No54 – 28 June 2012 – Click on the image below to read on Paper.Li (best with mobiles & tablets)
The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No54, 28 June 2012
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Monthly Archives: June 2012
2013 – 2018 EVT – Green Growth in Action (Panglossy)
Last weeks’ summary: In 2012 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of governance and of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. Alarmed by the rising difficulties and widespread discontent, the governing authorities decide to do something when new elections start, which begins the second scenario, Panglossy. The new Everstatan government, dependent upon past thinking, decides that a return to economic efficiency through growth is the key to the crisis. Its first measure, to raise the minimum wage, fails to boost growth through consumption. The first high level conference of the ISSIGE, the international fund to promote green growth through infrastructure investment, is hailed as a success. However, as the new international meeting group for the resilience of the financial system IRESFIS does not show any progress, the ISSIGE, in such conditions, also contributes to reinforce the power of the lenders’ nexus and appropriation of public power.
(The reader can click on each picture to see a larger version in a new tab – a navigating map of posts is available to ease reading.)
The Everstatan delegates and members of the ISSIGE are conscious that its success is crucial. The highly unstable situation demands it. They thus start immediately working on the various framework projects’ proposals and their selection. Three more months, which is considered as a very short time-frame in a multinational governmental setting, are needed before the selected projects are publicised to allow companies to bid for them. The project themselves are due to start at the beginning of 2014 EVT, latest.
Meanwhile, the overall situation of Everstatans continue to degrade slowly. Every month now, one or the other area of Everstate is marred by some unusual climatic event. Those, however, are very localised and damages are relatively small. The overall world growth is minimal while energy and resources prices remain very volatile, contributing to a mood in see-saw. As a result, food prices continue to soar. Everstate’s public deficit remains as high as previously, and even rises as interests grow and as more borrowing is needed. The lenders’ nexus profits skyrocket. Many small companies that constitute the productive fabric of Everstate suffer from this environment and either stagnate or are forced to close down. On the contrary, a few well-connected companies, such as Novstate and its friends businesses, continue to be highly profitable, even though they complain that their rate of growth starts to be slow compared with the past. It is very high time that the overall boost expected from the ISSIGE takes place.
Considering the number of countries that are part of the ISSIGE and the relatively small amount of the overall bonds issued to fund them, the infrastructure investments that will take place on Everstate’s territory are few and far between. The very caution used, as this first year of funding must be considered as a test-case, tends to be self-defeating because of the considerable needs faced. The selected projects are not only insufficient in terms of catching up on late investments, but also their impact is too small to bring back growth, as well as to alleviate unemployment.*
Compared with the past, infrastructure projects are not anymore labour intensive. They are, however, knowledge intensive. Thus, considering the deficit of proper and fair treatment to the Everstatan educated population (see inequality statistics; Zerohedge, 05/21/2012 using Graham, IBD, 2012), the idea of promoting green growth investment, if set and re-imagined within a new socio-political model, might well be a way forward. Here, unfortunately, Everstate tries getting past-style results, when those cannot anymore be delivered.
Nevertheless, one of the infrastructure projects selected for Everstate is elected as ISSIGE flagship infrastructure programme for its deeply innovative character, the breadth of its environmental scope and its crucial character: Air Quality. Could this, at least, herald something really new and forward looking that could continue fostering hope among Everstatans, if overall general results are insufficient?
Starting most probably with the industrial revolution, air quality has degraded globally, notably in cities, but not only. Since its first report warning about those risks in 1987, the World Health Organisation has published its Air quality guidelines – global update 2005. In 2011, it underlines that
“Air pollution is a major environmental risk to health. By reducing air pollution levels, we can help countries reduce the global burden of disease from respiratory infections, heart disease, and lung cancer… Urban outdoor air pollution is estimated to cause 1.3 million deaths worldwide per year. Those living in middle-income countries disproportionately experience this burden…. The mortality in cities with high levels of pollution exceeds that observed in relatively cleaner cities by 15–20%. Even in the EU, average life expectancy is 8.6 months lower due to exposure to PM2.5 produced by human activities. ” (WHO, Air quality and health, Fact sheet N°313).
