Cato on Campus - Regional Studies

Preliminary Conclusions From The War In Georgia

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:39:00 EDT

By Andrei Illarionov: "It is already possible to outline some theses related to the conflict between Russia and Georgia."

Poverty and Economy in Mugabe's Zimbabwe

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:35:00 EDT

A new, deeper poverty has gripped Zimbabwe and the formal economy has utterly been destroyed under the rein of Robert Mugabe. Rejoice Ngwenya, head of the Zimbabwean Coalition for Market and Liberal Solutions, discusses the realities of life in Mugabe�s Zimbabwe.

Seeing China Whole

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:21:00 EDT

By Steve Chapman: "Anyone contemplating the thuggish repression still prevalent under the Beijing government may find that hard to imagine. But if the last 30 years have taught us anything, it is not to underestimate China's capacity for positive change."

Swedish Myths and Realities

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:03:00 EDT

"Johan Norberg, author of In Defense of Global Capitalism, sits down with reason.tv's Michael C. Moynihan to sort out the myths of the Sweden's welfare state, health services, tax rates, and its status as the 'most successful society the world has ever known.'"

FARC Politics, FARConomics

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:48:00 EDT

By Ibsen Martinez: "Shortly after noon, on Wednesday, I finally sat down to write my monthly column when I received news that 15 hostages, including three U.S. defence contractors, held for years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the infamous drug-trafficking guerrilla, branded a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, had been rescued by a successful army operation. Most eminent among the hostages was the 46-year-old former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt."

Munger on the Political Economy of Public Transportation

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:39:00 EDT

"Mike Munger and Russ Roberts deliver one of the best podcasts ever. Munger describes the way in which moving from a private bus system to a public system in Santiago Chile made essentially everyone in the city worse off. The puzzle that Roberts keeps pushing Munger to resolve is why the political incentives do not work to abolish the public system and revert to a private system." - Bryan Caplan

A Matter of Life and Death

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:22:00 EDT

By Karol Boudreaux: "By some estimates South Africa has taken in over three million illegal immigrants in the past year - not just people in search of better jobs, but also Zimbabweans fleeing Robert Mugabe's reign. The unfortunate byproduct of this influx of immigrants is a longstanding and mostly dormant xenophobia that has reared its head. "

From Breadbasket to Basket Case

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:38:00 EDT

By Mary Anastasia O'Grady: "As the presidential campaign drones on, Barack Obama and the Democrats are fleshing out the promise of "change" with some specific, big-government policy proposals. Many are familiar, perhaps because they already have been tried � in Argentina."

Government, War, and Libertarianism

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:23:00 EDT

By Justin Logan: "Why has the war�and post-9/11 foreign policy generally�been so controversial for libertarians? And now, more than six years after 9/11 and more than five years into the war in Iraq, what can libertarian insights tell us about how we got here and what to do next?"

McCain Talking Too Tough on Russia, China

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:17:00 EDT

By Malou Innocent: "There is no question that China and Russia have objectionable policies. China's deplorable human-rights record and Russia's authoritarian structure leave much to be desired. But McCain's policy prescriptions will prevent the U.S. from working with them in areas of common interest, and preclude cooperation in meeting shared threats."

The Global Food Crisis : Political Factors

Wed, 21 May 2008 09:48:00 EDT

AfricanLiberty.org produced this short video about the political factors behind the Global food crisis.

Kidneys for Sale: Iranian Organ Donation

Tue, 13 May 2008 13:19:00 EDT

By Kerry Howley: "'What can Iran teach us about good governance?' is not a question often posed in Washington. But according to Benjamin Hippen, a transplant nephrologist in North Carolina, the Iranians have managed to do something American policy makers have long thought impossible: They�ve found kidneys for every single citizen in need."

Milton Friedman Prize Selection Committee Member Arrested

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:54:00 EDT

The Ugandan government has arrested Andrew Mwenda, a member of the 2008 International Selection Committee for the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, along with his fellow journalists Odobo Bichachi and John Njoroge. Andrew Mwenda is a brave journalist who tells it like he sees it. He is well known for standing up for the rights of others; his involvement in the Milton Friedman Prize is only one element of his long commitment to human rights.

