International trade policies and new technologies facilitate the flow of people, information, and products across national borders, in turn encouraging the integration of regional economies, societies, and cultures. RAND research has investigated how globalization affects and has been affected by policymaking throughout the world.
Today's global challenges demand RAND's innovative analysis. Old patterns of state-to-state and bloc-to-bloc relations are now eclipsed by global concerns that cut across functional disciplines and regional boundaries. Complex issues such as international security, transnational trade and investment, education, health care, information technology, and energy and environment are all topics that benefit from the multidisciplinary, uncompromising analytic approach of researchers in International Programs at RAND.
REPORT
Social media was used in the 2009 protests to organize and communicate under government censorship. An anaylsis of more than 2.5 million tweets discussing the Iran election holds promise for such policy uses as assessing public opinion and forecasting events such as large-scale protests.
REPORT
Globalization, consolidation, information technology, and litigation financing are changing the way legal services are provided in the United States. This paper offers a framework for examining recent and ongoing innovations in U.S. legal services to aid policymakers in understanding the likely effects of innovations and the role of policy in promoting or deterring innovation, and to provide criteria that policymakers might use to decide…
REPORT
This paper presents a theory of natural alliances in which commonalities in political culture are a strategic asset for better coordination and greater predictability among partners. It applies this theory to the case of the US-European alliance.
PERIODICAL
This RAND Review cover story describes RAND's research and analysis of sexual orientation and U.S. military personnel policy relating to the likely repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'
COMMENTARY
It's fashionable among academics and pundits to proclaim that the U.S. is in decline and no longer No. 1 in the world. The declinists say they are realists. In fact, their alarm is unrealistic, writes Charles Wolf, Jr.
COMMENTARY
What is significant about China's acquisitions over the past few years is the change they represent from the negligible amounts in the past, writes Charles Wolf, Jr.
COMMENTARY
When the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, those raised in the shadow of possible nuclear holocaust felt disbelief, followed by relief and hope that the end of the Cold War would bring lasting peace, and the end of conflict. And in Europe, at least, it mostly did – but not everywhere, writes Christopher S. Chivvis.
COMMENTARY
The increasing importance of the G-20 summits is testimony to the growing role emerging states now play in managing the international economy. But integrating these newcomers into the global community is unlikely to be straightforward or simple, writes Lowell H. Schwartz.
REPORT
The United States can become more energy efficient and create more "green" jobs by adopting some of the strategies used by the European Union and Australia to rate and disclose the performance of commercial and government-owned buildings.
COMMENTARY
The damage done by the financial crisis now seems to require not a refurbishing job but an extreme makeover. While soul-searching and even self-loathing are inevitable during a crisis, this is no time for America to shy away from a capitalist system that has produced decades of economic growth, writes Krishna Kumar.
REPORT
Will the current global economic recession have long-term geopolitical implications? Assuming that economic recovery begins in the first half of 2010, lasting structural alterations in the international system — a substantial change in U.S.-China relations, for example — are unlikely. This is because economic performance is only one of many geopolitical elements that shape countries' strategic intent and core external…
COMMENTARY
Alabama has made significant economic progress in recent decades, attracting car manufacturers and new industrial development. The state now has an opportunity to address some systemic challenges in education, health care, and workforce development to be competitive in a global economy, writes Melissa Flournoy.
COMMENTARY
For almost 15 years, Europe has led the world in protecting personal data. At the EU level, it has done this through the data-protection directive adopted in 1995. But surveys such as one carried out by Eurobarometer last year illustrate that Europeans now feel insufficiently protected, write Lorenzo Valeri and Neil Robinson.
NEWS RELEASE
Organized crime increasingly is involved in the piracy of feature films, with syndicates active along the entire supply chain from manufacture to street sales. While crime syndicates have added piracy to their criminal portfolios, the profits from film piracy also have been used on occasion to support the activities of terrorist groups.
REPORT
China's Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA) and Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA) can best spur regional development and economic growth by focusing on emerging high-technology applications, including molecular-scale drug development and green manufacturing.
COMMENTARY
A select few Americans will ever see the president's daily brief -- a digest of the intelligence community's most closely guarded secrets. But trust me, Barack Obama is going to need much more useful information than he is getting now, writes Gregory F. Treverton.
REPORT
As China has moved toward a stronger role for private enterprise and capitalism it has also sought to adopt more Western-style oversight mechanisms and legal standards for corporate governance - a history of which is found here with an examination of attendant problems and their policy implications.
REPORT
Many of the goods and services purchased by the U.S. Department of Defense are from industries that are often better suited to larger companies rather than smaller ones, complicating efforts to meet goals that about one-fourth of prime-contract dollars be awarded to small businesses.
REPORT
Education and labor market initiatives are under way in four Arab nations -- Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates -- to address the challenges of developing the human capital of their populations for the 21st century global economy, though better evaluation of the implemented reforms will be needed to determine their efficacy.
COMMENTARY
If the nation is to emerge from a recession in a position of strength, we should chart our course carefully now. The government bailout of the banking sector could yield a substantial payout one day—and now is the time to earmark that money for our knowledge sector, writes Jonathan Grant.
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