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9502. One Foot in the Region; Eyes on the Global Prize
- Author:
- Matias Spektor
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Read any Brazilian foreign policy college textbook and you will be surprised. Global order since 1945 is not described as open, inclusive or rooted in multilateralism. Instead, you learn that big powers impose their will on the weak through force and rules that are strict and often arbitrary. In this world view, international institutions bend over backwards to please their most powerful masters. International law, when it is used by the strong, is less about binding great powers and self-restraint than about strong players controlling weaker ones. After finishing the book, you couldn't be blamed for believing that the liberal international order has never established the just, level playing field for world politics that its supporters claim. This intellectual approach is responsible for the ambiguity at the heart of Brazilian strategic thinking. On one hand, Brazil has benefited enormously from existing patterns of global order. It was transformed from a modest rural economy in the 1940s into an industrial powerhouse less than 50 years later, thanks to the twin forces of capitalism and an alliance system that kept it safe. On the other hand, the world has been a nasty place for Brazil. Today, it is one of the most unequal societies in the world. Millions still live in poverty and violence abounds. In 2009, there were more violent civilian deaths in the state of Rio de Janeiro alone than in the whole of Iraq. No doubt a fair share of the blame belongs to successive generations of Brazilian politicians and policymakers. But some of it is a function of the many inequities and distortions that recur when you are on the “periphery” of a very unequal international system. The result is a view of global order that vastly differs from perceptions held by the United States. Take, for instance, Brazilian perceptions of “international threats.” Polls show that the average Brazilian worries little about terrorism, radical Islam or a major international war. Instead, the primary fears concern climate change, poverty and infectious disease. Many Brazilians, in fact, fear the U.S., focusing in particular on the perceived threat it poses to the natural riches of the Amazon and the newfound oil fields under the Brazilian seabed. Perceptions matter enormously. It is no wonder that the Brazilian military spends a chunk of its time studying how Vietnamese guerrillas won a war against far superior forces in jungle battlefields. Nor should it be a surprise that Brazil is now investing heavily in the development of nuclear-propulsion submarines that its admirals think will facilitate the nation's ability to defend oil wells in open waters. But Brazil is nowhere near being a revolutionary state. While its leaders believe that a major transition of global power is currently underway, they want to be seen as smooth operators when new rules to the game emerge. Their designs are moderate because they have a stake in preserving the principles that underwrite Brazil's emergence as a major world player. They will not seek to radically overturn existing norms and practices but to adapt them to suit their own interests instead. Could Brazilian intentions change over time? No doubt. Notions of what constitutes the national interest will transform as the country rises. Brazil's international ambitions are likely to expand—no matter who runs the country. Three factors will shape the way national goals will evolve in the next few years: the relationship with the U.S., Brasilia's strategies for dealing with the rest of South America, and Brazil's ideas about how to produce global order. When it Comes to the U.S., Lie Low Brazilian officials are used to repeating that to be on the U.S. “radar screen” is not good. In their eyes, being the source of American attention poses two possible threats. It either raises expectations in Washington that Brazil will work as a “responsible stakeholder” according to some arbitrary criteria of what “responsible” means, or it turns Brazil into a target of U.S. pressure when interests don't coincide. As a result, there is a consensus among Brazilians that a policy of “ducking”—hiding your head underwater when the hegemonic eagle is around—has served them well. Whether this judgment is correct or not is for historians to explore. But the utility of a policy based on such a consensus is declining fast. You cannot flex your diplomatic muscle abroad and hope to go unnoticed. Furthermore, being a “rising state” is never a mere function of concrete things, such as a growing economy, skilled armies, mighty industries, a booming middle class, or a functional state that is effective in tax collection and the provision of public goods. The perception of other states matters just as much. And nobody's perception matters more than that of the most powerful state of all: the United States. Brazil's current rise is therefore deeply intertwined with the perception in Washington that Brazil is moving upwards in global hierarchies. Securing the acceptance or the implicit support of the U.S. while maintaining some distance will always be a fragile position to maintain. But as Brazil grows more powerful, it will be difficult to accomplish its global objectives without the complicity—and the tacit acceptance—of the United States. For Brazil this means that the “off the radar” option will become increasingly difficult. Not the Natural Regional Leader Brazil accounts for over 50 percent of South America's wealth, people and territory. If power were a product of relative material capabilities alone, Brazil would be more powerful in its own region than China, India, Turkey or South Africa are in theirs. But Brazil is not your typical regional power. It has sponsored layers of formal institutions and regional norms, but its leaders recoil at the thought of pooling sovereignty into supranational bodies. Yes, Brazil has modernized South American politics by promoting norms to protect democracy and to establish a regional zone of peace, but its efforts at promoting a regional sense of shared purposes have been mixed and, some say, halfhearted at best. Brazilian public opinion and private-sector business increasingly doubt the benefits of deep regional integration with neighbors, and plans for a South American Free Trade Zone have gone asunder. And yes, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), from 1998 to 2007, Brazil spent far more on its armed forces than Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Venezuela combined. Yet, Brazil's ability to project military power abroad remains minimal. The end result is that many challenge the notion that Brazil is a regional leader. From the perspective of smaller neighboring countries, it remains a country that is too hard to follow sometimes. If you are sitting on its borders, as 10 South American nations do, you find it difficult to jump on its bandwagon. This is problematic for Brazil. As a major and growing regional creditor, investor, consumer, and exporter, its own economic fate is interconnected with that of its neighbors. Crises abroad impact its banks and companies at home as never before. Populism, ethnic nationalism, narcotics trafficking, guerrilla warfare, deforestation, unlawful pasturing, economic decay, and political upheaval in neighbors will deeply harm Brazilian interests. Whether, when and how Brazil will develop the policy instruments to shape a regional order beneficial to itself remains to be seen. But curiously enough, Brazilian leaders do not normally think their interests in South America might converge with those of the United States. On the contrary, Brazil in the twenty-first century has geared its regional policies to deflect, hedge, bind, and restrain U.S. power in South America to the extent that it can. This is not to say that Brazil is a stubborn challenger of U.S. interests in the region. That would be silly for a country whose success depends on the perception of economic gain and regional stability. But it means that future generations of Brazilians might discover that if they want to unlock some of the most pressing problems in the region, perhaps they will have to reconsider their attitude towards the United States...
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, International Law, and Islam
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, Washington, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, South America, Venezuela, and Chile
9503. The Opportunities and Challenges for President Dilma Rousseff
- Author:
- Roberto Setubal
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Gradually and firmly over the past 15 years, Brazil has consolidated a stable democracy, broken free from macroeconomic instability, and taken remarkable steps toward alleviating poverty and reducing a historically high level of income inequality. The country that welcomed Dilma Rousseff as its new president on January 1 is also the country that will host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Ms. Rousseff has a chance to push Brazil further along the road to development. To get there, she must maintain the achievements of the past and persevere in making the changes that Brazil needs. The opportunities are big—so are the challenges. Brazil's political, economic and social advances have paved the way for the development of a large consumer market. This puts the country in a position to benefit from today's global marketplace. Consumer spending in advanced economies is flattening out. At the same time, with their large potential consumer markets, emerging markets are becoming “consumers of last resort,” attracting an increasing share of global resources. Brazil is one of them. A new, larger middle class is now emerging. From 2003 to 2009, about 35.7 million people joined Brazil's middle-class income bracket. By 2014, Brazilian economists and business leaders estimate that another 30 million will have made that move. This development will have far-reaching implications for businesses, but also for society as a whole. Investment is very likely to rise in the years ahead. New projects now follow the expected consumer patterns of this new middle class. Investment is spurred by macroeconomic stability and other developments that have increased confidence and enabled a slow but steady decline in real interest rates. This has lowered the cost of capital and stimulated credit and capital markets. Investments will also increase for more specific reasons. First, the new deepwater oil fields will require vast financial resources and new technology, allowing Brazil's oil production to double by 2020. Second, pent-up demand for housing will be a catalyst for investment, since a significant number of Brazilians still live in sub-standard homes. Third, the World Cup and Olympics will require investments on a considerable scale. Preparing for these large sports events will benefit diverse sectors of the economy, through spending on ports and airports, urban transportation, sports facilities, hotels, telecommunications, energy, and security. Tourism is likely to benefit during the games, and also afterward. Nevertheless, with public and private domestic savings at their current low levels, Brazil will need to continue tapping external savings to finance growth. That means a larger current-account deficit and an exchange rate appreciated by capital inflows. Brazil will have to make the most of its available resources. It will be essential to create an environment that is conducive to private sector saving and investment. Ensuring stable macroeconomic conditions is critical. Remaining market-friendly in a well-regulated environment is also crucial for healthy and abundant financing. A well-established institutional design for regulatory agencies, which instills the necessary confidence that the private sector can undertake major, long-term projects, is indispensable. A great deal can be achieved through small but focused changes, instead of ambitious but often unrealistic regulatory agendas. The advance in credit regulation in Brazil is one such example. Developing a deeper market for private, fixed-income securities is important, but there needs to be a liquid secondary market, so that families have more confidence in extending the maturities on their investments. Just as we have such a market for equities, we can have one for fixed-income securities...
