This paper argues that success in the struggle for regional integration hinges foremost on the degree of heterogeneity among regional states. Regional organizations therefore must consider how to optimize their leverage to forge convergence that will foster agreement and cooperation. To do so,...

This paper examines the determinants of alignment in bilateral partnerships. While it was impossible to think about international cooperation without referring to the term "alliances" during much of the Cold War period, strategic partnerships have taken a central place in many states' diplomatic...

We study the effect of leadership in an experimental threshold public "bad" game, where we manipulate both the relative returns of two investments (the more productive of which causes a negative externality) and the extent to which the gains from leadership diffuse to the group. The game...

Achieving the Paris Agreement long-term temperature goal requires closing the ambition and action gap. G20 countries have a crucial role to play in realising increased climate policy ambition. Synthetic electro fuels (e-fuels) were identified as one of the key policy areas and promising options...

Containing the COVID-19 pandemic will confer global benefits that greatly exceed the costs, but effective solutions require the redistribution of vaccines, technology, and other scarce resources from high-income to low-income countries. The United States has played a central role in coordinating...

Multilateral cooperation initiatives (or “climate clubs”) can generate some of the additional action that is needed to achieve the goals agreed in the Paris Agreement. An analysis of the state of collaboration in the four policy areas energy transition, synthetic fuels, food systems and...

Tensions between national democratic accountability and transnational challenges undermine trust and collective action. Asymmetry between an integrated global economy, fragmented global community, and defective global polity, causes social turbulence. Facing technological disruption, we need a...

Ideally, to reduce energy insecurity, a nation needs to deploy a range of renewable energy (RE) sources. For Central Asian economies, renewable sources appear to be a rational choice; yet, the deployment of renewables is limited and varies substantially by country. Conventional statistics for RE...

The world is economically integrated, but socially fragmented. Thus economic progress can become decoupled from social progress. The G20 has traditionally focused on economic policy issues - economic growth and financial stability. This is appropriate as long as social progress is closely tied...