A team led by FSE fellow David Lobell has found a valuable, untapped resource in historical data from crop yield trials conducted across sub-Saharan Africa. Combined with weather records, they show that yield losses would occur across 65 percent of maize-growing areas from a temperature rise of a single degree Celsius, even with sufficient water. Data from yield tests in other regions of the world could help predict changes in crop yields from climate change.

A hidden trove of historical crop yield data from Africa shows that corn - long believed to tolerate hot temperatures - is a likely victim of global warming.

Stanford agricultural scientist David Lobell and researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) report in the inaugural issue of Nature Climate Change next week that a clear negative effect of warming on maize - or corn - production was evident in experimental crop trial data conducted in Africa by the organization and its partners from 1999 to 2007.

Led by Lobell, the researchers combined data from 20,000 trials in sub-Saharan Africa with weather data recorded at stations scattered across the region. They found that a temperature rise of a single degree Celsius would cause yield losses for 65 percent of the present maize-growing region in Africa - provided the crops received the optimal amount of rainfall. Under drought conditions, the entire maize-growing region would suffer yield losses, with more than 75 percent of areas predicted to decline by at least 20 percent for 1 degree Celsius of warming.

"The pronounced effect of heat on maize was surprising because we assumed maize to be among the more heat-tolerant crops," said Marianne Banziger, co-author of the study and deputy director general for research at CIMMYT."

"Essentially, the longer a maize crop is exposed to temperatures above 30 C, or 86 F, the more the yield declines," she said. "The effect is even larger if drought and heat come together, which is expected to happen more frequently with climate change in Africa, Asia or Central America, and will pose an added challenge to meeting the increasing demand for staple crops on our planet."

Similar sources of information elsewhere in the developing world could improve crop forecasting for other vast regions where data has been lacking, according to Lobell, who is lead author of the paper describing the study.

"Projections of climate change impacts on food production have been hampered by not knowing exactly how crops fair when it gets hot," Lobell said. "This study helps to clear that issue up, at least for one important crop."

While the crop trials have been run for many years throughout Africa, to identify promising varieties for release to farmers, nobody had previously examined the weather at the trial sites and studied the effect of weather on the yields, said Lobell, who is an assistant professor of environmental earth system science and fellow at Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment.

"These trials were organized for completely different purposes than studying the effect of climate change on the crops," he said. "They had a much shorter term goal, which was to get the overall best-performing strains into the hands of farmers growing maize under a broad range of conditions."

The data recorded at the yield testing sites did not include weather information. Instead, the researchers used data gathered from weather stations all over sub-Saharan Africa. Although the stations were operated by different organizations, all data collection was organized by the World Meteorological Organization, so the methods used were consistent.

Lobell then took the available weather data and interpolated between recording stations to infer what the weather would have been like at the test sites. By merging the weather and crop data, the researchers could examine climate impacts.

"It was like sending two friends on a blind date - we weren't sure how it would go, but they really hit it off," Lobell said.

Previously, most research on climate change impacts on agriculture has had to rely on crop data from studies in the temperate regions of North America and Europe, which has been a problem.

"When you take a model that has been developed with data from one kind of environment, such as a temperate climate, and apply it to the rest of the world, there are lots of things that can go wrong" Lobell said, noting that much of the developing world lies in tropical or subtropical climates.

But he said many of the larger countries in the developing world, such as India, China and Brazil, which encompass a wide range of climates, are running yield testing programs that could be a source of comparable data. Private agribusiness companies are also increasingly doing crop testing in the tropics.

"We're hoping that with this clear demonstration of the value of this kind of data for assessing climate impacts on crops that others will either share or take a closer look themselves at their data for various crops," Lobell said.

"I think we may just be scratching the surface of what can be achieved by combining existing knowledge and data from the climate and agriculture communities. Hopefully this will help catalyze some more effort in this area."

Lobell is a Center Fellow at the Program on Food Security and the Environment, a joint program of Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The work was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation

 

President Obama's vision of a "world free of nuclear weapons" -- first enunciated in Prague in April 2009 -- has been derided by his critics as a utopian fantasy that will have no influence on the nuclear strategies of other nations.