- Topic:
- Security and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Brazil
9504. Puncturing the 4 Myths about Latin America
- Author:
- Raul Rivera
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Most people have grown used to thinking about Latin America as a region of marginal global importance: painfully poor, violent, politically and economically unstable and, to top it all, fragmented into some 20-odd countries, each one different from the other. So when Jerry Wind, founding editor of Wharton School Publishing, invited me to speak on Latin America at a Wharton conference aimed at senior U.S. executives, I wondered what a group of U.S. businesspeople would be interested to hear about the region. Who, after all, would want to do business in a place like that? But how accurate are those perceptions? As I prepared for my talk, my conclusion was: not much. Let's address the four principal myths about the region one by one. Myth 1: Latin America Really Does not Matter Economically To start, the territory of continental Latin America is larger than the U.S. and China combined, four times larger than the European Union, and seven times larger than India—a country roughly the size of Argentina. With almost every ecosystem represented, it is in fact the world's most biodiverse region, containing five of the world's ten most biodiverse countries. The region's bio-capacity (the biological productivity of the land measured in hectares per capita) is also larger than any other's. Witness the region's role in the global food chain: it is the largest producer of soybeans, coffee, sugar, bananas, orange juice, a leading fishmeal producer, and a major grain and meat exporter. Its mineral riches keep world industry running: silver, gold, copper, zinc, lead, tin, bismuth, molybdenum, rhenium, telurium, borium, strontium—you name it. And it produces one out of every six barrels of oil. In fact, much of the global community depends on Latin America's vast riches for its prosperity—indeed, for its survival. To that point: the Amazon basin plays a crucial role in the recycling of atmospheric carbon, absorbing one fourth of all global emissions. Latin America's population, now approaching 600 million, is twice that of the U.S. and significantly larger than the combined population of the European Union. Those numbers do not include some 50 million U.S. permanent residents and citizens who trace their origins back to the region (and keep close ties with it). By 2050, the region's population will have risen to an estimated 800 million. Latin America is not poor either. It boasts a per-capita GDP similar to the global average: $10,000. It is no richer or poorer than the rest of the world. In fact, 400 million people, or two-thirds of all Latin Americans, already belong to the global middle class, with their purchasing power fueling much of Latin America's growth. With some 200 million people still living in poverty, Latin America's poor are still numerous. But their ranks are declining fast, at a rate of 5 million a year over the past decade. As a result, its Gini coefficient improved by 10 percent between 2002 and 2008. In brief: the world's poor are now elsewhere—mainly in Asia and Africa. A population this large combined with average income levels have turned Latin America into the fourth largest economy in the world, with a regional GDP of some $6 trillion (purchasing power parity). That is larger than that of Russia and India's combined—larger, in fact, than that of any country or region other than the U.S., the EU and China. Not bad for a “region of marginal importance.” You could argue that Latin America's fragmentation into small, separate markets makes all the difference. But you would be wrong. As a result of the free-market reforms of the past decades, Latin America's economy is now the most open to trade in the developing world, with average tariffs down to 10 percent or less. Intraregional trade is booming. Most significantly, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru have signed bilateral free-trade agreements (with both the EU and the U.S., though Colombia's is waiting for the U.S. Congress' approval). These agreements are giving rise to a free-trade zone of some 200 million consumers, larger than Brazil and fully open to global trade. Surprisingly, it does not yet have a name—or a space among the BRICs. It will, though. Let's name these four countries the L-4 for now...
- Topic:
- Economics and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, India, Brazil, Colombia, Latin America, Mexico, Chile, and Peru
9505. What Happened to the North American Idea?
- Author:
- Robert A. Pastor
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Two decades ago, the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States forged an agreement that transformed North America from just a geographical expression to the world's most formidable economic entity. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) eliminated most of the trade and investment barriers that had segmented the continent. Within a decade, trade among the three countries tripled and foreign direct investment (FDI) quintupled. By 2001, the three nations of North America accounted for 36 percent of the world product—up from 30 percent in 1994. And while many economists have waxed enthusiastic about the growing power of Brazil, U.S. trade with Mexico today is more than six times larger than its trade with Brazil. Unfortunately, since 2001 regional cooperation has stagnated. NAFTA, designed to expand trade and investment, has proven too limited in addressing the current issues facing the three countries. The time has come for the leaders of North America to recommit to regional integration if they want to effectively address the policy issues facing the region. For example, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, NAFTA can play a major role in job creation. A revamped agreement can potentially double exports and allow North America to once again compete with integrated markets in Asia and Europe. Beyond jobs, enhanced coordination and information sharing among NAFTA partners will allow for better control of immigration and the flow of illicit drugs across our borders. Finally, strengthening ties will begin to close the development gap between Mexico and its two neighbors, fortifying the economic and political bloc. The Rise and Fall of North America Though NAFTA has long faded from the headlines, the agreement's first years showed much promise. When the North American market was created in 1992, the impact was almost immediate. Contrary to the claim by U.S. presidential candidate Ross Perot that American jobs would be “sucked” into Mexico, the dramatic increase in North American trade coincided with the largest wave of job creation in U.S. history. Between 1992 and 2000, roughly 22 million jobs were added in the U.S., while trade with and FDI in Canada and Mexico grew more than 17 percent each year. The combination of expanded trade and investment meant that the three countries were actually making products together rather than just trading them. By combining U.S. capital and technology with Mexico's cheaper labor and Canada's abundant resources, the enlarged North American market experienced rapid growth, while Europe stagnated. From the onset of the U.S.-Canadian Free Trade Agreement in 1988 to 2001, trade among Mexico, Canada and the U.S., as a percentage of their trade with the world, leapt from 36 percent to 46 percent. The decline of the integration idea could be dated to the spring of 2001, when Presidents Vicente Fox of Mexico and George W. Bush of the U.S. met Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in Québec. Fox and his Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda arrived with a suitcase filled with proposals, such as a North American Commission, a “cohesion” fund to reduce the development gap, a customs union and an immigration agreement. But Chrétien was not interested in including Mexico in Canada's talks with the U.S., and Bush rejected any new multilateral institution or fund. The opportunity for progress was lost. The share of trade among the three countries as a percentage of their trade with the rest of the world dropped from 46 percent in 2001 to 40 percent in 2009—almost to pre-NAFTA levels. The average annual growth of trade among the three countries declined by two-thirds, while growth of foreign direct investment decreased by one-half…
- Topic:
- Development and Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Canada, Brazil, North America, and Mexico
9506. The Americas Go Glocal
- Author:
- Saskia Sassen
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- There is little doubt that the North-South axis remains dominant for Latin America's geopolitical positioning. But new relations are emerging and deepening at subnational levels, in turn creating new intercity geographies and challenging that geopolitical notion. These relations are a direct product of economic and cultural globalization. Some examples are the shift of migration from Ecuador and Colombia toward Spain rather than the U.S., the growing economic relations between Chinese businesses and organizations and São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and the emergent relations between these cities and Johannesburg, South Africa. The Internet has allowed a rapidly growing number of people to become a part of diverse networks that crisscross the world. And nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from various parts of the world are establishing active connections over social struggles in Latin America. In other words, beneath the still-dominant North-South geopolitics, transversal geographies are growing in bits and pieces. One trend is the formation of intercity geographies as the number of global cities has expanded since the 1990s. These subnational circuits cut across the world in many directions. A second trend is the growth of civil society organizations and individuals who are connecting around the world in ways that, again, often do not follow the patterns of traditional geopolitics. The New, Multiple Circuits There is no such entity as the global economy. It is more correct to say there are global formations, such as electronic financial markets and firms that operate globally. But what defines the current era is the creation of numerous, highly particular, global circuits—some specialized and some not—interlacing across the world and connecting specific areas, most of which are cities. While many of these global circuits have long existed, they began to proliferate and establish increasingly complex organizational and financial foundations in the 1980s. These emergent intercity geographies function as an infrastructure for globalization, and have led to the increased urbanization of global networks. Different circuits contain different groups of countries and cities. For instance, Mumbai today is part of a global circuit for real estate development that includes investors from cities as diverse as London and Bogotá. Coffee is mostly produced in Brazil, Kenya and Indonesia, but the main place for trading its future is on Wall Street. The specialized circuits in gold, coffee, oil and other commodities each involve particular countries and cities, which will vary depending on whether they are production, trading or financial circuits. If, for example, we track the global circuits of gold as a financial instrument, it is London, New York, Chicago, and Zurich that dominate. But the wholesale trade in the metal brings São Paulo, Johannesburg and Sydney into the circuit, while trade in the commodity, much of it aimed at the retail level, adds Mumbai and Dubai. And then there are the types of circuits a firm such as Wal-Mart needs to outsource the production of vast amounts of goods—circuits that include manufacturing, trading, and financial and insurance services. The 250,000 multinationals in the world, together with their over 1 million affiliates and partnership arrangements worldwide, have created a new pattern of relations that combine global dispersal with the spatial concentration of certain functions often while retaining headquarters in their home countries. The same is true of the 100 top global advanced-services firms that together have operations in 350 cities outside their home base. While financial services can be bought everywhere electronically, the headquarters of leading global financial services firms tend to be concentrated in a limited number of cities. Each of these financial centers specializes in specific segments of global finance, even as they engage in routine types of transactions executed by all financial centers. It's not just global economic forces that