Content Type: Journal Article / Political Geography: America

1. Working Together: Building Successful Policy and Program Partnerships for Immigrant Integration

Author:: Els de Graauw and Irene Bloemraad
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: Supporting and investing in the integration of immigrants and their children is critically important to US society. Successful integration contributes to the nation’s economic vitality, its civic and political health, and its cultural diversity. But although the United States has a good track record on immigrant integration, outcomes could be better. A national, coherent immigrant integration policy infrastructure is needed. This infrastructure can build on long-standing partnerships between civil society and US public institutions. Such partnerships, advanced under Republican- and Democratic-led administrations, were initially established to facilitate European immigrants’ integration in large American cities, and later extended to help refugees fleeing religious persecution and war. In the twenty-first century, we must expand this foundation by drawing on the growing activism by cities and states, new civil society initiatives, and public-private partnerships that span the country.
Topic:: Migration
Political Geography:: America

2. The 2,000 Mile Wall in Search of a Purpose: Since 2007 Visa Overstays have Outnumbered Undocumented Border Crossers by a Half Million

Author:: Robert Warren and Donald Kerwin
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: The Trump administration has made the construction of an “impregnable” 2,000-mile wall across the length of the US-Mexico border a centerpiece of its executive orders on immigration and its broader immigration enforcement strategy. This initiative has been broadly criticized based on: • Escalating cost projections: an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) study recently set the cost at $21.6 billion over three and a half years; • Its necessity given the many other enforcement tools — video surveillance, drones, ground sensors, and radar technologies — and Border Patrol personnel, that cover the US-Mexico border: former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and other experts have argued that a wall does not add enforcement value except in heavy crossing areas near towns, highways, or other “vanishing points” (Kerwin 2016); • Its cost-effectiveness given diminished Border Patrol apprehensions (to roughly one-fourth the level of historic highs) and reduced illegal entries (to roughly one-tenth the 2005 level according to an internal DHS study) (Martinez 2016); • Its efficacy as an enforcement tool: between FY 2010 and FY 2015, the current 654-mile pedestrian wall was breached 9,287 times (GAO 2017, 22); • Its inability to meet the administration’s goal of securing “operational control” of the border, defined as “the prevention of all unlawful entries to the United States” (White House 2017); • Its deleterious impact on bi-national border communities, the environment, and property rights (Heyman 2013).
Topic:: Immigration and Post Truth Politics
Political Geography:: America

3. Seeking a Rational Approach to a Regional Refugee Crisis: Lessons from the Summer 2014 “Surge” of Central American Women and Children at the US-Mexico Border

Author:: Karen Musalo and Eunice Lee
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: In the early summer months of 2014, an increasing number of Central American children alone and with their parents began arriving at the US- Mexico border in search of safety and protection. The children and families by and large came from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala — three of the most dangerous countries in the world — to seek asylum and other humanitarian relief. Rampant violence and persecution within homes and communities, uncontrolled and unchecked by state authorities, compelled them to flee north for their lives.
Topic:: Refugee Crisis
Political Geography:: America

4. Creating Cohesive, Coherent Immigration Policy

Author:: Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: US immigration policy has serious limitations, particularly when viewed from an economic perspective. Some shortcomings arise from faulty initial design, others from the inability of the system to adapt to changing circumstances. In either case, a reluctance to confront politically difficult decisions is often a contributing factor to the failure to craft laws that can stand the test of time. We argue that, as a result, some key aspects of US immigration policy are incoherent and mutually contradictory — new policies are often inconsistent with past policies and undermine their goals. Inconsistency makes policies less effective because participants in the immigration system realize that lawmakers face powerful incentives to revise policies at a later date. US policies regarding unauthorized immigration, temporary visas, and humanitarian migrants offer examples of incoherence and inconsistency. This article explores key features of an integrated, coherent immigration policy from an economic perspective and how policymakers could better attempt to achieve policy consistency across laws and over time.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and Immigration
Political Geography:: America

5. The Human Cost of IIRIRA — Stories From Individuals Impacted by the Immigration Detention System

Author:: Saba Ahmed, Adina Appelbaum, and Rachel Jordan
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: The 1996 passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) has had a devastating impact on immigrants who are detained, indigent, and forced to face deportation proceedings without representation (pro se). In the past 20 years, immigration detention has grown exponentially and a criminal–immigration detention– deportation pipeline has developed as a central function of the immigration system. Despite the growing specter of the “criminal alien” in the American psyche, there is little public knowledge or scrutiny of the vast immigration detention and deportation machine. Enforcement of IIRIRA has effectively erased human stories and narrowed immigration debates to numbers and statistics.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and Immigration
Political Geography:: America

6. Making America 1920 Again? Nativism and US Immigration, Past and Present

Author:: Julia G. Young
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: This paper surveys the history of nativism in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. It compares a recent surge in nativism with earlier periods, particularly the decades leading up to the 1920s, when nativism directed against southern and eastern European, Asian, and Mexican migrants led to comprehensive legislative restrictions on immigration. It is based primarily on a review of historical literature, as well as contemporary immigration scholarship. Major findings include the following
Topic:: International Relations, Nationalism, and History
Political Geography:: America

7. Mass Deportations Would Impoverish US Families and Create Immense Social Costs

Author:: Robert Warren and Donald Kerwin
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: This paper provides a statistical portrait of the US undocumented population, with an emphasis on the social and economic condition of mixed-status households – that is, households that contain a US citizen and an undocumented resident. It is based primarily on data compiled by the Center for Migration Studies (CMS).
Topic:: Migration and Immigration
Political Geography:: America

8. Critical Perspectives on Clandestine Migration Facilitation: An Overview of Migrant Smuggling Research

Author:: Gabriella Sanchez
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: Current representations of large movements of migrants and asylum seekers have become part of the global consciousness. Media viewers are bombarded with images of people from the global south riding atop of trains, holding on to dinghies, arriving at refugee camps, crawling beneath wire fences or being rescued after being stranded in the ocean or the desert for days. Images of gruesome scenes of death in the Mediterranean or the Arizona or Sahara deserts reveal the inherent risks of irregular migration, as bodies are pulled out of the water or corpses are recovered, bagged, and disposed of, their identities remaining forever unknown. Together, these images communicate a powerful, unbearable feeling of despair and crisis.
Topic:: Migration
Political Geography:: America

9. The End of the Deterrence Paradigm? Future Directions for Global Refugee Policy

Author:: Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and F Nikolas Tan
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: Asylum seekers and refugees continue to face serious obstacles in their efforts to access asylum. Some of these obstacles are inherent to irregular migration, including dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation. Yet, refugees also face state-made obstacles in the form of sophisticated migration control measures. As a result, refugees are routinely denied access to asylum as developed states close their borders in the hope of shifting the flow of asylum seekers to neighboring countries.
Topic:: Migration and Refugee Crisis
Political Geography:: America

10. “They Need to Give Us a Voice”:1 Lessons from Listening to Unaccompanied Central American and Mexican Children on Helping Children Like Themselves

Author:: Susan Schmidt
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: Children make up half of the world’s refugees, yet limited research documents the views of youth about migratory causes and recommendations. While there is wide recognition of migrant children’s right to free expression, few opportunities exist to productively exercise that right and provide input about their views. This article analyzes the responses of Central American and Mexican migrant children to one interview question regarding how to help youth like themselves, and identifies several implied “no-win” situations as potential reasons for the migration decisions of unaccompanied children. Furthermore, the children’s responses highlight the interconnected nature of economics, security, and education as migratory factors. Examination of children’s political speech revealed primarily negative references regarding their home country’s government, the president, and the police. The police were singled out more than any other public figures, with particular emphasis on police corruption and ineffectiveness. Additional analysis focused on children’s comments regarding migration needs and family.
Topic:: Migration and Immigration
Political Geography:: America

11. Responding to a Refugee Influx: Lessons from Lebanon

Author:: Ninette Kelley
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: Between 2011 and 2015, Lebanon received over one million Syrian refugees. There is no country in the world that has taken in as many refugees in proportion to its size: by 2015, one in four of its residents was a refugee from Syria. Already beset, prior to the Syrian crisis, by political divisions, insecure borders, severely strained infrastructure, and over-stretched public services, the mass influx of refugees further taxed the country. That Lebanon withstood what is often characterized as an existential threat is primarily due to the remarkable resilience of the Lebanese people. It is also due to the unprecedented levels of humanitarian funding that the international community provided to support refugees and the communities that hosted them. UN, international, and national partners scaled up more than a hundred-fold to meet ever-burgeoning needs and creatively endeavored to meet challenges on the ground. And while the refugee response was not perfect, and funding fell well below needs, thousands of lives were saved, protection was extended, essential services were provided, and efforts were made to improve through education the future prospects of the close to half-a-million refugee children residing in Lebanon. This paper examines what worked well and where the refugee response stumbled, focusing on areas where improved efforts in planning, delivery, coordination, innovation, funding, and partnerships can enhance future emergency responses.
Topic:: Refugee Issues
Political Geography:: America and Lebanon

12. Donald Trump’s Nuclear Strategy: First Outlines

Author:: Vladimir Kozin
Publication Date:: 11-2017
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: East View Information Services
Abstract:: U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has inherited large strategic and tactical nuclear arsenals from his predecessor, Barack Obama, and a strat- egy of “unconditional offensive nuclear deterrence,” which allows for the possibility of a preemptive nuclear strike against practically any country that is not an ally, friend or partner of the United States.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons and Populism
Political Geography:: America

13. Perspectives on Higher Education and the American Dream: A Review Essay

Author:: C. Anthony Broh
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: C. ANTHONY BROH reviews Suzanne Mettler's Degrees of Inequality and discusses the participation of private, for-proﬁt institutions in higher education. He ﬁnds that several admissions and ﬁnancial aid practices in all sectors of higher education stratify family choices while perpetuating economic inequality. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19318#sthash.PGD2SuBc.dpuf
Topic:: Education
Political Geography:: America

14. Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream, Christina M. Greer

Author:: Wilbur C. Rich
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: America prides itself on being a nation of immigrants, and part of what attracts them to its shores is a tolerance for phenotype diversity and ethnic pluralism. Immigrants are allowed to keep their religion, language, dress, and cultural traditions. Yet many immigrants work hard to assimilate into their host communities. When a group refuses to assimilate, they attract notice. This is especially true for African American immigrants, who seem to be flirting with remaining outsiders. Why would these new Americans who share an African phenotype set themselves apart socially and politically? - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19322#sthash.qxXeIDiA.dpuf
Political Geography:: America

15. The Pathologies of Power: Fear, Honor, Glory, and Hubris in U.S. Foreign Policy, Christopher J. Fettweis

Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Books about improving U.S. foreign policy are a dime a dozen. But in The Pathologies of Power, Christopher Fettweis offers an unusual take on what he sees as the subpar foreign policy performance of the planet's sole superpower. Fettweis claims that U.S. foreign policy is driven by four pathological beliefs—fear, honor, glory, and hubris—that lead to poor policymaking. The book devotes a chapter to each of the beliefs that Fettweis contends account for foreign policy disasters like the Iraq war and the Vietnam war. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19323#sthash.zyK7HBZX.dpuf
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: United States and America

16. No Exit from Pakistan: America's Tortured Relationship with Islamabad, Daniel S. Markey

Author:: Sumit Ganguly
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Daniel S. Markey's recent book constitutes an impassioned plea for sustaining a strategic relationship with Afghanistan even as the United States seeks to disengage itself from that country. Markey makes a plausible argument for maintaining this relationship, given the significant stakes that are involved. He contends that the United States needs to work with Pakistan because of at least three compelling reasons. In his view, in the absence of American vigilance toward and engagement with the country, al Qaeda and its associates could reconstitute themselves, that nuclear weapons or materials within Pakistan might end up in hostile hands and instability within Pakistan, given its geostrategic location could adversely affect the future of American interests in Asia. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19324#sthash.lvz1vTZ5.dpuf
Political Geography:: Pakistan and America

17. Whose Rights? Counterterrorism and the Dark Side of American Public Opinion, Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza

Author:: Shana Kushner Gadarian
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: How do American citizens deal with an often frightening world where terrorism may come ashore again at any moment? Does the threat of terrorism bind Americans together more tightly or does threat expose underlying weaknesses in the American community? In a tour of post-September 11 American public opinion, Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza depict an American public willing to forego the rights and liberties of citizens, particularly groups traditionally considered outsiders. This dark side of public opinion is deeply rooted in American history, as the authors show in a chapter outlining key moments of both expansion and retrenchment of rights. What Brooks and Manza demonstrate through a series of survey experiments is that this retrenchment of rights may be enduring when the targets of surveillance and detention are seen as non-citizens, Middle-Easterners, or Muslims. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19325#sthash.1kfYugAb.dpuf
Political Geography:: America

18. Merit: The History of a Founding Ideal from the American Revolution to the Twenty-First Century, Joseph F. Kett

Author:: S. Adam Seagrave
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: This book engages in an admirable attempt to understand an impressive range of important American historical trends and events through the lens of an idea. Joseph F, Kett begins by describing the uneasy existence of widely acknowledged “Men of Merit” within a revolutionary era inspired by ideas of equal rights and popular sovereignty/consent. These revolutionary leaders and American Founders understood merit as an inherent personal quality evidenced externally by public achievements and recognition, which Kett terms “essential merit.” - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19326#sthash.u0OKVk21.dpuf
Political Geography:: America

19. Civil Disobedience: An American Tradition, Lewis Perry

Author:: Charles Disalvo
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Lewis Perry offers this intriguing history of civil disobedience in the United States. In it, he argues that a distinct and robust American tradition of civil disobedience has had a repeated and significant influence in forcing our institutions to rectify “the systematic inequality of power.” His sweep is wide. He does not simply examine the great social movements that are familiar to students of civil disobedience—the movements against slavery and conscrip¬tion and for the rights of women and workers—but he also introduces the reader to the unfamiliar—disobedience deployed in the movement against Indian removal and in defense of religious freedom in colonial America. He not only expands our understanding of Henry David Thoreau, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King, Jr., but also acquaints us for the first time with Angelina Grimke and Albert Gallatin Riddle. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19327#sthash.MylTyXYB.dpuf
Political Geography:: United States and America

20. Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of American Democracy, Erik J. Engstrom

Author:: Seth C. McKee
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Three quarters of American political history transpired before the 1960s, and yet virtually all of the research on congressional redistricting examines its effects after the 1962 one-person, one-vote ruling. The commonly held academic opinion that redistricting registers limited effects ignores the very different political setting of the late eighteenth and entire nineteenth centuries, when the absence of judicial oversight and congressional intervention produced an electoral milieu whose signature feature was noholds-barred partisan gerrymandering. The lack of attention to the role of redistricting, as it was practiced throughout most of American history, not only has created scholarly blind spots, but these gaps in knowledge have led political scientists to overemphasize the critical-election narrative of party system change and its attendant effects on congressional policymaking. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19329#sthash.DVpyXMMw.dpuf
Topic:: Political Economy
Political Geography:: America

21. Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Author:: Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Our America is about turning perspectives upside down. It is about reading self-satisfying narratives of the past irreverently, mockingly, unsparingly. It is about elucidating the political work that History, with a capital H, does. History creates myths that move and inspire, but it also creates myths that silence. Our America is a book about myths: the fountain of youth, the cities of Cibola, the pursuit of King Arthur, the realm of Queen Calafia, the curse of Zorro, the revenge of Moroni, the republic of Hesperus. Our America narrates the history of the United States from the perspective of the South, rather than the East. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19331#sthash.vdZhAyqB.dpuf
Political Geography:: United States and America

22. The Woman Suffrage Movement in America: A Reassessment, Corrine M. McConnaughy

Author:: Shannon M. Risk
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Previously, women's historians have endeavored to keep women central in the story of personal politics. Corrine M. McConnaughy, however, focuses on the inner workings of state legislatures that have had the most power to define the electorate, and shows that analysis of partisan politics in state legislatures fills the gaps in previous histories without pushing women out of women's history. Women's ability to build coalitions with groups outside of their initial identity group, which took considerable effort, began to bear fruit by the early 1900s. She describes two scenarios under which male state legislators considered expanding the voter base to include women: strategic enfranchisement and programmatic enfranchisement. The former implied that a major political party would find it advantageous to add women voters to the rolls. McConnaughy debunks this approach because female voters could not guarantee any political party their vote as a bloc. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19332#sthash.qN51OK2C.dpuf
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: America

23. A Storm over This Court: Law, Politics, and Supreme Court Decision Making in Brown v. Board of Education, Jeffrey D. Hockett

Author:: Sabrina Zirkel
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: At this 60th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Jeffrey D. Hockett offers us a new interpretation of the dilemmas, debates, and deliberations that members of the Court engaged in on their way to this decision. Hockett challenges conceptualizations of the decision in Brown as emerging purely from any one set of motives and that it can be analyzed through only one theoretical or methodological lens. Instead, he argues through painstaking review of the discussions between the justices about the case and early drafts of opinions that different justices were swayed by different arguments, took into account different considerations, and made different compromises. In short: There was no “one” road to Brown v. Board—there were potentially as many paths as there were justices. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19333#sthash.mXg1UKS3.dpuf
Topic:: International Relations, Education, Politics, and Law
Political Geography:: America

24. Subsidizing Democracy: How Public Funding Changes Elections and How It Can Work in the Future, Michael G. Miller

Author:: Brian E. Adams
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Most empirical research on campaign finance reform attempts to identify the effects of reform using large quantities of data. These studies are useful, but do not present a complete picture of how reform influences electoral dynamics, because they lack information on underlying causal mechanisms. Michael Miller's research, based on surveys and interviews of state legislative candidates, is a welcome addition to the literature and nicely complements existing research by examining how public financing, and in particular the “clean elections” regimes in Arizona, Maine, and Connecticut, affect the behavior of candidates and voters. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19334#sthash.KJh7ywlR.dpuf
Topic:: Reform
Political Geography:: America and Arizona

25. Coming of Political Age: American Schools and the Civic Development of Immigrant Youth, Rebecca M. Callahan and Chandra Muller

Author:: Sara Z. Poggio
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In this insightful study, Rebecca M. Callahan and Chandra Muller show the importance of the national educational system of the United States in the social and civic integration of children of immigrants—one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population. The relevance of education, and public education in particular, has been highlighted, as mentioned by the authors, in the education program “No Child Left Behind,” initiated by President George W. Bush in 2001 and in “Race to the Top.” one of several programs initiated by the administration of Barack Obama. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19338#sthash.ik0TWfYQ.dpuf
Topic:: Development, Education, Politics, and Immigration
Political Geography:: United States and America

26. The American Political Landscape, Byron E. Shafer and Richard H. Spady

Author:: Robert A. Jackson
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Byron Shafer and Richard Spady rely on cutting-edge data analyses and graph¬ical presentations to provide a detailed accounting of how social characteristics have shaped core political values, which, in turn, has structured the presidential vote across the 1984–2008 elections. The study stands apart for the sheer richness and depth of its analyses of a specific data source—namely, the 1987 through 2009 Pew Values Surveys—to gain insight into the shifting contours of the American electorate. An application of item response theory to consistent sets of questions enables Shafer and Spady to produce indicators of two unobservable attitudinal dimensions: economics and culture. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19340#sthash.C8UA9e6m.dpuf
Topic:: Economics, Politics, and Culture
Political Geography:: America

27. Making Constitutions: Presidents, Parties and Institutional Choice in Latin America, Gabriel L. Negretto

Author:: Tom Ginsburg
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Latin America is something of a constitutional graveyard, in which formal texts have been replaced frequently over the past two centuries. Focusing especially on the period of relative political stability after 1978, Gabriel Negretto has produced a masterful book that helps us to understand constitutional politics in the region and beyond. Integrating quantitative analysis with a series of case studies, Negretto's innovative analysis makes this book required reading for students of constitutional design. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19344#sthash.T6DRR8OT.dpuf
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: America and Latin America