But in a special issue of The Nonproliferation Review, entitled Arms, Disarmament, and Influence: International Responses to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, 13 prominent researchers from around the world examined foreign governments' policy responses to Obama's 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the landmark document published a year and a day after his Prague speech.

They found that many nations, though not all, had been "strongly influenced by Washington's post-Prague policy and nuclear posture developments," which reduced the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national strategy, and assured non-nuclear nations that the U.S. would never use nuclear arms against them provided they remained in compliance with their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Indeed, the 11 case studies presented "demonstrate that U.S. pronouncements and actions influenced bureaucratic infighting and domestic debates inside a number of important foreign governments, and that some of these governments have adjusted their own policies and actions accordingly."

Read the full report here.

See a presentation about the report here, or listen to a different one here.

Read CISAC co-director Scott Sagan's essay on "Obama's Disarming Influence" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  

Read Thomas Fingar's essay on "How China Views U.S. Policy" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 

Highlights:

* Russia adopted a nuclear doctrine that was considerably more moderated than it would have been had the United States not pushed ahead with its own policy changes. In the run up to the April 2010 publication of the NPR, Washington "reset" relations with Russia, ended the deployment of missile defense components in Poland and the Czech Republic, and resumed the disarmament negotiations that ultimately led to the ratification of the New START treaty. As a result of this process, and continuous consultation with Russia about the NPR, Moscow narrowed the role of nuclear weapons in its policy and the range of circumstances in which it would consider using them. (page 39)

* "The most important short-term success of Obama's nuclear weapons policy," along with the "Prague Spirit," has been to halt the erosion of the NPT. "Obama's policies helped extract a minimum positive result from the 2010 NPT Review Conference, a favorable outcome compared to the chaos that his predecessor's representatives had created at the 2005 conference." The Obama policy was welcomed as a positive development, which allowed "key players, such as Egypt and Brazil, to strive for compromise, and others, such as Russia and China, not to block it." (page 219)

* The U.S. effort to encourage other governments to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their policy was successful in the United Kingdom, which adopted a nuclear posture that was very similar to that to the U.S. (page 238)

* Due in large part to the Obama policy, some of the non-nuclear weapons states in NATO began to push for the removal of sub-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe. At the November 2010 NATO summit, members agreed to a new Strategic Concept that called for negotiations with Russia and a linkage between the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons in NATO Europe to comparable reductions in western Russia. (page 238)

* Obama's new nuclear doctrine was a driving force behind a May 2010 agreement among 189 nations at the Nonproliferation Review Conference to a set of disarmament objectives and steps to reinforce the nuclear non-proliferation regime. (page 238)

* The Obama disarmament initiatives encouraged Indonesia's decision to begin the process of ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. (page 238)

* China continues to view Washington's nuclear doctrine with suspicion. Although Beijing viewed the 2010 NPR favorably compared to its 2001 predecessor, it still found serious cause for concern. This is partly the result of timing: the NPR came out amid a period of rising tension between U.S. and China. It also reflected a tendency among Chinese leaders to view virtually all U.S. doctrine and actions as part of a concerted effort to constrain its rise. In this view, the NPR would foster comparisons between nuclear decreases in Russia and the U.S., and increases in China, and be used as leverage to force Beijing to engage in an expensive conventional arms race. In keeping with this China-centric view, Chinese officials were also concerned about the U.S. military's continued development of missile defense capabilities. (page 243)

* Many non-nuclear weapons states--such as Egypt, Brazil, and South Africa--emphasize their opposition to any constraints being placed on their right to enjoy the benefits of civilian nuclear energy. Some of their opposition is "due to post-colonial sensitivity about any apparent inequality in the terms of international agreements that divide the world into 'haves' and 'have-nots.'" Others are engaged in bargaining, waiting to see what nuclear-weapons states will do regarding disarmament before offering to accept more constraints on nuclear technology development. Some governments also appear to be engaged in "hedging behavior--protecting their ability to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium" to be closer to acquiring nuclear weapons in the future, should they choose to do so. This may be disappointing for Washington policymakers, but it should not be surprising. After all, the U.S. employs a similar "hedging strategy" in its management of its own nuclear stockpile. As a result, it is imperative to begin discussions of how to reduce the danger of both kinds of nuclear hedging behavior. (page 255)

