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The Climate Crisis and Southeast Asian Geopolitics
›Southeast Asia is at the center of the two major geopolitical challenges of the 21st century: climate change and the rise of China. As decision-makers across the region grow increasingly concerned about climate change and environmental degradation, as well as the implications of intensifying competition between China and the United States, Washington has an opportunity to strengthen its engagement with Southeast Asia and advance its broader geopolitical objectives.
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Smart Power: Leveraging the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda
›“Without women and empowering women, there will be no peace,” said Dr. Valerie Hudson, Distinguished Professor and George H.W. Bush Chair at Texas A&M University. Hudson spoke at an event by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in collaboration with the United States Civil Society Working Group on Women, Peace, and Security (U.S. CSWG). The event focused on how the United States can leverage the United Nation’s Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda to advance gender equality and promote peace worldwide.
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Embracing Risk: Lessons Learned from Integrating Climate Adaptation and Biodiversity Conservation in Nepal
›The Hariyo Ban Program is one of the best examples of a sustainable development initiative that I’ve ever seen, said Nik Sekhran, Chief Conservation Officer of the World Wildlife Fund-US during a recent Wilson Center event on lessons learned from a decade of building resilience through participatory and inclusive natural resource management, climate adaptation, and biodiversity conservation in Nepal.
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Experts Spotlight Bottom-Up Approaches and the Impacts of Conflict on Infrastructure in the Next Wave of Environmental Peacebuilding
›“For 30 years, a community of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers have been working to untangle the complex relationships between environmental change and human and national security, and find entry points for policies and programs that build on these connections to create a more resilient and sustainable peace,” said Lauren Risi, Project Director of the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change & Security Program at a recent event that featured contributors to a new special issue of International Affairs on environmental peacebuilding.
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Zafar Imran, Le Monde diplomatique
Climate Change in the Indian Farmers’ Protest
›The ongoing farmers’ movement in India has taken the world’s largest democracy by storm. Hundreds of thousands from all over the country have laid siege to New Delhi for more than two months. As both the protestors and the government dig their heels in, the chances of confrontation and violence are increasing by the day.
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Valerie M. Hudson on How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide
›“The very first political order in any society is the sexual political order established between men and women,” says Valerie M. Hudson, a University Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M, in today’s Friday Podcast, recorded at a recent Wilson Center launch of the book, The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide. Co-authored by Hudson, Donna Lee Bowen, Professor Emerita at Brigham Young University, and P. Lynne Nielson, a statistics professor at Brigham Young University, the book investigates how the relationship between men and women shapes the wider political order. “We argue, along with many other scholars, that the character of that first order molds the society, its governance, and its behavior,” says Hudson.
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Climate Change Front and Center in U.S. and Brazil Relations in Biden-Bolsonaro Era
›As the warm relationship between U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro comes to an end with the former’s electoral defeat in November 2020, the next two years (Bolsonaro is up for reelection in 2022) could prove to be strenuous for the bilateral relations of the two largest economies in the Western Hemisphere. President-elect Biden has signaled that combatting climate change will be a priority in his administration. Now, without the cover of a U.S. administration that denies climate change, Brazil could become further isolated in international environmental politics. All of this complicates the political realities for President Bolsonaro, whose political survival depends on maintaining his coalition of fanatical supporters, the agricultural sector, and former and current members of the military. Still, given U.S. concerns about Chinese influence in the region, the Biden-Bolsonaro relationship could prove to be low-key and practical.
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What Does a Biden-Harris White House Mean for Women and Girls? Everything.
›The significance of the Biden-Harris administration for the world’s women and girls cannot be overstated. The current status of women and girls is grim. The COVID-19 pandemic and four years of dangerous policies designed to strip women and girls of their reproductive and economic autonomy and punish them—first for their biology, and second for their gender—have slowed and even reversed decades of progress toward gender equity. Systemic racism and policies meant to further exclude and disenfranchise minority communities have targeted women of color with tragic results.
Showing posts from category democracy and governance.