Closing Guantanamo

CLOSING GUANTANAMO: IS EUROPE READY? Sibylle Scheipers, Survival, February–March 2009, pp. 5-12. "President-elect Barack Obama’s announcement that closing the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be among his priorities has raised hopes among Europeans. Reform of the detention system may be perceived as a first step towards the renewal of closer transatlantic ties, in line with the wider expectations of European governments and domestic publics towards the new US administration. Apart from the symbolic value, reform of US detention policy would also have the practical benefit of facilitating transatlantic cooperation in areas where it is most crucial: intelligence-sharing, transnational law enforcement and the conduct of multinational military operations. European governments will also need to rethink their own approach to detention. Their reaction to US detention policies has encompassed both critical rhetoric and tacit acceptance (and sometimes assistance). These European governments have, however, not done enough to face up to the problem themselves." READ MORE

CLOSING GUANTANAMO: CAN OBAMA CLOSE THE DETENTION CAMP WITHIN ONE YEAR? Kenneth Jost, The CQ Researcher, February 27, 2009, pp. 177-200. "President Obama on his second full day in office ordered the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year. The facility at the U.S. Naval Station in Cuba has been controversial ever since President George W. Bush decided in late 2001 to use it to hold suspected enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Both Obama and Republican candidate John McCain promised during the presidential campaign to close the facility if elected. But that poses many difficult issues about the camp's remaining 241 prisoners. The government wants to send many to other countries — with few takers so far — but worries that some may resume hostile activities against the United States. Some may be brought to the U.S. for trial, but those prosecutions would raise a host of uncharted legal issues. Meanwhile, opposition already has surfaced to any plans for housing detainees in the United States. And human-rights advocates worry the Obama administration may continue to back some form of preventive detention for suspected terrorists." READ MORE

OBAMA'S PRISONERS DILEMMA. Kenneth Roth, Foreign Affairs, March 12, 2009, var. pages. "President Barack Obama plans to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The United States should move the prisoners currently held there into the criminal justice system and hold trials as soon as possible." READ MORE

Road to Democracy

HOW DEVELOPMENT LEADS TO DEMOCRACY. Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel,  Foreign Affairs, March/April 2009, var. pages. "Democratic institutions cannot be set up easily; they are likely to emerge only when certain social and cultural conditions exist. But economic development and modernization push those conditions in the right direction and make democracy increasingly likely." READ MORE

DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE: POLITICAL VS. DEVELOPMENTAL? Thomas Carothers, Journal of Democracy, January 2009, pp. 5-19. "Democracy-aid providers are moving away from one-size-fits-all strategies and are adapting their programs to diverse political contexts. Two distinct overall approaches to assisting democracy have emerged in response." READ MORE
 
PARADOXES AND CONTRADICTIONS IN EU DEMOCRACY PROMOTION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: THE LIMITS OF EU NORMATIVE POWER. Michelle Pace, Democratization, Feb. 2009, pp. 39-58. "Disciplinary debates about the challenge of liberal democracy in the Mediterranean suggest that the underlying constraints in the region, such as the nature of authoritarian regimes, economic underdevelopment, and the nature of rentier states, pose severe tests for external actors like the European Union (EU) seeking to encourage political reform. These debates have, however, failed to address the question of how and why liberal democracy per se achieved normative status. This article seeks to take this debate forward by examining the substance of the EU's efforts at democracy promotion in the Mediterranean." READ MORE

FREE AT LAST? Bernard Lewis, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2009, pp. 77-88. "The future of the Arab world will depend on the outcome of a battle between those advocating Islamic theocracy and those seeking to establish liberal democracy." READ MORE

Foreign Aid and Migration

THE “DFID Model”: LESSONS FOR THE U.S. Anne C. Richard and George Rupp, Center for Transatlantic Relations and the International Rescue Committee, Feb. 9, 2009, pp. 1-8. "In the United States, some of those calling for modernization or reform of the U.S. foreign aid bureaucracy have suggested that the organization and approach of the UK’s Department for International Development, or DFID, could serve as models for a stronger U.S. development agency. This brief report looks at the aspects of the DFID model that could be imported to the U.S. in the new Obama Administration with the support of Congress. It also identifies ways in which the DFID approach may be more difficult to introduce in the U.S. Because the U.S. has a completely different political system (presidential instead of parliamentary), wholesale adoption of the DFID model by the U.S. government is not possible." READ MORE

MIGRATION AND THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN: WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION. Demetrios G. Papademetriou et al. Migration Policy Institute, January 2009, pp. 1-15. "As unemployment rises and household budgets shrink across the European Union, policymakers, analysts, and the public are beginning to ask what the consequences will be with respect to immigration. The authors make clear that the implications of the recession should not be underestimated. The downturn is likely to affect the kind of immigrants that arrive and leave, with implications for labor supply in certain sectors, for integration, and for the host communities." READ MORE

TRAFFICKING AND HUMAN DIGNITY. Mark P Lagon, Policy Review, Dec 2008/Jan 2009, pp. 51-61. "While much has changed since the days of the transatlantic slave trade, the lie which fueled that horrific chapter in history is at the root of sex trafficking and slave labor today - a belief that some people are less than human. Among these factors is the flagrant use of excessive debt as a tool of manipulation, the fraudulent practices of some middle-men brokering the movement of millions across international borders, weak laws - and weak enforcement of laws - governing labor exploitation, some aspects of sponsorship laws in Persian Gulf states, and a fundamental lack of understanding about human trafficking." READ MORE

THE COMING FOOD COUPS. Andrew S. Natsios and Kelly W. Doley, The Washington Quarterly, January 2009, pp. 7-25. "Historically, different political systems–particularly failed and totalitarian states–run different political and security risks as they face food price increases. If donor governments draw on traditional famine theory, they can better identify today’s gravest risks and implement more effective responses."  READ MORE

International Institutions

RESHAPING THE WORLD ORDER. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2009, var. pages. "The current architecture of international institutions must be updated, but skeptics question whether the United States is up to the task. They need not worry: Washington still possesses enough power and legitimacy to spearhead reform." READ MORE

POWER AND INTERESTS AT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT. Darren Hawkins, Sais Review of International Affairs, Summer Fall 2008, pp. 107-119. "U.S. policy toward the International Criminal Court is disconnected from the central politics of the Court and focused on a mostly irrelevant sideshow. The Court’s fundamental political problem is its need for money and security forces to arrest suspects and try them. This feature makes the Court more subject to the control of powerful states than most have realized. Even if the United States cooperated with the Court, however, arrests and prisoners would likely be few and far between. Instead, the United States should work with the Court to refocus its efforts on capacity building in weakly democratic states." READ MORE