* The Obama administration must continue "to ensure there is consistency and discipline in the messages" emanating from the military and the government bureaucracy. Some foreign governments viewed the NPR's guarantees as mere rhetoric. "Such a skeptical view is encouraged whenever a senior US military officer makes statements that reflect a lack of understanding or lack of discipline regarding nuclear use policy." Even after the NPR was released, a top U.S. general insisted that the United States had not altered its "calculated ambiguity" policy. (page 258)

 

The special issue of the Nonproliferation Review was coordinated by Scott D. Sagan, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and Jane Vaynman, a PhD candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University, and a National Security Studies Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. The journal is published by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and it is edited by Stephen Schwartz.

Authors:

Irma Argüello is founder and chair of the NPSGlobal Foundation, a private nonprofit initiative that focuses on improving global security and reducing risks stemming from WMD proliferation.

Ralph A. Cossa is President of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu. He is senior editor of the Forum's quarterly electronic journal, Comparative Connections. 

Ambassador Nabil Fahmy is the founding Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo. He is also the Chair of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies' Middle East Project.

Thomas Fingar is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow and Senior Scholar in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

Brad Glosserman is Executive Director of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu. Mr. Glosserman is co-editor of Comparative Connections, the Pacific Forum's quarterly electronic journal, and writes, along with Ralph Cossa, the regional review.

S. Paul Kapur is associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a faculty affiliate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Mustafa Kibaroglu is an Assistant Professor at Bilkent University.

Michael Krepon is the co-founder of the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank specializing in national and international security problems. 

Harald Müller is executive director of Peace Research Institute Frankfurt and Professor at International Relations at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Pavel Podvig is an independent analyst based in Geneva, Switzerland, where he manages the research project Russian Nuclear Forces.

Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. He also serves as the co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Science's Global Nuclear Future Initiative.

Scott Snyder is Director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at The Asia Foundation, Senior Associate at Pacific Forum CSIS, and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Korean Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jane Vaynman is a PhD candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University and a National Security Studies Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

^{The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), is an interdisciplinary university-based research and training center addressing some of the world's most difficult security problems with policy-relevant solutions. The Center is committed to scholarly research and to giving independent advice to governments and international organizations.}

 

 

 

After the peaceful mass uprising that toppled one of the world's oldest autocracies, it is now possible to imagine the emergence of a genuine democracy in Egypt-the most important country in the Arab world. The very possibility of it marks an historic turning point for the entire region. However, there is a long and often treacherous distance between the demise of an authoritarian regime and the rise of a democracy.

With no experience of democracy in recent decades, and no apparent government leadership that is committed to bringing it about, Egypt's transition faces more formidable challenges than the transitions that led to democracy in recent decades in countries like Spain, Greece, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Indonesia, and Ukraine. (Which isn't to say these were easy: We forget how difficult each of these transitions seemed at the time, and how fraught they were with dangers and uncertainties.) With an energized civil society and deep resources of youthful talent, creativity, and mobilizing skill, Egypt has a real chance to get to democracy in the next few years. But doing so will require a keen analysis of the numerous potential traps that could sandbag the process.

The first trap is the Machiavellian opaqueness of the aging generals who are now running the country. Beginning with the Defense Minister (and now junta leader) Mohamed Tantawi, until a few days ago a close ally of the deposed President Mubarak, Egypt's new military rulers cannot be trusted to structure the political process and emergent rules in a way that will favor genuine democracy. Their principal goal, it appears, is to preserve as much of the old order as possible-Mubarakism without Mubarak (the father or the son). This means another round of the old shell game of Arab regimes-what Daniel Brumberg has called "liberalized autocracy." The process of liberalization-which runs in cycles, and which countries like Morocco and Jordan have seen many iterations of-institutes just enough change in the rules and faces to give the appearance of movement toward democracy without any of the dangers (for the ruling elite). But the changes, imposed from above, stop well short of the sweeping institutional transformations that would open wide the political arena (and the functioning of government) while leveling the playing field.

