Global Economic Change, International Conflict and Cooperation

Research project funded in academic years 2005-06 and 2006-07The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.In this project, Pollins sets out to make progress in international political economy theory building by: identifying both consistent and contradictory claims found in the field; testing these competing models using a common information base; and building and refining a new theoretical framework based on these tests. The concepts tested include: groups that include a dominant member or bloc are more likely to cooperate than groups that do not have such dominance; two nations with asymmetric resources are more likely to cooperate than two nations with symmetric resources; and states that plan far into the future are more likely to cooperate than those that discount future gains.Mershon Center for International Security StudiesProject summar

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and U.S. Interests in Asia

Streaming video requires Flash Player, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player to view.In 2005, a young, six-nation Inter-Governmental Organization that had heretofore received scant international attention called openly for the closure of all U.S. military bases in Central Asia as soon as possible. This not only complicated the war efforts of the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, it stood athwart American plans to develop economic, diplomatic and military ties with former Soviet republics in Central Asia. This action as well as subsequent developments have led many in the U.S. diplomatic and military communities to view this organization – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization -– as the "Anti-NATO"; a Sino-Russian design to frustrate and defeat American interests, particularly in Asia. The work described here examines the origins and development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Its inner workings are interesting in how the large powers (Russia and China) use it to balance against one another, while the smaller members (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) also use it to balance against their larger co-members. At the same time, all six members have used the SCO quite effectively to push forward common interests in suppressing terrorist/irredentist groups, drug traffic, and settling border disputes, some of which were long-standing. Political cooperation had enabled growth in commerce. And over the years, there has emerged a world view championed by the SCO called "The Shanghai Spirit" which we show stands in clear opposition to the IMF's Washington Consensus and George W. Bush's "Freedom Agenda." In the final analysis, the United States and its NATO allies should realize that they face both a potential rival and a potential partner in the SCO. Hard line, negative attitudes toward the SCO are guaranteed to be counterproductive. At the same time, there are key interests and objectives of China, Russia and the U.S. and its allies which are not in alignment and will need to be negotiated. The outcome as rival or partner will be determined as much by western diplomacy as by SCO identity.Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent Web Page, streaming video, event photo

Global Economic Change, International Conflict and Cooperation

Research project for Fiscal Years 2003-04 and 2004-05The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.This project covers the construction and testing of contending models of international cooperation, compliance, and conflict.Mershon Center for International Security Studiesproject summar

How Good is the Model in Model-in-the-loop Event Coreference Resolution Annotation?

Annotating cross-document event coreference links is a time-consuming and cognitively demanding task that can compromise annotation quality and efficiency. To address this, we propose a model-in-the-loop annotation approach for event coreference resolution, where a machine learning model suggests likely corefering event pairs only. We evaluate the effectiveness of this approach by first simulating the annotation process and then, using a novel annotator-centric Recall-Annotation effort trade-off metric, we compare the results of various underlying models and datasets. We finally present a method for obtaining 97\% recall while substantially reducing the workload required by a fully manual annotation process. Code and data can be found at https://github.com/ahmeshaf/model_in_corefComment: The 17th Liguistics Annotation Workshop, 2023 (LAW-XVII) short paper. 10 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl

Life After Delisting: Sustaining Environmental Stewardship in Michigan Areas of Concern

Michigan’s Area of Concern (AOC) program has made great strides in recent years with the influx of Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) funding. As delisting increasingly becomes a reality for more AOCs it is imperative to identify from a programmatic perspective how to best prepare communities for long-term success beyond delisting. In recent years, the AOC program has encountered challenges with the speed of change, the program’s narrow scope, a lack of long-term planning, and uncertainty about the roles of both the Public Advisory Councils (PACs) and the Michigan Office of the Great Lakes (OGL) moving forward. To address these challenges, this research provides recommendations for how the OGL can support PACs in creating mechanisms to continue the momentum of environmental stewardship up to and beyond delisting. The findings of this research and subsequent recommendations are a result of semi-structured interviews with PAC members from Michigan’s 12 current and two delisted AOCs. This report, which is both informed directly by the voices of PAC members and considers the AOC program landscape across the entire state of Michigan, provides a comprehensive set of program-wide recommendations to the OGL. Recommendations to the OGL include: (1) Facilitate dedicated “life after delisting” meetings with PACs, (2) Develop long-term delisting frameworks, (3) Create communication strategies intended to change negative public perceptions of the water bodies, (4) Increase OGL staff presence at PAC meetings, (5) Support PACs in building fundraising capacity, (6) Support local champions within PACs, (7) Assist PACs in developing a network of partners, (8) Institute a phased approach to delisting, and (9) Prioritize projects with potential for broader economic and social impact. Through the implementation of these recommendations, the PACs will be better positioned to sustain environmental stewardship and related community revitalization. This set of recommendations is applicable to other government programs wishing to integrate community perspectives and increase the durability of programmatic outcomes.Master of ScienceSchool for Environment and SustainabilityUniversity of Michiganhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148804/4/Knauss_Lisuk_Pollins_Practicum.pd

State Control and the Effects of Foreign Relations on Bilateral Trade

Do states use trade to reward and punish partners? WTO rules and the pressures of globalization restrict states’ capacity to manipulate trade policies, but we argue that governments can link political goals with economic outcomes using less direct avenues of influence over firm behavior. Where governments intervene in markets, politicization of trade is likely to occur. In this paper, we examine one important form of government control: state ownership of firms. Taking China and India as examples, we use bilateral trade data by firm ownership type, as well as measures of bilateral political relations based on diplomatic events and UN voting to estimate the effect of political relations on import and export flows. Our results support the hypothesis that imports controlled by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) exhibit stronger responsiveness to political relations than imports controlled by private enterprises. A more nuanced picture emerges for exports; while India’s exports through SOEs are more responsive to political tensions than its flows through private entities, the opposite is true for China. This research holds broader implications for how we should think about the relationship between political and economic relations going forward, especially as a number of countries with partially state-controlled economies gain strength in the global economy

The Value of Rents and the Likelihood of Conflicts

This paper extends the prey--predator model of Grossman and Kim (1995) to analyze the relation between the value of the contested rent and the emergence of a conflict. We show that an increase in the value of the rent makes the conflict equilibrium more likely. We also analyze the case where the valuation of the rent is different for the two players. We find, for example, that a conflict equilibrium may occur even though the predator has an important disadvantage in warfare. That's when its valuation of the rent is sufficiently high compare to that of the prey

Design and methodology of a cluster-randomized trial in early care and education centers to meet physical activity guidelines: Sustainability via Active Garden Education (SAGE)

Strategies are needed to help early care and education centers (ECEC) comply with policies to meet daily physical activity and fruit and vegetable guidelines for young children. This manuscript describes the design and methodology of Sustainability via Active Garden Education (SAGE), a 12-session cluster-randomized controlled crossover design trial using community-based participatory research (CBPR) to test a garden-based ECEC physical activity and fruit and vegetables promotion intervention for young children aged 3–5 years in 20 sites. The SAGE curriculum uses the plant lifecycle as a metaphor for human development. Children learn how to plant, water, weed, harvest, and do simple food preparation involving washing, cleaning, and sampling fruit and vegetables along with active learning songs, games, science experiments, mindful eating exercises, and interactive discussions to reinforce various healthy lifestyle topics. Parents will receive newsletters and text messages linked to the curriculum, describing local resources and events, and to remind them about activities and assessments. Children will be measured on physical activity, height, and weight and observed during meal and snack times to document dietary habits. Parents will complete measures about dietary habits outside of the ECEC, parenting practices, home physical activity resources, and home fruit and vegetable availability. SAGE fills an important void in the policy literature by employing a participatory strategy to produce a carefully crafted and engaging curriculum with the goal of meeting health policy guidelines and educational accreditation standards. If successful, SAGE may inform and inspire widespread dissemination and implementation to reduce health disparities and improve health equity

Railway Systems and the 'Universal Good of the State': Technologies of Government in the 19th-Century Papal State

Informed by Foucault’s concept of governmentality, the paper focuses on nineteenth-century General Commissariat for the Railroad Industry in the Papal State. Unlike in liberal States, where government intervention in the affairs of railway companies was limited, the pressing need to reinforce the Pope’s pastoral power, strengthen the bond between the believers and the Holy See and ensure equity and the efficiency of the new infrastructure meant that the Commissariat acted as a governmental centre of calculation. Accounting technologies in the form of budgets, cost accounting systems and penetrating audits enabled the government to intervene in the operations of private railway companies. The study analyses the role of accounting and auditing practices in the pursuit of non-liberal goals in an industry which is traditionally perceived as critical to the development of a liberal economy, one in which accounting was traditionally used to maintain investors’ confidence in the capitalist system