knowledge and International IP Law

Abstract: With attractive pinkish-white flowers and lush green foliage, the Madagascar rosy periwinkle appears at first to be an innocuous, decorative plant. Belying its appearance, the plant has incredibly potent qualities. In the early 1950s, the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Company began conducting research on the periwinkle, until then grown largely by poverty-stricken indigenous communities. Inspired by its use traditional medicine, researchers at Eli Lilly eventually isolated two extracts--vinblastine and vincristine. Both extracts have become powerful drugs, one to treat childhood leukemia, and the other to treat Hodgkins' Disease. Together, these drugs generate over US$200 million in revenue for Eli Lilly each year, no part of which is seen or even heard of by the people of Madagascar. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The story of Eli Lilly and the rosy periwinkle is one example that relevant NGOs label as "biopiracy," a term used to describe the appropriation, by outside forces, of legal rights over indigenous knowledge. This type of traditional knowledge (TK), including but not limited to native lore about plants and animals, is scantily protected under existing international intellectual property (IP) regimes. Furthermore, indigenous communities tend to be located in poorer countries in the "Global South," where governments cannot easily afford to regulate or protect local rights to indigenous biodiversity. In order to protect the rights of the governments and peoples of these countries, the current system must be adapted, with new laws created that recognize value of traditional knowledge. The question arises, however, of whether or not knowledge about indigenous biodiversity can be considered intellectual property. The end product, a compound developed from an original plant sample, might have a completelely different purpose than the original status of the plant in traditional knowledge. At the very least, however, benefit-sharing agreements between drug patent-holders and source countries is not only a moral issue in terms of uniform protection of rights, but at a more fundamental level, is necessary for protecting and promoting the livelihoods of the world's poor. International Standards: The West and the Rest The current basis for international intellectual property law resides in a treaty signed by WTO member states, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The TRIPS agreement is a basic framework that protects the intellectual property rights of individuals and corporations across WTO nations. However, the standards of TRIPS stem from those of richer, developed nations. Pushed through the WTO by the US, European countries, and Japan, the agreement as a whole is generally viewed by advocates of developing countries as a forced concession to the developed world. Though fought and debated for a decade, by the beginning of 2005, all developing countries were bound to comply to TRIPS intellectual property standards. The agreement, thus far, has mostly served to protect the interests of large, multinational corporations based in the developed world. Particularly with regard to prescription drugs, TRIPS has protected large pharmaceutical countries to the detriment of the citizens of poorer nations, who in many cases have the most need for such drugs but are the least able to afford them. The irony, then, comes full circle. In some cases, such as that of the rosy periwinkle, the indigenous people who provided the initial source of knowledge about a medicine are among the least likely to benefit from the resulting drugs, much less even hear about them or reap any monetary benefits at all. Though in recent years, the issue of protecting traditional knowledge has risen in prominence among lawyers and activists alike, no effective legal mechanisms yet exist that proactively provide support for holders of TK. The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity is the one treaty that came close to recognizing the rights of traditional knowledge holders by declaring that "traditional lifestyles" must be protected. …

Madrasah Education: Necessity or Rational Choice?

Abstract: Education is all about opportunity, the opportunity to make something of your life, and in many cases to have choices that preceding generations did not have. Nowhere is this more true than in South Asia, where a large population, significant levels of poverty, and a variable government track record in delivering services make education all the more important. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] So why is it that, given these conditions, many parents choose to send their children to madrasahs, Islamic schools, where some suggest the quality of education is narrower, employability weaker, and later opportunities in life more restricted? In what ways can the choice to send one's children to a madrasah be a rational one? Parents that select their children's education are more likely to closely involve themselves in its delivery. Whether rational or not, those who choose madrasahs may be expressing their confidence in a madrasah education, rather than announcing a choice determined by necessity. Only by understanding more about the madrasah system and its alternatives--secular, government, and private--can we arrive at firm conclusions for effective public policymaking. In order to reach these conclusions, evidence is key. Unfortunately, the evidence base remains alarmingly weak, despite the strength of convictions that madrasah politics tend to generate. Additionally, much of the debate depends on what type of Islamic school we are talking about. It is tempting to assume that all madrasahs are broadly similar: religious schools that prioritize a range of Islamic subjects while failing to offer broad-based curricula that include modern subjects, whether science, the social sciences, or contemporary languages. But the sheer range of madrasahs in South Asia suggests otherwise. To begin with, there are major differences between the majority of madrasahs, which are rural, primary institutions, and the majority, which are urban, often endowed with some financial resources and cover the range from primary to tertiary education. The former institutions are largely about necessity. Educational choice in parts of rural South Asia can be extremely limited. In Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, government schools often lack the national footprint that their governments seek. Given the pressures of population, competing demands on public sector finances, and the limited ability of states to ensure the effective delivery of public services in rural areas, government schools often fail to meet the mark. It is not uncommon to hear about schools that simply exist in name: a school building, budget, and salaries for teachers that translate into a building being used for other activities and incomes for teachers who do not teach. The first Pakistani National Education Census in 2006 found 12,737 of these so-called "ghost schools" out of a total of 164,579 across the country, for example. As a result, the choice for many rural parents is between no government school at all or a madrasah that usually offers free (or nearly free) education. Regardless, one often encounters regions in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan where villagers choose to send a child to a madrasah over a local government school. For conservative parents, a religious education for one child, or more, is appealing--particularly given the subsequent opportunities those parents think their children are likely to get to make a living, whether as mullahs or as madrasah teachers. (This happens although jobs within the madrasah system are limited, perhaps explaining the growing number of primary schools set up by former madrasah students.) Consequently, a number of parents send their children to madrasahs out of choices. Nowhere is this more visible than in the cities of South Asia. From Dhaka to Peshawar, middle-class parents choose to send children--or more often, one child, as Masooda Bano has found in her research--to madrasahs because they offer a respectable, religious education. …

A Toxic Issue: Air Pollution in New Delhi

Abstract: The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing focused environmental attention on pollution in China. But escaping the spotlight was Asia's other tiger, India, where high pollution levels are at least indirectly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths a year. Its capital city is the most egregious offender--according to a 2007 report by the Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi has the highest pollution levels of any major city in the country. Moreover, the Centre for Science and Environment reports that Delhi's air quality has deteriorated sharply over the past two years. The statistics are alarming. Two of every five residents of New Delhi suffer from a respiratory disease, and hospitalization rates are on the rise for pollution-induced conditions like asthma, lung disease, chronic bronchitis, and heart damage. Researchers have also found evidence that long-term exposure to the microscopic dust particles resulting from pollution can lead to weakened immune systems and lung cancer. Because 70 percent of Delhi's air pollution comes from vehicles, those who work outdoors, including blue-collar workers and taxi drivers, are the most affected group. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The exponential growth of India's economy over the last few decades is responsible for much of the problem. In the 1990s, the loosening of government regulations on foreign trade led to an influx of foreign capital. Many businesses in Silicon Valley and other tech loci began relocating their information technology services and call centers to India. This opportunity for increased prosperity has in essence created a new middle class with Westernized tastes and a budget to match. This hugely ballooning demographic is responsible for 39 percent of Indian consumption now; by 2025, this number will rise to 70 percent. The direct consequence is the presence of more cars on the roads than ever before. From 1997 to 2006, the number of registered vehicles in New Delhi rose from 1.5 million to 4.5 million, and it continues to increase by an average of 963 private vehicles every day. Tata Motors also plans to begin selling its new "People's Car" in late 2008 at the rock-bottom price of US$3,000. Market analysts predict that the car could expand the Indian car market by as much as 65 percent, with a corresponding increase in emissions. While the increased demand for cars is a tangible indicator of India's continued economic growth, it will challenge India's already gridlocked infrastructure and further increase levels of pollution and congestion. The government has attempted to tackle the problem of air pollution in the past. A law ordering that all public transportation vehicles use compressed natural gas by 2001 resulted in a noticeable decrease in air pollution. …