Among the pollutants singled out by the WHO, one finds notably: particulate matter (PM), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). PM, includes PM2.5, also known as black carbon, which comes, among others, from diesel engines and vehicles, and contributes to both diseases – including cancer for diesel – and climate change (Janssen, et al. 2012, EPA, 2012). NOx contributes to various diseases and acid rain, which impacts negatively freshwater, forests and crops, and, more generally, biodiversity (EEA, 2012). The screenshot below of the excellent interactive and explanatory display done for the French ADEME (Agence de l’Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l’Energie) summarizes the complexity of the challenge Everstate as all countries face (click on the image to access the interactive application – in French but the visual part can be understood in any language – PM are included in “aerosols“):
* Read on investment and more generally on growth in current conditions the excellent article by Michael Spence, Nobel laureate in economics, “Why Do Economies Stop Growing?” Project Syndicate, May 23, 2012.
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References
Dupré, Franck, “Pollution : le diesel, un danger mortel ?” Autonews.fr, 29 Mars 2012.
Durden, Tyler, The Benefits Of A College Education, Zerohedge, 05/21/2012, from Jed Graham, New Normal: Majority Of Unemployed Attended College, IBD, 05/17/2012.
EPA, Black Carbon Report to Congress, March 2012.
European Environment Agency, Chapter 4. Nitrogen emissions and threats to biodiversity, Environmental indicator report 2012 – Ecosystem resilience and resource efficiency in a green economy in Europe, Part 2. 2012.
Janssen, Nicole AH, Miriam E Gerlofs-Nijland, Timo Lanki, Raimo O Salonen, Flemming Cassee, Gerard Hoek, Paul Fischer, Bert Brunekreef, Michal Krzyzanowski, Health effects of black carbon, WHO, 2012.
Lehner, Peter, of the NRDC, Diesel Exhaust Does Cause Cancer, CleanTechnica.com, June 12, 2012.
The Guardian, Global air pollution: what is the most polluted country and city in the world? (WHO data), 26 Septembre 2011.
WHO, Air quality and health, Fact sheet N°313, Updated September 2011.
Images
WPA road project, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, via Wikimedia Commons.
CNES-CNRS/INSU-MEN, Les polluants de l’air extérieur, Agence de l’Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l’Energie, 2009.
Horizon Scanning and Monitoring for Anticipation: Definition and Practice
Horizon scanning is a term that appeared in the early years of the 21st century and is not well-defined, being at once a tool part of the whole foresight process and a way to label this entire process (Habbeger, 2009).* We shall here consider horizon scanning as a specific tool and contrast it to monitoring, in a practical way, i.e. trying to devise the best way to accomplish each task for the best possible foresight and warning, stressing difficulties and challenges and possible ways to move forward. The scans and monitoring done here (or forthcoming), within the framework of Red (team) Analysis, are at once samples of applied methodology, ensuring coherence between reflection and practice and real tools on real-life issues.
Horizon scanning and monitoring: definitions
Horizon Scanning
Meteorological Service of Canada (Environment Canada): Non meteorological data from weather echos can be filtered by using Doppler velocities of targets. After cleaning, only real precipitation is left.
Scanning allows for the identification of potential new themes or meta-issues and issues, that will then need to be analysed in-depth. Horizon scanning looks thus for weak signals indicating the emergence of new meta-issues and issues. A scan must adopt the largest possible scope for the core question under watch.
The idea of horizon scanning is built upon older ideas and methods such as “environmental scanning,” “strategic foresight” and “indications and warning” (also labelled “strategic warning” and “warning intelligence” see Grabo, 2004). Actually, as underlined by Glenn and Gordon, “’environmental scanning’ is the term most futurists used in the 1960-1970s, but as the environmental movement grew, some thought the term might only refer to systems to monitor changes in the natural environment due to human actions. To avoid this confusion, some have called them ‘Futures Scanning Systems’, ‘Early Warning Systems’ and ‘Futures Intelligence Systems’.” ‘Strategic warning’ and related terms are used notably by the military to avoid strategic surprises (e.g. Pearl Harbour).