28. America Inc? Innovation and Enterprise in the National Security State, Linda Weiss

Author:: Mark Zachary Taylor
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: This dense, powerful volume offers profound insights into the U.S. innovation system and its driving forces. The driving forces are Americans' twin desires for technology-based military supremacy (which demands government action) and small government (which militates against it). These twin forces have produced a highly successful, ever-evolving, and unique set of federal institutions and policies, which Linda Weiss calls the “national security state” (NSS). The NSS is the secret to American innovation. Since World War II, it has dominated high-risk innovation, revolutionary technological change, and the formation of new S industries. Weiss's book also reveals that the NSS is not static, but changes in response to changes in perceived geopolitical threats and to shifts in popular anti-statist sentiments. The book explains why the NSS came about, how it works, and glimpses its future. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19346#sthash.kIPIPtW6.dpuf
Topic:: Security and Government
Political Geography:: United States and America

29. David Martin Jones, Nicholas Khoo and MLR Smith, Asian Security and the Rise of China: International Relations in an Age of Volatility

Author:: Dylan Kissane
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:: Central European University
Abstract:: If there is one issue in contemporary international relations that continues to provoke interest in academic and policy making circles alike it is how states, regions and the world should react to a rising China. While the influence of the People's Republic is being felt from Africa and the Global South through to the developed economies of North America and Europe, it is in East Asia where a re-emerging China has most focused the minds of diplomats and strategists, leaders and scholars and, indeed, the military men and women who must navigate this increasingly precarious great power polity. Within this East Asian context this new volume by David Martin Jones, Nicholas Khoo and MLR Smith delivers thoughtful and attentive analysis to the problem of responding to China's rise. The book is neither a historical account of the rise of China, though it does offer sufficient historical contextualisation for the reader, or another collection of prescriptive policy suggestions, though there are clear conclusions made about which regional and state strategies have best dealt with the rise of the Sinic superpower. Instead, this book is a theoretically informed, consistently argued and well written account of how states in a broadly defined East Asia have and continue to react to the changing security environment that confronts them in the first decades of the twenty-first century.
Topic:: International Relations, Security, Economics, and Environment
Political Geography:: Africa, China, America, and Asia

30. Leslie McCall, The Undeserving Rich: American Beliefs about Inequality, Opportunity, and Redistribution

Author:: Gaelike Conring
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:: Central European University
Abstract:: The ideal of equality of opportunity looms large in American history. It is the core tenet of the American dream, promising advancement for everybody willing to work hard and abide by the rules. More generally, it is the benchmark against which the success or failure of the economy's role in promoting the public good is evaluated. As long as a priori equality of opportunity for those participating or looking to participate in economic life is a given, unequal outcomes are justified and even necessary in keeping this virtuous cycle alive. Thus explains Americans' skepticism towards overtly redistributive policies to rectify unequal economic outcomes. A fitting example is the Joe Wurzelbacher aka 'Joe the Plumber', incident involving then presidential hopeful Barack Obama. When prompted about his tax policy proposals, Barack Obama's stated intention of 'spreading the wealth around' did not sit well with most Americans; not even with members of his own party. If public opinion indicates a rejection of government redistributive policies, does that amount to a public unfazed by rising levels of income inequality?
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: America

31. Table of Contents

Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: Ethics International Affairs is pleased to announce the publication of its winter 2014 issue. This issue includes an essay by Jacinta O'Hagan and Miwa Hirono on "cultures of humanitarianism" in East Asia; articles by Christopher Kutz on torture, American security policy, and norm death, and Ruben Reike on an international crimes approach to preventing mass atrocities; a book symposium on Mathias Risse's On Global Justice, featuring contributions from Richard Arneson, Helena de Bres, Anna Stilz, and Risse; and a review essay by Nancy Birdsall on Thomas Piketty's Capital.
Topic:: Security and Culture
Political Geography:: America and East Asia

32. How Norms Die: Torture and Assassination in American Security Policy

Author:: Christopher Kutz
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: A large and impressive literature has arisen over the past fifteen years concerning the emergence, transfer, and sustenance of political norms in international life. The presumption of this literature has been, for the most part, that the winds of normative change blow in a progressive direction, toward greater or more stringent normative control of individual or state behavior. Constructivist accounts detail a spiral of mutual normative reinforcement as actors and institutions discover the advantages of normative self- and other evaluation. There is also now much interesting research focused on the question of how to predict the emergence of future norms.
Political Geography:: America

33. Doubts down under: American extended deterrence, Australia, and the 1999 East Timor crisis

Author:: Michael Cohen and Andrew O′Neil
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:: Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:: American extended deterrence commitments span the globe. Despite extensive research on the causes of deterrence successes and failures, evidence of which US allies find what extended deterrence commitments credible is elusive. This article utilizes interviews with former Australian policy-makers to analyze the credibility of the United States to defend Australian forces during the 1999 INTERFET intervention in East Timor. While there was no direct threat to Australian sovereignty, the episode stoked concerns in Canberra regarding the willingness of Washington to come to Australia's assistance. The Howard government coveted a US tripwire force presence, and the Clinton administration's unwillingness to provide this raised serious concerns among Australian political elites about the alliance. While this says little about the separate question of whether Washington would use nuclear or conventional weapons in defense of Australian sovereignty, the Timor case indicates the existence of an extended deterrence credibility deficit regarding the more probable low-intensity conflicts that Australia finds itself in.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America and Australia

34. Sleepwalking Again: The End of the Pax Americana 1914–2014; After Gaza 2014: Schabas; Peer Review Redux; In this Issue

Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: I think it is difficult to contest that the most important state player in world affairs over the last one hundred years – and consistently so over this period – has been the United States of America. World War I – into which, to borrow from Christopher Clark's justly celebrated book, we 'sleepwalked' – marks a useful starting point. It is not only the fairly important role America played in bringing WWI to an end that signals the beginning of this era, but also the no less important role it played in shaping the aftermath. Wilson's 14 points were considered at the time 'idealistic' by some of the yet-to-be 'Old Powers'. But by dismantling the Ottoman Empire through the principle of self-determination (not at that time a universal legally binding norm) it was an early swallow to the demise, a mere generation later, of all other colonial empires and the truly decisive reshaping of the balance of power in the post-WWII world. The US played an equally cardinal role in ideating and realizing the United Nations Organization and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – two lynchpins of our current world order.
Topic:: Human Rights and War
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Gaza

35. Political Capitalism

Author:: Randall G. Holcombe
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: Political capitalism is an economic and political system in which the economic and political elite cooperate for their mutual benefit. The economic elite influence the government's economic policies to use regulation, government spending, and the design of the tax system to maintain their elite status in the economy. The political elite are then supported by the economic elite which helps the political elite maintain their status; an exchange relationship that benefits both the political and economic elite.
Topic:: Economics and War
Political Geography:: America

36. The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government

Author:: Philip K. Howard
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: Phillip Howard is a lawyer nationally known for his best-selling books and extensive commentary on the dysfunctions of the American legal and political systems and the adverse effects those dysfunctions have on individual behavior and the overall workings of society.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America

37. The American Warfare State: The Domestic Politics of Military Spending

Author:: Rebecca U. Thorpe
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: In The American Warfare State, Reecca Thrope attempts to answer what she calls “the fundamental puzzle” of American politics: “Why a nation founded on a severe distrust of standing armies and centralized power developed and maintained the most powerful military in history.”
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: America

38. Boom Towns: Restoring the Urban American Dream

Author:: Stephen J. K. Walters
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: The image of a boom town is commonly used to describe exceptional conditions through which a village suddenly becomes a city. Often such conditions are the discovery of mineral deposits that attracts industry and commerce. While in their booming condition, such towns are oases of societal flourishing relative to their preceding state. In Boom Towns, Stephen J.K. Walters, a professor of economics at Loyola University in Baltimore, explains that cities in general have the capacity perpetually to b forms of boom towns. Cities can serve as magnets to attract people and capital, thus promoting the human flourishing that has always been associated with cities at their best. It is different if cities are at their worst, as Walters explains in brining Jane Jacobs's Death and Life of Great American Cities into explanatory ambit. There are no natural obstacles to cities occupying the foreground of societal flourishing. There are obstacles to be sure, but these are man-made. Being man-made, they can also be overcome through human action, at least in principle even if doing so in practice might be difficult.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America

39. The Changing Nature of Anglo-American Special Relationship and Iran

Author:: Mohammad Javad Bakhtiari
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: The US-UK special relation has always been an attractive and important issue in international relations. The pro-American tendencies of the British and their partnership with American policies as opposed to being willing to more clearly align with the EU and other European countries, have raised various questions in the minds of scholars. Now, considering that David Cameron's Premiership is coming to an end and the next year's election in the UK and also the different challenges which Barack Obama faced in foreign affairs during his presidency along with his declining popularity in the US, this paper is going to find out whether the Anglo-American special relations have already came to an end or not. At the end, the Anglo-American dispute over Iran would be also examined. The Constructivism theory of international relations has been used here to analyze data which have been gathered from library sources and various other internet resources. It is concluded that the Anglo-American special terms which started after the Second World War and were deepened in the Cold War, have lost its strength in one way or another – especially after Bush-Blair era- and is waiting for a new shape with the change of British Premiership.
Topic:: International Relations
Political Geography:: America and Iran

40. Sheldon M. Stern, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths Versus Reality, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012.