feed this proliferation of circuits. Forces such as migration and cultural exchange, along with civil society struggles to protect human rights, preserve the environment and promote social justice, which also contribute to circuit formation and development. NGOs fighting for the protection of the rainforest function in circuits that include Brazil and Indonesia as homes of the major rainforests, the global media centers of New York and London, and the places where the key forestry companies selling and buying wood are headquartered—notably Oslo, London and Tokyo. There are even music circuits that connect specific areas of India with London, New York, Chicago, and Johannesburg. Adopting the perspective of one of these cities reveals the diversity and specificity of its location on some or many of these circuits, which is determined by its unique capabilities. Ultimately, being a global firm or market means entering the specificities and particularities of national economies. This explains why global firms and markets need more and more global cities as they expand their operations across the world. While there is competition among cities, there is far less of it than is usually assumed. A global firm does not want one global city, but many. Moreover, given the variable level of specialization of globalized firms, their preferred cities will vary. Firms thrive on the specialized differences of cities, and it is those differences that give a city its particular advantage in the global economy. Thus, the economic history of a place matters for the type of knowledge economy that a city or city-region ends up developing. This goes against the common view that globalization homogenizes economies. Globalization homogenizes standards—for managing, accounting, building state-of-the-art office districts, and so on. But it needs diverse specialized economic capabilities. Latin America on the Circuit This allows many of Latin America's cities to become part of global circuits. Some, such as São Paulo and Buenos Aires, are located on hundreds of such circuits, others just on a few. Regardless of the case, these cities are not necessarily competing with one other. The growing number of global cities, each specialized, signals a shift to a multipolar world. Clearly, the major Latin American cities have circuits that connect them directly to destinations across the world. What is perhaps most surprising is the intensity of connections with Asia and Europe. Traditional geopolitics would lead one to think that Latin America connects, above all, with North America. There is a strong tendency for global money flows to generate partial geographies. This becomes clear, for example, when we consider foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America, a disproportionate share of which goes to a handful of countries. In 2008, for example (a relative peak of FDI), FDI flows into Latin America were topped by Brazil at $45.1 billion, followed at a distance by Mexico at $23.7 billion, Chile at $15.2 billion, and Argentina with $9.7 billion. On average, between 1991–1996 and 2003–2008, FDI in Brazil increased more than five-fold while tripling in Chile and Mexico. Among the countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region receiving the lowest levels of foreign investment in 2008 were Haiti, at $30 million; Guyana, at $178 million; and Paraguay, at $109 million. Globalization and the new information and communication technologies have enabled a variety of local activists and organizations to enter international arenas that were once the exclusive domain of national states. Going global has also been partly facilitated and conditioned by the infrastructure of the global economy…
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and Non-Governmental Organization
- Political Geography:
- United States, New York, America, South Africa, London, Colombia, Latin America, Mumbai, Sydney, Ecuador, Dubai, and Chicago
9507. Argentina's Migration Solution
- Author:
- Gaston Chillier and Ernesto Seman
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Most Latin American countries have regarded immigration policy as a function of border protection, using approaches that emphasize security and law enforcement, including strict regulation of work and residency permits. Nevertheless, such policies have not only failed in recent years to curb the growth of undocumented migrants; they have also clashed with resolutions adopted in 2003 and 2008 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that guarantee migrant rights. Argentina is a notable exception. Thanks to a law passed in 2004, it has emerged as a model for innovative immigration policymaking. The law incorporated the recognition of migration as a human right. But what really made it historic was the open, consultative process used to conceive, develop and pass the legislation. How Argentina got there is an instructive story—and it may hold lessons for its neighbors and for other areas of the world. A Country of Immigrants Struggles with Its Limits As a country known both as a source and a destination for immigrants, Argentina has always carved out a special place for itself in Latin America. In the nineteenth century, it forged a national identity through an open-door immigration policy that was geared selectively toward European immigrants. But migration from neighboring countries such as Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay increased steadily to the point that—by the 1960s—the number of immigrants from its neighbors outpaced arrivals from Europe. In response, Argentina imposed stricter controls on the entry and exit of foreigners, beginning with legislation introduced in 1966. The legislation established new measures for deporting undocumented immigrants. In 1981, under the military dictatorship, legislative decrees that allowed the state to expel migrants were codified into law for the first time as Law 22.439, also known as La Ley Videla (named after the military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who was later convicted of human rights violations). The law contained several provisions that affected constitutional guarantees, including the right of authorities to detain and expel foreigners without judicial redress; the obligation of public officials to report the presence of unauthorized immigrants; and restrictions on their health care and education. For example, undocumented immigrants could receive emergency health care, but hospitals were then obligated to report them. The resolutions and decrees of the National Migration Office—first established in 1949—turned the office into a vehicle for the violation of migrant rights and precluded it from regulating immigration and addressing immigrants' status. From the downfall of the military dictatorship in 1983 until 2003, congress failed to repeal La Ley Videla or enact an immigration law in accordance with the constitution and international human rights treaties recognizing migrant rights. In fact, the executive branch expanded the law's discriminatory features and promoted the autonomy of the National Migration Office to establish criteria for admission and expulsion from the country without any legal oversight. The continuation of La Ley Videla relegated close to 800,000 immigrants—most of whom came from neighboring countries—to “irregular” status, with serious sociopolitical consequences. Efforts to rectify the situation at first met little success. In the absence of reform, Argentine immigration policy was based on individual agreements with countries like Bolivia and Peru to regulate immigrant flows. These agreements failed to address the larger realities of immigrant flows and Argentine authorities often expelled immigrants despite the treaties. As a result, courts repeatedly upheld detentions and expulsions sanctioned by the immigration authorities, with no formal mechanisms to ensure justice for immigrants. In turn, the high cost of filing or pursuing an appeal generally made this an unlikely option. In 1996, this unjust and unsustainable situation led to the creation of the Roundtable of Civil Society Organizations for the Defense of Migrant Rights, a diverse coalition of human rights groups. The roundtable sought to counter xenophobic rhetoric from state ministries and from the president. It worked for migrant rights and included a diverse coalition of immigrant associations, religious groups, unions, and academic institutions. A key goal was to expose the contradictions and inconsistencies of La Ley Videla by sponsoring reports on human rights abuses of migrants, bringing cases to court and submitting complaints to the Inter-American Human Rights System. In 2000, the organization outlined a specific agenda to repeal La Ley Videla and to pass a new immigration law that respected the rights of foreigners. Criteria for the new legislation included: administrative and judicial control over the National Migration Office; reform of deportation and detention procedures to guarantee due process; recognition of the rights of migrants and their families to normalize their immigration status; and elimination of discrimination and other forms of restrictive control in order to ensure access to constitutionally guaranteed social rights and services…
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Migration, and Immigration
- Political Geography:
- America, Argentina, Latin America, Chile, and Bolivia
9508. Ask the Experts: The New Brazil and The Changing Hemisphere
- Author:
- Kevin P. Gallagher, Arturo Sarukhan, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Kurt G. Weyland
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Do traditional models of international relations apply in Latin America?
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economics, Environment, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Latin America, and Mexico
9509. Haiti's New President: Welcome to the Toughest Job in the Americas
- Author:
- Robert Maguire
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Haiti's next president must put the country on a path to real development.
- Topic:
- Development, Government, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- America and Haiti
9510. Venezuela's Oil Tale
- Author:
- Alejandro Grisanti
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- President Chávez' oil policies will bring few long-term benefits to Venezuelans.
- Topic:
- Education, Government, and Oil
- Political Geography:
- Venezuela
9511. The Paradoxes of Indigenous Politics
- Author:
- Jose Antonio Lucero
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Has the increased political involvement of Indigenous peoples improved their situation?
- Topic:
- Government, Politics, and Reform
- Political Geography:
- America, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador
9512. Latin America: Then Now
- Author:
- Luis Moreno Ocampo, Susan Segal, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Carlos Chamorro, Enrique Krauze, Alma Guillermoprieto, and Dolores Huerta
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Reflections on a changing hemisphere.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Development, Government, and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- Cuba and Latin America
9513. Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Li Jinzhang on China's plans and strategy in Latin America.
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Americas Quarterly: Why is China today so interested economically in Latin America? Li Jinzhang: After 30 years of reform and economic opening, China has scored remarkable achievements in economic and social development, and its connections with the rest of the world have become closer. China needs the world to achieve development, and the world needs China as a contributor to development and stability. Latin America is an important part of the developing world. In recent years, China and Latin America have drawn on their respective strengths and economic complementarity. The result has been rapid growth in economic cooperation and trade, and a vigorous boost to their respective economies. These synergies have brought real benefits to our peoples and contributed to global development and stability. Moreover, the potential for future growth in cooperation and trade is huge. We hope to achieve mutually-beneficial cooperation and common development through closer economic cooperation and trade with the region.
- Political Geography:
- China, America, and Latin America
9514. Will the proposed economic reforms in Cuba succeed? Yes
- Author:
- Omar Everleny Perez
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- These reforms will update the Cuban model and spur economic growth.