An internal challenge: partnership in fixing failed states

Abstract: The term "failed state" has only recently entered into international legal jargon to describe the collapse and dissolution of states. These processes have become relatively frequent of late and are symptomatic of the condition of today's community of states and system of international law. Examples commonly cited include Somalia; Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have been racked by small-scale conflicts throughout the 1990s; Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early days of its independence; Rwanda at the time of the massacres and genocide; and, more recently, Sudan, a country which has been devastated by three conflicts. Although the discussion about the failed state phenomenon has only existed since the end of the Cold War, there are also cases of failed states prior to that period. These cases include the 20-year conflict in Cambodia, brought to an end by the Paris Agreement of 1991; the civil war in Lebanon during the 1980s; and various phases in the development of the Congo, a country that has been hard to govern since independence was achieved in 1960. The same themes were evident in the chaotic power struggles in China during the 1930s and can still be traced back all the way to the Thirty Years' War in seventeenth-century Europe. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This article aims to analyze the phenomenon of failed states in its legal, political and sociological aspects. It will retrace the different approaches to addressing failed states and will attempt to show that efforts toward "fixing" failed states have been generally met with mixed success. It is argued here that while other states, international actors, and the Security Council in particular may play an important role, sustainable recovery will in the long run only be successful if it originates from within the failed state--and preferably from the grassroots level rather than from an imposing authority at the top. The Political and Legal Phenomenon The term "failed state" does not denote a precisely defined situation, but instead serves as a broad label for a complex phenomenon. A state is usually considered to have failed when the power structures providing political support for law and order have collapsed. This process is generally triggered and accompanied by anarchic forms of internal violence. Former Secretary-General of the UN, Boutros Boutros Ghali, described this situation as "the collapse of state institutions, especially the police and judiciary, with resulting paralysis of governance, a breakdown of law and order, and general banditry and chaos. Not only are the functions of government suspended, but its assets are destroyed or looted and experienced officials are killed or flee the country." Hence, three elements characterize a failed state from the political point of view. First is the geographical and territorial aspect: failed states are essentially associated with endogenous problems, even though these may incidentally have cross-border impacts. The situation is one of implosion rather than of explosion of the structures of power and authority, of disintegration and destructuring of states rather than dismemberment. Second, there is the internal aspect characterized by the collapse of political and legal systems. The emphasis here is on the complete or near breakdown of structures guaranteeing law and order, as opposed to the kind of fragmentation of state authority seen in civil wars. The final element is an external one: the absence of capable bodies representing the state at the international level. Either no institution exists that has the authority to negotiate, represent, and enforce, or if one does, it is wholly unreliable. From the international law point of view, a failed state, while retaining legal capacity, has in all practical purposes lost the ability to exercise it. Moreover, there is no body able to legally commit a failed state to a binding agreement. The Sociological Perspective Sociologically, the failed state is characterized by two phenomena. …

Three years after. Theoretical reflections on Ukraine's Orange Revolution

Abstract: In late 2004, Ukraine underwent the "Orange Revolution"--several weeks of peaceful mass demonstrations that reversed a fraudulent election, catapulted a democrat to the presidency, and promised to transform the country into a modern European state. Just a few months later, the Orange coalition, led by President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, was already at loggerheads, and by late 2005 it had split. Continued bickering among the Orange democrats enabled the man who had been humiliated by the Revolution, Viktor Yanukovych, to stage a spectacular comeback in mid-2006. After Yushchenko dissolved parliament and called new elections in 2007, however, a reconstituted and exceedingly shaky Orange coalition managed to win. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This seemingly endless elite infighting marked by mudslinging, accusations of betrayal, and demagoguery was the last thing that Ukraine's population had expected from the hopeful days of 2004. Instead of smooth sailing toward Europe, Ukraine appeared to have been caught in a series of devastating storms. It is small wonder that, by late 2007, most Ukrainians turned their backs on politics and focused their energy on their personal lives. Ironically, though predictably, political apathy among the Ukrainian population results from disillusionment with the overly enthusiastic revolutionary rhetoric generated by the Orange Revolution, confirming the pragmatic, evolutionary, and thoroughly unromantic progress Ukraine has made since 2004. The Orange Revolution as Romantic Upheaval Popular disillusionment was the result of missed opportunities and political mistakes by the Orange leadership. It was also the product of the exalted expectations created by facing down a corrupt regime and forcing it to the popular will. There are, after all, two distinct ways in which the concept of revolution can be understood--as a popular upheaval or as a fundamental, comprehensive, and rapid change. Upheavals may or may not lead to massive change, while fundamental, comprehensive, and rapid change may or may not be caused by upheavals. Thus, the upheaval known as the French Revolution actually produced far less change than it promised. The Nazi Revolution entailed enormous change but was not produced by an upheaval. The Iranian Revolution, meanwhile, involved both an upheaval in 1978 and 1979 and a complete systemic transformation in the years that followed. Ukraine's Orange Revolution was an upheaval that did not lead to fundamental, comprehensive, and rapid change. But like all self-styled revolutionaries who attempt to sustain a popular uprising, the Orange revolutionaries employed a romantic rhetoric that went far beyond mere upheaval. They promised a transformation of everything, immediately. Ukraine was going to join the European Union and NATO, free itself from Russia's embrace, cast all its corrupt "bandits" into jail, enjoy impeccably clean and efficient government, adopt full-scale economic reforms, experience a cultural revival, and live like the developed West. These extravagant promises were expectations that the revolutionaries, as the peaceful reformers they really were, simply could not meet. They were, thus, hoisted with their own petard. Popular disillusionment was inevitable because fundamental, comprehensive, and rapid change was never in the cards; the Orange coalition's split was inevitable because the rhetoric of revolution could only clash with the realities of Ukraine's evolutionary politics. The ancien regime represented by Yanukovych was able to return in 2006 because it had never quite left. The Undesirability of Revolutionary Change Ukraine is supremely fortunate that the Orange revolutionaries did not attempt to introduce fundamental, comprehensive, and rapid change. Had they tried, they would have failed, and Ukraine's population--saddled with broken institutions and violence-prone elites--would have been far worse off today than it is and would have had far fewer prospects for meaningful reform than it now has. …

