Document Downloads

Q2 - 2010

S. No.	Title	Author	Description	Link	Link
001	Analysis: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula	Dr. John Harrison / Dr. Arabinda Acharya	Since the botched Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound passenger jet, the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was thrust into the international spotlight. Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab told investigators that he received training and the explosives used in the attempted attack from the AQAP. The incident is seen to propel AQAP as Al Qaeda’s most virulent franchise, and suddenly warranted the attention of intelligence agencies. However, upon further scrutiny, the AQAP's growing ambition and increasing strength is not a surprise.
002	Speech by High Commissioner of India at the function organized by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations and Pakistan-India Citizens Friendship Forum		The issue of water sharing that arose between our countries in 1947, was settled with the coming into force of The Indus Waters Treaty in 1960. This treaty was the result of 8 years of painstaking negotiations carried out by India and Pakistan with the good offices of the World Bank. The Treaty was voluntarily accepted by the two sides as fair and equitable. The thoroughness with which it deals with various aspects of water sharing is a testimony to the hard work put in by the negotiators of both sides to produce an enduring framework. It laid down the rights and obligations of both sides in relation to the use of waters of the Indus system of rivers.
003	U.S. TREASURY DEPARTMENT OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS	Assistant Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen	want to begin by briefly addressing some of the very real terrorist threats we face—threats that powerfully demonstrate the need for coordinated international action. As you are well aware, often these threats are associated with terrorist networks linked to the Middle East, whose avowed goal is to disrupt any and all efforts at achieving peace in that troubled region.
004	Pakistan: Short-sighted policies hindering U.s. Goals	Patrick Duplat and Renata Rendon	Military operations in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) continue to displace thousands of civilians. The role of the Pakistani military in the humanitarian response as well as allegations of human rights abuses in its counterinsurgency operations, have yet to be scrutinized, particularly by the U.S. government. Simultaneously, U.S. development funding in the FATA is not having its intended impact, while projects that could significantly improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are not receiving enough support. While Refugees International recognizes the complexity of the U.S. role in the region, greater oversight of humanitarian and human rights issues should inform the U.S. government’s strategic partnership with Pakistan.
005	Nuclear Terrorism: Threat Briefing	HARVARD Kennedy School & Belfer Center	“Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city—be it New York or Moscow; Tokyo or Beijing; London or Paris—could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And it would badly destabilize our security, our economies, and our very way of life.” — President Barack Obama
006	As Asia Rises	Daniel Twining	How the West can enlarge its community of values and interests in the Indo-Pacific Region
007	Golden Surrender?	Matt Waldman	The Risks, Challenges, and Implications of Reintegration in Afghanistan Reintegration is more complex and difficult to accomplish than is commonly appreciated. There are significant obstacles, including lack of trust, insurgent cohesion, and revenge attacks on participants. There is also a dissonance between the economic incentives offered by reintegration and some of the powerful social, political, ideological, and personal factors that cause people to fight.
008	India and the NPT	Leonard Weiss	India’s nuclear development has been accompanied by a dual track strategy of developing and building weapons while criticising the non-proliferation regime as discriminatory and simultaneously making public statements and proposals in favour of nuclear disarmament. But with international progress likely on aspects of nuclear disarmament over the next few months, India will be in the spotlight at the forthcoming 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference to help move the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda forward.
009	Increased Economic Exchange between East and West	Spearhead Analysis	The War on Terrorism, being fought since September 11, 2001, resulted in an overt and full-blown confrontation between the East – represented by Muslim countries – and the West – spearheaded by the US and consisting of European and OECD countries; in the military sense, the United States commenced offensive operations in Afghanistan by October 2001, and in the economic sense, the security paranoia after this psychologically devastating terrorist attack has inhibited people-to-people contacts as well as exchange of economic sources, inputs, and ideas between the East and the West. This article focuses on the social relationship between ‘East’ and ‘West’ defined as such, and tries to evaluate the contemporary scheme of this relationship in the backdrop of military operations and worldwide security paranoia.
010	The Interests of Pakistanis Abroad	Spearhead Analysis	Like any other indigenous community, the Pakistani community – those who have been born in this South Asian country after its independence – is also constituted over those who reside in the homeland, i.e. Pakistan, and those who do not, i.e. the expatriate community. Since the birth of Pakistan, there has been a greater ‘outward’ movement of population than an ‘inward’ movement; the Partition and its burgeoning negative impacts made any further ‘inward’ movement into Pakistan redundant if not dangerous. The history of Pakistan, and the conditions it experienced, were felt firstly and foremost by its residents; those who chose to emigrate, and those who chose to stay. In calculating and calibrating the interests of Pakistanis, and dividing them into constituencies based on countries of residence, it is seen that not only is the Pakistani state oblivious to local trends and demands; it is also ignorant of the rights, needs and requirements of expatriate Pakistanis, considering these émigrés as ‘not our problem anymore’. However, this very approach has resulted in the likes of Najibullah Zazi and Faisal Shahzad; terrorists linked to Pakistan because they neither have any other link or identity, nor has it been offered to them. This article approaches the concept of citizenship in today’s world of suspicion and security, of terrorism and paranoia, to understand what role Pakistan and Pakistanis have to play in this increasingly complex and interdependent situation. This article does not diminish the positivity of hope and of pro-activity on part of the general public as well as the institutions of the state, and offers ways and means to all stakeholders in rescuing expatriate Pakistanis from fear and discrimination (or threat thereof), and also alleviate the negative image(s) of Pakistan and its citizens all over the world.