In their initial "communiqués," Egypt's ruling generals show signs of treading down this duplicitous path. Their initial choices have evinced the seductive veneer of democratic change but the closure and control of authoritarian continuity. To begin with, there appears so far to be little consultation with democratic forces in determining the character and pace of transition. Despite opposition demands, emergency rule remains in place, and so do many political prisoners. The military's initial decisions have been unilateral and preemptory. We learn there will be a constitution drafted within two months, followed by a referendum. A respected retired judge will head the process. This will produce "amendments" to the now-suspended authoritarian constitution. But what will be the role for Egyptian opposition and civil society in this process? What will be the scope down the road to draft a completely new, more democratic and legitimate constitution with broad popular participation and support? Will the president to be elected later this year serve another imperial six-year term, or be a caretaker heading a neutral government until a new constitution can be adopted and fresh elections held? At this point, if anyone knows the answers to these questions, it is only the junta.

The military is talking about early presidential and legislative elections, within six months. What could be more democratic than that? But, in fact, after the fall of a longstanding autocracy, it typically takes a lot longer than six months to organize competitive, free, and fair elections. Think of the steps. A neutral and independent electoral administration must be established. This requires not just legal authorization but also new leadership, and recruitment, training, funding, and deployment of new staff and equipment. If Egypt's generals intend to have elections administered by the same Ministry of Interior that shamelessly rigged the vote for Mubarak and his ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), that will be a sure sign that they do not intend to deliver democracy-or are too incompetent and cavalier to care. Then, the next step must be to produce a new register of voters. Experts believe only a quarter of eligible Egyptians are registered to vote today. The exclusion was very useful to perpetuating autocracy but could be deadly for an emerging democracy. That will take months, money, and far-reaching organization to do even reasonably well.

It will be one thing to elect a new president and quite another to choose a new parliament in Egypt's transitional flux. The military now suggests the two elections can be held together within six months. But they will have very different logics and requirements. A presidential election will be much simpler. The old order will no doubt throw up a somewhat more palatable face, perhaps the former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa. The democratic opposition may well rally behind a single candidate (though the regime, no longer able to exclude a democratic alternative, will probably try to fragment the field with as many opposition candidates as possible). Still, voters will be faced with a few principal choices for national leadership, and it won't matter where people vote, so long as they are of voting age and only vote once. This kind of election can be done more roughly and quickly, tossing aside the voter register and just dipping every forefinger in indelible ink after it has marked a ballot for one presidential candidate or another. It will be important in this election-and every future one-to ensure transparency and citizen monitoring of the vote, as well as to have Egypt's judiciary oversee the balloting (as it did in previous elections until the judges got too good at it and Mubarak cut them out). But, otherwise, a presidential election won't be a complicated affair.

By contrast, new parliamentary elections present formidable challenges. First, Egyptians (and hopefully not just the military) must decide what electoral system will be used. This choice can invoke arcane debate, but it may be one of the most important that Egypt makes in pursuit of democracy. If the electoral rules are "majoritarian," in that they make it hard for small minorities to get elected, they will work to the disadvantage of not just small ideological tendencies but also the welter of new, emerging parties and political forces-many of them liberal and secular-that will just be taking shape and starting to test their strength. This will inflate the strength of the only two political forces that now have effective political organizations on the ground-the old ruling party and the Muslim Brotherhood (with a smattering of some of the other older opposition parties). If Egypt retains the current electoral system of two-member districts (with each voter getting two votes), these two established political forces could sweep most of the seats between them, marginalizing the moderates, polarizing the parliament and political system, and dooming democracy from the start. Creating a liberal center in democratic politics requires more than moral and technical support for these parties to function; it also requires rules that enable them to get traction.

