Who are the insurgents? : Sunni Arab rebels in Iraq
• Building a profile of a typical anti-coalition Sunni Arab insurgent in Iraq is a daunting task. Demographic information about the insurgents is fragmented, and the rebels themselves are marked more by their heterogeneity than by their homogeneity. Drawing from a wide array of sources, however, we can try to piece together a view of their primary motivations for taking up arms against the U.S.-led occupation.
Building toward Crisis: Saddam Husayn's Strategy for Survival
Saddam Husayn and Iraq have undergone a remarkable transformation since 1995, when Saddam was fighting for his very survival. Today, Saddam seems firmly in control in Iraq. He has pacified his family and bought time with the tribes, restored some of the Republican Guard's shattered pride, and apparently convinced his power base that his leadership is effective and is progressing toward the goal of ending the sanctions and inspections regimes without having to give up Iraq's WMD arsenal. As long as it is not committed explicitly and decisively to the ouster of the Iraqi president, the international community should not be surprised to see itself further manipulated to suit Saddam Husayn's purposes. In this Policy Paper, Amatzia Baram, Institute Soref fellow, explains how Saddam has regained, to a large extent, his hold over his power base. Professor Baram analyzes the fissures within Saddam’s base—from the extended family, through the tribe coalitions, to the ruling Ba‘th party, and the army—and evaluates them in terms of regime survival. Finally, he discusses Saddam’s relations with Iraq closest neighbors—Iran, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The effect of family size on parents' labor supply and occupational prestige: Evidence from Taiwan and Mainland China
Abstract This paper studies the effect of family size on parents' labor supply and occupational prestige, using the censuses of both Taiwan and Mainland China. We rely on the exogenous increase in child quantity that results from having twins at the first birth. Our results indicate that an increase in family size has negative effects on the labor supply of mothers, but not of fathers, in both Taiwan and Mainland China. In addition, we find that in Taiwan fathers tend to switch to occupations with lower prestige scores in response to an increase in family size. However, the negative effect of family size on occupational prestige is not observed in Mainland China, where the occupational mobility is low.