Harvard International Review

Browse past and current articles from this publication.

Letter from the editors.
In a modernizing, increasingly industrial world, one age-old challenge still haunts us: how to produce enough food for an expanding population. Today, however, the most pressing concerns are not Mal . . .

The anti-slavery crusade.(CORRESPONDENCE)(fighting human trafficking)
In "Winning the Fight" (Spring 2009), Kevin Bales, one of the leading observers on human trafficking, addresses the much-needed grand strategy for abolishing slavery today. He aptly emphasizes both . . .

Failing states.(CORRESPONDENCE)(United States counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan)
William Rosenau ("Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan," Spring 2009) raises several important points. It is difficult not to agree with most of them. But in regard to his "more fund . . .

Back in business: Sierra Leone's President and CEO.(AFRICA)(Ernest Bai Koroma )
From 1991 to 2002, civil war devastated the Western African nation of Sierra Leone. The conflict pitted the government against the Liberian-aided Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The RUF establishe . . .

Recharging Bolivia: Evo Morales' lithium dilemma.(AMERICAS)
One of the poorest nations in Latin America, Bolivia saw a record-high 6 percent economic growth in 2008. Despite this improvement, the citizens of the landlocked country have yet to reap the benefi . . .

Running on empty Mongolia's economic crash.(ASIA)(Country overview)
A financial crisis that began with a collapse in the American housing market has enveloped a country where half the people live in tents. Facing a budget shortfall and rising inflation, Mongolia has . . .

Black, blanc, beur: France debates counting its minorities.(EUROPE)
Ethnicity, according to one British commentator, is to the French what sex was to the Victorians. It is Yazid Sabeg's job to change all that. President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed the Algerian-born bu . . .

A missed chance? Obama on democracy in Egypt.(MIDDLE EAST)(Barack Obama)
In his typically cautious fashion, US President Barack Obama gave a speech in Cairo in June that touched on Islamic extremism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nuclear weapons, and human rights, wi . . .

Beyond Keynesianism the necessity of a globally coordinated solution: Justin Yifu Lin is senior vice President and Chief Economi
It is now widely acknowledged that the world economy is going through a global recession, the likes of which we have not seen in eight decades, and the inability to rely on export stimulus anywhere . . .

Hard decisions on soft power opportunities and difficulties for Chinese soft power: Joseph S. Nye Jr. is the university distingu
Broadly defined, power is the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants. One can affect other individuals' behavior in three main ways: by threatening coercion ("sticks"), by offerin . . .

Finding multilateral solutions global cooperation in nuclear non-proliferation: Ruud Lubbers is Minister of State of the Netherl
A multipolar world now exists, but it took 20 years after the end of the Cold War for the concept of multipolarity to develop. In 1989, then US President George H.W. Bush spoke about a promising "ne . . .

Unlikely bedfellows? Confucius, the CCP, and the resurgence of guoxue.(WORLD IN REVIEW)(Chinese Communist Party )
Confucius has become China's biggest celebrity. Enjoying an unprecedented revival of interest from China's population, he has also become the country's cultural ambassador to the world: his words ad . . .

Neoliberalism and its discontents: impact of health reforms in Chile.(WORLD IN REVIEW)
Chile has often been regarded as a model for the rest of Latin America. With the highest human development index in Latin America according to the United Nations Development Program, Chile has emerg . . .

The right to food: fighting for adequate food in a global crisis.(AGRICULTURE)
Nine hundred seventy-five million people are hungry in the world today, up from 852 million in 2003-2005, and 820 million in 1996. Previous policies have failed. The world food crisis, characterized . . .

Agriculture as Energy? The wisdom of biofuels.(AGRICULTURE)(ethanol fuel production)
In the fall of 2006, the world awakened to the astonishing realization that agriculture was undergoing a major structural change. The US farm price of corn, having averaged US$2.00 per bushel in the . . .

Payments for sustainability: a case study on subsistence farming in Ecuador.(AGRICULTURE)(Case study)
A fairly recent innovation in environmental policy--and one that is favored by a number of economists--payments for environmental services (PES) are beginning to be implemented in order to protect w . . .

