Fall 2017 Edition

Southern California
International Review
Volume 7, Number 2 • Fall 2017
Southern California International Review
scir.org
Staff
Editor-in-Chief:
Katie McDowell
Editors:
SarahBelle Selig
Anna Lipscomb
Nicholas Tinoco
Abhiram Reddy
The Southern California International Review (SCIR) is a bi-annual print

and online journal of interdisciplinary scholarship in the field of interna-
tional studies generously funded by the School of International Relations
at the University of Southern California (USC). In particular, SCIR would
like to thank the Robert L. Friedheim Fund and the USC SIR Alumni Fund.
Founded in 2011, the journal seeks to foster and enhance discussion between
theoretical and policy-oriented research regarding significant global issues.
SCIR is managed completely by students and also provides undergraduates
with valuable experience in the fields of editing and graphic design.
Copyright © 2017 Southern California International Review.

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Views expressed in this journal are solely those of the authors themselves and do not necessarily
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ISSN: 1545-2611
In the wake of devastation from recent natural disasters around the globe,
this edition of the Southern California International Review is dedicated to
the victims of these disasters and the heroes who dedicated invaluable time
and energy into relief efforts.
Contents
1. An Assessment of Implicit Sovereign Immunity 10

Ratione Personae, Ratione Materiae, and the Continuation of Genocide
M. Briggs DeLoach
2. The Asian “Economic Miracle” and Welfare 34

Niccolò Giorgio Armandola
3. European Energy Union 58

More than a Pipe Dream?
Sarah Manney
4. Not in Our Yard 70

Examining Differences in Latin American Resistance Towards U.S. Drug Policy
Zachary Avis
5. Return of the City State 90

An Assessment of City International Relations
Eduard Francois Beukman
Editor’s Note:
Dear Reader,
It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you the fourteenth edition of the Southern
California International Review (SCIR). This semester’s issue continues our mission of
providing a platform for undergraduate scholars of international affairs to deliver their work
to a larger, global audience.
We were incredibly fortunate to have over seventy submissions for this issue. Our editors
spent staunch hours examining undergraduate research from all across the country and
throughout the world. Of the many impressive submissions, the following five were
outstanding for their original ideas and fresh perspectives on globalization topics. As you
read this journal, you will understand why.
In the creation of this issue, the SCIR is extremely appreciative of the support of the University
of Southern California’s School of International Relations. Director Wayne Sandholtz,
Associate Director Linda Cole, and the rest of the faculty and staff give us the guidance we
need to steadily grow. I also extend our thanks to Ms. Robin Friedheim for her generous
scholarship that provides the foundation upon which our endeavor thrives.
With rapidly changing political landscapes across the globe, international relations theory
must transform to address unprecedented challenges. This theme resonates with our five
selected articles, where authors adapt existing theoretical norms and historical perspectives
to contemporary global issues. Two articles challenge current international norms in place:
that of state sovereignty, which continues to enable modern-day genocide under the guise of
states’ rights, and that of European energy security in the wake of new geopolitical concerns.
Another two articles apply new analyses to ongoing phenomena, with one author creating a
new index on Asian economic welfare, and another challenging the United States’ simplistic
approach to Latin American drug eradication efforts. Finally, our last article reconsiders the
age-old “city-state” system in the context of contemporary urban networks.
I would like to thank you, the reader, since without you, we are nothing. Remember, this
journal is just one part of a much larger dialogue.
Please read, ponder, explore and enjoy.
Warm regards,
Katie McDowell
Editor-in-Chief
An Assessment of Implicit Sovereign Immunity:
Ratione Personae, Ratione Materiae, and the Continuation of Genocide
M. Briggs DeLoach
Despite the United Nations’ blanket ban on genocide in 1948, mass killings continue today.
Empirical assessment is needed to examine why the international institutions meant to pre-
vent crimes against humanity have been unsuccessful. Using genocide data since the Hague
Conventions of 1899 and 1907, this article demonstrates that increasing international legal
oversight has, in fact, led to a reduced frequency of mass killings. However, the continuation
of genocide and politicide, even at reduced levels, may be partly due to a failure to eradi-
cate individual sovereign immunity from genocide. While the international community has
proved successful at implementing ratione materiae1 defenses for genocide, lingering implicit
manifestations of ratione personae2 sovereignty inhibit complete eradication of mass kill-
ings. Though difficult due to current notions of sovereignty, this article suggests that targeting
implicit manifestations of ratione personae sovereign immunity is an important component
of stemming future mass atrocities.
Section I: Introduction
The Nuremberg International Military Tribunal’s 1945 prosecutions of former
Nazi leaders for their roles in the Holocaust created a paradigmatic shift in international
law. For the allied powers responsible – the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, and
France – it became clear that leaders in the post-World War II era would no longer have
protection from rigid sovereignty norms to systematically kill a group of people under-
neath the state apparatus. Instead, leaders that committed such crimes would be held
accountable to international authority and liable to prosecution.3
The trials at Nuremberg and their parallel in Tokyo for former Imperial Japanese
leaders expanded the international community’s role in targeting mass killings. Soon after
the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials, the nascent United Nations promulgated
the lessons of these trials into an absolute ban on mass killings for its member states.4
Despite the United Nations’ ban, mass killings persist. Present literature fails to
empirically assess why the growing number of international institutions meant to prevent
1 “By reason of the matter”

2 “By reason of the person”
3 Hans-Heinrich Jescheck, "The Development of International Criminal Law after Nuremberg," in Perspectives on the
Nuremberg Trail, ed. Guénaël Mettraux (Oxford [etc.]: Oxford University Press, 2008), 408-429.
4 Jescheck, "The Development of International," 408-429.
m. briggs deloach is a recent graduate of Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, where

he studied political science and history. He completed this paper as a part of a senior
seminar on globalization.
An Assessment of Implicit Sovereign Immunity 11
crimes against humanity have been unsuccessful at complete prevention. This article uses
data on genocides since the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, finding that increas-
ing international legal oversight has, in fact, led to a reduced frequency of mass killings.
However, the continuation of genocide and politicide, even at reduced levels, is due to
the international erosion of explicit ratione personae sovereign immunity for genocide.
Though difficult due to current notions of sovereignty, this article suggests that a complete
targeting of implicit manifestations of ratione personae sovereign immunity is an impor-
tant component of stemming future mass atrocities.
This article proceeds by offering a comprehensive approach to understanding
the lingering ratione personae notions in the international legal system. First, it provides
a historical overview of how ratione personae and its counterpart ratione materiae have
been impacted by three time periods of international attitudes toward punishing mass
killings. Second, it provides an empirical assessment of this historical information by
examining data on mass killing frequency and casualty levels since the late 19th century.
Finally, it concludes by offering an examination of future prospects for the continued ero-
sion of ratione personae sovereign immunity as it relates to genocide.
Section II: Literature Review

Within the explanatory literature on genocide and political violence, Scott Straus
identifies two overarching ideologies. First, he discusses the strategic paradigm in which
genocide is the outcome of war. Literature in this school – such as Valentino and Ufelder’s
“Assessing Risks of State Sponsored Killing,” Martin Shaw’s "War and Genocide: Orga-
nized Killing in Modern Society", and Manus Midlarsky’s "The Killing Trap" – emphasizes
a state’s engagement in war as central to its predisposition to genocide.5 To these scholars,
the presence of war creates an optimal situation for genocide to develop.6
Second, Strauss identifies literature that blames the rise of mass killings on exclu-
sionary predispositions in a society. For instance, Barbara Harff identifies through multi-
variate analysis that “exclusionary ideologies” are statistically significant factors in the rise
of genocide.7 Other authors, such as Jacques Semelin, argue that ideology is an important
5 Jay Ulfelder and Benjamin Valentino, "Assessing Risks of State-Sponsored Mass Killings" (working paper, Political Instability
Task Force, February 2008), accessed August 15, 2015.; Martin Shaw, War and Genocide: Organised Killing in Modern Society
(Cambridge, England: Polity Publishing, 2003); Manus Midlarsky, The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century (Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
6 Scott Straus, "'Destroy Them to Save Us': Theories of Genocide and the Logics of Political Violence," Terrorism and Political
Violence 24, no. 4 (2012): 546-551.
7 Barbara Harff, "No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955,"
American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (February 2003): 57-73.
Southern California International Review - Vol. 7 No. 2

12 M. Briggs DeLoach
“binding agent” that allows support for mass killings to take root in a state.8
Significantly, neither of these schools of thought deals with the normative con-
straints of international legal accountability. While these scholars consider legal recourse
for genocide an interesting development, the limited number of prosecutions for genocide
and the international judicial system’s inability to stem genocide imply that other factors
must exist.
Aside from these two prevailing ideologies, legal scholarship often deals more
with the structure and legitimacy of the international legal system than with empirical as-
sessments of its effectiveness. Scholars in this school of thought, such as Leslie Vinjamuri
and William Schabas, argue that an international legal system is an important component
of reducing mass killings.9 However, these scholars rely heavily on anecdotal assessments
of legal norms and procedures, rather than empirically analyzing the effectiveness of uni-
versal.
Other literature address effectiveness, but does so through qualitative means.
Cedric Ryngaert and Yuval Shany both attempt to assess the effectiveness of univer-
sal jurisdiction, yet neither provides quantitative measures to do so.10 Shany begins to
conceptualize how judicial effectiveness might be measured, but she does not provide a
strict quantitative analysis of these measures.11 Therefore, the effectiveness of the forms
of assessment in this school of literature is constrained by its largely qualitative nature.
This article seeks to link some of the gaps within these bodies of literature. While the
two schools of causal literature provide quantitative assessments of genocide’s political
determinants, these strains do little to examine closely the role of international law in
stemming genocide. Conversely, the judicial literature focuses more on the legal reasoning
of international courts and the normative concerns associated with international jurisdic-
tion than quantitative effectiveness measurements. These differing approaches provide an
interesting opportunity for quantitative assessment of the international criminalization of
genocide.
8 Jacques Sémelin, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide, trans. Cynthia Schoch (New York: Co-
lumbia University Press, 2007), 22.
9 Leslie Vinjamuri, "Deterrence, Democracy, and the Pursuit of International Justice," Ethics & International Affairs 24, no. 2
(Summer 2010): 191-211.
10 Cedric Ryngaert, ed., The Effectiveness of International Criminal Justice (Portland, OR: International Specialized Book
Publishers, 2009).
Yuval Shany, Assessing the Effectiveness of International Courts, International Courts and Tribunals (Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press, 2014).
11 Shany, Assessing the Effectiveness of International, 49-62.

Section III: Ratione Personae v. Ratione Materiae Sovereign Immunity

To examine the relationship between lingering sovereign immunity and the
prosecution of genocide, it is important to break down the concept into two specific com-
ponents: ratione personae and ratione materiae. Individual sovereign immunity is applied
differently depending on who is committing the legally questionable acts.
The most common and most widely understood subtype of sovereign immunity
is ratione personae. Ratione personae immunity in this case applies specifically to heads of
state with official titles. According to Akande and Shah, the primary rationale for this type
of immunity is that heads of states must be able to travel internationally without fear of ar-
bitrary legal action by other states in order to “ensure the smooth conduct of international
relations.”12 Ratione personae immunity is derived from the notion of sovereign inviolabil-
ity in an international relations context that can be traced to the Treaty of Westphalia and,
more recently, to the Act of State doctrine in international law.13
In contrast to the titularly-based ratione personae doctrine, ratione materiae’s
definition and application are more ambiguous because this form of sovereign immunity
is attached to an official act, not an individual. Under ratione materiae, an individual may
enjoy foreign prosecutorial immunity only while acting in an official capacity. Therefore,
while ratione personae provides broad protections, ratione materiae limits what is exempt
from prosecution. In other words, ratione materiae is an incomplete form of sovereign
immunity because only official acts are free from prosecution by foreign governments.
Ratione materiae immunity dates back to the Treaty of Westphalia, as Article
XLIII specifies that officers of the state shall be granted freedom from prosecution in other
territories. However, the concept was more recently codified in the 1928 Havana Conven-
tion on International Diplomatic Officers, in which a gathering of top diplomats from
across the Americas agreed that diplomats are ordinary citizens serving their government
and “are classed as both ordinary and extraordinary.”14 Because diplomats were not as
powerful as heads of state and their positions did not merit full ratione personae immu-
nity, the signatories of the treaty devised a less complete form of sovereign immunity to
reduce the risk of prosecution abroad. Thus, the concept of ratione materiae was born.
Since the signing of the Havana Convention, the notion of ratione materiae has expanded
to protect state officials other than diplomats.15
While both of these subtypes of sovereign immunity arose to assist with the con-
12 Dapo Akande and Sangeeta Shah, "Immunities of State Officials," The European Journal of International Law 21, no. 4
(Winter 2010): 818.
13 Treaty of Westphalia (1641)
Hans Kelsen, Peace through Law (Union, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange, 2000), 82.
14 "Convention on Diplomatic Officers," The American Journal of International Law 22, no. 3 (July 1928): Article 2.
15 Akande and Shah, "Immunities of State Officials," 825-828.
Treaty of Westphalia (1641), Article XLIII.

duct of international relations, they have become so expansive in their protections of state
authority that they have enabled perpetrators of mass killings to commit atrocities with
little consequences under international rules of admissibility. Shifting jus cogens16 norms
of international law have a de jure17 opposition to mass killings under the United Nations
Convention on Genocide, but the ratione personae and ratione matieriae defenses are so
expansive that sovereign immunity has impeded the effective prosecution of genocide.18
Section IV: Historical Overview

To understand the current state of sovereign immunity in the context of mass
killings, as well as the prospects for the future of both ratione personae and ratione ma-
teriae immunity, one must first grasp how these topics have changed as a result of inter-
national action. In this section, I will present a framework for contextualizing changes to
sovereign immunity over time. To do this, I will break down the changes in international
legal action into three periods: (1) Pre-Accountability (1886-1945), (2) De Jure Bans
(1946-1994), and (3) Renewed Action (2005-2015).
Prior to World War II, international relations were characterized by a strong
respect for sovereign immunity. Though this norm was occasionally breached during the
administration of victor’s justice, such as Great Britain’s exile of Napoleon to Saint Helena,
the Westphalian notion of head of state immunity from prosecution guided international
relations. This meant that individuals carrying out illegal and morally questionable acts
could hide behind the norm of state sovereignty and escape any form of outside prosecu-
tion.19
The international community took a significant step toward the creation of stan-
dards of international jurisdiction at the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. While the
ensuing treaties did not address genocide, they were significant in that they established
jus cogens norms of international conduct in war. In these treaties, the concept of sover-
eign immunity for war crimes, which had not yet been divided into ratione personae and
ratione materiae remained intact. While individual soldiers and members of government
were considered the perpetrators of the war crimes enumerated in the Hague Conven-
tions, the state, not the individual perpetrators, would be held accountable for violations.20
16 jus cogens “compelling law;” refers to fundamental principles of international law accepted by the international community
of states as a norm from which no derogation is permitted
17 de jure “by right”
18 Martin Scheinin, "Just Another Word? Jurisdiction in the Roadmaps of State Responsibility," in Global Justice State Duties:
The Extraterritorial Scope of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in International Law, by Malcolm Langford (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013), 220-226.; "Convention on Diplomatic Officers," 142-147.; United Nations, Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Treaty Doc. No. 1021 (1948).
19 Robert K. Woetzel, The Nuremberg Trials in International Law (New York, NY: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1960), 22-27.
20 Woetzel, “The Nuremberg Trials,” 22-27.

Enforcement of the Hague Conventions was difficult because of entrenched state

sovereignty. While the Leipzig Trials following World War I attempted to hold Germany
legally accountable for wartime Conventions violations, these trials were ultimately unsuc-
cessful because breaching German sovereignty to punish its citizens for acts undertaken in
the name of the state was unthinkable. Though Great Britain attempted to pin war crimes
on individual actors, this was difficult in practice because doing so violated the prevailing
jus cogens norms on state sovereignty.21
The international community’s reticence toward punishing individuals for crimes
committed in the name of the state during the pre-World War II period is typified by the
United States’ “Act of State” doctrine. With this doctrine, the American judicial system
asserts that, “an individual cannot be made responsible for an act which he performed
as an instrument, or ‘organ’, of his state, since responsibility for such actions rests on the
‘collectivity of individuals’, which is the state.”22 This Act of State doctrine can be traced
to the United States Supreme Court case The Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon in which
the Court held that the United States could not have jurisdiction over a friendly state’s
military vessel docking in a U.S. port, as the vessel was under the impenetrable umbrella
of state sovereignty. Until after World War II, this Act of State doctrine was the guiding
principle for U.S. attitudes toward taking legal action against other states or their agents.23
Through the lens of globalization, the state-centric conception of culpability
makes sense. When analyzing this period of sovereign immunity, it is important to note
that the international community’s tendency to blame states rather than individuals reflect
the period’s understanding of sovereignty. In this period, states were customarily seen as
wholly sovereign and as the sole actors in the international system. The borders of West-
ern nation-states were much more rigid than they would become with increased intercon-
nectedness. Because the state maintained ultimate authority in that system, holding states
instead of component actors culpable for wrongdoing made more sense than prosecuting
an individual acting under orders from the state.
While the pre-World War II period was characterized by a strong sense of state
supremacy in international law, it also laid the foundation for the separation of sovereign
immunity into ratione personae and ratione materiae subtypes. Though the 1928 Havana
Convention on International Diplomatic Officers did not explicitly define the terms as
they are today, it did begin the separation of sovereign immunity into two component
types. In the Havana Convention, signatory states from throughout the Americas ac-
knowledged that diplomats should not have the same form of sovereign immunity granted
21 Woetzel, “The Nuremberg Trials,” 22-27. 3-6.

22 Ibid., 68.
23 Ibid., 68-76.
Schooner v. McFadden, 11 S. Ct. (1812).

to heads of state. At the time the Havana Convention was signed, the greater international
community was still uncertain as how to best to enforce nascent forms of international
law in the midst of a strong prevailing sense of state sovereignty. However, for the smooth
conduct of international relations, states acknowledged that varying degrees of immunity
from extraterritorial prosecution should be granted to members of government based
upon their roles. These questions preempted the subsequent establishment of individual
responsibility in the prosecution of genocide.24
Following the end of World War II, the prevailing Allied powers departed from
the jus cogens norms of international conduct by creating the International Military
Tribunal at Nuremberg to prosecute Nazi government actors. In response to German
atrocities during the war, the Allied Western powers pursued judicial means of retribution
for German wrongs. However, to pursue this means of punishment, the Allied powers had
to hold individuals accountable for what were previously seen as state actions. No longer
did the Allied powers view German actions during World War II, especially genocide, as
attributable to the state and the German people but rather as the consequence of specific
policies executed by German government officials. The Nuremberg Trials took the radical
step of shifting the burden of culpability from states to individuals.25
Neither ratione personae nor ratione materiae forms of sovereign immunity
applied to those on trial at Nuremberg as neither was seen as a sufficient defense for ac-
tions undertaken by the accused. This same de jure resistance to sovereign immunity for
perpetrators of genocide remains to this day, though the de facto reality is that prevailing
concepts of sovereign immunity still prevent widespread prosecution of genocide. Though
criticized as a form of victor’s justice, the Nuremberg Trials took a radical step away from
the pre-World War II notion of total individual sovereign immunity and instituted a form
of individual responsibility for illicit acts. This new international position on genocide
would be codified as the Nuremberg Principles by the United Nations in 1948.26
Following the lessons of the Nuremberg Trials, the next wave of development
in individual sovereign immunity for war crimes occurred with two criminal tribunals
in the 1990s: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). This article defines this develop-
ment period as “Renewed Action” due to a new focus on the topic following the Cold War.
Though both tribunals were similar in construct and applied to genocide, only the ICTR
tribunal expanded international law. In the case of the ICTR, the acts of genocide were
not committed during war with another state, but as a part of an ongoing civil war within
24 "Convention on Diplomatic Officers," 142-147.
"Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities," The American Journal of International Law 26, no. 1 (1932): 97-106.
25 Hans-Heinrich Jescheck, "The Development of International Criminal Law after Nuremberg," in Perspectives on the
Nuremberg Trail, ed. Guénaël Mettraux (Oxford [etc.]: Oxford University Press, 2008), 423-425.
26 Jescheck, "The Development of International," in Perspectives on the Nuremberg, 425.

