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1. The good, the bad, and the ugly: Comparing the notions of 'rogue' and 'evil' in international politics

Author:
Anna Geis and Carmen Wunderlich
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The identification and naming of an 'enemy' is an age-old element within foreign policy and (domestic) security policy discourses. It serves to stabilize speakers' benign conceptions of the self, to structure threat perceptions of 'the world outside' and to legitimate ultimately violent policy options. This article compares the notions of 'rogue' and 'evil' in order to analyse the political implications of such a use of derogative actor categories. The notion of 'rogue states' has played an important role in the security strategies of the US presidents Clinton and in particular George W. Bush and alludes to criminal law. 'Evil' has been a much older, religiously loaded concept and has been invoked in politics for describing the inconceivable, monstrous violence and destruction. While many liberal critics argue that one should abandon the metaphysical category of evil and dispose of the stigmatizing category of the 'rogue', this article concludes with the suggestion that a self-reflexive use of these categories can be instructive: It can make 'us' – the very modern secular liberals – think about ourselves, about responsibility and moral standards as well as about the fundamental ambivalence of our actions.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
United States

2. Collective evil and individual pathology: The depoliticization of violence against Afghan civilians

Author:
Harmonie Toros and Luca Mavelli
Publication Date:
07-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article explores how the violence against Afghan civilians carried out by the Taliban and US 'rogue' soldiers has been accounted for as the product of, respectively, collective evil and individual pathology. These two seemingly contending explanations, it is argued, are part of the same strategy of depoliticization, which aims to provide support and legitimacy for the US-led war in Afghanistan. The article discusses how the genealogy of the discourse of collective evil surrounding the Taliban can be traced to an Orientalist political theodicy, which frames the Taliban as 'children of a lesser God' – that is, as fanatical puppets at the mercy of a violent God – and how the discourse of individual pathology surrounding the unsanctioned violence of US soldiers is instrumental to exempt military and civilian leadership from collusion and responsibility. The article challenges this latter narrative of individual blame by discussing how killing, torture and desecration of bodies are at the heart of warfare. Hence, it is concluded, the language of collective evil and individual pathology are part of the same strategy of depoliticization, which aims to silence political contestation and conceal the dehumanizing aspect of war, its structural production of violence, and the complex and dispersed nature of responsibility.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Taliban

3. The 'knowledge politics' of democratic peace theory

Author:
Inderjeet Parmar
Publication Date:
03-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
How do academic ideas influence US foreign policy, under what conditions and with what consequences? This article traces the rise, 'securitisation' and political consequences of democratic peace theory (DPT) in the United States by exploring the work of Doyle, Diamond and Fukuyama. Ideas influence US foreign policy under different circumstances, but are most likely to do either during and after crises when the policy environment permits 'new thinking', or when these ideas have been developed through state-connected elite knowledge networks, or when they are (or appear paradigmatically congenial to) foreign policymakers' mindsets, or, finally, when they become institutionally-embedded. The appropriation of DPT by foreign policymakers has categorised the world into antagonistic blocs – democratic/non-democratic zones of peace/turmoil – as the corollary to a renewed American mission to make the world 'safer' through 'democracy' promotion. The roles of networked organic intellectuals – in universities and think tanks, for instance – were particularly important in elevating DPT from the academy to national security managers.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States

4. Explaining US unilateral military intervention in civil conflicts: A review of the literature

Author:
Amber Aubone
Publication Date:
03-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Recent third-party use of force in hastening the exit of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi illustrates that third-party military intervention is one foreign policy tool among many that leaders may use to achieve desired ends. Numerous works from international relations and foreign policy scholars explain third-party intervention using a variety of approaches and methods, and examining multiple levels of analysis. The survey of the literature provided here contributes to our understanding of US unilateral intervention by examining this phenomenon using both general theories of third-party intervention, as well as more refined foreign policy theories explaining US intervention in particular. As such, the survey includes works employing various approaches and levels of analysis, and thus serves two purposes: (a) to assist in the cumulation of knowledge pertaining to US unilateral intervention through consolidation of theory and empirical findings; (b) to serve as a source from which scholars can identify contradictions and future avenues of research pertaining to third-party intervention.
Topic:
International Law
Political Geography:
United States and Libya

5. International polarity and America's polarization

Author:
Joseph Bafumi and Joseph M Parent
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
There is a growing consensus that the United States is undergoing a period of political polarization, particularly among elites. The causes of this polarization remain under-researched. We argue that shifts in the international distribution of power influence America's polarization. To demonstrate the argument, this article analyzes changes in power and polarization quantitatively and qualitatively from 1945 to 2005. A key finding is that greater relative power on the world stage substantially increases polarization and some of its correlates, like income inequality. The argument also measures the extent of international influence on domestic polarization and makes novel predictions on when and why polarization will fall.
Political Geography:
United States and America