Horizon scanning was notably popularised (to a point as the whole anticipation field is still largely known only to specialists) by its use in the denomination of various governments’ offices, such as the UK Horizon Scanning Centre created in 2004 after a call for developing such centres of excellence across government (Habbeger, 2009, p.14), or Singapore’s Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning programme, launched in 2005 (Lavoix, 2010). The way the idea was made fashionable also contributed to the confusion surrounding its meaning.
Monitoring
Monitoring is part of the strategic warning process. It is well documented in the literature on intelligence, warning and strategic surprise as it has been formally practised since at least WWII and as intelligence studies are now a constituted body of knowledge and a discipline. For more readings, one shall consult the bibliography of reference on intelligence related matters, J. Ransom Clark’s Bibliography on the Literature of Intelligence, notably the section on strategic warning.
Monitoring issues will allow for the identification of warning problems. Surveillance of those problems will then be done through adequate models and related indicators. If we use the example of energy as meta-issue, then issues could be “oil security,” “peak oil,” “peak uranium,” “the volatility of oil prices,” “the politics of energy between Europe and Russia,” and problems the more specific “Gasprom policies,” “the Keystone pipeline,” etc…
Both monitoring and surveillance lead the collection of necessary information, as defined by the model and related indicators.
Scanning and monitoring in practice
Here our main scan is The Red (team) Analysis Weekly (in short The Weekly) and it is focused upon national security in its largest understanding.* It is one of the device through which new emerging issues that must be put on a watch are identified. The Sigils are both specific scans and monitoring of issues.
In practice, scanning may be seen as included in monitoring and most of the time the same process and the same tools may be used for scanning and for the first steps of monitoring.
First, although a scan is the first step of any analysis, and thus assumes that no understanding or little understanding of the question exists, actually this is only an appearance. Try to make the exercise mentally: if you start looking for something, even in the loosest way, to do that you need to have an idea, even minimal, of what you are looking for. What happens is that, unconsciously, you rely on a cognitive model. This cognitive model is implicit. Thus, to scan the horizon you already use a model, even if it is a very imperfect one. Monitoring is also grounded in a model, but one that has been made explicit, that has been improved and refined through the process of analysis. Thus both horizon scanning and monitoring are similar. Their difference, here, resides actually in the sophistication of the model used, not in the actual process utilised to do scanning or the first steps of the monitoring. Hence, scanning and monitoring can utilise most often the same of tool or support.
Second, the definition of a scan suggests that it should only identify weak signals. However, to select beforehand signals according to their strength – assuming this is possible – would be counter-productive and in some cases impossible. Indeed, a strong signal for an issue can also, sometimes, be a weak signal of emergence for something else. Thus, when gathering signals through a scan that aims at identifying emerging meta-issues and issues, it is desirable to be as broad and encompassing as possible. Similarly, monitoring of an issue and surveillance of a problem may also pick upon signals of novel issues emerging.
Image by Jens Langner (http://www.jens-langner.de/) (Own work), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Last but not least, because of various biases, both analysts and clients, decision-makers and policy-makers are often unable to see, identify, and consider some signals “below the horizon.” They will be able to accept those signals only when they are “above the horizon,” which means when they are much stronger, as exemplified in the post on timeliness. The position of the signal below or above the horizon, or the needed strength of the signal to be seen and accepted will vary according to person. It is thus not practically desirable to try sorting out signals according to their strength too early in the process.
In the case of monitoring and surveillance, it is crucial to also sort the indications according to a timeline that warns us of the evolution of the issue under watch, and that will allow for the warning and its delivery (note that the tools used here do not allow for this timeline to appear explicitly. However, at least mentally, each indication or signal, or group of indications and signals may be positioned on their corresponding timelines – a plural is used as indications and signals can feed into different dynamics for various issues).
Is this a sufficient reason to definitely separate scanning and monitoring? The strength of a signal in horizon scanning may be seen as nothing else that an indication of the movement of change on a timeline: if the signal is weak, then the situation is far from the actual occurrence of an event or phenomenon, if the signal is strong then one is close to it. A scan would thus be an instance of monitoring, where only indications leading to judgements according to which an event will not happen soon but nevertheless deserve to be put under watch are selected. However, as we saw that it is not desirable or possible to sieve through signals according to their strength, then the latter vision of a scan is idealistic and impractical.