Rwanda. Since the Nuremberg Doctrine applied to states that had committed atrocities
against other nations, prosecutions for genocide conducted by the victim’s own state was
a significant step forward for the creation of an international jurisdiction to counteract
genocide.27
Additionally, both the ICTR and the ICTY differed from the Nuremberg Trials
because they blamed the genocide on ethnic dispute rather than individual policy deci-
sions. As scholars Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri note in their article “Trials and Errors:
Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice,” the ICTR and ICTY
diverged from the Nuremberg precedent of individual accountability for genocide and
moved toward group blame of an entire ethnic group. Therefore, the significant legacy of
these tribunals is the shift away from state accountability.28
Similar to the Nuremberg Trials, the ICTR and ICTY did not differentiate
explicitly between ratione personae and ratione materiae immunity defenses. In both of
these cases, the courts demonstrated that sovereign immunity of any type did not apply to
instances of genocide. Yet, the real success of the ICTR and ICTY tribunals was that state
and ethnic group leaders were culpable for their genocidal actions, marking a significant
shift toward the erosion of ratione personae implicit immunity.
It is important to note that this eventual erosion of both forms of sovereign
immunity with the creation of the trials was not necessarily a byproduct of the Nurem-
berg Principles codified by the United Nations. Instead, the international support for the
tribunals was still subject to remaining concerns about sovereignty. This is demonstrated
by the varying responses by the U.S. and European powers to the genocides in Yugoslavia
and Rwanda. Due to the war in Yugoslavia and the dissolution of its state sovereignty, the
United Nations moved in quickly to take legal action against the perpetrators of genocide
even before the war was over. Yet, in Rwanda, the international community was hesitant to
intervene because the state still retained some level of sovereignty. The United States and
its fellow UN Security Council members instead refused to acknowledge that genocide
was even occurring at all in Rwanda, leading the Council to pass Security Council Resolu-
tion 918 condemning “acts of genocide” instead of genocide itself.29 This refusal to inter-
vene immediately demonstrates that prevailing notions of state sovereignty and sovereign
immunity for perpetrators of genocide still held legitimacy.30
27 Paul J. Magnarella, Justice in Africa: Rwanda's Genocide, Its Courts, and the UN Criminal Tribunal (Aldershot, Hants,
England: Ashgate, 2000, 47.
28 Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, "Trials and Errors: Principle and Pragmatism," International Security 28, no. 3
(Winter 2003/2004): 7.
29 United Nations, Resolution 918, Treaty Doc. (1994).
30 Press and Public Affairs Unit, ICTR, Learning from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (Arusha, Tanzania:
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, 2005), 4-7.; Rachel Kerr, The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugo-
slavia: An Exercise in Law, Politics, and Diplomacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 42-59.

Nevertheless, the ICTR and the ICTY were significant steps toward reduction of
individual sovereign immunity for genocide because of the level of international response.
Following World War II, the concept of legal recourse was spearheaded by the United
States with backing by Great Britain and France. However, with the ICTR and ICTY tri-
bunals, the international response was the result of a vote in the United Nations, and was
taken by the combined efforts of numerous nations. The Cold War’s end ushered in an era
of shared international responsibility to prosecute cases of genocide as tensions between
the U.S. and Soviet Union subsided at the UN.31
Following the success of the international legal cooperation of the ICTR and
ICTY trials, the international community moved toward the creation of a permanent
international judicial system separate from the control of the United Nations. The result
was the signing of the Rome Statute and the creation of the International Criminal Court
(ICC) in 1998. Building on the success of the ICTR and the ICTY, the Rome Statute
included Article 6, which explicitly banned genocide. The creation of the ICC was a sig-
nificant de jure victory for the prosecution of genocide and the erosion of individual level
sovereign immunity.32
However, the de facto reality of ICC’s jurisdictional reach is another issue. While
the United States is a signatory of the Rome Statute, it has yet to ratify its official accession
into the ICC. As a result, the ICC has struggled to gain legitimacy. Without support from
the United States, it will be difficult for the ICC to gain sufficient legitimacy in the eyes of
the international community in order to prevent future genocide.33
From the perspective of ratione personae sovereign immunity, the ICC is in an
interesting position. Due to the United States’ and 73 other states’ refusal to ratify the
Rome Statute, the ability of an individual to commit genocide is determined by: (1) the
status of his or her state’s membership in the ICC, (2) for member states, the ICC’s deci-
sion or whether or not to carry out prosecution measures, and (3) for non-member states,
the decision of the international community to take legal action. Because numerous states
have either not signed or not ratified the Rome Statute, the Court presents an important
ideological rather than tangible step towards international prosecution of genocide.
Overall, the historical analysis of this section demonstrates the development
of implicit international norms about ratione personae and ratione materiae sovereign
immunity. Beginning in the Pre-Accountability period, state leaders and their officials
retained total individual sovereign immunity despite evolving understandings of inter-
national law and state sovereignty. However, in the immediate aftermath of World War
31 Bill Berkeley, "Ethnicity and Conflict in Africa: The Methods Behind the Madness," in War Crimes: The Legacy of Nurem-
berg, by Belinda Cooper (New York: TV Books, 1999), 185-189.
32 Sarah B. Sewall and Carl Kaysen, The United States and the International Criminal Court: National Security and Interna-
tional Law (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000), 38-42.
33 Sewall and Kaysen, The United States and the International, 38-42.

II and the start of the De Jure Bans period, ratione materiae sovereign immunity was
revoked for state officials in Nazi Germany. While the Nuremberg Trials exemplified an
important permanent dissolution of ratione materiae immunity, the lack of a state leader
to try for his actions meant that legal precedent for the erosion of ratione personae im-
munity was not established. Following the end of the Cold War, this lingering ratione
personae immunity was again put to the test with the rise of the ICTR, ICTY, and ICC.
These organizations, unlike the Nuremberg Trials, established legal precedent for trying
state leaders for their roles in mass killings, marking an important shift toward true dis-
solution of ratione personae immunity.
Yet, the erosion of individual sovereign immunity for genocide is incomplete.
Though the de jure stance of the international community has been unequivocal opposi-
tion to genocide since the declaration of the Nuremberg Principles by the United Nations
in 1948, the de facto reality has been a gradual shift toward international oversight and
elimination of sovereignty as a deterrent for prosecuting perpetrators of genocide. As Sec-
tion VII will demonstrate, further hurdles still remain for the accomplishment of this goal.
However, as the following two sections will examine, the dissolution of ratione personae
immunity up to this point has had a significant effect on the frequency and intensity of
genocide.
Section V: Methods
For the quantitative portion of this article, I began by compiling a dataset of
mass killings with their corresponding estimated death tolls spanning genocides from the
Hague Convention of 1899 until the present day. A central dataset of this information for
the time period of this study did not already exist. Therefore, I utilized scholarly estimates,
partial datasets, and other empirical analyses to generate a complete dataset for this study.
A list of the contributing sources used in the creation of this dataset is included at the bot-
tom of Appendix C. This wide range of sources helped me compile an accurate representa-
tion of genocides that occurred in the time frame in question, both in terms of instance
completeness and casualty count accuracy.

While this source list provided important pieces of information, defining the
appropriate data came with challenges. Determining (1) what qualifies as a genocide and
(2) the extent of the genocide in terms of a casualty count is difficult. Due to differing in-
terpretations of both of these points, scholars rarely agree on the occurrence or the extent
of genocide.
To determine what to include in the dataset, I relied upon the definition of
genocide listed in the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide. I examined the facts about historical events in which many people have died
at the hands of a government or other powerful groups, and I only included events that
adhered to the definition provided by the U.N. For instance, I excluded massacres of sol-
diers committed by other soldiers due to the perception that these deaths were casualties
of war rather than genocides. Additionally, I only included famines if they were outcomes
of governments or other powerful groups specifically targeting ethnic groups or political
opponents, such as in the case of Holdomor in Ukraine. I omitted widespread famines,
such as in the Great Leap Forward, which did not directly target a specific group of people
due to their ethnic background or political beliefs.
After finalizing a list of genocides, compiling accurate death toll figures to use in
the analysis was often difficult. I conducted this research through one of four processes.
First, some cases required me to compile a list of estimated death tolls when no other
scholar had previously done so. This often resulted in a wide array of death toll estimates.
Therefore, I would often use the average figure from the estimated range. Second, I fre-
quently came across scholars who posited a mean estimate based upon comparisons they
had conducted of existing estimates. In these cases, I incorporated this number directly
into the dataset. Third, for recent events in which there were not scholarly estimates, I re-
lied upon the most recent death toll estimates found in newspapers. Finally, when I found
a commonly accepted dataset, such as Barbara Harff ’s figures that largely fell in the De
Jure Bans period, I relied upon these figures and, when necessary, calculated the average
of the range as my working figure.34
After finalizing a list of mass killings and their corresponding casualty rates, I
converted these figures into a time series by annualizing the casualty rates over the dura-
tion of the mass killing. For instance, if a genocide lasted five years, the final casualty
count was divided by the number of years that the event lasted, and each year of the geno-
cide was assigned this equal portion of the death toll. After annualizing all figures, I added
together any figures in the same year that overlapped. This resulting value was used as the
annual figure for the subsequent time series calculations. Annualizing the figures allowed
me to operationalize singular casualty counts to conduct the appropriate time series tests
that would determine the effectiveness of the international community’s efforts to erode
34 Harff, “No Lessons Learned.” (see note 7)

sovereign immunity for genocide.

Next, I assessed the data for structural breaks. Using the three periods posited
in the preceding section, I hypothesized that there would be two structural breaks in the
dataset: one at the beginning of the second wave in 1946 and one at the beginning of the
third wave in 1995. To do so, I utilized the Chow test for structural breaks. Specifically, I
was interested if there was a distinct difference in the annualized rate of mass killing death
tolls over time among the three waves. My corresponding null hypothesis was that there
would not be structural changes between the two periods. In this case, rejection of the
null hypothesis indicates that the time series is stationary around a deterministic trend. In
contrast, failure to reject the null hypothesis indicates that the time series is stochastic and
nonstationary.
Section VI: An Empirical Analysis

As Section IV indicates, a historical analysis of the international community’s
approaches to curbing mass killings denotes a gradual erosion of various forms of sover-
eign immunity, both explicit and implicit. To assess this claim, I examined if any possible
structural breaks in the dataset correspond with the two points identified in the historical
analysis.
Following a quantitative analysis of the underlying data, two primary trends
emerge. First, as the international community has worked to erode vestiges of sovereign
immunity for genocide, mass killings have, on average, become less severe. Second, as the
preceding historical analysis suggests, statistical tests confirm the presence of two struc-
tural breaks in the dataset: one following the end of the Pre-Accountability period in 1946
and one at the end of the De Jure Bans period in 1995. These structural breaks indicate
that the international community’s varying approach toward stemming mass killings led
to statistically significant differences in the severity of mass killings between the two peri-
ods.
In terms of descriptive statistics alone, the three periods are marked by substan-
tial, sequential reductions in mass killing severity (Figure 1). For the Pre-Accountability
period, the average annual death rate is 518,915. However, the number decreases to
298,903 deaths per year in the De Jure Bans period and falls to an average annual rate of
52,084 deaths per year by the Renewed Action period. This nearly 90% decrease from the
Pre-Accountability period to the Renewed Action period represents a substantial reduc-
tion in the severity of mass killings over time.
To determine the statistical significance of this decrease and to examine if it oc-
curs following structural breaks, I performed two Chow tests on the data: one at the pas-
sage of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

between the Pre Accountability period and the De Jure Bans period and the other at the
creation of the ICTR and the ICTY between the De Jure Bans period and the Renewed
Action period. The results of these Chow tests indicate strong structural breaks. In the
first test, the F value of the decrease in genocidal severity between the Pre-Accountability
period and the De Jure Bans period is 92.7040086, far above the 0.001 significance level of
6.00317372 that corresponds with the values used in the calculations (Figure 2). Similarly,
the F value that represents the extent of the difference between genocidal severity in the
De Jure Bans period and the Renewed Action period is 973.426045, also far above the
0.001 significance value of 6.29777654 associated with the underlying calculations. (Figure
2)
However, while mass killings became less severe between the three periods
proposed, the frequency of these killings increased in the De Jure Bans period before fall-
ing again in the Renewed Action period. One possible explanation for this phenomenon
is that the recording of mass killings was not as thorough during the Pre-Accountability
period. In the study of mass killings, scholars often have difficulty defining exactly how
many individuals died as a result of a mass killing due to a lack of definite data. This diffi-
culty pervades both distant events and recent events that have occurred since the initia-
tion of explicit bans under the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide.
While the statistical tests used here indicate the presence of a structural break,
two characteristics of the dataset may have impacted the findings. First, the data had
several outliers, such as 2014, which had just over 200 annualized deaths from mass kill-
ings, and 1944, whose combined annualized death toll reached nearly 1.3 million. With a
total n of 130, strong deviations from the set-wide median may have had an effect on the
results. Second, because this quantitative section has focused on the impact of sovereign
immunity on the severity of genocides, I omitted years in which genocides did not occur,
such as 1947. In the context of measuring severity, years without any deaths indicate a
reduced frequency rather than a statement about the severity about a mass killing when
it occurs. This omission allowed the structural break tests to gauge what they sought to
measure without having to adjust for non-events.
In sum, the data indicates two trends. One, there has been a discernible reduc-
tion among these three periods in in the number of individuals dying each year as a result
of mass killings. This indicates that, while mass killings still occur, they are becoming less
severe. Two, structural breaks in the data correspond with the promulgation of the U.N.
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the forma-
tion of the ICTY and ICTR. These structural breaks indicate that the targeting of extant
manifestations of ratione personae sovereign immunity has had a statistically significant
impact on the severity of genocides that do occur. While the continuation of mass killings

is concerning, the impact of targeted erosion of implicit ratione personae immunity has
been an important contributor toward genocide prevention.
Section VII: Recent Developments and Future Prospects

While the historical and empirical trends addressed in this article speak to a
promising move toward less severe mass killings, some recent developments present
complications for the continued erosion of individual sovereign immunity for genocide.
Approaches to enforcement of bans against genocide and undercutting of individual
sovereign immunity have shifted in the past and will likely continue to do so. Therefore,
an understanding of recent developments in attitudes toward sovereign immunity for
genocide is important for preventing future mass killings.
Although the 130-year period examined for this paper was marked by a general
trend of increasing international oversight and decreasing sovereign immunity, not all re-
cent changes in the realm of prosecution of genocide have followed this broad trend. No-
tably, the African Union’s recent decision to not hold member nations accountable for war
crimes, which includes genocide, is contrary to historical gains. In a June 2014 summit,
the heads of states of African Union members voted to grant each other immunity from
prosecution from genocide, thereby increasing ratione personae immunity for themselves.
Interestingly, however, these leaders did not vote to increase ratione materiae immunity
for their subjects. Due to this discrepancy, it is unclear how these conflicting policies from
two separate international institutions – both the African Union and the International
Criminal Court for members that overlap under both jurisdictions – will impact prosecu-
tion of future genocide in Africa. This development from the African Union is particu-
larly concerning, as two of the most prominent cases of genocide in the last two decades,
Rwanda and Darfur, both occurred within the jurisdiction of the African Union. It will
be interesting to see how the conflict between regional and international norms in Africa
interact in the potential case of future genocide on the continent.35
In contrast to the African Union’s regressive decision, the International Criminal
Court’s current actions are resulting in continued erosion of ratione personae immunity.
In a high-profile genocide case addressing the crisis in Darfur that put former Sudanese
President Omar Al-Bashir on trial, the ICC conformed to the de jure understanding that
ratione personae immunity does not exist for state leaders in the case of genocide. How-
ever, it has been difficult for the ICC to enforce this decision as South Africa and several
other states have failed to extradite Al-Bashir. Nevertheless, the ultimate decision was
significant in that it further eroded lingering conceptions, whether intentional or not, of
35 The Associate Press, "African Leaders Vote to Give Themselves Immunity from War Crimes," Al-Jazeera America (New
York, NY), July 2014, accessed November 20, 2014.

sovereign immunity for genocide.36

While the ICC’s current docket is promising in terms of its implications for
sovereign immunity, the data presented in this article suggests that further erosion of both
ratione personae and ratione materiae defenses for genocide is a necessity to prevent fu-
ture mass killings. Though these are not acceptable defenses in an international genocide
trial, the international community maintains a stigma about breaching state sovereignty
and individual immunity to try leaders for genocide. In order to progress as a society, both
forms of individual sovereign immunity for genocide must be eliminated. Continued glo-
balization and reduction in strict sovereignty will benefit this process, but the internation-
al community must make a concerted effort to ensure genocide is permanently eradicated.
Section VIII: Conclusion

Following both historical and empirical analyses, there appears to be a con-
nection between the erosion of both forms of individual sovereign immunity, ratione
personae and ratione materiae, and the declining severity of genocide, especially post-
World War II. These results suggest that continuing to target implicit forms of individual
sovereign immunity, specifically ratione personae, is an important component of prevent-
ing future mass killings. Doing so will be challenging, as it will force states to reconsider
how they understand protections afforded to their leaders, but also because implicit ra-
tione personae understandings are intertwined with state sovereignty. However, by under-
standing the role of this form of sovereign immunity in the continuation of mass killings,
it may be easier to generate evidence-based laws and policies that tackle the remaining
vestiges of individual immunity for a detestable crimes against humanity.
36 Human Rights Watch Staff, "Sudan: ICC Warrant for Al-Bashir on Genocide," Human Rights Watch, July 13, 2010, accessed
November 11, 2014.

