Research Library

2013
The EU and Military Operations
Engberg, Katarina. 2013. The EU and Military Operations. New York: Routledge. Website Abstract

This book is a comparative study which aims to answer the question: under what circumstances does the EU undertake military operations?

Since 2003, the EU has carried out six military operations. What accounts for this historic development? The EU and Military Operations examines the dynamics behind the EU´s collective use of force and situates the EU in the context of a global division of labour with regard to military crisis management. It centres on the study of two main cases of EU military operations: the non-case when an operation was planned in the Lebanon war 2006 but did not occur, and the positive case of EUFOR RD Congo that same year.

Drawing upon these findings, the author creates an innovative analytical framework based upon the techniques of defence planning, and applies this to the cases studies with the purpose of identifying the main driving and inhibiting factors behind the operations. Key findings derived from this analysis include the growing importance of local actors in facilitating or impeding the EU´s deployment of military force and the enhanced role of regional organisations as security providers.

The book will be of much interest to students of European security, EU politics, strategic studies, humanitarian intervention, security studies and IR in general.

East Asian Development: Foundations and Strategies
Perkins, Dwight H. 2013. East Asian Development: Foundations and Strategies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Abstract

In the early 1960s, fewer than five percent of Japanese owned automobiles, China’s per capita income was among the lowest in Asia, and living standards in South Korea’s rural areas were on par with some of the world’s poorest countries. Today, these are three of the most powerful economies on earth. Dwight Perkins grapples with both the contemporary and historical causes and consequences of the turnaround, drawing on firsthand experience in the region to explain how Asian countries sustained such rapid economic growth in the second half of the twentieth century.

East Asian Development offers a comprehensive view of the region, from Japan and the “Asian Tigers” (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea) to Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and China - a behemoth larger than all the other economies combined. While the overall picture of Asian growth is positive, no single economic policy has been effective regionwide. Interventionist policies that worked well in some countries failed elsewhere. Perkins analyzes income distribution, to uncover why initially egalitarian societies have ended up in very different places, with Japan, for example, maintaining a modest gap between rich and poor while China has become one of Asia’s most unequal economies.

Today, the once-dynamic Japanese and Korean economies are sluggish, and even China shows signs of losing steam. Perkins investigates whether this is a regional phenomenon or typical of all economies at this stage of development. His inquiry reminds us that the uncharted waters of China’s vast economy make predictions of its future performance speculative at best.

Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America
Shifter, Michael. 2013. Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America (Fourth). Edited by Jorge I Domínguez. Fourth . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract
After more than a century of assorted dictatorships and innumerable fiscal crises, the majority of Latin America's states are governed today by constitutional democratic regimes. Some analysts and scholars argue that Latin America weathered the 2008 fiscal crisis much better than the United States. How did this happen? Jorge I. Domínguez and Michael Shifter asked area specialists to examine the electoral and governance factors that shed light on this transformation and the region's prospects. They gather their findings in the fourth edition of Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America.

This new edition is completely updated. Part I is thematic, covering issues of media, constitutionalism, the commodities boom, and fiscal management vis-à-vis governance. Part II focuses on eight important countries in the region - Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.

Already widely used in courses, Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America will continue to interest students of Latin American politics, democratization studies, and comparative politics as well as policymakers.

Divided Rule
Lewis, Mary. 2013. Divided Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press. Abstract

After invading Tunisia in 1881, the French installed a protectorate in which they shared power with the Tunisian ruling dynasty and, due to the dynasty’s treaties with other European powers, with some of their imperial rivals. This “indirect” form of colonization was intended to prevent the violent clashes marking France’s outright annexation of neighboring Algeria. But as Mary Dewhurst Lewis shows in Divided Rule, France’s method of governance in Tunisia actually created a whole new set of conflicts. In one of the most dynamic crossroads of the Mediterranean world, residents of Tunisia -- whether Muslim, Jewish, or Christian -- navigated through the competing power structures to further their civil rights and individual interests and often thwarted the aims of the French state in the process.

Over time, these everyday challenges to colonial authority led France to institute reforms that slowly undermined Tunisian sovereignty and replaced it with a more heavy-handed form of rule -- a move also intended to ward off France's European rivals, who still sought influence in Tunisia. In so doing, the French inadvertently encouraged a powerful backlash with major historical consequences, as Tunisians developed one of the earliest and most successful nationalist movements in the French empire. Based on archival research in four countries, Lewis uncovers important links between international power politics and everyday matters of rights, identity, and resistance to colonial authority, while re-interpreting the whole arc of French rule in Tunisia from the 1880s to the mid-20th century. Scholars, students, and anyone interested in the history of politics and rights in North Africa, or in the nature of imperialism more generally, will gain a deeper understanding of these issues from this sophisticated study of colonial Tunisia.

