Weak States and Global Threats: Assessing Evidence of Spillovers

A key motivation behind recent donor attention and financial resources devoted to developing countries is the presumed connection between weak and failing states, on the one hand, and a variety of transnational threats, on the other. Indeed, it has become conventional wisdom that poorly performing states generate multiple cross-border “spillovers,” including terrorism, weapons proliferation, organized crime, regional instability, global pandemics, and energy insecurity. What is striking is how little empirical evidence underpins such sweeping assertions. A closer look suggests that the connection between state weakness and global threats is less clear and more variable than typically assumed. Both the type and extent of “spillovers” depend in part on whether the weakness in question is a function of state capacity, will, or a combination of the two. Moreover, a preliminary review suggests that some trans-border threats are more likely to emerge not from the weakest states but from stronger states that possess narrower but critical gaps in capacity and will. Crafting an effective U.S. and international strategy towards weak states and the cross-border spillovers they sometimes generate will depend on a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms linking these two sets of phenomena. The challenge for analysts and policymakers will be to get greater clarity about which states are responsible for which threats and design development and other external interventions accordingly. This working paper represents an initial foray in this direction, suggesting avenues for future research and policy development.weak state, failing state, regional instability, global threats

The Pentagon and Global Development: Making Sense of the DoD’s Expanding Role

One of the most striking trends in U.S. foreign aid policy is the surging role of the Department of Defense (DoD). The Pentagon now accounts for over 20 percent of U.S. official development assistance (ODA). DoD has also expanded its provision of non-ODA assistance, including training and equipping of foreign military forces in fragile states. These trends raise concerns that U.S. foreign and development policies may become subordinated to a narrow, short-term security agenda at the expense of broader, longer-term diplomatic goals and institution-building efforts in the developing world. We find that the overwhelming bulk of ODA provided directly by DoD goes to Iraq and Afghanistan, which are violent environments that require the military to take a lead role through instruments like Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and the use of Commanders’ Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds. This funding surge is in principle temporary and likely to disappear when the U.S. involvement in both wars ends. But beyond these two conflicts, DoD has expanded (or proposes to expand) its operations in the developing world to include a number of activities that might be more appropriately undertaken by the State Department, USAID and other civilian actors. These initiatives include: the use of “Section 1206” authorities to train and equip foreign security forces; the establishment of the new Combatant Command for Africa (AFRICOM); and the administration’s proposed Building Global Partnerships (BGP) Act, which would expand DoD’s assistance authorities. We attribute the Pentagon’s growing aid role to three factors: the Bush administration’s strategic focus on the “global war on terror”; the vacuum left by civilian agencies, which struggle to deploy adequate numbers of personnel and to deliver assistance in insecure environments; and chronic under-investment by the United States in non-military instruments of state-building. We believe that DoD’s growing aid role beyond our two theaters of war carries potentially significant risks, by threatening to displace or overshadow broader U.S. foreign policy and development objectives in target countries and exacerbating the longstanding imbalance between the military and civilian components of the U.S. approach to state-building.Department of Defense, development, foriegn aid

Parent and Student Voices on the First Year of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program

In the 50 years since economist Milton Friedman published “The Role of Government in Education” scholars and policy makers have been debating how parental choice through market mechanisms can and does operate in education. Market “optimists” argue that education is a service that can be produced under a variety of arrangements and that parents are natural education consumers. Market “pessimists” argue that education is a public good that should be produced in government-run schools, and that school choice programs suffer “market failure” because only advantaged families will have the resources and experience to choose effectively

Should the voting age be lowered to sixteen in the United Kingdom?

This investigation touched upon political ideologies, psychological perspectives on cognitive maturity and rationalisation, as well as the social views and legislative issues surrounding the lowering of the age of suffrage. To do this, professional, political, and public opinion was gathered through the use of surveys and interviews, in order to decide whether the voting age should be lowered, and if any safety measures need to be implemented to secure the integrity of the vote and prevent the abuse of the right to suffrage. The issue of suffrage resurfaced at the end of the First World War when many women refused to return to traditional roles, expressing desires to continue working. The Representation of the Peoples Act 1918 gave “Women over the age of 30” the right to vote as well as “all men over the age of 21” (Archer-Shee, 1918). However, it was not until The Equal Franchise Act was passed in 1928 that the voting age for women was equal to their male counterpart (Joynson-Hicks, 1928). Since 1963, those over the age of eighteen could vote in any election in the United Kingdom as the voting age was lowered to eighteen in 1969. It now seems to be the right time to debate suffrage once again, not for the right to vote for women nor to make it an equal vote, but rather to enfranchise a new generation