A much better-and fairer-alternative would be to elect the new parliament using some form of proportional representation, so that parties would win seats roughly in proportion to their vote shares. That way, new parties could begin to gain a foothold in the political process. Perhaps ironically, the best way to do this might be the way Iraq now does, by using the existing governorates (29 in Egypt) as multimember districts, and having each district then elect a share of seats equivalent to its share of the population. This would allow for very proportional results, with districts generally containing ten to 25 seats, while still enabling some accountability and candidate familiarity at the local level.

A truly democratic parliamentary election in Egypt cannot be pulled off in six months. In fact, it might require well over a year to prepare. But the alternative would be to rush to a vote with a flawed system that would leave Egypt's new democratic forces on the margins not just of legislating but of constitution-making as well.

How a new permanent constitution will be drafted-if it is even intended by the military-also remains a mystery at this point. The worst option would be to have a closed and hurried process dominated from above by the military. But that seems to be what the junta intends for the transitional period. Successful democratic transitions either use an expert but broadly representative constitutional drafting commission, and then a popular referendum to confirm the draft, or an elected constitutional assembly (often acting simultaneously as a parliament), possibly followed also by a popular referendum (as in Iraq). Some have used all of these methods combined. Experience of recent decades underscores the importance for future democratic legitimacy and stability of eliciting extensive public dialogue and broad popular participation in the constitution-making process, with adequate preparation and civic education and widespread media exposure, as in South Africa. A thorough, inclusive, and deliberate process of constitutional drafting and debate can also help to breed a more democratic culture at both the elite and mass levels. A rushed and closed process perpetuates authoritarian mentalities (and, often, authoritarian rules as well).

Prior to all of this is the most basic question of who writes the rules, the timetable, and the mode of transition. Egypt has now entered a classic transition game where the authoritarian regime and the democratic opposition have sharply different interests and little basis for cooperation and trust. As an institution, Egypt's military may not be hated the way Mubarak and his cronies were, but many of the generals were Mubarak's cronies. And the military's core interests are not freedom and democracy for the people, but preserving their own power, wealth, privilege, and impunity. The core lesson of numerous prior transitions is the need for a negotiated way out of this potentially fatal impasse. Democrats want democracy with no guarantees to autocrats. Autocrats want guarantees, with no real democracy.

There is an obvious generic compromise, and every successful negotiated transition-from Spain and Brazil to Poland, South Africa, and Indonesia-has settled on a version of it. The old order gets to hang on to most of its wealth and privilege, along with military autonomy at least for a time. Few, if any, henchmen of the old order are prosecuted for their past crimes, unless it is for the last, desperate excesses of a few diehards trying to hang on during the transition. Real accountability waits for a later day. Democrats get democracy. Autocrats (mostly) retain their wealth and influence, but they cannot bid for power unless they play the democratic game. The Yale political scientist Robert Dahl coined a term for this type of bargain. He called it "mutual security." From the Spanish transition on, the generic bargain became known as a political pact.

Only a negotiated pact between Egypt's surviving authoritarian regime and its emergent democratic forces can steer the transition through the current treacherous straits to calmer and freer waters. For that to happen, Egypt's disparate democratic forces must unify in a broad negotiating front that unites the "outside" opposition of the youthful movements with the "inside" opposition of the "wise persons" and established parties who have so far dominated, on an ad hoc basis, the discussions with the old order.

Opposition unity will give Egypt's democrats strategic leverage; if negotiations stall due to regime intransigence, then the unified opposition can more credibly threaten to turn out people by the millions again in protest. But, if negotiations move forward to ensure the essential conditions for a democratic transition-an end to emergency rule; freedom of organization, expression, and assembly; judicial independence; and new and fair electoral administration-then a unified opposition can guarantee social peace and political stability. Opposition coherence enables clear negotiating priorities to level the playing field and ensure a democratic transition. It will also give the old order a clear set of interlocutors who can credibly commit to deliver popular support behind a difficult compromise agreement. No condition is more important for a successful transition.