- Topic:
- Reform
- Political Geography:
- Cuba
9515. Will the proposed economic reforms in Cuba succeed? No
- Author:
- Jose Antonio Ocampo
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- The reforms do not go far enough to jump-start the economy and protect the vulnerable.
- Topic:
- Reform
- Political Geography:
- Cuba
9516. Argentina's Long-Suffering Universities
- Author:
- Matthew Sundquist
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- A Fulbright Scholar discovers the pathologies and injustices of a higher education system once considered the "jewel of the Americas." The story goes that Domingo Faustino Sarmiento was born under a tree in San Juan, a province in western Argentina. I passed that tree every day on my way to teach at the Faculty of Philosophy, Humanities and Arts at the Universidad Nacional de San Juan (UNSJ), as a newly minted Fulbright Scholar in early 2010. I couldn't help thinking that I was also following the path that Sarmiento took in 1869, when he brought 65 English teachers to Argentina from Boston. An early advocate of universal education, Sarmiento helped establish Argentina's national education system when he was minister of religion, justice and public instruction. Later, as governor of San Juan, Sarmiento passed laws mandating primary education and lobbied for tuition-free public primary schools. Then, as president (1868–1874), he established 800 schools and oversaw a quadrupling of educational funding to provinces.
- Topic:
- Education and Religion
- Political Geography:
- Argentina
9517. Logistics: Shipping on the Panama Canal
- Author:
- Liliana Rivera and Yossi Sheffi
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- The Panama Canal Expansion Program (PCEP), launched in September 2007 and scheduled for completion in 2014, is expected by its proponents to have the greatest impact on global shipping of any project underway today. Once completed, the $5.5 billion project will roughly triple the size of vessels that can pass through the Canal, from the current maximum of 4,400 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) to 12,600 TEU. In a December 2010 article, The New York Times echoed the general consensus that the project will lead to “the biggest shift in the freight business since the 1950s, when sea-faring ships began carrying goods in uniform metal containers.” Nevertheless, at the midpoint of the project's timeline, there are important questions about what has been achieved to date, and in particular, about how effectively ports outside Panama will be able to handle the larger ships and the associated increased volume of traffic.
- Political Geography:
- New York and Panama
9518. Immigration and Integration: The Role of the Private Sector
- Author:
- Alexandra Delano and Jason Marczak
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- The 2010 U.S. Census results underlined not only the dramatic growth of the U.S. Hispanic population but its high mobility. In the last decade, data show that the number of Hispanics jumped by 43 percent—from 35.3 million in 2000 to 50.5 million in 2010—with this group accounting for over half of the total U.S. population increase. Latinos also continue to live in new destinations. Since 1990, the number of those living in the nine states with the historically highest concentrations of Hispanics shrank by 10 percentage points to a total of 76 percent. The rise of the Hispanic population, together with an immigrant population estimated at 38.5 million (of which more than half are from Latin America), continues to spark a variety of public policy and private-sector responses. The most worrisome has been the explosion of anti-immigrant bills in state legislatures, which claim to be reacting to the absence of nationwide comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) and lack of enforcement.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Latin America
9519. Sports: Professional Hockey Expansion in Canada
- Author:
- Norm O'Reilly
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- In Canadian hockey, currency fluctuations can be almost as important as player skills. When the Canadian dollar, or loonie, began approaching parity with the U.S. dollar in late 2007, fans in Winnipeg and Québec City were thrilled. Financial constraints (along with a lack of owner interest) had driven the Winnipeg Jets to Phoenix in 1996 and the Québec Nordiques to Denver in 1995. But many now believe that the loonie's rise has opened the way for a return of National Hockey League (NHL) franchises to both cities. This optimism may not be warranted. Potential owners forecast an uncertain long-term value of the loonie, which is critical for the success of Canadian professional ice hockey. In the last half of the 1990s and early into the new millennium, the U.S. economy was growing faster than the Canadian economy. Although ticket sales remained high for Canadian NHL franchises, the weakening Canadian dollar meant that U.S. teams were typically stronger on non-ticket revenues such as payments for media rights, regional sports networks and sponsorship. This put further stress on small-market Canadian teams, and importantly, decreased their attractiveness as investments.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Canada
9520. Colombia Moda
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- 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:
- America and Colombia
9521. Jungle Surfing
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- 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:
- America
9522. 10 Things to Do: Cartagena
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- 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:
- America
9523. Film: The End of Hope
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- 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:
- America
9524. From the Think Tanks
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- 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:
- America
9525. Political Innovator: Liliana Rojero, Mexico
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Liliana Rojero has had a passion for politics since she was 13 years old. Today, at 35, she is putting that passion to work. As the secretary of community outreach for Mexico's ruling party, the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), Rojero is responsible for creating programs to engage a new generation of PAN voters. Over the next three years, she aims to spread PAN's reach and, ultimately, help it win the 2012 Presidential election. Rojero, a native of the state of Chihuahua, learned about political commitment from her parents—former state election monitors who instilled in her the values of democracy, transparency and participation. Observing how officials from the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) blatantly manipulated election outcomes—she and her mother would sometimes find ballots “mysteriously” filed by dead voters—led Rojero to see her participation in the democratic process as a duty. During a hotly contested governor's race in 1986, she was inspired by watching her teachers and neighbors take their political protests to the streets and capitol. “I saw what freedom and their votes meant to them,” she recalls.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- Mexico
9526. Civic Innovators: Diego de Sola, Ken Baker and Celina de Sola, El Salvador
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Real change begins when communities learn how to help themselves, believe Diego de Sola, his sister Celina, and her husband Ken Baker. This idea guided the three former Connecticut residents to pack their bags and move to El Salvador four years ago to start a small NGO, Glasswing International. Inspired by groups like Habitat for Humanity, Glasswing works in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Named after the transparent-winged butterfly native to Central America and Mexico and representing the transparency NGOs bring to development, Glasswing's efforts focus on education and health. The three founders believe these two areas are most in need of help and have the greatest potential for impact. Unlike the past work of Celina and Ken—former disaster relief workers—the work is not top-down or short-term. The projects are staffed by a corps of volunteers called Crisálida (Chrysalis—in keeping with the butterfly metaphor). The spirit that motivates the volunteers is not one of noblesse oblige. The Crisálida corps attracts the young and old, students and professionals, and representatives from all socioeconomic strata.
- Political Geography:
- Central America, Mexico, and El Salvador
9527. Arts Innovator: Gabriel Ahumada, Colombia
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Gabriel Ahumada decided to become a flutist more or less on a whim. As a child, he listened to classical music at home in Bogotá, Colombia, and took piano lessons, but if you had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would have said “conductor of an orchestra.” He was advised to study a more classical instrument. Flipping through a catalogue of wind instruments one day, Ahumada picked the flute. “It seemed the easiest to learn,” he explains. Colombian classical music has been reaping the benefits of that decision ever since. Ahumada grew up to become not only one of his country's most accomplished flutists, but also a teacher helping to develop the next generation of Colombian musicians.
- Political Geography:
- Colombia
9528. Business innovator: Andrés Moreno
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- If you visit Andrés Moreno's blog, you'll see a list of books he's “recently enjoyed.” Among them are Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language, and Mastering the VC Game. The list not only reflects Moreno's passion for English as a global language, but his entrepreneurial drive to turn that passion into profits. Last June, both the passion and the drive paid off when the Caracas-born Moreno, 28, launched Open English, a Web-based language school that promises “to reinvent the English-language learning experience.”
- Political Geography:
- Venezuela
9529. Leftist Governments in Latin America: Successes and Shortcomings edited by Kurt Weyland, Raúl L. Madrid and Wendy Hunter
- Author:
- Eduardo Silva
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- At the turn of the twenty-first century, the Latin American Left experienced an extraordinary revival, especially in South America. By 2009, eight South American countries and two Central American nations had elected left-wing governments. Is this revival a harbinger of a progressive renaissance or a throwback to failed experiments? Leftist Governments in Latin America: Successes and Shortcomings attempts to answer this question by analyzing the extent to which these governments have improved the livelihoods of their citizens. The seven essays that make up the volume, written by distinguished U.S. and Brazil-based scholars, provide a sharp, scholarly comparison of the outcomes achieved by governments of the moderate left and what coeditor Kurt Weyland of the University of Texas at Austin calls the “contestatory” or more radical left, in an introduction that lays out the theoretical framework. This book, which was also edited by Raúl L. Madrid and Wendy Hunter of the University of Texas, fills a critical gap in the burgeoning literature on the subject.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Brazil, and Latin America
9530. The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon by John Paul Rathbone
- Author:
- Rafael Rojas
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- A common assumption is that the Cuban economic elite was universally opposed to the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro from the time it took power in January 1959. But The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon shows otherwise. In his book, John Paul Rathbone, the Latin America editor at the Financial Times, paints a more nuanced picture of the Cuban bourgeoisie and, in particular, of Julio Lobo (1898–1983)— the great Cuban sugar tycoon of the first half of the twentieth century. Reading like an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel with scenes reminiscent of an Elia Kazan film, the book paints vivid descriptions of Lobo's life and Cuba in general with action on every page.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Cuba and Latin America
9531. La Rebelión de los Náufragos by Mirtha Rivero
- Author:
- Howard LaFranchi
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- The modern tragic political figure is not just endemic to Latin America. The ignominious fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak—once a war hero to his countrymen—is the latest proof of this. But in her book, La Rebelión de los Náufragos (The Revolt of the Castaways), Venezuelan journalist Mirtha Rivero takes us back to the tragic story of a man who was once one of Latin America's most promising leaders, and who fell from power (like his modern counterparts) from a combination of pride and the failure to understand the yearnings of his compatriots. Carlos Andrés Pérez, re-elected in 1989 to a second term as Venezuela's president, embodied one of Latin America's first modern political tragedies. He was a democrat who was confident that his country (along with much of his region) had conquered its ghosts and was finally ready for governance by first-world standards such as fair elections, a competitive market-based economy and political parties focused more on national interests than on self-preservation.