Venezuelan Student Movement Leader Awarded $500,000 Milton Friedman Liberty Prize

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:02:00 EDT

Yon Goicoechea, leader of the pro-democracy student movement in Venezuela, has been awarded the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. Under Goicoechea's leadership, the student movement organized mass opposition to the erosion of human and civil rights in Venezuela and played the key role in defeating Hugo Ch�vez's bid for a constitutional reform that would have turned the country into a dictatorship.

The Biofuel Brew Ha-Ha

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:58:00 EDT

By Peter Suderman: Reason contributor Peter Suderman writes that the biofuels craze is boosting the price of beer, because farmers are shifting away from barley to biofuel crops made more lucrative by mandates and subsidies.

Coyne on Exporting Democracy after War

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:40:00 EDT

"Christopher Coyne of West Virginia University and George Mason University's Mercatus Center talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his book, After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy. They talk about the successes and failures of America's attempts to export democracy after a war."

Don't 'Pull an Iraq' in Afghanistan

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:48:00 EDT

By Benjamin H. Friedman: "This week at a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romainia, American officials asked Europeans to send more troops to the war in Afghanistan. Leaders in both the Democratic and Republican Parties agree that higher troop levels and a deeper commitment to state-building are the path to victory in Afghanistan. But both sides are wrong, and Iraq shows why."

The Long Fall of Robert G. Mugabe

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:46:00 EDT

By Marian L. Tupy: "Mugabe is in this position primarily because he has turned Zimbabwe into one of the world's poorest countries--the result of his worsening political repression, frontal attack on the independence of the judiciary, confiscation of property, and evisceration of the once-thriving private sector. With health, education, and incomes in freefall, Zimbabweans are ready for change."

Who Says the Surge Is Working?

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:27:00 EDT

By Terry Michael: "When it comes Iraq, neoconservative true believers have been allowed to set the bar of "success" below ground level. In this, they're aided by media siding with power instead of challenging it, all while congressional Democrats cower in their cloak rooms."

Peace Won't Come to Zimbabwe

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:27:00 EDT

By Marian L. Tupy and David Coltart: "The case against Mr. Mugabe and the ZANU-PF for crimes against humanity would be compelling. They have turned one of Africa's most prosperous and relatively free nations into an Orwellian nightmare. Since 1994, the average life expectancy in Zimbabwe has fallen to 34 from 57 for women and to 37 from 54 for men. Some 3,500 Zimbabweans die every week from the combined effects of HIV/AIDS, poverty and malnutrition."

Health, Africa�s struggle

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:04:00 EST

By Thompson Ayodele: "Foreign aid in the form of hard currency is flowing in unprecedented quantities into the ministries of health of many African countries.

"But despite this generosity things are not improving: medical staff are demoralised, access to essential medicines remains low and corruption remains a serious problem."

Ohio Needs More Foreign Trade

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:17:00 EST

By Daniel T. Griswold: "But tinkering with a 14-year-old trade agreement [NAFTA] will not bring an industrial renaissance to Youngstown and other Rust Belt cites. The relative decline of those regions dates back to the 1960s and 1970s, when the American economy began a transition from heavy industry toward an information-based service economy."

NATO's West Bank Nightmare

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:54:00 EST

By Ted Galen Carpenter: "Washington is sending up a trial balloon about stationing NATO troops as peacekeepers on the West Bank. The Jerusalem Post reports that former NATO supreme commander General James Jones, now the Bush administration's special envoy to the Middle East, is floating the idea to various European countries.

"It is a spectacularly bad idea."

Letter to Our European Friends

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:51:00 EST

By P.J. O'Rourke: "America is in the midst of an all-important electoral campaign. But, talking to Europeans, I've discovered that there is puzzlement and misinformation on your continent about what's happening on ours. Europeans feel an understandable confusion when faced with a political system consisting of two houses of Congress and a White House, and nobody is home in any of them."

Paths to Property

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:24:00 EST

By Karol Boudreaux and Paul Aligica: "The study finds that the �easy option� of agencies entering less-developed countries and using blueprints to try to recreate institutions in Africa that work effectively in the West often fails miserably. Indeed, the failures of such approaches can give the whole privatisation and property rights process, vital for sustainable economic growth, a bad name."