6. Regional threats and global management of conflicts in regions: The case of the US in the Middle East

Author:
Benjamin Miller
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article addresses the following two questions: First, how does the United States (US) manage regional war and peace, especially in the Middle East (ME)? It will show that the strategies the US has adopted in conflict management in the ME over the last several decades have shown considerable variations, both in the goals of its involvement – between trying to shape the regional balance of power and to reorder the domestic regimes in the regional states, and in the means of involvement – between a unilateral and a multilateral strategy. Second, it seeks to explain these variations in the US regional patterns of involvement.
Political Geography:
United States and Middle East

7. Do leaders still decide? The role of leadership in Russian foreign policymaking

Author:
Licínia Simão
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article looks at Russian foreign policy from the perspective of the individuals responsible for decision making. The focus on the individual level of analysis aims to shed light on the evolving dynamics of Russian foreign policymaking and complement existing analysis on the role of ideas, world views and influential groups in foreign policy analysis, with insights from neo-classical realism and constructivism. Whereas the former sees the state as the transmission belt between international power distributions and political action, the latter underlines the roles of ideas and norms to explain agency. In this context, the article is well placed to deal with the evolving relationship between leaders' views and situational constraints, including other actors involved in setting foreign policy priorities and the external environment. How are decisions taken in the context of Russia's foreign policy under President Putin and Medvedev? What is the role of the presidents from both a legal (constitutional) and a practical perspective? The article maps Russian political leaders' decisions, under Putin and Medvedev, using two case studies: Putin's decision to support the US-led post-9/11 war on terror and Medvedev's decision to go to war with Georgia in 2008.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and United States

8. Unsociable sociability: The paradox of Canadian-American friendship

Author:
Caroline Patsias and Dany Deschenes
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Since the end of World War II, relations between Canadian and US leaders have become difficult, as the absence of the unifying force of war led to different political visions. However, on the whole, and in spite of a power differential that has grown since 1945, relations between Canada and the United States have nevertheless been good. How is this explained? In this reflection, rather than taking a structural-realist approach, we build on a perspective proposed by Stéphane Roussel in his theory on democratic peace between Canada and the United States. Roussel showed how the constructivist model could justify the absence of coercion and the relatively egalitarian cooperation between both states. While Roussel's studies refer only to the 1867–1958 period, we broaden the perspective to include the contemporary period and propose that the 'unsocial sociability' at the heart of Canadian-American relations is due to the recognition of the democratic nature of the other's regime and the implementation of institutional mechanisms and techniques.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Canada

9. American power and identities in the age of Obama

Author:
Inderjeet Parmar
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Although the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency represents a landmark event in the history of that country, questions remain over its broader political significance. What is the likelihood of Obama's foreign and national security policies differing fundamentally from those of the Bush administrations? Does Obama's election signal a 'post-racial' phase in American national life? What are the factors that suggest opportunities to change and expand American identities as opposed to those that limit Obama's sphere of action? This article introduces the special issue and suggests that although Obama's room for manoeuvre is limited by legacies inherited from the Bush administration, Obama's own appointments to high office as well as other actions, despite the availability of alternative courses, indicate that he is not the transformational president he claimed to be. American identities, therefore, are deeply embedded and remain heavily imbued with racial, religious and imperial features.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States

10. The political economy of Anglo-American War: The case of Iraq

Author:
Sandra Halperin
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article relates the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq to fundamental aspects of Anglo-American political economy, including the increasing integration of the British and US economies, and the largely Anglo-American-led project of global economic restructuring currently taking place. Part I discusses the political economy of UK–US relations and the evolution of an Anglo-American military–industrial conglomerate. Part II links the Anglo-American relations and interests detailed in the first part of the article to an on-going project of global reconstruction. With this as a context, Part III reviews the history of British and US foreign policies towards Iraq and the culmination of these policies in the invasion of the country. The conclusions draw implications for the overall nature and direction of current trends of change.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and America

