Why did the United States Invade Iraq in 2003?

Why did the United States invade Iraq in 2003? Most scholars cite the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a neoconservative desire to spread democracy, or the placating of domestic interest groups as the Bush administration’s objectives, but I suggest these arguments are flawed. Instead, I proffer the “performative war” thesis resting on the concepts of status, reputation, and hierarchy to explain the Iraq war. Hegemons desire generalized deterrence, such that others do not challenge their territory, preferences, or rule. However, the challenging of a hegemon’s authority—as occurred on 9/11—generates a need to assert hegemony and demonstrate strength to a global audience. Only fighting a war can demonstrate such strength; no peaceful bargain, even a lopsided one, can achieve the same effect. Consistent with this framework, the United States fought Iraq mainly for its demonstration effect—defeating the recalcitrant Saddam would lead other states to fear the United States and submit to its authority and global order.     

Vulnerability to Multi-Dimensional Poverty: An Empirical Comparison of Alternative Measurement Approaches

This paper investigates whether different measures of ex-post poverty and ex-ante vulnerability to poverty provide consistent estimates of poverty and vulnerability to poverty across households. Moreover, if there is some heterogeneity in the identification of households as poor and vulnerable, it investigates the degree of mismatch between measures? The ex-post monetary poverty (MP) and multidimensional poverty (MDP) measures are used to identify poor households. Likewise, the ex-ante vulnerability to monetary poverty (VMP) and vulnerability to multidimensional poverty (VMDP) measures are used to identify vulnerable households. Using a large household survey data-set of about 90,000 households from the Punjab province of Pakistan, we find that most of the vulnerable households are accurately identified by the ex-ante measures of vulnerability to poverty. However, the ex-post measures of poverty identify different households as poor. Our results show that 18 percent households experiencing MDP are not captured by the one-dimensional measure of MP. The important implication of this study is that the choice of measures does matter in ex-post poverty identification, but not as much in the identification of ex-ante vulnerability to poverty.     

Critical Reflections on the Proposal for a Mediation Act for Scotland

This article critically analyses the recent proposal to introduce a Mediation (Scotland) Bill. The proposed Bill aims to introduce a novel process of court-initiated mediation that will oblige litigating parties to attend a mandatory Mediation Information Session. Adopting a comparative approach with the English and Irish civil justice systems, this article analyses the key elements of the proposed Bill and makes proposals to improve it.     

Do Social Protection Transfers Reduce Poverty and Vulnerability to Poverty in Pakistan? Household Level Evidence from Punjab

Empirical studies in different developing countries have investigated the impact of social protection (SP) on ex-post poverty; however, few studies analysed the impact of SP on ex-ante vulnerability to poverty (VtP). This paper contributes to the literature by evaluating the impact of SP on vulnerability to poverty (VtP) and poverty rates among households in the Punjab province of Pakistan. A hierarchical modelling approach is used to analyse the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS-2011) data of about 90,000 households. Matching methods and simultaneous endogenous switching regression are used to control for potential selection bias and estimate average treatment effects. Our results show that SP has a positive impact in reducing household poverty and VtP, but this impact is mainly driven by a short-term flood relief cash transfer programme, pension of government employees and households’ regular purchase from utility store network.     

Looking Past the Indian Calorie Debate: What is Happening to Nutrition Transition in India

We utilise large national household datasets for 1993–1994, 2004–2005 and 2011–2012 to analyse factors influencing changing patterns in per capita calorie consumption in India. Our study findings demonstrate the significance of the disease environment in which people live, with those living in healthy areas having lower calorie consumption than those living in less healthy ones. Calorie intake has been falling in India, but the study findings reveal that fat calorie intake has been rising successively over time among the rural and poorer urban sub-populations raising concerns for policy-makers that non-communicable diseases are expected to rise for these vulnerable population groups.     

Do nuclear weapons affect the guns-butter trade-off? Evidence on nuclear substitution from Pakistan and beyond

Scholars have argued that acquiring nuclear weapons should allow states the luxury of exiting conventional arms races. In turn, a decreased budgetary focus on conventional arms should make possible greater spending on social welfare. I contest this logic of nuclear substitution by examining its most likely exponent, Pakistan. As a poor, under-developed state, a nuclear Pakistan should have welcomed the opportunity to cease its arms race with India, and spend greater sums on its population's welfare. Instead, I show Pakistan has doubled down on its pre-nuclear conventional posture, mainly because of its revisionism over Kashmir. More generally, I show nuclear substitution should happen only rarely: when a state is satisfied with the territorial status-quo, and its security challenges are amenable to pure nuclear deterrence. An empirical overview of conventional postures in Britain, China, France, India, Israel, the Soviet Union and the United States shows these conditions are met rarely, and never sustained. The argument has implications concerning the marginal welfare effects of nuclear weapons, the stability-instability paradox in South Asia and the standoff between Iran and the West.     

Problems of Coordination in Field Administration in Bangladesh: Does Informal Communication Matter?

The main thrust of the article is to analyze the state of problems of inter-organizational coordination in the upazila (second tier of local government) in Bangladesh. It also explains to what extent informal communication matters for inter-organizational coordination. Based on empirical data collected in 2009, findings of the study suggest that a number of factors have facilitated non-existence of inter-organizational coordination at the upazila. These factors include lack of division of activities, dualism in control over officers, lack of proper functioning of the committees, and dual authority in disbursement of funds and its impact on timely disbursement. Findings also suggest that in the absence of coordination among different departments, informal communication has been observed to be one of the prominent mechanisms of ensuring coordination. However, existence of factors like lack of willingness to be engaged in informal communication and lack of cooperation has hindered the process of building informal communication among different departments. Despite having some problems this research has concluded that informal communication has helped the process of coordination among different departments while they are carrying out their responsibilities.