Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: China's export sector has often been criticized for its exclusive reliance on cheap and low-skilled labor. Over the past decade, however, the country's major export zones have launched important export upgrading programs that promote branding and technological innovation through government-organized competitions. Despite similarities in resource endowments, the outcomes of the upgrading effort differed substantially. While exporters in some localities are still locked in price wars based on razor-thin margins of profits, those in other localities have begun to move up the value chain with branding and product design. Based on a comparative study of three localities in coastal China, the paper finds that the variation of local export upgrading capacity stems from the interplay of two sets of local institutions: institutions that govern local export activities (including inter-producer and producer buyer relations) and institutions that define government-business relations through the upgrading programs. By examining how the interaction of the two shaped the strategies of local officials, enterprises, and foreign buyers, the paper draws attention to the importance of compatibility between micro and macro institutions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Development scholars, heavily informed by the cases of the four Asian Tigers, have attributed success in development to education and domestic political institutions. Although the Philippines looked even more promising than the Asian Tigers before they began developing, the country has not become a development success. On the education dimension, by the 1970s the Philippines was comparable to most developed countries with its adult literacy rate of 83% and high enrollment rates in all levels of schools. In terms of political institutions, the Philippines was Asia�s first democracy after declaring independence from Spanish rule in 1898. Instead of furthering development, educational and political advances in the Philippines have led to an enormous exodus of labor. Failing to utilize its highly educated labor force in the domestic economy, the state focused its attention on exporting its workers by creating a set of elaborate institutions to facilitate overseas employment. Why did the Philippine government develop institutions for exporting labor rather than focus its energy on building the domestic economy? This puzzle can be understood in terms of the intimate connection between the capacity of the state to control the educational system, labor export and economic development. This paper argues that one of the major reasons why the Philippine state had to take an active role in exporting its surplus labor is because of the high autonomy given to the private market for higher education that was producing a large educated but unemployable population.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: As has already been extensively shown in both political theory and empirical research, present day migratory movements challenge the traditional conceptualization of citizenship in a variety of ways. However, this research has so far overwhelmingly been conducted from the perspective of receiving states. This paper instead focuses on the transformations of citizenship resulting from emigration. In recent years, economic incentives (remittances, diaspora investments, skills acquirement) have made an increasing number of Southern countries promote labour export as a strategy for development. While having the potential of contributing greatly to national economies, it simultaneously transforms the relation between state and citizens, since the traditional coincidence of territorial presence and state membership is disrupted. Hence, following from the developmental incentives related to emigration, the central principle of political membership becomes reworked in its manifold dimensions. New questions arise concerning democratic participation, the possibility of voting from abroad, the challenges of dual citizenship, and – perhaps most centrally – the relation of loyalty and protection between absent citizens and the sending states. In order not to “loose” their absent citizens (and their economic contributions), sending states now apply a range of strategies for recreating the state-citizen bond – strategies that are of political, economic as well as cultural character. Drawing on political theory, migration studies as well as international law, this paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding bonding strategies and the transformation of citizenship in emigration countries more generally. The framework will later be used for empirical studies in India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This research studies the perceptions of export barriers from Mexican exporters, based on a survey of 78 firms in the South-Central region of Mexico. These firms identify information, brand name and working capital concerns as the main internal barriers to export. Less importance is given to supplying inventory abroad difficulties, access to technology, access to qualified human resources, product, pricing and cultural factors. Similarities and contrasts regarding the perception of internal export barriers appear between emerging and developed countries. Additionally, Mexican exporters reveal specific external export barriers affecting them, which are consistent with the institutional voids typically present in emerging markets.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The inability of states to counter U.S. technological and strategic power on the conventional battlefield requires that states employ an insurgent-style of warfare against U.S. forces. More then any state, Iran has utilized the strategic employment of asymmetry to achieve multiple objectives. Through a combination of militias, insurgencies, terror groups, and organized crime organizations, Iran has built an effective counter to the United States' conventional supremacy. Consequently, Iran's use of non-state armed groups has enormous implications on the future of international security.

This paper examines Iran�s use of non-state armed groups to achieve its political and security objectives. It recognizes the use of non-state armed groups as being a critical component to an Iranian security doctrine that is guided by strategic asymmetry. Specifically, it examines: the political and strategic cultures that contribute to the use of non-state armed groups; the structural components that facilitate their use; the operational particulars of the groups which Iran utilizes; the broader implications of their strategic employment.

To achieve this qualitative study, this paper uses an architecture for the study of non-state armed groups. This architecture was developed by Professors Richard Shultz, Douglas Farrah, and Itamara Lochard in the US Air Force INSS Occasional Paper (57), entitled �Armed Groups: A Tier-One Security Policy.� This framework provides four categories of non-state armed groups, and it utilizes six variables for the analysis of individual groups.

Analysis leads this study to conclude the following: Iran�s senior leadership sees the exportation of jihadi insurgencies as paramount to achieving its long-term ideological goals.