11. From Woodrow Wilson in 1902 to the Bush doctrine in 2002: Democracy promotion as imperialism

Author:
Tony Smith
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The secular notion of American exceptionalism divorced from explicit racial or religious expression and based on governmental institutions and civic virtue – America as 'the last, best hope of earth' (Lincoln), America as 'the ark of the liberties of the world' (Melville) – goes back to the American Revolution. Nevertheless, before Wilson the conceptual framework that could explain the rightness of American global expansion in terms of bringing democratic government to others had not been well formulated. With Wilson, by contrast, the United States for the first time could present in secular terms, concepts argued from a cultural and historical perspective that made the expansion of American influence around the globe legitimate, not only in terms of national security but to the benefit of all mankind. Here is the key, I would propose, to the self-confidence and self-righteousness, which has been the hallmark of American foreign policy for a century now. Democracy promotion (associated with open markets economically and multilateralism) reflected America's cultural superiority (inherited from racial thinking), as well as its mission to help others (descended from its religious background). In Wilson's hands, an enduring framework for American foreign policy was born, one that remains with us to this day.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and America

12. New paradigms, old hierarchies? Problems and possibilities of US supremacy in a networked world

Author:
Giles Scott-Smith and Moritz Baumgärtel
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
As Obama took office at the beginning of 2009, several new figures attained important advisory positions in his administration. Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and now Director of Policy Planning in the State Department, is a prime example of the 'change' that has come to Washington. In recent years she has been part of a growing academic circle that views networks at the centre of international relations. At the same time, she has promoted the idea that the United States can be 'the most connected country' in such a world. By taking a closer look into the discourse of US supremacy and the current state-of-the-art in the theory of transnational networks, this article reveals the divergence between wishful thinking and reality in Slaughter's position. By analysing her position and introducing three case studies, we conclude that the complexity of power relations in a world of networks makes any assumption of US supremacy highly problematic. Some might 'mirror' the beliefs and values of America (Open Society Institute); some might only be a 'prism' of various different voices (Al-Jazeera); and some might fall totally outside state control to form 'shadow networks' (Khan Network). Ultimately, it is the belief in US exceptionalism that perpetuates the claim that the United States has 'an edge' in such a world, with potentially problematic consequences.
Political Geography:
United States and America

13. Evangelicalism, race and world politics

Author:
Stuart Croft
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
American identities have traditionally been bound up with racial and religious markers – the WASP marker being for many, many decades and that which described the fullest state of American-ness. In the age of an African-American President, such conventional wisdoms are clearly challenged; and yet race and religion still describe different degrees of American-ness. This article investigates these identity themes not through the traditional duologue of white and African American, but seeks to understand in different communities how race and religion combine to produce different American-ness. Through an examination of two communities deemed problematic because of the high percentage of unchurched among them – First Peoples and Asian Americans – the article describes different processes at work. First Peoples are often seen in racial rather than national terms. The work of evangelicals 'among' such peoples is assessed within the United States and beyond. In contrast, Asian-American identities are often articulated through evangelism, particularly on the campuses of the United States. Together, these case studies show that American-ness is being redefined, to include new racial categories and groups newly empowered by their religious activity. This connects to issues of migration; evangelism is now active in America as well as beyond, as the world comes to live in the United States, traditional boundaries – inside/outside and white/African American – carry different and often less weight than hitherto has been the case.
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, America, and Asia

14. Religion, identity and American power in the age of Obama

Author:
Lee Marsden
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
US foreign policy owes much to a malleable religious identity, shaped by foundational myths, and that this religious dimension has, until recently, been largely neglected in the US foreign policy literature to the detriment of our understanding of how America's status as global hegemon is formed, sustained and expanded. This article explores the role of the foundational myths of manifest destiny, exceptionalism and innocent nation. These foundational myths are explored as they develop into a civil religion espoused by successive presidents from George to the present day. The article considers how Barack Obama has utilised civil religion to maximise domestic support for a foreign policy agenda, which seeks to maintain US hegemony through a more conciliatory and multilateral approach than his predecessor in the White House. Examples of the use of soft power through missionary endeavour and the evangelicalisation of military hard power beginning during the George W. Bush presidency are detailed in order to reveal an Obama presidency that continues to define itself in religious terms while providing opportunities for religious actors to continue to play a role in representing US interests beyond its shores.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Washington

15. 'Change we can believe in?' Barack Obama, race and the 2008 US presidential election

Author:
Kevern Verney
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article addresses two questions. It begins by comparing the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest with the 1980s campaigns of Jesse Jackson. It examines the different background and personalities of Obama and Jackson, together with an analysis of what has changed in US political life in the intervening decades, in an attempt to understand why Obama succeeded where the earlier Jackson campaigns failed. The second part of the article analyses the subsequent general election with a view to determining whether Obama's defeat of John McCain should be seen as a result of a unique set of political circumstances, or evidence of the increasing irrelevance of race in US electoral politics. In particular, this discussion assesses the validity of the claims made by some commentators that Obama's victory marks the beginning of a new 'post-racial' era in American political life.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
United States and America

