Showing posts from category cooperation.
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Persian Gulf to the “New Gulf”: New Book Takes New Approach to U.S. Energy Relationships
›May 29, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesAs Americans grow increasingly uneasy with our reliance on oil imports from the Middle East, a new region in Africa—the Gulf of Guinea—is emerging as a pivotal oil exporter. An ambitious new book, Oil and Terrorism in the New Gulf, written by James J. F. Forest and Matthew V. Sousa, focuses on this region of Africa and highlights the U.S. strategic interest in its oil-producing countries: Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, and the island nations of Príncipe and São Tomé. This “New Gulf” not only provides the U.S. with a new oil supply, but also affords a chance to reframe our energy relationships.
Oil consumption is on the rise, with the United States leading the pack at nearly 25 percent of aggregate global oil use. Meanwhile, rapid industrialization and economic growth in India and China continues to push demand even higher. The Gulf of Guinea region is vying to meet the demand.
This book asks a critical question: how will the New Gulf cope with growing demand for oil in the face of pervasive poverty, weak governance, and corruption? The crux of the problem: stability in this region is an obstacle. According to the authors, stability is contingent on a calculated foreign policy framework, and the United States’ ability to learn from its mistakes in its quest for Middle East oil:Our continued support for undemocratic regimes, coupled with our willingness to do virtually anything to maintain open and reliable access to the oil resources of the Middle East, has produced increasing animosity throughout the region that will take years of hard work to reverse.
The authors advocate building energy relationships that avoid the Middle East model—a model beset by “shortsighted U.S. interests rather than long-term, fundamental U.S. values.” Instead, they say, America’s energy relationship with the New Gulf should be stable and cooperative, and built off a clear framework that promotes three, integrated priorities:- 1. Human security
- Economic development
- Democratization
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Book Review – ‘Bridges Over Water: Understanding Transboundary Water Conflict, Negotiation and Cooperation’
›March 13, 2007 // By Karen BencalaThe discourse around water resources is slowly moving away from predictions of water wars and toward the potential of cooperation. In the forthcoming textbook Bridges Over Water: Understanding Transboundary Water Conflict, Negotiation and Cooperation (World Scientific, Fall 2007), authors Ariel Dinar, Shlomi Dinar, Stephen McCaffrey, and Daene McKinney provide both theoretical and applied approaches to making cooperation a reality. Father and son team Ariel and Shlomi Dinar are apt candidates to explore this topic with their experience in both water resources and international negotiation.
A welcome addition the water oeuvre, the book explores the problems of shared water resources and potential solutions through the disciplines of economics, law, and politics, giving the reader a broad understanding of the complexities of water management. It also serves as a literature review, citing seminal papers and analyses on conflict and cooperation. But the book’s meat lies in its analysis of tools for developing cooperation around a water resource. Additionally, the case studies of transboundary water cooperation in the Mekong, Ganges, and Indus River basins, and the Aral Sea basin provide context and put a face to the economic and political processes described in the book, helping weave a holistic understanding of transboundary water decision-making.
As a graduate-level economics text, it appropriately goes into great depth on how water management decisions are made in two thorough chapters on game theory. At the same time, these chapters appear as quite a jump from the seemingly more general overview on water, conflict, and negotiation that could be appropriate for multiple audiences. Despite the book’s different technical levels, it importantly bridges the gap between theory and practice, and skillfully examines the various tools and approaches that can be used to create an environment where cooperation is attainable. -
Good Env, Conflict, & Cooperation Resource
›March 2, 2007 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoWe all are subscribed to plenty of listservs, but if you are interested in tracking scholarly and policy developments in environment, conflict, and cooperation, check out the webpage with the same name: The ECC Platform.
Run by experienced ECC hands, Alexander Carius and his colleagues at the Berlin-based Adelphi Research, the ECC Platform provides a range of new research, conference, and stories links. Sitting in the midst of European ECC efforts, the ECC Platform is particular good for tracking the ups and downs of EU and European governments’ efforts to integrate ECC considerations into their foreign policy, foreign assitance, and even European programs.
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