Practically, at the end of the process, a scan will thus gives us signals of varying strength. It thus corresponds to the first stage of monitoring (and surveillance) before judgements related to the signification of the signal or indication in terms of timelines are made.
I really welcome comments and exchanges on your experience, as through dialogue we shall be able to accelerate progress towards better practice.
* The debate on national security is rich and features many authors. For a brief summary and references to the many outstanding scholars who inform it, see, among others, Helene Lavoix “Enabling Security for the 21st Century: Intelligence & Strategic Foresight and Warning,” RSIS Working Paper No. 207, August 2010.
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References
Gordon, Theodore J. and Jerome C. Glenn, “ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING,” The Millennium Project: Futures Research Methodology, Version 3.0, Ed. Jerome C. Glenn and Theodore J. 2009, Chapter 2.
Grabo, Cynthia M., Anticipating Surprise: Analysis for Strategic Warning, edited by Jan Goldman, (Lanham MD: University Press of America, May 2004).
Habbegger, Beat, Horizon Scanning in Government: Concept, Country Experiences, and Models for Switzerland, Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich, 2009.
J. Ransom Clark’s Bibliography on the Literature of Intelligence.
Lavoix, Helene, What makes foresight actionable: the cases of Singapore and Finland. (U.S. Department of State commissioned report, December 2010).
Lavoix, Helene, “Enabling Security for the 21st Century: Intelligence & Strategic Foresight and Warning,” RSIS Working Paper No. 207, August 2010.
The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No53, 21 June 2012
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No53 – 21 June 2012 – Click on the image below to read on Paper.Li (best with mobiles & tablets)
Scheduling error – last email on first post scenario 3
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Scheduling error – last email on first post scenario 3
Dear Readers,
Apologies for the previous email on the publication of the first post of scenario 3, sent by mistake due to a scheduling error. As one problem never arrives alone, the email function to subscribers is off too, most probably as a result from the last wordpress.org update.
And I take this opportunity to thank you for your readership and to welcome all the new subscribers.
With my very best wishes,
Dr Helene Lavoix
2013 – 2018 EVT – Investing for Green Growth without Liquidity (2) (Panglossy)
Last weeks’ summary: In 2012 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of governance and of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. Alarmed by the rising difficulties and widespread discontent, the governing authorities decide to do something when new elections start, which starts the second scenario, Panglossy. The new Everstatan government, dependent upon past thinking, decides that a return to economic efficiency through growth is the key to the crisis. Its first measure, to raise the minimum wage, fails to boost growth through consumption. The second, longer term, policy, which promotes green growth through infrastructure investment, starts with the preparation of the first high level conference of ISSIGE. Notably, funding through the emission of bonds, which should promote a lever effect by involvement of the private sector, is decided. The new international meeting group for the resilience of the financial system IRESFIS also convenes, but with no progress as the lenders’ nexus is as strong as ever.
(The reader can click on each picture to see a larger version in a new tab – a navigating map of posts is available to ease reading.)
Actually, the lenders’ nexus has even seen its position reinforced. The ISSIGE, by deciding to issue bonds, which go through the private banking system, and by hoping for leverage, has reinforced the dependency of the nation-states and its governing bodies upon the lenders’ nexus as well as upon any private actor with liquidity. The political weight that is put on the ISSIGE success, notably because it has been framed in terms of growth, which is crucial according to the past worldview, on the one hand, and, on the other, because of the global increasingly urgent need for investment, further strengthens the immediate power of the lenders’ nexus.
However, a large part of the investment deficit has been and is created by companies and lenders that have been seeing more (short-term) profit in not investing than in investing for years. This perception of the profits private companies and lenders could get – the return on investment – affects the perception of risks. It thus, most probably, contributes to lead private actors to ask the public (i.e. the nation-state) to bear the cost of all risks attached to green growth investment, from “where returns cannot be monetized or appropriated by the investor” to “risks that are more perceived than real, e.g. demonstration of a proven technology” (Global Green Growth Forum, March 2012, p.2). Actually, considering the overall investment deficit, it seems that it is not only green growth investments that are concerned.