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C
List of Cases


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The Asian "Economic Miracle" and Welfare
Niccolò Giorgio Armandola
Measuring human development has always presented intriguing challenges in the fields of
economics and social sciences. In the last decade, prominent researchers like Joseph Stiglitz
have underlined the importance of taking subjective well-being into account alongside the tra-
ditional indicators of development. This paper introduces the reader to a new index of human
well-being called Satisfaction-Adjusted Human Development Index (SAHDI), which merges
macro- and micro-level data. The paper presents the creation of the index step-by-step and
shows the differences from traditional indices by using a reduced Asian sample. The results of
this brief analysis show that the SAHDI manages to measure human well-being on a subjective
as well as an objective basis and delivers a whole new portrait of Asia.
Introduction
Western media often reports with concern that some Asian countries are acquiring
more economic power over time. As many Asian countries are experiencing an economic
boom, they are also ascending in world development rankings (see Appendix A). Accord-
ing to the GDP-rankings of 2015, smaller Asian countries like Singapore, Brunei, and Hong
Kong are among the top ten most developed nations, while big Asian superpower, China, is
rapidly climbing up to the top fifty positions (see Appendix A).
Although journalists, scientists, and even politicians across the world use these de-
velopment rankings as trustworthy references, these lists rely on indices that do not entirely
represent a state’s well-being. The two most widespread indices, the Gross Domestic Prod-
uct (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI), primarily focus on the economic
status of countries. In 2009, Nobel Prize Winner Joseph Stiglitz invited economists and
scientists to integrate existing, “traditional” indicators with subjective data to estimate not
only the economic power of a state but also its people’s welfare.1 In response to this state-
ment, many different organizations tried to create new indices fulfilling Stiglitz’s request.
1 Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, “Report by the Commission on the measurement of economic perfor-
mance and social progress,” Unpublished manuscript, last modified August 06, 2017.
Niccolò Giorgio Armandola is a senior at the University of Zurich in

Switzerland. He is majoring in Sociology and minoring in French linguistics.
The Asian "Economic Miracle" and Welfare 35
The Canadian Index of Well-Being (CWI), the Gross National Happiness index (GNH),
and the Legatum Prosperity Index focus on subjective as well as objective data. However,
neither none of them integrates the subjective well-being information required by Stiglitz.2
This paper aims to create a new index that meets this criterion. The SAHDI (Sat-
isfaction-Adjusted Human Development Index) modifies the HDI by weighting it with the
subjective data provided by the second wave of the AsiaBarometer survey (2004). At this
stage, the paper focuses only on a reduced Asian sample of 13 countries as a pilot study for
testing the new index. Along with the Asian sample, the SAHDI will provide new informa-
tion about the populations of Asia’s rising superpowers.
The paper is structured as follows. The next chapter will present the theoretical
framework that drove the making of the new index. The third chapter explains the choice
of the sample and presents the data set. Chapter 4 illustrates the methods used to calculate
the SAHDI. Chapter 5 is dedicated to the results and debate, followed by a conclusion in
Chapter 6.
Theoretical Framework
When analyzing the development of a country, political scientists typically consult in-
dices like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI). GDP
is a strictly economic indicator, measuring the monetary value of all the goods produced by
a country within its borders in a given time frame. Additionally, it is intended as a simple
proxy variable for measuring several aspects of human development.3 The HDI is more
exhaustive than GDP, as it directly measures other important aspects of the country’s hu-
man development, such as health, education, and standard of living. Chapter 4 will further
explain the formula for HDI.
Although GDP and HDI are considered the two primary development indica-
tors, scholars have criticized both measures in the last few decades.4 The Stiglitz, Sen, and
Fitoussi report of 2009 observes that ranking countries solely by their GDP-scores is a sim-
plistic measure, which does not entirely reveal a country’s development or its people’s well-
being.5 Empirical analysis indicates that there is no significant correlation between income
and happiness, suggesting that income alone is not a reliable indicator for human welfare.6
The Stiglitz, Sen, and Fitoussi report, as well as other literature on the subject, discloses
2 Christian Kroll, “Global Development and Happiness: How Can Data on Subjective Well-Being Inform Development Theory
and Practice?” Oxford Development Studies 43 no. 3 (2015): 281–309. doi:10.1080/13600818.2015.1067293.
3 Allen C. Kelley, “The Human Development Index: "Handle with Care”,” Population and Development Review 17 no. 2:
315–324,
4 Ibid.
6 Ruut Veenhoven, “Sociological theories of subjective well-being,” In Eid and Larsen 2008, 44–61.

36 Niccolò Giorgio Armandola
many aspects that GDP fails to measure, such as non-market activities and environmental
problems. However, the most important aspect that GDP falls short to represent may be the
subjective well-being of people.7
The Human Development Index is slightly better off than GDP on this issue, as it
evaluates multiple different components of wealth. Nevertheless, the HDI has also received
critical response over the years, as it is exclusively based on objective wealth data and there-
fore ignores people’s subjective assessments on their qualities of life.8
This paper aims to modify the Human Development Index by weighting it with
subjective data. Before addressing the methodological procedures, it is necessary to estab-
lish the concept of subjective well-being and quality of life.
The concept of subjective well-being

Indicators of human well-being cannot ignore less easily quantifiable human percep-
tions of their wealth, happiness, and other ways of life. Traditional indicators such as GDP
and the HDI focus on the objective resources that are available to citizens of a specific
country, making the indirect assumption that such resources automatically generate
human well-being.9 While the variables involved may be more easily quantifiable, this
wrongly assumes the resource allocations are effective in all cases such as in instances
of inequality and corruption. A corrupt country can have a high GDP, without proper
resource allocation to a majority of the population.10
Many scientists nowadays believe that the best measure of quality of life self-re-
ported satisfaction, also known as “subjective well-being”. Although subjective well-being
has become a useful tool to measure quality of life, there is not yet a clear definition for it.
Most political scientists refer to Diener’s three components of subjective well-being:
1. One’s satisfaction with his/her life
2. The presence of positive feelings
3. The absence of negative feelings.11
The first component is a cognitive component: based on people’s beliefs regarding their
life. In contrast, the other components are dubbed “affective components”, which reflect the
feelings experienced by the interviewee.12 In this paper, subjective well-being is defined only
by its cognitive component, therefore only representing self-reported satisfaction with life.
7 Dēmos, “Beyond GDP - New measures for a new economy,” Unpublished manuscript, last modified August 06, 2017.
8 Christian Kroll, “Global Development and Happiness: How Can Data on Subjective Well-Being Inform Development Theory
and Practice?” Oxford Development Studies 43 no. 3 (2015): 281–309. doi:10.1080/13600818.2015.1067293.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ulrich Schimmack, “The structure of subjective well-being,” In Eid and Larsen 2008, 97–123.

Schimmack suggests that it is possible to separate the cognitive component of subjec-

tive well-being and analyze it more deeply. Due to the of the complexity of human emotion
it is more accurate to measure the satisfaction with specific life domains.13 This explains why
some scientists survey subjective well-being by asking to report satisfaction with life in gen-
eral as well as satisfaction with several life domains. This paper aims to create an index of
human development by taking into account the information provided by such surveys. Af-
ter having briefly explained why developing such an adjusted index is especially important
for Asia in Chapter 3, Chapter 4 will show how the subjective well-being data was combined
with the objective indicators to create the new index.
Data and sampling

Since many Asian economies are booming it is interesting to explore the effect of eco-
nomic growth on people’s quality of life. With India and Indonesia experiencing massive
economic growth but plagued by inequality, it is fair to doubt that the significant improve-
ment in their GDP-scores have led to better life quality for the average citizen.14 Conse-
quently, it is even more interesting to test a potential new measure of human well-being
on Asian countries, as a comparison with the scores in “traditional” indices will widen the
spectrum of available information about the current Asian growth phenomenon.
In the last century, coverage of Asia in social science surveys has failed to examine
thorough research on individuals’ qualities of life beyond macroeconomic measurements,
which has created a void in scientific knowledge about the life quality of people in Asia. In
the early 2000s, Takashi Inoguchi, a high-profile academic researcher and current president
of the University of Niigata, Tokyo, contributed to filling this void. He launched the AsiaBa-
rometer project,: a cross-border social survey that focuses on ordinary people’s feelings, and
assessments.15
To generate an effective index that takes into account both subjective and objec-
tive data, it is essential to find high-quality information. The United Nations Development
Programme and the World Bank have provided reliable objective data about every U.N.
member state annually for 15 years.
On the other hand, subjective data is more difficult to attain. There is a lack of use-
ful subjective information in large databases. One of the few surveys is the AsiaBarometer,
launched in summer 2003. In six waves from 2003 to 2008, 32 countries were indepen-
dently surveyed. Every year, the AsiaBarometer could guarantee a minimum sample size of
800 people for each country. An important task of the AsiaBarometer is to survey people’s
14 Takashi Ignoguchi and Seiji Fujii, The quality of life in Asia: A comparison of quality of life in Asia. Quality of life in Asia 1,
Dordrecht: Springer.
15 Ibid.

perceptions and assessments, intending to provide reliable subjective information.16 For the
aims of this paper, data about people’s satisfaction with specific life domains are especially
important.
The second wave of the AsianBarometer had the biggest sample: 13 countries. The
surveyed countries were Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia,
Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.17 In order
to test the new index on as many countries as possible, the second wave of the AsiaBarom-
eter (2004) was chosen.
To sum up, the sample analyzed in this paper consists of the 13 Asian countries
listed. The source of the subjective data included in the dataset is the second wave of the
AsiaBarometer, whereas the sources of the objective information are the databanks of the
United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank from the year 2004. The
following chapter will highlight how the objective and subjective data were put together to
build a new index of human well-being.
Methods
The procedure chosen in order to create such an index was inspired by Kroll’s
work. With the intent to create a more comprehensive well-being index, Kroll used the Hu-
man Development Index as a basis and then weighted the different components of the HDI
(see 4.1) by the correlation coefficients that the different components had with subjective
well-being. His index is able to figure out how well countries meet their citizens’ needs.18
The index presented in this paper has a slightly different focus. Using the HDI as
a basis as well, it weighs its components by the degree of satisfaction with the correspond-
ing domain of life. This enables the new index to represent both the objective indicators
of one country’s development and the subjective data about people’s thoughts regarding
its development. Because of this adjustment, the new index is called Satisfaction-Adjusted
Development Index (SAHDI).
The Human Development Index

Created by the United Nations Development Programme, the HDI is an index that
measures three key dimensions of human development: health, education, and standard
17 Ibid.
18 Christian Kroll, “Global Development and Happiness: How Can Data on Subjective Well-Being Inform Development
Theory and Practice?” Oxford Development Studies 43 no. 3 (2015): 281–309. doi:10.1080/13600818.2015.1067293.

of living.19 The first step to calculate the HDI-score of a country is to create a “dimension
index”. Health is measured as the life expectancy at birth and standard of living as the gross
national income per capita. The indicator for education is composed of the expected years
of formal education and the average years of formal education.20 The different dimension
indices are calculated by using the following formula, which standardizes values (range:
zero to one):
Minimum and maximum values are respectively the “natural zeros” and the “aspi-
rational targets” of each variable (see Appendix B). The Human Development Index is the
geometric mean of the three dimension indices. Note: I stands for “index” and the subscript
stands for the respective dimension:
The next subchapter will show how the HDI was adjusted by using subjective data
from the second wave of the AsiaBarometer survey.
As the name suggests, the SAHDI is an adjustment of the Human Development
Index. It aims to better describe a nation’s well-being by including the self-reported satisfac-
tion with one’s life quality. A functional way to adjust the HDI is to weigh each of the three
components with the degree of satisfaction with the related life domain. Note: DS stands for
“degree of satisfaction” and the subscript stands for the respective life domain.
The degrees of satisfaction with each component of the HDI derive from the
AsiaBarometer data. In the survey, people were asked to indicate how satisfied they were
with several life domains. The participants graded their answers on a five-point scale from
“very satisfied” to “not at all satisfied”.21 Appendix C shows the entire question battery. The
19 Human Development Report, “Human Development Data (1990-2015): Human Development Reports,” sccessed August 06,
2017.
20 Ibid.

scale was recoded so that “not at all satisfied” had the lowest value (one) and “very satisfied”
the highest (five), making the results are easier to interpret.
The satisfaction with different life domains is an individual subjective measure,
whereas life expectancy, mean years of education, and the other components of the HDI are
indicators on a national level. Thus, the SAHDI is an index that combines both micro-level
and macro-level information. In order to, aggregate the micro-level information with the
macro-level data, the arithmetic mean of the reported satisfaction with the corresponding
life domain was chosen as the estimator for the degree of satisfaction with a HDI compo-
nent. Out of the fifteen life domains that were surveyed in the AsiaBarometer, four were
judged to match the three components of the HDI. Table 1 shows the selected domains of
life that represent the three HDI components. The standard of living component of the HDI
is represented by two life domains: standard of living and household income.
The first step in creating the SAHDI is to calculate the average satisfaction with the
four life domains listed in Table 1. In a second step, the calculated means are standardized,
so that their values range from zero to one. This is done by using the same method applied
by the Human Development Report to standardize the three dimension indices of the HDI
(see 4.1). As the satisfaction with different life domains was measured with the same scale,
the minimum and maximum values are the same for each domain: one is the lowest value,
five the highest. Standardizing the degree of satisfaction with education for people who
live in Cambodia will showcases how the mechanism works. The average satisfaction with
education in Cambodia is 3.38. Note: M stands for arithmetic mean, the subscript contains
the information about the life domain and the country (ISO-Code).

After being standardized using the formula above, the degrees of satisfaction for
each of the four domains of life are inserted in the formula of the SAHDI . This is the last
step of the calculation, which is illustrated here again through the example of Cambodia.
Appendix D shows the data for Cambodia that were inserted in the equation.
Thus, the HDI has been adjusted by the self-reported degree of satisfaction with
each component of the “original” HDI. The next chapter will present the SAHDI-scores for
every country in the sample and compare them to the HDI-scores.
Results
Following the steps highlighted in Chapter 4, the SAHDI-scores for the thirteen
countries in the sample were calculated. Table 2 ranks the analyzed countries by their score
in this new development index. It also shows the countries’ “traditional” HDI-scores and
their position in a hypothetical HDI-based ranking of the sample. The last column shows
how many positions a specific country gained or lost according to the new measure for hu-
man well-being. The SAHDI-ranking, the HDI-ranking, and the GDP ranking are shown
as maps in the Appendix E, F and G.

As the new ranking presented in Table 2 shows, the SAHDI modifies the portrait
of Asia that Western societies are used to seeing. Japan and Korea, the two countries consid-
ered to be the most developed in Asia, are not in the top three. In fact, two of the smallest
countries in Asia, Brunei and Singapore, are on top of the SAHDI-ranking. Brunei leads
with a score of 0.75 and Singapore follows with a score of 0.59. This is not surprising, as
both nations have a strong economy (see Appendix H).
The sultanate of Brunei is very rich in energy resources: the production of oil and
gas is responsible for almost 65% of Brunei’s GDP (see CIA 2017a). Thus, it makes sense
that the Bruneians are satisfied with their economic situation (mean = 4.46, standardized
mean = 0.86). However, people in the sultanate are not only satisfied with their standard of
living; the average self-reported satisfaction with education and health is very high as well,
4.54 (st. mean: 0.89) and 4.62 (st. mean = 0.91) respectively. Brunei can therefore be defined
as a highly developed country because its objective indicators are very high (HDI-score =
0.834) and the citizens report to be very satisfied with the specific life domains (see Appen-
dix I).
On the other hand, Singapore’s healthy economy is based on the export of hi-
tech products (see CIA 2017g). Singapore’s high HDI-score (0.821) indicates good objec-
tive indicators for human development. Nevertheless, its SAHDI-score is much lower than
Brunei’s: 0.59. The reason is that people in Singapore report themselves to be far less satis-

fied with the three dimensions of the HDI as the Bruneian. Singapore’s degrees of satisfac-
tion with the three HDI-dimensions are only slightly above average: MEducation = 3.87,
MHealth = 4.02, MSt. of living = 3.75 (see Appendix I).
As highlighted above, it is expected to find Brunei and Singapore in the first two
positions of the SAHDI-ranking. However, it is surprising that Malaysia is on the podium
(third place, SAHDI-score = 0.57), as this country does not score highly in other indices.
In this sample, Malaysia would be fifth per HDI-score as well as GDP per capita (see Table
2 and Appendix H). Nevertheless, Malaysian people report a high level of satisfaction with
their lives. Thus, in the case of Malaysia, the subjective indicators level up the poor scoring
in the objective index. The data for the Philippines presents a similar pattern. Despite lower
HDI-scores (0.642) and GDP per capita (1'769.80) (see Appendix H), Filipinos seem quite
satisfied with the different aspects of their lives, which explains why the Philippines is in the
upper half of Table 2, ranking fifth with a SAHDI-score of 0.48.
Japan and Korea are two interesting cases. Both countries have high HDI and GDP
scores, but they have slightly lower SAHDI rankings compared to others. Although Japan
still ranks fourth in this new list, the SAHDI shows that despite being a highly developed
country (HDI-score = 0.870), Japan fails to provide for the happiness of its citizens. People
in Japan report themselves to be less satisfied with the three relevant domains of life than
the Bruneian and the Malaysian. Japanese’s degree of satisfaction with education is par-
ticularly low: 3.51 (standardized mean = 0.63) (see Appendix I), perhaps reflective of Ja-
pan’s reputation for having one of the most difficult educational systems of the world (see
Williams-Grut 2016).
The situation is similar in the Republic of Korea The country does not score well
on the SAHDI (sixth place, score = 0.48), despite starting from a very good HDI-score.
Overall, people in Korea do not report to be very satisfied with their life quality, reporting
below average satisfaction with the standard of living. One possible explanation for this is
that even though Korea has a high GDP per capita (see Appendix H), the comparatively
high living cost (see The Economist 2017) could be an issue for many of its citizens.
Indonesia, which is the strongest economy, in terms of GDP, in Southeast Asia, has
a SAHDI-score of 0.47 (see CIA 2017e). This score ranks the country in seventh place, two
positions higher than in the “traditional” HDI-ranking. This score improvement is due to
the self-reported quality of life, which is above average in every domain. Generally, people
in Indonesia are especially satisfied with their health; the degree of satisfaction with this life
domain is 4.36 (st. mean = 0.71). On the contrary, Thailand drops two positions in the new
development ranking due to its SAHDI-score of 0.45. Thailand is one of the countries that
fare better in the HDI-based ranking than in the SAHDI-based one. The reason is that the
Thais’ satisfaction with the three HDI-components is slightly below average.
It emerges from Table 2 that economic superpower China is in the bottom half of

the SAHDI-ranking. However, China’s SAHDI-score of 0.37 is not completely surprising,

given that its HDI-score is also low in comparison with other flourishing Asian countries
like Singapore and Brunei. In addition to the low HDI-scores, the Chinese do not report to
be very happy with the different domains of life. They are especially unsatisfied with their
standard of living (mean = 3.15, st. mean = 0.54) and their education (mean = 3.26, st. mean
= 0.57). Even Vietnam, which is relatively poor, has a slightly better score (0.38) and ranks
one position ahead of the biggest Asian superpower.
Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Cambodia occupy the last three positions of the list,
scoring respectively 0.32, 0.30 and 0.27 in the new development index. This is unsurprising,
as these three countries have low HDI-scores as well. Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Cambodia
are still facing challenges that inhibit human development, such as corruption, inequal-
ity, and a poor infrastructure.22 Despite these struggles, in 2016 The World Bank classified
Cambodia as a middle-income country. The reason is that in the last few years, Cambodia’s
tourism sector has boomed, increasing public revenue.23 Nevertheless, the SAHDI shows
that this slight improvement is not enough to classify it as a middle developed country.
Cambodia’s SAHDI-score is the smallest of the entire sample (0.27), which means that
Cambodians do not consider themselves happy with any of the HDI-dimensions.
To sum up the results, it is possible to classify the countries of the sample in four
different so-called “development-groups”. Table 3 shows in which group the countries be-
long.
A. Countries with a high position in both the SAHDI and the HDI
B. Countries with a higher position in the SAHDI ranking than in the HDI
C. Countries with a lower position in the SAHDI ranking than in the HDI
D. Countries with a low position in both the SAHDI and the HDI
22 “The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency: Burma," Central Intelligence Agency, accessed August 06, 2017.
23 Ibid.