Author:: Matthew Wiseman
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 remains one of the most highly contested episodes of the Cold War. Both academic and general historians alike continuously attempt to reconstruct the events that occurred during those harrowing two weeks as well as the subsequent aftermath. Historical examinations have unravelled some of the mystery which emerged from questions asked of the crisis and the subsequent period following its closure, but an abundance of scholarship on the topic has produced historical fallacies as well. It is for this reason that Sheldon Stern, official historian at the John F. Kennedy Library from 1977 to 1999, wrote The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality.
Topic:: Cold War
Political Geography:: America

41. Thomas H. Henriksen. America and the Rogue States. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: In America and the Rogue States, Thomas Henriksen lays out the relationships that exist, and have existed, between America and the states that made up George W. Bush's 'Axis of Evil.' Henriksen outlines the history of the interactions between the United States and North Korea, pre-invasion Iraq, and Iran, and through this draws out a number of themes. He also shows that the ways the relationships have played out are highly situational and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. In the last chapter, Henriksen explores American relationships with a number of states that were either once considered rogue or could become rogue, like Libya, Syria, and Cuba, referring to them as either “lesser rogues” or “troublesome states.” These states have remained “a puzzle for US foreign policy” (1) and are characterized by three things: autocratic governance, sponsorship of terrorism, and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). There is no clear definition provided by Henriksen for what can be considered a rogue state, making it difficult to judge what other states, if any, could be considered rogue. Henriksen seems to arbitrarily decide who is rogue and who is not: Cuba is a rogue state, while Myanmar is merely troublesome. Instead of synthesizing a clear definition of the term, something that could then be applied to other states in order to judge their 'rogueness,' Henriksen uses the Bush administration's criteria (the term itself was coined by President Bill Clinton in a 1994 speech in Brussels), which was outlined in the National Security Strategy of 2002 (NSS-2002). These were “brutality toward their own people; contempt for international law; determination to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD); advanced military technology; sponsorship of terrorism; rejection of human rights values; and hatred for the United States and 'everything it stands for'”. The use of the NSS-2002 definition allows for the 'Axis of Evil' to fit neatly into the term, which constitutes a problem of tautology, at least for the Bush administration. Further compounding this was that, according to Henriksen at least, the administration was set on going to war in Iraq prior to assuming office. This creates a situation in which it is hard to determine whether the idea of rogue states was created to justify this desire, or it informed the desire prior to the administration taking office.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and Terrorism
Political Geography:: United States, America, North Korea, and Libya

42. Is the Pivot Doomed? The Resilience of America's Strategic 'Rebalance'

Author:: Scott W. Harold
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Washington Quarterly
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: U.S. foreign policy is beset by numerous simultaneous crises. In Syria, the Assad regime continues to commit massive human rights abuses, while Islamic State jihadis are seizing territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq. Russia has annexed Crimea and is threatening its neighbors from Ukraine to the Baltics. In Nigeria, Boko Haram is killing students while they sleep and abducting hundreds of young girls to sell into slavery, while the Ebola virus is killing thousands in neighboring West African states. And as if this wasn't enough, in Asia, China is on the march in the South China Sea, North Korea may test another nuclear device, and U.S. allies Japan and South Korea continue to feud over history issues. In light of these challenges, U.S. foreign policy analysts may understandably question the fate of President Obama's signature foreign policy initiative, the `pivot' or `rebalance' to the Asia–Pacific.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: Japan, China, America, Asia, South Korea, Syria, and Nigeria

43. The urgency and scale of hosting can provide a needed boost to public investment and transform a country's image, infrastructure and business conditions beyond the games

Author:: Robert A. Boland
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: In the next two years, Brazil will host the three largest mega sports events in the world: the 2014 FIFA World Cup this summer, and then the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Rio in 2016. Other nations in the Americas and across the globe will be watching to see if Brazil's hosting duties lead to broad-based, lasting growth, or are merely an expensive distraction. While history provides examples of both scenarios, hosting such megaevents can provide lasting and transformative value, including to developing nations.
Political Geography:: America and Brazil

44. Fresh Look Reviews

Author:: Ted Piccone, Jim Swigert, and Ariel Fiszbein
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: Fresh, unique perspectives on recent books from across the hemisphere originally published in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Cuban Revelations: Behind the Scenes in Havana by Marc Frank Dangerous Liaisons: Organized Crime and Political Finance in Latin America and Beyond by Kevin Casas-Zamora (editor) The Promise of Participation: Experiments in Participatory Governance in Honduras and Guatemala by Daniel Altschuler and Javier Corrales
Political Geography:: America

45. The Dominican Republic and Haiti: A Shared View from the Diaspora

Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: In a landmark ruling, the Dominican Republic's Constitutional Court last September stripped an estimated 210,000 individuals—most of whom are Dominicans born to Haitian sugar cane workers—of their citizenship, effectively leaving them stateless. The ensuing outcry from the international community has included Junot Díaz and Edwidge Danticat—two of the best-known contemporary authors from the island of Hispaniola. Friends for over 20 years, Danticat (from Haiti) and Díaz (from the D.R.) have been relentless in their condemnation of the ruling. In a written exchange moderated by Americas Quarterly production editor and Haitian-American Richard André, Díaz and Danticat discuss the roots and legacies of racism and conflict in the neighboring nations, the impact of the court's ruling, and the responsibility of the diaspora to build bridges between Dominicans and Haitians and defend human rights at home and abroad.
Political Geography:: America

46. AQ Panorama

Author:: Leani García, Rebecca Bintrim, and Mercedes Laxague
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and events from around the hemisphere with AQ's Panorama. Each issue, AQ packs its bags and offers readers travel tips on a new Americas destination.
Political Geography:: United States and America

47. Fresh Look Reviews

Author:: Johanna Mendelson Forman, Anthony Spanakos, and Roger-Mark De Souza
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: Fresh, unique perspectives on recent books from across the hemisphere originally published in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Venezuela Before Chávez: Anatomy of an Economic Collapse by Ricardo Hausmann and Francisco R. Rodríguez Oil Sparks in the Amazon: Local Conflicts, Indigenous Populations, and Natural Resources by Patricia I. Vásquez Security in South America: The Role of States and Regional Organizations by Rodrigo Tavares
Political Geography:: America, Latin America, and Venezuela

48. Traffic death rates across the Americas

Author:: Wilda Escarfuller
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: The statistics are shocking. Latin America and the Caribbean have the countries with the number one (Dominican Republic) and number three (Venezuela) highest number of traffic deaths per capita in the world. Only Thailand comes close, with 38.1 traffic deaths in 2010 for every 100,000 citizens, placing it second in these grim rankings.
Political Geography:: America, Latin America, Caribbean, and Venezuela

49. Cooperative Security: Confidence-Building Measures With Brazil In Times Of Argentinian Democracy

Author:: Gisela Pereyra Doval and Miguela Varela
Publication Date:: 04-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:: Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:: The overcome of the bipolar dynamic s between the Soviet and the American bloc has led to an increasing concern about the study of security in regional geopolitical environment. Thus, the Copenhagen School proposed new tools to analyze and understand the relations between states within the framework of European security itself, which distinguishes it from the traditional theories of international relations, most of them from North America. The Copenhagen School believes that the phenomena produced by the end of the Cold War and the globalization process are not included or covered by the dominant models on security and there is a need to redefine some of the concepts used so far.
Political Geography:: America, Europe, Brazil, Soviet Union, and North America

50. Scholarship and the ship of state: rethinking the Anglo-American strategic decline analogy

Author:: Katherine C. Epstein
Publication Date:: 04-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: This article uses the centenary of the First World War as an opportunity to re-examine a major element of the existing literature on the war—the strategic implications of supposed British decline—as well as analogies to the contemporary United States based upon that interpretation of history. It argues that the standard declinist interpretation of British strategy rests to a surprising degree upon the work of the naval historian Arthur Marder, and that Marder's archival research and conceptual framework were weaker than is generally realized. It suggests that more recent work appearing since Marder is stronger and renders the declinist strategic interpretation difficult to maintain. It concludes by considering the implications of this new work for analogies between the United States today and First World War-era Britain, and for the use of history in contemporary policy debates.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Britain, United States, and America

51. Review article: Troublemakers: Laura Poitras and the problem of dissent

Author:: Alex Danchev
Publication Date:: 04-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: This review article considers three works by the distinguished documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras: My country, my country (2006); The oath (2010); and the recently released Citizenfour (2014), focusing on the whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Poitras describes these works as a trilogy about American power after 9/11, but they are also about disobedience and resistance, or the problem of dissent. The article argues for the significance (and the virtue) of Poitras's project, as film maker and troublemaker, and for the necessity of what Solzhenitsyn calls civil valour. You can listen to Alex Danchev discussing his review article in IA's March podcast here http://cht.hm/1N5JeoK
Political Geography:: America

52. Circumcision in America

Author:: Joseph England
Publication Date:: 04-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Objective Standard
Institution:: The Objective Standard
Abstract:: Every year throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, between four and five million girls suffer gruesome genital mutilation at the hands of tribal “cutters” or circumcisers. Far from being regarded as barbaric criminals from whom children should be hidden, these wielders of sharpened rocks, broken glass, rusty metal, and (only sometimes) scalpels occupy a special position of power and influence in their communities. Parents voluntarily, sometimes enthusiastically, bring their young and infant daughters to be mutilated. Though methods vary in severity, in as many as 10 percent of cases, a cutter shears a girl's labia for “beauty,” excises her clitoris to deprive her of sexual pleasure later in life, and sews closed her vagina to ensure virginity until marriage.
Political Geography:: Africa, America, and Middle East

53. From the Editor, Spring 2015

Author:: Craig Biddle
Publication Date:: 04-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Objective Standard
Institution:: The Objective Standard
Abstract:: This, the spring 2015 issue of The Objective Standard, begins our tenth year of publication; so let me start by extending a hearty thank-you to all of our subscribers and donors who have supported our vital work over the years. In a culture largely hostile to the ideas we elucidate and apply, the success of a publication such as TOS requires financial and spiritual support from the relative few who see the value of what we do. You are that few. You have made possible everything we have done—every article, every blog post, every video, every word. Without your support, TOS would have folded long ago, as most Objectivist periodicals have. Because of your support, however, TOS has not only survived, it has established and maintained a level of quality and clarity that has made and is making a difference. Here's an indication of the kind of correspondence we receive from people who discover TOS.
Political Geography:: America

54. Cuba and the Summits of the Americas

Author:: Richard E. Feinberg
Publication Date:: 05-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: In the coming months, the United States is going to face a tough choice: either alter its policy toward Cuba or face the virtual collapse of its diplomacy in Latin America. The upcoming Summit of the Americas, the seventh meeting of democratically elected heads of state throughout the Americas, due to convene in April 2015 in Panama, will force the Barack Obama administration to choose between its instincts to reset Cuba policy to coincide more closely with hemispheric opinion and its fears of a domestic political backlash.
Political Geography:: United States, America, Cuba, Latin America, and Panama

