Global Policy Journal - Comment & Opinion

What does globalization mean for China’s Economic Development?

Jianyong Yue — Thu 24 May 2012

The dominant view now-a-days is that China has benefited hugely from globalisation, evident in its high GDP growth. Chinese companies are getting bigger and stronger. As a result, China is rapidly...

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Pakistan and Centre Stage at the NATO Summit

Tom Kirk — Tue 22 May 2012

After much speculation over his country’s inclusion, Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari attended the recent NATO summit in Chicago. His last minute appearance acknowledged that NATO...

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Media and the Environmental Impact Assessment process in Africa: A Synopsis

John.O.Kakonge — Mon 21 May 2012

The environmental impact assessment (EIA) process has been in use for over 40 years and its effect is felt globally. EIA results have been mixed, a shortcoming, which several studies attribute to...

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How we miss the Great Shift East

Danny Quah — Thu 17 May 2012

Many well-known facts are, in actuality, false. One such is how the Great Wall of China is humanity’s only construction visible from outer space. Another is how Marie Antoinette said,...

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The Global Partnership for Oceans, the World Ocean Council and the Fossil Fuel Companies

David Ritter — Wed 16 May 2012

In a recent blog entitled ‘A Global Effort Is Building to Save Our Oceans’, Rachel Kyte, the Vice President, Sustainable Development at the World Bank wrote:“Imagine what the...

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Voting for a Europe-wide Alternative to Austerity

Dave Prentis — Tue 15 May 2012

As financial storm clouds continue to rain down unemployment and austerity across the EU, three of Europe's biggest unions - representing more than 5 million public sector workers gathered in...

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Sanctions, Solitude or Shut-out? Iran and the Rest

Martha Molfetas — Fri 11 May 2012

In the last months Iran has been ostracized from the rest of the world. Even before the sanctions, the United State’s foreign policy stance towards Iran forced them to interact with unsavory...

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Putin’s Eurasian Union: Just another Union?

Liana Fix — Wed 9 May 2012

A new project for regional integration has been brought to life in the post-Soviet space at such a rapid pace that Jacques Delors and the founding fathers of the European Union would go green with...

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Rethinking Turkey

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 8 May 2012

In the past year or so, Turkey’s major headlines in the international press were about its fallout with Israel, its brokerage of a nuclear deal with Iran, and its warming to Russia on energy...

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What happens if Iran gets the Bomb?

Michael Cohen — Tue 8 May 2012

There will perhaps be no hotter international political issue this summer than that of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has persisted with uranium enrichment to a near weapons grade level despite...

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Watching China's smog from space

Jacob Cosman — Wed 2 May 2012

China's rapid industrialization over the past few decades has given rise to an economy dependent on emissions-intensive manufacturing with a serious pollution problem. In January images from a...

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Antitrust’s June War and Chevrolet: What Google Can Learn From GM

Karl Muth — Mon 30 Apr 2012

This week, the Department of Justice formalized its interest in Google from an antitrust perspective. This is a prosecution that, if it moves forward, could have global implications. But it is not...

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Wanted: An "overwhelming offer" for the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme

Cornelius Adebahr — Wed 18 Apr 2012

On April 14, Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the P5+1) met in Istanbul for another round of talks about the country’s nuclear programme. Generally,...

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Trends in renewable energy R&D: evidence from patent databases

Jacob Cosman — Wed 18 Apr 2012

For new renewable energy sources to become competitive with existing generator technology, substantial technological development will be necessary. Marginal costs of electrical generation for...

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Wind Chill: Where is North America's wind energy industry headed?

Jacob Cosman — Thu 5 Apr 2012

Earlier this week, Mitsubishi announced that they would be indefinitely suspending construction of a wind turbine plant in Arkansas. A year and a half ago, the project was opened to great fanfare at...

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Financial Crisis, SWF Investing, and Implications for Financial Stability

Joonkyu Park and Han van der Hoorn — Mon 2 Apr 2012

In this column Joonkyu Park and Han van der Hoorn introduce readers to sovereign wealth funds - the topic of their recent co-authored article for Global Policy Journal available...

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The Thorny Issues Surrounding International Intervention

Tina Mavrikos-Adamou — Mon 2 Apr 2012

The contentious issue of international intervention has for centuries created both political and legal dilemmas for policymakers and political leaders, who find themselves in the position of having...

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Syria, a Call to Arms

Martha Molfetas — Tue 27 Mar 2012

Contrary to belief, the Arab Spring has not sprung. Many countries across MENA and elsewhere have and will continue to have revolutions to shed the chains of their authoritarian past. Syria remains...

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Deepwater Horizon, Nigeria, and the gulf between

Scott McKenzie — Tue 27 Mar 2012

The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster has dominated headlines in the United States for almost two years now. In that time, the coverage has shifted from investigating the causes of the explosion,...

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Ugandans Worry About Liquidity, Not Kony

Karl Muth — Mon 26 Mar 2012

Don’t get me wrong; I like amateur filmmaking, bracelet merchandising, and streetcorner nudity as much as the next person. But the concern in Uganda today isn’t the LRA, or ebola, or Idi...

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Unlikely Bedfellows: US and Iranian Shared Positions on the Emerging Global Laws of War

Matthew Bolton — Fri 23 Mar 2012

In this post Matthew Bolton introduces his recent co-authored article “Globalization and the Kalashnikov”, which is available here.Negotiations for a global Arms Trade Treaty almost...

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Mobile Water for Development and Growth

Rob Hope — Fri 23 Mar 2012

In this column Rob Hope adds background to his recent co-authored article “Harnessing mobile communications innovations for water security” which is available here.The twin spectres of a...

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Strain in the EU-Ukraine-Russia Energy Triangle

Carlo Gallo — Fri 23 Mar 2012

Ukraine’s current tug-of-war with Russia over the pricing of its Russian gas imports should be watched closely by the EU, which receives 20% of its gas supply via Ukraine and which suffered...

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China and India and Security: New Tensions

Sumit Roy — Fri 16 Mar 2012

China and India – coined as the ‘Emerging Giants’ - face security challenges - ‘old’ and ‘new’ tensions; the former stemming from historical territorial...

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Federalism and Inequality in India

James Hannah — Fri 16 Mar 2012

The empowerment of India’s sub-national political actors rolls on with the news that the Samajwadi Party are set to triumph in the elections of Uttar Pradesh, a huge state in North-East India...

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Kony2012: Can going viral really turn the world upside down?

Kym Beestons — Wed 14 Mar 2012

When the ‘Kony2012’ internet video describing the crimes of the LRA's leader and his army of child soldiers went viral last Monday, the public reaction polarised, initially, into two...

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Norm Osmosis

Hakan Altinay — Wed 14 Mar 2012

Could norms be moving around the world through osmosis? In this article, Altinay argues that hard power and soft power are not sufficient in explaining several key cases of norm transformation. He...

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The Secret World of Internships

Karl Muth — Sun 11 Mar 2012

Charles Murray, the author of the new book Coming Apart, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times recently talking about assertions he makes in the book and an action plan that might be feasible to...

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Whatever Happened to the REDD+ Partnership?

David Ritter — Thu 1 Mar 2012

Back in May 2009, HRH Prince Charles acting in his capacity as a normative leader on environmental issues hosted a meeting of world leaders in St James’s Palace in London. The express...

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How the Arab League Tried, and Failed, to Protect in Syria

Noele Crossley — Sat 25 Feb 2012

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech in Tunis yesterday was an interesting development in the context of efforts to promote the universal protection of human rights, specifically...

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Post-Conflict Transformation: Oil and International Development in the World's Newest Country

Martha Molfetas — Sat 25 Feb 2012

Many in the West and throughout Sudan saw the independence on 9 July 2011 as a positive sign of things to come. It was a moment celebrated worldwide for ending a tumultuous conflict that struck down...

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The Economics of Isolation and the Role of Aid

Paul Collier — Thu 16 Feb 2012

In the past month I have visited South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Rwanda. Although radically different in many important respects, these three low-income countries face the common problem that their...

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The Republic of Southern Eloi

Karl Muth — Fri 10 Feb 2012

Many of today’s amazing things H.G. Wells imagined years earlier: electrical tools capable of reviving the unconscious, manned space travel to and from the moon, machines that could perform...

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Post-Conflict Chic

Karl Muth — Fri 3 Feb 2012

A year ago, at Aman’s Amanjena resort in Morocco, I was thinking the global ruling class is slowly deconstructing its calendar. The monied migration, once defined by events like Art Basel, the...

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A Promethean Revisiting of Copenhagen: Man-Made World: Choosing between Progress and Planet

David Ritter — Mon 30 Jan 2012

More than two years since the failure of the COP15 Copenhagen climate summit, the meanings of that debacle continue to be both politically and intellectually contested. A recent contribution...

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Adding Nuance to Drug Control: Britain Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Move Away from the Flailing International Drug Regime

John Collins — Mon 30 Jan 2012

The House of Commons Select Committee on drug policy provides Britain with an excellent opportunity to break with past failures and embark on a new set of drug policies that are grounded in genuine...

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National Interests and International Environmental Politics: Spain and Overfishing

David Ritter — Fri 27 Jan 2012

It should never be assumed that representatives of nation states within international institutions can somehow escape the gravity of domestic concerns. In the context of the global politics of...

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Energy: Charging the BRICS to Power the World

Matthew Hulbert and Christian Brutsch — Wed 25 Jan 2012

Given the lousy growth prospects of mature economies, it is no surprise that the world has been hooked on emerging markets acronyms. The one that has stuck over the years is ‘BRICs’. What...

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More than just sanctions: The EU needs to be smarter on Iran

Cornelius Adebahr — Mon 23 Jan 2012

With an escalation of threats and chest-beating potentially leading to a war over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has again become one of the most critical issues in international politics. Clearly, the...

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Treasure Islands and CSR

David Ritter — Wed 18 Jan 2012

For anyone concerned about unfairness and inequity in the global economic system, Nicholas Shaxson’s 2011 book Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World, was one of the...

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The Quiet Revolution

William Oman — Sun 15 Jan 2012

In the four decades since 1970, the world has undergone a “quiet revolution” characterized by profound economic and financial transformations in advanced and emerging economies. ...

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Into the Dialogue Vacuum - Rethinking Drug Strategies for The Americas:

John Collins — Tue 27 Dec 2011

A questionable effort was made today by Brad Freden to engage in the current post-Iraq hyper-dialogue surrounding the future role of COIN, in the context of the Mexican drug war. I think there...

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The Sultanate that Didn’t Get the Memo

Karl Muth — Tue 27 Dec 2011

After attending the 2011 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit, I spent a bizarre weekend with a friend wandering around a place with a ruler who criminalised the formation of political parties...

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The global elite: unprecedented power?

Natalie Beinisch — Thu 22 Dec 2011

The “global elite” are increasingly referred to as a distinct class in contemporary society. The likes of Bill Gates, George Soros and Angelina Jolie are often offered as examples of...

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American Roulette

Karl Muth — Wed 21 Dec 2011

The American Department of State runs a lottery each year watched by millions of potential American immigrants around the globe. It is called the permanent resident visa lottery or, now, thanks to...

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A New Low - The U.S. Congress Reinstates a Ban on Federal Funding for Syringe Exchange Programmes

John Collins — Sat 17 Dec 2011

In the midst of the current American political malaise, it may be hard to appreciate how this Congress’ decision this week to reinstate the ban on using Federal funding for syringe exchange...