Chapter 5.1 highlights the difference between the SAHDI and the HDI by simply
ranking the sample. Yet the difference in the two rankings alone does not imply that the
SAHDI is a better development indicator than the HDI. One way to check if the SAHDI
meets Stiglitz’s criteria is to observe the correlations between the new index, the “tradi-
tional” indices, and a different measure of subjective well-being. If the correlation with the
traditional indices is high, the SAHDI is able to measure objective human development.
On the other hand, if the correlation with the alternative measure of subjective well-being
is high, the SAHDI is able to measure subjective well-being.
The alternative measure of well-being mentioned above is surveyed in the AsiaBa-
rometer as well. As Chapter 2.2 pointed out, there are two possible ways of measuring sub-
jective well-being. One way is to ask the participants if they consider themselves satisfied
with several life domains, and the other is to ask a single question about their satisfaction
with life in general. The AsiaBarometer surveys asked people in both ways. The general
question asked was: “All things considered, would you say that you are happy these days?”
The participants could answer in a scale from one (“very happy”) to five (“very unhappy”)
(AsiaBarometer 2004). As done with the different life domains, the micro-level data was
transformed to macro-level data with the procedure highlighted in Chapter 4. Therefore,
every country has a SWB-score, defined as the arithmetic mean of the reported satisfaction
with life in general.
Appendix J shows the correlation of the SAHDI, the HDI, the GDP, and the SWB-
score. The results highlight how the SAHDI is the only index correlating with every other
indicator. The strong, significant correlation (0.860, p<0.001) between the SAHDI and the
HDI is obvious, as the HDI is a part of the SAHDI. However, the SAHDI correlates strongly
and significantly also with the GDP (0.767, p<0.01), a pure economic indicator, and the
alternative measure of subjective well-being (0.757, p<0.5). The correlation table shows that
the SAHDI is a reliable measure of the objective of development indicators as well as the
subjective well-being.
Conclusion
This paper created a new measure of human development, the Satisfaction-Ad-
justed Human Development Index (SAHDI), that takes into account both objective devel-
opment indicators and subjective well-being data. The index was tested on a small Asian
sample with data from 2004 to serve as a pilot to explore further research on human devel-
opment in the region. According to the analysis, the SAHDI changes the perception of hu-
man development in Asia, giving importance to people’s actual assessments. Consequently,
unexpected countries are on top of the new ranking, whereas some big nations appear to
have their citizens less satisfied.
Still, the SAHDI index has some shortcomings. First, measuring subjective well-
being is very difficult and depends on a variety of factors that cannot be controlled by the
interviewers. Weather, personal issues, and survey-unrelated events can influence one’s re-
sponse.24 Therefore, giving self-reported satisfaction so much importance could be seen as
a potential risk. Second, one could argue that the self-reported satisfaction is not a reliable
indicator, as the understanding of “satisfaction” changes among cultures and is thus not
comparable between states.25 Finally, some researchers disapprove of country rankings, de-
fining them as dangerous.26
Despite these issues, the SAHDI is worth analyzing further as a creative alternative
to the traditional indices. This index should be tested on a bigger sample with more recent
data. Ultimately, SAHDI aims to urge a somewhat static discipline in terms of methodologi-
cal tools to acknowledge that international affairs are affected by subjective indicators.
25 Robert M. Biswas-Diener,“Material wealth and subjective well-being,” In Eid and Larsen 2008, 307–22.
26 Paul Krugman, “Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession,” Council on Foreign Relations 73 no. 2 (1994): 28–44.,accessed
June 26, 2017.

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Appendix A: GDP per capita in 2015


Appendix B: Minimum and maximum values for each dimension index of

HDI
Appendix C: Question battery about life domains satisfaction

Appendix D: Data for the example Cambodia in 2004
Appendix E: SAHDI-scores by country on a map (2004)

Appendix F: HDI-scores by country on a map (2004)
Source: Own drawing, data: (Human Development Report 2017)

Appendix G: GDP per capita by country on a map (2004)

Appendix H: Sample ranked by the countries' GDP per capita (2004)
Source: Human Development Report 2017
Appendix I: Degrees of satisfaction (and standardized values) with life do-

mains by country (2004)
Source: own calculations, data: (Inoguchi 2004)

Appendix J: Correlations between the different indices
Source: own calculations, data: (Inoguchi 2004), (Human Development Report 2017)


European Energy Union:
More Than A Pipe Dream?
Sarah Manney
Hinging on Robert Keohane and Joseph S. Nye’s theory of interdependence, this piece explores
the asymmetries arising from the European Union’s narrow reliance on a few energy-rich
neighbors, particularly Russia, in contravention to the requirements of energy security.
Eastern member states relying almost exclusively on Russian gas imports have found that
bargaining interdependence has resulted in price gouging as well as political interference.
Conversely, favorable deals on gas to major EU players in the West deliberately forestall
the market integration required for energy security and political independence. As long as
member states’ economic self-interest keeps them locked in a suboptimal status quo, Europe’s
long sought-after energy union will remain a pipe dream. In the meantime, Brussels should
seek to establish an emergency gas reserve and crisis infrastructure, thereby reducing Eastern
members’ vulnerability to immediate supply shocks and improving resilience for the bloc as a
whole.
Europe’s dependence on foreign oil and gas is increasing at the same time as
major oil producers like Russia and the Middle East are becoming increasingly unstable,
especially in their relations with the West.1 As such, energy security is one of the most
vulnerable areas of EU policy, and also one of the least developed. According to a recent
publication by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, oil and gas diplomacy
has been Europe’s “Achilles’ heel,” as countries have pursued disparate policies at the
expense of collective action.2 Yet consumers’ sensitivity to energy supply shocks relative
to producers’ sensitivity creates an inherent bargaining asymmetry, which can be exacer-
bated by a lack of coordination among member states. After charting the history of EU en-
ergy integration efforts, this paper will apply Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye’s theory of
interdependence to reveal the deeper economic and political costs of policy discoordina-
tion. Using the case study of Ukraine’s 2006 Russian gas crisis, this research concludes by
recommending a policy to reduce shock sensitivity among Eastern member states without
1 Maltby, Tomas. “European Union Energy Policy Integration: A Case of European Commission Policy Entrepreneurship and
Increasing Supranationalism.” Energy Policy 55 (2013) 435-44. Science Direct. Web.
2 Youngs, Richard. “A New Geopolitics of EU Energy Security.” Carnegie Europe. 23 Sept. 2014. Web.
sarah manney is a senior at Stanford University studying Political Science with a

minor in Russian language.
European Energy Union: More Than A Pipe Dream? 59
increasing exposure for Western states, a major roadblock to integration.

As understood by the International Energy Association (IEA), energy security is
“the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price.”3 The EU inter-
prets energy security as “reliable energy supplies at reasonable prices.” At the policy level,
securing access and affordability can be broken down into actions at the international and
domestic levels, as energy resources are acquired from the source and then used, distribut-
ed, and regulated at the destination. Given Brussels’ relatively underdeveloped foreign pol-
icy instruments, the internal component has always come naturally to the EU. Indeed, the
European Union’s predecessor, the European Steel and Coal Commission, was founded on
the very idea of liberalizing trade of energy resources and establishing standards of its pro-
duction and use. 4 Similarly, the European Atomic Energy Community founded in 1957
coordinated research and safety standards for nuclear energy.5 EU policymakers have
recently agreed to three rounds of energy policy packages over the next two decades to
continue liberalizing markets.6 A report from the European Commission in 2014 found
that such efforts have already made significant progress towards lower electricity prices
and improvements in intra-Union infrastructure.7 Although policies for energy are far
from fully integrated, many European nations agree at least on the benefits of extending
the Schengen Agreement’s mandate of free movement to the area of energy supplies.8 As
such, energy security policy at the domestic and intra-European level has been developing
consistently over the EU’s lifetime, such that they enjoy a relatively liberalized market and
an effective mix of shared competencies between states and EU bodies.
The second prong of energy security, external relations with oil-producing states,
has not benefitted as extensively from a similar coordination. As early as the 1960’s, The
European Coal and Steel Community included provisions that allowed the governing
High Authority to negotiate abroad on energy contracts and foreign policy matters under
the Council of Ministers.9 The early Euratom treaty also coordinated external energy rela-
tions by setting caps on the amount of uranium to be obtained from non-member states
3 “What Is Energy Security?” Energy Security. International Energy Association.

5 IEA Energy Policies Review: The European Union 2008. Paris: OECD/IEA, 2008. Print. pg. 34
6 Ibid. pg. 39-41
7 “Single Market Progress Report.” Energy. European Commission, Web.
8 Langsdorf, Susanne. EU Energy Policy: From the ECSC to the Energy Roadmap 2050. Rep. N.p.: Green Europe Foundation,
2011. Web.
9 Alter, Karen J., and David Steinberg. The Theory and Reality of the European Coal and Steel Community. Working paper no.
07-001. Buffet Center, 2007. Print.

60 Sarah Manney
and endowing the Commission with the exclusive right to negotiate supply contracts.10
Including energy security in one sense or another in some of the EU’s founding institu-
tions allowed the EU to exercise its collective influence when supply was threatened. This
coordination was tested, and proven, in the 1973 Iranian oil crisis when European states
successfully joined forces to legislate the level of emergency oil stocks available.11
Yet policy researcher Tomas Maltby claims that member states failed to exploit
the policy window that this crisis provided to cement the EU’s foreign energy policy.12 In
the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, member states failed to include a separate chapter on energy
after the proposition was vetoed by energy-rich states wishing to retain control over their
respective energy policies.13 A 2015 report by the Jacques Delors Institute notes that in the
past few decades, “EU member states have repeatedly responded to energy crises and chal-
lenges on their own terms,” such that the EU’s mandate for external energy diplomacy is
all but subsumed.14 One national diplomat compared the EU’s energy dialogue with third
countries to a “toolbox with no tools inside.”15
The result is that EU member states enjoy vastly different levels of energy secu-
rity, as defined by both price and source. Some member states enjoy an energy mix diverse
in both types of fuel and producer origins; others rely almost exclusively on Russian gas.16
Even with a single energy source, prices paid by member states can vary dramatically. The
following graphic by Radio Free Europe demonstrates the prices paid by European states
for Russian gas in 2014.
2011. Web.
2011. Print.
14 Andoura Sami, Jacques Delors, and Jean-Arnold Vinois. “From the European Energy Community to the Energy Union.
Jacques Delors Institute. (2015).
15 Youngs, Richard. Energy Security: Europe's New Foreign Policy Challenge. London: Routledge, 2009. Print. pg. 27
16 "Gazprom's Grip: Russia's Leverage Over Europe." Radio Free Europe. 6 Mar. 2016.

Fig. 1: The price of gas offered to European countries by Russia in 201317
Evidently, prices do not correlate predictably with geography, except insofar as

EU states on Russia’s periphery are charged even higher prices than larger western states.
If the degree of dependency is suggested instead as a correlate, smaller eastern states’
vastly higher prices might be explainable as a result of weaker bargaining power.18 Yet this
explanation is debated, as many believe that gas prices are brandished punitively against
these former Soviet republics for their adherence to Brussels. In either case, the policy
independence favoured by large western states has stranded eastern members with insuf-
ficient clout to negotiate lower prices, a key component of energy security.
Energy trade is thus neither a purely economic or political issue. This complexity
is highlighted in the distinction between interconnectedness and interdependence. As ex-
plained by Keohane and Nye in their seminal work on the interdependence theory, many
international trade relations are simply interconnected, where goods produced in one
country happen to cross borders to consumers in another country.19 The archetypal exam-
ple of interconnectedness is the case of luxury goods like furs, jewelry, or perfume, where
the costs associated with transactions are low relative to prices. Interdependence, on the
17 Gazprom's Grip: Russia's Leverage Over Europe." Radio Free Europe. 6 Mar. 2016.
18 Ibid.
19 Robert, O. "Keohane and Joseph S, Nye." Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (1977): 44.

62 Sarah Manney
other hand, is characterized by costly, reciprocal transactions, and is typical of com-
modities such as oil and gas. In the case of interdependence, the power balances between
producers and consumers becomes especially important. This is intuitive: in a transaction
of a luxury good like perfume, which is neither an essential product for the consumer nor
typically a major export for the producer, price is determined organically by economic
forces. For oil or gas, which are critical resources for oil-dependent regions like Europe
and typically a major source of income from exporting states, various forms of leverage
can be exacted by parties in negotiations over price and supply. The relative power of each
state in the bargaining arena can have amplified effects on the negotiated contracts.
Keohane and Nye describe two kinds of interdependence that can affect bar-
gaining. First, “sensitivity interdependence” is the “degree of responsiveness within a
policy framework, which focuses on how quickly the changes in one country bring costly
changes in another, and how great these costly effects are.”20 A country with a high degree
of dependence on imports will have a high degree of sensitivity interdependence, because
changes to supply will bring more costly effects to the overall functioning of its economy
and possibly carry externalities to other sectors. Conversely, a country producing most
of its energy domestically will experience fewer fall-out effects of supply shocks or price
surges emanating from another country’s behaviour. The second factor is “vulnerability
interdependence,” which is roughly defined as the ability of a country to respond to such
outside events by quickly enacting policy and switching to alternative sources of energy.
Therefore, a country with a high degree of dependence on imports may have a high degree
of sensitivity interdependence, but a low degree of vulnerability interdependence if it can
transition quickly to alternative fuel sources or emergency energy reserves.
The International Energy Association’s 2007 World Energy Outlook defined the
various factors that can contribute to both forms of interdependence: (1) diversity of the
primary fuel mix (2) import dependence and fuel substitutability (3) market concentra-
tion and (4) share of politically unstable regions in imports.21 The interdependence of
many European countries vis-à-vis their biggest trading partners has increased in almost
each of these areas, leaving states to face a decreased bargaining position and, as a result,
high prices and a less stable supply of energy. It has long been lamented that European
countries have failed to adequately diversify their energy mixes.22 Although progress has
been achieved and projected for the EU in increasing the share of renewables, oil and gas
still comprise more than half of Europe’s energy mix.23
20 Esakova, Nataliya. European Energy Security: Analysing the EU-Russia Energy Security Regime in Terms of Interdepen-
dence Theory. Frankfurt, 2012. Print. pg. 53.
21 “World Energy Outlook,” International Energy Association. 2007. Web.
22 Cohen, Ariel, and Owen Graham. "European Security and Russia's Natural Gas Supply Disruption." The Heritage Founda-
tion, 8 Jan. 2009.
23 European Commission. Energy. EU Energy Markets 2014. Publications Office of the European Union, 2014. Web.

The reason for this stems in part from the fact that one of the most promising
sources of energy - nuclear power - has been resisted by some major energy consumers.
Notably, Germany has decided recently to phase out nuclear energy completely, while
Italy, Switzerland, and Spain threaten similar action.24 Because nuclear energy used to
account for 26.9% of EU electricity generation, the fact that only three of 28 countries
are expanding nuclear capacity while some others dismantle theirs altogether threatens
to lower the EU’s diversity of fuel mix and thus increase its interdependence.25 Besides
a lack of diversity in fuel mix, Europe also exhibits its energy security weakness through
a high degree of import dependence, the element prong of the IEA’s formula. According
to an European Commission report from 2014, the EU currently imports roughly 53%
of the energy it consumes at a cost of more than $1 billion per day.26 This dependence is
expected to increase to 65% in 2030.27 Despite its large share of world energy consump-
tion, around 12% in 2014, Europe possesses less than 1% of the world’s proven oil reserves
and 2% of gas reserves.28 On the supplier side, interdependence is intensified by the small
number of import sources for both oil and gas.29 This is especially true for six member
states in Eastern Europe, whose gas imports come entirely from a single supplier: Russia.30
In 2012 and 2013, the EU imported roughly a third of its crude oil and natural gas from
Russia.31 The other two thirds of this mix for gas come from democratically unstable
countries such as Libya, Nigeria and Kazakhstan, leading into the fourth factor of energy
interdependence: the share of politically unstable regions as energy sources.32 In fact,
according to data from a 2007 Freedom House evaluation of political and civil rights in
major oil and gas producer states, all of the EU’s major import sources are listed as “Not
Free” with the exceptions of Nigeria (“Partially Free”) and Norway (Most Free).33 Thus,
on all four prongs of IEA-defined energy interdependence, the EU is both sensitive and
vulnerable to the actions of other countries.
Recent events illustrate the consequences of this vulnerability. In the winters of
2006 and 2009, Europe experienced gas shocks emanating from deteriorating Russia-
24 “Nuclear Power in the European Union.” World Nuclear Association. N.p., Feb. 2016. Web.
25 Ibid.
26 “Import and Secure Supplies.” Energy. European Commission, Web.
28 “World Energy Trends 2013.” World Energy Consumption” EnerData, 7 August 2014.
29 Barrio, Antonio Marquina. Energy Security: Visions from Asia and Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.
pg. 13
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.

64 Sarah Manney
Ukraine relations. Within hours of a dispute on prices between the two countries resulting
in Russia shutting-off gas to Ukraine, Europe was plunged into crisis.34 Some countries,
like Bulgaria and Romania, were entirely cut off from gas supplies.35 Three years later,
in 2009, a more serious crisis occurred when roughly 80% of energy supplies running
through Ukraine were cut, affecting sixteen EU member countries.36 Several countries in
the Balkans declared a humanitarian emergency when residents were unable to heat their
homes in the middle of a harsh winter.
Europe’s vulnerability to supply disruptions, even as a third party, has profound
consequences for its bargaining position relative to major oil producing states. In par-
ticular, it sits on the weak end of a stark interdependence “asymmetry”. As Keohane and
Nye argue, asymmetries in interdependence can lead one party to exploit their resulting
market power by extracting favourable contracts. In the 2006 energy crisis, for instance,
Ukraine was forced to agree to a monopoly by a Gazprom-owned supply company to
sales in Ukraine after three days of energy blackouts in Europe.37 Similarly, in 2009,
after a week of devastating energy losses in Europe, Ukraine agreed to a rise in the price
of gas, significantly higher even than proposed in negotiations before the crisis.38 In
both of these cases, European countries were unable or unprepared to deal with energy
cut-offs and were quickly thrown into a crisis that the EU Energy Commissioner called
“unacceptable.”39 Russia was aware of this vulnerability and was therefore able to exploit
it twice in order to force Ukraine’s hand in price bargaining. More recently, it has used
it to discriminate against Eastern European countries by charging them significantly
higher prices for energy. According to James Henderson at the Oxford Institute for Energy
Studies, it “essentially acts as a discriminating monopolist. If it has a significant market
share in a country, or if it can see that a country has limited alternatives, then it prices
accordingly.”40
Asymmetrical bargaining partners do not always stop at the potential to extract
favorable energy deals; they can also try to extend influence to the political realm, and
use energy vulnerabilities as a tool for foreign policy. In today’s atmosphere of heightened
East-West tensions, many claim that Vladimir Putin is using energy as a tactic to divide
34 Durden, Tyler. “EU Energy Crisis: Russia Cuts Off Gas Supplies through Ukraine To Six European Countries.” Global
Research. 15 Jan. 2015. Web.
35 European Commission. The European Union Explained: Energy. Luxembourg: European Commission, 2012. Web.
36 Pirani, Simon, Jonathan Stern, and Yafimava, Katya. "The Russo-Ukrainian Gas Dispute of January 2009: A Comprehensive
Assessment." Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (2009). Web.
37 Sauvageot, Eric Pardo. "The Second Energy Crisis in Ukraine in 2009: Russo-Ukrainian Negotiations up to 2010 and the
Role of the European Union, Analysis of a Challenge to the EU Diplomacy." UCM University (2010). Web.
38 Ibid.
39 European Commission. Press Release Database. Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs Reacts to Saturday's Blackouts. 6
Nov. 2006. Web.
40 Kates, Glenn, and Li Luo. "Russian Gas: How Much Is That?" Radio Free Europe. 1 July 2014. Web.