011	The Solution to Extremism: Troops or Teachers?	Spearhead Analysis	Extremism is a pervasive problem that fuels fundamentalism and generates terrorism as a necessary outcome. Extremism is different from fundamentalism in that a fundamental need not necessarily be extreme, but on the counter, an extreme fundamental fails to be a fundamental since it is no more an ideal fundamental; a basic prerequisite for fundamentals. Extremism is not only a process of thought; it is also a definitive characteristic that can overtake both thought and action, thereby giving way to militant extremism, and consequently, terrorism. An extremist mindset is bound to be borne out of a perception of arbitrary pressure – of force and oppression – and the most likely outcome of its actions is bound to be a last-ditch resort to extreme ends. The most dangerous thing in today’s world, therefore, is an extremist preacher who can not only practice extremism, but can also preach and train others in extremism, intolerance and professing of hatred. This process can be referred to as the ‘militarization of extremism’, where a cohort of followers is garnered not on fundamentals of a faith, or a religion, or a way of life, but on the extremist interpretation of any of those fundamentals. But is there a way out of this spiraling abyss? Can those who have been indoctrinated in the message of hate be reclaimed towards the message of tolerance and peaceful coexistence? A 2008 study from RAND Corporation, “How Terrorist Groups End,” concluded that ‘military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups’. Does that mean that by killing extremists, we are only fuelling extremism? Does that mean we need to convert extremists to moderation and balance?
012	RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND VIOLENCE IN PAKISTAN	Christopher Candland / Wellesley College	Outside Pakistan, madaris are known today as breeding grounds for violence. The image, is as misleading as it is simple, but is not without cause. In September 1996, Taliban [madaris students], mainly Afghan refugees from Jamiat-i-Ulema madaris in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, marched on Kabul, toppled the government of Afghanistan, and imposed their version of shariah [Islamic law] on the people living under their control. The Taliban used violence to enforce a shariah that banned women's formal education, paid work, and appearance in public without a male relative companion, and mandated a schedule of daily prayer and specific (bearded) appearance for men. The rules of public, and private, life that the Taliban apparently learned in their madaris were strict and unforgiving.
013	Terrorism and the World Economy	Alberto Abadie - Harvard University and NBER Javier Gardeazabal - University of the Basque Country	It has been argued that terrorism should not have a large e®ect on economic activity, because terrorist attacks destroy only a small fraction of the stock of capital of a country (see, e.g., Becker and Murphy, 2001). In contrast, empirical estimates of the consequences of terrorism typically suggest large effects on economic outcomes (see, e.g., Abadie and Gardeazabal, 2003). The main theme of this article is that mobility of productive capital in an open economy may account for much of the difference between the direct and the equilibrium impact of terrorism. We use a simple economic model to show that terrorism may have a large impact on the allocation of productive capital across countries, even if it represents a small fraction of the overall economic risk. The model emphasizes that, in addition to increasing uncertainty, terrorism reduces the expected return to investment. As a result, changes in the intensity of terrorism may cause large movements of capital across countries if the world economy is su±ciently open, so international investors are able to diversify other types of country risks. Using a unique dataset on terrorism and other country risks, we ¯nd that, in accordance with the predictions of the model, higher levels of terrorist risks are associated with lower levels of net foreign direct investment positions, even after controlling for other types of country risks. On average, a standard deviation increase in the terrorist risk is associated with a fall in the net foreign direct investment position of about 5 percent of GDP. The magnitude of the estimated effect is large, which suggests that the \open-economy channel" impact of terrorism may be substantial.
014	Competing Views on the Pakistani Economy	Spearhead Analysis	This discusses two seemingly opposing viewpoints on the Pakistani economy, given the recent assessments and study of indicators by the State Bank of Pakistan, and the International Monetary Fund. The article attempts to dissociate media bias and skewed presentation by studying the facts presented by reports from these institutions. A simple study of Pakistan’s economic realities, their interpretations and their inter-linkages, can reveal a comprehensible picture of where the Pakistani economy currently stands, and how the upcoming budget would affect it.
015	HUNGER PAINS: Pakistan's Food Insecurity	Michael Kugelman & Robert M. Hathaway	One day in early 2009, hundreds of unemployed Pakistanis con¬verged on a bakery in the city of Faisalabad. They “hurled rocks through the windows and stormed the place, beating anyone who tried to stop them.” The rioters flung the owner down a set of stairs, raided the cash register, and then grabbed—and ate—all the food they could find.
016	International Economic Development Policy	Vijaya Ramachandran	This course surveys the literature on the key determinants of economic development. We start by considering some of the factors that drive economic growth, poverty and inequality. We begin with a discussion of growth models and then move on to the analysis of health and education, population, and the linkages between investments in human resources and economic growth. The course then moves on to other key topics in international development including international trade, globalization, and governance. After considering some country case studies, we conclude with a discussion on the scope and limitations of foreign aid and the institutions that implement aid policies.
017	Economic Development and Impact Evaluation	Jenny Aker	The course will cover impact evaluation theory (causal inference, experimental design and basic statistics) as well as methods (randomization, difference-in-difference, regression discontinuity, and propensity score matching). The curriculum will be very applied, with weekly case studies of field research drawn from the international development literature. Discussions of methods will include issues related to research ethics and the protection of human subjects. The primary objective of the course is to provide participants with the ability to 1) distinguish research-based “best practices” from those that have not been rigorously evaluated; and 2) understand the value and practice of impact evaluation within the development community. For the research project, references to technical resources (e.g. textbooks on sample design and software for power calculations) and guidelines for developing a rigorous study will be provided.
018	Security Impediments to Regionalism in South Asia	Feroz Hassan Khan	Regional integration efforts in South Asia remain stymied by interstate conflicts, internal challenges to domestic development, and global powers’ security interests in the region. Key factors include India’s asymmetric size and power, relative to the other South Asian states, and the capture of states’ region-focused agendas—notably those of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan—by territorial, religious, and ethnocentric interests.