Reconstructing the Rule of Law: Post-Conflict Liberia

Abstract: Civil wars mark the collapse of a state's ability to maintain social order through peaceful means. To prevent wars from recurring, new social, economic, and political arrangements must be found that are acceptable not only to the elites present at the peace table, but also to all members of society. Unless people at all levels can develop and embrace new social and political structures for maintaining order, no amount of peacekeeping or post-conflict reconstruction will ensure a lasting peace. An often overlooked yet critical element to achieving this aim is the prioritization of the restructuring and empowerment of community-based justice mechanisms that have been damaged or discredited by the war. Doing so gives ordinary people an active stake in the transition to a more just society and provides some means for people to protect themselves, their communities, and their country from injustices that can lead back to war. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Liberia today continues to face one of the greatest post civil war peace-building challenges of out time. Liberians suffered unspeakably during the 14 years of internal fighting, which killed 250,000 and drove more than half of Liberia's 3.5 million people from their homes. The war touched every Liberian and almost every corner of the country and region in some way. It destroyed lives and livelihoods, along with physical and social infrastructure at all levels. The war laid bare the country's divisions and created new ones. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's government is working extraordinarily hard to rebuild the country and heal its wounds, with critical support from the international community. The task requires sustained drive, patience, and commitment, particularly in the face of setbacks such as rising food and energy prices that can quickly impact any economic progress, particularly among the poorest. As Liberia continues to make progress in its fragile transition from autocracy to a new order guaranteed by the rule of law, it is critical that the population be included in all steps of the process so that their enthusiasm for peace can be sustained. Community Access to Justice Thirty years ago, in September 1978, the World Health Organization and its member states signed the Declaration of Alma-Ata, calling for primary health care to be the building block of health policy around the world. The UN General Assembly endorsed the declaration, recognizing that community-based approaches to primary health care delivery are essential if services are to reach and benefit ordinary people. Despite the successes of this approach, a comparable idea that access to justice should be rooted in community-based services has yet to be embraced in a similar manner. While the health establishment trusts trained local citizens to administer basic health care and preventive education within their communities, legal establishments have been much slower to explore ways that problem solving can be devolved to ordinary citizens. One important cause of civil war is when poor or marginalized groups believe they have no legal recourse through which to protect their rights from more powerful elites. In countries recovering from war, this core problem will remain if reform of the legal system does not also include active ways to connect to the citizens' immediate needs, including regaining their trust. Peace-building, therefore, must find creative means to make the law quickly accessible and relevant to ordinary people so they can collectively begin to embrace a new social order and work to protect it. Almost all peace agreements and post-conflict reconstruction plans contain commitments to establishing democratic systems based on the rule of law. Restoring the justice system is critical to security, economic development, infrastructure reconstruction, education, and good governance. However, more than half of the states that have emerged from conflict will at some time return to war. …

Things Fall Apart: Violence and Poverty in Yemen

Abstract: Recent unrest in Yemen indicates that the Gulf state--for decades the region's poorest--may be in slow-motion collapse. On April 6, 2008, an Al Qaeda bombing shook the capital city of Sanaa, capping a spree of political violence that killed 21 people. Riots have flared in response to stagnant economic conditions and rising food prices. The most dismal omen came in March, when the state's oil ministry admitted that oil production has fallen considerably and will continue to drop. Indeed, while the current violence affects Yemen's political stability, it is economic security which, in the long run, is most endangered. Though Yemen's current instability is worrying, only more trouble lies ahead for the nation. Al Qaeda in Yemen (AQIY) is the most prominent of the recent threats to Yemen's stability, mounting a recent surge in anti-government propaganda and violence. A new generation of jihadis, battle-tested in Iraq and virulently anti-American, have rejected the conservatism of AQIY's old guard and criticized the Yemeni government for cooperating with the United States. Since mid-2007, Al Qaeda has supplemented its propaganda with a series of attacks on military compounds and tourist convoys. In April 2008, those attacks increased in severity. A second destabilizing factor includes the renewal of the four year-old Houthi rebellion of Zaydi Shi'a in northern Yemen. The rebellion began in 2004 under Zaydi leader Badr al-Din al-Houthi and was revived, several years after al-Houthi's death, by his brother Abd al-Malik. According to experts, the Houthis aim to overthrow President Ali Abdullah Saleh's government and restore the Shia imamate that was toppled in 1962. The Houthis maintain that their real objection to the Sanaa government stems from its partnership with the United States. Regardless of their intentions, the Houthis are responsible for four years of on-and-off guerrilla violence and have been accused of terrorist attacks. The third indicator of the country's weakness is the long-term rift between North and South Yemen. Riots have threatened the precarious unity of the two regions, which were only joined in 1990 after a 30 year separation. Residents of the former South Yemen accuse Saleh, president of North Yemen before 1990, of favoring the North through government patronage and employment. Southerners have also recently protested against Sanaa's treatment of soldiers who fought against the North in the 1994 civil war. This unrest prompted Saleh to deploy troops and tanks to South Yemen, further exacerbating the violence. Solutions to these conflicts are more elusive than they might seem. In 2001, for example, Saleh parlayed Yemen's strategic importance in the war on terrorism into promises of US economic and military aid. After gaining US support, Yemen cracked down on domestic militancy by casting a wide net and rounding up militants and dissidents it deemed to be terrorists. By 2002 the threat of Al Qaeda in Yemen seemed to recede. However, Saleh's US ties themselves spawned a new wave of violence from Sunni and Shia alike. Moreover, Saleh's counterterrorism initiative is dependent on the willingness of tribal leaders to cooperate with the government. More than once, terrorist suspects have escaped prison to seek asylum with their tribes; Saleh, not having the power or the desire to force their capture, has let them go. …