Europe by offering “special relationships” to a select few European partners.41 The Center
for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that “Moscow’s divide-and-conquer
tactics have successfully prevented greater inter-European cooperation on both economic
and security issues.”42 In particular, this has been the case with the controversial Nord
Stream II pipelines between Russia and Germany, as the well as the recently abandoned
South Stream pipeline between Russia and Southeastern Europe and Italy. According to
the Brookings Institute, analysts at the European Commission and the U.S. State Depart-
ment have warned against the pipelines on the grounds that the initiative “carries the risk
of allowing Russia to cut off energy to certain Eastern European states and makes Europe
as a whole ever more dependent on Russian energy.”43 Meanwhile, Germany and a bloc of
countries with favourable Russian energy positions have opposed attempts to “put energy
security up for debate” while also pushing back against attempts to integrate other aspects
of energy policy into a common market.44 Such resistance not only impedes the energy
security efforts of Eastern members, but furthers the Russian attempt at driving wedges
between European nations and preventing further rapprochement of its neighbors with
Brussels.
Europe must overcome these internal divides if it hopes to rival Russia’s bargain-
ing advantage in oil and gas diplomacy. Not only does this position contribute indirectly
to increased clout for Russia on the world stage, but it also results directly in higher prices
and decreased energy security for some of Europe’s most vulnerable states.45 Even while
Western member states may gloat that they have been singled out for lower prices, any
deal that depends merely on Vladimir Putin’s goodwill is tenuous at best. Major players
like Germany and France could soon find themselves coming under the same kind of
leverage that Eastern members have been long familiar with, as Presidents Merkel and
Macron continue to criticize Kremlin policy. Beyond these immediate economic concerns,
energy policy division is concerning for its geopolitical implications and the pressure
points it reveals in European institutions. An visible hand in price-setting gives Russia
an invisible seat around the table of internal EU affairs. How would the EU respond, for
instance, if Russia were to shut off gas supply to Estonia in the same way it did to Ukraine
in 2006? Would Western countries adopt a one-against-all mentality and throw the full
weight of the bloc behind restoring access, or defer to lesser diplomatic routes in order to
preserve their own favourable prices? Building collective action into the physical pipeline
41 Chow, Edward C., and Zachary Cuyler. "Energy Fact & Opinion: European Commission Releases Sustainable Energy Secu-
rity Strategy." Center for Strategic and International Studies, 19 Feb. 2016. Web.
42 Smith, Keith C. "Russia-Europe Energy Relations." Center for Strategic and International Studies. Feb. 2010. Web.
43 Boersma, Tim. "Forget Russia, European Energy Security Begins at Home." The Brookings Institution. 28 Oct. 2015. Web.
44 Smith, Keith C. "Russia-Europe Energy Relations." Center for Strategic and International Studies. Feb. 2010. Web.
45 Kates, Glenn, and Li Luo. "Russian Gas: How Much Is That?" Radio Free Europe. 1 July 2014. Web.

66 Sarah Manney
infrastructure underpins the credibility of such guarantees; building it into the policy
infrastructure increases its deterrent power. In absence of both of these features, all Euro-
pean states will remain subject to Russia’s carrots and sticks.
If Europe hopes to avoid further splintering of an already fragile union, it must
take concerted action to unite its energy bargaining clout. In this regard, the EU can
choose to decrease either its sensitivity or vulnerability interdependence. Reducing
sensitivity interdependence, roughly analogous to the elasticity of a collective response,
remains unlikely while major agenda-setters such as Germany, France, and Italy benefit
economically from the current arrangement with Russia.46 As long as Germany and some
of Russia’s other chosen European partners remain unconvinced “that a truly common
European energy policy [is] in their interests,” and concerned that by “combining forces
with the rest of Europe, they will end of paying more,” they will continue to oppose efforts
at integration.47 The second option, reducing vulnerability interdependence, presents a
more promising outlook. This measure does not involve spreading costs around, like sen-
sitivity interdependence, but rather relieving the burden at the source. An emergency gas
reserve mechanism with rapid deployment infrastructure could achieve this goal at little
cost to Western states but significant benefit to vulnerable Eastern members. If Europe
can convince Russia of its immunity to supply disruptions by coordinating emergency
measures and supply sharing, it would enable heavily dependent states to withstand a
supply disruption, thereby reducing Russia’s potential leverage. A recent stress test con-
ducted by 38 European countries found that such vulnerability reduction is possible: for
up to a six-month supply disruption, countries could stay connected to energy through
cooperation between member states in sharing emergency oil stocks.48 There is evidence
that Brussels is starting to recognize the need for such a system. In February of 2016, the
European Commission converged on a proposal for emergency responses vis-à-vis Russia
that explicitly noted the need for supply action “at the union level.”49
Thus, in absence of motivation for Western states to tie their energy fates for-
mally to those of Eastern members heavily dependent on Russian gas, emergency re-
sponses aimed at reducing acute vulnerability interdependence may be Europe’s best hope
for advancing toward energy security. Nevertheless, the development of alternative fuel
sources from within Europe’s borders is the only true guarantee of energy independence,
yet a review of Europe’s current energy mix reveals that future to be distant. Short term
47 Polak, Petr. "Europe's Low Energy." Foreign Affairs. 9 Sept. 2015. Web.
48 "Energy Security Strategy." Energy. European Commission. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.
49 Oliver, Christian, and Henry Foy. "Brussels Seeks to Compel EU States to Share Gas in Crises." Financial Times. 9 Feb. 2016.
Web.

measures to alleviate pressure points are vital if the continent hopes to avoid being splin-
tered apart by an extreme form of price discrimination. Energy security can only come
once national leaders realize that a carrot for one country means a stick for another; for
now, the EU remains Moscow’s mule.

68 Sarah Manney
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Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.
Boersma, Tim. "Forget Russia, European Energy Security Begins at Home." The Brookings
Institution. 28 Oct. 2015. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.
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ledge, 2009. Print.

Not In Our Yard:
Examining Differences in Latin American Resistance Towards U.S.
Drug Policy
Zachary Avis
The United States’ drug eradication policies in Latin America have failed to stop the spread
of drugs, violence, and money throughout the Western Hemisphere. This paper examines the
causes of resistance shown by Colombia, Bolivia, Mexico, and Uruguay towards U.S.-influ-
enced drug eradication policies. While current literature identifies the various effects of U.S.
eradication policies in Latin America, there is minimal research exploring why some Latin
American countries choose to push back against U.S. policies. Using a case study analysis,
this paper identifies the combination of variables most prevalent in states that resist these
policies. This paper determines the amount of resistance by using internal and external vari-
ables, such as the amount of U.S. aid received and the percentage of agricultural workers in
the economy.While previous literature examined this topic from the U.S. policy perspective,
this paper departs from U.S.-centric conventions to better understand the Latin American
perspective. The findings suggest that a “one-size-fits-all” policy does not take into consider-
ation the differences of the illicit drug industry across cases, ultimately leading to increased
state resistance.1
Introduction
For nearly four decades, counter-narcotic programs have been the primary focus
of U.S. policy in Latin America. Ranging from unilateral initiatives to multilateral deals
with Latin American countries, the United States has received mixed results from its so-
called “War on Drugs.” While there have been moments of brief success for U.S. counter-
narcotic policies, such as the recent extradition of the Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El
Chapo” Guzman to the United States, these policies have failed overall to significantly re-
duce the flow of drugs into the United States. Current counter-narcotic programs encom-
pass a “one-size-fits-all” policy that seeks to eliminate the problem of illicit drug use in the
United States from the supply side, rather than the demand side.2 The problem, however,
is that these policies try to contain the illicit drug industry in the same way within each
1 The author would like to thank Drs. Laura Field and Aaron Boesenecker for guidance throughout this entire process. Ad-
ditionally, the author thanks Dr. Carolyn Gallaher for acting as a mentor and topic expert throughout this project.
2 William L. Marcy. “The Militarization of the Drug War: Bush, Panama, and the Andean Strategy,” in The Politics of Cocaine
(Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010), 134-135.
Zachary Avis is a junior at American University. He is pursuing a dual degree

in International Relations and Economics, with double minors in Accounting
and German.
Not In Our Yard 71
country they are implemented. The elements of the illicit drug industry in Bolivia, Colom-
bia, Mexico, and Uruguay each present unique challenges that make the implementation
of a singular policy difficult. Thus, the inability to adapt to the specific situations of each
country creates the potential for resistance to U.S. policies.
The illicit drug industry carries varying implications in each state and region in
which it operates. In Latin America, Colombia experiences difficulties resolving conflicts
between its government and rebel groups, while Bolivia struggles with unique challenges
regarding the cultural significance of coca in its indigenous communities.3 The blanket
approach of eradication at the source does not work for these two countries. Bolivia and
Colombia do not operate under similar enough circumstances for the same policy to have
success, and they are not alone. While the drug industry may be the same, the implica-
tions of a “one-sit-fits-all” policy differ between countries. Due to the flawed history of
U.S. counter-narcotic programs, it is necessary to reevaluate the programs through the
lens of the affected states.
This paper focuses on the different methods of pushback that state actors in Latin
America have exhibited towards U.S. drug eradication policies, namely Bolivia, Colombia,
Mexico, and Uruguay. The implications of state resistance towards U.S. eradication poli-
cies range from an escalation in drug-related violence to an increase in the domestic drug
problem. As the Trump administration formulates its policies in Latin America, it is im-
perative to examine the success of policies intended to reduce violence along our southern
border and decrease demand for illicit drugs in our communities.
This project will be conducted using a Small-N case study analysis. I have chosen
a case-study approach because it provides space to conduct causal analysis between my
dependent and independent variables.4 A case-study analysis explores this problem using
quantitative and qualitative research. In the next section I provide a brief overview of the
current scholarship of the illicit drug industry, followed by a discussion on my meth-
odological choices. I follow with analysis of my research findings, and conclude with a
consideration of the implications these results have on the scholarly community.
Literature Review
During the latter half of the twentieth century, violence increased tremendously
across Latin America, prompting scholars studying the illicit drug industry to focus their
attention towards U.S.-influenced drug eradication policies. These policies, first developed
and implemented in the early 1980s, have shown mixed results. Violence continues to
3 Russell Crandall. “Explicit Narcotization: U.S. Policy toward Colombia during the Samper Administration,” Latin American
Politics and Society 43, no. 3 (2011), 99. See also: Linda Farthing and Benjamin Kohl. “Supply-side harm reduction strategies:
Bolivia’s experiment with social control,” International Journal of Drug Policy 23, (2012), 490.
4 Charles C. Ragin. “Case-Oriented Comparative Methods” in The Comparative Method (Oakland: University of California
Press, 2014), 49.

72 Zachary Avis
plague much of Latin America as drug trafficking organizations continue to seek higher
profits.5 In 2015 alone, the illicit drug industry earned approximately $150 billion in
revenue from sales in the Western Hemisphere. 6 At the time of writing, U.S. eradica-
tion policies are being carried out in Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay. To fully
understand the dynamic between these states and U.S. eradication policies, it is impera-
tive to look into the distinct camps established by scholars studying this paradigm. In the
following analysis, I will explore three such camps: U.S. eradication programs, state-level
responses, and non-state level responses.
Scholars studying U.S. eradication policies primarily seek to understand the
motives and implications of supply-side policies. This category of scholars can be broken
down into two subgroups: those broadly studying supply-side reduction policies, and
those studying case-specific eradication policies. Following an attempt to ignite a do-
mestic “War on Drugs,” the American political agenda shifted its attention from attack-
ing demand towards stopping the spread of drugs from their source.7 This approach
is commonly referred to as “supply-side reduction.”8 David Mansfield, an independent
consultant for the Global Commission on Drug Policy, highlights three forms of supply-
side eradication: manual, chemical, and biological.9 Supply-side reduction programs seek
to deconstruct the illicit drug industry by increasing the price of drugs to the point where
buyers are driven out.10 U.S. Drug policy experts Mark Kleiman of UCLA, Jonathan
Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon University, and Angela Hawken of NYU argue in their book
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs To Know that this approach is rarely ef-
fective in the long-run because it entices drug producers to find new, cheaper, methods of
drug cultivation.11 Victoria A. Greenfield and Letizia Paoli broaden this argument in their
article Research as Due Diligence: What Can Supply-side Interventions Accomplish and at
What Cost by articulating that the process of relocating production sites after eradication
is often a costly endeavor that increases violence throughout the region.12 Despite these
flaws, supply-side reduction programs are still the top choice for the United States.
5 George H.W. Bush. “Speech on National Drug Control Strategy.” New York Times, September 6, 1989, <http://www.nytimes.
com/1989/09/06/us/text-of-president-s-speech-on-national-drug-control-strategy.html?pagewanted=all > (Accessed: 6 February
2017).
6 “The Drug Problem in The Americas: The Economics of Drug Trafficking.” Organization of American States. Web. Accessed
14 December 2016.
7 Marcy.
8 Ibid, 138.
9 David Mansfield. “Assessing Supply-Side Policy and Practice: Eradication and Alternative Development,” in Global Commis-
sion on Drug Policies (2011); 7.
10 Marcy, 138.
11 Mark A. R. Kleiman, Jonathan P. Caulkins, and Angela Hawken. “Can Drug Problems Be Dealt With At The Source?” in
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs To Know, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 160.
12 Victoria A. Greenfield and Letizia Paoli. “Research as due diligence: What can supply-side interventions accomplish and at
what cost,” in International Drug Policy 41, (2017); 162-163.

Not In Our Yard 73
Beyond supply-side reduction programs, another group of scholars focuses their

research on case-specific policies. Through researching individual programs such as Plan
Colombia and the Merida Initiative, scholars highlight the role of power dynamics at play
between U.S. policies and the governments of Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay.
Scholars articulate that while these policies were designed with the intention of providing
support to fragile political institutions, in practice they focus more on alleviating potential
security threats against the United States.13 Davidson University Professor of American
foreign policy Russell Crandall explains that the U.S. and Colombia maintain a dominant
and subordinate relationship.14 This dynamic is best exemplified during the negotiations
following Plan Colombia, in which the United States leveraged itself to become Colombia’s
second largest trading partner.15 In the article Eradication Efforts, the State, Displacement
and Poverty, Michelle Dion and Catherine Russler note that 75 percent of the $4.7 billion
contributed to Plan Colombia have gone to Colombian police and military forces.16 While
Colombia has been dealing with a violent insurgency from non-state organizations and
rebel groups, the wills of the U.S. ultimately outweighed potential policies that would have
benefited Colombia in the long run. Similarly, the Merida Initiative exemplifies a program
that was meant to focus on institution building but in reality, simply allocated funds to
support military assistance and training.17 Throughout the entire camp on eradication
policies, there is a common theme that other countries need the United States’ guidance in
order to combat the illicit drug industry. While this may be true for some states, it is not
necessarily the case for all.
While academics in the previous camp focus on the U.S. perspective, those who
study state-level responses examine the internal responses that Latin American states have
towards these policies. One of the most prominent examples of state-level responses is
Bolivia’s Social Control experiment. Through this program, Bolivia’s government seeks to
control the production of coca through partial legalization and cultivation regulations.18
Michael K. Steinberg, associate professor of Geography at the University of Alabama,
notes that “external demand and influence, not indigenous cultures, have transformed ap-
13 Paul Ashby. “Solving the Border Paradox? Border Security, Economic Integration and the Mérida Initiative.” Global Society
28, no 4 (2014), 487.
14 Russell Crandall. “Explicit Narcotization: U.S. Policy toward Colombia during the Samper Administration,” Latin American
Politics and Society 43, no. 3 (2011), 99.
15 Danielle Renwick and Claire Felter. “Colombia’s Civil Conflict,” Foreign Affairs January 11, 2017. Web. Accessed 6 February
2017.
16 Michelle L. Dion and Catherine Russler. “Eradication Efforts, the State, Displacement and Poverty: Explaining Coca Cultiva-
tion in Colombia during Plan Colombia,” Journal on Latin America Studies 40, (2008), 403.
17 Ami C. Carpenter. “Changing Lenses: Conflict Analysis and Mexico’s ‘Drug War,'” Latin American Politics and Society, Vol.
55, no. 3 (2013): 139-160. Winifred Tate. “Congressional ‘drug warriors’ and U.S. policy towards Colombia,” Critique of Anthro-
pology 33, no. 2 (2013), 216.
18 Linda Farthing and Benjamin Kohl. “Supply-side harm reduction strategies: Bolivia’s experiment with social control,” Inter-
national Journal of Drug Policy 23, (2012), 490.

74 Zachary Avis
parently simple, local agricultural activities into very complex global problems.”19 Bolivia’s
response to U.S. eradication policies signifies that intervening variables, such as culture
and the economic significance of illicit crops, are not considered in traditional discourses
on eradication programs. Uruguay deviated from traditional U.S. supported drug policy in
a different way when it legalized marijuana nationwide.20 Though outside the time-frame
of this research, scholars highlight that Uruguay’s policies on illicit drugs, particularly
marijuana, have been much more relaxed over the past three decades than a majority of
other Latin American countries.21
Similar to scholars examining state-level responses, scholarship focused on non-
state level responses can be separated into categories based on the type of non-state actor.
One of these categories focuses on violent non-state responses. In Colombia, current
scholarship emphasizes the disparity between the stated goals of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the policies implemented by the U.S. and Colombian
governments.22 While FARC has shifted its ideology since its creation, it began fighting
for political and economic fairness for Colombians suffering under U.S. imperialist and
capitalist domination.23 Winifred Tate, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Colby,
links together guerrilla groups and drug trafficking, arguing that the U.S. was able to
“collapse the distinction between counterinsurgency and counter-narcotic operations and
[incorporate] the latter into a military response.”24 However, a different phenomenon
was playing out in Mexico. Over the past few years, Mexico saw an increase in violence
due to a decline in direct government collusion with drug traffickers under the Calderon
administration.25 Prior to Calderon’s administration, the Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI) led government created backroom deals with drug cartels to try and limit violence
throughout the country.26 Scholars refer to this period as the ‘Plaza System’ because drug
trafficking organizations complied with the Mexican government by paying bribes to
authorities at the local, state, and national levels.27 This system ended when Calderon
19 Michael K. Steinberg. “Introduction” in Dangerous Harvest: Drug Plants and the Transformation of Indigenous Landscapes,
ed. Michael K. Steinberg, Joseph J. Hobbs, and Kent Mathewson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 3.
20 Jonas von Hoffmann. “The International Dimension of Drug Policy Reform in Uruguay,” International Journal of Drug
Policy 32, (2016), 27.
21 John Walsh and Geoff Ramsey. “Uruguay’s Drug Policy: Major Innovations, Major Challenges,” in Improving Global Drug
Policy: Comparative Perspectives and UNGASS (2016); 2.
22 Jennifer S. Holmes, Sheila Amin Gutiérrez De Piñeres, and Kevin M. Curtin. “A Subnational Study of Insurgency: FARC
Violence in the 1990s,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30, (2007), 250.
23 Tate, 218.
24 Ibid, 219.
25 Viridiana Rios. “Why did Mexico become so violent? A self-reinforcing violent equilibrium caused by competition and
enforcement,” Trends in Organized Crime 16, (2013), 142.
26 Diego Esparza, Antonio Ugues Jr., and Paul Hernandez. “The History of Mexican Drug Policy,” prepared for the annual
meeting of the Western Political Science Association (2012); 6-7.
27 Ibid.

