Indian coast guards ride on a boat near the Russian-built Kudankulam Atomic Power Project, Oct. 8, 2012 (AP photo by Arun Sankar K).

On June 22, India announced that it had ratified an additional protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), marking the country’s latest measure to implement a controversial nuclear cooperation agreement reached with the United States in 2008. However, this marginal step forward should not obscure the fact that the pact has yet to produce the promised economic benefits for the two countries. Meanwhile, its strategic benefits have been decidedly mixed, including striking a significant blow to the nonproliferation regime. Between 2005 and 2008, the Bush administration and the Indian government reached agreement and won support in their legislatures and […]

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Caracas, Venezuela, May 1, 2014 (AP photo by Alejandro Cegarra).

In retrospect, Venezuela’s shortage of toilet paper, which began in September 2013 and continues today, was an ominous sign. Venezuelans, even the most ardent admirers of the late President Hugo Chavez, now admit that it was a troubling metaphor for all that ailed the nation. President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s anointed heir, has struggled from the moment his mentor named him as his successor. He faced countless crises: an economy circling the drain, crime rates skyrocketing and huge protests from the opposition. And that was just the beginning. Now his popular approval ratings have taken a sharp nosedive amid a worsening […]

A general view of the city of Tiraspol, Transistria, Oct. 23, 2013 (Press Association photo by Simon Peach via AP).

Last week, three former Soviet republics—Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova—signed association agreements with the European Union. All three countries contain breakaway territories that Russia either effectively controls or directly supports. While the world was riveted by Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008, and the crisis over Ukraine’s eastern regions continues to make headlines, far less attention has been paid to the case of Moldova. On the country’s eastern edge, between the Dniester River and the border with Ukraine, sits Transnistria, a self-declared state home to about 500,000 people of mostly Slavic descent that announced its independence during the collapse of the […]

Informal finance is ancient. What is it, and does it still have a place in today’s economies? Throughout the first half of the 19th century and into the 1970s, informal finance was studied by anthropologists under the heading of indigenous or traditional organizations. In the 1970s, technical assistance agencies rediscovered these organizations in the context of self-help based on savings, a concept that had been central to the credit cooperative movement founded in the 19th century by the German mayor Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. In the 1980s, self-help groups (SHGs) came to be known as informal financial institutions, and their reputation […]

The financial industry is commonly described as one of the most influential in politics. The numbers certainly support this impression. In terms of lobbying expenditures in the United States, the banking sector outspent even the health care sector. Few industries have comparable resources available and have been able to establish such a strong institutional presence. In many countries, top bankers and high-ranking public officials meet frequently; revolving doors between the two worlds are common; and the technical complexity of financial regulation makes consultation with the industry at all levels of decision-making a necessity. Accordingly, commentators in the media and academia […]

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Multilateral development banks (MDBs) have long played an important role in international development finance. Subregional development banks (SRDBs) have had a more limited function, until the emergence of a few dynamic institutions in recent years. This paper explores the origins of MDBs and SRDBs; considers key issues and trends in their purpose, governance and financing; and explores challenges and opportunities that MDBs and SRDBs face in a changing global development environment. Origins of Multilateral and Subregional Development Banks The current international monetary and development architecture has a long history, going back to the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and […]

South Korean President Park Geun-hye embarks from Seoul Airport, South Korea, March 1, 2015 (Korean Culture and Information Service photo by Jeon Han).

South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s high-profile six-day visit to Central Asia last week imparted further momentum to her “Eurasia initiative,” intended to deepen South Korean ties with that energy-rich but geopolitically volatile region. The trip also highlighted South Korea’s value to Washington at a time when the U.S. role and influence in the region is declining due to the ebbing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and strained relations between the United States and the other two great powers active in the region, Russia and China. Park announced her Eurasia initiative last October. The declared goal is to remove physical and […]

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