- Topic:
- Markets
- Political Geography:
- Latin America
9532. ObamaCare v. the Constitution
- Author:
- Paul J. Beard II
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Matt Sissel is a young entrepreneur who is pursuing the American dream. After returning from military service in Iraq and paying his way through art school, he opened a studio in Iowa City, where he sells his fine art and offers art lessons. Until recently, Matt's entire focus had been on furthering his education and art business. So he made the considered judgment to forgo some luxuries-such as health insurance. In his twenties, Matt is healthy and has no preexisting medical conditions. He is self-insured-paying out of pocket any medical expenses that might arise-and wants to continue to self-insure because he believes the cost of health insurance premiums is excessive and that his money is better devoted to his business. But the federal government couldn't care less about Matt's priorities and choices. Beginning in 2014, it will force Matt, along with almost every other American, to buy a comprehensive, government-approved health-insurance plan from a private insurance company, on pain of stiff civil penalties. This "Individual Mandate" is at the heart of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act-also known as "ObamaCare"-which Congress enacted and the president signed into law in 2010. As a consequence of the Individual Mandate, Matt must act now to make financial plans: either purchase health insurance or pay a hefty annual penalty. Given the financial burden it will impose, he can no longer afford to hone his craft by furthering his education in art. Matt must focus exclusively on the creation and sale of his artwork in order to brace himself for the impending obligations the Individual Mandate imposes. Outraged that he is being forced to divert his hard-earned resources away from his education and career in order to buy a service he neither needs nor wants, Matt has decided to sue the federal government, asking the federal district court in Washington, D.C., to enjoin enforcement of the Individual Mandate on the grounds that it violates the United States Constitution. Other legal challenges to the Individual Mandate are pending in courts across the country, such as the well-known lawsuits brought by various state governments and officials whose purpose is to protect their sovereignty against federal encroachment. But few challenges take up the cause as championed by Matt, who is driven by the explicit desire to have the government recognize his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, exercised in accordance with his own values and goals.1 Let us consider the prospects for Matt's constitutional challenge to the Individual Mandate. ObamaCare's Individual Mandate In brief, here is how the Individual Mandate will work: Beginning in 2014, with few exceptions, all individuals with legal residence in the United States will be forced to purchase a health-insurance plan with "minimum essential coverage," as defined by the government. Exempt individuals include Native Americans, religious objectors, Americans living abroad, and the poor (whose health care will be subsidized). And what the law defines as "minimum essential coverage" is far more than is necessary for young and healthy individuals such as Matt. Thus, a catastrophic health-insurance plan covering only expenses related to medical emergencies-which would make sense for many Americans-would not satisfy the mandate's requirements. Moreover, individuals subject to the Individual Mandate cannot satisfy the "minimum essential coverage" requirement by self-insuring: Under the act, they are prohibited from paying for their medical expenses out of pocket.2 Thus, if Matt fails to buy "minimum essential coverage" by January 1, 2014, the government will assess a financial penalty against him for every month he remains without such coverage. The penalty for failing to purchase approved health insurance is the greater of 2.5 percent of the taxpayer's annual income, or $695 for each uninsured family member per year, up to a maximum of $2,085 per family per year-not an insignificant sum.3 Does the federal government-specifically, Congress-really have the legal power to force Matt and other Americans to buy a product or service, such as health insurance, from a private company? . . .
- Topic:
- Education
- Political Geography:
- Iraq and America
9533. The Iranian and Saudi Regimes Must Go
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- As political uprisings and civil wars rage in the Middle East, and as America's self-crippled efforts to defeat Al-Qaeda and the Taliban limp on, the need to identify and eliminate the primary threats to American security becomes more urgent by the day. As you read these words, the Islamist regime in Iran is sponsoring the slaughter of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan,1 funding Hamas and Hezbollah in their efforts to destroy our vital ally Israel,2 building nuclear bombs to further “Allah's” ends,3 chanting “Death to America! Death to Israel!” in Friday prayers and political parades,4 and declaring: “With the destruction of these two evil countries, the world will become free of oppression.”5 The U.S. government knows all of this (and much more), which is why the State Department has identified the Islamist regime in Iran as “the most active state sponsor of terrorism” in the world.6 Meanwhile, the Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia is funding American-slaughtering terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban,7 building mosques and “cultural centers” across America, and flooding these Islamist outposts not only with hundreds of millions of dollars for “operating expenses” but also with a steady stream of materials calling for all Muslims “to be dissociated from the infidels . . . to hate them for their religion . . . to always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law” and, ultimately, “to abolish all traces of such primitive life (jahiliyya) and to reinforce the understanding and application of the eternal and universal Islamic deen [religion] until it becomes the ruling power throughout the world.” The Saudi-sponsored materials further specify that those who “accept any religion other than Islam, like Judaism or Christianity, which are not acceptable,” have “denied the Koran” and thus “should be killed.”8 None of this is news, at least not to the U.S. government. The Saudis' anti-infidel efforts have been tracked, documented, and reported for years. As the Rand Corporation concluded in a briefing to a top Pentagon advisory board in 2002, “The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader.”9 What is the U.S. government doing about these clear and present dangers? Nothing. Following the atrocities of 9/11, America has gone to war with Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya, but it has done nothing of substance to end the threats posed by the primary enemies of America: the regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Instead, the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, continues the policy of seeking “negotiations” with the Iranian regime and calling the Saudi regime our “friend and ally.” This is insanity. And it is time for American citizens to demand that our politicians put an end to it. The Iranian and Saudi regimes must go. And in order to persuade American politicians to get rid of them, American citizens must make clear that we won't settle for anything less. Of course, the Obama administration is not going to take any pro-American actions against either of these regimes. But Americans can and should demand that any politician—especially any presidential candidate—seeking our support in the 2012 elections provide an explicit statement of his general policy with respect to Iran and Saudi Arabia. And we should demand that the policy be along the following lines . . .
- Topic:
- Islam and War
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, America, Libya, and Saudi Arabia
9534. Interview with Reza Kahlili, an Ex-CIA Spy Embedded in Iran's Revolutionary Guards
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Craig Biddle: I'm honored to be joined today by Reza Kahlili, author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The book is the winner of both best new nonfiction and autobiography/memoirs in the 2011 International Book Awards sponsored by JPX Media Group. Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym used for security reasons. Thank you for joining me, Reza. Reza Kahlili: Thank you so much for having me.
- Political Geography:
- America and Iran
9535. Interview with Historian John David Lewis about U.S. Foreign Policy and the Middle East
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- I recently spoke with Dr. John David Lewis about American foreign policy, the uprisings in the Muslim world, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the light that history can shed on such matters. Dr. Lewis is visiting associate professor in the philosophy, politics, and economics program at Duke University and he's the author, most recently, of Nothing Less Than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History. —Craig Biddle Craig Biddle: Thank you for joining me, John. John David Lewis: I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me. CB: Before we dive into some questions about U.S. foreign policy and the situation in the Middle East, would you say a few words about your work at Duke? What courses do you teach and how do they relate to foreign policy and the history of war? JL: The courses I teach all bring the thought of the ancients into the modern day and always dive to the moral level. For example, I teach freshman seminars on ancient political thought. I also teach a course on the justice of market exchange in which I draw upon the thought of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, etcetera, and approach the question from a moral perspective. In regard to foreign policy and the history of war, I just finished a graduate course at Duke University on Thucydides and the Realist tradition in international relations. International relations studies have been dominated by a school of thought called Realism. This course explores the ideas of Thucydides and how they've translated through history into modern international relations studies and ultimately into the formulation of foreign policy in the modern day. I also teach courses at the University of North Carolina on the moral foundations of capitalism, which use Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as its core text. I've been involved in speaking to Duke University medical students on health care where, again, I approach the issue from a moral perspective, namely, from the principle of individual rights. CB: That's quite an array of courses, and I know you speak at various conferences and events across the country as well, not to mention your book projects. Your productivity is inspiring. Let's turn your historical lights to some recent events. On the second of May, U.S. SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. This is certainly worthy of celebration, but it's also almost ten years after he and his Islamist cohorts murdered nearly three thousand Americans on American soil. In the meantime, America has gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, where more than five thousand additional American soldiers have been killed, and now we're at war in Libya as well. In all of this, neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration has so much as touched the regimes that everyone knows are the main sponsors of terrorism, those in Iran and Saudi Arabia. What's more, neither administration has identified the enemy as Islamists and the states that sponsor them. Bush called the enemy “terror” and “evildoers,” and Obama, uncomfortable with such “clarity,” speaks instead of “man-caused disasters” and calls for “overseas contingency operations.” Are there historical precedents for such massive evasions, and whether there are or aren't, what has led America to this level of lunacy? JL: That's a very interesting question, with many levels of answers. . . .
