Welcome to the Summer 2012 issue of the Yale Review of International Studies. It has been an exciting couple of months for YRIS—we just wrapped up our speaker series—and we are happy to publish our second issue of the year which highlights a variety of issues and parts of the world, questions and topics that perhaps you will engage with and work on in the summer months to come.
One of the more consequential recent political scandals has been the fall from grace of Bo Xilai, and Adrian Lo explains the consequences of Bo’s dismissal on China’s political scene and the upcoming transition in the Politburo Standing Committee. Marissa Benavides explores a softer side to Chinese power, and Micah Handler focuses on another unconventional tool of diplomacy in his analysis of the Seeds of Peace camps and their mediating role between Israel and Palestine. While tensions between those countries are quieter now, this spring saw a rise in prospects for conflict between Iran and the United States (and Israel). Vinicius Lindoso analyses these events in the context of the Iraq War, and Casper Alexander revisits the controversial use of private military contractors in that fighting.
Economic news, previously dismal, now perhaps just bad, has dominated international relations recently, and Frank Costa discusses Italy’s precarious position and the larger challenge of fiscal imbalances in the European Union. Kyle Hutzler turns to India’s financial sector to take stock of how financial reforms have, and have not, helped fuel the growth of the world’s largest democracy. Even more than suspect sovereign bonds, soaring carbon emissions may doom us, and Rachel Payne reviews international works and treaties to prompt action against global warming. The failures of such efforts will be felt by tribes like the Huaorani in Ecaudor, and Amelia Earnest and Dennis Wang tell how they bear the brunt—in both spoilt environment and short-lived opportunities—of the oil industry’s search for new fossil fuels. Against this modern economic imperialism, Jordan Laris Cohen goes back to emergent nationalisms during the Cold War that rebelled against colonial forms of international domination.
Abhimanyu Chandra returns to The Reluctant Fundamentalist and argues for its dasngerous relevance even a few years after its publication, while Grayson Clary looks at the much talked-about Why Nations Fail and encourages us to continue discussing this stimulating book.
It has been a pleasure serving as Editor in Chief this year, and I look forward to reading and enjoying YRIS next year and in the years to come.
Sincerely,
Ramon Javier Gonzalez, Editor in chief