World Policy Institute | World Views on Global Challenges

The Big Question: How Should Borders Be Drawn? | World Policy Institute

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/spring2013/big-question

The Big Question: How Should Borders Be Drawn?

http://www.worldpolicy.org/sites/default/files/uploaded/image/Map1.jpg

From the Spring Issue “Beyond Borders”

How Should Borders Be Drawn?

Boundaries define nations. Across Europe and Asia, through Africa and Latin America, old frontiers are being challenged. The primacy of the state is under increased scrutiny as the telecommunications revolution erases once impermeable divides. We have asked our panel of global experts how borders should be drawn on land, on sea, and in the blogosphere.

#frontières

Map Room: Borders on Top of The World | World Policy Institute

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/spring2013/map-room

By Mark Terry with Adam Scholl

PRINCE OF WALES STRAIT, Northwest Territories—A century ago, traversing the Northwest Passage was a grueling effort that often took years. Explorers frequently perished as their boats sunk or got trapped in the abundant pack ice. Today, these waters are mostly ice-free during the summer, and ships can sail through with ease.

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, while much of the Antarctic is warming three times as fast. As a result, the amount of Arctic sea ice has shrunk dramatically, and last year’s extent was the lowest ever recorded.

#arctique #frontières #transport-maritime #route-du-nord #passage-du-nord-ouest

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/spring2013/maliki

Maliki’s experiences are especially relevant for today’s Middle East: in Egypt and Tunisia, where Islamist parties, long hidden in the shadows, similar to those that nourished the Dawa, are striving to shed authoritarian instincts and make the transition to mainstream democratic politics; in Libya, where regional militias, mindful of recent history, still do not trust one another enough to disarm; and in Syria, which is currently roiled by bloodshed among its warring ethnic and religious groups that rival the darkest moments in Iraq.

It is a mistake to see Maliki or Mohammed Morsi in Egypt or any of the ascendant new leaders in the Middle East as builders or wreckers of new democracies. Maliki was a defender of Iraq, the country’s Shiite population, and himself, the way his predecessors had been defenders of their own amendable ideologies. His experiences were what allowed him to rise in the turbulence of post-Saddam Iraq, but his decades of humiliation set him on the path of running a faltering autocratic state immersed in perpetual war.

In Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, it may prove tempting to color the country’s new leaders as democrats when they are not, or to accept their potentially dictatorial tendencies as the natural order. Maliki, the first elected Arab Islamist leader, shaped in the shadows, exemplifies all the challenges of the new breed. He is not bound to authoritarian rule, but his history leads him in that direction. Since taking office in 2006, amid dismal hopes, he has both disappointed and exceeded expectations. There is a fundamental tension among the new Islamists, whether from Maliki’s Dawa Party or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or their counterparts in Tunis—on how to create a society living in harmony with Islamic values. How much of this can be imposed, and how much should be a free choice made by the society, remains an open, but crucial, question. Iraq under Maliki has seen the slow creeping tide of religious values imposed with raids on alcohol shops and nightclubs. Sudden whispers that the government will shut down arts colleges and separate male and female students at university are swiftly dismissed—perhaps planted by the state to see how far it can go. Intimidation and pressure by the state has also been apparent in Egypt since its revolution, as Islamist lawyers bring lawsuits against artists they consider blasphemous. In Tunis, radical Salafis are given tacit freedom to physically attack bars, actors, and political opponents. It is still a riddle for the Arab world’s now ruling Islamists leaders—how to bring their societies into harmony with their religious values. But Maliki and his counterparts all have similar aspirations for their nations. They want to establish modern, vibrant states in accordance with Islam.

Innovation & management, par Neal Stephenson | World Policy Institute
►http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation

Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age. In this environment, the best an audacious manager can do is to develop small improvements to existing systems—climbing the hill, as it were, toward a local maximum, trimming fat, eking out the occasional tiny innovation—like city planners painting bicycle lanes on the streets as a gesture toward solving our energy problems. Any strategy that involves crossing a valley—accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance—will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

#espace #recherche #court-terme

Innovation Starvation | World Policy Institute
►http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation

Neal Stephenson sur le rôle de la SF dans l’innovation.

Most people who work in corporations or academia have witnessed something like the following: A number of engineers are sitting together in a room, bouncing ideas off each other. Out of the discussion emerges a new concept that seems promising. Then some laptop-wielding person in the corner, having performed a quick Google search, announces that this “new” idea is, in fact, an old one—or at least vaguely similar—and has already been tried. Either it failed, or it succeeded. If it failed, then no manager who wants to keep his or her job will approve spending money trying to revive it. If it succeeded, then it’s patented and entry to the market is presumed to be unattainable, since the first people who thought of it will have “first-mover advantage” and will have created “barriers to entry.” The number of seemingly promising ideas that have been crushed in this way must number in the millions.

African Land, Up For Grabs | World Policy Institute
http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/spring2011/african-land-up-for-grabs

These deals are part of a land grab taking place all across Africa, a transfer of control unprecedented in the post-colonial era. According to a World Bank report released in January, 48 percent of all land deals struck worldwide between October 2008 and August 2009 involved land in sub-Saharan African countries.

The pace of acquisitions has been stunning. September, a World Bank report revealed that in 2009, some 111 million acres of farmland was acquired globally by foreign investors—nearly 75 percent of it in sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to 2008, foreign investors only acquired an average of 10 million acres per year.

[...]

Large land acquisitions of this kind often depend upon the massive displacement of rural populations. Last year, the Ethiopian government relocated 150,000 inhabitants of the country’s eastern Somali region. Plans calls for the relocation of more than 100,000 households in the next year, including 45,000 in the Gambella region alone, as part of the government’s Villigization Program Action Plan. The government claims those relocated will benefit from access to arable land in areas where schools, roads, and basic infrastructure are to be built.

Un article de référence, expliquant clairement les tenants et aboutissants des achats de terres agricoles en Afrique. Le grand scandale silencieux du moment.

#sécurité_alimentaire