55. Old world, new world: the evolution and influence of foreign affairs think-tanks

Author:: Donald E. Abelson
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: Before the ink on the Treaty of Versailles was dry, the idea of creating an organization dedicated to educating, informing and advising future leaders about the causes and consequences of war was already gaining traction. At 'a series of unofficial meetings held in Paris in 1919',1 Lionel Curtis, an Oxford professor and visionary with a reputation for possessing an impressive array of entrepreneurial skills, was spearheading efforts to establish an Anglo-American research institution where scholars could explore international problems and advocate policy solutions.2 This kind of organization appealed to Curtis and to those with whom he discussed it for several reasons, not the least of which was that it could provide a valuable forum for both policy-makers and prominent policy experts in the leading western powers to talk to one another about international affairs. It was also a concept with which several of the delegates attending the Paris peace talks had some familiarity. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a number of institutions had already taken root in Great Britain and in the United States with the aim of helping policy-makers navigate their way through complex policy problems. They included the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (1831), founded by the first Duke of Wellington; London's Fabian Society (1884), home to a number of prominent scholars, including Sidney and Beatrice Webb, co-founders of the London School of Economics; the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1910), established by the Scottish-American steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie; and the Institute for Government Research (1916), which merged with two other institutions to form the Brookings Institution in 1927.3 Curtis and his colleagues in Great Britain and the United States were also aware of the ground-breaking research that had been conducted at hundreds of settlement houses in their respective countries. It was at places such as London's Toynbee Hall (1884) and Chicago's Hull House, co-founded by Jane Addams in 1889, that sociologists and other university faculty with expertise in social welfare policy could study the working conditions of the poor.4 In short, proponents of establishing a foreign affairs research institution recognized the importance of encouraging a dialogue between leading social scientists and high-level policy-makers.
Topic:: Government and International Organization
Political Geography:: Britain, United States, America, Washington, Paris, London, and Wellington

56. American Views of Europe

Author:: David Calleo
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The International Spectator
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: America's diplomacy towards Europe has passed two broad historic phases. A first, isolationist phase, determined in part by America's need to maintain its domestic multinational consensus, was replaced, after World War II and under the Soviet threat, by a policy of hegemonic engagement. The Soviet collapse opened a new era forcing a reinterpretation of America's role in Europe and the world. Four different narratives have emerged: triumphalist, declinist, chaotic or pluralist. If a unipolar American role seems unlikely to persist, American decline is all too possible. A new hegemonic replacement seems unlikely, which makes the pluralist narrative plausible and desirable. This multipolar world will require an adaptation of the Western alliance and a new way of thinking about interstate relations. Confederal Europe, for its experience in bargaining and conciliation, might have much to offer to the new plural world order.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: America and Europe

57. Philosophical Pragmatism and the Constitutional Watershed of 1912

Author:: Trygve Throntveit
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: TRYGVE THRONTVEIT argues that intellectuals and activists indebted to the pragmatist tradition of American philosophy decisively shaped the debate between Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson during the election of 1912. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19164#sthash.lspgECHu.dpuf
Political Geography:: America

58. The India Lobby and the Nuclear Agreement with India

Author:: Dinshaw Mistry
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: DINSHAW MISTRY discusses the campaign of Indian-American lobbying for a civilian nuclear agreement with India. He argues that Indian Americans were part of a broader “India lobby” which helped advance legislation on the civilian nuclear agreement through Congress. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19167#sthash.M88rbr7G.dpuf
Political Geography:: America and India

59. THE CONTINUING CHALLENGE OF DEMOCRACY IN THE AMERICAS

Author:: Eric Farnsworth
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Washington Quarterly
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: U.S. influence is waning in the Americas. Although Washington is currently engaged in a well-intentioned effort to reverse this trend, its agenda will have only limited impact over the longer term unless the United States changes the lens through which it views the region. Strategic thinking has essentially collapsed. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the international relations community in the United States moved on, leaving regional studies to development and social inclusion advocates. At the point in history when the United States should be reaping the reward of years of patient investment and hard work building democratic institutions and open markets in the region, we have either doubled down on, or pivoted to, other parts of the world. Now, instead, the United States must refocus its perspective within the region, or else its traditional leadership role will continue to erode. Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are neither charity cases nor default partners in international affairs. It is time for a less romantic, more realistic approach to the Americas.
Topic:: International Relations
Political Geography:: America, Washington, and Caribbean

60. Turkey's European Future: Behind the Scenes of America's Influence on EU-Turkey Relations

Author:: Yaprak Gursoy
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: TURKEY'S EUROPEAN FUTURE tackles the question of how the United States (US) has influenced relations between the European Union (EU) and Turkey, and especially the decisions of the EU on Turkey. Except for a few notable scholarly articles, US-EU-Turkey relations have not been investigated in depth. In this well-written and well-organized book, Tocci addresses this gap in the literature by thoroughly examining in what ways, mechanisms, and in which direction the United States has had an impact on the decisions of the EU regarding Turkey. The book focuses mostly on the 1990s and 2000s, however the main findings provide considerable insight for the earlier periods, as well as for the future.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: America and Turkey

61. A Muslim Mystic Community in Britain: Meaning in the West and for the West

Author:: Ali Murat Yel
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: THE NAQSHBANDIYYA is perhaps one of the widest-spread Islamic religious brotherhoods due to its active involvement in political affairs. Its 'strength' comes from the fact it could trace the sheiks of the order as far back as to the Prophet of Islam through his companion Abu Bakr. The silsila (the chain of transmission) of the order also contains some very important figures in Islamic history, like Salman al-Farisi and Bayazid al-Bistami. Despite the importance of the order and its worldwide expansion, the published works on the subject could fill only a small shelf. The order also has a great number of followers in Turkey, including some prominent political figures. Since Shah Bahauddin Naqshband, the founder of the order, the succeeding sheiks of the Naqshbandiyya tarikat (religious order) have currently been handed to Sheikh Nazim al-Kibrisi al-Haqqani, a Turkish Cypriot. The Sheikh has been given the task of expanding the order to the West, and as a result of arduous efforts he has been able to establish some centers in various European and American cities, with the biggest one being in London. Author Tayfun Atay studied this center for his Ph.D. thesis submitted to London University.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: Britain, America, Europe, Turkey, and London

62. Chinese Scholarship on Iran and the Middle East

Author:: Nadia Helmy
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: In the past three decades, Chinese Iranian and Middle East Studies have become more and more systematic, which is reflected not only in the great volume of publication, but also in the varied research methodologies and the increase in Iranian and Middle East academic journals. The development of Chinese Middle East studies have accelerated in particular after Arab Spring revolutions and the political changes in the Middle East (2000- 2013). Research institutes evolved from state-controlled propaganda offices into multi-dimensional academic and non-academic entities, including universities, research institutes, military institutions, government offices, overseas embassies and mass media. At the same time, publications evolved from providing an introduction and overview of Iran and Middle Eastern states to in-depth studies of Middle East politics and economics in three stages: beginnings (1949- 1978), growth (1979- 1999), and dealing with energy, religion, culture, society and security. The Middle East-related research programs' funding provided by provincial, ministerial and national authorities have increased and the quality of research has greatly improved. And finally, China has established, as well as joined, various academic institutions and NGOs, such as the Chinese Middle East Studies Association (CMESA), the Asian Middle East Studies Association (AMESA) and the Arabic Literature Studies Association (ALSA). However, Chinese Middle East Studies remain underdeveloped, both in comparison with China's American, European, and Japanese studies at home, and with Middle East studies in the West.
Topic:: Security, Energy Policy, Government, Politics, Religion, Culture, and Authoritarianism
Political Geography:: Japan, China, America, Europe, Iran, Middle East, and Arabia

63. Anglo-Saxon Axis in 2003: Blair's Doctrine and Bush Invasion of Iraq

Author:: Seyed Vahid Karimi and Amir Hooshang Mirkooshesh
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: What is the relationship between the doctrine of Tony Blair and America's invasion of Iraq? This paper tries to answer this question. So, it looks at the American invasion of Iraq and the British response, and argues that Brain always prevails over brawn. United States was and still is a hard power. Britain plays a soft power role in international relations. Britain usually uses the American strength and resources for the benefit of Britain. When the British describe their relations with the United States as "special," they mean that they have the power to influence and direct US foreign policy. For an understanding of the international politics, we must concentrate on Anglo-Saxon "interdependency" through the "special relationship" which often exists between British Prime Ministers and US Presidents. Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister of the 1940s, Harold Macmillan in the 1960s, Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and Tony Blair in the 2000s, all had special relationships with their US counterparts. While not always the case, the relationship between Tony Blair, British Prime Minster, and George Bush, American President, was beneficial to British interest and Blair's doctrine of International Community declared in 1999. it is imperative not only to understand international politics, but also to react properly to international politics. As it has been proven in the Iraq case, Tony Blair manipulated US foreign policy during the George Bush presidency.
Topic:: International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: Britain, United States, Iraq, and America

64. Understanding The Arctic Council: A 'Sub-Regional' Perspective

Author:: Alyson J. K. Bailes
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: The international architecture of the circumpolar Arctic region is unusual in several ways. All countries directly involved – Canada, the USA, Russia and the five Nordic nations, who are also the states members of the Arctic Council – are regarded in other contexts as part of a 'Euro-Atlantic' nexus, and all belong to bodies like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Yet the classic Euro-Atlantic institutions have so far barely engaged with the new issues created by the opening up of the region though ice melting. NATO does not have an Arctic policy as such, while the OSCE itself and the Council of Europe have been only marginally involved. The European Union has a de facto presence in several dimensions (climate management, the energy market, shipping, research and monitoring etc), but has so far failed to secure the status of an observer at the Arctic Council.
Political Geography:: Russia, America, Europe, Canada, and Nordic Nations

65. Political Bubbles: Financial Crises and the Failure of American Democracy

Author:: Mark A. Calabria
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: The majority of books on the recent financial crisis tend to be written either by economics/finance experts or by journalists. While the journalistic accounts occasionally focus on political actors, it is usually in the manner of "bad people doing bad things" rather than with a theoretical framework. The economic accounts, with some exception, rarely incorporate the politics of finance. It is this vacuum that Political Bubbles attempts to fill.
Political Geography:: America

66. Women's Rights U.S. Foreign Policy

Author:: Melanne Verveer
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: When I attended the first Summit of the Americas in Miami in 1994, only two female heads of state represented their countries: Dominica and Nicaragua. This past April at the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, five of the presidents and prime ministers representing the 33 participating countries were women: from Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Their presence was an important example of the progress the hemisphere—and its women—have made. In fact, the region continues to make progress in a variety of areas. Latin America and the Caribbean are tackling ongoing challenges head-on, including promoting girls' education, improving women's and girls' health, facilitating women's political participation, and expanding women's economic opportunities. Governments throughout the hemisphere are increasingly recognizing that no country can get ahead if it leaves half of its people behind.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:: America, Brazil, and Caribbean