Not In Our Yard 75
entered office, leading to a tremendous increase in violence due to the need of the cartels
to compete for market share and territory.
The aforementioned scholarship camps on eradication policies in Latin America
offer immense insight into potential variables for this research project. While each camp
offers strong arguments, none of them offer a comprehensive explanation for the varia-
tions in pushback towards U.S. policies. The gap in literature must be resolved in order
to reevaluate U.S. eradication policies in Latin America. By extrapolating variables from
each camp, an understanding of what different pressures influence state pushback, or lack
thereof, will become clear.
Methodology
In order to fully explain the various methods of resistance between each country,
I chose to conduct this project using a Small-N case study, as it takes into account context-
specific historical events that would otherwise be left out of a strictly Large-N project.28
Moreover, a Small-N case study provides the opportunity to conduct an intensive study
on the causal implications that multifarious variables had on country specific policies.29
Ultimately, a Small-N approach allowed for each case to be categorized by the level of
resistance displayed based on the variables tested.
Between 2009 and 2014, 129 countries reported the cultivation of marijuana,
49 countries reported the cultivation of opium poppy, and seven countries reported the
cultivation of coca.30 This study focuses on Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay. Each
case selected is in Latin America and represents different points along the spectrum of
resistance, offering an ability to track the influence that the variables have on the outcome
of specific country eradication policies. The timeframe for each case is between 2001 and
2015. Additionally, each country represents a different stage of the illicit drug industry,
ranging from production to trafficking. These four cases were chosen from a small num-
ber of countries in which the U.S. currently engages in drug eradication.31
The dependent variable is the presence of an eradication policy specific to each
country, regardless of whether it coincides with U.S. interests. One indicator used for this
variable was the change in domestic policies over time, investigated by a series of ques-
tions: “Has the country dramatically changed its constitution or laws on illicit drugs,” “Has
28 John Gerring. “What is a Case Study and What Is It Good For,” American Political Science Review 98, no. 2, (2004), 342.
29 Ibid.
30 World Drug Report 2016, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2016); xii.
31 I have chosen to exclude Peru and Ecuador from this project due to the repetition of various factors. While Peru is another
Andean country impacted by the illicit drug industry, its presence in U.S. eradication literature falls outside of the timeframe of
this analysis. Ecuador’s presence is minute compared to other countries, and therefore did not warrant extensive analysis for this
specific project.

76 Zachary Avis
the country denounced or reaffirmed partnership with the U.S.,” and “Has the country’s
leader or highest-ranking diplomat spoken in favor of change at the United Nations?” The
answers to these questions are snapshots of the history of illicit drug policy in each coun-
try. For the sake of this study, policy is defined as either a legal code or specific drug office
within the government.
To identify the different methods of resistance, or lack thereof, one independent
variable used is the amount of foreign aid given to a country by the United States. To
track this variable, foreign aid is separated into two components: the numerical amount
per year and the average increase or decrease in aid over time. Then, the average per
year is compared to the country’s GDP to acquire a sense of how significant of an impact
the aid had. This variable was then coded on a scale of low, medium, and high. Several
studies used foreign aid to analyze the relationship between a country and the U.S. policy
implemented.32 To evaluate this variable, I used the Foreign Assistance and United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) databases.33 It is important to note that
U.S. foreign aid has broad categories that encompass a variety of programs; throughout
the data analysis, I paid careful attention to which agencies, and the departments within
them, were handling the aid.
Another independent variable used is the presence of non-state actors. This
variable aims to identify the type and significance of non-state actors present in each case.
Scholars throughout each school of thought identify several implications that non-state
actors have on policy outcomes.34 Indicators for this variable include whether the actor
has a cultural connection to the crop, uses violence, or has displayed different political
ideologies than the state. The latter also included the amount of legitimate participation
the actor has in the political system. I identified and evaluated these indicators by an-
swering the following questions: “Is the non-state actor present and non-violent, present
and violent, or not present,” “Does the non-state actor show signs of, or a willingness to,
overthrow the current government structure,” “Does the non-state actor claim to represent
the people, the drug industry, or their own-self-interests,” and “Have they participated in
the democratic process?” Each question sought to further identify and elaborate on the
impact that non-state actors had within each case. This variable is intended to create a bet-
ter understanding of what caused states to show pushback, or lack thereof, to U.S. policy.
The third independent variable used is agrarian necessity. This variable measures
the significance of agriculture in the economies of each case. Given that a large portion of
32 Ami C. Carpenter. “Changing Lenses: Conflict Analysis and Mexico’s ‘Drug War,'” Latin American Politics and Society, Vol.
55, no. 3 (2013): 139-160. Winifred Tate. “Congressional ‘drug warriors’ and U.S. policy towards Colombia,” Critique of Anthro-
pology 33, no. 2 (2013), 216.
33 For more information, see: http://explorer.usaid.gov/about.html and bet.foreignassistance.gov.
34 Jennifer S. Holmes, Sheila Amin Gutiérrez De Piñeres, and Kevin M. Curtin. “A Subnational Study of Insurgency: FARC
Violence in the 1990s,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30, (2007), 250.

Not In Our Yard 77
eradication policy revolves around production, this index sought to quantify the per-
cent of the economy employed in the agricultural sector and the percent of land used for
agricultural purposes. These indicators allow for further analysis to be conducted on the
ramifications of mass change in the agricultural sector and the impact of government crop
substitutes.
The final independent variable is state ideology. Given the broadness of this
variable, my indicators included changes in leadership within state institutions, proposed
legislation, and corruption. To operationalize these indicators, I pose the following ques-
tions: “Has there been a change in leadership that coincided with a change in state policy
goals or significant legislative goals,” “Has there been proposed legislative changes,” and
“Is the government considered corrupt?” The indicators here offer further opportunities
to analyze each case through a contextual lens embedded in history, political change, and
social climate. Given the result for each case, this variable is coded on a scale of low, me-
dium, and high, with each representing a different level of relation to the U.S. Unlike the
non-state actor variable, this variable focuses solely on the state-level ideological relation-
ship with the United States.
Using these variables, I created four hypotheses to test in order to explain the
discrepancies in resistance between state actors, of which the second hypothesis proved
most significant:
1. If there is a cultural incentive to protect certain illicit crops, there is likely to be more
pushback towards U.S. policies.
2. If the government is not stable or is focusing on countering the effects on non-state
actors, there is likely to be less pushback towards U.S. policy.
3. The amount of pushback towards U.S. policies is directly related to the amount of aid
the United States provides each year to fixing institutions, helping economic develop-
ment, and stopping the drug industry.
4. The less likely a state is to provide alternative crops to farmers, the more likely they
are to turn to U.S. eradication policies to prevent the spread of illicit drug production.
Analysis
The following analysis explores the data collected in order to describe the differ-
ence in methods of resistance present in each case. After examining each variable through
the lens of the four cases - Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay – the implications of
these results will be discussed. The findings show that Bolivia and Uruguay share similar
characteristics in their dependent variable, but differ in their independent variables, while
Mexico and Colombia share similar characteristics across both the dependent and inde-
pendent variables.

78 Zachary Avis
As Figure 1 depicts, each of the four cases - Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, and
Uruguay - fell on a different segment of the resistance spectrum. These cases represent
countries involved in the illicit drug industry and offer a strong sense of how different
variables interact to create the country specific eradication policy.
In order to gain a stronger sense of the causality between each independent vari-
able and the dependent variable, it is imperative to describe the structure of these find-
ings. Table 1 illustrates the findings on the dependent variable for each case. Bolivia, for
example, was found to have a major legislative change when their constitution was altered
in 2005.35
Following Evo Morales’ 2005 presidential win, the United States drug task force
was expelled from the country, signifying a change in the relationship between the two
countries.36 Similarly, President Morales spoke to the United Nations in regards to refo-
35 David. C. King. “Constitutional Reform in Bolivia: the 2005 Presidential Election,” in Harvard Review of Latin America
(2006).
36 Simeon Tegel. “Bolivia ended its drug war by kicking out the DEA and legalizing coca,” Business Insider. 1 October 2016.
Web.

Not In Our Yard 79
cusing drug eradication policy to consider the cultural and economic ties to illicit crops.37
The only noticeable policy change in Uruguay was the legalization of marijuana. Neither
Colombia nor Mexico had changes in their drug eradication or drug policy laws in the
time-frame studied. Both countries saw positive relationships with the U.S, however,
Colombia differs from Mexico in that Colombia utilized the United Nations as a plat-
form to advocate for improved drug laws.38 The findings for the dependent variable act
as the foundation for the forthcoming analysis. The following discussion on the selected
independent variables and the results of this research will contribute to an understanding
on why Bolivia and Uruguay took on legalization processes while Mexico and Colombia
continued to rely on the United States for eradication support.
As mentioned previously, Bolivia and Uruguay were the two cases that pro-
duced the largest amount of resistance towards U.S. eradication policies. Over the period
between 2001-2015, each country progressively shifted away from eradication policies and
towards legalization. Table 2 portrays a simplified version of Appendix 1.
The presence of non-violent, culturally motivated actors in Bolivia influenced the

2005 political scene enough to initiate constitutional change. As Appendix 1 illustrates,
the cultural incentive originated in non-state actors organizing against neo-liberalism
and ultimately became embedded in the political institutions of Evo Morales’ administra-
tion. Uruguay is unique in that non-state actors did not have a major role in the country’s
policy switch to marijuana legalization. The country still maintains normalized relations
with the United States and receives funding through aid. On the opposite end of the spec-
37 Evo Morales. “Address By H.E. Mr. Evo Morales Ayma, The President Of The Plurinational State Of Bolivia.” United Nations.
23 September 2009. Web.
38 Evo Morales. “Address By H.E. Mr. Evo Morales Ayma, The President Of The Plurinational State Of Bolivia.” United Nations.
23 September 2009. Web. The case of Colombia also includes the implications of FARC on the drug industry. Taking this into
consideration, the use of the United Nations as a platform for international support draws partly on the need to reform drug
laws, as well as on the need to combat FARC.

80 Zachary Avis
trum are Mexico and Colombia. Each country continues to accept U.S. aid, support U.S.
policies, and maintain positive attitudes towards U.S. involvement in illicit drug eradica-
tion. Specifically, the presence of violent non-state actors significantly influences whether
or not these countries pushback at U.S. eradication policies.
As Table 2 represents, the presence of non-state actors is the most important
variable that impacts whether states push back against U.S. policies. Breaking this inde-
pendent variable down, Appendix 1 illustrates that no two non-state actors are alike. For
example, the data highlights that the cultural movement in Bolivia did not destabilize the
Bolivian government, rather, it transformed the constitution and legal structure to better
incorporate the cultural incentives of indigenous populations. Following decades of politi-
cal activism at the grassroots level, the non-violent non-state actors within Bolivia orga-
nized into three distinct areas: peasant organizations, trade unions, and the cultural move-
ment of indigenous peoples.39 Throughout the early 21st century, political activism gained
more attention, ultimately leading to the election of President Evo Morales in 2005.40 This
marks an important milestone because non-state actors became the state actors. Therefore,
as a result of the political presence of these non-state actors Bolivia stands out due to the
emphasis its current Social Control policies place on cultural incentive.
Mexico and Colombia witnessed a consistent presence of violent non-state actors
over the course of this project’s time frame. The non-state actor most prevalent in Colom-
bia is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Similar to the indigenous
movement in Bolivia, the data shows FARC to be a primarily peasant driven organiza-
tion.41 The group focuses on confronting the incompetence and poor governance of the
Colombian government.42 Representing the anti-neoliberal and anti-colonial movements
of Colombia, FARC utilizes the cocaine industry as a main source of revenue.43
Unlike the aforementioned non-violent Bolivian non-state actors, the Mexican
Drug Cartels primarily use violence as a means of increasing their power relative to other
drug trafficking organizations. With nearly twelve different drug cartels operating in Mex-
ico, the data posits that a large portion of the violence stems from turf battles.44 Mexico is
unlike other Latin American countries in that it is primarily used as a trafficking route in
the drug trade. This is important to highlight because it directly impacts the way in which
39 Lorenza B. Fontana. “Indigenous Peasant ‘Otherness’: Rural Identities and Political Processes in Bolivia,” Bulletin of Latin
American Research 33, no. 4, 447.
40 Alison Brysk and Natasha Bennett. “Voice in the Village: Indigenous Peoples Contest Globalization in Bolivia,” Brown
Journal of World Affairs 18, no. 2 (2012), 115.
41 Bilal Y. Saab and Alexandra W. Taylor. “Criminality and Armed Groups: A Comparative Study of FARC and Paramilitary
Groups in Colombia,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 32 (2009), 459.
42 Ibid, 460.
43 Ibid, 463.
44 Rios, 142.

Not In Our Yard 81
drug cartels operate with each other and against the Mexican and American eradication
efforts. Whereas the drug cartels in Mexico are profit oriented, the FARC in Colombia are
motivated by their anti-government ideologies. This is significant because it furthers the
argument that the motivations behind non-state actors need not be considered in deter-
mining the state’s pushback against U.S. eradication policies, so long that the state is itself
destabilized. Finally, as noted earlier, Uruguay’s legalization process was not impacted by
the presence of non-state actors.45 Based on these findings, the second hypothesis stands
for all but Uruguay. In the remaining analysis section, I will discuss the three independent
variables and their implications on the extent that a state pushes back against U.S. policies.
The fluctuation of U.S. aid provided to each of the four cases highlights changing
priorities in the U.S. government, however, the flow of aid also impacts the policy priori-
ties in the receiving country. In analyzing the change in aid provided to each country over
the past fifteen years, it is important to note that countries such as Colombia and Mexico
receive significantly higher levels of funding than Bolivia and Uruguay. While the average
amount of aid increased over time in Bolivia, the 2015 amount of nearly $56 million is
nearly three times smaller than the lowest level of aid sent to Colombia in 2001.46 Ad-
ditionally, the level of aid must also be compared to the GDP per capita of the country,
to gain an accurate sense of how large of an impact the inflow of funds has on the state.
The graphs in Appendix 2 highlight the increase Bolivia saw in GDP per capita while the
amount of U.S. aid decreased. Moreover, both Colombia and Mexico saw an increase in
aid at the same time as an increase in GDP per capita. Additionally, as Uruguay’s GDP per
capita rose so too did the amount of U.S. aid received, despite its switch in policy.
The independent variable of a country’s agrarian necessity compared the amount
of agricultural employment to the total labor force in each country. The data collected
offers insight into the importance of the agricultural sector to the GDP. In comparing the
four cases, Bolivia has the highest percent of its workforce employed in the agricultural
industry, while Uruguay has the lowest.47 This confirms the idea that the Bolivian Social
Control experiment was a necessity if the economy were to remain relatively stable. Aside
from the three aforementioned variables, the findings also highlight that the ideology of
the state has influence on its eradication policies. Specifically, the relationship it has with
the United States, and the level of internal corruption, directly impact the amount of resis-
tance towards U.S. policies.
There is much division amongst the countries. Bolivia and Uruguay drift sig-
nificantly from the U.S. influenced policies that were once the norm throughout Latin
45 José Miguel Cruz, Rosario Queirolo, and María Fernanda Boidi. “Determinents of Public Support for Marijuana Legaliza-
tion in Uruguay, the United States, and El Salvador,” Journal of Drug Issues 46, no. 4 (2016), 309.
46 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). “Bolivia” in Foreign Aid Explorer: The official record of U.S. foreign
aid (2011-2015).
47 World Bank. World Development Indicators, updated March 23, 2017.

82 Zachary Avis
America. Within the case of Bolivia, the data affirms the hypothesis on non-state actors.
Whereas the original intentions were to separate non-state actors from cultural incentives,
the data illustrated that cultural incentives were a part of the platforms of non-state actors.
Referring back to the original hypotheses, the data also affirms the hypothesis that with a
cultural incentive to protect certain illicit crops, there is likely to be more pushback to U.S.
policy. As previously mentioned, the transition between the cultural movement from a
non-state actor to a state-actor reflects the importance of state ideology on policy out-
come. University of Oxford Research Associate John Crabtree explains that the “coca leaf
became the symbol of resistance, representing both indigenous culture and the nationalist
fight against outside interference.”48 It is this spirit of anti-neoliberalism that is further
reflected in the fluctuation in aid provided by the United States. The significant decline in
aid during the 2006 fiscal year occurred around the same time that the cultural revolution
was transforming Bolivia.49 Without the influx of cultural identity in Bolivian politics,
there may not have been such drastic policy shifts.
The case of Uruguay, though similar to Bolivia in terms of policy transitions, is
an outlier among these four cases. The legalization of marijuana in Uruguay was not a
response to non-state actors influence through political participation or violent means,
but rather a top-down approach that started with the government.50 At first, the process of
legalization was unpopular among citizens. However, the government of Uruguay contin-
ued to pursue this policy to gain better control of the illicit drug market rapidly endanger-
ing the country. Unlike Bolivia, Uruguay and the United States have normal relations, with
the average amount of annual aid increasing over the past fifteen years.51 Moreover, those
employed in the agricultural sector make up approximately eight percent of the total labor
force.52 The lack of cultural motive in the legalization process, in addition to the increased
amount of aid over time, does not affirm hypotheses one and three on the cultural incen-
tive and power of aid. Thus, Uruguay is the outlier within these four cases given that it
does not confirm nor deny the hypotheses proposed.
Despite the differences between Colombia and Mexico in terms of how they
contribute to the illicit drug industry, the findings suggest that both cases show little to no
resistance to U.S. policy because of the destabilizing effect of non-state actors. For nearly
fifteen years, Colombia has ranked near the bottom fifth on Transparency International’s
Corruption Index.53 Mexico ranks in the same percentile.54 As suggested in hypotheses
48 John Crabtree. “Indigenous Empowerment in Evo Moarles’s Bolivia,” Current History (2017), 56.
49 World Bank.
50 José Miguel Cruz, Rosario Queirolo, and María Fernanda Boidi.
51 World Bank.
52 Ibid.
53 Data pulled from the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index for 2001 to 2005.
54 Ibid.

Not In Our Yard 83
two (the power of aid), the lack of stability in a government is the cause of acquiescence
towards U.S. influenced policies. The hypothesis is true for both cases. Rios articulates that
the major cartel “La Familia’s state of operation show that drug-related violence in Mexico
seems to be the result of a self-reinforcing violent equilibrium caused by a combination
of (1) turf battles that emerge when drug-trafficking organizations compete and (2) law
enforcement.”55 While skeptics would suggest that more primary source data is needed to
quantify this information, previous studies concluded similar results.56 The presence of
violent non-state actors and the lack of stable state institutions are direct causes of the lack
of pushback against U.S. policies.
Conclusion
This research project focused on explaining the differences in pushback shown
towards U.S. eradication policies by Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay. Through a
case-study analysis, I identified four independent variables that caused changes in the de-
pendent variable, the country specific eradication policy. The results of this project suggest
that non-state actors have the most important impact on whether these states resist U.S.
policies. Before I conducted the analysis, I expected that each variable would have its own
significant impact. However, the analysis showed that the amount of U.S. aid, ideology of
the state, and the agrarian necessity were intervening variables in this research project.
Bolivia and Uruguay represented two cases that resisted U.S policies through official legal-
ization processes, while Colombia and Mexico complied with them due to the destabilized
domestic affairs in each country. These findings are significant to the U.S. policy commu-
nity because they show that the “one-size-fits-all” policy does not work and has failed to
stop the flow of illicit drugs into the United States.
Further investigation into the specific allocations of U.S. foreign aid budgets to
each country is necessary. Given that these vastly large funds are bunched into broad um-
brella categories, it would be beneficial for the research to know where and how the funds
are being used. The findings correlate with what scholars in the eradication camp have
identified: that supply-side eradication policies do not work. Additionally, this research
project extends the idea that culture, economic, and political contexts must be taken into
account to best understand how the U.S. can improve its approach to the Latin American
illicit drug problem.
55 Rios, 152.
56 For more information, see: Paul Ashby. “Solving the Border Paradox? Border Security, Economic Integration and the
Mérida Initiative.” Global Society 28, no 4 (2014), 487. Viridiana Rios. “How Government Coordination Controlled Organized
Crime: The Case of Mexico’s Cocaine Markets,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 8 (2015), 1436.

