Category
Recent Posts
- Evaluating civil development in counterinsurgency operations: the case for a field experiment in Afghanistan
- Karl Rove's Ghost of Gilded Age Past
- The formation of Australian mining technology services and equipment suppliers
- Foreign intervention and warfare in civil wars
- Entrepreneurship in Australia: the missing links
Archive
- February 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- September 2011
- July 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- June 2009
- April 2009
- December 2008
- October 2008
- July 2008
- December 2007
- October 2007
Publications FeedPublications
Evaluating civil development in counterinsurgency operations: the case for a field experiment in Afghanistan
3 February 2012
It is a widely held belief that civil development programs play a central role in any counterinsurgency campaign. It is assumed that civil development assistance is key to ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of the civilian population, which, in turn, is crucial for victory. However, there is currently little evidence to support this belief. This article by Dr Adam Lockyer begins by analysing the different methods that have been used in Afghanistan in order to evaluate the effectiveness of civil development programs since 2001. It finds that these methods have severe limitations. Indeed, based solely upon current methods of evaluation, we have no reliable evidence whether civil development programs are actively improving security, having no impact or making matters worse. As such, this article makes the case for a field experiment approach to be adopted in Afghanistan. It argues that field experiments are the most powerful methodology currently available to social scientists for making causal inferences and, by making minor changes to the way in which civil development is distributed, we can vastly improve our understanding of the relationship between aid and security. Read article
Karl Rove's Ghost of Gilded Age Past
14 December 2011
US Studies Centre postdoctoral fellow Marc Palen reviews William T. Horner's book Ohio's Kingmaker: Mark Hanna, Man and Myth. The book examines the life and partisan media portrayal of Gilded Age presidential advisor Mark Hanna, who has been commonly compared to former President George W. Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove. Read review
The formation of Australian mining technology services and equipment suppliers
30 November 2011
by Don Scott-Kemmis
This study focuses on a specific issue – the development of the mining technology, services and equipment sector in Australia. It aims to outline the recent development of the sector, to assess the significance of the sector, and to identify the major factors that promote or impede its continuing development. Read report
Foreign intervention and warfare in civil wars
16 November 2011
by Adam Lockyer
This article explains how foreign assistance to one or both sides in a civil war influences the dynamics of the conflict. It submits that external assistance has the potential of affecting the military capabilities available to the belligerents. It then argues that the balance of those capabilities impacts significantly on whether the warfare in a civil war assumes a conventional, guerrilla or irregular form. These theoretical assertions are tested against the case of the Angolan Civil War. It is shown that during that war, variations in the form of warfare correlated closely to the type, degree, and direction of foreign intervention given to each of the belligerents. Read article
Entrepreneurship in Australia: the missing links
22 September 2011
by Dr Fiona Q Wood
The purpose of this report is to provide an evidence-based context for understanding the importance of entrepreneurship to Australia’s economic prosperity, its link to innovation and how Australia compares with its competitors in fostering an entrepreneurial culture and mindset, particularly through immigration and education. Read report
Chinese–US economic relations after the Global Financial Crisis
14 July 2011
Garrett contributes to Rising China: Global Challenges and Opportunities (edited by Jane Golley and Ligang Song and published by ANU Press) with this chapter on the large and complex challenges facing Sino–American relations post-GFC. Read chapter
US-Australian Research Collaboration Survey
5 July 2011
The goal of this report is to explain the nature of the US-Australian research relationship, to review the scale and focus of recent collaborations, to analyse existing policy priorities, and to formulate ideas for nurturing constructive interactions in the future. Read report
2010 Annual Report
24 May 2011
Read about the Centre's achievements during 2010 in our Annual Report. Read Report
Leadership: What it means, what it does, and what we want to know about it
15 May 2011
by John S. Ahlquist and Margaret Levi
Leaders are part of virtually all organized political life. There have been important recent advances in modeling "leaders" as well as clever and innovative empirical studies. We review recent contributions from the political science, economics, and management literatures. We discuss the extent to which these new works represent advances over the major classic works on leadership and organization from the twentieth century. We identify important gaps, chief among them (a) theorizing a role for coercion, (b) modeling the endogenous emergence of leaders, and (c) empirically disentangling the effect of an individual leader from her office, especially when leaders emerge endogenously. Read Article
Advanced biofuels from micoalgae: A review of the industry in the USA and Australia
30 April 2011
Dr Susan Pond, Adjunct Professor for the Dow Sustainability Program, has compiled this report on the microalgal, advanced biofuels industry in the USA and Australia. It summarises the, scientific basis for microalgal biofuels as an alternative energy source, the state of development of the industry, the areas of uncertainty and opportunity, and the development of government policy. Read Report
VIDEOS & INTERVIEWS
Geoffrey Garrett says that Mitt Romney's greatest weakness is that many Americans see him as representing Wall Street: a place loathed even more at the moment than Capitol Hill.
Brendon O'Connor comments on the results of the South Carolina primary and looks ahead to Florida.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