The role for the United States and other international actors is not to dictate terms for the transition or structures for the new political order. That is not our place, and Egyptians of every political stripe will resent it. But international actors should offer training to political parties and technical and financial assistance to the new civil society organizations and state institutions needed to make democracy work. For the United States., this will mean millions of dollars in new assistance for democracy in Egypt-but that is a trifle compared to the $68 billion we have invested in dictatorship (even if it was to buy peace). No less importantly, other democracies (including leaders of recent democratic transitions) can encourage Egypt's opposition groups to coalesce and share lessons of the strategies and choices that have led to democratic outcomes. And the Obama administration can make it clear to Egypt's military rulers that nothing less than a real transition to democracy-with broad consultation, serious negotiations, and a new climate of freedom-will return Egypt to stability and a lasting partnership with the United States.

On February 1, James Cavallaro, Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard and Executive Director of Harvard Law School's Program on Human Rights, spoke at the fifth installment of the Sanela Diana Jenkins Speaker Series hosted by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law's Program on Human Rights.

While much of Cavallaro's research has focused on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, his talk focused on his experience working on human rights issues in Brazil. Recounting stories from when he helped establish offices for Human Rights Watch in Brazil, Cavallaro raised the question of why human rights has not caught nearly as much traction in Brazil as in its South American neighbors.

To explain this "Brazilian exceptionalism" with regard to human rights, Cavallaro highlighted the persistently high crime rates that continue to plague Brazilian society. According to Cavallaro, Brazilian police are the worst human rights violators and have been known to torture suspects, employing apparatuses like the Parrot's Perch, and to use firearms and force indiscriminately. However, these violations of human rights agreements are tolerated in Brazil because the general population considers a hard stance on crime necessary to maintain order and to keep crime rates from rising to the levels seen during the early 1990s. Cavallaro noted that when people are forced to weigh their personal security against the rights' of others, people's self-interest almost always take precedence.

However, Cavallaro said that human rights in Brazil could be at a crossroads of sorts. He pointed out that how police forces handle security issues when Brazil hosts both the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympic games could potentially mark the course for future human rights advancement or prolonged stagnancy in Brazil. He suggested that these events, during which Brazil's economic development and national pride will be on display, could serve to professionalize the police force and redefine the boundaries of appropriate action. Unfortunately, he said, the likelihood of such a shift in norms is unlikely to develop in the few years before these events.    

The central premise underlying Bussell's discussion this week is the reality that public service provision is often flawed in the developing world. Reforming public services entails significant efforts to increase the quality of public service, and there have been two important recent trends in this space: privatization and public-private partnerships and increased use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The one-stop services model (which has been adopted globally in various forms, from Singapore's eCitizen Centre to Germany's Buergerbuero or "Citizen's Bureau"), exemplifies current trends.

In her research, which focuses primarily on the case of India, Bussell asks the following questions: why do or don't governments reform public service delivery? And when governments decide to implement reforms, why do they or don't they employ ICTs in these reforms?

The Indian strategy to public service reform has been to create stand-alone, one-stop citizen service centers. These centers are computerized and frequently have private-sector participation. Aside from these typical characteristics, there is significant state-level variation on several points, including timing of policy adoption, quantity and type of services, degree of automation, and ownership and management models.

Bussell discusses a variety of hypotheses that offer insight into the potential factors influencing the character of Indian reforms. First, she notes that politicians faced mixed electoral incentives for and against reforms. After all, there is evidence that eServices can improve service characteristics and reduce corruption. On the other hand, reforms may also reduce politicians' opportunities to amass funds to run for re-election. After all, bureaucratic discretion and opaque processes enable the siphoning of funds and bribe taking in service delivery. Politicians use "transfer authority" over bureaucrats to access bribes. More transparent services, due the implementation of reforms, threaten this access to bribes. At the same time, reform may also offer new opportunity for rents. Private partnerships to run centers entail new contracting processes. Larger-scale bribes may be available from ownership and management negotiation.

Based on these mixed direct and indirect incentives, Bussell predicts that reform will require expected net benefits to ruling politicians. States with higher petty corruption should implement policy reforms later. Meanwhile, states with higher grand corruption might lead to more partnerships with private sector.