A Generalized Inflated Poisson Distribution

Count data with excess number of zeros, ones or twos are commonly encountered in experimental situations. In this thesis we have examined one such fertility data from Sweden. The standard Poisson distribution, which is widely used to model such count data, may not provide a good fit to model women\u27s fertility (defined as the number of children per woman in her lifetime) in a specific population due to various cultural and sociological reasons. Therefore, the usual Poisson distribution is inflated at specific values suitably, as dictated by the societal norms, to fit the available data. The data set is examined using various tests and techniques to determine the validity of using a multi-point inflated Poisson distribution as compared to the standard Poisson distribution. The various tests and techniques used include comparing the method of moment estimator of various multi-point inflated Poisson distributions along with the standard Poisson distribution. The maximum-likelihood estimators for Poisson distributions are also found and compared. Using simulation study, the maximum-likelihood and method of moment estimators were compared, and the maximum-likelihood estimator was found to have an overall better performance. Validation for the results found involves using the Chi-square goodness of fit test on the various Poisson distributions. Another validation test involves comparing the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) of the various Poisson distributions. The results of the various tests and techniques demonstrate that a multi-point inflated Poisson distribution provides a better fit and model as compared to the standard Poisson distribution

Comments: Scope of Protection Accorded Confidential Employees under the NLRA

Confidential employees are not expressly excluded from the National Labor Relations Act. Recognizing the incongruity of requiring employers to bargain collectively with confidential employees, the National Labor Relations Board has developed a test that prohibits certain employees from becoming members of units comprised of other clerical workers. However, the Board and the courts disagree over whether those confidential employees satisfying the test are excluded only from becoming members of a particular unit or from the Act in toto. This comment examines this clash of views and suggests that confidential employees should be excluded from all provisions of the Act

The Relationship Between Teacher Certification and Perceptions of Adapted Physical Education Program Practices in Metropolitan Atlanta Public Elementary Schools

In Georgia, there is no separate endorsement or required specialized teacher certification for adapted physical educators. Because of this absence, the resulting span of personnel teaching adapted physical education (APE) in the state ranges widely in terms of certification areas. Educational administrators would benefit from knowing if any perceived differences exist between APE programs led by teachers with specialized APE certification and those led by general education PE teachers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between APE teacher certification and school personnel perceptions of APE program practices

Managing ourselves: young people, soap opera and technologies of self-government

This study examines two television soap operas and their consumption by a select group of teenagers. The soap operas in question, Neighbours and Home and Away, are produced in Australia and watched by large audiences in the UK. The study's broadest aim is to discover the nature of the relationship between the programmes and their teenage viewers. In order to meet this aim, the study combines textual analysis and audience research. Following a review of the textual analysis of soap opera, Neighbours and Home and Away are examined in detail as texts. The audience study is then introduced and located. The empirical study involved tape-recording interviews with groups of 13-16 year olds in one Edinburgh High School, and with individual teenagers in their own homes. In total, 50 teenagers were interviewed. The recurring findings of the audience study are analysed in detail. The final two chapters of the thesis contextualize the findings and conclusions of the textual and audience studies. A selective genealogy is provided which theoretically locates Neighbours and Home and Away and their consumption as cultural practices in self-government. It is argued that the two programmes should be understood as integral parts of a broad but specific arena for learning. It is argued that interviewees use Neighbours and Home and Away as cultural resources. They learn how to conduct themselves in intimate and social relationships, and, in particular, learn how to practise and reconstruct their gendered selves. It is argued that the model of analysis elaborated is valuable because: it best explains the specific nature of Neighbours and Home and Away and their consumption; it provides a way of moving beyond something of an orthodoxy in soap opera analysis; and it avoids the binary logic of some recent arguments about popular culture and social change

The most vulnerable households have been forgotten in the cost-of-living crisis and the consequences will be devastating. It’s time to scrap the benefit cap.

The government must urgently pay attention to the needs of those most vulnerable in our society. While the to-do list is long, scrapping the benefit cap would be a very good place to start, write Kitty Stewart and Ruth Patrick