16. Culture, identity and hegemony: Continuity and (the lack of) change in US counterterrorism policy from Bush to Obama

Author:
Richard Jackson
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This article explores the social and political construction of US counterterrorism policy since the onset of the war on terrorism. The first part of the article focuses on the period of the Bush administration. It explores the cultural grammar expressed in the language of the war on terror, as well as administration attempts to 'sell' the policy to the American public. In addition, it explores the ways in which the war on terror has been institutionalised in counterterrorism practices and institutions, and how it has been normalised and embedded in American popular culture and linked by the national identity narratives surrounding '9/11' and the negative ideograph of 'terrorism', to American identity. Section two of the article explores the discourse and practice of the war on terrorism in the initial period of the Obama administration. It questions the extent to which counterterrorism policy can be rewritten, given the degree to which it accords with the deep cultural grammar of American identity and is now a well-established ideograph, the extent to which it has been institutionalised in American political practice and embedded in American culture and the ways in which it is rooted in the political-economic interests of the American polity and empire. Finally, the article briefly reflects on questions of change and identity in the construction of US foreign policy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and America

17. Persistent primacy and the future of the American era

Author:
Robert J Lieber
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Arguments are widely expressed that America is in decline, both at home and abroad. These admonitions extend not only to economic, diplomatic and geopolitical realms, but even to the cultural arena. The United States does face real and even serious problems, but there is an unmistakable echo of the past in current arguments. Antecedents of these views were evident in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, and on occasion even in identical language. Indeed, declinist proclamations have appeared on and off not only throughout the 20th Century, but also during the 18th and 19th Centuries. Moreover, periodic crises in US history have included challenges more daunting than those of today. It can thus be instructive to compare the arguments and prescriptions of the new declinism with those of earlier eras. The evidence suggests a pattern of over-reaction, a historicism, and a lack of appreciation for the robustness, adaptability and staying power of the United States.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States and America

18. From Pax Romana to Pax Americana? The history and future of the new American Empire

Author:
Mark T Berger
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This review paper focuses on the most recent cycle in the debate about the history and future of the 'New American Empire,' both in relation to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire specifically, and against the wider backdrop of the extensive debate about the US position in the changing global order more generally. It argues that much of the literature, including some of the books under review, rest on a misreading of history (Roman or otherwise) and a flawed grasp of the fate of the American ascendancy in relation to the contemporary crisis of the nation-state system and the far from unexpected boom-bust cycles of 'genuinely existing' liberal capitalism (globalization) in the twenty-first century. The washout on Wall Street in the latter part of 2008 could only come as a surprise to those who have not been paying attention to the vicissitudes of 'genuinely existing' liberal capitalism over the past 30 years or more. The paper argues that the American ascendancy, contrary to much of the contemporary prognostication, remains in its prime and Pax Americana will only begin a downward spiral when it has been successfully challenged and displace by an equally powerful and systemic alternative. In the meantime, the New American Empire, especially under new leadership, looks set to continue and even flourish.
Political Geography:
United States and America

19. Foreign policy fusion: Liberal interventionists, conservative nationalists and neoconservatives — the new alliance dominating the US foreign policy establishment

Author:
Inderjeet Parmar
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Several tendencies in US foreign policy politics generated a new foreign policy consensus set to outlast the Bush administration. Three developments are analysed: increasing influence of conservative organizations - such as the Heritage Foundation, and of neoconservatism; and, particularly, democratic peace theory-inspired liberal interventionism. 9-11 fused those three developments, though each tendency retained its 'sphere of action': Right and Left appear to have forged an historically effective ideology of global intervention, an enduring new configuration of power. This paper analyses a key liberal interventionists' initiative - the Princeton Project on National Security - that sits at the heart of thinking among centrists, liberal and conservative alike. This paper also assesses the efficacy of the new consensus by exploring the foreign policy positions and advisers of President-elect Barack Obama and his defeated Republican rival, Senator John McCain, concluding that the new president is unlikely significantly to change US foreign policy.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States

20. Whither The Bush Doctrine? Out of sync: Bush's expanded national security state and the war on terror

Author:
Robert G Patman
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
The US national security state was fashioned at the beginning of the Cold War to contain the global threat of the rival superpower, the Soviet Union. However, this security framework did not wither away with the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the USSR. The events of September 11 starkly exposed the limitations of a state-centric approach to international security in a globalizing world. But the Bush administration falsely assumed that the traumatic events of 9/11 came out of a clear blue sky, and that a rejuvenated national security state would eventually overwhelm the 'new' threat of terrorism. The dangers of persisting in this direction were shown by the US-led invasion of Iraq. Far from closing the gap between the US approach to security and the operation environment of a post-Cold War world, Bush's war on terror undermined the international reputation of the US and presented the American taxpayer with a huge and probably unsustainable burden. All this highlighted the need for a more multilateral direction in US security policy in the post-Bush era. Such an approach would not only correspond better to the realities of today's interconnected world, but also serve as a buffer against the extension of the power of government that had been witnessed in America during the Bush years.
Topic:
Security, Cold War, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and Soviet Union