84 Zachary Avis
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World Bank. World Development Indicators, updated March 23, 2017.
World Drug Report 2016, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2016).

Not In Our Yard 87
Appendix 1

88 Zachary Avis
Appendix 2
Bolivia
250000000 3500
3000
200000000
2500
150000000 2000
100000000 1500
1000
50000000
500
0 0
Amount GDP / Capita
Note 1 Series 1 is the amount of U.S. Aid. Series 2 is the GDP/Capita
Colombia
1,400,000,000 9,000.00
8,000.00
1,200,000,000
7,000.00
1,000,000,000
6,000.00 GDP per Capita
800,000,000 5,000.00
U.S. Aid
600,000,000 4,000.00
3,000.00
400,000,000
2,000.00
200,000,000
1,000.00
0 0.00
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Amount GDP/Capita

Not In Our Yard 89
Mexico
800,000,000 12,000.00
700,000,000
10,000.00
600,000,000
8,000.00
500,000,000
GDP per Capita

U.S. Aid
400,000,000 6,000.00
300,000,000
4,000.00
200,000,000
2,000.00
100,000,000
0 0.00
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Amount GDP/Capita
Uruguay
18,000.00
2,500,000
16,000.00
2,000,000 14,000.00
12,000.00
Amount of U.S. AId
1,500,000
GDP per Capita
10,000.00
8,000.00
1,000,000
6,000.00
4,000.00
500,000
2,000.00
0 0.00
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Amount GDP/Capita

Return of the City State?
An Assessment of City International Relations
Eduard Francois Beukman
International relations theory has failed to adequately assess the role of cities in foreign
affairs. As subnational actors, cities often have the capacity to act independently from the
state system. This phenomenon has contributed to the development of sister city partner-
ships, regional bodies and global networks. These organisations provide a forum for member
city cooperation despite the high levels of competition that exist for investment and human
resources. Cape Town and Tokyo serve as powerful models for the initiation of and impedi-
ments to city interaction at the international level. Understanding the disparities between
Cape Town and Tokyo is vital to predicting the future role of cities in international relations.
Introduction
With the onset of urbanization, cities become increasingly important interna-
tional political actors. From Athens and Sparta in the Antiquity era to Venice during the
Renaissance, urban centers have long served as hubs of international trade, culture, and
politics, regularly sending ambassadors on engagement trips to other cities. Great cities of
the ages regularly traded goods across land and sea and were serviced by vast hinterlands
that provided sustenance and labour through continued urbanization. Past political theory
has focused extensively on international relations from the perspective of the nation-state.
Today, theory on the subject has expanded to include large non-state actors in the form of
corporations, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), supranational enti-
ties such as the European Union, and associations of states such as the G20. One key actor
that has, until recently, largely been ignored by IR theory is the city. Large metropolitan
areas across the globe have developed extensive relations and increasingly collaborate in
large international city-to-city organizations that serve to solve challenges and share best
practices. Many of these interactions have had broad focal points including economic
trade and investment, security, culture, governance, and climate change. The scope of this
paper is to review the existing relationships between cities as well as to assess the percep-
tion that these city associations serve primarily to preserve the nation-state. Additionally,
this research will elaborate on the notion of competition and cooperation between cities
Eduard Francois Beukman is a third-year student at Stellenbosch University’s

Faculty of Art and Social Sciences in South Africa majoring in Political Science and
History.
Return of the City State? 91
as a central theme within these networks. Finally, this research will assess various city
organizations such as the United Cities and Local Government (UCLG), C40 Cities, the
World Energy Cities Partnership (WECP), and others. This paper will analyze Cape Town
and Tokyo as case studies to demonstrate their proactive and unique strategies that render
them independent actors in the IR system.
Existing Paradigms: Reassessment Needed?

There has been an increased focus on non-state actors and their impact on
diplomacy since the proliferation of globalization theory after World War II, namely their
capacity to further the interests of central government. Due largely in part to globaliza-
tion, cities have been able to develop extensive interstate networks. With the increasing
size and complexity of global issues such as climate change, nuclear weapons control, and
international legal jurisdictions such as oceans and the Arctic, there has been an shift
towards supranational and international entities. Through the combination of technologi-
cal advancements and global politics, the dominance of nation-states in IR discourse has
reduced, offering more opportunities for cities to engage in the international system.1
While the primary role of cities is development, many large urban populations
have come to understand their potential in combating global problems such as poverty
and pollution, namely due to their position as hubs of economic activity and their acute
firsthand experiences with many of these problems. Thus, cities use their various inter-
national networks to increase their capacities independent from the state and ensure that
their local interests are realized.2
Peer to Peer and Networking: The Power of Collaboration

A key facet of modern city diplomacy is the power of collaboration through
global networks. Each organization has different objectives but most of these entities are
formed under a similar principle of goal-achievement through coordination and collabo-
ration. The mandates of these organizations can range from the smaller Hungry Cities
Partnership (HCP), which collaborates on eliminating hunger, to the larger United Cities
and Local Government (UCLG) network, whose thousands of members share the goal
1 Milani, Carlos Roberto Sanchez & Ribeiro, Maria Clotilde Meirelles. “International relations and the paradiplomacy of
Brazilian cities: crafting the concept of local international management.” BAR - Brazilian Administration Review, 8, no. 1
(2011):21-36.
2 Ibid.

92 Eduard Francois Beukman
of improving policy collaboration and recently lobbied for a seat in the United Nations.3
(UCLG, 2017:363)
These global networks have evolved over time from comprehensive sister city
partnerships and twinning agreements to multilateral global organizations. Many sister
city partnerships are now represented by SisterCities International (SCI) which attempts
the same comprehensive agreements on a multilateral level.4 These multilateral partner-
ships have also culminated in the creation of regional bodies such as EuroCities, which
brings together almost 200 European cities, and Mercocities, which represents many cities
in South America. These regional bodies have become vital mechanisms of conflict pre-
vention.5
City-to-city diplomacy has thus evolved from individual partnerships to regional
and global networks. This has also created internal replications whereby cities form peer-
to-peer networks to share institutional practices within a nation such as the South African
Cities Network (SACN).6 Understanding the functionality of these intrastate networks
may help to demonstrate collaboration potential on a multilateral scale.
Sister Cities
After World War II, many local governments around the world initiated mu-
nicipal reforms to encourage citizen-to-citizen diplomacy and contribute to conflict
prevention.7 Today, many local and regional governments have discovered the benefits of
the ensuing relationships, including best practices for resource use.8 SisterCities Inter-
national (SCI) was created with the intention to promote peace through mutual respect,
understanding, and cooperation.9 It thus serves as a hub for institutional knowledge and
actively seeks to expand sister city relationships around the world. SCI’s membership
includes 2000 cities across 137 countries.
Shared arts and cultural programs are a cornerstone of these city partnerships.10
As cities are generally the cultural and artistic hubs of nations and a primary source of
state soft power, cultural exchanges serve as major state soft power tools. The ability for
3 United Cities and Local Government. 2016 Annual Report. Barcelona: UCLG. (2017).
4 SisterCities International. 2017 Annual Report & Membership Directory. Washington: SCI. (2017).
5 Zelinsky, Wilbur. The Twinning of the World: Sister Cities in Geographic and Historical Perspective. Annals of the Associations
of American Geographies, 8, no. 1 (1991):1-31
6 South African Cities Network. State of South African Cities Report 2016. Johannesburg: SACN. (2016).
7 Saunier, Pierre-Yves. “Sketches from the Urban Internationale, 1910-50: Voluntary Associations, International Institutions
and US Philanthropic Foundations.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25, no. 2 (2001):380-403.
8 SisterCities International, 2017 Annual Report.
9 Ibid.
10 Ramasamy, Bala & Cremer, Rolf D. “Cities, commerce and culture: The economic role of international sister-city relation-
ships between New Zealand and Asia.” Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 3, no. 3 (1998):446-461.

culture and art to connect individuals is vital to encouraging mutual understanding and
common values. Thus, festivals and other forms of exchange are becoming increasingly
common.
For example, despite tension between the United States and Russia, there has still
been room for exchange. In 1973, Seattle, Washington and Tashkent, Uzbekistan signed
the first U.S.-Soviet sister cities agreement. In Seattle, a dilapidated park was restored and
rededicated as Tashkent Park as a symbol of friendship and goodwill.11 Another cultural
exchange was conducted by Muscatine, Iowa and Zhengding, China in which the Musca-
tine Symphony Orchestra and the China Windows Group collaborated to provide a free
public performance. This collaboration exposed students to new artists and encouraged
both musical and personal engagement. Sports exchanges have also proliferated. Tuscalo-
osa, Alabama and Narashino, Japan hosted the Inaugural Sister Cities International Bowl,
an American football competition, to promote university sports exchanges.12 While there
may be linguistic or cultural barriers, the capacity for sports, art, and music to transcend
national barriers renders cultural exchanges powerful tools for international engagement.
Business has also benefitted immensely from these networks. Besides improvements in
trade and tourism, these exchanges also encourage the development of trust between mu-
nicipal officials and businesses, enabling stronger connectivity and more efficient resource
access within a city. It can also improve transportation capacities through the creation of
direct flights between cities as well as port-to-port forums that improve trade capacities.
An example of these improvements can be seen in Cape Town’s Air Access strategy, which
will be discussed in a later section.
Atlanta, Georgia and Toulouse, France exemplify business collaboration. The
France-Atlanta Organisation has led to forums on cybersecurity, mental health, and art.
The two cities have also agreed upon a start-up exchange which involves outsourcing
start-ups from their respective cities for access to new markets and investors.13 This is
similar to the Digital Nomad Initiative between London and Cape Town whereby London
digital entrepreneurs work in Cape Town for two weeks. Another example is the port-to-
port agreement between Virginia Beach, Virginia and Olongapo, Philippines, which has
led to trade assurances, newly established businesses, and shared best practice.14
Other vital cogs in the system are community development and municipal orga-
nization. This involves the sharing of best practices between elected officials and raising
funds for community development and disaster relief programs in order to encourage
better service provision. An example of this is the healthcare exchange between Atlanta,

12 SisterCities International. Sino-African Initiative 2012-2014. Washington: SCI. (2015).
14 Ibid.

Georgia and Montego Bay, Jamaica in which Atlanta has helped to provide free healthcare
to Montego Bay citizens through doctor and nurse exchanges.15
An award winning program sponsored by SCI is the Sino-Africa Initiative. This
two-year program was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with the inten-
tion of stimulating collaboration between Chinese, African, and American cities on eco-
nomic development and urban poverty. This program brought together public diplomacy
organizations, municipalities, and businesses to create strategies to tackle developmental
challenges and alleviate poverty.16 This led to the 2013 conference in Nairobi, Kenya,
where trilateral projects were developed to be completed in 2014. A key finding of this ini-
tiative was that success of the project hinged on strong pre-existing relationships between
the participating cities.17
These partnerships highlight the potential that city-to-city partnerships have to
address many pertinent and local issues due to their acute understanding of local realities.
The international role of the city, once the preserve of the nation-state, has diversified.
Continental Bodies
With the proliferation of extensive sister city partnerships, municipal and region-
al governments began to realize the potential of international collaboration. In Europe and
South America, this opportunity was pursued through various bodies, most notably the
EuroCities and Mercocities organizations. These two bodies have hundreds of members
that participate in its various forums on subjects, including but not limited to economic
growth, science and technology, climate change, and smart city programs.18 City leaders
have discovered that cooperation is both possible and beneficial despite resource com-
petition in the global market. This has led to collaborative bodies such as EuroCities and
Mercocities to speak as one effective voice in their various arenas, such as the European
Union and Mercosur respectively.
Eurocities
EuroCities was formed under the desire of leading city administrations to pro-
mote urban policy formulation within the European Union (EU). As 80% of the European
population live in urban centers, cities serve as hubs of the European economy. A key
aim of the body is to promote international cooperation between various cities in Europe
15 SisterCities International, Sino-African Initiative.

16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 EuroCities. EuroCities Strategic Framework 2014-2020. Brussels: EuroCities. (2014).

on a more practical level through sharing best practices.19 It has grown from six found-
ing members in 1986 to the current 137 major cities and 47 partner cities, representing
130 million individuals.20 This network has become even more important due to current
post-Brexit uncertainty. EuroCities has allowed for continued close relationships between
British and European cities while the national governments of their respective nations
struggle with exit negotiations. The organization also succeeded in creating the EU’s Ur-
ban Agenda in 2016, effectively solidifying its voice in Brussels.21
EuroCities has had a large impact on economic trade deals, immigration prac-
tices, and environmental policy, arenas typically reserved to the state or supranational
entities. With the launch of the European Agenda on Jobs and Growth under President
Juncker and the Declaration on Work, EuroCities effectively influenced the EU agenda to
prioritize improving youth employment and opportunities.22 The importance of youth
skills development was soon added to the agenda in September 2016, capitalizing on
cities’ acute understandings of local skill gaps in an attempt to provide detailed recom-
mendations for effective skills development policies. Recently, EuroCities has turned its
attention to EU trade deals with non-members. Cities have realised the impact that these
trade deals have on their local constituencies and have pushed for monitoring and partici-
pation in negoations. EuroCities delegations have met with the European Commissioner
responsible for negotiations on trade deals such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) to ensure the coalition’s voice is heard.23
With immigration high on the Western agenda, coupled with the rise of right-
wing populism in both Europe and the United States, immigration has become a major
policy hurdle fraught with moral, economic, and logistical challenges. With cities well
established as transit hubs and points of arrival, much of the discourse on immigration
centers on how cities are to respond to immigrants and asylum seekers.24 The EU and
national governments have been paralyzed on policy initiatives and burden-sharing, leav-
ing EuroCities with a unique opportunity for collaboration and policymaking. A network
within the body, known as SolidarityCities, was created to share best practices on how to
receive and integrate refugees in a sustainable manner.25
SolidarityCities was proposed initially by Athens to coordinate a collective im-
migration response. While borders are still the preserve of the nation-state, cities serve as
19 Griffiths, Ron. Eurocities. Planning Practice & Research, 10, no. 2 (1995):215-222.
20 EuroCities. EuroCities Annual Report 2016-2017. Brussels: EuroCities. (2017).
21 Payre, Renaud. “The Importance of Being Connected, City Networks and Urban Government: Lyon and Eurocities (1990-
2005).” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34, no. 2 (2010):260-280.
22 EuroCities, Annual Report 2016-2017.
23 Ibid.
24 EuroCities, Strategic Framework.
25 EuroCities. Refugee Reception and Integration in Cities. Brussels: EuroCities. (2016).

primary entry ports for most immigrants and asylum seekers. In the absence of national
action, city governments in EuroCities have initiated coordination with each other and
their respective civil societies, the driving force behind the internationalization of cities.26
This initiative has seen some major successes: member cities have begun creating recep-
tion areas for refugees and asylum seekers.27 This collaboration has been vital to ensure
effective management of international migration.
This is especially the case with regard to transit hubs. Many cities have become
transit hubs in the peripheral countries of the EU whereby asylum seekers arrive and
move further into the EU. Many of these cities, such as Athens, have been acting without
national support, and have relied on city-to-city networks such as SolidarityCities to ef-
fectively coordinate these activities.28 This idea was strongly supported by the mayor of
Barcelona, Ada Colau, who called for ‘Cities of Refuge.’29 Thus, EuroCities has become a
vital network to ensure that the policy paralysis at a national and supranational level does
not leave cities incapacitated to respond to local realities. This level of bottom-up Europe-
anization has not been widely discussed before in IR theory.30
While there are many institutions that deal with climate change on a global level,
the importance of regional multilateral city organizations such as EuroCities cannot be
overstated. Cities are often the focal point of both economic activity and pollution. The
situation in the United States reflects the power of cities to commit to climate change
prevention policy, when mayors across the country responded to President Trump’s
withdrawal from the Paris Agreement by reaffirming their respective cities’ commitments
to the accord.31 In 2016, EuroCities held its first Climate Chance Summit Summit for sub-
national actors where participants endorsed the Nantes Declaration on Climate Change.32
This declaration was further advocated by EuroCities representatives in another global city
network, the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy Initiative (CMCEI), through
which exchanges were organized to allow officials to share information and take part in
a global climate adaption and mitigation initiative.33 Further, EuroCities as a body has
pushed for including local governments in decision making processes in order to acceler-
ate the European clean energy transition.34
26 Vion, Antoine. 2002. Europe from the Bottom Up: Town Twinning in France during the Cold War. Contemporary European
History, 11(4):623-640.
27 Eurocities, Refugee Reception.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Vion, Europe from the Bottom Up.
31 EuroCities, Annual Report 2016-2017.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.

Economics, immigration, and climate change have traditionally fallen under the
jurisdiction of the state or more recently intergovernmental organizations and suprana-
tional entities. Cities, as frequent breeding grounds for these issues, have initiated collabo-
ration with business stakeholders, civil society, and sister cities to develop viable solutions.
This directly contradicts a perceived competitive nature between cities.
Mercocities
The decentralization inherent within many South American nations has led to
extensive paradiplomacy between South American cities. This is especially the case in
Brazil, where vague constitutional rules have left the jurisdiction of cities in international
affairs unresolved. Mercocities is attempting to push for a constitutional amendment to
promote easier coordination between the three spheres of municipal, state and federal
government with regards to financing international initiatives.35
Mercocities has focused extensively on increasing city involvement in citizen
security policy. Local governments are rarely responsible for the security apparatus as this
is usually the preserve of the state or a provincial body, but involvement in the process has
increased.36 City networks, specifically Mercocities, emphasize the need for international
cooperation amongst cities to combat crime through policy transfers and coordinated
responses to cross border crime by localizing security policy.
Security has traditionally been assessed in international relations discourse
as that of a nation-state defending its territory from external or internal threats. This is
reflective of a state-centreered approach in IR theory, but in the past several decades,
discourse has reflected a shift to a more human security-centered approach.37 A compre-
hensive human security ideology is vital in the context of prevention as it is more sustain-
able to manage and is multi-sectoral in approach.38 After the repression experienced in
1960s-1980s Latin America, the subsequent wave of democratization led to a new security
ideology, moving away from state security towards citizen security.39
With this change, has also come large challenges. Latin America has experienced
a huge swell in policies advocating for a human rights approach but has been beset with
violence related to organized crime and drug trafficking.40 In response to these concerns
35 Milani, "International Relations."

