Columbia International Affairs Online

CIAO DATE: 02/08

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

 

Volume 8, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2007

Forum

• Poverty and the Periphery: Cities in Latin America and the Former Soviet Union
  Allison Garland, Mejgan Massoumi, Blair A. Ruble & Joseph S. Tulchin

  This year, for the first time in history, a majority of the world's people will live in cities. Global population growth will continue to concentrate in urban centers of the developing world, which will absorb more than two billion new residents over the next two decades. The pace of urbanization far exceeds the rate at which basic services can be provided, and the consequences for the urban poor have been dire. Global poerty has increasingly become an urban phenomenon. The challenge to academics and policymakers is to better understand the process of urbanization and the needs of local populations by recognizing the opportunity to harness the energy of urban diversity and growth as a positive force of human development.

• Criminal Networks in Urban Brazil (PDF, 7 pages, 94 KB)
  Bryan McCann

  Brazil's megacities are under seige from within. Criminal networks formerly content with control over isolated slices of turf have demonstrated an ever-greater willingness to choke off the economic and social life of the city at large whenever it is in their immediate interests. Brazil's security apparatus - chiefly its surprisingly timid federal investigative bodies and its corruption-plauged state police corps - have proved unable to adapt to this transformation. In consequence, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are at the leading edge of a crisis confronting many megacities across the global south, driven by the mismatch between increasingly flexible transnational criminal networks and corrupt local security forces. Read the full text...

• Greening the Red Cities: Sustainable Development in China
  Jingjing Qian, Barbara Finamore & Connie Chan

  Since opening its doors to the world in 1978 and implementing reforms to its central planning economy, China has experienced the fastest period of urbanization in its history. The percentage of its population living in cities increased from 18 percent in 1978 to 43 percent in 2005. Today, 560 million Chinese people - nearly double the U.S. population - live and work in cities. The Chinese central government has begun to recognize the devastating levels of environmental pollution and inefficient land and is changing its strategies to promote sustainable urban development.

• A Lagos Thing: Rules and Realities in the Nigerian Megacity
  Oka Obono

  The word Lagos has a peculiar resonance for inhabitants and visitors alike, who associate it with several competing tendencies. On the one hand, it represents a virtual necropolis, replete with corruption, poverty, crime, and sprawling corpses. Paradoxically, however, this modern metropolis, the largest in Nigeria, is also celebrated for its life, ethos of hard work, ingenuity, and capacity for local technological innovation and adaptation. It is associated with industrialization, modernization, and bright city lights - a place of boundles affluence and economic and political opportunities. The city possesses a pontaneous intimacy which locals view as proof of its cultural authenticity, while the rise of ethnic militias and neighborhood vigilante groups speaks of the resistance of a besieged human spirit.

Business & Economics

• Through a Continental Lens: Making More Out of the North American Trade Platform
  David Emerson

  The United States and Canada can build on past bilateral trade success and overcome new security challenges to ensure future global competitiveness.

• Maximizing Microfinance
  Holly Lard & Isabelle Barres

  In order for microfinance to continue to serve the poor, the current attitudes and expectations need to be realigned with empirical realities.

Conflict and Security

• Turkey Eyes Iraq
  David Cuthell

  Witnessing the suffering of its ethnic compatriots in a region to which it has historical claims, Turkey may be prompted to intervene in Iraq's Kurdish north.

• Balancing Act: Australia's Strategic Relations with China and the United States
  Adam C. Cobb

  Australia can avoid being squeezed by the great powers in the Asia Pacific region by leveraging its natural resource endowments and becoming an indispensibel energy partner.

Culture and Society

• De-Arabization in the Gulf: Foreign Labor and the Struggle for Local Culture
  Andrzej Kapiszewski

  As Asians now outnumber Arabs in foreign labor, governments in the Persian Gulf are taking steps to protect and promote Arab culture.

• Abu Reuter and the E-Jihad: Virtual Battlefronts from Iraq to the Horn of Africa (PDF, 8 pages, 94 KB)
  Hanna Rogan

  Since 9/11 the Internet has become the new frontier in the fight for hearts and minds in the Muslim world.

Law and Ethics

• Crime Without Punishment: The Litvinenko Affair and Putin's Culture of Violence
  Edward W. Walker

  The Litvinenko affair offers deeper insights into the political culture of contemporary Russia.

• Accountability for Atrocity: Lessons from Rwanda
  Gerald Gahima

  The Rwanda case holds many lessons for post-conflict societies in search of lasting peace.

• Between Global Governance and Human Rights: International Migration and the United Nations
  Antoine Pecoud & Paul de Guchteneire

  Recent international dialogue on migration suggests its ascendance on the global agenda, but major barriers to multilateral action will be difficult to overcome.

Politics and Diplomacy

• Beyond Hollywood and the Boardroom: Celebrity Diplomacy
  Andrew F. Cooper

  Celebrity diplomacy is shaking up traditional notions of diplomacy, with Hollywood types bringing the buzz and business executives supplying the bite.

Science and Technology

• Quenching our Global Thirst
  James F. Klausner, Nate Mitten & Brad Ingram

  Meeting increasing water needs across the globe requires creative solutions on both sides of the supply and demand equation.

Books

• The Islamic Republic's Dilemma
  Mansoor Moaddel

  A review of two recently released works on Iranian society and its nuclear ambitions: Conversations in Tehran and Iran's Nuclear Ambitions.

View from the Ground

• Trauma and the Trials of Reconciliation in Cambodia
  J. Eli Margolis

  The UN Special Tribunal for crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia is finally underway, but whose interests do the trials really serve?

A Look Back

• Financial Firefighting: The Future of the IMF
  Interview with David Lipton

  The former Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs reflects on the evolution of the global financial system.