Books
The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics For The 21st Century
In The Revenge of Power, Naím turns to the trends, conditions, technologies, and behaviors that are contributing to the concentration of power, and to the clash between those forces that weaken power and those that strengthen it. He concentrates on the three “P”s―populism, polarization, and post-truths. All of which are as old as time, but are combined by today’s autocrats to undermine democratic life in new and frightening ways. Power has not changed. But the way people go about gaining it and using it has been transformed.
Naím addresses the questions at the heart of the matter: Why is power concentrating in some places while in others it is fragmenting and degrading? And the big question: What is the future of freedom?
Two Spies in Caracas
Dr. Naím’s first novel is a tale of espionage intertwined with a love story subverted by the passions and betrayals of Hugo Chavez’s revolution. Although this is a work of fiction, the story is inspired by more than two decades of research, as well as Naím’s direct access to the best-informed sources about what happened in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela and its mechanics, its details, and its furtive acts of populism. A surprising, masterfully narrated story that will leave no one indifferent.
Rethink the World: 111 Surprises from the 21st Century
This book gathers the best columns from the past five years, written under four guiding principles: surprise, connect, turn things around, and inform. The result is an extraordinary tour through 111 surprises that make us rethink the world in which we live.
The End of Power: From Boardrooms To Battlefields And Churches To States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used To Be
Power is shifting-from large, stable armies to loose bands of insrugents, from corporate leviathans to nimble start-ups, and from presidential palaces to public squares. But power is also changing, becoming harder to use and easier to lose. In The End of Power, award-winning columnist and former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím illuminates the struggle between once-dominant megaplayers and the new micropowers challenging them in every field of human endeavor. Drawing on provocative, original research and a lifetime of experience in global afffairs, Naím explains how the end of power is reconfiguring our world.
Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy
A groundbreaking investigation of how illicit commerce is changing the world by transforming economies, reshaping politics, and capturing governments.In this fascinating and comprehensive examination of the underside of globalization, Moises Naím illuminates the struggle between traffickers and the hamstrung bureaucracies trying to control them. From illegal migrants to drugs to weapons to laundered money to counterfeit goods, the black market produces enormous profits that are reinvested to create new businesses, enable terrorists, and even to take over governments. Naím reveals the inner workings of these amazingly efficient international organizations and shows why it is so hard — and so necessary to contain them. Riveting and deeply informed, Illicit will change how you see the world around you.
Prodotto interno mafia: Così la criminalità organizzata è diventata il sistema Italia (Domestic Mafia products: This is how organized crime has become the Italian system) with Serena Danna et al.
In Italy, crime accounts for 140 billion euros a year. The black economy is worth 15% of GDP. The wealth of the country is also this. The mafia is a "glocal" phenomenon that has conditioned the development of Italian capitalism. Historical, cultural and economic reasons have contributed to making Italy the country of the mafias: the lack of development of an entrepreneurial culture, the "family" as the basis of all social relations, the fragile democracy, the silence of the Church. The roots of illegality are deep but new technologies and economic crisis are revolutionizing the traditional patterns of organized crime. For Italy, the challenge is enormous: will the mafia continue to dominate the process of globalization or, on the contrary, is it precisely in the changes of the contemporary world that the antidote to defeat it is hidden? Currently available only in Italian.
Altered States: Globalization, Sovereignty, and Governance
with Gordon Smith
The dangerous turmoil is plain to see in the everyday failures of governments. Economic insecurity, polluted environments, the transfiguring power of global media, brooding conflicts of tribe and territory: all confound the capacity of even the most powerful state to govern alone, even on its own territory. For all the opportunities that globalization promises, it raises urgent questions of governance. Can states any longer govern? Has the achievement of democratic government come too late for most of the world? Can globalization be democratized?
Competition Policy, Deregulation, and Modernization in Latin America
with Joseph S. Tulchin
Contains 12 contributions addressing recent reforms in the restriction of anti-competitive practices in Latin America. Chapters address the development of competition policy in Latin America; present case studies from Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, and Columbia; and discuss aspects of competition policy on the global level, including antitrust experience in the US, European Economic Community competition policy, and competition policies among Mercosur countries. Contributors include specialists in international finance and trade, investment bankers, policymakers, economists with the World Bank, professors of business and government, and others.
Mexico 1994: Anatomy of an Emerging-Market Crash
with Sebastian Edwards
In late December 1994--after having attracted widespread praise as a model of economic reform and becoming a super-magnet for international investors, as well as the United States' partner in the newly consummated NAFTA trade agreement--Mexico seemingly overnight plunged into political and economic crisis. The perceived threat to the global economy was to lead the Clinton administration, against strong congressional criticism, to push through an unprecedented $40-billion international rescue package. What went wrong in Mexico? What role was played by flaws in the design of the Mexican reforms, by political as well as economic decision-making in the context of the crises that shook the country, by external market forces, and by sheer bad luck? What lessons can the peso crisis offer to those grappling with newly unfolding crises in other emerging-market economies around the world?
Lessons of the Venezuelan Experience
with Louis W. Goodman et. Al
Until two attempts at military coups in 1992, Venezuela enjoyed political stability that was exceptional for a Latin American nation under a succession, going back to 1958, of constitutionally chosen presidents. Venezuela had leaders who were socially responsible and progressive, funding social programmes with money the state earned from petroleum exports. What had weakened the foundations of that stability by the 1990s? In this book a group of scholars reviews Venezuelan exceptionalism and the key institutions that had atrophied economically, socially, and politically. The authors draw lessons on the need for public accountability in a democracy in the light of these specific failures of the government and other institutions in Venezuela. They examine the major political players - political parties, popular opinion, the military; sectors of the economy; state, populism, corruption, and crisis; and Venezuela's foreign relations.
Paper Tigers and Minotaurs: The Politics of Venezuela's Political Reforms
Weakened public institutions, military reform, and public opinion in the face of rapid change have opened the door for corruption, inequitable distribution of burdens, and political instability in South America. Countries in the region are facing painful and sometimes dangerous reform.
El Caso Venezuela: Una Ilusión de Armonía (The Case of Venezuela: An illusion of harmony)
with Ramón Piñango
Currently available only in Spanish
Las Empresas Venezolanas: Su Gerencia (Venezuelan Companies: its management)
Why are Venezuelan organizations so informal? Is it enough to say that the Venezuelan person is too unconcerned and carefree to explain the enormous weight that informal behavior has on the functioning of our organizations? Why is it common among us to devote significant efforts to create detailed manuals with rules and procedures that are poorly followed? How do you explain the frequency with which Venezuelan organizations invest in expensive computers that they barely use afterwards? Is it normal that, in order to succeed in their work, a manager has to rely so much on the personal favors of a wide range of people inside and outside his or her organization? Why among our top managers is loyalty to the group often as much or more valued than work capacity or talent?
Currently available only in Spanish