Senate filibusters have long been a target of congressional reformers, though as much as the Senate might tweak the rules, they are unlikely to give up this valuable right of the minority to talk. And sometimes talking does build support for an issue. more

Despite their recent popularity and apparent utility, civil nuclear cooperation agreement negotiations are fraught with the possibility of deception as evidence from Romania in the 1960s and 1970s suggests. more

Senior Australian officials worked from 1944 to around 1973, when Australia ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to equip their country with a nuclear weapons capability. When Australia did choose to permanently forego the nuclear option, it wasn’t because of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, but rather because of significant geo-political changes taking place throughout Asia in the mid-1970s. more

This paper gives an overview of Mexico’s judicial reform process and where things stand now that the Peña Nieto government has assumed the presidency from Felipe Calderón. A key challenge in tracking the reform continues to be the unavailability of systematic data on institutional changes; Ingram’s paper highlights the weakness in data availability but his measures of reform progress also contribute to ameliorating this weakness. more