Nielsen, Chris P, and Mun Ho. 2013. “Clearing the Air in China.” New York Times. Publisher's Version
Olupona, Jacob K. 2013. “Bonds, Boundaries, and Bondage of Faith.” Harvard Divinity Bulletin, 41, 2. Website
Davis, Diane, and Onesimo Dewey. 2013. “How to Defeat a Megaproject: Lessons from Mexico City’s Airport Controversy.” Urban Megaprojects: A Worldwide View. Bingley: Emerald Ltd. Publisher's Version Abstract

The aim of this book is to understand the causes and consequences of new scales and forms of territorial restructuring in a steadily globalizing world by focusing on urban megaproject development.

Contributions focus on the principal actors, institutions, and innovations that drive capitalist globalization, socio-economic and territorial restructuring, and global city formation by exploring the architectural design, planning, management, financing and impacts of urban megaprojects as well as their various socio-economic, political and cultural contexts.

This is the first work on urban megaprojects to be global in scope, with chapters about Korea, Bilbao, Kuala Lumpur, Budapest, Milan, Abu Dhabi, New York, Paris, Sao Paulo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hamburg, Vienna, Detroit, Philadelphia, Stuttgart, Afghanistan and Mexico City.

It is also the first work on the subject to include contributions from sociologists, planners, geographers and architects from top universities around the world, thus making it a truly multidisciplinary project.

Davis, Diane. 2013. “The Spatial Implications of Urban Security Strategies: Lessons from Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro.” Policing Cities Urban Securitization and Regulation in a 21st Century World. New York: Routledge. Website Abstract

Policing Cities brings together international scholars from numerous disciplines to examine urban policing, securitization, and regulation in nine countries and the conceptual issues these practices raise. Chapters cover many of the world’s major cities, including New York, Beijing, Paris, London, Berlin, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Boston, Melbourne, and Toronto, as well as other urban areas in Britain, United States, South Africa, Germany, Australia and Georgia.

The collection examines the activities and reforms of the traditional public police, but also those of emerging public and private policing agents and spaces that fall outside the public police’s purview and which previously have received little attention. It explores dramatic changes in public policing arrangements and strategies, exclusion of urban homeless people, new forms of urban surveillance and legal regulation, and securitization and militarization of urban spaces. The core argument in the volume is that cities are more than mere background for policing, securitization and regulation. Policing and the city are intimately intertwined. This collection also reveals commonalities in the empirical interests, methodological preferences, and theoretical concerns of scholars working in these various disciplines and breaks down barriers among them. This is the first collection on urban policing, regulation, and securitization with such a multi-disciplinary and international character.

This collection will have a wide readership among upper level undergraduate and graduate level students in several disciplines and countries and can be used in geography/urban studies, legal and socio-legal studies, sociology, anthropology, political science, and criminology courses.

