Research Library

Why does Texas have its own power grid, and how can its history inform the future of electric power in the state? Nonresident scholar Julie Cohn looks beyond the mythology surrounding the standalone Texas grid and finds that reliability and economics — not politics — were the major factors leading to isolation.

How durable is the Saudi-Russian relationship, and what are its implications for the longstanding energy-for-security arrangement between Saudi Arabia and the U.S.?

With Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pushing for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to replace the Organization of American States (OAS), which the U.S. currently dominates, the future of security relations in the Western Hemisphere is in question. This paper assesses four possible future scenarios and offers policy recommendations for a reimagined OAS.

This paper analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing Mexico's new National Guard amid ongoing public health and safety crises and growing nationalism in Mexico and the United States.

With opposition to large-scale energy infrastructure on the rise, transmission service providers find it problematic to build the new power lines essential to a greener grid. This paper highlights the Texas Competitive Renewable Energy Zone initiative (CREZ) — a case study of the difficulties that new power lines face and the policy choices that can facilitate development of this necessary infrastructure. The CREZ experience can inform development of new large-scale transmission infrastructure in other regions.

The authors look at the key drivers impacting national security and defense relations between the United States and Mexico and offer four possible scenarios for the future, along with policy recommendations to support the avoidance of conflict.

This research paper examines how underlying shifts in security dynamics in the Persian Gulf may evolve as regional states respond to the perception of receding U.S. leadership by further diversifying security relationships and internationalizing what until the 2010s had been a solidly Western-centric web of partnerships. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25613/n8xe-hj20

Author Julie Cohn traces historical trends and experiences with the U.S. electrical grid to help frame choices as more renewables are brought into the system.

This report, produced in collaboration with the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs, analyzes findings of a survey on Houstonians’ views on the candidates in the Houston mayoral race: http://bit.ly/2PavYL9.

This report highlights the results from an expert survey carried out as part of a two-year research project on pluralism and inclusion in the post-Arab Spring regional landscape, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The survey generated policy-relevant responses that provide nuanced insight into key public policy challenges in Gulf countries that — Bahrain apart —did not experience significant political upheaval after 2011 but nevertheless could see economic (un)sustainability develop into major determinants of political (in)stability in the years ahead.