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy and War
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, America, and Middle East
9536. The Government's Assault on Private-Sector Colleges and Universities
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Private-sector colleges and universities, also known as career colleges or for-profit colleges, educate more than three million people annually in the United States. These colleges—which include the University of Phoenix, ITT Technical Institutes, Kaplan University, Strayer University, Capella University, and Monroe College—provide vital services to Americans seeking to improve their lives. Programs in career colleges range from information technology and business administration, to commercial art and interior design, to allied health care and nursing, to accounting and finance, to criminal justice and law. These highly focused, career-specific programs enable people to achieve their occupational goals and to become productive, self-supporting, prosperous, and happy. These colleges are, for many people, pathways to the American dream. Unfortunately, certain individuals and agencies in the U.S. government are seeking to cripple and destroy these schools via an assault that includes fraud, collusion, and defamation. Before turning to the details of this assault, however, let us take a closer look at the enormous life-serving value provided by career colleges.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
9537. Interview with Andy Kessler about the Virtue of Eating People
- Author:
- Daniel Wahl
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- I recently read Andy Kessler's latest book Eat People: And Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs, and had the pleasure of discussing it with him. Mr. Kessler is a former hedge fund manager who now writes on technology and markets. His other books include Wall Street Meat (2003), Running Money (2004), How We Got Here (2005), The End of Medicine (2006), and Grumby (2010). You can learn more about him and his work at AndyKessler.com. —Daniel Wahl Daniel Wahl: Thank you for joining me, Andy. Andy Kessler: Thanks for having me. DW: I just finished your new book, Eat People, and among other things especially enjoyed your attitude toward technology. Many people today disregard the benefits of technology and long for a world without it—but you think this is nonsense. Why? AK: I don't think anyone really longs for a world without technology per se—no antibiotics? no refrigerators? no Xbox 360? But some long for a world without the technology that disrupts what they believe to be their contented lives. It's change that bothers many, and technology is the vehicle that creates change, often feeling like a runaway freight train. An economy exists to increase the living standards of its participants; productivity—doing more with less—is the only way to create societal wealth. Wealth is not a fixed pie with some getting bigger slices than others; it's an ever-increasing sized pie, increasing because technology drives productivity. That can mean displacing old jobs with newer, better-paying jobs. This can be a huge disruption, but it's inevitable, and my advice is to be on the right side of this change, to create it rather than be run over by it. DW: One of the points you make in the book is that innovations don't just happen; people make them happen. Who are some of the people you respect for having made your life easier and happier? AK: Engineers rule the world. They are the ones creating productivity and innovation. So much of this has been concentrated in software programming, writing clever pieces of code that improve our lives. Today, no one has to drive to the library to look up things in a Funk Wagnalls encyclopedia. Clever code was written enabling people to find the information they need in a great database in the sky. Larry Page and Sergey Brin and the thousands they have hired are great innovators. So are Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs. But there is a shadow crew that deserves credit too. Doug Engelbart invented the mouse and network operating systems and implemented hypertext way back in 1968. He gets credit. So do all the creators of Internet protocols and the World Wide Web and smartphones, let alone stents to prop open coronary arteries and the creators of many life-saving diagnostics and drugs. The list is endless. Some low-level employee in West China right now is perfecting the process of manufacturing glass for iPhones—something that helps the innovation process—and we don't even know who that is. DW: Given the title of your book, people might be surprised at your view that when a businessman such as Steve Jobs gets rich, we all get richer. How did you reach or what substantiates this view? AK: Steve Jobs has created a platform for others to run their businesses and lives on. My productivity has increased because I have my e-mail and a web browser and a stock ticker in my pocket at all times, which do things that in the past might have required a staff back in a home office to track. This saves time and money and resources. The Google boys have done much to increase all of our living standards. Mark Zuckerberg has lowered the cost of communications within large groups. Bill Gates gets grief as a nasty businessman and monopolist, but the reality is that society has created and enjoyed more wealth with his tools than he has personally. That's the kind of innovation that should be embraced; when the creator gets wealthy, it's because society is getting wealthy too. DW: Someone who would obviously disagree with you is Saul Alinsky—and you slam him repeatedly in your book for his view of wealth, one very different from yours. Can you explain why? AK: Saul Alinksy was a community organizer who, in the early 1970s, built a movement based on the disparity of the haves and the have-nots. His process was to organize the have-nots, have them elect someone to office who would then take from the haves and give to the have-nots. But he never considered why someone was a have in the first place . . .
- Topic:
- Communications
9538. Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad by John Bolton
- Author:
- Gideon Reich
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- What is it like to be an American diplomat trying to advance U.S. interests? In Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad, John Bolton recounts his harrowing experiences in the foreign policy establishment of the United States government. The book is an enlightening introduction to the bureaucratic machinations that guide our foreign policy. At the book's start, Bolton describes himself as a “libertarian conservative” (p. 7) and tells why he agreed to join the Agency for International Development (AID) when Reagan offered him the appointment in 1980. I was attracted to AID because it involved both U.S. foreign policy and domestic policy in the recipient countries. Our goal was to make AID's programs more market-driven, to induce recipient countries to foster private enterprise, and to turn AID away from a welfare-oriented approach known as “basic human needs.” This rubric disguised a belief that poverty in developing countries was caused by a lack of resources and that poverty could be overcome by developed countries' transferring the missing resources. I regarded this as essentially backward: The creation of wealth by developing countries was the long term cure to their poverty, which they could accomplish by market-oriented policies that rewarded rather than penalized domestic and foreign trade and investment. (p. 20) While there, Bolton helped return $28 million to the Treasury, by “canceling AID projects around the world that were failing” (p. 20). He also had his first professional contact with the UN, where he says he learned much about the behavior of countries at international bodies—for instance, that “countries with which the United States has close bilateral relations are not always helpful in such bodies” and that “this was just business as usual at the UN” (p. 21). . . .
- Topic:
- United Nations and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- America
9539. The Infidel: Chapter One by Bosch Fawstin
- Author:
- Joshua Lipana
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Bosch Fawstin's serialized graphic novel The Infidel follows comic book artist Killian Duke and his creation Pigman, a superhero who is best described as a “Jihadist's worst nightmare.” Although Killian is of “Albanian Muslim Descent” (p. 14), he no longer holds any allegiance to Islam. In fact, with his creation of Pigman, in response to the atrocities of 9/11, Killian has become one of Islam's most articulate enemies.1 When asked by a friend why, despite the danger involved, he pursues this line of work, Killian replies: “Because I love it. I love seeing this enemy get what it deserves at the hands of a ruthless hero. And since they'd kill me for no reason anyway, why not give them a good one?” (p. 13) . . .
- Topic:
- Islam
9540. Why ObamaCare is Wrong For America: How the New Health Care Law Drives Up Costs, Puts Government in Charge of Your Decisions, and Threatens Your Constitutional Rights by Grace-Marie Turner, James C. Capretta, Thomas P. Miller, and Robert E. Moffit
- Author:
- Jared M. Rhoads
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Turn back the clock for a moment to the months leading up to the March 2010 enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare. What do you remember about the president's pitch for health care reform? You may recall the administration's claim that ObamaCare will expand health insurance coverage to 32 million Americans, guaranteeing that nearly all Americans will be covered. You may recall the claim that the new program will reduce waste and overhead, and save the typical American family $2,500 per year. And who could forget Obama's personal promise, delivered time and again: "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what."1 With this and other rhetoric, the president and other supporters of this Act were able to push the program through Congress on a partisan vote despite low popular appeal and indeed amid public furor. But although the bill has been signed, history has yet to be written. Within the more than two thousand pages of legislation are countless provisions and authorizations for additional regulatory changes to be rolled out in the years to come. Thus Americans are left wondering what exactly will change, when it will change, and how. For everyone, the question remains: What does ObamaCare mean for me? Why ObamaCare is Wrong for America summarizes the key provisions of the new law, explaining how this historic piece of legislation fails to achieve the goals so loudly trumpeted by its proponents, and what it will actually do instead. The authors-four health policy experts from four different conservative public policy organizations-largely succeed in making a complex topic comprehensible to a general audience. For starters, they organize their analysis of the legislation into reader-friendly themes such as "Impact on Families and Young Adults," "Impact on Seniors," and "Impact on You and Your Employer." The subsection headings are descriptive and frequent, dividing the chapters into easily digestible segments, many of which are less than a page in length. . . .