Furthermore, all actors evolve within a paradigm that enounces that the private sector is best and knows best how to run everything and to provide for any goods and services. This favours the idea (even if it is never couched in such crude terms) that, if the private sector must contribute to invest, then it can do so only by obtaining the same high profit rates it could get by placing its cash surplus – the liquidity – elsewhere, i.e. notably in the bubbles of the financial market. It is thus up to nation-states to pay for the difference. Again, this leads to a blatant appropriation of public wealth and power.
Considering the existing public deficit, the private ownership of the related debts, the prevalent worldview and the various ideological and material stakes to keep it, there is, however, no other solution. To find another way would demand that at least one of the prevalent conditions change, so as to rebalance the negotiating power of actors (see, for a detailed explanation, “The powerful Everstatan elite under threat?” in Everstate, setting the stage (2) and 2012 EVT: Public Resources and Lenders).
Once the ISSIGE funding process is set up, the ISSIGE summit may take place. In a nutshell, the criteria the framework projects’ proposals will have to meet are as follows:
Arbutus menziesii immature fruit by Jina Lee GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- transboundary projects involving at least two countries,
- fostering economic growth,
- innovative,
- green projects that are environmentally and economically sustainable,
- improving or creating infrastructures that provide a service and/or allow overcoming identified and felt environmental threats.
Once the framework projects are selected, then a usual legal bid system to compete for and be awarded public markets will be used. Legally, the system of the countries where the project will be implemented can be used indifferently. The delegates, once the summit ends, have six months to define framework projects proposals. Some of those proposals will then be chosen by the network of delegates and become the ISSIGE framework projects for the year. The network will make sure that each member country receives the same value in terms of funding of projects.
The summit is considered a success by the various member states. The very identification and presence of the delegates, on the one hand, having been able to agree upon and set up the process, on the other, are seen as the very first achievement of ISSIGE. A strong communication campaign is organised around this theme.
Yet, in terms of everyday life, for Everstate citizens, there is no improvement whatsoever, besides the efforts of the various administrations they witness. On the contrary, the situation appears to grow worse, slowly and inexorably. The administrative time, notably when it involves the coordination linked to multinational governance, seems to be increasingly disconnected from and ill-suited to a real world where problems follow their own dynamics.
Because of the transparency surrounding the process that allows for proper information, because citizens know that green investments are crucial, while being aware of the complexity of the task and finally because Everstatans hope for a direct improvement in their lives once the projects start, as has been promised, they bear with their rising hardship and fear.
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References
For real life discussions on green growth investment & financing, as well as on investment deficit:
3GF, Global Green Growth Forum, FINANCING Preparatory Strategy Meeting, 26-27 March 2012.
Caranci, Beata & Chris Jones, “Milking America’s Cash Cow: The Case For Stronger Investment Growth,” Special Report, TD Economics, May 25, 2012.
Climate Policy Initiative and the World Bank Group in collaboration with China Light & Power and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Inaugural Meeting of the San Giorgio Group: Expanding Green, Low-Emissions Finance, October 2011.
Euractiv.com, “‘Project bonds’ launched as an experiment,” 23 May 2012.
European Commission, Europe 2020 Project Bond Initiative, Investment needs, last updated 19/10/2011.
Hutton, Will Companies must stop hoarding cash and start investing instead, The Observer The Guardian, 19 February 2012.
Klein, Ezra, America’s capital investment deficit, Washington Post, December 31, 2010.
Pan European Networks, “‘Project bond’ plan approved by diplomats,” 22 May 2012.
World Economic Forum, Financing Green Growth in a Resource-constrained World Partnerships for Triggering Private Finance at Scale, 2012.
Zarroli, Jim, Companies Sit On Cash; Reluctant To Invest, Hire, August 17, 2011, NPR.
Zenghelis, Dimitri, “Restoring growth and confidence through green innovation,” E!Sharp, June 2012.