21. Geopolitics, the revolution in military affairs and the Bush doctrine

Author:
Simon Dalby
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 American geopolitical categories changed as the world was remapped into categories congruent with the prosecution of the global war on terror. The designation global was linked to the capabilities of the new military technologies of the revolution in military affairs in official documents that codified the Bush doctrine. The official US doctrine now explicitly states that ending tyranny on earth is the national security objective for which these new forces will be used. But a careful reading of the official 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, and Thomas Barnett's popular exposition of the logic of the war on terror in The Pentagon's New Map shows that both these geographical specification of contemporary geopolitics, and the high-technology forces planned to fight the war, offer little promise that it will be successfully prosecuted. Geopolitics remains much more complicated than either contemporary policy statements or popular cartographic justifications suggest.
Political Geography:
United States and America

22. Coming face to face with bloody reality: Liberal common sense and the ideological failure of the Bush doctrine in Iraq

Author:
Toby Dodge
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
A conventional technocratic wisdom has begun to form that blames the failure of the US led invasion of Iraq on the small number of American troops deployed and the ideological divisions at the centre of the Bush administration itself. This paper argues that both these accounts are at best simply descriptive. A much more sustained explanation has to be based on a close examination of the ideological assumptions that shaped the drafting of policies and planning for the aftermath of the war. The point of departure for such an analysis is that all agency, whether individual or collective, is socially mediated. The paper deploys Antonio Gramsci's notion of 'Common Sense' to examine the Bush administration's policy towards Iraq. It argues that the Common Sense at work in the White House, Defence Department and Green Zone was primarily responsible for America's failure. It examines the relationship between the 'higher philosophies' of both Neoconservatism and Neo-Liberalism and Common Sense. It concludes that although Neoconservatism was influential in justifying the invasion itself, it was Neo-Liberalism that shaped the policy agenda for the aftermath of war. It takes as its example the pre-war planning for Iraq, then the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the de-Ba'athification of the Iraqi state. The planning and these two decisions, responsible for driving Iraq into civil war, can only be fully explained by studying the ideology that shaped them. From this perspective, the United States intervention in Iraq was not the product of an outlandish ideology but was instead the high water mark of post-Cold War Liberal interventionism. As such, it highlights the ideological and empirical shortcomings associated with 'Kinetic Liberalism'.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
United States and America

23. The North–South divide and security in the Western Hemisphere: United States–South American relations after September 11 and the Iraq war

Author:
Mario E Carranza
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
This paper examines the economics-security nexus in US policy toward South America, and the implications for South America of the 'securitization' of US foreign economic policy during the Bush administration. There has always been a tight linkage between the US foreign economic and security agendas but the real issue is the degree of 'tightness' at a given point in time. After the Alliance for Progress lost its way the United States tended to pursue its economic and security interests in South America in separate tracks, even if preventing Soviet intrusions in the region remained in the background. Yet after the collapse of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations in 2004 a US strategy of 'divide and conquer' through bilateral trade deals has been accompanied by a 'securitization' discourse and there are some indications that it may 'securitize' as a new threat the social movements and neopopulist regimes that oppose neoliberal economic policies. The paper discusses the limits of the securitization thesis. The conclusion examines the future of US-South American relations and argues that the United States needs to renew its commitment to genuine multilateralism and re-engage the region to establish an effective and lasting partnership for dealing with common economic and security challenges in the twenty-first century.
Topic:
Security and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and South America

24. Neoconservative democratization in theory and practice: Developing democrats or raising radical Islamists?

Author:
Matthew Crosston
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Politics
Institution:
Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Neoconservative democratization took on new life after 9/11: the United States should be a global guarantor of liberty, even if coercing this freedom. The justification was a hybrid of liberal democratic peace and realist national security. However, this aggressive democratization is contradictory: the philosophical foundation is insincerely decorated by liberal language that overlooks damaging compromises when ideology is put into practice. Uzbekistan, with whom a close partnership in the war against terror was developed and then was further deepened along supposedly democratic development lines, is used as a critical case study. In short, the contradictions in neoconservative ideology create flaws in policy implementation that do not create smoother paths to development, prevent democratic consolidation and weaken American security interests.
Topic:
Democratization
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Uzbekistan