- Topic:
- Law
- Political Geography:
- America
9541. Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil Sands by Ezra Levant
- Author:
- Andrew Brannan
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Oil is crucial to human life, not only as a source of energy that fuels our homes, businesses, cars, airplanes, and hospitals, but also as a key component of countless products on which our lives and prosperity depend—from medical devices and cell phones, to roads and tires, to books, CDs, footballs, and tablecloths. Nonetheless, the oil industry and the men who animate it are widely loathed and frequently maligned. Read any news outlet for examples. In the face of this relentless anti-oil sentiment, Ezra Levant has written Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil Sands. Levant explains that conventional oil fields (such as those in Iran and Saudi Arabia) have been decreasing production at a rate of 6.7 percent per year due to depleted reserves, and that, today, the largest exporter of oil to the United States is Canada (having displaced Saudi Arabia in 2004). Most of the oil produced in Canada, he notes, is extracted in Alberta in a geologically marvelous region called the Athabasca Oil Sands. Unlike conventional liquid oil, the oil sands are a type of bitumen—“oil mixed with sand and clay . . . [that] has the thickness of peanut butter”—that is more difficult and expensive to extract (p. 8). Levant explains that higher oil prices, and hence higher oil company profits, have led to capital investment in new technologies and extraction processes that have made “the oil sands economically viable” (p. 9). The first oil company to work the oil sands region was Suncor, in 1967. The open-pit mines that many people think of when picturing the oil sands are a relic of the early days of oil exploration and extraction. Today, Alberta's oil sands are easily one of the most technologically advanced resource operations in the world. Behind every dump-truck driver are teams of computer modellers, engineers, geologists, and technical operators. For every strong back working a shovel, there are a dozen M.A.s and Ph.D.s somewhere working a computer. (p. 117) Most of the thick bitumen (80 percent) is deep in the ground and must be drilled for and pumped out using steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), whereby steam is injected to reduce the viscosity of the bitumen, which then drains, by force of gravity, into a pipe below the steam and is pumped out. Using this technology, Canadian oil sands companies are able to transform what was once “considered an experimental project” into an oil-generating powerhouse (p. 9). In 2008, Canada shipped 715 million barrels [of oil] to the United States, far more than the 550 million barrels the Saudis sold. From 2003 to 2008, the oil sands had helped cut Saudi imports by 80 million barrels a year. (p. 9) But as Canada has become a larger player in the global oil market, Levant explains, environmentalists and other critics of the oil sands have increasingly condemned this technology and the companies that employ it. The critics claim that the oil sands are “140,000 square kilometers of toxic sludge” and “giant toxic lakes” inhabited by deformed fish, and that “migrating birds sometimes stop to rest” at these toxic sites before dying by the “tens of millions” (p. 1). Critics further claim that because of the high volume of water required to extract oil from these sites, “the mighty Athabasca River is about to become a small, dirty creek” (p. 2). They claim that the oil sands are “poisoning the aboriginals” in the region and “poisoning our very planet” (p. 3). And they claim that Fort McMurray, the urban center of oil sands production, is afflicted with all the “social ills of a boom town—the violence, the mistreatment of women, the addiction problems, and an artificially high cost of living that makes almost anyone with a job part of the working poor” (p. 3). Levant contends that the foregoing criticisms are “false . . . [e]very one of them” and sets out to refute them and others, and to show that the oil sands are ethically superior to the alternatives on multiple fronts (p. 3). . . .
- Topic:
- Oil
- Political Geography:
- Iran, Canada, and Saudi Arabia
9542. Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter and The Age of American Unreason
- Author:
- Burgess Laughlin
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Imagine you are touring America—not its landscapes or buildings, but its intellect and soul. You have two guides. Both are practiced speakers who walk quickly from site to site, dazzle you with their commentary on a variety of subjects, and mix their personal views with statistical profiles. Such an experience awaits those who tour a dark facet of the history of American culture through two books: Richard Hofstadter's Anti-intellectualism in American Life and Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason. Each author focuses on the social and political phenomenon of “anti-intellectualism.” For our purposes, that phenomenon may be defined as social and political opposition to the practice of applying broad abstractions—usually learned from philosophers—to social issues. The two authors maintain that the application of such abstractions by intellectuals poses a threat to the social and political ambitions of some individuals (creationists and populists being classic examples), provoking their antipathy toward both the intellectuals' ideas and the intellectuals themselves. The elder guide in this case is Hofstadter, a history professor writing in the late 1950s. His purpose is “to shed a little light on our cultural problems.” [W]hat I have done is merely to use the idea of anti-intellectualism as a device for looking at various aspects, hardly the most appealing, of American society and culture. Despite the fringes of documentation on many of its pages, this work is by no means a formal history but largely a personal book, whose factual details are organized and dominated by my views. (AAL, p. vii) The heart of Hofstadter's book is parts 2–5, which cover what Hofstadter considers to be the main homes of anti-intellectualism in America: religion, politics, business, and education. The order of the four core parts and of the discussions within each part is generally chronological. In the first of part 2's three chapters, “The Evangelical Spirit,” Hofstadter focuses on what he holds was the anti-intellectualism lurking in the culture at the time of our nation's founding: The American mind was shaped in the mold of early modern Protestantism. Religion was the first arena for American intellectual life, and thus the first arena for an anti-intellectual impulse. Anything that seriously diminished the role of rationality and learning in early American religion would later diminish its role in secular culture. The feeling that ideas should above all be made to work, the disdain for doctrine and for refinement in ideas, the subordination of men of ideas to men of emotional power or manipulative skill are hardly innovations of the twentieth century; they are inheritances from American Protestantism. (AAL, p. 55) This passage is typical of both the virtues and vices of our elder guide's style. It flows well and offers interesting observations, but at the end of the passage the objective reader must stop and ask himself, “What exactly did Hofstadter just say?” For example, readers might not understand (until later in the book) that “made to work” is an oblique reference to the anti-intellectual notion that ideas are acceptable only where they apply immediately to everyday concerns, that is, “practical” in a way that excludes theories and other forms of integration. From that nebulous opening, our tour guide proceeds to do what he does best, which is narrating a flow of events accompanied by specific dates as well as names of persons, places, and publications that conveyed the views of intellectuals and their foes, the anti-intellectuals. The core of the book is not a philosophical analysis of anti-intellectualism or a history of the idea of anti-intellectualism. It is a social history, specifically a history of the struggle between various social and political groups wherein one side attacks the other side's intellectualism—as when Christian fundamentalists rejected Darwin's scientific theory of evolution in favor of a direct reading of the Bible's account in Genesis…
- Topic:
- Politics and History
- Political Geography:
- America
9543. His Dark Materials Trilogy
- Author:
- C.A. Wolski
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- While religious leaders want to establish the kingdom of heaven on Earth, the heroes of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass) seek to overthrow the oppressive “kingdom” of heaven and establish a “republic” in its stead. This is the driving action in Pullman's “young adult” fantasy series. And although the books are marketed to teens, the stories will, like all good literature, reward readers with more years and a few gray hairs as well. The first novel, The Golden Compass (originally published in the United Kingdom as The Northern Lights) opens on a parallel Earth where humans and their daemons—the physical manifestations of their souls—live under the suffocating control of the Church and its security apparatus, the Magisterium. But oppression is furthest from the mind of twelve-year-old Lyra Belacqua and her daemon (pronounced “demon”) Pan: They're too busy getting into trouble and having adolescent adventures in and around Oxford, in particular hassling the children of the Gyptians, wanderers who visit yearly on their barges. The Oxford kids and the Gyptian youngsters engage in a good-natured conflict in which they “gobble” each other, “Gobblers” being this Earth's bogeymen. But things take a decidedly more grown-up turn when Lyra gets wrapped up in the machinations of her uncle, Lord Asriel, an explorer and iconoclast. After saving Asriel from an assassination attempt and learning from him and his colleagues a bit about the mysterious “Dust,” a subject that the other adults avoid discussing at all costs, Lyra is introduced to the malevolent Mrs. Coulter and is subsequently sent to live with her. Before she leaves Oxford, Lyra is given a truth-telling device called an altheiometer—the golden compass of the title. Powered by Dust, it can discern what's hidden in the heart of any man, woman, or beast. While living with Mrs. Coulter—who, naturally, covets the altheiometer—Lyra discovers that Gobblers actually exist and have been kidnapping children for a dark purpose related to Dust. Eventually, Lyra goes north to rescue a kidnapped friend and makes the acquaintance of aeronaut Lee Scoresby and his rabbit daemon Hester, as well as witches and militaristic armored polar bears. The novel ends on a cliffhanger—and a dark revelation about the nature of Lord Asriel's work. .
