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2019-11-11
Rockefeller Archive Center;
My dissertation examines the role of smart power in U.S.-Spain relations during the Spanish transition to democracy. The archives of the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) held several collections that enriched my analysis of the development of soft power by the United States in Spain. At the archives, I found records on the movement of Pablo Picasso's Guernica from the Museum of Modern Art to the Prado in Madrid, Nelson Rockefeller's impact on the Spanish transition, how the Ford Foundation and Peter Fraenkel helped administer Spanish educational reforms and exchanges of the 1970s, and how human rights played a vital role in the Spanish transition.
2019-11-08
Center for Economic and Policy Research;
This paper presents results from statistical analysis of election returns and tally sheets from Bolivia's October 20 elections. This analysis finds no evidence that irregularities or fraud affected the official result that gave President Evo Morales a first-round victory. The paper presents a step-by-step breakdown of what happened with Bolivia's vote counts (both the unofficial quick count, and the slower official count), seeking to dispel confusion over the process. The report includes the results of 500 simulations that show that Morales's first-round victory was not just possible, but probable, based on the results of the initial 83.85 percent of votes in the quick count.
2019-10-21
Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York;
After 1990, US and European foundations and government agencies invested in a series of Partnerships and Trusts to support civil society in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, the Balkans and the Black Sea regions. Analyzing the long-term impact of these investments is crucial, especially as many politicians across these regions increase their anti-civil society rhetoric. Three long-time US foundation staff look back at the legacy and impact of this funding and derive a series of lessons for practitioners seeking to understand how best to sustain civil societies for the long term.
2019-09-24
Rockefeller Archive Center;
One of the primary goals of the founders of the National Committee on United States-China Relations was to encourage discussion of China policy. In 1966, when they formed the group, there was little debate on the topic, and much public ignorance concerning current and recent events on the Chinese mainland. While the NCUSCR as an organization took no political positions, its leaders all supported ending the U.S. isolation of the Chinese Communists and pursuing a new policy of outreach and rapprochement. This occasioned some opposition from conservatives who supported existing policies, and who saw the Committee as a de facto lobby, despite its leaders' protestations of non-partisanship and its tax-exempt status as a non-political organization. Within less than five years, the Committee appeared to become a victim of its own success. Discussion of the issue was uncontroversial, and President Nixon had begun the process of outreach to China. The organization gave serious consideration to closing up shop. Yet rapprochement, while threatening one primary mission, increased opportunities to pursue the other: public education, particularly in the form of cultural exchanges. This gave the group new relevance and renewed public prominence, allowing it to maintain its presence and persevere.
2019-08-15
Joyce Foundation;
This document reviews the Joyce Foundation's 25-year history of grant making to advance gun violence prevention research. Since 1993, the Joyce Foundation has provided support to researchers who have produced hundreds of scientific publications and innumerable insights about gun violence in the United States, and its solutions. This is necessarily an incomplete accounting, but provides an approximate measure of the unique impact of the Joyce Foundation's grant making during a critical time period when few other private or public funders supported the field.
2019-08-01
ERSTE Stiftung;
Presently, the culture of open discussion seems to be threatened in an increasing number of countries. In Central and Eastern Europe's (CEE's) democracies, recent political developments appear to jeopardize progresses made in the past. Against this background, this study aims at shedding light on the dynamics of CEE'scivil society and gives a brief overview of the status quo and recent developments that directly affect civil society.
The study was conducted by the Competence Center for Nonprofit Organizations and Social Entrepreneurship at WU Vienna (Vienna University of Economics and Business), commissioned by and in collaboration with ERSTE foundation as well as with a group of country experts. The inclusion of expert assessments on civil society aims at giving a voice primarily to practitioners. Therefore, the study included an online survey in each participating country, addressing CSO representatives operating in various fields of activity.
2019-08-01
CIVICUS;
In this report, we present a summary of our findings, which we hope will contribute to depicting the funding landscape for CSOs in Latin America. We do so with the ambition of stimulating debates based on empirical evidence, rethinking civil society funding practices and promoting actions that democratise access to predictable flows of resources to strengthen the autonomy, sustainability and diversity of civil society.
2019-07-26
Achieve, Inc.;
This report summarizes findings from a decade of surveys conducted after the Millennial Impact Project was launched in 2009 to explore how Americans born between 1980 and 2000 engage with causes. This research – which created the largest body of data and analysis on how U.S. millennials interact with causes – demonstrates why and how the nation's youngest generation of adults has engaged in doing good, how they have changed philanthropy, what they expect of the public, private, nonprofit and government sectors in addressing societal challenges and the consequences of ignoring their powerful influence.
2019-04-29
Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning;
The current study explores the relationship between participation in college service-learning (SL) experiences, in both academic courses and co-curricular programs, and post-college civic engagement. Using data from a purposeful sample of 1,066 alumni from 30 campuses who participated in the 20th Anniversary Bonner Scholars Study, we explored the extent to which SL experiences during the college years were related to civic outcomes post-graduation, particularly in terms of civic-minded orientations, volunteering, and civic action. When evaluating various attributes of SL programs (e.g., curricular, co-curricular programming, types of reflection, dialogue across difference, interactions with others), two components were particularly salient. Dialogue with others across difference was the strongest predictor of cultivating civic outcomes after college. In addition, both structured and informal reflection independently contributed to civic outcomes (i.e., civic-mindedness, voluntary action, civic action). The results suggested the Pathways to Adult Civic Engagement (PACE) model, which can be used to examine SL programming in higher education and to guide future research to understand how variations in SL program attributes influence civic outcomes years after graduation.
2019-04-29
Peace and Security Funders Group;
Each year, Candid and the Peace and Security Funders Group collects and analyzes data from thousands of grants awarded by hundreds of peace and security funders. We do this for two primary reasons: to illuminate the field of peace and security grantmaking, and to provide a nuanced understanding of the issues and strategies peace and security funders support. In 2016 -- the latest year complete data is available -- 326 foundations awarded 2,605 grants, totaling $328 million in support of a more peaceful world.
2019-04-01
Center for Economic and Policy Research;
This paper looks at some of the most important impacts of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the US government since August of 2017. It finds that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population.
The sanctions reduced the public's caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They exacerbated Venezuela's economic crisis and made it nearly impossible to stabilize the economy, contributing further to excess deaths. All of these impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Even more severe and destructive than the broad economic sanctions of August 2017 were the sanctions imposed by executive order on January 28, 2019 and subsequent executive orders this year; and the recognition of a parallel government, which as shown below, created a whole new set of financial and trade sanctions that are even more constricting than the executive orders themselves.
We find that the sanctions have inflicted, and increasingly inflict, very serious harm to human life and health, including an estimated more than 40,000 deaths from 2017–2018; and that these sanctions would fit the definition of collective punishment of the civilian population as described in both the Geneva and Hague international conventions, to which the US is a signatory. They are also illegal under international law and treaties which the US has signed, and would appear to violate US law as well.
2019-02-06
Carsey School of Public Policy at The University of New Hampshire;
This brief examines demographic trends in rural America, a region often overlooked in a nation dominated by urban interests. Yet, 46 million people live in rural areas that encompass 72 percent of the land area of the United States. "Rural America" is a simple term that describes a remarkably diverse collection of people and places. It encompasses vast agricultural regions that are among the most productive in the world; sprawling exurban areas just beyond the urban fringe; successful ultra-modern industrial, energy, and warehousing complexes strung along rural interstates; regions where coal, ore, oil, gas, and timber are extracted, processed, and shipped; struggling factory towns facing intense global competition; and fast-growing recreational areas situated near scenic mountains and lakes.