Foreign "Invaders": genetically modified crops and plant diversity.(AGRICULTURE)
My struggle with weeds over the years has made me aware of the damage they can inflict in gardens, farms, and native ecosystems. I have learned to be vigilant and untrusting of even the smallest, in . . .

Africa's organic peasantry: beyond romanticism.(AGRICULTURE)
In the Western imagination Africa now stands for the antithesis of our own modern economy: its authenticity contrasting with our own contrivance. More specifically, the dominant image of Africa is t . . .

China and the internet: an uphill fight for freedom.(FREEDOM HOUSE PRESENTS ...)
ANONYMOUS Although China is home to the largest population of internet users in the world and has witnessed increasing creativity and "pushback" from its netizens, the country's internet environme . . .

Technology and education: the power of the personal computer.(GALLUP PRESENTS ...)
In most cases, the assumption that wealthy countries tend to have better education systems than poorer countries is correct. However, the association between national wealth and educational achievem . . .

Global crisis in the balkans: serbia's fiscal plans and future EU membership.(INTERVIEW)(Interview)
How has the global financial crisis impacted Serbia in comparison to its Balkan neighbors and to other European states? Was the impact more or less severe, and why? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Balkan . . .

Testing the NATO alliance: Afghanistan and the future of cooperation.(ENDPAPER)
At the heart of the alliance is article five of the North Atlantic Treaty: if one NATO member is attacked, all will respond. Now, as US President Obama reminded us in Strasbourg, NATO "remains the s . . .

Letter from the editors.(Editorial)
What does "modern war" entail? The end of the Cold War signalled a shift--at least temporarily--away from territorial conflicts between large states and towards smaller, messier forms of warfare. US . . .

Politics, please.(CORRESPONDENCE)
Nicolas de Torrente and Fabrice Weissman ("A War Without Limits," Winter 2008) insightfully document international complicity in Somalia's recent suffering. The piece leaves the reader incensed at o . . .

Reconsidering SDRs.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Special Drawing Rights)
The current global financial crisis has unsurprisingly intensified calls to reform the governance of the International Monetary Fund. Richard Cooper's article, "Necessary Reform: The IMF and Interna . . .

Seeds of discontent: politics and Argentine agriculture.(AMERICAS)
Soybeans grown by the ton in Argentina's expansive farmland represent a substantial part of that nation's export market. Herds of cattle bred and fed in the vast pampas make the country famous for i . . .

Failing the state: recognizing Somaliland.(AFRICA)
As nations across Africa struggle to maintain law and order, the international community has forsaken one of Africa's most promising states. Somaliland announced its independence from Somalia in 199 . . .

Pressing for change: journalistic freedom in Russia.(EUROPE)
Following his decisive electoral victory in March 2008, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev vigorously affirmed his intent to protect freedom of the press in the Russian Federation, arguing that indep . . .

Womb for rent: India's commercial surrogacy.(ASIA)
As one of the world's leading outsourcing destinations, India capitalizes on its comparative advantages to play host to a variety of foreign service sectors. Bu t in addition to attracting commonpla . . .

A tightrope act: Jordan's turmoil after Gaza.(MIDDLE EAST)
In December 2008, as televisions worldwide lit up with footage from the Israeli assault on Gaza, protestors next door in Amman, Jordan shouted their support for Hamas, their opposition to Fatah, and . . .

Winning the fight: eradicating slavery in the modern age.(PERSPECTIVES)
The money in Ghana has always been down on the coast. Poor religious and tribal minorities live in the North, where Ibrahim was born. Orphaned at the age of nine, Ibrahim set off with his uncle in s . . .

The EU Reflection Group: learning from the past.(Viewpoint essay)
The rapidly changing, globalized world never ceases to both surprise and catch us unawares. The world economical crisis that started out as a financial crisis in the United States, however, has done . . .

Faith and fragile states: why the development community needs religion.(PERSPECTIVES)
Once upon a time most social scientists assumed that the global march of political and economic modernization would relegate religion to a purely spiritual domain. Few, therefore, contemplated relig . . .