Cohen, Dara Kay, Amelia Hoover Green, and Elisabeth Jean Wood. 2013. Wartime Sexual Violence: Misconceptions, Implications, and Ways Forward. United States Institute of Peace. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. United States Institute of Peace Website Abstract
  • Wartime rape is neither ubiquitous nor inevitable. The level of sexual violence differs significantly across countries, conflicts, and particularly armed groups. Some armed groups can and do prohibit sexual violence. Such variation suggests that policy interventions should also be focused on armed groups, and that commanders in effective control of their troops are legally liable for patterns of sexual violence they fail or refuse to prevent.
  • Wartime rape is also not specific to certain types of conflicts or to geographic regions. It occurs in ethnic and non-ethnic wars, in Africa and elsewhere.
  • State forces are more likely to be reported as perpetrators of sexual violence than rebels. States may also be more susceptible than rebels to naming and shaming campaigns around sexual violence.
  • Perpetrators and victims may not be who we expect them to be. During many conflicts, those who perpetrate sexual violence are often not armed actors but civilians. Perpetrators also are not exclusively male, nor are victims exclusively female. Policymakers should not neglect nonstereotypical perpetrators and victims.
  • Wartime rape need not be ordered to occur on a massive scale. Wartime rape is often not an intentional strategy of war: it is more frequently tolerated than ordered. Nonetheless, as noted, commanders in effective control of their troops are legally liable for sexual violence perpetrated by those troops.
  • Much remains unknown about the patterns and causes of wartime sexual violence. In particular, existing data cannot determine conclusively whether wartime sexual violence on a global level is increasing, decreasing, or holding steady. Policymakers should instead focus on variation at lower levels of aggregation, and especially across armed groups.
USIP Special Report 323
Mylonas, Harris. 2013. “Ethnic Return Migration, Selective Incentives, and the Right to Freedom of Movement in Post-Cold War Greece.” Democratic Citizenship and the Free Movement of People. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff. Website Abstract
Democratic states guarantee free movement within their territory to all citizens, as a core right of citizenship. Similarly, the European Union guarantees EU citizens and members of their families the right to live and the right to work anywhere within EU territory. Such rights reflect the project of equality and undifferentiated individual rights for all who have the status of citizen, but they are not uncontested. Despite citizenship's promise of equality, barriers, incentives, and disincentives to free movement make some citizens more equal than others. This book challenges the normal way of thinking about freedom of movement by identifying the tensions between the formal ideals that governments, laws, and constitutions expound and actual practices, which fall short.
Whyte, Martin K. 2013. “China Needs Justice, Not Equality.” Foregin Affairs. Website
Mylonas, Harris. 2013. “Korea ‘Lucky’ to Have Strong, Large Diaspora to Draw Upon.” Korea Joongang Daily. Website
Hall, Peter A, and Michèle Lamont. 2013. “Why Social Relations Matter for Politics and Successful Societies.” Annual Review of Political Science 16 (23): 1-23. Publisher's Version Abstract
Political science can gain from incorporating richer conceptions of social relations into its analyses. In place of atomistic entities endowed with assets but few social relationships, social actors should be seen as relational entities embedded in social and cultural structures that connect them to others in multifaceted ways. Understanding those relationships requires a deeper understanding of how institutional and cultural frameworks interact to condition the terrain for social action. More intensive dialogue with sociology can inform such an understanding. We review the analytical tools cultural sociology now offers those interested in such a perspective and illustrate it in operation in studies of inequalities in population health and the effects of neoliberalism. We close by outlining several issues to which this perspective can usefully be applied, including the problems of understanding social resilience, how societies build collective capacities, and why some institutions remain robust while others deteriorate.
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Rogoff, Kenneth S, and Carmen M Reinhart. 2013. “Shifting Mandates: The Federal Reserve's First Centennial.” American Economic Review 103 (3): 48-54. Publisher's Version Abstract
The Federal Reserve's mandate has evolved considerably over the organization's hundred-year history. It was changed from an initial focus in 1913 on financial stability, to fiscal financing in World War II and its aftermath, to a strong anti-inflation focus from the late 1970s, and then back to greater emphasis on financial stability since the Great Contraction. Yet, as the Fed's mandate has expanded in recent years, its range of instruments has narrowed, partly based on a misguided belief in the inherent stability of financial markets. We argue for a return to multiple instruments, including a more active role for reserve requirements.
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Dryden-Peterson, Sarah. 2013. “In Syria, Parents are Afraid Students Will 'Lose Their Future'.” The Globe and Mail. Website
Frankel, Jeffrey. 2013. “On Graduation from Fiscal Procyclicality.” Journal of Development Economics 100 (1): 32-47. Website Abstract
In the past, industrial countries have tended to pursue countercyclical or, at worst, acyclical fiscal policy. In sharp contrast, emerging and developing countries have followed procyclical fiscal policy, thus exacerbating the underlying business cycle. We show that, over the last decade, about a third of the developing world has been able to escape the procyclicality trap and actually become countercyclical. We then focus on the role played by the quality of institutions, which appears to be a key determinant of a country’s ability to graduate. We show that, even after controlling for the endogeneity of institutions and other determinants of fiscal procyclicality, there is a causal link running from stronger institutions to less procyclical or more countercyclical fiscal policy.
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Frankel, Jeffrey. 2013. “Over-optimistic Official Forecasts and Fiscal Rules in the Eurozone.” Review of World Economy 149 (2): 247-272. DOI Abstract
Eurozone members are supposedly constrained by the fiscal caps of the Stability and Growth Pact. Yet ever since the birth of the euro, members have postponed painful adjustment. Wishful thinking has played an important role in this failure. We find that governments' forecasts are biased in the optimistic direction, especially during booms. Eurozone governments are especially over-optimistic when the budget deficit is over the 3% cap at the time the forecasts are made. Those exceeding this cap systematically but falsely forecast a rapid future improvement. The new fiscal compact among the euro countries is supposed to make budget rules more binding by putting them into laws and constitutions at the national level. But biased forecasts can defeat budget rules. What is the record in Europe with national rules? The bias is less among eurozone countries that have adopted certain rules at the national level, particularly creating an independent fiscal institution that provides independent forecasts.
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This week, the Canadian province of Quebec announced controversial, wide-ranging legislation keeping religion out of the workplace, called the "Quebec Charter of Values." The measure would include a ban on state employees from wearing overt religious symbols, including Muslim hijabs (headscarves), Jewish yarmulkes (skullcaps) or Christian crosses. RT's Ameera David talks to Jacob Remes, a research fellow at Harvard University's Canada Program, about the debate on religious freedom versus secularism in Quebec.
Ramanna, Karthik. 2013. “The International Politics of IFRS Harmonization.” Accounting, Economics and Law 3 (2): 1-46. Website Abstract
The globalization of accounting standards as seen through the proliferation of IFRS worldwide is one of the most important developments in corporate governance over the last decade. I offer an analysis of some international political dynamics of countries’ IFRS harmonization decisions. The analysis is based on field studies in three jurisdictions: Canada, China, and India. Across these jurisdictions, I first describe unique elements of domestic political economies that are shaping IFRS policies. Then, I inductively isolate two principal dimensions that can be used to characterize the jurisdictions’ IFRS responses: proximity to existing political powers at the IASB; and own potential political power at the IASB. Based on how countries are classified along these dimensions, I offer predictions, ceteris paribus, on countries’ IFRS harmonization strategies. The analysis and framework in this paper can help broaden the understanding of accounting’s globalization.
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