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The Paradigm is Broken: The End of the Supply Side Fantasy and the failure of the Liberal Environmental Compromise

David Ritter — Thu 8 Dec 2011

With the legitimacy of the dominant ideology of the last thirty years already in tatters, two new studies released this week have further shredded the authority of the existing global order.First, we...

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An Incomplete Treatise on Hats

Karl Muth — Tue 6 Dec 2011

I remember sitting in a discussion over ten years ago listening to Roger Ebert. As he often does, Ebert segued seamlessly from talking about film to talking about the contextual, historical, and...

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Justice in Egypt — Fast or Slow?

Scott McKenzie — Mon 5 Dec 2011

This article about Egypt has been in a constant state of revision due to the recent developments related to the just completed elections. As I write this, the first round of parliamentary...

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Madame Secretary-General: A Modest Proposal

Thomas Hale — Tue 29 Nov 2011

In 2008 Hillary Rodham Clinton earned the support of millions by running for President of the United States. In 2009 she surprised the world by going to work for her former rival. In 2016 she could...

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Reconciling Globalization and Social Democracy: The Strange Case of the Purple Book

David Ritter — Mon 28 Nov 2011

Purple haze all in my brainLately things just don't seem the sameActin' funny, but I don't know whyExcuse me while I kiss the skyHow do centre left governments achieve domestic objectives...

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Is the Euro Socially Sustainable?

Paul Collier — Tue 22 Nov 2011

The fate of the Euro will be determined not in Brussels, Frankfurt or Berlin, but in households and firms across Europe. In effect, the countries of the Eurozone have returned to the Gold Standard....

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The Enemy Within

Karl Muth — Sun 20 Nov 2011

I sort through invitations on a regular basis, whether they’re in the form of emails or dead trees. I attend an equal number of funerals and weddings in an average year, plus a few parties, and...

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The Role of Media in the Climate Change Debate in Developing Countries

John.O.Kakonge — Sat 19 Nov 2011

Climate change continues to be one of the most important global issues confronting the international community. Yet in developing countries, climate change is poorly covered by local media, and...

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An American Breakdown: Economic Management Under Divided Government

John Collins — Fri 18 Nov 2011

Until the Great Depression there was a relatively minor sense of ownership of the business cycle at the American Federal level. National debates often centred on long term economic issues and there...

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Europe’s Perfect Storm: When Possibility Meets Actuality

William Oman — Mon 14 Nov 2011

“May you live in interesting times.”What better phrase than the apocryphal Chinese curse above to capture the essence of the weeks, months and years to come? More to the point, just how...

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Occupy to the Cityboys: Time to Grow Up

David Ritter — Thu 3 Nov 2011

When I was a child I spake as a childI understood as a child, I thought as a childbut when I became a man I put away childish things- First Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians 13:11On the steps of...

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Gaddafi’s and Justice; Bring Saif to trial in Libya

Scott McKenzie — Fri 28 Oct 2011

Gaddafi is dead and his son Saif al-Islam is on the run. There are lingering questions about the circumstances of Muammar’s death, and even more about Saif’s future....

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It is Neoliberalism not Occupy that is the Utopian Fantasy

David Ritter — Fri 28 Oct 2011

It was inevitable that the global Occupy movement would be denounced as utopian by any number of detractors, but such criticism is a stark and wilful misreading of the real nature of things. ...

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Beyond the G-20: Mitigating the Costs of Global Imbalances in the Absence of Global Coordination

Kevin P. Gallagher — Fri 28 Oct 2011

The absence of a global regime to prevent and mitigate financial crises and a reluctance to resort to the International Monetary Fund for assistance has led emerging market and developing countries...

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Populism, OWS and the Future Economic Role of Finance

John Collins — Tue 25 Oct 2011

The global economy appears stuck in the doldrums. The West, in particular Europe, seems unable to break out of the sovereign debt phase of the financial crisis that erupted in 2008. Meanwhile the...

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Wars: Various Vintages

Karl Muth — Sat 22 Oct 2011

In the past week, the Obama administration despatched troops to northern Uganda, where I live. Several news outlets, including the New York Times, talked about the innovative methods needed to tackle...

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Working Capital

Natalie Beinisch — Fri 21 Oct 2011

Marketed as a ‘quiet revolution’, Autolib, an electric car hire scheme was launched late last month in Paris off of the back of a hugely successful bicycle rental programme that has been...

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The false promise of air power

Aurelie Basha — Fri 21 Oct 2011

With the downfall of Gaddafi, many may conclude that this is a vindication of air power. In many ways, it is tempting to conclude that the Libyan operation provides a perfect template for...

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My Shilling For Your Pound

Karl Muth — Mon 17 Oct 2011

I was chatting on Skype today with my friend Walter, a fellow University of Chicago alumnus living in East Africa. Walter lives in Kenya and I live in Uganda – our countries are home to two of...

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Fish in a G-String? In Praise of... The End of the Line

David Ritter — Fri 14 Oct 2011

‘We need to put the Common Fisheries Policy in a G-String.’This rather surprising assertion was made to me earlier this year by a colleague working for the iconic London Department Store...

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Gay Pay

Karl Muth — Tue 11 Oct 2011

Yesterday was National Coming Out Day in the United States (sadly, here in Uganda we have National Not Coming Out Day and it starts roughly every 24 hours).Today is National Coming Out Day in...

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De-emphasising the Single Convention - The Lessons of Drug Control History

John Collins — Tue 11 Oct 2011

There is a tendency within the civil society groups and academic writings that look at international drug control to focus heavily on the UN Single Convention of 1961. In many ways this is...

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Kenyan Famine: What Really Happened?

Karl Muth — Thu 6 Oct 2011

The news that northern areas of Kenya were suffering famine came as a surprise to analysts on many fronts. Kenya is seen as a stable East African growth economy and Nairobi, its capital, is seen as a...

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Global Fisheries, the Spanish Question and the Common Fisheries Policy

David Ritter — Wed 5 Oct 2011

In a world of chronic fishing overcapacity and chronic overfishing leading to endemic global fish stock collapse, the European Union is a conspicuous culprit. As the New Economics Foundation...

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The Air Raid is One Hundred Years Old

David Ritter — Fri 30 Sep 2011

Today* is the one hundredth anniversary of the first air-raid. Italian Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti hurled bombs from his aeroplane at forces of the Ottoman Empire in Libya, marking a turning...

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Crisis, Slump, Superstition and Recovery: Thinking and acting beyond vulgar Keynesianism

Tamara Lothian and Roberto Mangabeira Unger — Wed 28 Sep 2011

The intellectual and practical response to the worldwide financial and economic crisis of 2007-2009 as well as to the subsequent slump has exposed the poverty of prevailing ideas about how economies...

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The Responsibility to Protect in Libya – An Assessment

Noele Crossley — Wed 28 Sep 2011

Assessing the legitimacy of intervention for human protection purposes can take any of a number of forms – often by applying criteria such as those enshrined in Just War theory. More recently,...

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The Arab 1989 revisited

Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen and David Held — Tue 27 Sep 2011

In our previous article published on the day of Mubarak’s fall in February, we argued that the emerging Arab Spring overlapped with 1989 in important ways. We wrote that the uprisings sweeping...

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Regulation in an age of austerity: Reframing international regulatory principles

Frank Vibert — Fri 23 Sep 2011

This paper aims to look at the different elements that need to be considered in reframing international regulatory principles. To do so the paper compares the original regulatory reform agenda of the...

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Cheap Philanthropy

Karl Muth — Sun 18 Sep 2011

IKEA, the world’s largest furniture manufacturer, made a large donation today to help starving people in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.Well, that’s what international news outlets will...

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Exporting Freshwater To Kigali

Karl Muth — Fri 16 Sep 2011

It’s the tension that characterised Twentieth Century economics: freshwater versus saltwater. A few of America’s great economics programmes, all of them near freshwater bodies of...

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High Noon for the High Seas: Time to End Deep Sea Bottom Trawling

David Ritter — Thu 15 Sep 2011

For a thousand years the coral grows in the chilly depths of the high sea. Branching out, many metres high, the fantastic thing reaches maturity amidst a rich and strange ecosystem far beneath...

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Economics for Dangerous Times

Paul Collier — Mon 12 Sep 2011

These are dangerous economic times. The Keynesian framework within which the policy response to the Great Recession was forged in 2009 is no longer adequate. The OECD may have reached the limits of...

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The (Debt) Hangover – Part II

William Oman — Mon 12 Sep 2011

The summer of 2011 has taken developed and overdeveloped economies on a rough ride – and it has taken its toll on consumers, investors, and politicians. With talk of a double dip recession in...

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Shelling out in London: More on CSR, Tax and Shell

David Ritter — Thu 8 Sep 2011

In the aftermath of the English riots – themselves an explosion of tensions arising from the local consequences of globalization and imposition of the neoliberal order – a number of...

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CEO Pay, Worker's Salaries and CSR

David Ritter — Fri 2 Sep 2011

In the United States of America, a deep wages chasm now exists between the bosses and the rest. According to a new report from the Institute of Policy Studies, pay ratios between CEOS and average...

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Warren Buffett and taxes for the super-rich: signs of dementia?

Natalie Beinisch — Wed 31 Aug 2011

Warren Buffett published an article in the New York Times earlier this month which called for higher taxes for the super-rich. Surprisingly, his rallying cry received support from business elites...

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Tar Sands and the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline: Infrastructure for Global Catastrophe

David Ritter — Fri 26 Aug 2011

As the number of protestors arrested at the Whitehouse continues to rise, the entire world can only sit back and hope that civil disobedience overcomes the entrenched power of the Washington fossil...

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Ancient Secrets: Why Technological Containment Fails

Karl Muth — Tue 23 Aug 2011

The current strategy to contain the spread of nuclear weapons depends upon the technological infancy of the "bad guys." In essence, it is assumed that terrorist organisations or...

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Shell's North Sea Oil Spill: Communications and Corporate Motives

David Ritter — Sun 21 Aug 2011

Giant transnational Shell faces a deepening credibility gap as the gulf widens between the company’s words and actions.In previous Global Policy blogs (here and here) I’ve drawn attention...

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Edging Towards the Brink - Eurobonds and the Leadership Deficit

John Collins — Fri 19 Aug 2011

It seems odd how often politicians and the public, during times of crises, confuse short term and long term exigencies (or imagined ones for that matter). I recently wrote about the...

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Emerging Economies Needed for Somalia

Scott McKenzie — Tue 16 Aug 2011

By now, I think most readers are aware that there is a devastating famine in Somalia. Again. Each day, a new wave of numbers paints a bleaker picture of conditions inside that country:...

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After the London Riots - Policing and Public Policy

John Collins — Fri 12 Aug 2011

London is calm now. The riots were defused faster than anyone in the city could have imagined on Tuesday, and although normalcy does not yet reign, it seems en route. Far from a long slog of taking...

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The opportunity costs of rioting

Aurelie Basha — Fri 12 Aug 2011

After this week’s riots in England, it seems everyone has an explanation for why they happened. Often, these reasons contradict each other. But one reason really piqued my interest: a friend...

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Cowboys and Aliens: American Immigration Economics

Karl Muth — Mon 8 Aug 2011

The U.S. has a strained but symbiotic relationship with its neighbours to the south (note that neighbours is plural - Mexico being merely the most convenient southern neighbour from which to enter...

