Research Library

For the first time in modern history, a confluence of events has given Mexico a real chance to combat systemic government corruption, the author writes.

Lauded as “The Pastor to the Presidents,” the late evangelist Billy Graham met with or gave counsel to every sitting commander-in-chief from Truman to Trump. This report, drawn from the author's book "A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story" (William Morrow, 1991; updated edition, Zondervan, 2019), provides insight on their relationships.

In separate papers, two Baker Institute fellows — one Palestinian, the other Israeli — provide their perspectives on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The authors examine a unique and anonymized dataset of complaints about government corruption in an urban Mexico district. The trends they found are transferable to other urban districts across the country and Latin America, they write, and may help anticorruption agencies in Mexico and beyond direct their efforts. https://doi.org/10.25613/cqgc-xv79.

If the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is approved, this modified and modernized version of NAFTA will govern most economic relationships in North America. David A. Gantz, the Will Clayton Fellow in Trade and International Economics, reviews the USMCA and discusses its positive and negative elements.

Measuring the costs of corruption around the world is challenging due to varying definitions of corruption, the invisibility of many corrupt acts, and the subjectivity of perceptions. In this research paper, postdoctoral research fellow Jose I. Rodriguez-Sanchez explores the difficulties of measuring corruption in Mexico.

Divisions across ethnic and religious lines in several Middle East countries since the 2011 Arab uprisings have brought renewed attention to the consociational model of governance. This student brief examines Lebanon’s consociational system in order to gauge whether it would be useful for other countries in the region experience similar ethnic or religious divisions.

Lebanon faces significant developmental challenges, including insufficient electricity supply, environmental degradation and staggering inequality, yet the government has not invested in these areas despite substantial economic growth in recent decades. This student brief uses agenda-setting theory to argue that Lebanon’s disappointing record of development is reflected in the narrow political agenda of the government. This brief is part of a two-year project on pluralism and inclusion in the Middle East post-Arab Spring. The project is generously supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Mexico’s electoral authorities made several poor decisions in the two most recent election cycles. This brief examines these decisions in light of the continued fragility of Mexico's political institutions, and it argues that all rulings are pivotal for the credibility of future elections and the consolidation of Mexico’s democracy.

Corruption is a complex social, political and institutional problem that is difficult to define. This brief describes the challenges involved in defining, understanding and measuring corruption and evaluates the case study of Mexico, where corruption has increased in recent years, to illustrate these complexities.