South Africa's ANC split: end of an era?(WORLD IN REVIEWrsouth africa)(African National Congress)(Congress of the People)
Is South Africa leaving the era of Nelson Mandela? After the country's 14 years of de facto single party rule under the African National Congress (ANC), the party of Mandela and of liberation has ex . . .

Unity under siege: the European Single Market after the financial crisis.(WORLD IN REVIEW)
As Europe's leaders respond to the financial crisis, concerns of economic protectionism are leading to greater questions over the fundamental unity of the European Union. At risk is the European Sin . . .

Demystifying defense: exposing myths about US military expenditures.(FEATURES)
The most serious impediments to a serious discussion of defense spending are the myths that surround it. Until these myths are cleared away, no rational debate regarding what the United States and i . . .

US nuclear policy: the open window for transformation.(FEATURES)
It is often said that the world is at a nuclear tipping point. By this, analysts mean that the policy choices we make over the next few years may determine if we tip over into nuclear catastrophe or . . .

NATO'S future: facing old divisions and new threats.(FEATURES)(North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
NATO has much to celebrate in the year of its 60th anniversary. In the twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, NATO has incorporated much of Central and Eastern Europe in . . .

Counterinsurgency: lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan.(FEATURES)
Before the US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the subsequent outbreak of insurgencies in those countries, counterinsurgency was a badly neglected part of the US defense establishment's se . . .

On liberty: detention in new forms of armed conflict.(FEATURES)
On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda operatives attacked civilian and military targets on US territory, causing thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in economic loss. On September 12, the United N . . .

The vanishing law of war reflections on law and war in the 21st century.(FEATURES)
In 1952, Sir Hersch Lauterpacht, then the Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge, opined in the British Yearbook of International Law that "if international law is the . . .

Freedom house presents ... civil society under threat bureaucratic strategies of the new authoritarians.(SPOTLIGHT)
After several decades of consistent progress, the state of global freedom has entered a period of stagnation and possibly even decline. The reasons for recent setbacks to liberty are numerous and co . . .

Duke university presents ... an outflow of talent: nativism and the US reverse brain drain.(SPOTLIGHT)
As the world hurtles headlong into the deepest global recession since the Great Depression, the controversial cultural and economic tensions that have always existed around the sensitive topics of i . . .

A renewed approach: finding stability in US-Pakistan relations.(INTERVIEW)(Interview)
You have extensive experience in Pakistani diplomacy and have served Pakistan as Ambassador for two terms. What do you think were the main diplomatic issues facing Pakistan during your ambassadorshi . . .

An eye for an eye: Counterterrorism, reciprocity, and human rights.
Mark Osiel's provocative new book, The End of Reciprocity: Terror, Torture and the Law of War, provides detailed discussions of a number of important moral and legal issues arising for the United St . . .

The other great depression: new hope from a long-forgotten crisis.(ENDPAPER)
There is a part of our brain which firmly believes that disaster begets disaster. This intuition probably comes from daily life--for example, we see gambling misadventures lead to a job loss, a pain . . .

Letter from the editors.(Letter to the editor)
The events of fall 2008, marked by the collapse of Wall Street's investment banks and the unraveling of the global financial architecture, were unexpected and are still poorly understood. In discuss . . .

Legality and localism.(CORRESPONDENCE)
The international community would be wise to support Mr. Carter's call ("Reconstructing the Rule of Law: Post-Conflict Liberia," Fall 2008) for an international endorsement of community-based struct . . .

Extreme madrasahs.(CORRESPONDENCE)
Alexander Evans ("Madrasah Education: Necessity or Rational Choice," Fall 2008) is correct in focusing on the state's failure in South Asia to provide quality education. He, however, is wrong on two . . .

Petrol power: oil's hold on Latin America.(AMERICAS)
Oil, former Venezuelan oil minister Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo famously noted, is "the devil's excrement." Ironically, his own country has ignored this prophetic warning most of all. In Venezuela and . . .