US DOMESTIC POLITICS
AP Photo
November 19, 2008
"Obama and Ozdemir: Breaking Barriers"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
"Cem Özdemir, 42, was elected Saturday as co-leader of the Green Party, capping a career in the German and European parliaments that started in 1994. In terms of breaking color and ethnic barriers, this equals or even tops the historic first elected American Black president, because the nature of European societies is so much less pluralistic and culturally-racially-ethnically less egalitarian than American society."
AP Photo
November 18, 2008
"How to Help People Whose Home Values Are Underwater"
Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
"The increased supply of homes for sale will create a vicious cycle, further depressing house prices, further raising the number of homes with negative equity, and weakening the balance sheets of financial institutions. This is the primary cause of the dysfunctional credit markets. None of the existing proposals to help homeowners with negative equity would eliminate the incentive to default."
AP Photo
November 18, 2008
"A Chapter For Detroit To Open"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
"The simplest solution is to allow GM and the others to file for bankruptcy. If the companies file under Chapter 11, they would be able to continue producing cars, and the workforce would remain employed while the firms reorganized. The firms would also be able to get short-term credit under bankruptcy protection."
AP Photo
November 12, 2008
"Inspiration for Climate Change"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board
"...[W]ill Obama work with Congress to develop climate strategies that are scientifically sound, economically sensible, and thereby politically pragmatic? Will he take on the difficult task of crafting meaningful climate legislation?
The only politically feasible approach that can make a real dent in the problem is a comprehensive, upstream cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 50 to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The declining cap will increase the cost of polluting, thereby discouraging the use of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels and providing powerful incentives for energy conservation and technology innovation."
AP Photo
November 10, 2008
"Joy in America"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
"George W. Bush and his band of zealots used the anger-based emotional high after 9/11 to simultaneously misdiagnose themselves, their enemies, their friends and their place in the world. Consequently, they pursued catastrophic domestic and foreign policies. Obama must beware such pitfalls. He and his senior officials must understand more accurately how the United States and the world actually interact, in good times or bad, in order to forge policies based on credible analyses that are free of self-congratulatory emotionalism or pride."
AP Photo
November 7, 2008
"America Needs a New Style of Leadership: It's Time to Retire the 'Big Man,' Heroic Warrior Model of Leadership"
Op-Ed, U.S. News and World Report
By Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations
"Smart warriors, however, know how to lead with more than just the use of force. As Gen. David Petraeus demonstrated in Iraq, hearts and minds also matter, and smart warriors need the soft power of attraction as well as the hard power of coercion. Indeed, an oversimplified image of warrior-style leadership in President Bush's first term caused costly setbacks for America's role in the world. It is not a manly modern Achilles or the strongest alpha male who makes the best warrior leader in today's communication age. Military leadership today requires political and managerial skills...."
AP Photo
November 5, 2008
"Pride and Shame in American Politics"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
"The deeper hurtful reality this election campaign has revealed is that Arabs and Muslims are the new Jews and Blacks in America, because they are treated today in the same way that Jews and Blacks (then called Negroes) were treated throughout the early- and mid-20th Century."
istock
November 4, 2008
"Financial Leaders Go AWOL in the Meltdown"
Op-Ed, Bloomberg
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"What's happening is a crisis of capitalism, though not because there is a debate about the ultimate virtues of capitalism over socialism -- that argument is long over. Rather, the failure of business leadership on an almost cataclysmic scale has brought front and center the issue of how government should rein in business."
October 31, 2008
"Does Costly Signaling Matter? Preliminary Evidence from a Field Experiment"
Discussion Paper
By Philip Potter, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2006-2008 and Julia Gray
This paper presents a preliminary experiment designed to determine whether costly signaling plays a role in political interactions. Drawing on the expansive signaling literature in international relations and elsewhere, we propose that the quality of solicitation materials matters because voters respond to costly signals from candidates as a shortcut for determining both a candidate’s investment in their own campaign and the degree of commitment from other voters to that candidate’s cause.
AP Photo
October 15, 2008
"Beware an October Surprise from bin Laden"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations
"...Mr bin Laden is involved in a civil war within Islam. He wants the US to pursue policies that create the appearance of a clash of civilisations. Anything that polarises the mainstream of Muslim opinion helps his recruiting. As the deputy director for analysis at the CIA commented at the time: 'Certainly, he would want Bush to keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years.'..."