67. Higher Education in Chile

Author:: Richard André
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: The quality of Chile's universities is well known across the Americas. Two of these—Pontificia Universidad Católica de ChileUniversidad de Chile—rank in the top five of the 2011 U.S. News and World Report list of the 100 best schools in the region. Unfortunately, high-quality education comes at a high cost. Chile has the second most expensive private university system of any OECD country, after the United States. And due to the lack of financial aid, Chilean families shoulder 85 percent of the cost of a university education—more than any other developed nation.Until recently, most Chilean youth accepted the cost of education as the price of social mobility. Gabriela San Martín, 24, considered a university degree a ticket to a stable, decent-paying job. She took out a government-financed loan, known as crédito con aval del estado (CAE), to pay for her studies in early childhood education at Universidad Andrés Bello.
Topic:: Education
Political Geography:: America and Chile

68. Structures, environnement et basculement dans le jihadisme

Author:: Luis Martinez
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cultures & Conflits
Institution:: Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:: Comment expliquer l'attrait pour le courant jihadiste de certains jeunes musulmans en France ? Cet article montre comment se construit la justification de la radicalisation et les étapes qui rendent légitime le passage à l'acte violent. Le processus de justification du passage à l'acte violent - à l'attentat-suicide par exemple - s'inscrit dans un contexte qu'il faut comprendre : quelles sont « les structures sociales et organisationnelles qui peuvent promouvoir dans un moment donné, l'attentat-suicide ? ». Aussi, l'analyse du basculement dans la violence doit-elle recontextualiser les engagements et les trajectoires individuelles, car l'environnement dans lequel se construit le processus de justification apparaît comme déterminant. Le basculement dans la violence n'est pas le produit d'une frustration ou d'un symptôme psychologique. L'attentat-suicide, par exemple, est un véritable instrument de guerre. Il a un sens, répond à une logique et s'inscrit dans une finalité : un territoire à libérer, une communauté à reconquérir . Les entretiens réalisés auprès de jeunes musulmans d'origine nord-africaine permettent ici de souligner comment se construit la justification du passage à l'acte violent ; ils permettent aussi de comprendre que, pour que l'acte violent se réalise, des conditions générales et structurelles sont nécessaires, sans quoi la justification du passage reste de l'ordre du discours.
Political Geography:: Afghanistan and America

69. L'altermondialisme et la recherche sur les mouvements sociaux. Quelques réflexions

Author:: Donatella Della Porta
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cultures & Conflits
Institution:: Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:: Le 30 novembre 1999, à Seattle, ville américaine devenue le symbole de la New Economy, environ 50 000 personnes protestent contre la 3e conférencede l'Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC) réunie pour lancer leMillenium Round, un nouveau cycle de négociations visant à poursuivre lalibéralisation du marché, en particulier celles des investissements et des services publics. Les manifestations de Seattle avaient été lancées en 1999 à Genève parune coordination d'organisations de provenances diverses, qui s'étaient déjàmobilisées avec succès pour empêcher la signature d'un traité international, leMultilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), accusé de réduire, au nom dulibre-échange, la capacité des Etats à intervenir sur les enjeux sociaux et environnementaux.Les manifestations contre le Millenium Round–précédéesd'assemblées et d'initiatives de diffusion d'informations dans le monde entire3x2013;ont été organisées par 1 387 ONG, syndicats, écologistes et églises de différentes confessions. Parmi les slogans des manifestations, on trouve ceux-ci : « Theworld is not for sale » ; « No globalization without participation » ; « We arecitizens, not only consumers » ; « WTO–Capitalism without conscience » ;« Trade: clean, green and fair ».
Political Geography:: America

70. A propos des "disparus" de la guerre civile espagnole (suite)

Author:: Antonio Garcia Castro
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cultures & Conflits
Institution:: Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:: Nous publions ici trois documents étroitement liés au dossier consacré à la question des « disparus » de la guerre civile espagnole, paru dans notre précédent numéro. Ces documents, conçus comme des annexes dudit dossier, entendent introduire, pour ainsi dire fugacement, d'autres regards sur ce qu'engagent les actuelles exhumations des fosses communes de la période franquiste.
Political Geography:: America

71. L'externalisation des frontières des « Nordsanbsp;» dans les eaux des « Suds »

Author:: Cedric Audebert and Nelly Robin
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cultures & Conflits
Institution:: Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:: Au début de l'année 2006, l'opinion internationale s'est émue du naufrage, aux frontières de l'Europe, de milliers d'émigrants clandestins subsahariens, dont le destin tragique rappelle celui des boat people antillais ayant tenté de rejoindre les Etats-Unis au cours des trois dernières décennies. Quoique la dimension politique ait joué un rôle majeur dans la genèse des premiers flux massifs de boat people haïtiens et cubains dans les années 1960, les migrations maritimes subsahariennes et caribéennes répondent à des déterminants similaires. Elles expriment l'acuité de la crise économique sévissant dans les pays d'origine et correspondent à une demande sociale, dans un contexte où la migration de l'individu est perçue comme un préalable nécessaire à l'ascension sociale du collectif familial.
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Europe

72. Prisons: In Jail, But Not Sentenced

Author:: Richard M. Abord and Ashley D. Cannon
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: Each year, millions of people across the world find themselves in jail without being convicted of anything-often for months at a time-as they await trial. Alarmingly, although the rights to liberty, security and equal justice under the law are cornerstones of justice systems throughout the Americas, pretrial detention is being employed at rates two to five times greater than the international average, and its use continues to grow unabated.
Political Geography:: America

73. Ask the Experts: Mining

Author:: Francisco Panizza, Jon Samuel, Anthony Hodge, Lisa Sachs, and Edwin Julio Palomino Cadenas
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: To secure a positive development outcome from mining, governments first need to create the conditions that will attract investment in new mines. This starts with open and honest means of allocating mineral exploration and development rights, the rule of law, a stable regulatory and fiscal regime, and openness to foreign investment.
Topic:: Economics and Government
Political Geography:: America

74. Documenting LGBT struggles in Venezuela — Championing Argentine judicial reform — Connecting Brazil's tech entrepreneurs — Fighting crime in Guatemala.

Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: Arts Innovator: Andrea Baranenko, Venezuela Latin America is moving forward, but Venezuela is moving in the opposite direction,” says Andrea Baranenko, a 28-year-old Venezuelan filmmaker whose recent documentary, Yo Indocumentada (I, Undocumented), exposes the struggles of transgender people in her native country. The film, Baranenko's first feature-length production, tells the story of three Venezuelan women fighting for their right to have an identity. Tamara Adrián, 58, is a lawyer; Desirée Pérez, 46, is a hairdresser; and Victoria González, 27, has been a visual arts student since 2009. These women share more than their nationality: they all carry IDs with masculine names that don't correspond to their actual identities. They're transgender women, who long ago assumed their gender and now defend it in a homophobic and transphobic society.
Topic:: Government, Human Rights, and Reform
Political Geography:: America, Venezuela, and Guatemala

75. Dispatches from the field: Guatemala city

Author:: Quentin Delpech
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: Guate-Mara: the Extortion Economy in GuatemalaBY QUENTIN DELPECH The maras add union-busting to their repertoire of murder and extortion. Behind the walls of export-processing zones in Mixco and Villa Nueva on the outskirts of Guatemala City, apparel workers assemble, sew, label, inspect, and iron millions of garments, packing them in cartons bound for the United States. For more than 30 years, Guatemala's maquilas have been a hub of the global economy; but lately, these plants have been the center of a much darker story. They've become the prime targets of the maras, gangs of criminals that are flourishing in this Central American nation.
Topic:: Development
Political Geography:: America and Guatemala

76. Rock al Parque in Bogotá — Fashionistas flock to Jamaica — Celebrating the cuy — Travel: Vancouver

Author:: Robin Dean
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: The crowd at Rock al Parque 2012. Photo: Diego Santacruz/AP Rock al Parque With one of the richest musical cultures in the Americas, Colombia has added rock to its repertoire. Devout fans of the music that inspired generations of American and British teenagers since the 1950s have been gathering every year in Bogotá's Simón Bolívar Metropolitan Park for Rock al Parque (Rock in the Park), the region's largest annual rock festival.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America, Colombia, and Jamaica

77. Central America Unplugged

Author:: Jeremy M. Martin
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: The integration of Central America's fragmented electricity market has always seemed a no-brainer—at least to outsiders. A seamless grid for delivery of electricity would not only make regional power generation projects affordable, but would also reduce costs to consumers and governments alike, as well as strengthen energy security at the national level. The foundations for a robust regional electricity market were, in fact, laid by a regional treaty in 1996, establishing the Sistema de Interconexión Eléctrica de los Países de América Central (Central American Electrical Interconnection System—SIEPAC), which aimed to knit together the electrical grids from all six countries. But the original target completion date of 2008 was not met. Although several key pieces of the regional market are under development, the plan has fallen victim to regulatory bottlenecks and the shifting political priorities of individual governments. The unfortunate result: Central America's electricity markets remain mostly within national boundaries.
Topic:: Power Politics
Political Geography:: America

78. What Would it be Like if You Were a Journalist...Here

Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: With the exception of Cuba, the hemisphere is a relatively free place to be a journalist compared to much of the rest of the world. But that doesn't mean it's safe or easy, or that it's getting any easier. Below is a catalogue of the abuses, risks and challenges that journalists and media faced in the Americas and in selected countries outside the region last year.
Political Geography:: America and Cuba

79. Protecting Truth from Power: 15 Years of The Special Rapporteur For Freedom of Expression

Author:: Santiago A. Canton
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Americas Quarterly
Institution:: Council of the Americas
Abstract:: The Inter-American System enshrined the right to freedom of thought and expression in Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights and Article IV of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. In 1998, to further protect this right, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR or the Commission) established the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. I served as the first head of the office.
Topic:: Human Rights
Political Geography:: America

