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Begin New Search Topic Democratization Political Geography United States Content Type Working Paper

101. Ideas, Culture and Political Analysis Workshop

Author:
Thomas Risse, Sarah Mendelson, Neil Fligstein, Jan Kubik, Jeffrey T. Checkel, Consuelo Cruz, Kathleen McNamara, Sheri Berman, Frank Dobbin, Mark Blyth, Ken Pollack, George Steinmetz, Daniel Philpott, Gideon Rose, Martha Finnemore, Kathryn Skikkink, Marie Gottschalk, John Kurt Jacobsen, and Anna Seleny
Publication Date:
05-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
The last decade or so has witnessed a resurgence in scholarship employing ideational and cultural factors in the analysis of political life. This scholarship has addressed political phenomena across a variety of national and international settings, with studies of European politics being particularly well represented. For example, the work of scholars like Peter Hall (1993), Peter Katzenstein (1996), Ronald Inglehart (1997), Robert Putnam (1994) and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (1995) has improved our understandings of European polities, societies and economies. Yet despite a recent rise in interest, ideational and cultural explanations still meet with skepticism in many quarters of the discipline. Some scholars doubt whether non-material factors like ideas or culture have independent causal effects, and others, who accept that such factors might matter, despair of devising viable ways of analyzing their impact on political life.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, Security, Democratization, Economics, Government, Human Rights, International Cooperation, Nationalism, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, France, and Latin America

102. Thinking Regionally: Priorities for U.S. Policy Toward Africa

Author:
Salih Booker
Publication Date:
03-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Africa Policy Information Center
Abstract:
Recent Congressional action to significantly cut aid to Africa is only one sign among many of a trend to reduce U.S. involvement on the continent. How much further Africa is marginalized in the U.S. will ultimately depend on the ability of Africa's multiple constituencies to reverse this trend. Nevertheless, events on the continent are likely to compel a greater commitment of resources than U.S. policymakers currently contemplate. And engagement at any level needs to be based on clear identification of U.S. interests in Africa and well-defined criteria for establishing priorities.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Democratization, and Development
Political Geography:
Africa and United States

103. The Journey to Democracy: 1986-1996

Author:
Robert A. Pastor
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
In my travels throughout Latin America, I have always found the region's leaders eager to converse with American statesmen, but with few exceptions, they mostly had to content themselves with speaking to specialists like me. The kind of transnational dialogue that would permit hemispheric relations to rise to a higher level just did not exist. When President Carter asked if I would direct a new program at The Carter Center, my thoughts turned to the question of whether I could help form a group of senior statesmen from thoughts the hemisphere, who not only could consult with each other, but also work together to advance the ideals of human rights, democracy, social justice, and equitable development that lie at the core of the inter-American promise.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Democratization, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States, South America, Latin America, Central America, and Caribbean

104. Report of the Commission on Radio and Television Policy: Volume 6, Number 2

Publication Date:
09-1994
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
In September 1994, the Commission on Radio and Television Policy, bringing together the New Independent States, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the United States, met in St. Petersburg, Russia, to discuss the most important policy issue of the electronic media: how to strengthen the independence of radio and television. The members of the Commission represented several different approaches and types of government, but, in the end, there was unanimous agreement on a communiqué urging all parties to defend and extend autonomy of the media.
Topic:
Democratization and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Asia

105. The International Observation of the U.S. Elections

Publication Date:
11-1992
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
Robert Pastor, Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Program at The Carter Center and Executive Secretary of the Council, opened the conference with a reference to Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz who once said, "A nation without free elections is a nation without a voice, without eyes, and without ears." Pastor noted that the right to free and fair elections is a universal right enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Charter of the Organization of American States. In the spirit of honoring that right, the Council was formed in 1986 to lend support and assistance to the democratization movement in the Americas.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, United Nations, and Latin America