36 Rodrigues, Gilberto Marcos Antonio & Mattioli, Thiago. “Paradiplomacy, Security Policies and City Networks: The Case of
the Mercocities Citizen Security Thematic Unit.” Contexto Internacional, 39, no. 3 (2017):569-587.
37 United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security. Human Security in Theory and Practice. An Overview of the Human Security
Concept and the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security. New York City: United Nations Human Security Unit. (2009).
38 Ibid.
39 Rodrigues, "Paradiplomacy."
40 Ibid.

and fears of violent retaliation from national security forces, local cities and their respec-
tive mayors have begun to coordinate security responses across the Mercocities network,
leading to improvements for human security across many metrics.41
In sum, both EuroCities and Merocities have taken on prominent roles in both
the national and international arenas. This extensive network of paradiplomacy has suc-
cessfully allowed for policy transfer as well as unity of purpose. These networks and other
like them will continue to lobby their respective national and supranational bodies for in-
creased resources and a seat at the negotiations table in order to solve national and global
challenges through local efforts.
Global Networks
Cities have become increasingly engaged in the global policymaking arena
through global city networks. As these networks continue to proliferate, many organiza-
tions have contended for official recognition from international institutions, namely the
United Nations. As these organizations continue to put forth their localized solutions, it
can be argued that local cities are achieving remarkable strides in improving life in the
global community.
The United Cities and Local Government (UCLG)

The United Cities and Local Government (UCLG) is the most influential global
city network due to its unique position within various international institutions. Its main
aim is to amplify the voice of local and regional governments around the world at the
international level.42 To do this, the UCLG suggests that local governments must be inte-
grated as a constituency in the global system instead of being restricted to ad hoc process-
es.43
The UCLG has achieved several successes under this agenda, namely the Strate-
gic Partnership with the EU, which is the first of its kind. The UCLG has thus been of vital
importance recently for its Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments’ involve-
ment during global agreements such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
Paris Climate Agreement, and the adoption of the Habitat III’s New Urban Agenda. It also
contributed to the Bogotá Commitment which was adopted by the members’ global “par-
liament,” the World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments. This proactive com-
mitment has led to the localization of the global sustainable development agenda. This has
41 Milani, "International Relations."
42 United Cities and Local Government (ed). Gold IV 2016 Fourth Global Report on Decentralization and Local Democracy.
Co-Creating the Urban Future. The Agenda of Metropolises, Cities and Territories. Barcelona: UCLG. (2016).
43 United Cities and Local Government. UCLG Strategic Priorities 2016-2022. Barcelona: UCLG. (2015).

extensively benefitted the local and regional organized networks within the Taskforce and
the UCLG when it comes to sharing best practices and sustainable development suited to
local realities. Furthermore, the UCLG contributed to the inclusion of SDG 11 on Sustain-
able Cities and Human Settlements and pushing for cities to be recognised for their role
and mandates within each of the 17 SDGs.44
These relationships are important to nurture, as the UCLG still has yet to gain
recognition in the United Nations. Thus, the UCLG has branched out all over the world to
local governments to unify their voice and provide the necessary impetus for action.
100ResilientCities, C40 Cities and the World Cities Energy Partnership

One of our primary modern global challenges remains the coordination of an
effective response to climate change that does not compromise the global economy or
environment. Cities can prove extremely useful in coordinating responses as primary foci
of the global economy and major contributors to pollution. Thus, many international city
networks are geared towards solving climate change.
The 100ResilientCities (100RC) initiative was founded with funding from the
Rockefeller Foundation. The 100RC has given funding to 100 cities around the world, pro-
viding them with access to network, technical, and policy experts, as well as the temporary
salary needs for a chief resilience officer, who will oversee policy making and ensure re-
silience is factored into in all decision making procedures of the city. The primary goal of
the network is to encourage city development of a resilience strategy to overcome its most
intractable challenges. This network has achieved numerous successes in cities around the
world through its extensive partnerships engaging both government and civil society. One
of the major international problems that this network is attempting to tackle is interna-
tional migration.
The “100RC Network Exchange: Cities and the Global Migration Crisis” sum-
mit in Athens eight cities from the network, including the host city of Athens. As was
perviously mentioned, Athens has experience dealing with international migratory crises
through the SanctuaryCities initiative within EuroCities. The summit was designed to
discuss ways in which cities can absorb and generate opportunity from international
migration pressures in response to limited national action. This illustrates how cities in
numerous networks can foster cross-network dissemination of ideas. Members at the
summit further discussed how the impact of climate change will continue to drive migra-
tion. The international migratory population peaked at 244 million in 2015, posing an
unprecedented challenge for cities.45 This was further highlighted by the Lead for Change
44 United Cities and Local Government, 2016 Annual Report.

45 United Nations. International Migration Report 2015. New York City: United Nations. (2016).

resolution that cities must coordinate amongst themselves and engage regional, national,
and international policymakers to ensure that policy processes take into account the
realities of migratory integration.46 This must be done in the face of inadequate resources
and the obstruction caused by national legislation. This is where city networks are vital
to advocate for better support and policy changes; where there is no national framework,
these networks become even more important.
Many successful projects arose from the summit. One of the key international
initiatives created by the Municipality of Thessaloniki was the “URBACTs Arrival Cities
Network” to aid in the reception and integration of migrants.47 This network of eight Eu-
ropean cities was created with the goal of fostering a sense of social inclusion within their
migrant and local populations. It was also created with the intention of allowing the cities
to share data on migration patterns.48
The 100RC initiative has many strategies relating to climate change resilience,
but a key international body at present is the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. These
91 megacities govern over 650 million people and generate 25% of the world’s GDP. This
is an enormously influential organization that seeks to provide leadership in the arena
of climate action and to mitigate the impact of climate change. This has led to various
initiatives, such as sharing data networks and best practices through its seventeen sub-
networks by facilitating dialogue and relationship building amongst various city officials.49
The organization also has an active City Diplomacy Strategy that ensures cities are able
to coordinate to lobby national governments and organize during international meetings
such as the Conference of Parties (COP21) which led to the Paris Climate Agreement.50
The C40 Cities have made two recent contributions to combating climate change in recent
years. First, U.S. cities involved in the C40 Cities program have led an effort to galvanise
American cities to reaffirm commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement despite federal
withdrawal. Second, the UCLG and the UN Habitat formed the Global Covenant of May-
ors for Climate and Energy in conjunction with many other bodies such as the ICLEI-
Local Governments for Sustainability.
The C40 Cities in the U.S. are already climate leaders. This is vital to their contin-
ued economic growth and resilience. The national average of CO2 production per capita
in the U.S. is 21 tons. The U.S. C40 Cities on the other hand have managed to achieve 10
ten tons per capita.51 These initiatives also underscore the importance of taking part in
46 100ResilientCities. Global Migration. Resilient Cities at the Forefront. Strategic actions to adapt and transform our cities in an
age of migration. New York City: 100ResilientCities. (2016).
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. How U.S. Cities Will Get the Job Done. New York City: C40 Cities. (2017).
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.

global networks to be able to set goals and aid one another in achieving them. 7,477 cities
representing 685 million people and almost 10% of the global population have all commit-
ted to the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. This body enables cities to
support global climate goals irrespective of national and international conflict.
The World Energy Cities Partnership (WECP) is an organization consisting of
eighteen cities around the world that are recognized as international energy capitals. The
primary tool of this organization is economic partnership through business-to-business
interaction and energy related activities.52 These cities are mostly oil and gas powers that
are shifting to cleaner energy systems and cities that have already been pushing hard for
renewable energy production such as Houston and Cape Town. It also provides a network
of industry support and trade missions between host cities. It further expresses interest
in other fields of development such as tourism, education, and medicine. Some of the key
measures within the WECP as initiated by the Calgary Climate Change Accord have been
the establishment of a sustainability office. It has led to the development of green energy
grids, electric car fleets, and large manufacturing sectors and improves research connec-
tivity. Universities are centers of research and skills development and are thus critical tools
in securing efficient future policy.53
Social Networks
Not all city networks are geared towards climate change, international migration,
and global governance structures. Some are geared toward resolving the pressing social
issues that beset people around the world including poor health, hunger, and violence.
The networks that will be discussed in this section are the Partnership for Healthy Cities
(PHC) and the Hungry Cities Network (HCN) with respect to health and hunger policy,
and the Strong Cities Network (SCN) and the International Cities of Peace (ICP) with
respect to violence prevention.
There are many social issues that persist around the world, especially in urban
areas where cities cannot keep up with massive resource demand. Around the world, Non-
Communicable Diseases (NCDs), such as hypertension and diabetes, constitute 80% of all
deaths worldwide. NCDs predominantly effect low and middle income countries, but they
receive only 1% of total development assistance for treatment despite its preventability.54
The rest go towards communicable diseases. Ten evidence-based policy interventions will
be implemented in the various cities to determine their efficacy in the network and to
52 World Energy Cities Partnership. WECP Green Economy Best Practice. Houston: WECP. (2016).
53 World Energy Cities Partnership. Research Centers and Programs. Houston: WECP. (2017).
54 Bloomberg Philanthropies. Annual Report May 2017. New York City: Bloomberg Philanthropies. (2017).

provide further learning opportunities.55

The Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) was formed in 2015 in response to respec-
tive rises in urbanization, food insecurity, and poverty in the Global South. The HCP
was created with three sustainable development goals in mind; allievate poverty, allievate
hunger, and create sustainable cities and communities.56 Its objectives are to analyze the
availability, access, utilization, and stability of food systems in each city. The HCP also re-
searches and coordinates with higher education institutions to determine inclusive growth
strategies in the food economy. It thus attempts to build a policy-orientated knowledge
platform and create a powerful city network.57
Two networks that are interested in peace and security are SCN and the ICP Sis-
terCities Network . The SCN was created to facilitate knowledge sharing and resilience ex-
pertise in order to enable cities to combat violent extremism through various regional and
international conferences. The organization also capitalizes on the potential to directly
develop strategic frameworks and capabilities to build resilience within their respective
communities. The network further provides grants to various cities to experiment with
various strategies and facilitate network sharing.
The International Cities of Peace (ICP) is an organization founded by the “Cit-
ies of Peace.” The cities in this organization share a deep history of peace. Many are sites
where peace treaties were signed, while others house international peace institutions such
as The Hague or have been rebuilt after wars. Thus, having acute awareness of the conse-
quences of conflict, this organization promotes deterrence, reconciliation, and multicul-
tural living.
Cape Town
Cape Town, self-branded as the Mother City, will be the first case study analyzed
as an emerging city that is strengthening its international standing through the develop-
ment of city networks. Cape Town is rapidly gaining a reputation as a cooperative member
in international forums and has secured membership to many of the aforementioned
organizations, largely due to its internationally oriented development strategy and efforts
to make it an attractive destination for investment. The city has long boasted international
significance as a waystation between East and West; its port is still vitally important for
trade between Latin America, Europe, America and Asia and the city has a thriving air
travel industry.
The goal of local administration is to generate partnerships and initiatives that
55 Bloomberg, Annual Report.

56 Crush, Jonathan. Hungry Cities of the Global South. Hungry Cities Partnership Reports. (2016). Accessed 10 September 2017.
57 Ibid.

create real value for the city.58 This is to be done through city promotion and participa-
tion in learning opportunities with other cities. The city administration recognizes healthy
competition for human resources and investment but emphasizes the need for intercity
cooperation and resilience building in order to address global challenges like climate
change.59 This demonstrates Cape Town’s understanding that local issues reflect global
problems and can be combatted through international collaboration. For Cape Town
specifically, this new ideology required a branding shift. While many around the world
recognize Cape Town as a tourism destination, the local administration wanted to build
on this to promote Cape Town as a world class, future-focused business city.60
By 2012, Cape Town was party to various sister city agreements and interna-
tional conferences but lacked a clearly defined agenda. Many of the policies dealt with
how to conduct international business but did not address the underlying motivations for
improved connectivity. The administration relied on the American model of city relations
whereby the mayor is the primary ambassador and city engagements oscillated between
competition and opportunity. This extensive competition requires proactivity, not reactiv-
ity, to fully benefit from the opportunities that exist. Thus, the policy shifted away from
cultural exchanges towards proactive marketing, economic relationships, and best practice
sharing.61
It also required figuring out the regulatory balance between the local, provincial,
and national government within the South African context. The city of Cape Town, its
host province the Western Cape, and the South African national government each have
its own international relations strategy. Foreign affairs require a comprehensive strategy:
while there are embassies, protocols, and treaties, these are very formal diplomatic system
well suited to the constitutional obligation of the state but inept at incorporating new
actors in the system such as businesses, NGOs, and other government actors such as prov-
inces and cities.62 The city’s strategy is therefore more effective in its capacity to tailor to
local actors and aid in their development. Two key investment promotion initiatives that
Cape Town has been driving internationally are its potential to serve as a creative hub in
Africa and as a springboard for business development.63,64
With Cape Town being the World Design Capital of 2014 and having many cre-
58 De Lille, Patricia. & Kesson, Craig. View From City Hall, Reflections On Governing Cape Town. Cape Town: Jonathan Ball
Publishers. (2017).
59 De Lille, View From City Hall.
60 City of Cape Town. Strategic International Relations (Policy Number 12187) [Replaces Previous Policy known as Strategic
External Relations). (2015). Accessed 12 September 2017.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid.
64 Wesgro. The Western Cape: Africa’s Trade and Investment Springboard. Cape Town: Wesgro. (2017).

ative sector businesses, the city had become a powerful culture and innovation hub. It has
been able to leverage its immense human talent, provided by its four major universities
and many other institutions, to foster start-ups and encourage growth in the technology
sector. This has been incredibly important in providing a unique market to incentivize in-
vestment. This is assisted by Cape Town’s advanced air, road, rail, and sea travel industries.
Cape Town has been named one of the top 25 cities for FDI strategies and has some of the
lowest logistics cost in the world.65,66
This is where one of its most important projects, the Cape Town Air Access
Strategy, plays a significant role. Local and provincial officials, Wesgro (the city’s official
tourism, trade & investment promotion agency), Cape Town Tourism, Airports Company
South Africa, and South African Tourism serve as a steering committee that has marketed
the city and its airport in an attempt to increase direct flight connections. It has success-
fully achieved ten new routes and eleven route expansions since it was first started in 2015.
This has led to an increased capacity of almost 700,000 round trip tickets, as well as direct
flights to Europe, Asia, and Africa.67 The current efforts of Cape Town are geared towards
gaining a direct flight to the U.S. This has led to the Mayor of Cape Town and the two city
and province investment bodies, Invest Cape Town and Wesgro, to lead missions to vari-
ous U.S. cities such as Atlanta, Miami, and New York. The Miami and Atlanta agreements
have led to extensive relations between the cities and a key partnership agreement was
recently signed with New York. New York and Cape Town have signed an unprecedented
tourism agreement in which the two cities will extensively marketing one another on their
respective public transport facilities to increase exposure to potential tourists.68
These tourism initiatives have been taken in response to various issues between
Cape Town and the South African national government over the state’s promotion of
Cape Town. Many tourism delegations sent by national government failed to promote
Cape Town’s most recognizable symbols, such as Table Mountain. In response, the city has
initiated independent tourism promotion and capitalized on opportunities for marketing
such as a recent delegation to Ethiopia of fifteen Cape Town companies led by the Mayor.
It resulted in R200 Million worth of export deals for the city and province.69
The city has benefitted extensively from various global partnerships. Through
engagement with New York, it has been able to formulate a more effective digital city strat-
egy. Cape Town has similarly improved land reclamation and water management systems

66 Wesgro, 5 Year Strategic Plan.
67 Ibid.
68 Ephraim, Adrian. “Cape Town and New York sign historic tourism deal.” Independent Online, 24 August 2017, accessed 11
September 2017
69 Wardle, Colin. Wesgro helps boost Western Cape economy. Independent Online, 12 September 2017, Accessed 13 September
2017.

with aid from Dutch cities such as Rotterdam, housing provision strategies with aid from
Santiago, Chile, public safety initiatives through partnerships with Chicago, and data best
practice strategies from Singapore.70
Tokyo
In 2013, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) won the right to host
the 2020 Olympics. Tokyo has formulated its city-to-city diplomacy and international
relations strategy with the Olympics as a springboard, intending to use the spectacle of
the Olympics to improve Tokyo’s international standing. As previously mentioned, Cape
Town is using its legacy as a via point to realize its international potential; Tokyo will use
the legacy of the Olympics to do the same.
To ensure that Tokyo can achieve its goal of hosting a successful Olympics, the
Governor of Tokyo has been visiting many cities that have formerly hosted the Olympics
to learn from their successes and their failures.71 It has subsequently built relationships
with many of these cities to improve its attractiveness as a tourism and art hub. Japan’s
need to promote tourism and niche markets to generate spending power is especially
important considering its aging population.72 This will enable Tokyo to participate more
meaningfully in various other forums over global issues. While Tokyo is traditionally ac-
knowledged as a global city and a global financial center, it has failed to capitalize on this
potential to project its influence. Tokyo is a city of 30 million individuals and $1.6 trillion
GDP compared to Cape Town’s almost 4 million person population and $60 billion GDP.
Yet despite these disparities, Cape Town has extensive global leadership positions and
has leveraged its assets to market itself internationally. Tokyo is only now realizing the
potential of international city relationships and is using the Olympics as a springboard
for this new paradigm. Moreover, Tokyo will benefit from its position as an embassy and
consulate hub and its historical legacy as the center of Japan’s economy.73
The two cities also have differing perspectives on interest convergence. Cape
Town has concluded that national interests align closely to the city’s local interests, and
therefore benefits realized for the nation improve city interests as well.74 Tokyo suffers
from greater ideological disconnect: the TMG believes that national diplomacy is best
suited for national interests, while Tokyo’s exchange and cooperation network would be
best suited to ensure that the local interests of Tokyo’s residents are met. This is impor-

71 Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Basic Strategy for City Diplomacy. Tokyo: Govern-
ment Publisher. (2014).
72 Ibid.
73 Glaeser, Edward. Triumph Of The City. London: Macmillan. (2011).

tant to understand in context, considering the current divisions in the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) under Shinzo Abe and the current Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko
Koike. It is also interesting to note that TMG intends to engage its local constituency
and encourage active participancy in promotion.75
One of the main organizations in which Tokyo is involved is the Asian Net-
work of Major Cities 21 (ANMC21), a network that was founded with the intention of
establishing best practice sharing and economic relationships between many of the large
cities in Asia.76 It is not without its challenges: Beijing left the organization due to the
ANMC21’s insistence that the regional conference be held in Taipei, Taiwan in 2006.
The Governor of Tokyo, as its ambassador, will be central to ensuring inter-
national relations remain fruitful.77 This will be done through increased city-to-city
diplomacy and reviewed ANMC21 membership requirements to increase its viability
and improve plenary attendance. Tokyo will also bid for international conferences. A
similar strategy has been pursued by Cape Town which has successfully attracted global
talent to its Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) since 2003 and the
expanded CTICC 2 in 2017.
Conclusion
By means of policy collaboration in bilateral and global organizations, cities
have succeeded in prioritizing urban interests at the international level. Cape Town and
Tokyo are powerful examples of cities’ potential to play a large role in the global political
system. City-to-city networks like sister city partnerships and regional bodies provide
a forum for action when national actors fail to create sufficient policy and a medium
through which to mitigate the consequences of pressing global challenges ranging from
migration to climate change. These networks will continue to develop in importance as
cities demand a bigger seat at the international table.
75 Tokyo, Basic Strategy.

76 Ibid.
77 Ibid.

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Southern California

The Southern California International Review (SCIR) is a bi-annual print

Copyright © 2017 Southern California International Review.

1. An Assessment of Implicit Sovereign Immunity 10

2. The Asian “Economic Miracle” and Welfare 34

3. European Energy Union 58

4. Not in Our Yard 70

5. Return of the City State 90

Please read, ponder, explore and enjoy.

1 “By reason of the matter”

m. briggs deloach is a recent graduate of Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, where

Section II: Literature Review

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Section III: Ratione Personae v. Ratione Materiae Sovereign Immunity

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Section IV: Historical Overview

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Enforcement of the Hague Conventions was difficult because of entrenched state

21 Woetzel, “The Nuremberg Trials,” 22-27. 3-6.

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sovereign immunity for genocide.

Section VI: An Empirical Analysis

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Section VII: Recent Developments and Future Prospects

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sovereign immunity for genocide.36

Section VIII: Conclusion

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Treaty of Westphalia. N.p., 1641.

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Niccolò Giorgio Armandola is a senior at the University of Zurich in

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The concept of subjective well-being

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Schimmack suggests that it is possible to separate the cognitive component of subjec-

Data and sampling

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The Human Development Index

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the SAHDI-ranking. However, China’s SAHDI-score of 0.37 is not completely surprising,

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Human Development Report. “Technical notes.” Unpublished manuscript, last modified