Evolving Markets: Adapting to the New High-Skilled Migration

Abstract: The international movement of individuals with university education is increasingly common. At the education is increasingly common. At the same time, both public policy and attributes towards educated migrants have been schizophrenic: new policies to gain more benefits from high-skilled migration coexist with the fears in both sending and receiving countries that the movement of brain power harms others in their countries. High-skilled migration is as controversial as other aspects of globalization. The greatest economic gains probably accrue to the migrant--the person who has decided that the career advantages of movement outweigh the personal inconveniences. But there are strong reasons to believe that there are also large benefits for both sending and receiving countries. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the United States, a country whose scientific heroes in the last century included Einstein and von Braun, highly-skilled migrants are not a new concept. However, changes in both the global economy and the way science and technical knowledge is created and used have made foreign-born talent a key economic factor in most major world economies. A World Bank study by Docquier and Marfouk found 20 million university-educated (tertiary or above) non-citizens in the 30 OECD countries in 2000, with 10 million outside of the United States. This figure underestimates the number of highly-skilled migrants in non-OECD countries and foreign-born citizens in OECD countries. In general, the higher the skill level, the greater the importance of migrants--in the United States, 42 percent of PhDs in science and engineering occupations were foreign-born. The increasing number of highly-skilled migrants is driven by many factors. The most important of these is the rapid growth in the number of educated people around the world. There has been much discussion in the US media regarding the expansion of education in China and India. Those two countries have led spectacular growth in education, but a focus on Asia misses an even bigger story--that similar education growth has occurred in most of the world. In 1980, there were about 73 million university educated people globally. By 2000, there were 194 million university-educated workers, with the U.S. share falling from about one-third to about one-quarter of the total. In 2004, the United States and the European Union combined accounted for slightly less than half the global production of doctorates in natural sciences and engineering. The global growth of human capital is a good thing, and it would be a mistake for US policymakers to worry too much about their shrinking share of a rapidly growing pie. However, the rapid growth and increased geographic dispersion of global human capital is an important factor in changing how work is done across borders. Global human capital has both grown rapidly and become much more geographically dispersed. This geographic spread in the capacity to do high-skilled work has been one factor in changing how work is done across borders. Also, one should note that the global movement of highly-skilled people is taking place in an environment where many high-skilled tasks are performed with cross-border collaboration. High-skilled work, particularly in science and technology (S & T), is increasingly done by geographically disparate teams, often across national borders. This is true for activities such as collaboration on academic papers, as well as product design and development. The basic change in how S &T work is done may have been driven in part by the geographic dispersion of talent, along with the dispersion of research and development (R & D) activities. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The ability of people to work with each other across borders, via the internet and other means, may seem to make the physical movement of people less necessary. Instead, it seems likely that the flow of highly-skilled labor and international collaboration are mutually reinforcing. …

Failing the Failed: The Bush Administration and Failed States

Abstract: In December 2006, Ethiopian troops, with the support of the United States, entered Somalia to oust the Islamic Courts movement that had taken over the government Somalia is a tragic example of a failed state that has put enormous pressure on the international community and neighboring-countries for nearly two decades After the December 2006 attacks, fleeing Islamic fundamentalists escaped into Kenya, which is now home to over a quarter million documented refugees, the majority of whom are Somali or Sudanese These refugees in Kenya have put pressure on World Food Program food stocks, and the Kenyan government has blamed the rise of national crime on weapons crossing the border from Somalia The situation has even affected Kenya's robust tourism industry, as the US embassy in Nairobi has warned that Westerners in Kenya may be targeted for kidnapping by the Islamic Courts movement [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The continuing case of state failure in Somalia, made infamous by the Black Hawk Down incident and the precipitous withdrawal of American troops in 1993, demonstrates a particular set of challenges to the international community: what can and should be done about fragile, failing, and failed states, and when is the appropriate time to address the problem? In this article, we argue that a preconceived strategy that is capable of handling political, economic, and social needs, in addition to more immediate security requirements, is both necessary and crucial for addressing the problem of failed states Placing Failed States on the Agenda During the 1990s, scholars, policymakers, and military strategists became increasingly concerned with the problem of failed and failing states because they threatened regional security and often created humanitarian crises The Clinton administration seemed to appreciate the need for interventions by regional and global organizations to mitigate the potential dangers of these states, which if left unaided would further threaten regional and global security In contrast, the Bush administration entered office with little appreciation of or interest in the problem of failed states In a January 2000 Foreign Affairs article, Condoleezza Rice outlined what a new Republican administration's foreign policy assumptions and goals ought to be While the Clinton administration argued for a comprehensive approach, which included confronting the root causes of conflict within fragile states, promoting multilateral security regarding responses to needs, and attempting a preventive diplomacy, each part of this approach was anathema to the new administration During the campaign, Bush echoed Rice's argument that nation-building was an inappropriate use of US troops and resources Moreover, during the televised presidential candidate debate with Al Gore, Bush indicated that his administration would not have undertaken "nation-building" in Haiti, become involved in Rwanda to prevent genocide, or intervened in the Balkans The one exception he noted was the case of Australian intervention in East Timor, which Bush approved of because the United States offered only logistical assistance Thus, when President Bush took office, failed states disappeared from the national agenda and were replaced by the problem of rogue regimes Identifying Weak States However, weak states--characterized by lack of political and economic substance--continue to challenge the international community While the designation of the number of failed, failing, fragile, weak, under stress, at risk, and collapsed states ranges from a dozen to five dozen across academic and government studies, there are certain characteristics that are generally agreed upon The World Bank in its Low Income Countries Under Stress Project argues that these states are characterized by weak policies, weak institutions, and weak governance In addition, these states lack a strong sense of nationhood; ethnic identities connected to tribal, religious and similar characteristics continue to dominate …

Myth or Reality? Assessing the Validity of the Asian Model of Education

Abstract: It was not long ago that Asian countries were considered poor and under developed. Even Japan, a G8 country and well-established OECD member, was viewed as a struggling nation that produced products of questionable quality after the devastation of World War II. Economists often credit the phenomenal continued growth and development of these countries to the quality of their human resources, the talented and hard-working students and graduates of their educational systems, and the specific nature of those systems. These societies achieved universal primary and secondary education long ago and are now entering the era of massification of their tertiary sectors. It should be noted at the outset that Asia covers a broad regional footprint--one that includes some of the poorest nations on earth. In this article, Asian will refer to primarily the traditional Confucian societies of China (including Hong Kong), Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, although many of the points made below apply to other parts of Asia as well, such as Vietnam, Thailand, and India. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As these economies continue to grow and flourish, challenging those in Europe and North America (to say nothing of the rest of the world), one wonders: what is it that is different about these systems and approaches to education, and how are they changing as the pressures of globalization begin to impinge on traditional values and mores? Can we say that there is an "Asian model" of education? Probably not any more than we can say there is a Western or American model of education in any pure sense. But clearly there are some distinctive characteristics of each that are quite discernible, and this distinctiveness, influenced by Confucian thought and practice, offers other nations seeking to develop their economies an approach that has been tested and found to be successful. For the United States and other industrialized nations, these characteristics create both a challenge and an opportunity to learn new pedagogical strategies to maintain competitiveness in a globalizing world. The Cultural Question An educational methodologist colleague, in addressing the achievement gap between Asian and US elementary students as expressed on cross-national achievement tests, could only comment, "I guess we could all become Chinese if we wanted to compete with them." He, of course, was referring to the cultural stereotype that he and many other American educators often have of Asian students, both those they have observed in Asia and Asian-Americans in their own classrooms: they work harder, are more disciplined, are quiet, tend to be overachievers, excel in mathematics and science, and so on. The data to support these observations are available and often highlight what are generally called Confucian traits of self-denial, frugality, fortitude, patience, self-discipline, rote learning, memorization, and delayed gratification. The relationship between the rise of Confucianism and later neo-Confucianism and what might be called an Asian work ethic, an entrepreneurial spirit, has been widely discussed both within the region and outside. Suffice it to say there is a large literature both in Asia and outside the region that finds this correlation well substantiated. From the time Confucianism took hold in the Song dynasty (960 AD), these values spread throughout Chinese society (and other East Asian settings, such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), and came to characterize both formal and information education. The nationwide civil service examination system and the memorization that came to characterize this exercise drove the educational system and served as a powerful motivator not only for the ambitious but also for ordinary citizens as well. While the system did not work flawlessly, it was in many an open merit-based opportunity structure that by the mid-20th century imbedded the very powerful notion that successfully pursuing education led to a successful and prosperous life. …

A Crude Reality: Canada's Oil Sands and Pollution

Abstract: The United States and Canada enjoy one of the largest trading partnerships in the world, with energy serving as a vital component of that relationship. Canada exports 1.96 million barrels of oil per day to the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration. While Canada also supplies a large amount of clean hydropower to northern US regions, oil exports to the United States are both more substantial and, recently, more controversial. A large portion of Canadian oil coming to the United States is extracted from the oil sands in Alberta at high cost to the environment. With climate change becoming a vital global issue, many US leaders have begun to criticize Canada for sanctioning the dirty oil extraction process. Although this criticism has not yet translated into a serious decline in the US-Canada relationship, Canada will have a improve its environmental standards for oil sands in order to maintain healthy dealings with its southern neighbor. With over 170 billion barrels of recoverable oil known, Alberta's oil sands contain the second largest proven reserves in the world, behind only Saudi Arabia. But this Canadian oil is trapped in a tar-like substance known as bitumen. Until recently, these resources remained relatively untapped, due to the fact that extracting crude oil from the sands is much more expensive than drilling for conventional crude oil. However, with the recent spike in oil prices, extraction from the sands has become profitable, and oil companies are seizing the opportunity. In July 2008 they extracted 1.3 billion barrels of heavy crude oil per day from the sands. Unfortunately, the environmental costs of this extraction are just as high as the profit being made. Because the oil in the sands is low grade crude, extracting and refining one barrel of its requires three times as much energy as producing a barrel of conventional oil, and releases three times as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. At the same time, side effects of increasing oil extraction, including vast deforestation, also contributes to ever-growing emissions. The area is now the most rapidly increasing sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. Furthermore, washing the bitumen to separate the oil and sand wastes over 12.7 billion cubic feet of water per year. This results in both a lock of local water resources and a large amount of water pollution. Reports have also surfaced of deformed fish in the toxic lakes surrounding the extraction area. These huge environmental impacts are drawing the attention not only of environmentalists but also of leaders in the United States. Both 2008 US presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, spoke out against the purchase of environmentally dirty energy from sources like Alberta's oil sands. Arnold Schwarzengger, governor of California, signed an agreement to limit oil imports from producers with large carbon foot prints. Furthermore, 1,000 US mayors banded together and agreed to refuse imports of oil refined from areas with unusually high greenhouse gas emissions, like Alberta's oil sands. …

Science and Politics: Accepting a Dysfunctional Union

Abstract: Dan Sarewitz, professor of science and society at Arizona State University, argues that we should fully expect politicians to politicize scientific information because "that is their job...and this--like the second law of thermodynamics--is not something to be regretted, but something to be lived with." Sarewitz's assertion flies in the face of many recent discussions on science and politics, focusing predominantly on the actions of President George W.Bush, which are characterized in ample portions by both blame and regret. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Bush administration has courted controversy in many areas of policy making, and science is no exception. While complaints about the heavy-handed tactics and questionable decisions of the Bush administration are both justified and easy to offer, such complaints can do little to address the challenges of science in policy and politics, especially now that President Bush enters the final months of his presidency. The most simplistic prescription that has been offered to the issues of the politicization of science is simply to elect another president, a solution that plays well in large segments of the scientific community, where many never shared President Bush's politics anyway. For instance, in 2004 a group called Scientists and Engineers for Change sought to use the issue of science politicization to help elect John Kerry to the presidency. At times a rallying cry to end the Republican "war on science" can be heard in the current presidential campaign. More sophisticated efforts to address the challenges of science and politics look beyond the efforts to gain partisan advantage and instead focus on practical strategies for living with the reality that science and politics will always be intermixed in the practice of governance. If Sarewitz is correct--and many decades of study on the role of science in decision-making suggest that he is--then efforts. to keep science and politics separate are not only doomed to fail, but they are likely to create conditions enhancing the pathological politicization of science. Politics and Science Have Always Mixed Accepting that science and politics are inextricably intertwined begins with a clear-eyed view of history. Consider just a very few examples of political issues that involved science during the past six presidential administrations. President Richard Nixon had the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) move the timing of the launch of Apollo 17 in order to better serve his 1972 reelection campaign, against the wishes of NASA scientists and engineers. During President Ford's administration the Los Angeles Times alleged that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had falsified data in support of its regulatory position on sulfur oxides. A subsequent investigation by the US Congress found serious issues with EPA's peer review and that some of its epidemiological research provided an unsuitable basis for regulation. President Jimmy Carter went against the wishes of his scientific advisors when he committed the United States to drawing 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2000. President Carter explained that he accepted his advisors technical conclusions that the goal would be impossible, but that he had put forward the proposal for political reasons. President Ronald Reagan, prior to being elected, questioned the science of evolution, calling it a theory that was being increasingly challenged by scientists. He suggested that if evolution was to be taught in schools, "then I think that also the biblical theory of creation, which is not a theory but the biblical story of creation, should also be taught." The administration of President George H.W. Bush proposed redefining "wetlands" in such as way so as to exclude millions of acres of land from federal protection and open them up for development. The proposal was eventually withdrawn for lack of a scientific basis. …

Bound and Gagged: Silent Censorship in the Arab Press

Abstract: On February 12, 2008, information ministers from the 22 member states of the Arab League met in Cairo to discuss the issue of censorship. The result of the meeting was a charter for a decidedly paternalistic regional media code that would allow host countries to annul or suspend the license of any broadcaster found in violation of its rules. The document further stipulated that satellite networks must not damage "national unity," that programming should "conform with the religious and ethical values of Arab society," and that it should refrain from impugning God or the various sects of Islam. Qatar and Lebanon, which have traditionally maintained the most open presses in the region, were the only two countries to oppose the charter. Yet if either or both countries choose to restrict journalistic freedoms to appease their neighbors, they will effectively make the charter's application universal. These new developments serve as a severe reminder of the profound fragility of press freedoms in the Arab world. Press restrictions are by no means novel in the region, although they have been less severe on satellite television. For decades most Arab countries were notorious for permitting only state-sponsored and state-approved television. But now, there are more than 200 Arabic-language satellite channels. Since its first appearance in the region in 1991, satellite television has surpassed its traditional state-run counterparts to become the primary source of information in the Middle East and North Africa. While none of the more popular stations are wholly independent from ties to their host countries, a few have escaped their host countries' historically stringent censorship. With the advent of the Cairo charter, however, an uncertain future lies ahead for such stations. Most prominent among these is Al Jazeera, which boasts a viewership of 40 million and a reputation for professionalism throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. Nevertheless, since its launch in 1996, the Qatar-based Arabic satellite television network has received extraordinarily harsh criticism from within the Arab world and outside it. Islamic groups denounce the network for its coverage of religiously and culturally taboo issues, and the US government condemns the network for airing tapes of terrorists beheading foreigners in Iraq. Yet at the same time, Al Jazeera has received praise worldwide for its relatively non-partisan news coverage, as well as its willingness to address subjects that other Arabic news outlets typically avoid. For instance few if any other major Arabic stations have interviewed Israeli citizens about their country's political decisions. Until recently, those sympathetic to Al Jazeera celebrated the network's commitment to openness as its greatest asset. However, throughout early 2008, Al Jazeera and other Arabic news outlets came under increasing pressure to censor their content in order to meet their patron states' standards of acceptable reporting. Stations that rely on local rulers for funding felt these pressures deeply. …

Crooked Progress: Afghanistan Tackles Corruption

Abstract: Seven years after the fall of the Taliban regime, Afghans--and the international community--are still struggling to construct a state with a functioning government, licit economic growth, and improved social conditions While the country has seen significant advancements since 2001, particularly in terms of health, education, and other socioeconomic factors, few would argue that the situation in Afghanistan is progressing well Security has deteriorated in recent years, opium cultivation continues at high levels, and most Afghans lack access to basic necessities such as electricity and clean water The weak state of Afghanistan's government is at the forefront of the nation's challenges President Hamid Karzai regularly comes under attack from both his countrymen and internationals for overseeing an administration and civil service riddled with corruption and inefficiency Transparency International recently ranked Afghanistan 172 out of 180 countries in its 2008 global corruption index Afghans themselves commonly perceive that corruption has increased within government ranks in the past five years Corruption is endemic throughout the developed and developing world, but it is particularly damaging in Afghanistan, where the lack of a credible government threatens the country's already volatile security situation As Afghans lose confidence that their government can provide them with basic services, they are more likely--particularly in rural areas--to look to the Taliban for support and subsistence International donors such as the United States and World Bank exacerbate the problem by channeling two-thirds of their aid money outside of government systems The result is that the Afghan government loses out on the ability to build capacity and monitor cash flows, and government officials receive little recognition when successes do occur No consensus exists on the best way to combat corruption Some call for a change of leadership, which may occur if security constraints do not preclude presidential elections in 2009 Others demand a systemic overhaul of the sclerotic international aid system But such drastic reforms are unlikely to transpire in the near future In reality, the best hope for realizing a functioning Afghan state is an approach that creates and strengthens mechanisms for the prevention, detection, and prosecution of corruption Public administration reforms, which attempt to obviate corruption and increase transparency and efficiency by establishing effective national systems through incremental steps, are being enacted and refined The first phase of reform in 2002 focused on stemming low-level corruption such as bribery, which affects nearly all Afghans Afghans often must pay tips--"shirini," in Dari--to civil servants in order to receive services, from passports and visas to electricity In Afghanistan's border provinces, customs officials allow goods to flow out of the country untaxed in exchange for bribe money Initial reforms increased government pay scales, under the belief that raised salaries for public officials--who traditionally earn far less than other professionals--would alleviate their desire to collect bribe money When disappointing results ensued, new measures were designed to improve the civil service, prioritizing competence and performance over pay increases …

Russian Muslims: Religious Leaven in a Secular Society

Abstract: Islam in Russia is full of surprises. It suffered serious human and institutional losses during periods of extreme intolerance. In the nineteenth century, for example, Tsarist Russia rested on "orthodoxy, autocracy, populism"--the three "root essences" of Russian society put forth by Count Sergey Uvarov, the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in 1833. Muslims in the North Caucasus region at times resisted two of those pillars--adherence to the Russian Orthodox Church and submission to Russian rule--and suffered persecution for their resistance. Under the Soviet Union's cult of militant atheism all religions were suppressed, and Islam was certainly no exception. The character of Islam in Russia has been affected for centuries by its close proximity to Slavic and Finno-Ugric cultures. But despite such challenges, the faith has survived in Russia, and its tenacity speaks to the devotion of the country's Muslim communities. For the first time in 2007, the Gallup Poll provided a rare look at Russia's estimated 15 to 20 million Muslims. Gallup asked respondents in Russia: "Do you consider yourself to be religious, or not?" Those responding affirmatively were then asked for their religious affiliation. In addition to the national sample, supplementary interviews were conducted in two regions, Dagestan and Tatarstan, with high concentrations of Muslim residents. The resulting sample contained a total of 673 Russian Muslims. Do Russian Muslims Adhere to Islamic traditions? Perhaps the most obvious question regarding Muslims in Russia is the degree to which they adhere to traditional Islamic beliefs and practices in an environment where religious expression has been suppressed for so long. Gallup asked Muslim respondents about four of the five "pillars" of Islam, the five ritual practices considered the duty of every Muslim. 1. Namaz. About half of Russians identifying as Muslims (49 percent) say they never perform namaz, the ritual prayer in supplication to Allah. Among young Russian Muslim--those aged between 15 and 24--this number reaches two-thirds (66 percent). These figures are notable in light of the fact that calling oneself a Muslim and never performing namaz would be nonsensical in the Middle East or any other region of the Islamic world. On the other hand, many Russians would be astonished by the fact that as many as 16 percent of Muslims living in the country perform namaz five times a day exactly as commanded, a difficult requirement for anyone involved in the mad rhythm of modern life. Furthermore, half (50 percent) of Russian Muslims feel it is necessary to create areas for namaz in public places and establishments, such as train stations, airports, universities, and institutes. 2. Shahadah. Just over half of Russian Muslims (54 percent) were able to correctly complete the Sha-hadab, the ritual Muslim declaration of faith, once the interviewer began it. Given that the Sbabadah is considered the most fundamental of the five pillars, this figure may seem low to many in the Muslim world. Consider, however, that by comparison, only 13 percent of Russian Orthodox respondents could continue the first lines of the Niceno-Constantino-politan Creed, the obligatory ecumenical church chanted within the framework of every liturgy. 3.Ramadan. Thirty-five percent of Russian Muslims say they do not fast during the sacred month of Ramadan, and another 34 percent say they fast "as much as possible" during that time. Only about one in four (28 percent) say they "fully" observe the Ramadan fast as required by Islamic law. 4. Hajj. Only 5 percent of Russian Muslims said they had already performed the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are obliged to make at least once in their lifetime. The remaining 95 percent were asked to indicate the extent to which they would like to perform the Hajj. About a third (37 percent) indicated that they wanted very much to perform the Hajj by giving the highest rating on a five point scale, while 18 percent say they have no desire to do so, giving the lowest rating. …