80. La dynamique contemporaine de sécurité et le renouveau de la défense civile américaine sous l'administration Clinton

Author:: Olivier Palluault
Publication Date:: 05-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cultures & Conflits
Institution:: Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:: La homeland security, mise en place aux États-Unis après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, incarne la transformation contemporaine de la sécurité. Son apparition n'est pas directement liée à la chute du World Trade Center mais relève plutôt d'une dynamique de sécurité qui s'est cristallisée au milieu des années 1990. Cette dynamique repose sur la conjonction de cinq processus : la formation d'un consensus autour de la promotion d'une Amérique forte et vigilante (processus ontologique), un changement des pratiques stratégiques tournées vers la réduction des vulnérabilités (processus stratégique), la création d'un espace bureaucratique de sécurité situé au-delà du militaire et du policier (processus bureaucratique), l'avènement de nouveaux acteurs de la sécurité spécialisés dans la gestion des risques (processus sociologique), la prégnance d'une appréhension de l'innovation technologique comme source de la menace et remède face à celle-ci (processus technologique).
Political Geography:: America

81. On Rights to Land, Expulsions, and Corrective Justice

Author:: Margaret Moore
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: This article examines the nature of the wrongs that are inflicted on individuals and groups who have been expelled from the land that they previously occupied, and asks what they might consequently be owed as a matter of corrective justice. Such cases-in which individuals and groups are expelled, their property is expropriated, and their land is subsequently settled by other people-are not unusual. They include the expulsion of Germans from the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1947; the expulsion of (mainly) Greek Cypriots from the north of Cyprus following the Turkish invasion there in 1974; and the expulsion of Muslim Bosniaks from what is now called the Republic of Srpska, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, between 1991 and 1995. Historically, there are numerous other cases of "ethnic cleansing" and border redrawing. The injustice with which this article is concerned is also foundational to the current dominant societies in the Americas and Australasia.
Political Geography:: America, Australia, and AustralAsia

82. Modern Pluralism: Anglo-American Debates Since 1880 edited by Mark Bevir

Author:: George Crowder
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: Modern Pluralism: Anglo-American Debates Since 1880, Mark Bevir, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 255 pp., $85 cloth. Talk of “pluralism” has become ubiquitous in political theory, but it is often vague. In this edited collection Mark Bevir aims to improve our understanding of this tricky area by clarifying different senses and theories of pluralism and tracking the development of these during the twentieth century. In particular, Bevir wants to acquaint readers with significant versions of pluralism that have been submerged by other ideas, yet may still provide useful resources for us now. The basic idea of bringing together various dimensions, periods, and traditions of pluralism is immediately intriguing. The obvious critical question is, do they really have anything in common, or are there sufficient local overlaps to justify their organization under the unitary category of “pluralism”? This in itself seems to be a problem of plurality. On the whole, Bevir meets this challenge successfully.
Topic:: Development
Political Geography:: America

83. Finding Mecca in America: How Islam is Becoming an American Religion

Author:: Karen Leonard
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Finding Mecca in America: How Islam is Becoming an American Religion Near the end of this interesting book, the author characterizes his final chapter as “a series of interpretive judgments about the venture of Islam in its American habitat (p.205),” and I find this true of the book as a whole. It began as a doctoral dissertation, and Bilici defines himself a cultural sociologist who takes an agonistic (combative, contesting) approach, an approach that “pays attention to the margins more than the mainstreams, to lived experience more than to floating abstractions (p.21).” Yet, lengthy discussions of philosophy and social theory punctuate the chapters, enabling readers to debate the stated balance. Bilici also characterizes his work as ethnography, and while he draws on his work in Detroit, Michigan, as part of a team project and his internship with the Council of American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, in Washington, DC, the ethnographic material is limited, providing illustrations for various points Bilici wants to make rather than systematic evidence for them. He argues that his topics have escaped attention (or been taken for granted) or are postdiasporic, meaning they have not yet fully appeared above the horizon (p.19), such as Abrahamic discourse and Muslim comedy. He writes that “what should be prized is not the sea of data but the wisdom of elucidation (p.23),” and this personal interpretation is certainly worth reading.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: America and Washington

84. Secularism and Religion-Making

Author:: Nurullah Ardiç
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Secularism and Religion-Making Recent scholarship in the sociology of religion has produced fresh perspectives on the understanding of religion and its inter-relationships with society. Largely influenced by post-structuralist social theory, these new perspectives call for a re-evaluation of existing theoretical and methodological approaches as well as empirical analyses, as reflected in the oft-used terms to describe their projects, including “rethinking,” “imagining” religion and its “invention” and “manufacturing” a là “invention of tradition”. The term “religion-making” is one such concept that questions the traditional ways of studying religion (and its constitutive other, secularism). It refers to the reification by political and intellectual actors (with different motivations) of a religion (its beliefs and practices/rituals) based on certain taken-for-granted (binary) concepts, such as the religious/secular divide, within the discursive field of world religions. The collection of articles edited by Markus Dressler and Arvind-Pal Mandair brings together eleven theoretically-informed and empirically-focused studies on religion-making in different socio-historical contexts. It fits nicely, and contributes to, the above-mentioned recent trends in the sociology of religion and secularism. A strong trend within this scholarship is a critique of the “secular critique” of the Enlightenment-inspired secularization theory, which also implies a critical re-evaluation of the (secularist) notion of a clear-cut distinction between the religious and the secular. This is also a common theme among the articles brought together in this edited volume: each study questions from a post-structuralist angle (but focusing on a different aspect of) the assumption of the 'boundedness' of “religion” and “secularism” and their opposition to one another. The theoretical aim of the volume, according to the editors, is to problematize this dichotomous assumption and demonstrate instead the codependency of “secular” and “religious” discourses. Its empirical aim is to “examine the consequences of the colonial and postcolonial adoption of Western-style objectifications of religion and … the secular, by non-Western elites” (p. 3), but it also contains cases of Western actors. Moreover, the editors' lengthy Introduction contains a useful discussion on the philosophical foundations (from Kant to Heidegger, from Hume to Hegel) and current manifestations (in Taylor, Habermas etc.) of the epistemological hegemony of the religious/secular dichotomy and of the “universalization” of the concept of religion out of Western Christianity. The analyses contained in the volume address the processes of religion-making at three different levels. First, “religion-making from above” refers to the discursive strategy of reifying religion(s) from powerful positions rendering them an instrument of governmentality. This is often undertaken by nation-states in their efforts to reframe existing religious traditions in a docile manner. As the editors note, this strategy is also applied by individual political actors, intellectuals and NGOs, as exemplified by the famous American think-tank RAND Corporation's call for “rebuilding Islam” in a manner that would not constitute a threat to American interests worldwide. The same advice was reiterated in 2004 by Daniel Pipes, a member of the Zionist lobby in the US who was close to the Bush administration, who argued that the ultimate goal of “the war on terror” was “religion-building,” implying the neocon elites' desire to “civilize Islam” (p. 22). These examples show not only the fact that the notion of religion-making from above is extremely relevant to current global geo-politics but also a paradigmatic symptom of the secular-liberal hegemony over religion in Western imagination: all religious traditions are encouraged and/or forced to “fit in” the existing socio-political structures in the form of “protestantization” –i.e. becoming an a-political, “modernized”/secularized and docile religion with no agenda for change in the status quo. Therefore, this hegemonic secular discourse does not so much aim to cleanse the public sphere and politics from religion as to make the latter fit in with the existing system and, if possible, function as a source of legitimization for hegemonic powers.
Topic:: Islam and Politics
Political Geography:: America

85. Pakistani Opposition to American Drone Strikes

Author:: C. Christine Fair, Karl Kaltenhaler, and William Miller
Publication Date:: 04-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: AMERICA'S EMPLOYMENT OF WEAPONIZED unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as "drones," to kill alleged terrorists in Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas (FATA) fuels sustained controversy in Pakistan. Pakistani outrage has steadily deepened since 2008, when the United States increased the frequency of the strikes. The increasing use of "signature strikes" has been particularly controversial in (and beyond) Pakistan, because such strikes are targeted at "men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren't always known." Whereas personality strikes require the operator to develop a high level of certainty about the target's identity and location, based on multiple sources such as "imagery, cell phone intercepts and informants on the ground," operators may "initiate a signature strike after observing certain patterns of behavior." When conducting signature strikes, the United States assesses that the individuals in question exhibit behaviors that match a pre-identified "signature" (for example, pattern of observable activities and/or personal networks) that suggests that they are associated with al Qaeda and/or the Pakistani or Afghan Taliban organizations. Because the identity of the target is unknown, even during the strike, it is possible that these persons are innocent civilians, a possibility that both current and former U.S. government officials concede. While the George W. Bush administration employed both personality strikes from 2004 and signature strikes from 2008 in Pakistan, the administration of Barack Obama has redoubled the use of both types. This has ignited public protests against the drones in Pakistan, particularly in Pakistan's urban areas—far removed from the tribal areas where drones are employed. It has also galvanized a vigorous debate within Pakistan's National Assembly, which tried, but ultimately failed, to curtail the strikes.
Political Geography:: Pakistan and America

86. "The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present"

Author:: Trygve Throntveit
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: “This is what happens when democracies try to take advantage of their historical advantages,” writes David Runciman. “They mess up” (p. 273). In The Confidence Trap, Runciman draws on Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of nineteenth-century American democracy to assess the strengths and diagnose the ills that have beset mature democratic societies from the early twentieth century to the present. The result is a clear and plausible articulation of democracy's central dilemma, paired with a far less definite treatment of its implications for the conduct of public affairs, either in the past or today.
Topic:: War and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:: America

87. The impact of regional dynamics on US policy toward regional security arrangements in East Asia

Author:: Galia Press-Barnathan
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:: Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:: This paper examines American policy regarding regional security arrangements (RSAs) in Asia. It argues that it is American perceptions of regional interest in such RSAs and of the compatibility of the goals of regional partners with those of the United States, which eventually shape American policy. After discussing the potential value and cost of RSAs, it suggests that actual policy choices are shaped largely as a reaction to regional states' motivations and policies. Since in Asia, there was limited functional pooling effect to be gained from RSAs, changes in American policies reflected much more a reaction to changes in regional interest in such arrangements. This interaction is demonstrated through a review of post-Cold War developments regarding US RSA policy, distinguishing between the early years of transition to unipolarity and the erosion of unipolarity since the late 1990s. These are also compared to earlier American policy regarding RSAs during the Cold War.
Topic:: Cold War
Political Geography:: United States, America, East Asia, and Asia

