Since “diffusion of knowledge” is part of Carnegie Corporation’s mission, we would like to pass on news about five books that have been published recently, with Corporation support.

Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice

by Devaki Jain Indiana University Press

“The constructive impact of women’s ideas and leadership can be seen in nearly every field in which the UN has made significant contributions....This is an evolving history of which the reader gets a finely inclusive view under Devaki Jain’s extensive narrative.” —From the Foreword by Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Economics

Without the sustained contributions of women who have shared their strength and experience and refused to accept inequality, the United Nation’s approach to development would be far different from what it is today. In Women, Development, and the UN, respected economist and activist Devaki Jain traces the many ways women have enriched the work of the international body since its founding in 1945. Synthesizing insights from the extensive literature on the subject with her own expertise and southern hemisphere perspective, the author shows how programs aimed at benefiting women of developing nations have evolved over six decades, deftly connecting the dots between women’s ideas about rights, equality and social justice and present-day UN policies.

While Jain includes a great many pioneering and influential women in her account, she is more concerned with women and social movements than she is with individuals. She makes clear how the contributions of the four global women’s conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing fundamentally altered the situation for women in country after county by raising awareness, spreading ideas and creating alliances. The history she chronicles reveals both the achievements of committed networks of women in partnership with the UN and the urgent work remaining to bring equality and justice to all. “The world body has much work to do before women assume their proper place there,” Jain writes, and “sixty years is a long time to wait....The experience of the past six decades has shown that much can be accomplished when the synergy flows between the UN and the women’s movement.”

This volume is the latest in a series of books focusing on the intellectual history of the United Nations. Carnegie Corporation provides support for this project, which focuses on the UN as the creator and nurturer of ideas and concepts that have permeated international public policy.

Beyond the Gateway

Edited by Elz›bieta M. Goz´dziak and Susan F. Martin Lexington Books

Patterns of imigration in the United States have changed significantly over the past 20 years. While large numbers of newcomers still flock to the same major cities as in centuries past, a growing percentage of immigrants are following a less traveled path, arriving in destinations such as Salt Lake City, Utah; Greensboro, North Carolina; or Faribault, Minnesota. With scant experience encountering immigrants, these communities lack a tradition of tolerance toward “foreigners,” and the web of local relationships that fosters integration is in the formative stages at best. Typically, rapid growth in population, bringing increased demands on schools, housing, law enforcement and social services, has stressed these historically homogeneous communities, making the process of acceptance as trying for them as for the new arrivals. Myriad solutions have been conceived to meet these escalating needs; the results are mixed, and the reasons why are worth exploring.

Beyond the Gateway seeks to identify and share best practices in integration by bridging the gap in communication not only between immigrants and the institutions with which they interact, but also among widely diverse communities across the country. Edited by experts from the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University—a Carnegie Corpor-ation grantee—the book includes case studies, policy discussions and in-depth analyses from a multidisciplinary team of researchers whose work focuses on changes in the rural, suburban and urban landscapes of new immigration destinations. Investigations of ideas that have succeeded, and others that haven’t, aim to equip scholars and community leaders with tools for implementing effective social and economic integration strategies. Recognizing that “the United States is among the few post-industrial democracies in the world where immigration is at once history and destiny,” this collection can be a valuable aid to policymaking for future generations.

The Global Class War: How America’s Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future—and What It Will Take to Win It Back

By Jeff Faux Economic Policy Institute

In the view of many, our country’s governing class is indifferent to the fate of most other Americans. In The Global Class War, economist and Carnegie Scholar Jeff Faux explains the reasons behind what he sees as the rich and powerful elite’s abandonment of the social contract that had, until recently, united the economic interests of all Americans. Simply put, thanks to globalization, they can find workers and investment opportunities elsewhere.

According to Faux, the nation’s once-indispensable workforce has little or no clout in today’s transnational marketplace. Democratic and Republican interests aside, America’s bipartisan governing class protects its privileged members while consigning ordinary citizens to an unregulated and merciless global market. Today, trade agreements like NAFTA and international arbiters such as the World Trade Organization function as a global constitution—one that protects only the corporate investor. Huge numbers of American workers have been displaced, sending the country’s living standards on a downward slide sure to have dramatic political consequences.

There is a way to recover, Faux argues, and it requires nothing less than a new democratic political system that recognizes the common interests of ordinary citizens across Canada, Mexico and the United States. He proposes an original strategy for creating a model cross-border social contract that gets beyond the narrow “free-trade vs. protectionism” debate and brings democracy to the global economy, combined with a continental competitive strategy that has, as a first priority, to promote and protect a decent life for the ordinary citizens of North America. For better or worse, all the continent’s people now share an economic future. Only by uniting can they hope to build a world that works for all, and not just for the transnational elites.

Deadly Cultures Biological Weapons since 1945

Edited by Mark Wheelis, Lajos Rózsa and Malcolm Dando

Published by Harvard University Press

“In a little over 100 years we have moved from a situation of almost total ignorance to a significant understanding of pathogens and the diseases they, and the toxins they produce, cause in humans, animals and plants. Our already considerable capabilities to use this knowledge for good or, regrettably, for ill are being profoundly enhanced by the ongoing genomics revolution in the life sciences. There must indeed be a risk that in the coming century such knowledge may be used for hostile purposes and in warfare. “ —from Deadly Cultures

We now live in a world in which the basic knowledge needed to develop biological weapons is more widely available than ever before. The authors of Deadly Cultures—experts in such fields as microbiology, animal ecology and peace studies—contend that “ the importance of preventing biological warfare, terrorism, or criminality is more acute now than when the two major powers of the Cold War had lavish offensive [bioweapons] programs. The problem is serious, and lessons from history are urgently needed.” To prove the point, they guide readers through the history of the development of biological weapons in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, and the Soviet Union as well as Iraq and South Africa, exploring the topics of terrorism, disarmament, politics and legal constraints in considerable depth.

While the threat of biological weapons has not made headlines until the past five years, it has been evident for fifty years that biological agents could be used to cause mass casualties and large-scale economic damage. With research support from Carnegie Corporation, the authors set out to provide important historical analysis of these weapons over the past half-century, addressing three central issues: Why have states continued or begun programs for acquiring biological weapons? Why have states terminated biological weapons programs? How have states demonstrated that they have truly terminated their biological weapons programs? The answers to these questions, they hope, will encourage progressive action toward strengthening of the long-standing prohibition of biological weapons and head off a horrific new arms race before it can begin.

Party Lines Competition, Partisanship, and Congressional Redistricting

Edited by Thomas E. Mann and Bruce E. Cain

Published by Brookings Institution Press

The best insurance for a democracy is the competitive election of officeholders. Only when candidates vie for their seats can politicians be held accountable to the public. In the American system, the House of Representatives was envisioned as the one governing body that would be especially responsive to the wants and needs of citizens. However, the evolution of the redistricting process—best illustrated by the highly publicized gerrymandering in Texas, 2003—threatens this founding principle. Growing lack of competition, ideological polarization, and partisan manipulation of the electoral rules of the game are troubling signs of its demise.

Having state legislatures redraw district lines after the decennial census has long been a controversial practice, and recent developments reinforce the view that redistricting is unfairly dominated by self-serving elected officials and parties. In 2002, for example, only four House incumbents were defeated in the general election, the lowest in American history. Despite a hotly contested presidential contest in 2004, that number increased by only three. Small wonder that reformers are up in arms while the public’s faith in government seems to be at an all-time low.

In Party Lines, eminent political analysts search for solutions, explaining the legal and political history of redistricting and assessing its present state, including of the influence of technology. The authors (whose work has received Carnegie Corporation support) propose options for reform, among them the use of independent redistricting commissions as an alternative to the normal state legislative process. Gerrymandering, they conclude, is but one of the forces responsible for the ills of contemporary congressional elections; the geographical shifts of voters, regional realignment of parties and advantages of incumbency also play a part. Clearly, redistricting reform is no panacea for all the problems of our electoral system. On the other hand, it is not an unreasonable place to start.

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