Preventing Terrorism: A Case for Soft Power

Abstract: Since its establishment five years ago, the Department of Homeland Security has played a pivotal role in mobilizing the efforts of the United States government to prevent and deter terrorists and other dangerous people from attacking the country. These efforts have yielded positive results: By any fair measure, the United States is safer and more secure today. Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that the threat posed by terrorism has entirely disappeared or has ceased to be of critical concern. In the words of the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, "[W]e face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years." In al Qaeda and like-minded organizations, the United States and its allies confront a relentless and resourceful adversary rooted in a violent, extremist ideology. Its adherents continue to wage war against civilization, including mainstream Muslims, while seeking to harness further the power of modern technology and globalization to achieve dominance and far greater destructive capabilities in the future. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Consequently, it is imperative that over the next decade, the United States, in concert with its friends and allies, retain every option at its disposal and apply every available tool or strategy where appropriate against this threat. Certainly that includes the effective use of military options when necessary as well as other tools that may reduce the ability of terrorists to carry out attacks. Most importantly, however, in order to prevent the growth of terrorist groups themselves, the United States must pursue strategies to win nations and peoples to its side. Use of such "soft power"--a term coined by Harvard University professor Joseph Nye--can help the United States and its allies reduce the appeal of terrorist organizations and deter individuals from joining them. A Multi-Faceted Fight against Terrorists The use of military action in recent years against the terrorists has included deposing the Taliban in Afghanistan and combating al Qaeda in Iraq. During this time, the United States and its allies have also acted to frustrate three key enablers of terrorism--communications, finance, and travel. They continue to intercept and disrupt communications and actively work to freeze the assets of groups and individuals that support terrorism. When it comes to travel, the United States employs three key strategies: collecting limited bits of commercial information in order to identify travelers warranting closer scrutiny, screening incoming individuals through biometrics, and building a system of secure travel documentation through the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Taken together, these measures constitute a layered approach: deterring terrorists from entering the United States, capturing or killing them before they embark on the journey, and stopping them during their travel. Unfortunately, such measures, while necessary, will likely leave us short of a lasting victory in the safeguarding of the country. To prevail, we must not only work hard to prevent terrorists from attacking, but we must also expend equal effort to prevent people from becoming terrorists in the first place. That requires addressing the two major factors that are driving the growth of terrorism in the 21st century: the continued presence of failed political and economic systems in parts of the developing world, and the emergence of violent Islamic extremism as the most visible competing ideology for those mired in that dismal status quo. The True Nature of the Fight Given these two factors, the course ahead should be clear. The United States must fight not only the extremists, but the ideology of their extremism. It must stand firmly against malignant ideas which can only cause further poverty, degradation, and hopelessness by turning the clock back centuries. It must offer the alternative ideals of liberty and democracy, ideals which have brought more progress to more people over the past few centuries than in all the prior centuries combined. …

Misplaced Priorities; Ethanol Promotion and Its Unintended Consequences

Abstract: When the state of Iowa becomes a priority in the US presidential election, it is only a matter of time before agriculture dominates the discussion. Indeed, US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama all brought out their metaphorical overalls to sing praises of corn farmers before the February caucuses. Such kowtowing to Iowa's farmers has become a quadrennial tradition in the United States, where federal corn subsidies totaled US$37.3 billion from 1995 to 2003. The United States' funding of corn farmers stems largely from precedent, a desire to keep the heartland happy, and perhaps even a romanticized conception of small farmers. However, the subsidies also have significant roots in one of the most confounding environmental programs of the past 30 years: ethanol fuel. According to The Economist, over 200 distinct subsidy programs provide US$7 billion each year to participants in all levels of ethanol production and supply. Since the 1970s, untold billions in handouts have been given to corn farmers, "big ethanol" refining companies such as Archer Daniels Midland, and gas stations in an effort to boost ethanol's profile in the US market. And if federal subsidies to all parties involved in the production of ethanol were not enough, the US government currently places a US$0.54 per gallon tariff on imported ethanol. Several state governments have started subsidy programs as well. This amount of market protection is inordinate for a fuel whose true value--without government support--seems low. While subsidies are often percieved to be good for US business, the magnitude of government handouts to corn farmers in the United States produces pernicious consequences around the world. Government actions have artificially increased US demand for corn, driving up the prevailing world price of corn by over 50 percent since 2006. While rising world food costs are not the fault of the US ethanol regime alone, support for ethanol does play a significant role in rising prices. This effect is especially dire for poor countries accustomed to years of falling food costs. In addition to its direct implications on the world food market, ethanol--touted by US policymakers as a solid source of renewable energy--may not be a viable alternate fuel. There remain practical concerns to its implementation, and there is no consensus on the fuel's environmental benefit. After considering corn-derived ethanol's questionable status as an energy-efficient fuel, along with the unintended food price blowback of its subsidization, US government policies in support of ethanol look fundamentally unsound. while political realities may not allow for the removal of distorting subsidies, the US government may enentually realize that money should shift from the production of ethanol itself toward research being conducted to make the existing industry more efficient. If ethanol production technologies are streamlined, less corn would be needed to produce the same amount of product. This would eliminate the need for subsidies, which are in part causing rising food prices and nearly eliminating ethanol's environmental benefits. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Hungry for Fuel, Hungry for Food The hype surrounding ethanol raises concern about the dangerous and increasing integration between energy markets and agriculture. Demand for food products now depends not just on the literal hunger and nutritional consumption of humans, but also on a "hunger" for energy. This growing connection has an underlying moral dilemma; is it fair to produce fuel from food that otherwise could have been used for nourishment? The answer to this question is debatable, and largely unclear. Some other, more pragmatic economic questions have empirical answers. Data shows that mixing energy and agriculture markets has severe policy blowback, affecting consumers at home to the developing world's poor. As prices of corn have risen from subsidies, so have the prices of its grain substitutes--wheat, barley, and others. …

