International Relations

697 Items

 Protesters on demonstration bus interacting with police and pedestrians during 918 Shenyang Anti-Japan Demonstration, September 18, 2012.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

To Punish or Protect? Local Leaders and Economic Coercion in China

| Fall 2023

During foreign policy disputes involving China and some of its most important commercial partners, why do local leaders punish or protect foreign commercial actors? The decision comes down to the political incentives facing each local leader. Understanding this variation is important because how local leaders treat foreign businesses can influence the overall effectiveness of the Chinese government’s economic coercion against foreign states. 

"Speaking of Leaks," cartoon, Independent, January 29, 1917.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

"Wars without Gun Smoke": Global Supply Chains, Power Transitions, and Economic Statecraft

    Authors:
  • Ling S. Chen
  • Miles M. Evers
| Fall 2023

Power transitions affect a state’s ability to exercise economic statecraft. As a dominating and a rising power approach parity, they face structural incentives to decouple their economies. This decoupling affects business-state relations: high-value businesses within the dominant power tend to oppose their state’s economic statecraft because of its costs to them, whereas low-value businesses within the rising power tend to cooperate because they gain from it. 

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Blog Post - views-on-the-economy-and-the-world

Naomi Klein’s brand

| Sep. 21, 2023

Naomi Klein has a new book, Doppleganger: A Trip into the Mirror World.  It could offer some sorely needed insights into the bizarre tangle of political polarization, contested realities, and viral digital communication in which we find ourselves in the 21st century — the improbable dream from which we are evidently not going to wake up.  The insights include a recognition that the far left and far right have some things in common and a candid critique of the personal brand that she had developed in her own past writings.

Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Nayef Falah Al-Hajraf during a press conference during the 41st Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting being held in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021.

AP Photo/Amr Nabil

Paper - Middle East Initiative, Belfer Center

From #Hashtags to Legislation

    Authors:
  • Oussama Belmejdoub
  • Bilal Diab
  • Samira Kalla
  • Ha Nguyen
  • Abdulla Saif
  • Ivan Yotzov
| February 2023

Ownership of reforms by citizens is often presented as important for success. This paper explores media engagement and support for economic reforms in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries using text analysis techniques on publicly available sources. Results show that while reform efforts have intensified in recent years in the GCC, these efforts tend to focus on stronger rather than weaker policy areas, potentially limiting the growth-enhancing effect of reforms. Social media analysis using Twitter shows that the population’s support for reforms has been declining. The analysis of traditional
news media points to more engagement by international than by local media. However, sentiment from international media is less positive about economic reforms in the GCC. Sentiment in international media and social media matters, as evidenced by its positive and strong correlation with FDI inflows into the GCC.

Map of scheduled airline traffic around the world, circa June 2009.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

China's Party-State Capitalism and International Backlash: From Interdependence to Insecurity

| Fall 2022

Economic interdependence has long been considered important to international peace. Questions about harmful effects of the free flow of capital, however, are arising. China and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries are increasingly involving their business firms in security and intelligence work, causing a security dilemma dynamic that increases economic competition.

A large American Flag hanging on the NY Stock Exchange

AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

Is the US in Recession?

| July 18, 2022

Do not be surprised if, later this month, there is a wave of headlines claiming that the US economy is in recession. But such an assessment would depend on a chain of reasoning that has three important flaws, writes Jeffrey Frankel.

Book - University of Michigan Press

Capital Choices: Sectoral Politics and the Variation of Sovereign Wealth

| Mar. 07, 2022

Capital Choices analyzes the creation of different SWFs from a comparative political economy perspective, arguing that different state-society structures at the sectoral level are the drivers for SWF variation. Juergen Braunstein focuses on the early formation period of SWFs, a critical but little understood area given the high levels of political sensitivity and lack of transparency that surround SWF creation. Braunstein’s novel analytical framework provides practical lessons for the business and finance organizations and policymakers of countries that have created, or are planning to create, SWFs.