Recommended Weekend Reads

May 24 - 27, 2024

Here are our recommended reads from reports and articles we read in the last week. We hope you find these useful and that you have a relaxing weekend.   And let us know if you or someone you know wants to be added to our distribution list. 

European Union Elections 2024

• European Parliament Elections 2024: What Is at Stake?    Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy/ZBW/CEPS

  In June 2024, EU citizens will vote in the European Parliament elections – two years into Russia’s war in Ukraine and on European values, after the COVID-19 pandemic and the finalization of Brexit, and with the possibility of Donald Trump winning the US presidential election later this year. In a turbulent geopolitical environment, the European Parliament elections will reshape the political landscape in Brussels, where traditional parties are being challenged and an increasing tilt towards right-wing governance is unmistakable. The current European Commission has adopted several major legislative initiatives, but a new Commission may set new priorities and take a different political direction. In the lead-up to the elections, this Forum focuses on some of the issues that will take center stage for voters and define the next phase of European politics.

• EU Election 2024: Complete Guide to News, Polls, and Key Players   Politico EU

  The 2024 European Parliamentary elections are going to be held from June 6 – 9.  It is the first European Parliamentary election since Brexit (of which the UK’s previous seats were distributed to other countries)and will elect 720 members of the European Parliament to choose the European Commission President and help to decide the makeup of the European Commission going forward.  This election is expected to be one of the more contentious as a number of far-right parties have emerged as ahead in polls.  This site carries all the latest polls and analysis of what is going on election-wise.

• Winds of Change: The EU’s green agenda after the European Parliament election   European Council on Foreign Relations

  The next European Commission and Parliament are likely to place security and competitiveness at the center of their quest for a more geopolitical Europe.  With concerns about the costs of the green transition, growing trade tensions between the US and China, and uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the US presidential election and Russia’s war on Ukraine, the EU will probably find it much harder to make further progress on climate action over the next five years. These geopolitical developments – and the way the EU responds to them – will have far-reaching consequences for the EU’s trade and technology decisions, fossil fuel phase-out, and climate diplomacy. The case for climate action remains clear, including its role in European security and competitiveness. In this challenging context, climate progressives will have to deploy compelling narratives, strategic resourcing, and diplomatic engagement to advance the best possible climate agenda during the EU’s next institutional cycle.
  

• The Front-Runners for the Next European Commission   Politico EU

  The European Commission’s top jobs will all soon be up for grabs again after next month’s European election. Which country will get the all-powerful trade commissioner job and oversee the EU’s impending trade war with China? Will the Poles secure a newly created defense portfolio to square up to their arch-rivals, the Russians? And who will get to police U.S. tech giants like Apple and Google as Europe’s next competition chief? Even before the June 6-9 election, maneuvering is underway to net the prize slots. Each of the EU’s 27 countries gets a commissioner job in the highly political post-election carve-up, but there’s a tooth-and-nail fight to determine who gets what. Trade and competition are the blue-ribbon portfolios with genuine power; those involving sport, education, and multilingualism are the kiss of death.   

India

• India’s Engagement with the Middle East Reflects New Delhi’s Changing Worldview   War on the Rocks

  In the early 1990s, India responded to the end of the Cold War with a new “Look East” policy, which it subsequently rebranded as “Act East” in 2014. Today, India has developed a “Think West” policy focused on what those in the West call the Middle East. So which way is India thinking, looking, and acting today?

Africa

• Rethinking US Africa Policy Amid Changing Geopolitical Realities   Texas National Security Review

  Since 2020, Africa has seen more political unrest, violent extremism, and democratic reversals than any other region in the world. A wave of coups has washed across the Sahel and West Africa, leaving authoritarians in power in numerous countries. In addition, the continent has served as a stage for the escalating great-power competition between China, Russia, and the United States. U.S. engagement with Africa has long been deprioritized in Washington, with successive administrations devoting scant attention and resources to advancing democracy and resolving conflicts. Thus far, the Biden administration has maintained this pattern, which reflects the persistent tension between an interests-based and values-based U.S. foreign policy. Nevertheless, there are a few actions the United States can take to reinvigorate democracy and stabilize the region, such as emphasizing development and diplomacy over military responses and stepping up cooperation with allies and partners to reduce the influence of China and Russia.

Political Economy

• Austerity, economic vulnerability, and populism    American Journal of Political Science

  Governments have repeatedly adjusted fiscal policy in recent decades. We examine the political effects of these adjustments in Europe since the 1990s using both district-level election outcomes and individual-level voting data. We expect austerity to increase populist votes, but only among economically vulnerable voters, who are hit the hardest by austerity. We identify economically vulnerable regions as those with a high share of low-skilled workers, workers in manufacturing, and in jobs with a high routine-task intensity. The
  analysis of district-level elections demonstrates that austerity increases support for populist parties in economically vulnerable regions,  but has little effect in less vulnerable regions. The individual-level analysis confirms these findings. Our results suggest that the success of populist parties hinges on the government’s failure to protect the losers of structural economic change. The economic origins of populism are thus not purely external; the populist backlash is triggered by internal factors, notably public policies

• Social Security’s Financial Reality is Worse Than Reported   American Enterprise Institute

  The Social Security Trustees recently released their annual Report on the projected finances of the program. The media, advocates, and the Commissioner himself trumpeted that the Report had good news: The program’s finances have improved over the prior year, the projected Trust Fund exhaustion date had moved out a year to 2035, and the automatic benefit cuts upon insolvency were smaller, 17 percent instead of the 20 percent estimated in the prior year’s Report.  A closer look, however, reveals this optimism is misplaced.  The report fails to accurately reflect long-term declines in fertility rates. When the trend toward lower fertility is incorporated accurately in future Reports, the picture of the program’s finances will look much worse, and therefore, the realistic cost of needed reforms will rise.

• Consulting Firms Have Stumbled Into a Geopolitical Minefield   Foreign Policy

  Not so long ago, consultancies and other information brokers could work easily with different clients in different countries. Just as they talked to competing firms, they advised competing governments. But what may have seemed banal then may now be depicted as smoking gun evidence that companies are helping the enemy. For decades, business leaders assumed that globalization meant market expansion. Their big worry was gaining and keeping market share and competing with their rivals. Now, they are being thrown unprepared into a world where globalization means geopolitical risk—and information is the riskiest asset of all.

• How Do US Firms Withstand Foreign Industrial Policies?   National Bureau of Economic Research

  China’s industrial policies (“Five-Year Plans”) displace U.S. production/employment and heighten plant closures in the same industries as those targeted by the policies in China. The impact was not anticipated by the stock market, but U.S. companies in the "treated industries" suffered a valuation loss afterward. Firms shift production to upstream or downstream industries benefiting from the boost or offshore to government-endorsed industries in China. Such within-firm adjustments offset the direct impact. U.S. firms are better able to withstand foreign government interventions provided that they enjoy flexibility, including preexisting business toeholds in the "beneficiary" industries, financial access, and labor fluidity.