Month: February 2010

ISN Weekly Theme: Critical Infrastructure Protection

Oil Pumping Station in Alaska, photo: Mike Smail/flickr

This week the ISN takes a closer look at the fluid, expanding threat to those assets which are essential to the proper functioning of society and economy. Governments are finding that answers to the question of how best to protect this ‘critical infrastructure,’ ranging from telecommunications to transportation systems, remain elusive.

The Special Report contains the following content:

  • An Analysis by Dr Myriam Dunn Cavelty of the ETH Center for Security Studies examines a dual challenge facing governments: how best to protect critical infrastructure from attack and how to most quickly rebound following an inevitable attack.
  • A Podcast interview with researcher Jennifer Giroux explores the blurring of lines between political and criminal intent in pipeline attacks.
  • Security Watch stories about cybersecurity threats from Washington to Estonia.
  • Publications housed in our Digital Library, including a recent Center for Security Studies’ paper on the challenges of public-private cooperation for critical infrastructure protection.
  • Primary Resources, like the full text of the US Department for Homeland Security’s ‘National Infrastructure Protection Plan.’
  • Links to relevant websites, among them the Critical Infrastructure Protection Blog, which provides extensive information on CIP programs in the US and Europe.
  • Our IR Directory with relevant organizations, including the Center for Secure Information Systems at George Mason University that examines information secrecy, integrity and availability problems in military, civil and commercial sectors.

The ISN Quiz: Power-sharing

You’ve got the power! Now exercise it by taking this week’s quiz on power-sharing, which we’re highlighting in this week’s Special Report: Power Sharing in Perspective.

[QUIZZIN 4]

Categories
Business and Finance

Haiti and the Meaning of Generosity

Haiti Earthquake: Who's Given What?
Haiti Earthquake: Who's Given What?

The Haiti earthquake has become the new measure of generosity.

The country’s big northern neighbours have earned much praise for their effort: The US has pledged $168 million to date, and Canada $131 million. The bronze medal goes to Spain, with ‘only’ $45 million, although the latest data from ReliefWeb indicates that Saudi Arabia has caught up.

But data journalist David McCandless puts things into perspective: Measured as a percentage of GDP, the most generous countries in the Haiti crisis have been… Guyana and Ghana! Canada and all Nordic countries make it to the top ten in this wealth-corrected ranking as well, but not Uncle Sam.

Beyond its primary purpose of disaster relief, the donation campaign has lifted Haiti out of the realm of forgotten poverty-stricken nations. This is a chance for the country, but I am worried about two potential pitfalls.

Continue reading “Haiti and the Meaning of Generosity”
Categories
Uncategorized

ISN Weekly Theme: Power-sharing

Shaking hands, photo: Aidan Jones/flickr

This week the ISN explores the promises and pitfalls of power-sharing arrangements as they evolve from negotiation to implementation and functional reality.

This week’s Special Report contains the following content:

  • An Analysis by Dr Nicole Töpperwien of Ximpulse examines the delicate progression from armed conflict to power sharing.
  • A Podcast interview with Dr Michael Kerr of King’s College London explores the important negotiating role played by parties external to a conflict.
  • Security Watch stories about power-sharing arrangements from Zimbabwe and Kenya to Tatarstan.
  • Publications housed in our Digital Library, including a recent US Institute of Peace paper on ‘Lebanon’s Unstable Equilibrium,’ following the creation of a power-sharing government led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
  • Primary Resources, like the full texts of the Good Friday Agreement and the Zimbabwean power-sharing arrangement between the parties led by Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai.
  • Links to relevant websites, among them the BBC-run ‘Search for Peace’, which provides extensive information on the Northern Ireland peace process.

The ‘X’ Factor

Girl power, photo: Valeria V.G/flickr

“During a crisis a woman can transform very quickly from being a politician to being a human being, and this can be bad”, Minko Gerdjikov, the deputy mayor of Sofia said in response to recent moves by the prime minister of Bulgaria to promote women to high-level positions in government and local administration, according to a New York Times article.

In a country known for its patriarchy and corruption, women, says the Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, are exactly what the country needs as “women are more diligent than men… are less corruptible than men… because they are more risk averse”. In an effort to clean his country’s act Borisov, an unlikely poster boy for the progressive forces in the country, has decided that it is exactly this ‘human’ characteristic that is required to overcome not only Bulgaria’s image problem, but also presumably its real problem of losing, rather embarrassingly, EU funds because of endemic and rampant graft.

To imply that being a ‘human being’ is somehow bad  is a strange assertion not only because it implies that men are somehow less human and better off so, but because it implies that politics and ‘human values’ are incompatible. Politics in a lot of transitional countries are undoubtedly tough, but to categorically negate human values as components of successful and good politics is self-serving from the point of view of those who have a vested interest in the continuation of ‘business as usual’.  Given the tendency for group-think and irrationality in crisis situations in particular, most often in male-dominated groups, should we not celebrate a more nuanced and independent form of deliberation that can come with the ‘human touch’, in women as well as men?

Even if women are more in touch with their humane side (buried deep in hardened male politicians), wired to perhaps see the world from a more communal point of view, does this bear out in the real world? Are women leaders any different when faced with the dilemmas of ruling the world’s countries, cities and communities? In other words, does the ‘X’ factor change anything?

Continue reading “The ‘X’ Factor”