Research Library

By Tahani Al Terkait, Durham University Two recent examples of gender politics in Kuwait reveal the challenges with women's integration in the socio-religious sphere of Kuwaiti society, writes the author. This is the fourth brief resulting from a May 2018 workshop held in Kuwait by the Baker Institute in partnership with the Alsalam Center for Strategic and Developmental Studies. This work is part of a two-year project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York on “Building Pluralistic and Inclusive States Post-Arab Spring.”

The Baker Institute's Presidential Elections Program held its inaugural conference, “Social Media, Changing Demographics and Implications of the 2016 Presidential Election,” in March 2018. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions of the more than two dozen individuals who participated in the conference’s four thematic panels as well as a lunch conversation featuring veteran political consultants David Axelrod and Karl Rove, who served as the conference's honorary directors.

This issue brief summarizes the debate over regulatory complexity, outlines a proposal from the Federal Reserve that would simplify bank capital regulations and another from the OCC that would push the financial regulatory system toward greater complexity, and recommends reforms to help improve financial stability.

Nonresident scholar Elizabeth Salamanca provides an overview of the main types of visas obtained by highly skilled migrants, and how each visa category could potentially change under the Trump administration.

A series of converging trends provided political cover for reforms of long-standing energy subsidies launched by oil-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa, but the new policies appear to be designed to update — rather than jettison — rent-based autocratic governance.

McNair Center director Edward J. Egan discusses venture capital in testimony to House Small Business and Economic Development Committee.

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.

Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior estimates there could be 430,000 to 600,000 children and youth who are U.S. citizens but now reside in Mexico. Without the necessary documents, they become a vulnerable population without proper access to schools or social and health services. This brief explores the issues related to this population and calls for more research to be done to understand its impact.

In this issue brief, the authors examine the amount of growth and transactional venture capital (VC) in Houston, finding the the city lacks sufficient levels of growth VC needed to support its goals of establishing a high-growth, high technology startup ecosystem.