Blog Post
Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks
By The Social Learning Group
(The MIT Press, 2001)
Volume 1: A Comparative History of Social Responses to Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and Acid Rain
Volume 2: A Functional Analysis of Social Responses to Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and Acid Rain
Led by Harvard''s Kennedy School of Government, the international Social Learning Group has published a comprehensive analysis of how science and politics have interacted in shaping policy responses to key issues of global environmental change.
Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks is a two-volume comparative assessment. It traces the evolution of efforts to address acid rain, stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change from International Geophysical Year of 1957 through the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development of 1992.
The volumes offer a comparative exploration of national and international settings including Japan, the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, the former Soviet Union, Hungary, the European Union and international environmental organizations.
They describe the development of management response along two dimensions: one focusing on problem framing, agenda setting, and issue attention; the other on interacting management functions of risk assessment, monitoring, option assessment, goal and strategy formulation, implementation and program evaluation.
The Social Learning Group represents a unique collaboration of thirty-seven scholars from nine nations with disciplinary backgrounds ranging from the natural sciences through political science, science studies, and policy analysis.
The Project on Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks is led by the Belfer Center''s William Clark and Nancy Dickson.
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/sl/index.htm
"This book is an extremely valuable reference for scientists like myself who become involved with broad assessments of environmental problems and thus require appropriate historical, social, and political perspectives that transcend the natural sciences."
--Nobel Laureate Mario Molina, MIT
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict: An International Security Reader, Revised Edition
Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds.
(The MIT Press, 2001)
Most recent wars have been complex and bloody internal conflicts driven to a significant degree by nationalism and ethnic animosity. Since the end of the Cold War, dozens of wars -- in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Somalia, the former Soviet Union, and elsewhere -- have killed or displaced millions of people. Understanding and controlling these wars has become one of the most important and frustrating tasks for scholars and political leaders.
This revised and expanded edition of Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict contains essays from some of the world''s leading analysts of national ism, ethnic conflict, and internal war. The essays from the first edition have been updated and supplemented by analyses of recent conflicts and new research on the resolution of ethnic and civil wars.
The first part of the book addresses the roots of nationalistic and ethnic wars, focusing in particular on the former Yugoslavia. The second part assesses options for international action, including the use of force and the deployment of peacekeeping troops. The third part examines political challenges that often complicate attempts to prevent or end internal conflicts, including refugee flows and the special difficulties of resolving civil wars.
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/BCSIA/Library.nsf/ISrdrschron
Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change
By Jane Fountain
(Brookings Press, 2001)
The benefits of using technology to remake government seem almost infinite. The promise of such programs as user-friendly "virtual agencies" and portals where citizens can access all sections of government from a single website has excited international attention. The potential of a digital state cannot be realized, however, unless the rigid structures of the contemporary bureaucratic state change along with the times.
Building the Virtual State explains how the American public sector must evolve and adapt to exploit the possibilities of digital governance fully and fairly. The book finds that many issues involved in integrating technology and government have not been adequately debated or even recognized. Drawing from a rich collection of case studies, the book argues that the real challenges lie not in achieving the technical capability of creating a government on the web, but rather in overcoming the entrenched organizational and political divisions within the state.
Questions such as who pays for new government websites, which agencies will maintain the sites, and who will ensure that the privacy of citizens is respected reveal the extraordinary obstacles that confront efforts to create a virtual state. These political and structural battles will influence not only how the American state will be remade in the Information Age, but also who will be the winners and losers in a digital society.
http://www.brook.edu/press/books/virtual _state.htm
"Fountain cuts through the hype and promise of easy and quick gains from the Internet to show that its long term value lies in harnessing its potential through organizational and institutional changes."
--James L. Barksdale, The Barksdale Group (former CEO, Netscape)
Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran
By Brenda Shaffer
(The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001)
In this incisive Policy Paper, Caspian Basin specialist Brenda Shaffer presents a comprehensive overview of how Russia and Iran view each other, providing a detailed explanation of why Russia does not share all U.S. concerns about Iranian actions. Using her rich command of the Russian literature on Iran, the author argues that because Russia views its relations and cooperation with Iran as vital to national security, it will not jeopardize those relations for the sake of short-term material incentives or out of fear of U.S. condemnation.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubs /Shafferexec.htm
Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe
By Mitchell A. Orenstein
(University of Michigan Press, 2001)
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the countries of East-Central Europe embarked on a journey to transform themselves into democratic capitalist societies. Their governments searched for strategies that would allow them to pursue radical market reforms within the context of nascent democratic politics. Poland adopted a neo-liberal strategy that attempted to push through as much reform as possible before an anti-reform backlash could occur. In the Czech Republic, a social liberal strategy for transformation attempted to combine neoliberal macro economic policies with social democratic measures designed to avert such a backlash.
A detailed analysis of Poland and the Czech Republic suggests that alternation between strategies has been the secret to the success of East-Central European countries. This comparative case analysis identifies the significance of reform mistakes during transition and the corrective benefits of policy alternation, its claims illustrated with an in-depth study of privatization policy in the two countries.
Orenstein delves into the historic struggle to build capitalism and democracy during a decade of postcommunist transition in East-Central Europe and develops a model that explains why democratic policy alternation may accelerate policy learning under conditions of uncertainty and constraint.
http://www.press.umich.edu/titles/09746.html