A More Perfect Union: The AU's Failures and Future

Abstract: Does the African Union have a future? Founded in 2002 to replace the preexisting Organization of African Unity (OAU), the AU originally championed a "United States of Africa" that would work toward collective security and prosperity. Yet as the AU reaches its half-decade mark, many have critiqued its lackluster performance and questioned its future. Despite repeated calls for a supranational organization modeled after the European Union, the challenges of internal political instability, ideological confusion, and funding continue to diminish hopes for a united body. Is there a place for the AU, with or without a pan-African state? The answer, while not a flat-out "no," does suggest that a revolutionary unification of Africa is unlikely. Instead, as exemplified by recent efforts to organize various diasporas and implement anti-corruption measures, the AU's more immediate role seems to be that of a provider of public goods and a catalyst for reform. The organization's most fundamental problem is its ideological vacuum. The AU has adopted the vague notion of "pan-Africanism" as its guiding principle, but this term can be used to support opposing goals and priorities. During the formation of the AU, support was divided into two camps: the Casablanca group and the Monrovia group. The Casablanca group argued for extensive unification of defense and economic policies, while the Monrovia group championed a "United States of Africa" that would respect individual state sovereignty. The Sirte Summit, during which the AU was founded, ostensibly echoed the ideology of the Monrovia group. However, key AU figures still support the Casablanca doctrine, leading to contradictory policies on the direction of the organization. Pan-Africanism, as a result, has fallen short of being a full-fledged ideology for the AU. Instead, it has become a catch-all phrase for political expediency. On a more practical level, the AU lacks the political credibility to be an effective source of power on the continent. Currently, the membership of the AU includes all African states but Morocco, so that even the most egregious violators of human rights, such as Zimbabwe, are represented. Although the AU supposedly only extends its membership to "democratic" regimes, the criteria are far from rigorous. Unlike the EU. it does not require extensive protection of rights or the establishment of rule of law. This undermines not only the AU's commitment to the protection of human rights and democratic institutions, but also the legitimacy of the organization itself. Furthermore, the AU's lack of funding reduces its relevance as a serious political player. The Pan African Parliament (PAP), which serves as a regional body for popular sovereignty, has not been able to convene as frequently as necessary because of financial shortages. This incapacity has diminished its role in the decision making process. …

Incentivizing Climate Mitigation: Engaging Developing Countries

Abstract: The challenge of tackling human-derived climate change has emerged over the past two decades to become one of the most important, yet divisive, issues on the agenda of the international political community Within international debates, developing countries have historically portrayed themselves as innocent victims of profligate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the industrialized "North" States from the "South" have successfully argued that a combination of low emissions, widespread poverty, and limited capabilities means that they should be exempted from quantified mitigation (ie emission reduction) targets [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] More recently, the special status of developing countries has come under growing scrutiny Against a back drop of rapid urban industrialization in a number of the largest developing countries, the developing world will soon overtake the developed one as the leading source of GHG emissions These shifts in the dominant sources of emissions are forcing the domestic GHG-related choices of developing countries into the spotlight of the international community, and they are creating pressures for high-emitting industrializing countries to commit to mitigation targets At the same time, the ability and willingness of developing countries to contribute to global efforts in mitigating emissions will depend profoundly on leadership from, cooperation with, and assistance from developed countries Too Poor to Care? A popular view of developing countries is that they are too poor to care about environmental protection The environment, the argument goes, is a luxury good Only when developing countries have satisfied their basic development goals will they become actively engaged in environmental protection Although not without foundation, this caricature of developing countries is an oversimplification of reality True, the immediate and most important task for low-income countries remains economic growth, poverty alleviation, and social development, which is hardly surprising Yet countries' core commitment to economic development should not be conflated with a complete disregard for environmental sustainability Beginning in the 1970s, governments in the vast majority of developing countries have taken steps to protect the environment Among others, they have adopted various environmental policies and standards and established regulatory agencies Many have created high-level environmental departments and ministries, as evident in India's 1974 national water pollution control legislation and its establishment of a Department for the Environment in 1980 The government has subsequently introduced a wide range of environmental policies covering areas as diverse as vehicular emissions, forestry management, and environmental impact assessment As evidenced by ongoing and often serious environmental degradation across large parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, environmental policies have generally been poorly implemented To take one example: the much-publicized air and water pollution experienced in China over the past decade is not simply a reflection of inadequate policy, but also of weak enforcement on the part of provincial administrations Indeed, in many developing countries, state environmental protection remains more of a ceremonial activity than a substantive one Yet the very fact that the majority of developing-country governments have been willing to begin to address environmental is sues indicates that norms of environmentalism--which prescribe environmental protection as a legitimate and worthy state goal--are not simply the preserve of rich, industrialized economies Similarly revealing about the existence of environmental concern in developing countries are non-state forms of environmentalism A large body of work has demonstrated that, contrary to neo-Malthusian narratives, low-income groups may assume the role of active environmentalists …

China's Healthcare Quandary: How Partial Privatization Values Quality over Equality

Abstract: In 1978, Deng Xiaoping began the economic reforms now referred to as "Gaige Kaifang," through which China ushered in an era of unprecedented receptivity to foreign influence. The shift to liberalized trade policy led to reduced poverty levels and set China on the path to economic strength. But the reforms also catalyzed massive change within the formerly centralized medical system. Medicine is now the domain of the private sector and provincial and local governments, rather than the national government. While market reforms in the economy have been a boon for the Chinese, similar reforms in the healthcare system have improved quality but also created unequal access to healthcare due to rising costs. While healthcare prices have risen over the past two decades, the number of hospitals in China has actually grown. In 1980, there were approximately 9,900 hospitals in China. As of 2005, there were about 18,700. A boom in the number of hospitals in such a short span speaks to the changing medical landscape in China. However, it also obscures the added costs that have come along with this seemingly positive change. Chinese hospitals, especially in urban centers, increasingly rely on advanced medical technology. The increased importation of such technology, from MRIs to CT Scans and surgical equipment, along with the inevitable diffusion of such technology throughout Chinese hospitals, has certainly increased the efficiency and quality of medical practice. But rather than increasing competition and driving down costs, the introduction of free market reforms and improvements in the level of medical technology have had the reverse effect; they have actually driven costs, and prices for patients, up. As the Chinese government continues to privatize healthcare, it is vital to understand the cause behind the seemingly paradoxical rise in medical costs. Economic reforms, if focused solely on economic policy and not tailored to specific sectors such as healthcare, can undermine a country's medical system by creating increased disparity in medical services for the wealthy and the poor. There is no better example of this pitfall than today's China. More importantly, and there is no real solution in sight. As medical costs for patients rise, expensive medical technologies continue to enter hospitals all over the country and push up costs even further. William Hsiao of the Harvard School of Public Health attributes this phenomenon to new profit incentives that are reordering priorities for Chinese hospitals and medical practitioners. Profit incentives decrease physicians' concern for providing affordable, accessible treatment and increase the pressure to use high-cost technology catered towards those who can pay for it. The contradictory coexistence of an economic boom and a healthcare gap presents a tradeoff for China's policy makers. The government can either allow an American-style high-quality but expensive medical care system, or pursue a more egalitarian, but more regulated and inflexible system. Chinese policy towards the market for advanced medical devices reflects the government's attempts to address this dilemma. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Laissez-Faire Healthcare Under Mao Tse-tung's government, Chinese healthcare was based on communal principles, wherein the state owned and operated aspects of the healthcare system. China's Cooperative Medical System during the Cold War era ensured that even rural farmers had some access to healthcare, even if it came from barefoot doctors who were community experts in Western and traditional forms of medicine. Some of the accomplishments under the old system included a decline in infant mortality and a modest increase in life expectancy. The barefoot doctor system would not survive the turbulent years of economic reform. The power struggle between economic liberals and hard-line communists created political turmoil in the early 1980s that shook the foundation of the government's healthcare program. …