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The Chef, the Campaigners and the Corporations: Dissecting a Successful Campaign

David Ritter — Mon 8 Aug 2011

Tonight in the UK Channel Four will update viewers on what has been described by leading environmental journalist Martin Hickman as 'one of the most successful environmental campaigns in...

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Shirking vs. Budgeting

Karl Muth — Fri 5 Aug 2011

The damage is done.The world now knows that the government of the United States may, with surprisingly little fanfare, elect to not pay its creditors. Note that this is very different from the...

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Contesting the Power of Newscorp: Of Parliaments and Pies

David Ritter — Thu 4 Aug 2011

The controversy enveloping the Murdoch’s Newscorp empire is a contest over the nature of power itselfIn this era of post modern late capitalism global elites are characterised by their...

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Populism in Power

John Collins — Thu 28 Jul 2011

The slash and burn Republican fiscal ideology is perhaps best summed up by Grover Norquist's famous expression that he'd like to make government small enough that he can 'drown it in a...

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Shareholders, stakeholders and states

Natalie Beinisch — Wed 27 Jul 2011

In my profession, which falls under the rubric of ‘sustainability’, I hear on an all too frequent basis that Milton Friedman’s theory of the corporation must be scrapped. I am...

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No One Lives On Main Street

Karl Muth — Tue 26 Jul 2011

During the 2008 election, one of the more annoying imaginary dichotomies erected by both parties was the concept that America was divided into two constituencies, characterised by "Main...

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The Murdochs, News of the World and the Contradictions of Neoliberal Ideology

David Ritter — Sun 24 Jul 2011

It is hard to imagine a much clearer showcasing of some of the tensions associated with globalisation than the appearance of Rupert and James Murdoch before the UK’s Parliamentary Culture,...

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The Drug Trade in Africa - State Capacity and Supply Control

John Collins — Thu 21 Jul 2011

I’ve been attending a Drugs and Human Rights summer school in CEU Budapest this past two weeks and discussions with one of my Zimbabwean colleagues has led me to thinking about the issue of...

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Natural Centres

Karl Muth — Mon 18 Jul 2011

When talking about how people visualise numbers, we often talk about something called a natural centre. To understand this, imagine a negotiation where two people have roughly equal interests in the...

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Economics On Broadway

Karl Muth — Sat 16 Jul 2011

I saw Chinglish this past week in Chicago and it's stayed on my mind. Here's why.Allow me to begin by saying that I am an unapologetic fan of all sorts of theatre, from dance to drama to...

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Business Action on Biodiversity and the Environment: The Case of Shell

David Ritter — Fri 15 Jul 2011

My previous blog covered the Smith School’s World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment 2011 (#SSWFEE). Although there was much to commend the event, I expressed scepticism about what...

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Slums into Suburbs

Paul Collier — Thu 14 Jul 2011

I have just held an annual Roundtable for African central bankers. One of our themes was housing finance. Africa’s future is urban: cities facilitate productivity. But cities require huge...

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Leaving Viet... Afghanistan

Aurelie Basha — Tue 12 Jul 2011

The thing with doing a PhD – or undertaking any major research project for that matter - is that you’re prone to seeing everything through the lens of your topic. Everything you hear...

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Errors in Judgment

Karl Muth — Fri 8 Jul 2011

Many Americans have raised concerns that Casey Anthony killed her child. For those of us not living in America, this case may have little significance, but the context is essentially unimportant....

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The Poor, who are they?

Karl Muth — Fri 8 Jul 2011

In a debate this week, Senator Orrin Hatch, in a debate about who will pay the cost of repairing America's crippled economy, raised the fact that "[A] family of four earning over 80,000...

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A New State Comes Into Being, a Troubled History Continues: Sudan’s Prospects After the Secession of the South

Noele Crossley — Tue 5 Jul 2011

Several days from now, on July 9th, the UN’s membership will grow to include a new state – South Sudan. After a decades-long civil war from 1983 until 2005, between the north and the...

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World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment: Discourse Coalitions and their Limits

David Ritter — Fri 1 Jul 2011

The 2011 World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment held at Oxford's Merton College this week was devoted to ‘valuing ecosystem services’. The annual event is convened by the Smith...

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Righting one Wrong - Crack Cocaine and Mandatory Sentencing

John Collins — Fri 1 Jul 2011

One thing that can be noted about American drug policy is its tendency to travel in circles. Its history is one of recurring shifts between terror and relative circumspection. We now appear to be...

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China, the West, and the rebalancing of global growth

William Oman — Fri 1 Jul 2011

This week’s social unrest in Athens, strikes in London and worries over the United States’ debt ceiling may well turn out to be harbingers of a second wave in the global crisis rather...

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From Transnational Intellectual Property Cooperation to Global Knowledge Governance

Andrea Wechsler — Wed 29 Jun 2011

The Google Books Library Project is one of the most prominent ventures in today’s knowledge-based economy which exemplifies the lack of a widely accepted system of global governance and...

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Putting a Face to Europe in North Africa: Why the EU needs a Special Representative to respond to the Arab Spring

Cornelius Adebahr — Wed 29 Jun 2011

The European Union and its member states continue to struggle to find a response to the Arab Spring. Past policy approaches had little impact on the area’s regimes, if anything doing more to...

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The Left vs. Libertarianism

John Collins — Fri 24 Jun 2011

Stephen Metcalf’s Slate Article attacking Libertarianism sadly seems to say more about the state of the American ideological Left than it does say anything about the Libertarian tradition. For...

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Caring by Design

Natalie Beinisch — Thu 23 Jun 2011

Some institutions have the power to create cultural impacts that extend far beyond their founding mandates. Emergency health care services in Canada are an example. On a recent visit to a busy...

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Army Salami: How to Dump a Dictator

Paul Collier — Tue 21 Jun 2011

And now Yemen: in recent months there has been a remarkable collapse in the ability of dictators to maintain power. The dictator model has been straightforward: control the army. In turn this...

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Freedom of the Press, Freedom of the Drones?

Karl Muth — Tue 21 Jun 2011

I boarded the Northern Line at Old Street last week, welcomed by a platform advert assuring me that al-Jazeera knows what’s going on in Libya and is reporting on it. Yet, the news network that...

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Too Gloomy on Climate Change? The UNFCCC Bonn Negotiations

David Ritter — Mon 20 Jun 2011

In the midst of the recently concluded global climate change talks at the UNFCCC intersessional meetings in Bonn, I wrote a short account of the depressing state of things for the Australian national...

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First World Versus World 2.0

Karl Muth — Mon 13 Jun 2011

When we were young, the term was “first world.” This term generally meant places where the water out the tap was safe to drink, the wages were paid in real currencies, and the laws...

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How NOT to Run the World: A Commentary on Parag Khanna, 'How to Run the World'

Inge Kaul — Thu 9 Jun 2011

“….some may find it irritating” says John Ruggie in his advance praise for Parag Khanna’s How to Run the World. More than irritating, I found the book’s main...

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Homeless Newspapers: Good News?

Karl Muth — Wed 8 Jun 2011

Here in northern Uganda, freedom of press is a foreign concept, vanquished from the public discussion by government crackdowns and widespread propaganda. The poorest are unlikely to be heard by their...

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New IEA Data: The Climate Rubicon?

David Ritter — Mon 6 Jun 2011

Around fifty years before the birth of Christ, Julius Caeser led a legion across the river Rubicon from Gaul to Italy on course to Rome, transgressing Roman law and making conflict unavoidable in...

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A Good Week for Drug Law Reform Advocates

John Collins — Sat 4 Jun 2011

“The War on drugs has been an utter failure, and I think that we need to rethink and decriminalise our Marijuana laws...” So said then State Senator Barack Obama in 2004. Fast forward to...

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Ratko Mladic and the objectives of international criminal law

Aurelie Basha — Tue 31 May 2011

General Mladic's arrest in Serbia is an important milestone in the history of international justice. It comes at a time when the ICC has been very much in the news. Just recently, the ICC’s...

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Bad Metrics, Worse Policies

John Collins — Sat 28 May 2011

Last week I offered a critique of trends in global immigration policies in which I alluded to the ludicrous immigration cap being pushed by the Tory part of the British coalition Government. This...

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The Imperial Visit

David Ritter — Fri 27 May 2011

It was the week when the Emperor came to London and the Great Hall of Westminster was packed to hear his address. A row of three ex Prime Ministers plus the incumbent, were joined by the Lord...

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Respect Your Elders: Buy A Buick

Karl Muth — Fri 27 May 2011

There is something to be learned about Chinese policy in a Beijing Buick showroom, filled with black Buick Regals with tinted windows. Here, a mix of young men in hoodies with gold...

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From the Great War to the Jingoism of Consumption

David Ritter — Sat 21 May 2011

Claude Choules, the last man known to have seen combat action in the First World War, died this month.* His recollections, The Last of the Last – the final autobiographical account of...

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Conservative American Politicians in Africa

Scott McKenzie — Fri 20 May 2011

The media often portrays American foreign policy in Africa as having only one viewpoint. This is far from true. Recent accounts illustrate how politicians can have their own agendas...

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Beggar Thy Neighbour

John Collins — Thu 19 May 2011

The onset of the Great recession sprouted fears that economic collapse would be accompanied by a new round of trade protectionism; the kind that had permeated the 1930s and helped deepen as well...

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European Energy Security after Libya: Beijing Calling

Matthew Hulbert and Christian Brütsch — Thu 19 May 2011

The Libyan fracas has been a major wakeup call for those hoping that a High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, an External Action Service, and ‘rapid reaction’ Battle...

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the lost chance for an economic debate

Aurelie Basha — Wed 18 May 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahnâ€™s arrest under very serious charges obviously threatens, if not destroys, his presumed presidential ambitions. However, in so doing, it also eclipses the chance for...

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Commodity Prices and Investor Opportunities

Paul Collier — Wed 18 May 2011

Since the crisis, global investors have been searching for a new safe haven. In the core industrial OECD economies both the public and private sectors face dangerous structural challenges. Fiscal...

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The great migration: from private debt to sovereign crisis

William Oman — Wed 18 May 2011

A year has passed since the EU and IMF provided a 110 billion euro rescue package to Greece. The rescue plan is failing. In 2010 Greece’s public debt to GDP ratio stood at 140%...

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The Truly New Middle East: Will Obama Blow it?

Ashraf Swelam — Tue 17 May 2011

A few days after former President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, the cover page of Newsweek, the American weekly news magazine, carried the following headline: “Egypt: How Obama Blew It”,...

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Network(ed) Regulation

Natalie Beinisch — Tue 17 May 2011

I don’t know how I will explain the world I grew up in to my children. Networks are a good example. When I was growing up, network regulation was a method of ensuring public utilities...

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The IMF: Is There a Doctor in the House?

Karl Muth — Tue 17 May 2011

The IMF is one of the most misunderstood (and poorly explained, to spread the blame a bit) institutions in finance. This week, while I was in New York, it was thrust into the spotlight as quickly...

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Commodity boom and commodity blues

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 10 May 2011

Rarely were the price increases so enormous, rarely was the helplessness of the industrialized countries so great as in the rare earths sector. While precious metals like silver or energy sources...