88. Political Engagement by Wealthy Americans

Author:: Fay Lomax Cook, Benjamin I. Page, and Rachel L. Moskowitz
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Examine the political behavior of wealthy Americans—those with income or wealth in the top 1 percent. They find that the top 1 percent are exceptionally active in politics and discuss the implications of such high rates of participation for democratic policy making.
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: America

89. Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American Politics

Author:: William P. Marshall
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The unilateral actions of President George W. Bush in seeking to combat the war on terror, followed by President Barack Obama's efforts in attempting to overcome Congressional inaction by pursuing major policy initiatives through executive order, have again brought into focus the question of whether presi¬dential power has expanded to the point where, in Arthur Schlesinger's famous coinage, the United States now has an Imperial Presidency. To hear some tell the story, Presidents Bush and Obama have taken presidential power to new heights, thereby endangering constitutional limits on separation of powers. To hear others, the actions of these presidents have been fully consonant with those of their predecessors and present no new threat to the constitutional system of checks and balances.
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: America

90. American Umpire, Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman

Author:: Meena Bose
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Studies of American foreign policy wrestle with identifying grand themes that illustrate patterns in choices and policymaking, while also recognizing differences that may be unique to an event or result from specific circumstances that often are not replicated. Cast very broadly, the contrast reveals an underlying difference in conceptual approach by political scientists versus historians. As Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman writes, historians “emphasize contingency, complexity, and the unanticipated … Few principles apply all the time” (p. 5). Her monumental work, American Umpire, does both: It argues persuasively that history shows the United States acting as an “umpire” rather than an “empire” in world affairs, and then applies this concept to American foreign policy from the eighteenth century to the present.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: America

91. The End of Exceptionalism in American Education: The Changing Politics of School Reform

Author:: Terry M. Moe Free
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Jeffrey Henig's new book is about the changing governance of the public schools and why it matters. Henig's central theme is that local, single‐purpose governance-a hallmark that has made education "exceptional" by comparison to other realms of public policy-has been giving way to general-purpose governance, sometimes through mayoral control, but mainly through a shift to state and national decision arenas. With this ongoing shift in governance, he argues, education is being plunged into the same governance mix with other public policies, and this change has consequences for power, politics, and reform.
Topic:: Politics and Reform
Political Geography:: America

92. The Adversary First Amendment: Free Expression and the Foundation of American Democracy

Author:: Mark A. Graber
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Grand theories of the First Amendment suffer from problems of exclusion and inclusion. The broad principles that justify excluding some human activity from constitutional protection inevitably bleed in ways that support excluding activity that virtually all people think is covered by the First Amendment. The broad principles that justify granting First Amendment protection to activities inevitably bleed in ways that support granting protection to human activities that hardly anyone thinks merit special constitutional protection. The Adversary First Amendment: Free Expression and the Foundations of American Democracy effectively highlights how many standard justifications for excluding commercial advertising from constitutional protection threaten to undermine constitutional protection for consensual core speech rights. Martin Redish less successfully demonstrates that his adversarial theory of democracy would not entail constitutional protection for a wide variety of activity that government may consensually regulate.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America

93. Presidents and the Dissolution of the Union: Leadership Style from Polk to Lincoln

Author:: Matthew J. Dickinson
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In his study of the leadership style exhibited by six presidents, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln, Fred Greenstein applies the analytic scheme he first unveiled in The Presidential Difference to explain how the decisions that these men made in the critical period 1846–1861 led to the Civil War. Greenstein argues that their actions, beginning with Polk's ill-fated decision to provoke a war with Mexico, formed a funnel of causality that increasingly limited the options of their successors when dealing with the slavery issue, so that when Lincoln took office, it was impossible to keep the Union together short of military conflict. In addition to addressing a significant period in American history, Greenstein's choice of topic has the added virtue of shining a spotlight on a group of presidents who, with the exception of Lincoln, tend to be overlooked in the history books. To be sure, this is not a revisionist study; Greenstein's analysis is unlikely to change anyone's assessment of these six presidents in terms of their historical rankings (although I admit to coming away with a slightly greater appreciation for Millard Fillmore's presidency).
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: America

94. Defending state-centric regionalism through mimicry and localisation: regional parliamentary bodies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Mercosur

Author:: Jürgen Rüland and Karsten Bechle
Publication Date:: 01-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of International Relations and Development
Institution:: Central and East European International Studies Association
Abstract:: The creation of parliamentary bodies for regional organisations such as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or Mercosur seems to be at odds with the intergovernmental logic on which these organisations rest. We approach this puzzle from the perspective of norm diffusion theory. In the article we argue that transnational legislative bodies in Southeast Asia and South America have been primarily established to retain the respective organisation's 'cognitive prior', which in both cases rests upon deeply entrenched corporatist norms and ideas. We test our theoretical claims by a comparative study on the emergence and evolution of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly and the Mercosur Parliament.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America and Southeast Asia

95. The Evolution of Turkey's Foreign Policy under the AK Party Government

Author:: Joerg Baudner
Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: This article aims to explain the evolution of Turkish foreign policy through the search for a foreign policy role concept. It will argue that the AK Party government has already adopted two different foreign policy role concepts. Thus, the changes in Turkish foreign policy can best be characterized as the adoption of a foreign policy role with many traits of civilian power (2002-2005), subsequent limited change (2005-2010) and the adoption of a regional power role (from 2010 on).
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Cold War, and Government
Political Geography:: America, Turkey, and Middle East

96. Turkey and the Arab Spring Leadership in the Middle East, Graham E. Fuller

Author:: Andrew A. Szarejko
Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Insight Turkey
Institution:: SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:: Some 15 to 20 years from today, it will be illuminating to examine how academic and policy circles read the period from early 2013 to late 2014 in Turkey. There are many competing narratives about the future of the country. One pessimistic reading that is currently popular with many American observers of Turkey goes as follows: the so-called "Turkish model" was all the rage just a couple years ago. Turkey was prospering and democratizing under the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which was hailed for its successful fusion of Islamic values and democratic governance.
Topic:: Development and Governance
Political Geography:: America, Turkey, Middle East, and Arabia

97. The future of US–Brazil relations: confrontation, cooperation or detachment?

Author:: Peter Hakim
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: US-Brazilian relations sunk to one of their lowest points ever following last year's exposure of the US government's massive surveillance of the South American giant-including the correspondence of President Rousseff and the business operations of Brazil's national oil company, Petrobras. Brazilian authorities responded angrily. The Brazilian president called off a highly valued state visit to Washington, denounced the US for violations of sovereignty and human rights, and proceeded to bypass the US to purchase nearly $5 billion worth of fighter aircraft from Sweden. In fact, US-Brazil ties have not been constructive for more than a generation. Yes, relations are mostly amiable, but with limited cooperation, considerable discord and some open clashes. Washington views Brazil primarily as a regional actor, and wants its cooperation mainly on inter-American issues. For Brazil, regional collaboration means working with other Latin American nations-not the United States. Brazil usually wants the US to keep a distance from the region. The US is no more enthusiastic about Brazil assuming a global role; differences over some of the world's most dangerous political and security challenges have made Washington uneasy about Brazil's engagement in international affairs and critical of its foreign policy judgements. Relations will probably improve, but they could get worse. The two governments need to acknowledge that their relationship is fragile and troubled, and take steps both to rebuild trust and to avert further deterioration and new confrontations. They have to be more careful with each other.
Topic:: Government, Human Rights, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:: America, Washington, and Brazil

98. Africa's choice of partners

Author:: Nicholas Westcott
Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: Summits with Africa are in fashion: in August, President Obama hosted America's first; in April, the European Union staged the fourth EU-Africa summit in Brussels; the BRICS countries–Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa–held one in Durban in March last year; and in June 2013 Japan hosted its five-yearly conference on African development in Yokohama. Next year will see the sixth China-Africa summit. South America, South Korea and Turkey, which have all held summits with African leaders in recent years, have pledged return matches in Africa.
Political Geography:: Africa, America, and Europe

99. Full Text Issue

Author:: Michael Miklaucic
Publication Date:: 12-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: PRISM
Institution:: Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:: The hardest call during my first year in the Senate was my vote to authorize military force in Syria to punish President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against his citizens. When I was sworn in on January 3rd, 2013, I expected difficult votes. But I did not anticipate such a profound vote within my first nine months. Only the 18 Senators who serve on he Foreign Relations Committee had to take that vote on September 4, following President Barack Obama's decision to ask Congress to formally authorize a military response. But as tough as the vote was, I am glad the President brought it to Congress instead of proceeding on his own.
Political Geography:: America

100. Israel Lobby in the US and Iran-P5+1 Negotiations

Author:: Alireza Ahmadi
Publication Date:: 03-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Center for Strategic Research (CSR)
Abstract:: The Israel lobby in Washington is a network of organizations and community groups dedicated to influencing American policy towards the Middle East. Their success and access has made them the model for lobbies on Washington's Capitol Hill and US Government. Long known for successfully influencing American policy towards the Middle East, the lobby now faces its strongest challenge in history at a time when it is also facing what it considers a historically significant issue. The interim accord between Iran and members of the P5+1 have led to turmoil in Washington over the wisdom and plausibility of President Obama's diplomatic approach and about the softening of the current US posture towards Iran. In this debate, powerful conservative groups, a number of key Democrats, and the Israel lobby have been pit against progressive groups and Democratic elected officials in the Senate and the White House. In this article, I will briefly look at the history of the Israel lobby in America and explore its evolution as well as investigate the factors that, over time, caused it to take on a hard-line posture and drift towards the right. I will explore the tactics and strategies that the Israel lobby-the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in particular-has undertaken to influence the outcome of events and undermine the possibility of diplomatic conflict resolution. Finally, I will examine the pitfalls and challenges hard-line pro-Israel groups face in effectively pursuing these policies and the long term harm they expose themselves to in alienating progressive and pro-peace groups.
Topic:: Government and History
Political Geography:: United States, America, Iran, Washington, Middle East, and Israel

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS