The Supreme Court’s recent McCutcheon decision has reinvigorated the discussion on how campaign finance affects American democracy. Seeking to dissect the complex relationship between political parties, partisan polarization, and campaign finance, Tom Mann and Anthony Corrado’s new paper on Party Polarization and Campaign Finance reviews the landscape of hard and soft money in federal elections and asks whether campaign finance reform can abate polarization and strengthen governing capacity in the United States. The paper tackles two popular contentions within the campaign finance debate: First, has campaign finance reform altered the role of political parties as election financiers and therefore undermined deal making and pragmatism? Second, would a change in the composition of small and large individual donors decrease polarization in the parties?

The Role of Political Parties in Campaign Finance

Political parties have witnessed a number of shifts in their campaign finance role, including McCain-Feingold’s ban on party soft money in 2002. This has led many to ask if the breakdown in compromise and governance and the rise of polarization has come about because parties have lost the power to finance elections. To assess that claim, the authors track the amount of money crossing national and state party books as an indicator of party strength. The empirical evidence shows no significant decrease in party strength post 2002 and holds that “both parties have compensated for the loss of soft money with hard money receipts.” In fact, the parties have upped their spending on congressional candidates more than six-fold since 1980. Despite the ban on soft money, the parties remain major players in federal elections.

Large and Small Donors in National Campaigns

Mann and Corrado turn to non-party money and survey the universe of individual donors to evaluate “whether small, large or mega-donors are most likely to fuel or diminish the polarization that increasingly defines the political landscape.” The authors map the size and shape of individual giving and confront the concern that Super PACs, politically active nonprofits, and the super-wealthy are buying out American democracy. They ask: would a healthier mix of small and large donors reduce radicalization and balance out asymmetric polarization between the parties? The evidence suggests that increasing the role of small donors would have little effect on partisan polarization in either direction because small donors tend to be highly polarized. Although Mann and Corrado note that a healthier mix would champion democratic ideals like civic participation and equality of voice.

Taking both points together, Mann and Corrado find that campaign finance reform is insufficient for depolarizing the parties and improving governing capacity. They argue forcefully that polarization emerges from a broader political and partisan problem. Ultimately, they assert that, “some break in the party wars is probably a prerequisite to any serious pushback to the broader deregulation of campaign finance now underway.”

Click to read Mann and Corrado’s full paper, Party Polarization and Campaign Finance.

Editors' Note: How can the U.S. government better counter ISIS propaganda? As the State Department overhauls its counter messaging program, Will McCants and Clint Watts examine what makes ISIS’s online magazine, Dabiq, so successful, and the obstacles to the U.S. government producing a publication that effective. This piece originally appeared on The Daily Beast.

The Obama administration attributes much of ISIS’s success at communicating to its technological savvy, which has elevated the group to a global media and terrorist phenomenon. The president has gone so far as to say that the Paris attackers were a “bunch of killers with good social media.”

Despite the praise heaped on the so-called Islamic State for its cutting-edge propaganda online, one of its most effective products is decidedly low tech. Dabiq, ISIS’s online news magazine, has a small but devoted readership that spans the globe. News of advances on the battlefield excite them—more evidence that God’s kingdom on earth has returned and grows. Stories of fighters inspire them—more models to emulate as they contemplate what role they can play in the divine drama unfolding.

Journalists and analysts read it with almost the same intensity as ISIS fans; the contents of each volume fill newspapers and think-tank reports soon after it’s released. And no wonder: the magazine clearly states the organization’s goals; provides news of its activities that advance those goals; showcases personal stories of the people engaged in the activities; and announces major developments in the organization’s fight against its enemies. It’s a wealth of information presented between two covers every few months.

Can you name a single U.S. government publication or online platform devoted to the anti-ISIS fight that is as informative or as widely-read as Dabiq? Is there anything that tells us what all these air sorties are for? Who’s fighting this fight on the ground? What advances the coalition has made and why we should we care? We couldn’t come up with one either.

That got us to thinking: why can’t the U.S. government publish something like Dabiq online? Lack of imagination isn’t the reason. A news magazine isn’t a very creative idea—Americans perfected the form, which ISIS copied. And if anything, folks inside the government have too many overly-imaginative ideas, most of them involving whiz-bang technology. If you’ve thought it, they’ve thought it. A social media campaign for youth to come up with ways to counter violent extremism? Check. Sock-puppetry? Check.

The only real obstacle impeding the U.S. government is itself. The executive branch’s complicated bureaucracy, legal strictures, and sensitivity to criticism from media and Congress make it tough to publish a Dabiq-style magazine. To see what we mean, let’s look at two of Dabiq’s regular features and see what would happen if the U.S. government tried to mimic them:

Attack Reports: Each issue of Dabiq details its attacks on its enemies. One entry in issue 12 chronicled ISIS’s efforts to capture an airbase in Dayr al-Zawr, Syria. Another described four suicide attacks on the Saudi-led coalition fighting southern Yemen. Pictures accompany most entries, some quite gruesome.

The U.S. government routinely writes these types of reports for internal consumption. But when they’re public—and thus under the scrutiny of Congress that holds the pursestrings and the media that holds the careerstrings—routine gives way to caution and quarreling.

If the president asks his government to write attack reports for the public, the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Defense will quarrel about who will take the lead in writing and publishing them. Then they and the intelligence agencies will quarrel over which reports should be included. Will this report counter the president’s insistence that we have no boots on the ground? Will that report make it look like our Iraqi partners aren’t carrying their weight? Does this one tell the enemy too much about our game plan? Does that picture make U.S. soldiers look too menacing? Will this report later be discredited by the media? Will these battlefield successes be reversed in the future? Does anyone know if another agency has said this or its opposite? Will anyone trust what we’re saying? Shouldn’t someone else be saying this?

When something finally slides off the serpentine conveyor belt months later, it will be a bland blob devoid of detail and relevance. Meanwhile, ISIS will have added twelve more volumes to its shelves.

Biographies of Fighters: Dabiq sometimes profiles its fighters, including the young men on the front lines dying for ISIS’s cause. The fighters tell their stories and explain their reasons for fighting. In issue 8, for example, there is a Q&A with the man who murdered a prominent politician in Tunisia. He explains why he did it and how it advances the greater goals of the Islamic State.

The United States military used to feature these sorts of stories, too—back when the American war in Iraq was a massive, overt affair. Now, that’s not the case. The identities of the Americans fighting in Syria and Iraq are a well-guarded secret because the government does not want them or their families to become targets. The government would also frown on them for nonchalantly talking about killing lest the American public get upset. And then there’s that boots on the ground thing.

Without personal stories, we’re left with drones buzzing in the sky, and buzz-cut officers droning through stale Pentagon briefings. The human cost on both sides is reduced to numbers on slides, which means Americans can’t appreciate the true costs of war and foreigners can’t appreciate the sacrifices Americans are making on their behalf.

Some readers might feel that the U.S. government should be constrained in these ways. They want the government to be sensitive to public opinion and exceedingly cautious when talking about war and violence. If so, they shouldn’t complain when the U.S. government explains its anti-ISIS fight in the vaguest possible terms—that’s the outcome of extreme caution compounded by bureaucratic bargaining on a mind-boggling scale. Others might feel we need to reform the way government does messaging. If so, don’t propose to change the system first. Rather, ask the system to perform a simple task like the one we’ve described and see where it breaks down. Then you’ll know what to fix.

Making a news magazine probably isn’t the high tech solution the government is looking for, at least judging by Friday’s pilgrimage of senior security officials to Silicon Valley and the revamping of State Department’s online counter messaging campaign. But if our byzantine, poll-sensitive government can’t do something so basic, it won’t perform better when it’s tasked with something more complicated no matter how much technology it uses.

Event Information

A conversation with Senator John McCain

On May 19, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings (21CSI) hosted Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) to address major reforms to the organization of the Department of Defense, the defense acquisition system, and the military health system included in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, which is planned for consideration by the Senate as soon as next week.

Given his role as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain also addressed ongoing budget challenges for the Department of Defense and the military and his views on what needs to be done. Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and co-director of 21CSI, moderated the discussion.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #FY17NDAA

Video

• Introduction by Martin Indyk, and remarks by Sen. John McCain
• Discussion between Sen. John McCain and Michael O'Hanlon

Audio

• New demands on the military and the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20160519_mccain_defense_transcript

Note: FBI Director James Comey recommended this week that no criminal charges be pressed against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. And Attorney General Loretta Lynch has formally closed the Department of Justice’s investigation. But congressional Republicans—who called Comey to testify before the House Oversight committee yesterday—insist that Clinton’s conduct jeopardized U.S. national security.

As I wrote back in February, when it was revealed that 22 of the emails in question were deemed too classified to be made public: “Hillary's emails (even if they were released) could not do anything more than confirm or repudiate what has already been widely investigated.” I called for distinguishing mistakes from crimes and argued that Clinton’s use of a private email server never put America’s security at risk. 

Due to the renewed relevance of that post, it is re-posted below.

What to make of the recent report that 22 emails from Hillary Clinton's private server, written while she was secretary of state during the first Obama term, contain such highly classified material that they cannot be released to the public? Republicans have seized on the latest news to argue that Hillary Clinton was careless or even reckless in her treatment of national secrets. They’ve thereby challenged her credentials and judgment as she pursues the presidency.

Clinton has acknowledged some mistakes in the use of a personal email account and server when she led the State Department, but her campaign has dismissed the latest news as evidence of a U.S. government classification system run amok that often slaps a top secret label on even the most innocuous of information. 

With the emails at issue now classified, it’s hard to understand the basis for this dispute very well. Who are we to believe? Most people are probably falling back on their preconceived views about Hillary, but it would be nice to find a more objective way to assess the latest news—especially as primary voting season begins.

A hypothetical

I can't be sure what's going on here either. But there have been reports that some of the sensitive emails might have involved the use of drones in certain parts of the world where the U.S. government has chosen not to announce or publicize its use of that technology. 

Let's explore that, on the hunch that it may be what's behind the latest brouhaha. For years, there has been a great deal of media coverage of how unmanned aerial systems, including armed ones, have been used in the broader war on terror. If there ever were any real secrets here, they have been very badly kept. Certainly, Hillary's emails (even if they were released) could not do anything more than confirm or repudiate what has already been widely investigated, in this country and around the world. It seems quite unlikely that she was so careless as to describe any technical aspects of those drones or to otherwise risk the leakage of information that was truly still secret (in the sense that word is normally used in the English language, rather than the way the U.S. government employs it when making classification determinations).

Hillary's emails (even if they were released) could not do anything more than confirm or repudiate what has already been widely investigated.

Imagine a situation in which the United States government wished to use force as part of a broader military operation that Congress had already approved in broad contours, going back to the 2001 Authorization on the Use of Military Force that followed the 9/11 attack. But the employment of force in a particular place was seen as politically sensitive—less so in the United States, where Congress had already authorized the conflict, but in a foreign country, where the government at issue was not willing or able to publicly support America's use of military force on its territory. This could be a situation where the foreign government in question actually had few qualms about the U.S. action, but did still not wish to be associated with them—in fact, it may have wanted the license to complain about them publicly, both to its own public and other nations. It wanted, in other words, to have its cake and eat it too.

In this situation, whether the U.S. decision to accept such constraints on its action was wise or not, it would not be allowable for an American public official to discuss the policy. The actual use of armed force would occur through covert elements of the U.S. government, and under domestic laws governing such activities. 

We would have twisted ourselves into knots to avoid displeasing a foreign government that otherwise might make a huge stink about our using American military power on its territory—and might even retaliate against us in some way if the information were publicly confirmed. Everyone in that country, the United States, and other places would have a strong suspicion of what we were actually doing, but there would be no official confirmation. It's not exactly plausible deniability. Call it implausible deniability, in fact.

In such a situation, as a top official in the United States, Hillary Clinton would perhaps have been an architect of the policy (or have inherited it from a previous presidency). Either way, she would be expected to abide by it, and treat the information as highly sensitive. If she did not do so, that was indeed a mistake on her part.

Distinguishing mistakes from crimes

But if this thought experiment bears any resemblance to what actually is behind those 22 emails, one more thing should also be clear—no major national secret was at risk of getting out because of Secretary Clinton's misjudgment. Her email practice was potentially a mistake, but no high crime, and America's security was never put at risk.

Of course, it's still up to voters to decide how to weigh this potential issue in the panoply of so many others that influence their choices for president. Even if I’m right in my guess about what's going on here, I don’t claim to be in a position to answer that question for anyone.

Editor's Note: Johannes Linn discusses the potential of multilateral development banks in the latest G-20 Research Group briefing book on the St. Petersburg G-20 Summit. Read the full collection here.

The origins of the multilateral development banks (MDBs) lie with the creation of the World Bank at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its initial purpose, as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was the reconstruction of wartorn countries after the Second World War. 

As Europe and Japan recovered in the 1950s, the World Bank turned to providing financial assistance to the developing world. Then came the foundation of the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB) in 1959, of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 1964 and of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 1966, each to assist the development of countries in their respective regions. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was set up in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, to assist with the transition of countries in the former Soviet sphere. 

The MDBs are thus rooted in two key aspects of the geopolitical reality of the postwar 20th century: the Cold War between capitalist ‘West’ and communist ‘East’, and the division of the world into the industrial ‘North’ and the developing ‘South’. The former aspect was mirrored in the MDBs for many years by the absence of countries from the Eastern Bloc. This was only remedied after the fall of the Bamboo and Iron curtains. The latter aspect remains deeply embedded even today in the mandate, financing pattern and governance structures of the MDBs. 

Changing global financial architecture 

From the 1950s to the 1990s, the international financial architecture consisted of only three pillars: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the MDBs represented the multilateral official pillar; the aid agencies of the industrial countries represented bilateral official pillar; and the commercial banks and investors from industrial countries made up the private pillar. 

Today, the picture is dramatically different. Private commercial flows vastly exceed official flows, except during global financial crises. New channels of development assistance have multiplied, as foundations and religious and non-governmental organisations rival the official assistance flows in size. 

The multilateral assistance architecture, previously dominated by the MDBs, is now a maze of multilateral development agencies, with a slew of sub-regional development banks, some exceeding the traditional MDBs in size. For example, the European Investment Bank lends more than the World Bank, and the Caja Andina de Fomento (CAF, the Latin American Development Bank) more than the IADB. There are also a number of large ‘vertical funds’ for specific purposes, such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. There are  specialized trust funds, attached to MDBs, but often with their own governance structures.

End of the North-South divide 

Finally, the traditional North-South divide is breaking down, as emerging markets have started to close the development gap, as global poverty has dropped and as many developing countries have large domestic capacities. This means that the new power houses in the South need little financial and technical assistance and are now providing official financial and technical support to their less fortunate neighbors. China’s assistance to Africa outstrips that of the World Bank.

The future for MDBs 

In this changed environment is there a future for MDBs? Three options might be considered: 

1. Do away with the MDBs as a relic of the past. Some more radical market ideologues might argue that, if there ever was a justification for the MDBs, that time is now well past. In 2000, a US congressional commission recommended the less radical solution of shifting the World Bank’s loan business to the regional MDBs. Even if shutting down MDBs were the right option, it is highly unlikely to happen. No multilateral financial institution created after the Second World War has ever been closed. Indeed, recently the Nordic Development Fund was to be shut down, but its owners reversed their decision and it will carry on, albeit with a focus on climate change. 

2. Carry on with business as usual. Currently, MDBs are on a track that, if continued, would mean a weakened mandate, loss of clients, hollowed-out financial strength and diluted technical capacity. Given their tight focus on the fight against poverty, the MDBs will work themselves out of a job as global poverty, according to traditional metrics, is on a dramatic downward trend. 

Many middle-income country borrowers are drifting away from the MDBs, since they find other sources of finance and technical advice more attractive. These include the sub-regional development banks, which are more nimble in disbursing their loans and whose governance is not dominated by the industrial countries. These countries, now facing major long-term budget constraints, will be unable to continue supporting the growth of the MDBs’ capital base. But they are also unwilling to let the emerging market economies provide relatively more funding and acquire a greater voice in these institutions.

Finally, while the MDBs retain professional staff that represents a valuable global asset, their technical strength relative to other sources of advice – and by some measures, even their absolute strength – has been waning. 

If left unattended, this would mean that MDBs 10 years from now, while still limping along, are likely to have lost their ability to provide effective financial and technical services on a scale and with a quality that matter globally or regionally. 

3. Give the MDBs a new mandate, new governance and new financing. If one starts from the proposition that a globalised 21st-century world needs capable global institutions that can provide long-term finance to meet critical physical and social infrastructure needs regionally and globally, and that can serve as critical knowledge hubs in an increasingly interconnected world, then it would be folly to let the currently still considerable institutional and financial strengths of the MDBs wither away.

• The mandate of the MDBs should be adapted to move beyond preoccupation with poverty eradication to focus explicitly on global and regional public goods as a way to help sustain global economic growth and human welfare. Moreover, the MDBs should be able to provide assistance to all their members, not only developing country members. 

• The governance of the MDBs should be changed to give the South a voice commensurate with the greater global role it now plays in economic and political terms. MDB leaders should be selected on merit without consideration of nationality. 

• The financing structure should be matched to give more space to capital contributions from the South and to significantly expand the MDBs’ capital resources in the face of the current severe capital constraints.

In addition, MDB management should be guided by banks’ membership to streamline their operational practices in line with those widely used by sub-regional development banks, and they should be supported in preserving and, where possible, strengthening their professional capacity so that they can serve as international knowledge hubs. 

A new MDB agenda for the G20 

The G20 has taken on a vast development agenda. This is fine, but it risks getting bogged down in the minutiae of development policy design and implementation that go far beyond what global leaders can and should deal with. What is missing is a serious preoccupation of the G20 with that issue on which it is uniquely well equipped to lead: reform of the global financial institutional architecture. 

What better place than to start with than the MDBs? The G20 should review the trends, strengths and weaknesses of MDBs in recent decades and endeavour to create new mandates, governance and financing structures that make them serve as effective pillars of the global institutional system in the 21st century. If done correctly, this would also mean no more need for new institutions, such as the BRICS development bank currently being created by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It would be far better to fix the existing institutions than to create new ones that mostly add to the already overwhelming fragmentation of the global institutional system.

Visiting Astana, the modernistic capital of Kazakhstan, last week, I couldn't help feeling that I was at, or at least close to, the center of the universe. 

Consider this:  On September 7, the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, having just returned from attending the G-20 Summit in St. Petersburg at the invitation of President Putin of Russia, welcomed President Xi Jinping of China for an official visit in Astana. President Xi gave a speech that day at Nazarbayev University, in which he unabashedly borrowed a turn of phrase from former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  by proposing a “New Silk Road” to serve as an “economic belt” of Eurasia, connecting “3 million people from the Pacific to the Baltic Sea” with Kazakhstan as a key partner along the way. 

On September 10, President Nazarbayev opened the Eurasian Emerging Markets Forum in Astana, at which he addressed some 800 participants, including high-level dignitaries and representatives from 87 countries.  In his keynote speech, he laid out his plans to catapult Kazakhstan into the ranks of the top 30 developed countries in the world by 2050.  The rest of the forum was devoted to exploring the ways in which this ambitious vision could be achieved and how economic integration of the Eurasian supercontinent—i.e., Europe plus Asia, with Kazakhstan at its center—would be a driver of regional and global prosperity. 

Finally, on September 13, President Nazarbayev joined the leaders of China, Russia and the five Central Asian republics in Bishkek for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was also attended by a number of other regional leaders with observer status, including from Afghanistan, India, Iran and Pakistan.  Besides the usual pledges of good neighborly relations within the group, the leaders weighed in with a chorus of statements about current geopolitical trouble spots, including Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, many of them directed critically at the United States.

While the president and people of Kazakhstan might have felt at the center of global action this week, there is little doubt that China and Russia are the key external actors on the Central Asian stage.  Europe and the United States are far away and hardly visible, and everybody expects that, with the imminent end of NATO’s engagement in Afghanistan, their attention to Central Asia will slip even further.  In contrast, the leaders of China and Russia are clearly focused on this region.  

Central Asian leaders, while perhaps privately worried about the long-term consequences of too tight an embrace by China, welcome the low-key approach of their big neighbor...

If there had been any doubt, President Xi’s speech in Astana showed that China is now concerned with Central Asia at the highest level.  While China faces its neighbors in the Pacific region in an assertive pose designed to counter what it sees as encirclement by unfriendly countries led by the U.S., it evidently feels no threat in Central Asia and projects an image of itself as benevolent and modest senior partner.  No doubt sensing opportunities to create a stable backyard, to secure access to energy resources and to build a land bridge to European and Middle Eastern markets while also gently wresting influence away from Russia, China has a strong incentive to push westward.  The substantial energy supply deals  that President Xi signed in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan this past week and the stress Xi placed in his Astana speech on measures to open up transport links throughout Eurasia reflect China’s growing engagement in this region.  Central Asian leaders, while perhaps privately worried about the long-term consequences of too tight an embrace by China, welcome the low-key approach of their big neighbor, which promises to strengthen their own hand economically and politically at least in the short term.

At the same time, there is also a new dynamic between Central Asia and Russia.  Since Mr. Putin resumed the Russian presidency in 2012, Russia has breathed new life into a long-dormant regional grouping, the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), by pushing hard to create a customs union  (and eventually an economic union) that, in Russia’s view, would encompass most of the republics of the former Soviet Union. Although only a fraction of the geographic space of continental Eurasia (Europe + Asia), the reference to “Eurasia” harks back to a long-standing Russian ideological vision.  Under this vision, Russia and its former Soviet neighbors are endowed with a unique combination of European and Asian values and, led by Russia, with a mission to dominate the land bridge between Europe and Asia. 

In the pursuit of establishing a unified economic “Eurasian” space, Russia has not only successfully pushed for the full implementation of the current customs union between Russia, Kazakhstan and Belorussia, but is also vigorously pursuing the expansion of the union in Ukraine, Central Asia (specifically targeting the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan) and Armenia in the South Caucasus.  In the case of Armenia and Ukraine, this pursuit has taken on a decidedly anti-European Union tone, as Russia seems to spare no effort to ensure that these countries will join its own economic orbit, rather than associating with the EU.  In Central Asia, the Russian campaign of expanding the customs union has been more low key, but nonetheless persistent with the quiet support of Kazakhstan.  Interestingly, this effort to create a unified economic space has not been cast by Russia as a move to counteract the growing influence of China in Central Asia, even though it is undoubtedly one of the underlying long-term motives for Russian diplomacy in the region.  

Much more important for China will be whether the “Eurasian” economic union can create safe, low-cost and high-speed transit routes to China’s key trading partners in Europe, South Asia and the Middle East.

Indeed, for Central Asia in general and for Kazakhstan in particular, the important questions for the future will be how China and Russia shape their mutual relations overall and how they will seek to accommodate their overlapping interests in the region.  For the moment, a common geopolitical front vis-à-vis the U.S., evident in their joint positions at the U.N. Security Council and at the SCO summit last week, is an overarching priority for China and Russia.  Moreover, they share the common interest of establishing a stable and prosperous political and economic sphere in Central Asia.  For now and the foreseeable future, China’s thirst for energy is large enough to allow both Russia and Central Asian countries to pursue opportunities for major oil and gas supply deals with China without undue competition. Finally, whatever protectionist effects an expansion of the Russian-led customs union may have in limiting trade between China and Central Asia will likely be temporary and will hardly be noticed in China’s huge overall trade account.  Much more important for China will be whether the “Eurasian” economic union can create safe, low-cost and high-speed transit routes to China’s key trading partners in Europe, South Asia and the Middle East. This priority strongly resonated in President Xi’s speech, in which he not only staked out an interest in Eurasian economic integration, but also promised greater cooperation between the SCO and EurAsEC.

What does all of this mean in practical terms for Central Asia and for Kazakhstan?  As President Nazarbayev indicated in his speech at the Eurasian Emerging Markets Forum, he sees Kazakhstan as playing a key role in supporting the economic integration of larger Eurasia.  This presumably should mean: investing in regional infrastructure, such as the major East-West Highway through Kazakhstan as a link from China to Europe; assuring that the customs union pursues open, rather than protectionist, policies; and convincing the other Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, to participate in an effort to increase the region’s connectivity both internally and with the rest of the world. 

In addition, there are a number of institutional options for promoting these goals and for turning China’s and Russia’s engagement in Central Asia into a pragmatic partnership.  One option would be to have China join the Eurasian Development Bank (EADB), the financial arm of EurAsEC.  Another would be for Russia to join the Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC), in which China has teamed up with Central Asian countries (now also including Afghanistan, Mongolia and Pakistan) and with six international financial organizations (including the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank) with the goal of improving regional cooperation and investment in trade, transport and energy.  Either or both of these two options could then offer SCO a financial and technical institutional platform to pursue economic integration between China, Russia and Central Asia (and, ultimately, even South Asia), a goal that has eluded SCO up until now. 

Kazakhstan is a member of EurAsEc, EADB, CAREC and SCO, and is therefore in a unique position to promote institutional changes along some or all of these lines.  One place to start would be the next ministerial conference of CAREC, to be held in Astana on October 24-25.  Of course, it is by no means clear that China and Russia will see it in their interest to dilute their lead roles in EADB and CAREC, the regional organizations that they now respectively dominate.  However, establishing a strong and meaningful institutional capacity that would support the economic integration process in Central Asia and in the larger Eurasia would be of great benefit for Kazakhstan, since it would help turn the country from being “land-locked” to being “land-linked” with the world’s largest and most dynamic economies.

Last Thursday was finance minister day at Brookings, with three separate visits from European finance ministers who were in town for the IMF meetings. Here in Governance Studies, we were delighted to have the opportunity to host Czech Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Andrej Babis for a wide-ranging conversation with our scholars, including Darrell West, Bill Galston, John Hudak, and myself, as well as Bill Drozdiak of Brookings' Center on the United States and Europe and Jeff Gedmin of Georgetown University. Brookings has a long tradition of welcoming distinguished European visitors, and so contributing to the strengthening of transatlantic ties. That is particularly important now, as Europe confronts the destabilizing effects of Russia's aggression in Ukraine, the Greek debt crisis, be continuing after effects of the great recession, and multiple other challenges. We were honored to host Minister Babis and we look forward to many more visits here from leaders of our close U.S. ally, the Czech Republic.

(Photo credit: Embassy of the Czech Republic)

I had the pleasure earlier this month of welcoming my friend, Czech Republic Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek, here to Brookings for a discussion of critical issues confronting the Europe-U.S. alliance. Foreign Minister Zaoralek was appointed to his current position in January 2014 after serving as a leading figure in the Czech Parliament for many years. He was accompanied by a distinguished delegation that included Dr. Petr Drulak of the Foreign Ministry, and Czech Ambassador Petr Gandalovic. I was fortunate enough to be joined in the discussion by colleagues from Brookings including Fiona Hill, Shadi Hamid, Steve Pifer, and others, as well as representatives of other D.C. think tanks. Our discussion spanned the globe, from how to respond to the Syrian conflict, to addressing Russia’s conduct in Ukraine, to the thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations, to dealing with the refugee crisis in Europe. The conversation was so fascinating that the sixty minutes we had allotted flew by and we ended up talking for two hours—and we still just scratched the surface.

Amb. Eisen and FM Zaoralek, October 2, 2015

Yesterday, we had a visit from Czech State Secretary Tomas Prouza, accompanied by Ambassador Martin Povejsil, the Czech Permanent Envoy to the EU. We also talked about world affairs. In this case, that included perhaps the most important governance matter now confronting the U.S.: the exceptionally entertaining (if not enlightening) presidential primary season. I expressed my opinion that Vice President Biden would not enter the race, only to have him prove me right in his Rose Garden remarks a few hours later. If only all my predictions came true (and as quickly). We at Brookings benefited greatly from the insights of both of these October delegations, and we look forward to welcoming many more from every part of the Czech political spectrum in the months ahead.

Prouza, Eisen, Povejsil, October 21, 2015

Event Information

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With the demand for its services constantly evolving, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) faces complex challenges in providing accessible care to America’s veterans. Amidst a history of long patient wait times, cost overruns, and management concerns, the VA recently conducted a sweeping internal review of its operations.  The result was the new MyVA program.

How will MyVA improve the VA’s care of veterans? What will it do restore public confidence in its efforts? What changes is the VA undergoing to address both internal concerns and modern challenges in veteran care? 

On June 20, Governance Studies at Brookings hosted VA Secretary Robert McDonald. Secretary McDonald described the VA’s transformation strategy and explained how the reforms within MyVA will impact veterans, taxpayers and other stakeholders. He addressed lessons learned not just for the VA but for all government agencies that strive to achieve transformation and improve service delivery.

This event was broadcast live on C-SPAN.

Join the conversation on Twitter at #VASec and @BrookingsGov

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• Can the Department of Veterans Affairs be modernized?

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The eurozone has three problems: national debt obligations that cannot be met, medium-term imbalances in trade competitiveness, and long-term structural flaws.

The short-run problem requires more of the monetary easing that Germany has, with appalling shortsightedness, been resisting, and less of the near-term fiscal restraint that Germany has, with equally appalling shortsightedness, been seeking. To insist that Greece meet all of its near-term current debt service obligations makes about as much sense as did French and British insistence that Germany honor its reparations obligations after World War I. The latter could not be and were not honored. The former cannot and will not be honored either.

The medium-term problem is that, given a single currency, labor costs are too high in Greece and too low in Germany and some other northern European countries. Because adjustments in currency values cannot correct these imbalances, differences in growth of wages must do the job—either wage deflation and continued depression in Greece and other peripheral countries, wage inflation in Germany, or both. The former is a recipe for intense and sustained misery. The latter, however politically improbable it may now seem, is the better alternative.

The long-term problem is that the eurozone lacks the fiscal transfer mechanisms necessary to soften the effects of competitiveness imbalances while other forms of adjustment take effect. This lack places extraordinary demands on the willingness of individual nations to undertake internal policies to reduce such imbalances. Until such fiscal transfer mechanisms are created, crises such as the current one are bound to recur.

Present circumstances call for a combination of short-term expansionary policies that have to be led or accepted by the surplus nations, notably Germany, who will also have to recognize and accept that not all Greek debts will be paid or that debt service payments will not be made on time and at originally negotiated interest rates. The price for those concessions will be a current and credible commitment eventually to restore and maintain fiscal balance by the peripheral countries, notably Greece.

Senior Fellows Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill are the first joint recipients of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize from the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS). The prize is awarded each year to a leading policymaker, social scientist, or public intellectual whose career focuses on advancing the public good through social science. It was named after the late senator from New York and renowned sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The pair accepted the award May 12 at a ceremony in Washington, DC. 

In their joint lecture delivered at the ceremony, Haskins and Sawhill emphasized the importance of evidence-based public policy, highlighting Sawhill’s latest work in her book, Generation Unbound (Brookings, 2014). Watch their entire speech here:

“Marriage is disappearing and more and more babies are born outside marriage,” Sawhill said during the lecture. “Right now, the proportion born outside of marriage is about 40 percent. It’s higher than that among African Americans and lower than that among the well-educated. But it’s no longer an issue that just affects the poor or minority groups.”

Download Sawhill's slides » | Download Ron Haskins' slides »

The power of evidence-based policy is finally being recognized, Haskins added. “One of the prime motivating factors of the current evidence-based movement,” he said, “is the understanding, now widespread, that most social programs either have not been well evaluated or they don’t work.” Haskins continued:

Perhaps the most important social function of social science is to find and test programs that will reduce the nation’s social problems. The exploding movement of evidence-based policy and the many roots the movement is now planting, offer the best chance of fulfilling this vital mission of social science, of achieving, in other words, exactly the outcomes Moynihan had hoped for.

He pointed toward the executive branch, state governments, and non-profits implementing policies that could make substantial progress against the nation’s social problems.

Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at Brookings and co-director, with Haskins, of the Center on Children and Families (CCF), acknowledged Haskins and Sawhill’s “powerful and unique intellectual partnership” and their world-class work on families, poverty, opportunity, evidence, parenting, work, and education.

Haskins and Sawhill were the first to be awarded jointly by the AAPSS, which recognizes their 15-year collaboration at Brookings and the Center on Children and Families, which they established. In addition to their work at CCF, the two co-wrote Creating an Opportunity Society (Brookings 2009) and serve as co-editors of The Future of Children, a policy journal that tackles issues that have an impact on children and families.

Haskins and Sawhill join the ranks of both current and past Brookings scholars who have received the Moynihan Prize, including Alice Rivlin (recipient of the inaugural prize), Rebecca Blank, and William Julius Wilson along with other distinguished scholars and public servants.

Want to learn more about the award’s namesake? Read Governance Studies Senior Fellow and historian Steve Hess’s account of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s time in the Nixon White House in his book The Professor and the President (Brookings, 2014).

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Crisis seems to be the byword for Brazil today: political crisis, economic crisis, corruption crisis. Even the 2016 Rio Olympics seem to teeter on the edge of failure, according to the governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Yet despite the steady drum beat of grim news, Brazil is more than likely to resume its upward trajectory within a few years. Its present economic and political troubles mask a number of positives: the strength of its democracy and a new found willingness to fight corruption at all costs. With the correct policies in place, its economy will recover in due course. The impeachment process against Dilma Rousseff will soon be over, one way or the other. The present troubles are merely a temporary detour on Brazil’s long quest to achieve major power status and a consequential role in the international system. In a world in turmoil, where geopolitical tensions are on the rise and the fabric of international politics is stressed by events such as Brexit, we should not lose sight of Brazil’s history of and potential for contributing to sustaining the liberal international order.

Brazil’s aspirations for greatness

Brazil has long aspired to grandeza (greatness) both at home and abroad. As its first ambassador to Washington, Joaquim Nabuco (1905-1910) once said, “Brazil has always been conscious of its size, and it has been governed by a prophetic sense with regard to its future.” As we document in our new book, Brazil has reached for major power status at least four times in the past 100 years: participating as a co-belligerent with the Allies in World War One and seeking a permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations thereafter; joining the Allies in World War II and aspiring to a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 1945; mastering nuclear technology beginning in the 1970s, including launching a covert military program (now terminated) to build a nuclear explosive device; and most recently, beginning with the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), seeking to become a leader in multilateral institutions, including actively campaigning for a permanent seat on the UNSC.

A decade ago, many Brazilians believed that this time their country was poised to secure its position as a major power. As the seventh largest economy in the world with the 10th largest defense budget and significant soft power, Brazilian leaders such as Lula saw their country as being “in the mix” of major powers who, while not able to make the international order alone, could very well shape its evolution through uncertain times together with other major powers. Certainly, they no longer saw Brazil as one of the middle or small powers, the “order takers” in the international system.

Brazil saw a new opportunity to emerge as a major power in the advent of a relatively stable and peaceful post-Cold War geopolitical order, the decade-long commodity boom that supercharged its economy after 2002, and the rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Between 2002 and 2013, Brazil’s virtuous trifecta—democratic consolidation, rapid economic growth, and reduced inequality—was a boon to its soft power. This combination was highly attractive to many in the developing world, contributing to Brazil’s claim to leadership on the international stage as a bridge between the global South and the great powers. International peace and stability particularly favored Brazil’s predilection for deploying soft power rather than hard power. And in the BRICS, Brazil saw an opportunity to work together with other emerging powers critical of the present international order to advance its agenda for reformed global institutions.

Rethinking Brazil’s approach to global influence

Brazil’s bridge-building strategy was effective in advancing its national interests in multilateral forums, most recently on global internet governance and global climate change. But the BRICS dimension of Brazil’s strategy detracted from its ability to influence the world’s great democracies. The BRICS identity associated Brazil with authoritarian powers—China and Russia—that were viewed by the United States and its allies, at best, as unhelpful critics and, at worst, as deliberate saboteurs of the present order. This undermined Brazil’s credibility with Washington and other leading democracies, and hindered its ability to advance its preferred policies on everything from nonproliferation to the reform of global economic institutions to the debate on humanitarian intervention. In retrospect, working more closely with other emerging democracies that seek reform of the international order, such as through the India-Brazil-South Africa association known as IBSA, would have more clearly signaled Brazil’s constructive intentions while still preserving its critical posture.

Today, the opportunities that powered Brazil’s most recent rise—post-Cold War geopolitical stability and a massive commodity boom—are receding, replaced by a more fractious and dangerous international system. Despite troubles at home, it is not too early for Brazil’s leaders to think anew about how to strengthen national capabilities and deploy them strategically to address this new environment. This includes fortifying domestic institutions, both to address the present crisis but also to restore the luster of Brazil’s soft power. It means bolstering Brazil’s hard power capabilities once the economy improves and deploying them in ways that contribute to its soft power, for example by taking on additional responsibility for leading critical international peacekeeping operations as it has in Haiti. It means thinking carefully about how to signal to the democratic great powers Brazil’s commitment to a strengthened liberal international order, even as it holds onto its own principles and works towards reform of multilateral institutions. And eventually, as Brazil completes its recovery, it means contributing more substantially to the costs of maintaining its preferred global order. A Brazil that achieves all this will be well positioned to have a positive global impact, continuing to be a strong (if sometimes critical) partner for the United States in shaping the international order.

The recent outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas is a serious setback to ongoing Turkish-Israeli normalization efforts. Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, its third operation against Hamas since leaving Gaza in 2005, in response to rockets and missiles fired by Hamas from Gaza into Israel. As in Israel’s two previous Gaza campaigns, Operation Cast Lead (2008-09) and Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), Turkey quickly condemned Israel’s actions, yet offered to mediate, together with Qatar, between Israel and Hamas.

After Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the midst of his presidential campaign, equated Israeli policy towards Gaza to a “systematic genocide” and accused Israel of surpassing “Hitler in barbarism,” Israel accepted an Egyptian cease-fire proposal. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused Turkey and Qatar of “sabotaging the cease-fire proposal,” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about Erdogan’s statements.

Turkish leaders’ harsh rhetoric sparked violent demonstrations in front of Israel’s embassy in Ankara and its consulate in Istanbul, lead the Israeli government to evacuate diplomats’ families, and issue a travel warning advising against travel to Turkey, which prompted numerous cancellations of tourist travel. On Sunday, Netanyahu refrained from declaring Turkish-Israeli reconciliation dead, but accused Erdogan of anti-Semitism more aligned with Tehran then the West.

These heightened Israeli-Turkish tensions come just as the two countries were negotiating a compensation deal for families of victims of the May 31, 2010 Mavi Marmara incident. The deal was intended to facilitate a long-awaited normalization between the two countries, more than a year after Israel’s official apology. The draft stipulated an estimated $21 million in Israeli compensation, the reinstatement of each country’s ambassador, and the reestablishment of a senior-level bilateral dialogue. However, a series of issues has prevented the deal’s finalization, including: Turkish domestic political considerations about the timing (related to March 2014 municipal elections and August 2014 presidential elections) and Israeli demands for Turkish commitments to block future lawsuits related to the Marmara incident.

With the ongoing Gaza conflict, prospects for normalization have again faded at least in the short term, and policymakers on both sides seem to have accepted a limited relationship. Erdogan even declared publicly that as long as he’s in power, there is no chance “to have any positive engagement with Israel”, dismissing any prospect for normalization. Israeli-Turkish animosity runs deep, not only among leaders, but at the grassroots level as well. While it may be difficult to look beyond the short term, a focus on the broader regional picture suggests four reasons why the two countries would benefit from restoring ties.

• First, they share strategic interests. Turkey and Israel see eye to eye on many issues: preventing a nuclear Iran; concerns over spillover from the Syrian civil war; and finally, the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL) and security and stability in Iraq. A resumed dialogue and renewed intelligence sharing can pave the way for more concrete cooperation between Turkey and Israel on all these regional issues, with development of a joint approach toward Syria topping the agenda.
• Second, regional environment may be beyond their control, the bilateral relationship is not. Normalization can eliminate one factor of instability in an unstable region.
• Third, Washington sees greater cooperation and cohesiveness in the U.S.-Turkey-Israel triangle as essential. President Obama has sought to restore a dialogue between Ankara and Jerusalem, including efforts to “extract” an Israeli apology and Turkish acceptance. Senior U.S. officials remain active in trying to improve the Turkish-Israeli relationship.
• Fourth, normalization may convey benefits in the economic sphere, with possible cooperation on natural gas, tourism, and enhanced trade. Gas in particular is viewed as a possible game-changer. In 2013, bilateral trade first crossed the $5 billion mark, and data from the first six months of 2014 indicates a continued rise. A political thaw can help accelerate these joint business opportunities. 

Nevertheless, at this stage it is clear that serious U.S. involvement is required for Turkish-Israeli rapprochement to succeed, even in a limited fashion. At present, there are far greater challenges for U.S. foreign policy in the region. The question now is whether the relationship between two of America’s closest regional allies reflects a new “normal,” or whether the leaders of both countries – and the U.S. – can also muster the political will to reconnect the US-Turkey-Israel triangle along more productive lines.

Check back to Brookings.edu for Dan Arbell’s upcoming analysis paper: The U.S.-Turkey-Israel Triangle.

Are Turkey and Israel on the verge of signing a normalization agreement, after a six-year hiatus? Comments in recent days by senior officials in both countries suggest so. A senior Israeli official, quoted in the Times of Israel, stated that “95% of the agreement is completed,” while Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said the parties are “one or two meetings away” from an agreement.

Media outlets in both countries have revealed that a meeting between senior Turkish and Israeli officials is expected to be held in Turkey on June 26—and that shortly after, an agreement is likely to be signed and go into effect. 

For two of America’s closest allies in the Middle East to bury the hatchet, reinstate ambassadors, and resume senior-level dialogue would surely be a boost for U.S strategic interests in the region. It would contribute to greater cohesion in dealing with the Syrian crisis, for example, and in the fight against the Islamic State. 

A quick recap

Let’s first recall how the crisis between the two former strategic allies developed, when in the aftermath of the Mavi Marmara incident (May 31, 2010)—resulting in the deaths of 9 Turks—Turkey recalled its ambassador in Tel Aviv and suspended nearly all defense and strategic ties with Israel. Israel also called back its ambassador in Ankara. At the time, Turkey set three conditions for resuming dialogue with Israel: a formal apology, compensation for the families of the victims, and a removal of Israel’s Gaza naval blockade. Relations came to a practical standstill, except in the economic sphere: trade between the two countries exceeded $5 billion in 2014, an unprecedented level. 

Israel formally apologized to Turkey in 2013 and in 2014 committed to paying compensation to the families of the victims. But the Gaza naval blockade has not been lifted. Turkey further demands greater access and presence in Gaza. For its part, Israel demands that Turkey not allow Hamas operative Salah al-Arouri, who resides in Istanbul, to coordinate terrorist operations against Israeli targets in the West Bank. Israel also wants Ankara to pressure Hamas to return the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 war in Gaza. 

Since the flotilla incident, Turkey was not always convinced that repairing relations with Israel actually served its interests. As the Arab Spring unfolded, Turkey hoped to assume a leadership role in the Arab and Muslim worlds—having good relations with Israel did not serve that purpose. And as Turkey went through periods of some unrest in the political arena (whether during the Gezi Park protests in 2013 or the hotly contested local and national elections), many in the ruling AKP party saw restoring relations with Israel as a potential liability in domestic politics. Israel, for its part, was mostly in a reactive mode: sometimes it tried to initiate contacts with Turkey, and sometimes it denounced Turkish anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The times they are a-changing

Now, however, new developments have prompted Turkey to seek a rapprochement with Israel. One key factor is the crisis in the Turkish-Russian relationship—in the aftermath of the suspension of the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline project, Israeli natural gas is viewed as a possible substitute in the medium term for some of Turkey’s natural gas imports from Russia. And as the impact of the war in Syria on Turkey (including the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks) has made clear to Turkey that it must enhance its intelligence capabilities, and Israel can help. Israel, meanwhile, is searching for an export destination for its natural gas (Israeli Energy Minister Steinitz stated recently that “Turkey is a huge market for gas…they need our gas and we need this market”). Israeli leaders also know that resuming a political and military dialogue with Turkey may contribute to a more comprehensive view of the challenges Israel faces in the region. 

Five years after Israel’s formal request to open a representation office at NATO’s Brussels headquarters, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last month that NATO has approved the Israeli request. Turkey had opposed it, blocking progress, since NATO decisions are adopted by consensus. In a move seen signaling a thawing of relations, Turkey recently removed its objection to Israel’s request, paving the way to NATO’s decision. Israel continues to be a partner in NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue along with Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Mauritania and Morocco. 

At a time when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is attempting to strengthen his country’s regional strategic position and enhance its economic opportunities, a rapprochement with Israel makes sense. Bilateral negotiations are in the final stretch, as they have reached a compromise on the complex issue of Gaza and Hamas (Turkey will reportedly not demand the full lifting of Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza, settling for greater access and presence in Gaza. Israel will acquiesce to continued Hamas political activities in Turkey and will not demand the removal of Hamas operative al-Arouri from Turkey, but will get Turkish assurances that al-Arouri’s involvement in terror will cease.)

Fixing the troubled Turkish-Israeli relationship has been a mighty task for senior negotiators on both sides over the last few years, and although an agreement seems around the corner, the experience of recent years suggests that there can be last minute surprises. Israel’s Prime Minister had to jump over several hurdles, holding off pressure from Russia and Egypt not to seek rapprochement with Turkey, and ensuring support of the deal with Turkey from his newly appointed Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, a known opponent of a deal. On the Turkish side, it seems that President Erdoğan wants a rapprochement with Israel, and feels that he needs it. This is tied directly to the Turkish domestic arena: Erdoğan has recently completed his consolidation of power, ousting Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and paving the way to the election of his trusted confidant, Binali Yıldırım, as prime minister. In addition, his new allies—the military-judicial establishment—are in favor of mending ties with Israel. One caveat is that Erdoğan’s top priority is establishing a presidential system, and so if he feels at any point that reaching an agreement with Israel will somehow undermine those efforts, he may opt for maintaining the status quo.