The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No52, 14 June 2012
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No52 – 14 June 2012 – Click on the image below to read on Paper.Li (best with mobiles & tablets)
2013 – 2018 EVT – Investing for Green Growth without Liquidity (I) (Panglossy)
Last weeks’ summary: In 2012 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of governance and of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. Alarmed by the rising difficulties and widespread discontent, the governing authorities decide to do something when new elections start, which starts the second scenario, Panglossy. Dependent upon programmes created to face efficiently past challenges, prisoners of entrenched political groupings, the major parties campaign to come back to the order ante. Meanwhile, the polarisation and rise of a new opposition that took place during the election is temporarily frozen by the last hope thus created. The new Everstatan government, dependent upon past thinking, decides that a return to economic efficiency through growth is the key to the crisis. Its first measure, to raise the minimum wage, fails to bring back the expected result, to boost growth through consumption and thus to restart the engine.
(The reader can click on each picture to see a larger version in a new tab – a navigating map of posts is available to ease reading.)
As the first measure fails to boost growth, then the income of Everstate remains in the pitiful state into which it was before the elections. It even continues degrading as pressures and related costs do not relent. Meanwhile, as the need for liquidity does not stop, power remains in the hand of the lenders’ nexus. Yet, the failure of the government is only about the first measure. Two longer term policies are meant to address those very problems that have contributed to derail the whole system: the pressures related to the increasing complexity of resources, including looming scarcity, relative and absolute, through ISSIGE, and the problem of liquidity through the new international meeting group for the resilience of the financial system (IRESFIS).
Those two policies show that, even if they are included under a label, “restoring economic growth,” that is still part of the outmoded worldview, some awareness of the real problems besetting Everstate has started to take place.
ISSIGE will convene its first high level meeting in Everstate’s capital, six months after the elections, to allow for the organisation, for the presentation of first recommendations and to make sure that it will be able to announce the amount of the overall fund. It is imperative that firm and consensually accepted recommendations follow from this conference, considering the urgency of the situation. Heads of governments of the various member-states will be present to show the high level commitment given to the project. Several hundreds delegates of all the countries involved will be present. They will constitute the ISSIGE network, backbone of the effort.
Each delegation prepares a draft determining the criteria for the framework projects they will have to propose in the years to come, the process according to which those framework projects will be selected and, finally, how those projects will be implemented, by whom, with which supervision, etc. Those drafts are, of course, widely shared, read, and amended among delegates over the six months preceding the conference. In this way, no surprise and no intractable dispute will occur during the conference. Considering the administrative work load those exchanges require, and considering the high level profile of the delegates, substantial emoluments are paid to those delegates who are not civil servants, while those civil servants who are now working full-time for ISSIGE within their mother administration are promoted to the rank of Director with corresponding salary increase.
In a wish to promote transparency and show Everstatan citizens the real and genuine efforts and progress of the new government, drafts, exchanges and discussions are precisely documented and uploaded on a dedicated ISSIGE website. Furthermore, a special platform opened to citizens is created, where Everstatans can give their input. This effort is quickly followed by other countries.
More difficult, ISSIGE must also find a way to fund the projects themselves, and decide upon a global amount. Considering the public deficit existing in most countries, the ISSIGE network, the governments and administrations behind them decide that the various members and the Regional Union will issue bonds to fund the projects, which should also, hopefully, promote private investment. The overall amount for the first year is set at EVC (Everstate Currency) 250 millions. ISSIGE hopes that a lever effect will apply and that the overall value of the projects thus funded will be much higher.*
This is a very small amount considering the global current needs existing in terms of investments. According to the Global Green Growth Forum using 2010 IEA estimates, “by 2050 US$ 1.2 billion additional annual investments just in energy supply and use are needed to avoid a temperature increase beyond 2°C.” Meanwhile, the economy needs in terms of investments “for transport, energy and information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure projects in Europe are estimated at €1.5 trillion for 2010-2020″ (Euractiv.com, 23 May 2012). According to the European Commission, “infrastructure investment needs” “are estimated to be of EUR 1.5 trillion to EUR 2 trillion to meet the policy goals of the Europe 2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.” However, this first ISSIGE funding is a start.
Meanwhile, the IRESFIS meets a couple of times, but each player camps on its position, and no progress is made. Those, which include Everstate’s government, who want more regulation, are immediately countered by most financial actors, who oppose it, as well as by some governments, who believe that more regulations will hamper financial transactions and thus diminish the power of their countries as financial centres.
