Article Alert - June 2011

The U.S. Embassy's Information Resource Center is pleased to offer you Article Alert, the monthly current awareness publication of the Information Resource Center, U.S. Embassy Public Affairs, Bangkok, Thailand. It offers abstracts of approximately 25 current articles and policy briefs from leading American journals and think tanks in six thematic areas with an emphasis on East Asian regional affairs. The views expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect U.S. government policies.

Full Text Availability: Hyperlinks to full texts are provided for U.S. government documents. Full hard copy texts of non-U.S. government documents are available upon request to IRC service subscribers only. To request full texts, please contact us at irc@state.gov, tel: 02-205-4640; or fax: 02-650-8918, citing the article number(s). Current and back issues of Article Alert are also available in our homepage at http://bangkok.usembassy.gov/services/irc/alert/alert.html. 
  

SPOTLIGHT: GLOBAL RECESSION AFTERMATH

1. “ASEAN's Core Norms in the Context of the Global Financial Crisis; Is the Crisis a Catalyst for Institutional Development?”
Deepak Nair. Asian Survey, March 2011, 23 pages.
The author, a Ph.D. student in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, assesses the impact of the economic crisis on plans for economic integration and, on the political side, the impact of the crisis on the goals for an ASEAN Political and Security Community steeped in a new normative agenda of participatory governance.

2. “Currency Wars, Then and Now: How Policymakers Can Avoid the Perils of the 1930s”
Liaquat Ahamed. Foreign Affairs, March/April 2011, 12 pages.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author examines the global debate surrounding currency valuation, international exchange, and the gold standard in the aftermath of the Great Depression, comparing to and contrasting them with the circumstances of the global recession of 2008-2009.

3. “The Economy Has Not Solved Its Problems”
Robert Wade. Challenge, March/April 2011, 38 pages.
After the global financial crisis, what is likely to happen over the next decade?  The author, a professor of political economy at the London School of Economics and political Science, presents two predictions on world economy and possibility of another financial crisis.

GLOBAL POVERTY

4. “Two Trends in Global Poverty”
Geoffrey Gertz and Laurence Chandy. The Brookings Institution, May 2011, 4 pages.
While the overall prevalence of poverty is in retreat, the global poverty landscape is changing.  This transformation is captured by two distinct trends: poor people are increasingly found in middle-income countries and in fragile states.   These Brookings experts discuss both trends and the need of new thinking and differentiated approaches for poverty reduction.

BUSINESS AND DEVELOPMENT

5. “Investing in Growth “
Serkan Arslanalp, Fabian Bornhorst, and Sanjeev Gupta. Finance & Development, March 2011, 4 pages.
The authors, a team of economists from the International Monetary Fund, report the findings of their study of 48 advanced and developing nations during the period 1960-2001 to explore whether the public investment in infrastructure is productive and aids economic growth.

6. “Ethical Breakdowns”
Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel. Harvard Business Review, April 2011, 8 pages.
Cognitive biases can blind executives to their own or their employees’ unethical behavior.  Why?  The authors examine the factors contributing to unethical behavior in business.  Examples of unethical behavior and remedies are also discussed.
 
THE UNITED STATES AND WORLD AFFAIRS

7. “U.S. Interest in Sino-Indian Cooperation”
Strobe Talbott. Journal of International Affairs, Spring/Summer 2011, 6 pages.
In this exclusive interview, Strobe Talbott, President of the Brookings Institution and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, reflects on the future of international relations, the rising competition between India and China in the Indian Ocean, and the view from the United States.

8. “Largest Minority Shareholder in Global Order LLC: The Changing Balance of Influence and U.S. Strategy”
Bruce D. Jones. The Brookings Institution Policy Paper#25, March 2011, 21 pages.
The author, Director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, explores the nature of the emerging powers’ rise and the prospects for cooperation on global finance and transnational threats.

INTERNATIONAL ORDER

9. “The Future of the Liberal World Order”
G. John Ikenberry. Foreign Affairs, May/June 2011, 13 pages.
As wealth and power are moving from the North and the West to the East and the South without a question, will the liberal international order survive?  The author, the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, discusses the global political order after the U.S. era and the U.S. role in this new age of international order.

10. “International Order after the Financial Crisis”
Harold James. International Affairs, May 2011, 13 pages.
The author, a professor of History and International Relations at Princeton University, examines analogies and lessons from a world order centered on Britain to a U.S. dominated global order, focusing on the destruction in the Great Depression of a liberal economic and political order and its replacement by a world of brutal Great Power politics and the need for a benevolent hegemonic power to provide public goods for the world economy and the world political system.

11. “Strategic Latency and World Order”
Zachary S. Davis. Orbis, Winter 2011, 16 pages.
Why is latent capacity so often dormant?  What are the indicators that latent capacity is on the verge of being weaponized?  The author, a visiting research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, examines “strategic latency,” a condition in which technologies that could provide military (or economic) advantage remain untapped.

SPORTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

12. “Morally Incompatible? An Analysis of the Relationship between Competitive Sport and International Relations at the Olympic Games”
Cesar R. Torres. The SAIS Review, Winter/Spring 2011, 14 pages.
The author, an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology, Sport Studies, and Physical Education at State University of New York’s The College at Brockport, explores the proposition that athletic competition is incompatible with the goals of the Games, and provides two policy recommendations to allow the Olympic Games to realize their full potential as a global assembling event.

DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AND POLITICS

13. “Democracy Promotion and Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy”
Oz Hassan and Jason Ralph. International Journal of Human Rights, May 2011, 11 pages.
The authors discuss the relationship between democracy promotion and realism in the neoconservative perspective, and the tension between human rights and counter-terrorism.   They also assess the place of democracy promotion and human rights in U.S. foreign policy and whether it has a role in contemporary policy.

14. “Neutralized”
John B. Judis. The New Republic, April 28, 2011, 3 pages.
The author, a senior editor of The New Republic, discusses American democracy in 2011 and the impartially of institutions, focusing on increasing partisanship in the United States and political division where objectivity, impartiality, and disinterest would be more appropriate.  

15. “Joint Responsibility”
William Hughes and Mark Pyman. World Today, April 2011, 3 pages.
The authors discuss political corruption and organized crime in post-conflict environments and how these problems with criminal networks affect security.

HUMAN RIGHTS

16. “Human Rights Last”
Gary J. Bass. Foreign Policy, March/April 2011, 9 pages.
The author, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, discusses China’s influence in many developing countries through trade relationships and the reasons for Chinese equanimity regarding human rights violations by these governments.

GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIAL ISSUES

17. “There's Something in the Water”
Kathleen McAuliffe. Discover, May 2011, 7 pages.
The author, a writer on science and health issues, examines  the presence of the environmental toxin called beta-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) in bodies of water and its potential connection to the development of diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease.

18. “Too Young to Wed”
Cynthia Gorney. National Geographic, June 2011, 22 pages.
The author, a National Geographic contributing writer, discusses the global social problem of child marriage, in which young girls as young as five are entered into secret and illegal arranged marriages with much older men in a variety of countries.

JOURNALISM

19. “Pay to Play”
Cary Spivak. American Journalism Review, Spring 2011, 5 pages.
Is asking newspaper readers to pay for digital content a winning strategy for the future?   The author, an investigative reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, examines news agencies that charge readers for access to their online content and how successful this may or may not be.

EDUCATION

20. “Process Writing and the Internet: Blogs and Ning Networks in the Classroom”
Isabela Villas Boas. English Teaching Forum, Number 2, 2011, 6 pages.
The author, a general academic coordinator of the Casa Thomas Jefferson, discusses the benefits of the process approach to writing and illustrates how teachers can take advantage of some of the latest Internet technology to promote writing tasks in the ESL/EFL classroom.

21. “Teaching Mobile Literacy”
David Parry. Educause Review, March/April 2011, 3 pages.
The author, an assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas, discusses the teaching of mobile web literacy, and how teaching method and the meaning of being knowledgeable and educated in the culture that can be changed by mobile Internet.

22. “Colleges Rehab Their Web Sites for Major Payoffs”
Josh Keller. The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 2011, 7 pages.
The author, an editorial staff at The Chronicle of Higher Education, examines ways in which several U.S. universities have altered their web sites to incorporate web analytics to increase admissions and more efficiently recruit prospective students.

LIBRARY TRENDS

23. “Libraries and the Mobile Revolution”
Yvonne Krishnan. Computers in Libraries, April 2011, 5 pages.
The author, a librarian at United World College of SEA in Singapore, examines the role of libraries in adapting its services to the mobile phone market.

24. “Shaping the Curriculum: The Power of a Library's Digital Resources.”
Patricia Kirkwood. Computers in Libraries, May 2011, 5 pages.
The author, an engineering and mathematics librarian at the University of Arkansas, discusses the steps in integrating digital library resources into the curriculum.

TRENDS IN U.S. SOCIETY AND CULTURE

25. “Yosemite. Daring. Defiant. Free.”
Mark Jenkins. National Geographic, May 2011, 19 pages.
The author, a columnist for Outside magazine, explores the beauty of Yosemite National Park from the view of rock climbers, focusing on the increase of free soloing, an extreme sport  in which climbers use only chalks and rock-climbing shoes to scale Yosemite’s granite spires.

26. “Long Live the Industrial City”
Tom Vanderbilt. The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2011, 8 pages.
The author, a visiting scholar at New York University's Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, examines the reinvention of industrial manufacturing in cities in the 21st century and the impact of technological innovations such as internet commerce and fast delivery services like FedEx on international business.