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Linked to efforts to promote trade liberalization through trade negotiations has been the recognition of the need not only to better understand the relationship between domestic politics and international relations in American trade policymaking, but also to analyze more effectively the relationship between domestic politics and international relations in other countries' trade policymaking processes.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Politics
International regimes have been a major focus of research in International Relations and Political Economy since the end of the 1970s. Theoretical regime studies owe a great deal of progress to the scholars researching international environmental protection, such as Peter Haas (1989, 1992, 1993), Oran Young (1977, 1982, 1989), Robert Keohane and Marc Levy (1993). From the Young's model of institutional bargaining (1989) to Haas's research on epistemic community activities (1989), we observed the importance of environmental decision-making structures for stimulating the study of institutional birth, maintenance and decline of international regimes.
Although Americans are extremely sensitive to American casualties, they seem to be remarkably insensitive to casualties suffered by foreigners including essentially uninvolved—that is, innocent—civilians. Several conclusions emerge from an examination of all the cases in which American troops have been deployed on a non-advisory basis since 1941 in situations that were actually or potentially dangerous.
The confluence of the end of the Cold War and the rise of ethnonationalistic conflicts has led to a proliferation of complex humanitarian emergencies (CHEs) around the world. Internal conflicts which combine large scale displacements of people, mass famine and fragile or failing economic, social and political institutions are becoming commonplace; war remains a common feature of the international landscape despite growing global interdependence. While the end of the Cold War has reduced the risk of great power conflict, it has also decreased the perceived constraints on proxy wars, and as a result, over forty unresolved conflicts currently fester, simmer or rage. International peacekeeping forces alone are unlikely to achieve lasting results in most cases, but they can stop the fighting and assist in bringing about fair and lasting resolutions.
At the invitation of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), People's Republic of China, The Carter Center sent a delegation to observe villager committee (VC) elections in Hebei Province from January 4 to 13, 2000. The delegation was led by Ambassador Gordon L. Streeb, Associate Executive Director of the Center, and made up of nine Center staff members, election experts and China scholars from various universities in the United States and Denmark. This was the fourth time since 1997 that the Center has observed village elections in China and the first time that an international organization has been invited to observe a primary VC election.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, and International Organization
Headlines in recent weeks have been filled with news of earthquakes. From Turkey to Taiwan, tectonic plates have been shifting leaving toppled buildings, trapped victims, and homeless survivors in their wake. In the last decade of the twentieth century, other less visible but equally powerful seismic shifts have also taken place. The tectonic plates of the world's political, security and economic systems have shifted dramatically. The end of the Cold War, the creation of a global, capitalist economy, and the emergence of the United States as the world's only superpower—these and other seismic shifts have toppled the dangerous but stable bipolar international system that had endured for nearly fifty years. Power structures, relations among states, international institutions, and international norms have changed in fundamental ways.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
During the past two years, the National Intelligence Council and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the US Department of State sponsored a working group and four seminars with experts from outside the Intelligence Community to examine the impact of societal and infrastructural factors on Russia's future over the next two decades. The factors identified--demography, health, intellectual capital, and physical infrastructure--all pose great challenges to Russia. The purpose of the project was to begin to think through in systematic fashion the difficulties and opportunities confronting Russia's leadership in these four specific areas.
Over the past 15 months, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), in close collaboration with US Government specialists and a wide range of experts outside the government, has worked to identify major drivers and trends that will shape the world of 2015. The key drivers identified are: Demographics, Natural resources and environment, Science and technology, The global economy and globalization, National and international governance, Future conflict, The role of the United States. In examining these drivers, several points should be kept in mind: No single driver or trend will dominate the global future in 2015 Each driver will have varying impacts in different regions and countries The drivers are not necessarily mutually reinforcing; in some cases, they will work at cross-purposes. Taken together, these drivers and trends intersect to create an integrated picture of the world of 2015, about which we can make projections with varying degrees of confidence and identify some troubling uncertainties of strategic importance to the United States.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, Government, and Science and Technology
One of the guiding purposes and principles behind the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) is to make the issue of international religious freedom an integral part of this nation's foreign policy agenda. The conditions of religious freedom in certain countries may be grave and deteriorating—in many instances on account of factors beyond the control of the United States—but not, if the IRFA process is working properly and vigorously, on account of a lack of attention paid to the issue as a matter of U.S. foreign policy. This report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom assesses the vitality and effectiveness of certain parts of the IRFA process as it is functioning in its second year.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Human Rights, and Religion
Imagine trying to win an overseas air war where target intelligence can be gathered only part of the day, where aerial refueling is hampered by inability to fly in close formation under prevailing weather conditions, and where many newly developed radio systems for air, sea, and land forces don't work the way they did back in the U.S. Sound unlikely? It isn't - these constraints limited the U.S. forces' ability to operate to maximum efficiency during the Kosovo campaign. These restrictions on U.S. military equipment did not arise from sabotage, maintenance failures, or enemy countermeasures - they resulted from the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition system's failure to insist on qualifying spectrum allocations for new systems that depend on access to the radio frequency spectrum. Without such qualification, systems that function well in the U.S. may not be usable abroad. Unless new systems' use of radio frequencies is qualified, they may interfere with other military users or with critical civilian users of the radio spectrum, even at home.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Development, and Science and Technology