Measurement Frontiers
« Previous EntriesPutin President Again: A Wake-Up Call to the World?
Sunday, March 4th, 2012Vladimir Putin is about to be re-elected, yet again, as President of Russia. He already served as President twice, over the 2000-2008 period, to then immediately ease himself into the Kremlin’s Premiership for the past four years, awaiting his next term as President, which is about to begin. His new term is expected to last six [...]
Conviction of Spain’s Superjudge Garzon: An indictment of its own judiciary?
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012The recent conviction (ostensibly for ordering jailhouse witetaps) of Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who took on corrupt officials, despots, terrorists and human rights violators during the Franco regime, casts a dark shadow on Spain’s judiciary and hints at a political witch-hunt. In October 1998, Judge Garzón catapulted to prominence when he broke with [...]
Russia and China Leadership Props Syria’s Assad
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012This past Saturday the world saw harrowing media accounts of the massacre perpetrated by the Syrian government’s bombardment of civilians in the city of Homs. The massive artillery barrage, which has continued since then, have left many hundreds of people dead, making it the most deadly attack of the year-long uprising. Homs had already [...]
Iran’s Ahmadinejad warmly welcomed in Latin America, or not quite?: Misgovernance in one chart
Saturday, January 14th, 2012Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Latin America has received wide coverage. Much is being written about the fact that the President of Iran, increasingly isolated around the world, can count on a warm welcome in one continent, Latin America, providing him with excellent photo-ops embracing the region’s leaders, thereby stinging the U.S. It is however [...]
Judge Rakoff Challenge to the S.E.C.: Can Regulatory Capture be Reversed?
Saturday, December 3rd, 2011Last Monday, Federal Judge Jed Rakoff issued a potentially precedent-setting challenge to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) when he rejected the $285 million settlement between the agency and Citigroup. The bank is charged with negligence related to its misleading sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities, which ultimately cost investors nearly $700 million but earned the [...]
Africa’s Dawn or Doom?: From Premature Exuberance to Tempered Optimism
Sunday, August 28th, 2011Earlier this summer, President Obama welcomed one day apart Gabonese President Ali Bongo and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to the White House. Both countries share in common significant oil wealth, weak public institutions, and a large proportion of the population living in poverty. Nigeria is ahead of the laggard Gabon in terms of developing democratic institutions, and has made inroads compared with its misgoverned [...]
Unexpected Earthquake in U.S. East Coast Spurs a Stock Market Rally?
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011A rare earthquake of magnitude 5.8 shook the East Coast of the US earlier today, affecting Washington, D.C., New York, their environs some environs, and Virginia. While an earthquake of this magnitude carries a minimal fraction of the force of the mega-earthquakes experienced by countries like Chile, Japan, Indonesia and Haiti in recent years, it did rattle buildings and nerves. And it raised [...]
Congress’ Dismal Performance Need Not Be the Case: A Governance Perspective
Friday, July 29th, 2011According to a Gallup nationwide poll ten years ago, 55 percent of citizens approved of the way Congress was handling its job. That was in March 2001, before the surge in solidarity that resulted in Congressional approval ratings of 70-80 percent following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. By mid-2002, the approval ratings were back to pre-9/11 [...]
Open Government Partnership: First Steps and the Road Ahead
Saturday, July 23rd, 2011“When a government hides its work from public view, hands out jobs and money to political cronies, administers unequal justice, looks away as corrupt bureaucrats and businessmen enrich themselves at the people’s expense, that government is failing its citizens,” stated U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the opening of the multi-country Open Government [...]
Amid Global Crises, Can Obama Make a Real Impact in Latin America?
Friday, March 18th, 2011President Obama’s tour of Latin America, including visits to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, is starting this weekend. This visit is unlikely to constitute a historical watershed. It comes at a time when Obama faces three major crises— Libya’s ongoing civil conflict, Japan’s unfolding triple disaster, and the United States’ congressional impasse over the federal [...]
Qaddafi’s Corrupt Influence in the West: a case of International State Capture?
Monday, March 7th, 2011We know about the story in many countries of low level bureaucrats demanding a bribe to expedite the processing of a business license, or a driver’s permit, or to pay reduced taxes. For a long time, such administrative corruption has been the focus of research and measurement in the field of corruption. Administrative corruption is [...]
Libya’s Startling Failure: Unforeseen or Ignored?
Friday, February 25th, 2011A month ago, emboldened by the successful ousting of Tunisia’s Ben Ali, Egypt’s anti-government protesters took to the streets in Cairo demanding the resignation of Mubarak. And at that time, as pointed out in a previous post, many pundits wrote that the uprising in Tunisia was of a unique nature, that the reality in Egypt [...]
Financial Regulatory Capture Symposium at Fordham Law School
Sunday, February 6th, 2011The global financial crisis that started in Wall Street a few years ago brought to the forefront the notion of ‘capture’ in the financial sector. Policy-makers, experts and academics still disagree whether regulatory capture was a major determinant of the crisis. Nonetheless, the problem of capture has at least become an important part of the [...]
Tunisia, Egypt and Beyond: Fewer Predictions, More Data and Aid Reform Needed
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011Nobody predicted that the desperate act of a young Tunisian who set himself on fire in protest of government policies that had left him jobless and disenfranchised would ignite protests for democratic and economic reforms across the Middle East. Since this incident, Tunisia’s government has fallen and demonstrations have spread to Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Sudan [...]
The Rescue of the Miners in Chile is no Miracle
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010It is well past 3 o’clock in the morning in Chile, and an hour earlier here in Washington, DC. As a Chilean I am proud, and relieved, to witness the ongoing rescue of the 33 miners, who have spent 69 days in captivity buried in a mine shaft 2,000 feet under the Atacama desert. As [...]
« Previous Entries