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McKinsey Again: The Consultants and the Congo

David Ritter — Thu 5 May 2011

The Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the successor states to the European colonial empires of sub-Saharan Africa, contains staggering natural resources – including the second largest...

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The Economic Consequences of the War

John Collins — Wed 4 May 2011

Four decades ago this year Richard Nixon declared the ‘War on Drugs.’ So began America’s quick march towards mass incarceration. In 1980 there were roughly 1.8 million Americans...

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Amy Chua, Amy Tan, and Aiming for the Ninety-Somethingth Percentile

Karl Muth — Sun 1 May 2011

I recently encountered a family from the West visiting the London School of Economics outside of term. They were not allowed to enter the buildings and, in part due to their having traveled hours...

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105 Billion Americans?

David Ritter — Sat 30 Apr 2011

When a figure of the stature of David Attenborough urges us to speak out on an issue it is worth listening. In The New Statesman this week Attenborough wrote: I suspect that you could read a...

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A Measured Smile

Natalie Beinisch — Wed 27 Apr 2011

Among the more unconventional decisions that David Cameron has supported since arriving to Number 10 is to begin measuring the happiness of British citizens. The findings of the first...

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The Chinese in Africa: A Reply to The Economist

Karl Muth — Wed 27 Apr 2011

As a Chinese who has logged close to 30,000 air miles in the past quarter, many of them to and from Africa, I was a bit puzzled reading the Briefing article in the current issue of The Economist...

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Warm Like Blood

Karl Muth — Mon 25 Apr 2011

I don’t think one can get to know a place without touching and tasting the water. In parts of the Antilles, there is an old saying in the creole that certain water “fits”...

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A Continued Imbalance

John Collins — Mon 25 Apr 2011

It is often said of economic bubbles that: when people start to say "but this time it’s different" the bubble is near bursting. Well, perhaps this week’s Forbes blog by...

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Opt in? Opt out? Steer a middle course? What to do next about globalization?

Inge Kaul — Thu 21 Apr 2011

In his book The Globalization Paradox Dani Rodrik (2011) suggests that countries should have the right to opt out of globalization. (1) What a nice, relaxing idea! Imagine the peace of mind...

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McKinsey and the Political Economy of Rainforest Destruction

David Ritter — Sat 16 Apr 2011

Management consultancies are ubiquitous and powerful transnational actors in global politics: advising governments and corporations, shifting risk and vigorously propagating ideas about how the...

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The Racist Writ

John Collins — Fri 15 Apr 2011

This week the French State began arresting women under its new anti-burka law. It is a shameful and racist law. Those who claim it as an instance of benevolent liberalism are misguided and wrong....

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Burqas and Burritos

Karl Muth — Fri 15 Apr 2011

The controversy in France reminds me very much of the issue of Mexican immigrants in the United States. Both groups are a mix of legal and illegal (but overwhelmingly the former) immigrants....

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Information is Power: But Where Will It Lead?

Paul Collier — Thu 14 Apr 2011

New information technology has radically shifted the balance of power between governments and their citizens. This empowerment has worked through two distinct routes. One –exemplified by...

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The Empire Strikes Back

Karl Muth — Thu 14 Apr 2011

At the London School of Economics, one is struck by a wave of abundance. A vast social science library filled with the observations, experiences, and breakthroughs of generations of scholars. A...

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Responsible Leadership in the Face of Disaster

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 12 Apr 2011

Following the earthquake and the nuclear catastrophe in Japan, a state of shock, intuitive defensiveness and frantic political activity of those in charge of utility companies as well as in...

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Supermodels

Natalie Beinisch — Sat 9 Apr 2011

Supermodels like Kate Moss make lots of money because of their universal appeal. In her multi-decade career, mega-brands, lifestyle, art and media outlets have sought to exploit the...

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Libya, the LSE and Globalization

David Ritter — Fri 8 Apr 2011

In one episode of the classic BBC series Yes Minister, the eponymous Minister for Administrative Affairs, Jim Hacker is faced with an embarrassing situation because of his prior association with...

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Gormless from Seattle

John Collins — Thu 7 Apr 2011

Obama Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske’s interview with Foreign Policy this week has cemented my opinion that it’s nearing time for him to leave. If they have not already, the Obama...

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Revolutions in our news â€” the BBC and Al-Jazeera

Scott McKenzie — Mon 4 Apr 2011

Like many, I have been ingesting news about the democracy movements in the Middle East and North Africa at a tremendous rate. Everyone has news sources that they consider the best, some pick...

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Legitimacy through Regional Governance: The African Union

Noele Crossley — Sun 3 Apr 2011

Regional organisations such as the African Union, the European Union, the Arab League, or the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), are regarded as an important intermediary between...

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When is international intervention justified?

William Oman — Sat 2 Apr 2011

What do the Libyan and Japanese crises have in common? In a word, both are national crises that have major (potential) global repercussions. One crucial question that these crises beg but...

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The Limited Power of Science in Climate Politics

David Ritter — Fri 1 Apr 2011

Unfortunately, frightening statistics about the overall global trajectory of resource use and environmental degradation are all too readily available. In blunt terms, the global environmental...

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Colonel, Your Black Passport Is Ready

Karl Muth — Thu 31 Mar 2011

Black with gold lettering. It feels heftier than most passports, maybe due to the thicker paper used on the visa pages. Before it is born, it is simply black vinyl and a dozen sheets of paper....

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A Dove's Calling

John Collins — Thu 31 Mar 2011

It’s commonly held that only a Nixon could have gone to China. The logic is that only those politicians with impeccably hawkish foreign policy credentials can undertake adventures that...

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Resilience

Natalie Beinisch — Mon 28 Mar 2011

At the same time that the Emperor of Japan admitted that he was deeply worried for his country, Barack Obama congratulated the people of Japan for their resilience in the face of adversity. Obama...

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Black swans and climate change

Aurelie Basha — Fri 25 Mar 2011

The unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan has immediate and terrible consequences for the people near the plants and for the country’s electricity grid more generally. But it has also radically...

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In Australia Abbott undermines the Building Blocks

David Ritter — Thu 24 Mar 2011

The future of the world’s climate remains in the balance with global negotiations hanging on by the skin of their teeth. As explained in a recent issue of the Global Policy Journal, domestic...

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Will Defence Industrialization Help The Technological Upgrade Of The Indian Economy?

Smita Purushottam — Thu 24 Mar 2011

India’s high growth rates of well over 8% over the last five fiscals have concealed a growing merchandise trade deficit, projected at an unsustainable 13% of GDP by 2014. India imports...

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The Bill(board 100) of Rights

Karl Muth — Thu 24 Mar 2011

How much does popular music influence society? How does it shape society’s image of itself? How does it change a society’s image of other societies? It’s been a question pondered...

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The Realist Standard

John Collins — Tue 22 Mar 2011

President Obama has made no Secret of his admiration for the administration of George H. W. Bush. He has taken many public opportunities to stress his own foreign policy ideological lineage with...

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How Financiers Can Save Libya (and Make Money Doing It)

Karl Muth — Sat 19 Mar 2011

The Libyan problem isn’t a problem to be solved by policymakers. It’s a problem to be solved by financiers. Bankers stand a far better chance of helping the Libyan rebels than...

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Wisconsin World: Today we are all Cheeseheads

David Ritter — Thu 17 Mar 2011

There are moments when the fate of a few epitomizes the interests of the many, as a local struggle becomes magnified in the global public eye. In the Northern US State of Wisconsin –...

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A Europe Dividing

John Collins — Thu 17 Mar 2011

‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’ This quote, often attributed to Mark Twain, perhaps offers some insight into the possible unravelling of the European...

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Complaints About Ratios

Karl Muth — Wed 16 Mar 2011

Whether I’m travelling in a developed or developing country, one of the common features of news reports is the presence of ratios, often termed the “something something rate.”...

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The capital of the democratic deficit

Aurelie Basha — Wed 16 Mar 2011

Having just returned from a few days in Brussels, there are two pieces of news to report. First, Belgium has beat out Iraq in the infamous record of the longest time without a government. And...

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Nuclear Policy and Maroon Football

Karl Muth — Wed 16 Mar 2011

As a third-generation graduate of the University of Chicago, nuclear power has a special place in my thinking about policy. The University of Chicago Maroons (the university’s football team)...

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Lake Pontchartrain to Matsukawa-ura Bay

Karl Muth — Mon 14 Mar 2011

On the face of it, they are similar. New Orleans, USA had been under threat of serious hurricanes for over a century. The fault lines running along the Japanese coast were theorized as early as...

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Developing Dodgy Dictators

Natalie Beinisch — Sun 13 Mar 2011

An independent investigation into the financial links between the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Libyan government was launched this month as a result of the state’s despotic...

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500 ImpÃ©rialistes Sur la Ligne de Depart?

Karl Muth — Fri 11 Mar 2011

In January, I again watched the Paris-Dakar Rally (this being the 32nd running of the event, on a route that passed through neither Paris nor Dakar), one of the top events in motorsport....

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Something of a Quagmire

John Collins — Fri 11 Mar 2011

The new report on Mexico’s drug war from the Council on Foreign Relations makes for pretty depressing reading. Essentially it suggests that some less-bad policy options are available to the...

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News Ltd and Climate Change

David Ritter — Thu 10 Mar 2011

In a Memo to Employees of News Corporation the Chairman & CEO, 80 year old Rupert Murdoch, has proudly announced that the company had ‘become carbon neutral’ across the whole of...

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What Can Policymakers Learn from CommunautÃ© des Antilles?

Karl Muth — Sat 5 Mar 2011

From 1981 to 1989, some of the cleverest diplomats and lawyers from around Europe met in Luxembourg to devise what we now know as the Schengen agreements. These agreements, a series of...

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On the Semantics of Women in Office

Aurelie Basha — Fri 4 Mar 2011

Next week Tuesday will mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. It seems an opportune time to talk about women. But the focus of this blog is not on the “big”...

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Causes of Regime Inertia

John Collins — Fri 4 Mar 2011

I recently read an interesting paper by Danny Kushlick, founder and Director of Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which brings IR analytical tools to bear on the international drug control regime....

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The End of the 'Long 9/11'?

David Ritter — Thu 3 Mar 2011

The hijackings and murderous plane crashes took only a few hours, but ‘the long September 11’ is now almost a decade in duration.The long September 11 can be defined as that period in...

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'Risk' is a four letter word

Natalie Beinisch — Thu 3 Mar 2011

The European Court of Justice ruled last week that that gender as a pricing for insurance contracts should be prohibited. With one fell swoop, the ECJ has devastated established assumptions in the...

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Harmony is Overrated

Karl Muth — Mon 28 Feb 2011

Many recent histories, including Samuel P. Huntington’s, allege that cultural divisions drive policies on Civilization A that are inherently in conflict with those of Civilization B. The...

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The Al Jazeera moment and multipolarity

Aurelie Basha — Sat 26 Feb 2011

As millions of viewers around the world turn to Al Jazeera to watch the upheaval in the Middle East, the Qatar-based news network has become itself an actor in the events. This reflects its role...

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The Special Retrenchment

John Collins — Fri 25 Feb 2011

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner this week heaped praise on British efforts at fiscal rectitude, saying that it represented ‘a set of reforms that are very good.’ Accompanying his...

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What time is it? (Not) the Arab 1989

David Ritter — Fri 25 Feb 2011

Is this, as Timothy Garton Ash has asked ‘the Arab 1989’? 'We have the same sense of events leaping from country to country, and of many ordinary people spontaneously...

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A Responsibility to Protect in Libya?

Noele Crossley — Thu 24 Feb 2011

The violent crackdown on protesters in Libya has received widespread international condemnation and led the Security Council to invoke the “Responsibility to Protect” in a statement on...

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The Convergence Superhighway

Natalie Beinisch — Wed 23 Feb 2011

Policy convergence has the potential to make life easier for people who operate transnational businesses and live glamorous transnational lifestyles. The EU Project and the World Trade...

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The Quest and Wanted Posters In Baargaal

Karl Muth — Wed 23 Feb 2011

This post was co-authored with my friend and colleague Lt. Patrick Larsen. Pat is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and a graduate student at the University of Chicago. He is an...

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Stagnating technology, or decoupling incomes?

William Oman — Tue 22 Feb 2011

Tyler Cowen, an economist and blogger, recently published a provocative book on the economic fate of America since 1947: The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern...

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High food prices: Cause and Result

Scott McKenzie — Fri 18 Feb 2011

Bread is a classic symbol of revolution. From the French revolution in 1789, to the ousting of Ben Ali in Tunisia in January 2011, it endures as totem of the high costs of food...

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A Fitness Regime for the European Union

Cornelius Adebahr — Fri 18 Feb 2011

It started the New Year at 53, hopelessly out of shape and in the midst of an existential crisis of such terrible complexity the Greek Gods would wonder whether they hadn’t missed a trick or...

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Revolutions and reasoning by historical analogy

Aurelie Basha — Fri 18 Feb 2011

Many observers of the recent and evolving unrest in the Middle East have turned to historical analogies to diagnose what is likely to happen and what the United States or external countries should...

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Ideology Rush! Your Good Society is in them thar (Egyptian) hills!

David Ritter — Fri 18 Feb 2011

Gotta dream boy? / Gotta song? / Paint your wagon / And come along! The race to frame the Egyptian uprising resembles a kind of gold rush of global discourse; what might be termed an...

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The Arab 1989?

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, David Held and Alia Brahimi — Thu 17 Feb 2011

An extraordinary wave of upheaval is beginning to sweep across the Arab world, with the potential to transform the political order in the Middle East. Mohamed Bouazizi’s desperate act of...

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What are the options for Millennium Development Goals 2.0?

Andy Sumner — Thu 17 Feb 2011

The debate on what, if anything might replace the MDGs in 2015 is starting to emerge.One might imagine three stylized options – more of the same, something that builds on the MDGs, or something...

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On Experts and Expertise

Karl Muth — Thu 17 Feb 2011

I can’t say when it happened, but, in ordinary life and in the policy arena, we’ve severed the link between authors and their work. By extension, we’ve cut the tie...

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When Discretionary Policing Meets Bad Incentives

John Collins — Thu 17 Feb 2011

New York City can add another ‘world capital’ title to its extensive list. Last year it cemented its place as the marijuana arrest capital of the world. In the process it hauled over...

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CÃ´te D'Ivoire: Global and Regional Responses to the Post-Election Violence

Noele Crossley — Mon 14 Feb 2011

CÃ´te Dâ€™Ivoire, a country in Western Africa with a population of 21 million, and the worldâ€™s largest producer and exporter of cocoa beans, has been troubled by political instability an...Read more

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China Woos Europe: Next moves on the Eurasian Chessboard

Smita Purushottam — Mon 14 Feb 2011

Introduction The rise of China has catalysed several shifts in the geopolitical order, one of the key ones being the nascent US and European Resets with Russia and the Russia-NATO...

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Domino Effect?

Natalie Beinisch — Mon 14 Feb 2011

Media anticipation reached a climax as another Arab regime came to an end on Friday. The machine gun pace of political transition in the region is however not being replicated further southwest....

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A Cure Worse Than the Disease

Karl Muth — Mon 14 Feb 2011

What part of U.S. foreign policy dictates that it is a good idea to place armed people on flights inside and outside the United States who almost certainly pose a threat to passengers that...

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Paul Collier - Implications of Egypt for Autocrats

Paul Collier — Sun 13 Feb 2011

Two decades ago the ‘end of history’ supposedly arrived: democracy was the only conceivable future. Instead, during the past decade China’s success rehabilitated autocracy. Now...

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International Drug Control: A Dying Taboo and an Uncertain Future for the UN Regime

John Collins — Thu 10 Feb 2011

When he recently described drug legalization as ‘worth a serious debate’, President Obama joined the ranks of a number of other state and national executives (past and present) making...

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Science, Economics and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation

David Ritter — Wed 9 Feb 2011

‘It all begins with the science.’ These are the words of Susan Jackson, current President of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, which appear as one of the slogans...

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2011: Follow the Red Rabbit

Karl Muth — Mon 7 Feb 2011

My family felt strongly that children should learn history. Like many Chinese, I had a large Chinese extended family that believed China’s history was not only important, but held lessons...

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Beyond a Global Deal: A UN+ Approach to Climate Governance

Thomas Hale et al. — Mon 7 Feb 2011

Executive Summary A global agreement on binding emissions reductions is unlikely, but progress against climate change can still be made through a patchwork of initiatives and commitments by...

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Why Cairo concerns us

Cornelius Adebahr — Fri 4 Feb 2011

The Egyptian dream of a peaceful revolution may have vanished under the cudgels of goon squads loyal to the Mubarak regime – the dream of freedom certainly hasn’t. That is what unites...

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Terrorism: What's the Business Model?

Karl Muth — Fri 4 Feb 2011

In one of my recent transatlantic commutes, I stood in the priority security line queued between two young men, each in dark jacket, pink shirt, and purple tie – the current uniform for...

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Global Arguments about Egypt

David Ritter — Fri 4 Feb 2011

As revolution gathers momentum in Egypt, other struggles are being fought out in the global media over the meaning of events. Men and women in the vanguard of the action in Cairo – or at...

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The Revolution Will Not Be Tweetevised

Karl Muth — Thu 3 Feb 2011

A Twitter Revolution. It seems like something that routinely occurs in the Middle East lately. The mass media storyline on discontent in the Middle East tends to focus on social media somehow...

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What will follow the 'Days of Rage'?

Katherine Wall — Thu 3 Feb 2011

Cries for bread and freedom are echoing across the Arab world. Tired from decades of repression by autocratic states, ignited by recent high levels of unemployment, peoples around the region are...

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China/US - Two "Indispensible Powers"

Alastair Newton — Wed 2 Feb 2011

The phrase “indispensible power” is most closely associated with Madeleine Albright, who first used it publicly to describe the United States shortly after she was sworn in as...

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Egypt On The Brink - But Of What?

Alastair Newton — Tue 1 Feb 2011

“Egypt’s army…may now be developing a new vision of how the state’s interests ought to be preserved – one that need not include Mr Mubarak.” Bassma...

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Egypt's Tiananmen Square Moment? Hazards of Historical Analogy

David Ritter — Fri 28 Jan 2011

Is the incredible bravery of an anonymous man, standing his ground in front of an armored vehicle in the midst of the unrest that is convulsing Cairo and other cities, Egypt’s 'Tiananmen...

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Global resources, European confusion - time to re-think raw materials

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 25 Jan 2011

For tomorrow, 26 January, the European Commission had announced to present a revised EU raw materials strategy. Based on the 2008 raw materials initiative, the new document was intended to provide...

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Elders, Sudan, and Peace

Scott McKenzie — Fri 21 Jan 2011

The Elders have asked all parties in Sudan to respect the final outcome and maintain the peace. South Sudan has been waiting for this vote since 2005, when a U.N. brokered peace...

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'Hugh's Fish Fight': The Outrage of Discarding and the Structural Problem of the CFP

David Ritter — Thu 20 Jan 2011

‘What do we want?’ ‘Comprehensive and effective reform of complex political and economic transnational structures!’ ‘When do we want it?’ ‘N...Read...

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Alastair Newton and Ritika Sen -India And The US: "Natural Allies" Or Uneasy Bed-Fellows?

Alastair Newton — Tue 18 Jan 2011

For the first two years of his presidency, Barack Obama appeared to be paying little attention to India, certainly relative to his predecessor, George W Bush, who had overseen the unprecede...Read...

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Defending the euro

William Oman — Mon 17 Jan 2011

The roots of the euro crisis After the lull of the holidays, the euro crisis has come back with a vengeance, as Portugal and possibly Spain face the threat of insolvency. As is often the...

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From Bismarck to Jamie Oliver: Celebrity Chefs and Resource Diplomacy

David Ritter — Thu 13 Jan 2011

It is a safe assumption that neither Bismarck nor Metternich anticipated Jamie Oliver. Yet in the post-modern world of the current era of globalization, celebrity norm entrepreneurs stride the...

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Paul Collier - The World Food Crisis, Mark II

Paul Collier — Wed 12 Jan 2011

The FAO index of world food prices has now surpassed the peak reached in 2008. Then a price spike was punctured by the global economic crisis; this time there will be no such demand reduction. The...

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Making Multilateralism Work for a Multipolar Age

GG 2020 — Tue 11 Jan 2011

By Thorsten Benner Last month, during the final discussion in my seminar on "The Changing World(s) of Multilateralism“, a student claimed that rising powers are “the unruly...

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The Left, the Global Economic Crisis and New Socialism

David Ritter — Wed 5 Jan 2011

Let’s start the New Year with a puzzle. In the wake of the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression, in the developed world, what happened to the left? Rewind. On...

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A Lasting Peace? Costa Rica and Nicaragua return to the ICJ

Scott McKenzie — Mon 3 Jan 2011

In a world where so many conflicts are fought over land, and peace deals often emerge only after decades of war, it is refreshing to see countries turn to an international adjudication to solve...

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Recasting the 'China Threat:' Chinese growth and America's Balance Sheet

GG 2020 — Sat 18 Dec 2010

By Zachary Wasserman The relative decline of the United States and the corresponding rise of China has become the idée fixe of international opinion journalism since the onset of the...

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The Lessons of Cote d'Ivoire

Paul Collier — Fri 17 Dec 2010

In Wars Guns and Votes I argued that without effective checks and balances elections do not resolve problems but rather intensify them. I chose Cote d’Ivoire as the book’s case study....

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US-China Strategic Relationship: Get to Talking

GG 2020 — Sun 12 Dec 2010

By Liang Wang and Shixin Jiao About a month ago, President Obama finished his second tour to Asia with stops in India, Indonesia, Korea and Japan. While economic recovery topped President...

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The Involuntary Union: European Economic Governance and the 'Union State'

Cornelius Adebahr — Fri 10 Dec 2010

The political reaction to the economic crisis shows two things: First, in moments of great crisis, the nation-state is the first port-of-call. With economic stability at stake and large quantities...

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New Wars: Critics and Queries

David Ritter — Fri 10 Dec 2010

In the latest issue of Global Policy, Professor Mary Kaldor further develops on her conceptualization of contemporary military conflict in the course of reviewing the contempory significance of...

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East African Common Market shows signs of progress

Scott McKenzie — Sun 5 Dec 2010

As part of a global trend in regionalization, many of the countries in East Africa are making bold steps forward in economic integration. Similar to plans in Europe, these countries are...

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Global Zero...An Idealist's Dream?

GG 2020 — Fri 3 Dec 2010

By Katrin Kinzelbach The vision of a world free of nuclear weapons can easily be dismissed as an idealist’s dream – beautiful but not of this world. When US President Barack Obama...

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The Global Politics of Climate Change in Cancun and Nottingham

David Ritter — Thu 2 Dec 2010

This week the global politics of climate change has been a tale of two cities. In Cancun in Mexico, the international negotiations grind on, while in a snow-bound crown court in Nottingham...

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The Absurd Theatre of ICCAT

David Ritter — Fri 26 Nov 2010

ICCAT – the International Committee for Collaboration in Absurd Theatre – has commenced its annual festival in Paris this week. Among the works being staged at ICCAT is The...

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Western Sahara â€” Moving Forward?

Scott McKenzie — Mon 22 Nov 2010

Morocco and the Polisario Front are locked in a diplomatic stalemate that leaves the highly disputed Western Sahara in a state of high tension and low level conflict. The Western Sahara...

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Halting Biodiversity Loss: It's all about power

David Ritter — Wed 17 Nov 2010

Earlier this week a panel discussion at the LSE SU was devoted to the topic ‘Can We Halt Biodiversity Loss? - the International Year of Biodiversity, Nagoya and the Way Forward’. The...

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Nuclear Proliferation and Fossil Fuels

GG 2020 — Tue 16 Nov 2010

By Jeff Colgan Everyone knows that military and civilian uses of nuclear energy are linked. Yet in reality, the issue of nuclear proliferation is actually shaped by the full...

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China tries to suppress UN report on bullets

Scott McKenzie — Mon 15 Nov 2010

Recent reports of Chinese involvement with the conflict in Sudan underscore a wider clash between the rise of a human rights regime verses economic laissez-faire. Accusations have been made...

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Should Africa Get Back Into Debt?

Paul Collier — Fri 12 Nov 2010

Africa has only recently been forgiven debt that it could not pay back. Why should it contemplate borrowing again? The answer is that it needs to borrow because it is not investing enough to...

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IUU and Slavery on the High Seas

David Ritter — Thu 11 Nov 2010

Globalization has some dirty little secrets. A recent report by the Environmental Justice Foundation highlighted the hidden shame of the severe human rights abuses that occur on illegal,...

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Europe, the G20, and the Dynamic Dozen

Cornelius Adebahr — Wed 10 Nov 2010

You may be forgiven if in some parts of Europe, in particular in Germany, you think that the crisis is over. Some people already talk of a new Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). However, the...

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G20 summit: what to expect, and what to demand? Seven focal points

William Oman — Tue 9 Nov 2010

On November 11 and 12, the G20’s fifth heads of state summit since the inaugural summit in Washington D.C. in November 2008 will take place in South Korea. With the recovery of the...

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African Women's Decade: Hope and Violence

Scott McKenzie — Fri 5 Nov 2010

The African Union recently kicked off the African Women's Decade. An important event for Africa and the rest of the world to mark, but a recent series of horrendous sexual assaults in...

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Cannibalizing Comparative Advantage: The Attack on Higher Education in Britain

David Ritter — Wed 3 Nov 2010

Why, in the middle of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, is the British Government savagely attacking one of the UK’s few areas of comparative economic advantage, the...

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UK Comprehensive Spending Review: "There Is No Alternative"

Alastair Newton — Fri 29 Oct 2010

In an echo of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s famous “TINA” maxim from the 1980s, UK Chancellor George Osborne, presenting the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending...

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UK Comprehensive Spending Review: "There Is No Alternative"

Alastair Newton — Fri 29 Oct 2010

The UN+ Approach of Networked Climate Governance

GG 2020 — Fri 29 Oct 2010

By Tobias Leipprand Climate change may be the most sophisticated problem human kind has ever faced: the science behind it is highly complex and far from fully understood. Solving climate...

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Species Decline under Lame Duck CBD

David Ritter — Thu 28 Oct 2010

While many species face the imminent threat of extinction, the lame duck is alive and well in the shape of the Convention on Biodiversity which drags on in Nagoya this week. As one insider...

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Rule of Law Indexes Show More than Winners and Losers

Scott McKenzie — Tue 26 Oct 2010

Two studies on the rule of law in Africa have been released recently. In late September, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation released its annual Index of African Governance. It points to...

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Three clues that China has created a housing bubble

Philippe Bracke — Mon 25 Oct 2010

When faced with the intimidating question “Is there a housing bubble in China?”, most of us would answer dismissively: “I have no clue.” This is unfortunate because the...

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Europe's Fish and Global Politics

David Ritter — Fri 22 Oct 2010

The EU is an unusual beast in global politics, something less (or more) than a state and not neatly fitting in to any of the ordinary categories of multilateral arrangement. A lively debate exists...

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What to negotiate at next month's Cancun climate conference? A research agenda

GG 2020 — Thu 21 Oct 2010

By Tom Hale What a difference a year makes. Last October the world was abuzz with optimism in advance of the Copenhagen climate summit. Now, expectations are so low for next month’s...

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Somali Pirate Problem Needs an International Solution (Part 2)

Scott McKenzie — Fri 15 Oct 2010

Last week I discussed that piracy in the waters around Somalia represent a growing threat to ships that use these popular shipping lanes. This impacts the companies that own the boats and...

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How Climate Economics is Becoming Part of the Problem

GG 2020 — Fri 15 Oct 2010

By André Lieber Economists and economics are considered to be at the core of the climate debate. Truth told, the dismal science is in fact behind most of the potential policy solutions that...

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Globalization and the Tragedy of the Blue Commons

David Ritter — Thu 14 Oct 2010

The high seas are one of the true global commons and like the atmosphere above, they represent a grand tragedy. The degradation of the marine environment has been a direct product of human...

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Why Investor Risk Now Matters in Africa, And How to Address It

Paul Collier — Thu 14 Oct 2010

The Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF convene both investors and governments. This year investors are interested in Africa. Partly, this is for want of anything better: Opportunities in...

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Somali Pirate Problem Needs an International Solution (Part 1)

Scott McKenzie — Fri 8 Oct 2010

Piracy is a problem that many people associate with the high-seas, galleon ships, and men with names like Red Beard. Recently, this menace has made a comeback in the Gulf of Aden near the...

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PNG and Japan drive REDD talks to the Brink

David Ritter — Fri 8 Oct 2010

In the often infuriating milieu of global forest politics, the Interim REDD+ Partnership is teetering on the brink of despair at talks in Tianjin this week, as the dismal performance of the...

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What's Wrong with the WTO: Rethinking the Institutional Design

Eliza Patterson — Mon 4 Oct 2010

The WTO is ineffective in addressing the needs of the current trading system as evidenced by the inability of its members to agree to the expansion of the WTO remit to cover some of the most...

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Who killed the middle class?

Philippe Bracke — Mon 4 Oct 2010

The last three decades have seen a rise in income inequality. “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer” has been the mantra to describe this phenomenon. As all...

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A tale of two crises: faltering growth and currency wars

William Oman — Mon 4 Oct 2010

In the past few weeks, Japan’s decision to weaken the yen and the United States’ discussion of a bill aimed at levying tariffs on China have sparked much discussion and...

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Geopolitics Skeptics are no Different from Climate Skeptics

GG 2020 — Fri 1 Oct 2010

By Bruce Au “The climate is not going to be saved by any big bang agreement,” Christiana Figueres stated unambiguously at the Clinton Global Initiative 2010 Annual Meeting in New...

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Nigerian Election Politics Highlight Fragile Democracy

Scott McKenzie — Fri 1 Oct 2010

In case anyone missed it, September 15th was the International Day of Democracy. If you forgot to celebrate, do not feel bad. This new holiday was created on November 8, 2007, and its...

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Elephant-birds and UN Reform

David Ritter — Thu 30 Sep 2010

Dr Seuss’s children’s classic Horton Hatches the Egg tells the story of one Horton the elephant, who faithfully minds the egg of an absent mother bird. At the story’s end the egg...

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Israel/Iran: Why Washington is Wrong

Alastair Newton — Mon 27 Sep 2010

“In the gap between Washington’s and Jerusalem’s views of Iran lies the question: who, if anyone, will stop Iran before it goes nuclear, and how?” Jeffrey Goldberg...

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Israel/Iran: Why Washington is Wrong

Alastair Newton — Mon 27 Sep 2010

Trouble Brewing in the East

Sean Chen — Fri 24 Sep 2010

China and Japan seem to disagree on just about everything nowadays. The big news from last few weeks was the spat between the two countries over the holding of a Chinese fishing boat and crew by...

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Multidimensional Environmental Governance for a Planet in Peril

GG 2020 — Thu 23 Sep 2010

By Scott Moore In the aftermath of the financial crisis, nations around the world, led by the G-20, discussed a number of reforms to strengthen the global financial system and recognize the...

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How to think strategy in Europe?

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 21 Sep 2010

The European Union and strategy – it’s not exactly a contradiction in terms, but still a difficult story. In a way, the EU itself has never behaved strategically: There was a vision,...

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This recession has a human cost

Philippe Bracke — Mon 20 Sep 2010

We see the economy as proceeding in cycles: expansions and recessions alternate, good times follow bad times. When this recession is over, we think, things will get back to normal. Mai Dao and...

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After Globalization: Western Power in a Post-Western World

Sergio Fabbrini — Sat 18 Sep 2010

The crisis which exploded in 2008 has been and continues to be much more than a physiological economic downturn, Indeed, it is a political and not only an economic crisis. Economic de-regulation...

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Business and Biodiversity

David Ritter — Sat 18 Sep 2010

What is the global relationship between business and biodiversity? According to a recent survey of 1600 respondents conducted by a global consultancy firm: as with climate change a...

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Kenya: ICC friend or foe?

Scott McKenzie — Thu 16 Sep 2010

Kenya: ICC friend or foe? In the last few weeks, Kenya has had a roller-coaster relationship with the International Criminal Court (ICC). It started by failing to arrest Sudanese...

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Development Models Revisited: European Democracy vs. Asian Autocracy

Paul Collier — Tue 14 Sep 2010

Dysfunctional governance is central to why some countries remain poor. Since 1991 Europe has attempted to improve governance by promoting democratisation. Yet the distinction between democratic...

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The Arctic under Threat

David Ritter — Wed 8 Sep 2010

The Arctic – the northern hemisphere’s last remaining wilderness – is under unprecedented environmental threat. Globalization, ancient and postmodern, has always involved...

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Does income inequality increase economic and financial instability?

William Oman — Mon 6 Sep 2010

As countries struggle to reduce their fiscal deficits, some governments, most notably the U.K.’s, are turning to large budget cuts. Recent research shows that fiscal policy can also...

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Oil Spills in Nigeria Highlight Lack of Legal Accountability

Scott McKenzie — Sat 4 Sep 2010

In the summer of 2010, one news story dominated headlines in America. The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oilrig and the subsequent leaking oil from the Macondo well had a stranglehold on...

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Airports and Butterflies

David Ritter — Thu 2 Sep 2010

Airports are monuments to globalization. It is not only the overtly globalizing function of airports – to service the planes which traverse the globe in vast numbers – but the garish...

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Zimbabwe Diamond Sales Highlight Strengths and Weaknesses in International Law

Scott McKenzie — Fri 27 Aug 2010

Diamonds are forever, but international law is always changing. Zimbabwe recently tested the flexibility of international agreements by asserting that it would sell stockpiled diamonds on...

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Convention on Biological Diversity a Ten Year Failure

David Ritter — Thu 26 Aug 2010

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is another of the world’s multilateral environmental institutions that has resolutely failed to achieve its stated purpose. Now less than two...

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North Korea: Calmer Waters Ahead?

Alastair Newton — Sun 22 Aug 2010

“Something unusual seems to be happening in Pyongyang and it’s probably time to think about the future a bit more seriously. We are heading towards serious changes, and nobody seems...

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North Korea: Calmer Waters Ahead?

Alastair Newton — Sun 22 Aug 2010

Population Politics and National Elections

David Ritter — Thu 19 Aug 2010

One of the characteristics of the current period in human history is a rapidly expanding global population. Around the time of Napoleon there were around one billion of people in the world; now...

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Is China Really So Different?

GG 2020 — Sun 15 Aug 2010

By Rajeev Sibal I couldn’t help but write about China in my blog post. Having recently returned from our GG2020 Shanghai session, I have an entirely new impression of the...

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Let's be honest: Oil really is disgusting

David Ritter — Thu 12 Aug 2010

Oil is a very useful but truly disgusting substance. Fossil fuels have been foundational to modernity and globalization, but the addiction to oil has had hideous consequences, in the form of...

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The Interim REDD+ Partnership: Light at the end of the Screw Ups?

David Ritter — Thu 5 Aug 2010

As the Interim REDD+ Partnership process reconvenes in Bonn this week in conjunction with the latest UN Climate Change Conference (you can watch the proceedings here), information continues to emerge...

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The Need for a Global Policy on Burma

Sean Chen — Wed 4 Aug 2010

The repression and military ambitions of the ruling junta in Burma (Myanmar) have made the country a trouble spot for the rest of the international community. Burma’s military government...

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Shifting tectonics in the west and in the east

William Oman — Fri 30 Jul 2010

An epiphany... The past few weeks have been replete with metaphors for the decline of the west – and in particular its beacon and poster child, the United States. From the tepid G20...

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Bad BP and the Good Corporate Social Responsibility Fairy

David Ritter — Fri 30 Jul 2010

Once upon a time... there was a jolly corporation that lived in a big building in a busy city. The corporation had a nice shiny logo, lots of splendid windowed offices and a big bright front door....

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Somaliland election deserves recognition

Scott McKenzie — Tue 27 Jul 2010

The opposition won the election, and the current President graciously accepted defeat. A boring headline for many of us in the West. But, in the bre...Read...

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Europe and the new scramble for resources

Cornelius Adebahr — Fri 23 Jul 2010

One not-so-obvious trend of the financial and economic crisis is a renewed competition for resources. The current debate about debt and depression has somewhat obscured the memory of the 2007-08...

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Reviving Global Nuclear Governance

GG 2020 — Fri 23 Jul 2010

By Joel Sandhu The nuclear non-proliferation regime is staggering under immense pressure. Iran remains unwilling to bend under international pressure, an erratic and unpredictable North Korea...

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Good News on Illegal Logging but more REDD+ Faces

David Ritter — Thu 22 Jul 2010

Illegal logging is a global scourge, a classic environmental bad that is both ecologically destructive and economically corrosive. Unlike many international environmental issues, illegal...

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Austerity, stimulus and growth: The global economy in the balance

William Oman — Thu 22 Jul 2010

The banking collapse of September 2008 and the first worldwide recession since the 1930s that followed it forced many countries into leverage.As a result, the public finances of most advanced...

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One Day We Will Wake Up and Iran Will Have Nuclear Weapons

GG 2020 — Mon 19 Jul 2010

By Katrin Kinzelbach As I write, all the Fellows have gathered in Shanghai for the second GG2020 session. About time, then, that the blog discusses the third GG2020 topic: nuclear...

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Japan and Papua New Guinea kick own goal on REDD

David Ritter — Thu 15 Jul 2010

The Governments of Japan and Papua Guinea chose the week of the football World Cup finals to kick an easily avoidable own goal in the international process designed to tackle...

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Did income inequality contribute to the crisis?

Philippe Bracke — Mon 12 Jul 2010

The rise in income inequality in the US is one of the most important economic phenomena of the last 30 years. In 1965, the average CEO pay was 24 times that of the average worker; 40 years later,...

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Australia moves the fight against Japanese whaling to the ICJ

Scott McKenzie — Fri 9 Jul 2010

Australia has opened a new front in the international dispute about whaling by filing a complaint against Japan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). My colleague, David...

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Globalization and Climate Deniers

David Ritter — Fri 9 Jul 2010

This week has seen the publication of yet another review demolishing the conspiracy theories and wild allegations of climate change deniers and vindicating the integrity of climate science. ...

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Climate Change Makeover II: Institutional Home Edition

GG 2020 — Thu 8 Jul 2010

I recently had dinner with the chairman of one of the largest scallop producers in Dalian, a prominent city in the world of Chinese seafood, to talk about what could be done to sustain...

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It's strategy or bureaucracy in the EU's foreign service, again

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 6 Jul 2010

Imagine you are a would-be global power with a (limited) number of foreign policy instruments. You are about to completely overhaul – and indeed strengthen – your diplomatic machinery...

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What is Malaysia's Problem?

Sean Chen — Fri 2 Jul 2010

Malaysia’s international reputation has often suffered in the past with its strongly nationalistic foreign policy and its internal ethnic and religious tensions. Current Malaysian Prime...

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Lula's Amazon Legacy in Doubt

David Ritter — Thu 1 Jul 2010

As David Humphreys outlines in his essential book Logjam: Deforestation and the Crisis of Global Governance, tackling deforestation has often been at the hard edge of competing claims of public...

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Shock and...stall?

GG 2020 — Thu 1 Jul 2010

If crises are opportunities, then Barack Obama is a lucky man. From the financial meltdown to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico—where 35,000-60,000 barrels of oil are spilling into the...

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Afghanistan's natural resources bring potential for risk and reward

Scott McKenzie — Sat 26 Jun 2010

A recent report reveals that Afghanistan sits atop a treasure trove of minerals. The proper management of this wealth could be the game-changer that many people have desperately...

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Climate Change Makeover

GG 2020 — Fri 25 Jun 2010

The politics of climate change have not exactly been reinvented in the aftermath of Copenhagen. But the debate of the past weeks and months is characterized by some remarkable qualitative shifts....

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A Global Civics: Necessary? Feasible?

Hakan Altinay — Thu 24 Jun 2010

In its conventional use, “civics” refers to the familiar constellation of rights and responsibilities emanating from citizenship in a nation-state. But what about global civics? Would...

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The EU's foreign service: From structural blockade to strategic ambition, please

Cornelius Adebahr — Wed 23 Jun 2010

At last, an agreement to build the European External Action Service (EAS) has been reached: On Monday, June 21, negotiators announced a compromise on how the new EU foreign service should operate,...

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Financial innovation and its discontents

Philippe Bracke — Mon 21 Jun 2010

For many of us, this financial crisis has provided the opportunity to learn a plethora of new fancy terms. Expressions like subprime mortgages, asset backed security (ABS), and collateralized debt...

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Oil and Water: Corporate Ocean Responsibility

David Ritter — Thu 17 Jun 2010

It is a trite observation that the degraded state of the world’s oceans represents a giant tragedy of the commons. A conspicuous lack of effective structures of private ownership and...

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Climate Change: Hope in the Future

GG 2020 — Wed 16 Jun 2010

There are many skeptics on the climate change issue. Some argue that scientists manipulate their data to prove the globe is getting warm. And some hold the view that a little warming does not...

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The badly needed reform of rating agencies

Philippe Bracke — Mon 14 Jun 2010

Since the start of the financial crisis, public anger has focused mostly on bankers. Their huge bonuses have not gone down well with the general population. This is not surprising – think...

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Justice for Bhopal?

Scott McKenzie — Sat 12 Jun 2010

This week an Indian court ruled that former executives from Union Carbide were guilty of negligence in one of the worst industrial accidents in human history. While proponents for...

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Crises in Crisis

GG 2020 — Fri 11 Jun 2010

By Tobias Leipprand Some 5000 diplomats are currently meeting in Bonn, Germany, for the next round of UN climate talks. The global public couldn’t care less. Not because other...

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A new Third Way between the State and Markets

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 8 Jun 2010

The crisis of the common currency has merely paused, not petered out when EU heads of state and government will meet for their regular (i.e. calender-, not crisis-driven) summit next week. Two...

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The century of cities

Philippe Bracke — Tue 8 Jun 2010

In 2007, for the first time in human history, people living in cities outnumbered people living in the country. Let’s celebrate. Urbanization has always accompanied humanity’s...

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The State of Asia's World Cup Participants

Sean Chen — Sun 6 Jun 2010

With the World Cup set to begin next week in South Africa, Goldman Sachs released their report in anticipation of the global sporting event. The report covers a wide array of issues, ranging from...

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Beyond Multilateralism: What's Next for Climate Change?

GG 2020 — Fri 4 Jun 2010

By Scott Moore In retrospect, the past two years have tested existing systems of global governance. First, the financial crisis, as many previous entries have noted, very nearly brought...

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Not everyone can be a Nobel

Scott McKenzie — Fri 4 Jun 2010

Two international achievement awards that will be announced in June could be helpful for encouraging development and good governance. But, their histories are also warnings about...

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The Race between Education and Catastrophe

David Ritter — Thu 3 Jun 2010

H.G. Wells, that prolific prophet and proponent of globalization who was never short of a nifty turn of phrase, remarked in the closing pages of his mammoth Outline of History that the human...

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The crisis coming to the German government

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 1 Jun 2010

When you read about Germany in the international press recently, it was probably a report on how the government pursued seemingly unilateral policies in the Euro crisis. Yesterday morning, for a...

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How to fight petty corruption in emerging economies: an Indian example

Philippe Bracke — Mon 31 May 2010

Corruption is particularly bad for emerging economies: it hampers growth, exacerbates economic inequalities, and fosters a sense of frustration among citizens. What is to be...

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What Can the World Do About North Korea?

Sean Chen — Fri 28 May 2010

Last week, the South Korean government concluded its investigation and officially accused North Korea of sinking its warship nearly two months ago. The downing of the Cheonan killed 46 sailors and...

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Asia in Need of a New Way

GG 2020 — Thu 27 May 2010

By Ting Xu The Global Governance 2020 program has three central pillars: Germany, the US and China. That triangular relationship, to me, should be expanded to encompass the much...

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The Oslo Declaration on REDD

David Ritter — Thu 27 May 2010

The Oslo Partnership Document - the endpoint of the Paris-Oslo process on interim steps towards reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation - will be formally announced at the Oslo...

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The worrying American unemployment

Philippe Bracke — Mon 24 May 2010

You wake up late in the morning. You slowly have breakfast. You watch TV, take a walk, and wait. You receive a call from the employment center: still no jobs available. You keep on...

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Sino-US Competition for the Reform of the International Financial System

GG 2020 — Fri 21 May 2010

By Yaping Lou The financial crisis that originated in the United States hit US financial hegemony heavily and showed the vulnerability of a Dollar-based international monetary system. There is...

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Female Genital Mutilation: Eradication or Appeasement?

Scott McKenzie — Fri 21 May 2010

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 100 and 140 million girls undergo some type of female genital mutilation (FGM). International bodies have labeled FGMs a violation...