So what factors actually explain variation in when different Indian states adopted reform? According to Bussell's research, the level of corruption was the most statistically significant variable affecting the timing of reform adoption. However, whether or not there was a coalition government in power was also significant. This means that an increase of 1 point out of 10 in the state's corruption level led to a 63% decrease in the chance of a reform being adopted in a given year. The quantity of services covered varied widely in the sample of states from less than 10 to more than 40 services. On average, moving from a state with below average corruption to a state with above average corruption causes a drop of 14 in the number of services covered.

In addition to examining the variation in reform adoption across Indian states, Bussell also looks at the consequences of reform. Despite reforms in the state of Karnataka, to give one example, demand for services continues to outstrip supply. Visitors to Nemmadi (privately-run computerized centers) were able to access services faster, while paying less money, making less visits, spending less time waiting at each visit, and seeing a reduction (on average) in the number of days before receiving the service. Despite quantitative improvements in average efficiency, however, perceived efficiency actually declined. Now, there is a 7-day minimum for service delivery and a 21-day maximum. Although average has declined as a consequence of these new requirements, it is now impossible to bribe officials in order to achieve service delivery in one day.

According to Bussell, these results bring up some interesting policy implications. First, it is important to consider the institutional incentives underlying the established model in order to ensure that reforms are effective. The incentives faced by both top politicians and street level officials must be taken into account. Second, it may be best to design policies that establish a strong, if narrow, initial model. After all, growing citizen demand affects electoral benefits and the calculations of politicians. Third, more research must be done regarding the various factors that influence policy outcomes. According to cases in South Africa and Brazil, there is some evidence that differences in electoral competition can affect policy outcomes. In South Africa, for instance, less electoral competition has led to less incentive to reform. More research will help to clarify the factors of importance in public service reform implementation.

Two decades after the fall of Soviet-bloc dictatorships, popular movements for democracy are erupting in the last regional bastion of authoritarianism: the Arab world.

So far, only Tunisia's dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, has been toppled, while Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak - who has ruled that ancient land longer than many pharaohs - announced Tuesday that he will step down in September. But other Arab autocrats are bound to go. From Algeria to Syria to Jordan, people are fed up with stagnation and injustice, and are mobilizing for democratic change.

So, what happens when the autocrat is gone? Will the end of despotism give way to chaos - as happened when Mobutu Sese Seko was toppled in 1997 after more than 30 years in power in Zaire? Will the military or some civilian strongman fill the void with a new autocracy - as occurred after the overthrow of Arab monarchs in Egypt and Iraq in the 1950s, and as has been the norm in most of the world until recently? Or can some of the Arab nations produce real democracy - as we saw in most of Eastern Europe and about half the states of sub-Saharan Africa? Regime transitions are uncertain affairs. But since the mid-1970s, more than 60 countries have found their way to democracy. Some have done so in circumstances of rapid upheaval that offer lessons for reformers in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries today.

Unite the democratic opposition.

When a dictatorship is on the ropes, one thing that can rescue it is a divided opposition. That is why autocrats so frequently foster those divisions, secretly funding a proliferation of opposition parties. Even extremely corrupt rulers may generate significant electoral support - not the thumping majorities they claim, but enough to steal an election - when the opposition is splintered.

In the Philippines in 1986, Nicaragua in 1990 and Ukraine in 2004, the opposition united around the candidacies of Corazon Aquino, Violeta Chamorro and Viktor Yushchenko, respectively. Broad fronts such as these - as well as the Concertacion movement that swept Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin to power in Chile in 1989 after the departure of Gen. Augusto Pinochet - often span deep personal and ideological differences. But the time for democratic forces to debate those matters is later, once the old order is defeated and democratic institutions have been established.

Egypt is fortunate - it has an obvious alternative leader, Mohamed ElBaradei, whom disparate opposition elements seem to be rallying around. Whether the next presidential election is held on schedule in September or moved up, ElBaradei, or anyone like him leading a broad opposition front, will probably win a resounding victory over anyone connected to Mubarak's National Democratic Party.

Make sure the old order really is gone.

The exit of a long-ruling strongman, such as Ben Ali, does not necessarily mean the end of a regime. Fallen dictators often leave behind robust political and security machines. No autocrat in modern times met a more immediate fate than Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu, who was executed by a firing squad of his own soldiers in 1989 just three days after a popular revolution forced him to flee the capital. Yet his successor, Ion Iliescu, was a corrupt former communist who obstructed political reform. Most of the former Soviet states, such as Georgia and Kazakhstan, had similar experiences.

Countries are much more likely to get to democracy quickly if they identify and embrace political leaders who are untainted by the old order and are ready to roll it back.

But also come to an understanding with the old order.

Victorious democrats won't be able to completely excise the pillars of the authoritarian order. Instead, for their country to turn toward democracy, those pillars must be neutralized or co-opted. This old order may descend into violence when, as in Iraq, broad classes of elites are stigmatized and ousted from their positions. In a successful bargain, most old-regime elites retain their freedom, assets and often their jobs but accept the new rules of the democratic game.

Unless the military collapses in defeat, as it did in Greece in 1974 and in Argentina after the Falklands War, it must be persuaded to at least tolerate a new democratic order. In the short run, that means guaranteeing the military significant autonomy, as well as immunity from prosecution for its crimes. Over time, civilian democratic control of the military can be extended incrementally, as was done masterfully in Brazil in the 1980s and in Chile during the 1990s. But if the professional military feels threatened and demeaned from the start, the transition is in trouble.

The same principle applies to surviving elements of the state security apparatus, the bureaucracy and the ruling party. In South Africa, for example, old-regime elements received amnesty for their human rights abuses in exchange for fully disclosing what they had done. In this and other successful transitions, top officials were replaced, but most state bureaucrats kept their jobs.

Rewrite the rules.

A new democratic government needs a new constitution, but it can't be drawn up too hastily. Meanwhile, some key provisions can be altered expeditiously, either by legislation, interim executive fiat or national consensus.

In Spain, the path to democratization was opened by the Law for Political Reform, adopted by the parliament within a year of dictator Francisco Franco's death in 1975. Poland adopted a package of amendments in 1992, only after it had elected a new parliament and a new president, Lech Walesa; a new constitution followed in 1997. South Africa enacted an interim constitution to govern the country while it undertook an ambitious constitution-writing process with wide popular consultation - which is the ideal arrangement.

An urgent priority, though, is to rewrite the rules so that free and fair elections are possible. This must happen before democratic elections can be held in Egypt and Tunisia. In transitions toward democracy, there is a strong case for including as many political players as possible. This requires some form of proportional representation to ensure that emerging small parties can have a stake in the new order, while minimizing the organizational advantage of the former ruling party. In the 2005 elections in Iraq, proportional representation ensured a seat at the table for smaller minority and liberal parties that could never have won a plurality in individual districts.

Isolate the extremes.

That said, not everyone can or should be brought into the new democratic order. Prosecuting particularly venal members of a former ruling family, such as those tied to the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos, Indonesia's fallen strongman Suharto or now Tunisia's Ben Ali, can be part of a larger reconciliation strategy. But the circle of punishment must be drawn narrowly. It may even help the transition to drive a wedge between a few old-regime cronies and the bulk of the establishment, many of whom may harbor grievances against "the family."

A transitional government should aim for inclusion, and should test the democratic commitment of dubious players rather than inadvertently induce them to become violent opponents. However, groups that refuse to renounce violence as a means of obtaining power, or that reject the legitimacy of democracy, have no place in the new order. That provision was part of the wisdom of the postwar German constitution.

Transitions are full of opportunists, charlatans and erstwhile autocrats who enter the new political field with no commitment to democracy. Every democratic transition that has endured - from Spain and Portugal to Chile, South Africa and now hopefully Indonesia - has tread this path.

Fragile democracies become stable when people who once had no use for democracy embrace it as the only game in town.