As the income of the nation-state continues to be insufficient, the bargaining position of the lenders’ nexus is as strong as ever. It is even stronger because of the ISSIGE needs… to be continued.
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References
For real life discussions on green growth investment & financing, as well as on investment deficit:
3GF, Global Green Growth Forum, FINANCING Preparatory Strategy Meeting, 26-27 March 2012;
Caranci, Beata & Chris Jones, “Milking America’s Cash Cow: The Case For Stronger Investment Growth,” Special Report, TD Economics, May 25, 2012.
Climate Policy Initiative and the World Bank Group in collaboration with China Light & Power and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Inaugural Meeting of the San Giorgio Group: Expanding Green, Low-Emissions Finance, October 2011.
Euractiv.com, “‘Project bonds’ launched as an experiment,” 23 May 2012,
European Commission, Europe 2020 Project Bond Initiative, Investment needs, last updated 19/10/2011.
Hutton, Will Companies must stop hoarding cash and start investing instead, The Observer The Guardian, 19 February 2012.
Klein, Ezra, America’s capital investment deficit, Washington Post, December 31, 2010.
OECD, Infrastructure to 2030, Vol.2, 2007.
Pan European Networks, “‘Project bond’ plan approved by diplomats,” 22 May 2012;
World Economic Forum, Financing Green Growth in a Resource-constrained World Partnerships for Triggering Private Finance at Scale, 2012;
Zarroli, Jim, Companies Sit On Cash; Reluctant To Invest, Hire, August 17, 2011, NPR.
Zenghelis, Dimitri, “Restoring growth and confidence through green innovation,” E!Sharp, June 2012.
Future of State and Governance – Bibliography
Bibliography related to state, state-building, and the construction of the underlying dynamic network for Everstate
Ard/United States Agency for International Development (USAID), (2005b), Measuring Fragility: Indicators and Methods for Rating State Performance, document prepared by ARD Consortium for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance/Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (DCHA/CMM), June.
Bayart, J.F., (1996), La greffe de l’Etat, sous la direction de, (Paris : Karthala).
Brewer, J. (1989), The Sinews of Power, (London : Unwin Hyman).
Bull, H. and A.Watson, (1984) The Expansion of International Society, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Bull, H., (1979) The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, (London: MacMillan.
Buss, J. C., Colonel, United States Army, (2005), “The State Department Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization and its Interaction with the Department of Defense,” Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College, Issue Paper, July, Volume 09-05.
Caplan, R. et B. Pouligny, (2005), « Histoire et contradictions du state building, » Critique Internationale, N° 28, juillet-septembre.
Davidheiser, E.B., (1992), “Strong states, weak states: the role of state in revolution,” Comparative Politics, July, pp. 463-475.
Ertman, Thomas. Birth of the Leviathan : Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Giddens, Anthony, The Consequences of Modernity; Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990.
Gong, G. W., (1984) The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society; Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Harper, T. N. (1999), The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Lavoix, Helene, Indicateurs et méthodologies de prévision des crises et conflits: Evaluation, (Paris : AFD, December 2005).
Lieberman, Victor, (1993), “Local Integration and Eurasian Analogies: Structuring Southeast Asian History, c.1350-c.1830;” Modern Asian Studies 27, 3, pp.475-572.
Lieberman, V., (2003), Strange Parallels, Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800-1830, Vol.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mann, M., The sources of social power. 1, A history of power from the beginning to A.D. 1760, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Migdal, John S., Strong societies and weak states : state-society relations and state capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).
Moore, B., Injustice: Social bases of Obedience and Revolt, (London: Macmillan, 1978)
Nettl, J.P., “The state as a conceptual variable,” World Politics, vol. XX, N° 4, July 1968, pp. 559-592.
Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit (PMSU), Investing in Prevention: an International Strategy to Manage Risks of Instability and Improve Crisis Response – a Report to The Government, (February 2005).
Rubin, B. R., “Afghanistan: la souveraineté comme condition de sécurité,” Critique Internationale, N° 28, juillet-septembre 2005, pp.169-183.
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The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No51, 7 June 2012
Link
No51 – 7 June 2012 – Click on the image below to read on Paper.Li (best with mobiles & tablets)
