A new account of modern Iraqi politics that overturns the conventional wisdom about its sectarian divisions

How did Iraq become one of the most repressive dictatorships of the late twentieth century? The conventional wisdom about Iraq's modern political history is that the country was doomed by its diverse social fabric. But in State of Repression, Lisa Blaydes challenges this belief by showing that the country's breakdown was far from inevitable. At the same time, she offers a new way of understanding the behavior of other authoritarian regimes and their populations.

The cholera response in Yemen was and remains extremely complicated and challenging for a variety of political, security, cultural, and environmental reasons. The study team recognizes these challenges and commends the government, international and national organizations, and the donors for working to find solutions in such a difficult context. There are no easy fixes to these challenges, and the conclusions and recommendations are meant to be constructive and practical, taking into account the extreme limitations of working in Yemen during an active conflict.

For three and a half decades following the end of the Maoist era, China adhered to Deng Xiaoping’s policies of “reform and opening to the outside world” and “peaceful development.” After Deng retired as paramount leader, these principles continued to guide China’s international behavior in the leadership eras of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

The emergence of a global digital ecosystem has been a boon for global communication and the democratization of the means of distributing information. The internet, and the social media platforms and web applications running on it, have been used to mobilize pro-democracy protests and give members of marginalized communities a chance to share their voices with the world.

Political parties in the United States and Britain used clientelism and patronage to govern throughout the nineteenth century. By the twentieth century, however, parties in both countries shifted to programmatic competition. This book argues that capitalists were critical to this shift. Businesses developed new forms of corporate management and capitalist organization, and found clientelism inimical to economic development.

A year into the Trump Administration, the health and stability of American democracy remain an open question. At a time when almost four in 10 Americans say they are not satisfied with the way democracy is working in the U.S., there is ample reason to ask how committed the American people are to our democracy.

Violence in war must have a limit. Those who are not participating in the hostilities should be protected to prevent war from sinking into barbarity. Today, this is safeguarded by international humanitarian law (IHL), of which the cornerstones are the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and its Additional Protocols.

The Battle of Mosul was one of the largest urban sieges since World War II. From October 2016 and July 2017, Iraqi and Kurdish forces fought to retake Iraq’s second largest city, which had fallen to ISIL in 2014. They were backed by U.S.-led coalition forces. More than 940,000 civilians fled during the siege, and thousands were injured as they sought safety.

This essay confronts the collision of two potential global threats: the outbreak of infectious pandemics and the outbreak and protraction of civil wars.

Abbas Milani argues how the 19 May 2017 presidential election offers a window into the painful predicament of a democracy-minded society

—demographically young, globally inclined, and social-media savvy—subordinated to an authoritarian polity. Read the article here.

When Mexican President Felipe Caldrón took office in December 2006 he declared a war on the nation’s drug traffic organizations (Ríos and Shirk, 2011). Violence escalated as criminal organizations became increasingly fragmented and disputed their territories (Killebrew and Bernal, 2010; Beittel, 2011).

The levels of violence in Mexico have dramatically increased in the last few years due to structural changes in the drug trafficking business. The increase in the number of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) fighting over the control of territory and trafficking routes has resulted in a substantial increase in the rates of homicides and other crimes. This study evaluates the economic costs of drug-related violence.

This paper examines why governments in underdeveloped countries systematically pursue policies that prevent long-term economic growth. Focusing on the design and implementation of Mexico's massive land redistribution program, we argue that governments do so to improve their chances of political survival. Mexico’s incumbent PRI regime gave peasants communal property under a restrictive and inefficient property rights regime.

Poverty relief programs are shaped by politics. The particular design that social programs take is, to a large extent, determined by the existing institutional constraints and politicians' imperative to win elections. The "Political Logic of Poverty Relief" places elections and institutional design at the core of poverty alleviation. The authors develop a theory with applications to Mexico about how elections shape social programs aimed at aiding the poor.

The Allied occupation of Japan is remembered as the "good occupation." An American-led coalition successfully turned a militaristic enemy into a stable and democratic ally. Of course, the story was more complicated, but the occupation did forge one of the most enduring relationships in the postwar world. Recent events, from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to protests over American bases in Japan to increasingly aggressive territorial disputes between Asian nations over islands in the Pacific, have brought attention back to the subject of the occupation of Japan.

"What should states in the developing world do and how should they do it? How have states in the developing world addressed the challenges of promoting development, order, and inclusion? States in the developing world are supposed to build economies, control violence, and include the population. How they do so depends on historical origins and context as well as policy decisions.

Abstract

In light of the legal issues raised by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) trial (April to June 2015) against the Lebanese Al-Jadeed television on charges of contempt of court and obstruction of justice, the present paper seeks to assess the state of freedom of expression in Lebanon and the role played by the Lebanese judiciary in defining this right and delineating its limits, especially when it clashes with another right—in this case the right to protect one’s dignity in general, and the dignity of the judicial body in specific.

Poverty relief programs are shaped by politics. The particular design that social programs take is, to a large extent, determined by the existing institutional constraints and politicians' imperative to win elections. The "Political Logic of Poverty Relief" places elections and institutional design at the core of poverty alleviation. The authors develop a theory with applications to Mexico about how elections shape social programs aimed at aiding the poor.

In this paper published by the International Journal of Educational Development, we investigate the impact of drug-related violence in Mexico on academic achievement. We use panel of elementary and lower secondary schools and locality-level firearm homicides from 2006 to 2011. We rely on school fixed-effects models to estimate the impact on math test scores of turf war exposure and turf war persistence (e.g. months of exposure) during the academic year. According to the results, both exposure and persistence of criminal violence reduces math test scores.