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The Tinned Tuna Cartel: Possibilities and Possible Pitfalls

David Ritter — Fri 21 May 2010

Recent decades have witnessed a growth in multiple non-state actors engaged in private schemes to address transnational environmental issues, often responding to demonstrated gaps in public...

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Europe 2030 - (not) thinking ahead

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 18 May 2010

At a time when the focus of leaders in Europe is on the breaks of the stock markets; on how the latter respond, within hours rather than days, to political decisions that – under normal...

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Elusive vaccine is the only hope against HIV

Philippe Bracke — Mon 17 May 2010

Humanity has proven unable to contain the AIDS pandemic An ever-growing issue The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized in 1981. In 1983, the link with the HIV...

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Shanghai Expo as a Microcosm of Today's China

Sean Chen — Sun 16 May 2010

The World Expo 2010 opened up in Shanghai on April 30th amid lavish fireworks and an impressive show similar to that of the Beijing Olympics two years ago. The event has a reported cost of 44...

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Hungry (or not) for GMOs

Scott McKenzie — Sat 15 May 2010

Feeling hungry? Do you have food in your house or flat? If so, now would be a good time to revisit the issue of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Debate has raged back and forth on this...

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The State Advances, the Private Sector Retreats - Crisis Economic Policy in China

GG 2020 — Fri 14 May 2010

By A. Gabriel von Roda The mantra that China’s leadership has repeated to the international community, like a monk with his prayer wheel, has been the request that the WTO and the West...

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Species Decline and Global Governance

David Ritter — Thu 13 May 2010

Looking back over the last nearly four decades to the Stockholm Conference in 1972, it would be easy to take some solace and satisfaction at the steady increase in multilateral agreements which,...

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The Euro bailout

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 11 May 2010

For once, Europe positively surprised – the markets, other countries, maybe even some of its citizens. By agreeing on a comprehensive financial stability package to the hitherto unheard of...

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Humans vs robots in today's stock markets

Philippe Bracke — Mon 10 May 2010

At 2:45pm last Thursday the Dow Jones index went down 9%, its largest intraday fall in history (it later bounced back and closed at -3%). The reason for such extreme market oscillations is that...

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Questioning World Risk Society: Three Challenges for Research on the Governance of Uncertainty

Fabrizio Cantelli, Naonori Kodate, Kristian Krieger — Sun 9 May 2010

The concept of the World Risk Society (Beck, 1998) is often associated with major disasters and accidents. And indeed, safety from the forces of nature can no longer be taken for granted even by...

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Building a More Inclusive Global Financial System

GG 2020 — Fri 7 May 2010

By Swati Mylavarapu The global recession has had remarkably local effects. As hardship hits our own pocketbooks and destabilizes our local communities, people’s attention naturally...

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UN Report Calls for Universal Energy Access

Scott McKenzie — Fri 7 May 2010

If you are reading this post, you probably have electricity. This means you are not one of the 1.5 billion people on earth today that do not have access to electricity, and there is a good...

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The UK Election and Nuclear Disarmament

David Ritter — Fri 7 May 2010

The United Kingdom goes to the polls today, with the contest between Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party, David Cameron’s Conservatives and Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats...

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Should labor mobility become part of the development agenda?

William Oman — Wed 5 May 2010

Some of the brightest minds in academia have devoted their careers, over the past decades, to finding ways to lift people and countries out of poverty through economic development. There have been...

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Europe losing its share in global financial governance

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 4 May 2010

"China overtakes Germany" - for the second time in four months, German newspapers ran this headline. The year started with the news that China had surpassed Germany as the...

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Immigration: separating the economic and identity issues

Philippe Bracke — Tue 4 May 2010

Last week was dense of events related to the international debate on immigration: 1) During the British election campaign a Labour supporter asked Gordon Brown about the recent migration...

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Taiwan's ECFA Debates: More than Just Economics

Sean Chen — Sun 2 May 2010

Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou and opposition leader Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party held a closely watched televised debate last week on the merits of a potential trade...

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Who is Paying for the Greek Island?

GG 2020 — Fri 30 Apr 2010

by Rainer Breul Similar to my colleague Rajeev who applied his engineering skills to analyze the financial crisis last week, I feel obliged to go back to my original field of studies to take a...

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ICJ ruling leaves river and policy murky

Scott McKenzie — Fri 30 Apr 2010

Last week the International Court of Justice (ICJ) effectively sided with Uruguay in the long standing Pulp Mills dispute, settling the legal action but doing little to resolve the anger of...

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Seafood Fair and Foul

David Ritter — Thu 29 Apr 2010

The European Seafood Exposition is the world’s largest seafood fair and one of the most significant events on the global fish-trade calendar. This week, over six huge halls at the imposing...

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Of Oligarchy and Reform

William Oman — Wed 28 Apr 2010

Last Thursday, Barack Obama gave a speech in New York on the need for financial reform. Some described it as a lecture to Wall Street. Others criticized Obama’s unwavering faith in the...

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It's the debt, stupid

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 27 Apr 2010

After weeks and months of soothing the markets and stitching a rescue mechanism, the Greek overture to the European debt crisis played out in full. With Prime Minister Papandreou asking both the...

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IMF's intriguing proposal: a global tax on finance

Philippe Bracke — Mon 26 Apr 2010

The last recession has made it clear that the current financial system is flawed and needs repair. Action has to be taken at the international level, because banks and funds stretch their...

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Chevron wins round one against Ecuador

Scott McKenzie — Sun 25 Apr 2010

A recent decision by an international arbitration tribunal, administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, is a setback for Ecuador and for environmentalists that wish to use the...

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Thailand's Democratic Growing Pains

Sean Chen — Sun 25 Apr 2010

Since mid-March, the red shirt anti-government protestors of Thailand have clashed with the military and police, resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds more injured. As recently as Thursday,...

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A Pint of Financial Challenges

GG 2020 — Fri 23 Apr 2010

By Rajeev Sibal Thus far you have seen a few introductory posts on the GG2020 blog. The next blog will begin to get into more specific and substantive debate about global governance,...

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Of Whales and Progress

David Ritter — Thu 22 Apr 2010

Today is the day when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will publish a proposal to shift the status quo in advance of the annual Commission meeting in June in Morocco. For the past two...

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The Dual Challenge of Global Governance

Thorsten Benner — Wed 21 Apr 2010

By Thorsten Benner Call it multipolarity, non-polarity or just a messy world – one thing is clear: we are witnessing a geopolitical transition. Countries such as China, India, Indonesia...

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Health Financing: More Questions than Answers

Robert Marten — Tue 20 Apr 2010

A recent article in the Lancet entitled, Public Financing of Health in Developing Countries: A Cross-National Systematic Analysis, should lead to a serious moment of reflection for those financing...

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National Parliamentarians' international caucus on European security ends

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 20 Apr 2010

If you have been deploring narrowly national deliberations in your legislature when it comes to international security issues, things may get worse soon. To say “it’s Lisbon’s...

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World Bank Promotes Climate Status Quo

Scott McKenzie — Tue 20 Apr 2010

Proponents of clean energy suffered a setback this month after the World Bank approved plans for a major new power plant in South Africa. The $3.75 billion loan will help the government owned...

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The Economics of how 5 cents can save the world

Michael Donnelly — Mon 19 Apr 2010

Starting in January, the District of Columbia government began charging a five cent tax on each plastic shopping bag given at checkout to carry groceries and other food. This tax had a...

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Being world's top currency: the dollar dilemma

Philippe Bracke — Mon 19 Apr 2010

Should China allow its currency to appreciate against the dollar? This question is provoking debate all over the world (see a recent post by Sean Chen on this blog). In what follows, I will tackle...

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The Problem with Pushing China to Revalue the Yuan

Sean Chen — Sat 17 Apr 2010

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan last week to specifically discuss the valuation of the Chinese currency. The two countries have been sparring...

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The Road from Paris to Oslo

David Ritter — Thu 15 Apr 2010

The road to Oslo – the next stop in the multilateral quest to reduce climate change emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) – is becoming increasingly clear following a...

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The "EU necessity" in transatlantic relations

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 13 Apr 2010

These days in Washington, the European Union must look more like a nuisance than a necessity. The new Lisbon Treaty, hailed by Europhiles as the end of a prolonged period of navel-gazing, has...

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How to invest your country's money

Philippe Bracke — Sun 11 Apr 2010

When you have a lot of money, you have to be careful where you put it. That’s why Norwegians watch closely the moves of their Government Pension Fund Global, also known as “the...

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Where to now on Deforestation

David Ritter — Sat 10 Apr 2010

The Fourth Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) Dialogue on Forests, Governance and Climate Change held at Stationers Hall in London this week, provided a timely opportunity to test the...

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A Balkans' view on the crisis

Cornelius Adebahr — Fri 9 Apr 2010

Meanwhile, in a different corner of Europe… The old town of Sarajevo is buzzing. People are promenading along the old stalls selling traditional jewellery, mobile phones, and homemade...

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Global Governance 2020 and Global Policy

GG 2020 — Wed 7 Apr 2010

By Tom Hale All politics may be local, but, as this journal demonstrates, policy is more and more global. That is to say, political processes are often driven by narrow interests and domestic...

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Civil Society after Copenhagen

David Ritter — Mon 5 Apr 2010

It is now accepted wisdom that the fifteenth conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which met in Copenhagen at the end of last year was a...

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Universal Health Care is "It" in Global Health

Robert Marten — Wed 31 Mar 2010

Citizens of the world “have always been more impressed by the power of the US example than the example of US power”, and US health care legislation passed recently does nothing but...

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Okinawa: Flashpoint for a New U.S.-Japan Relationship?

Sean Chen — Wed 31 Mar 2010

By the end of May, the coalition government led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will be making a decision on the future of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma currently located in...

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Mending the US health care system's market for lemons - with or without the party of "lemon socialism"

William Oman — Tue 30 Mar 2010

The United States’ health care system, as is well documented, is the most expensive one among OECD countries in terms of expenditure per capita. Yet it is also one of the worst in terms of...

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Europe and the Crisis: Only Past the First Post

Cornelius Adebahr — Tue 30 Mar 2010

In the wake of the Great Recession, Europe is embroiled in its own financial crisis. The debt crisis that has now flared in Greece threatens to hit the whole continent, from the Mediterranean to...

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Blue Finished as CITES Doesn't Bite

David Ritter — Tue 30 Mar 2010

We’ve caught and eaten the Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) for millennia. In the period of 'ancient globalisation', bluefin was a staple of the classical world. The...

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Take macroeconomic data with a pinch of salt

Philippe Bracke — Fri 26 Mar 2010

Economic statistics are difficult to compile. National accounts (such as GDP and aggregate investments) depend on educated guesses and are frequently subject to revisions. Sometimes, as in the...

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The Age of Mobility: Can we make migration work for all?

Peter Sutherland — Sun 28 Feb 2010

It is tempting to say that the economic crisis has “changed everything.” Public finances have been dealt a sharp blow. The job market is in turmoil, with unemployment reaching or...

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The Hydra-Headed Crisis

David Held, Mary Kaldor, Danny Quah — Sun 28 Feb 2010

We are living at a time of successive crises – the Haiti earthquake, famine in East Africa, the Taliban attack on Kabul, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Boxing Day Tsunami, Hurricane...

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