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom
9544. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
- Author:
- Daniel Wahl
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- The U.S. Memory Championship is an annual event at which contestants compete to memorize a list of 300 random words, 1,000 random digits, and a shuffled deck (or two) of playing cards. In 2005, Joshua Foer went to the event expecting to meet, and write an article about, a group of savants. However, the contestants he interviewed claimed that they were merely average people who started off with average memories, and that anyone could learn to do what they do. These claims were tough for Foer to swallow. But after many there encouraged him, Foer decided to attempt what he thought was impossible. Remarkably, after a year of practice, Foer returned to the competition and won. In Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, Foer tells how he did it and what he learned along the way. It is a fact-filled journey with lessons and characters you will not want to forget. Consider S, a Russian journalist who could remember everything. Unlike most, “When S read through a long series of words, each word would elicit a graphic image,” and “whether he was memorizing Dante's Divine Comedy or mathematical equations [they] were always stored in linear chains.” As Foer explains: When he wanted to commit something to memory, S would simply take a mental stroll down Gorky Street in Moscow . . . or some other place he'd once visited, and install each of his images at a different point along the walk. One image might be placed at the doorway of a house, another near a streetlamp, another on top of a picket fence . . . another on the ledge of a store window. All this happened in his mind's eye as effortlessly as if he were placing real objects along a street. . . . When S wanted to recall that information a day, month, year, or decade later, all he would have to do was rewalk the path where that particular set of memories was stored, and he would see each image in the precise spot where he left it. (pp. 35–36) According to Foer, this is how the Memory Championship contestants—known as “mental athletes”—performed their seeming superhuman feats. By “converting what they were being asked to memorize into images, and distributing those images along familiar spatial journeys,” they had “taught themselves to remember like S” (p. 40). This became Foer's goal as well. . . .
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Moscow
9545. Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
- Author:
- Daniel Wahl
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- In 1943, on the coast of Andalusia in southwest Spain, a dead man “washed ashore wearing a fake uniform and the underwear of a dead Oxford don, with a love letter from a girl he had never known pressed to his long-dead heart” (pp. 323–24). It was near the high point of the Third Reich's reign, with Europe effectively under Nazi control; but, owing in part to this dead man, Hitler's days were numbered. Ben Macintyre tells the story of this fantastic ruse in Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory. The book may read like fiction, but remarkably, the story is completely true. It begins during World War II when the Nazi war machine “was at last beginning to stutter and misfire.” The British Eighth Army under Montgomery had vanquished Rommel's invincible Afrika Korps at El Alamein. The Allied invasion of Morocco and Tunisia had fatally weakened Germany's grip, and with the liberation of Tunis, the Allies would control the coast of North Africa, its ports and airfields, from Casablanca to Alexandria. The time had come to lay siege to Hitler's Fortress [across Europe]. But where? Sicily was the logical place from which to deliver the gut punch into what Churchill famously called the soft “underbelly of the Axis.” The island at the toe of Italy's boot commanded the channel linking the two sides of the Mediterranean, just eighty miles from the Tunisian coast. . . . The British in Malta and Allied convoys had been pummeled by Luftwaffe bombers taking off from the island, and . . . “no major operation could be launched, maintained, or supplied until the enemy airfields and other bases in Sicily had been obliterated so as to allow free passage through the Mediterranean.” An invasion of Sicily would open the road to Rome . . . allow for preparations to invade France, and perhaps knock a tottering Italy out of the war. . . . [Thus]: Sicily would be the target, the precursor to the invasion of mainland Europe. (pp. 36–37) There was a major problem, however. Macintyre points out that the strategic importance of Sicily was as clear to the Nazis as it was to the Allies and that, if the Nazis were prepared for it, an invasion would be a bloodbath. So how could the Allies catch their enemy off guard? The solution was to launch what Macintyre calls one of the most extraordinary deception operations ever attempted. The British Secret Service would take a dead man and plant on him fake documents that suggested that the Allies were planning to bomb Sicily only as an initial feint preceding an attack on Nazi forces in Greece and Sardinia. They would then float their man near the Spanish coastline, making it appear as though he drowned at sea, and hope that one of the many Nazi spies in Spain discovered him and the documents and passed their content along to his superiors—convincing them to weaken Sicily by moving forces to Greece and Sardinia. . . .
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom, Europe, Germany, Tunisia, Rome, and Alexandria
9546. From the Editor
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iran, and Middle East
9547. Letters and Replies
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- Economics and Education
- Political Geography:
- New York
9548. Temple Grandin
- Author:
- C.A. Wolski
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Recently released on DVD, HBO Film's Temple Grandin is the true story of animal behaviorist Temple Grandin, a brilliant scientist and engineer who single-handedly reformed the meatpacking industry by improving both the way cattle are treated and the means by which the animals are led to slaughter. What makes Grandin, currently a professor at Colorado State University, of particular interest as the subject of a docudrama is not only the way she helped the beef and cattle industry become more efficient and profitable, but also the fact that she is autistic. The television film, written by Christopher Monger and Merritt Johnson, is based on several books by Grandin and details her life from the time that she was diagnosed as autistic—when she was a toddler—to her postdoctoral years in the early 1980s. What makes Grandin even more remarkable is her rivetingly powerful self-awareness of her disability; how she compensates for it, by “thinking in pictures”; and how she uses her unique situation and skills to get “into” the minds of the animals she studies. Claire Danes, who plays Grandin, deserves particular kudos for her performance (she justly won an Emmy for the role), which is rich and believable. Grandin is profoundly independent, driven, and self-interested; once she sets her mind to a goal, she never gives up and never backs down—and she always does what is right for herself and the animals she loves. With Danes' portrayal, viewers love and root for Grandin from beginning to end. Though it may be a cliché to describe such a film as “feel-good” or “inspiring,” that is exactly what Temple Grandin is. One cannot help but be mesmerized and energized by the story. . . .
- Political Geography:
- Colorado
9549. Iranium
- Author:
- Daniel Wahl
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Many Americans are concerned about the Iranian regime's progress in its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon, yet few are demanding that the U.S. government do anything about it. Iranium, a new documentary by Alex Traiman, seeks to change that. Narrated by Shohreh Aghdashloo, and with commentary by (among others) John Bolton, Bernard Lewis, Michael Ledeen, and Reza Kahlili, the documentary begins by looking at both the founding ideology and the constitution of the Iranian regime. It shows the Ayatollah Khomeini following the overthrow of the shah, saying, “When we revolted, we revolted for the sake of Islam.” It shows footage of him calling for a global caliphate: “This movement cannot be limited to one country only. It cannot be limited to Islamic countries either.” And it shows how Iran's constitution codifies those views, establishing a nation “in accordance with Islamic law,” providing “the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the revolution” toward “a universal and holy government” and “the downfall of others.” “From the very beginning, explains Kenneth Timmerman, executive director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, Iran's leaders “considered terrorism as a tool of policy. . . . Iran set up Hezbollah . . . to have a 'cut-out' [that] could 'independently' carry out terrorist attacks with 'no fingerprints' back to Tehran.” Iranium lines up the facts like a long series of dominoes, enabling viewers to see how the murderous ideology at the foundation of modern Iran led to a constitution demanding its implementation, which, in turn, led to the creation of terrorist proxies and the terrorizing and murdering of Americans and other “infidels” worldwide. . . .
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- America and Iran
9550. Editorial: 60 Years since the First European Community – Reflections on Political Messianism
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The European construct has played a decisive role in the history of the last 60 years. It has created the framework for post-war reconstruction and has ingeniously provided the inspiration and mechanisms for a historical reconciliation between nations which hitherto had gone to war with each other – the horrors of which surpass even the worst of today's excesses – in every generation for the previous two centuries. This cannot but give inspiration and a sliver of hope in the face of our own intractable conflicts. The European Coal and Steel Community, the 60th Anniversary of which we mark this year, incorporated the Schuman Declaration and combined peace and prosperity in its blueprint, whereby peace was to breed prosperity and prosperity was to consolidate peace. It has all worked out splendidly – revisionist history notwithstanding. Europe has also been a catalyst (not more) – at times the 'prize' – for the achievement and subsequent consolidation of democracy, first in Greece, Spain and Portugal, and later across Eastern Europe.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Eastern Europe, and Libya
9551. Are Sovereigns Entitled to the Benefit of the International Rule of Law? An Introduction
- Author:
- Nehal Bhuta
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- In this symposium, we publish Jeremy Waldron's article, 'Are Sovereigns Entitled to the Benefit of the Rule of Law?' together with four responses, by Samantha Besson, David Dyzenhaus, Thomas Poole and Alexander Somek. Waldron is justifiably renowned as a jurisprude and theorist of the concept of the rule of law. His engagement with international law is more recent, but no less significant. In this article, he takes a familiar (perhaps even tired) question among international lawyers – can there be something akin to a rule of law in international affairs? – and recasts how we ought to think about it. With characteristically deft and plain-speaking arguments, Waldron burrows to the heart of the issue: What might it mean to speak of an 'international rule of law,' and who or what are properly understood as its beneficiaries? Waldron leads us first along a familiar path: the absence of a sovereign of sovereigns puts into …
- Topic:
- International Law
9552. Are Sovereigns Entitled to the Benefit of the International Rule of Law?
- Author:
- Jeremy Waldron
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The applicability of the ideal we call 'the Rule of Law' (ROL) in international law (IL) is complicated by (1) the fact that there is no overarching world government from whom we need protection (of the sort that the ROL traditionally offers) and it is also complicated by (2) the fact that IL affects states, in the first instance, rather than individuals (for whose sake we usually insist on ROL requirements). The article uses both these ideas as points of entry into a consideration of the applicability of the ROL in IL. It suggests that the 'true' subjects of IL are really human individuals (billions of them) and it queries whether the protections that they need are really best secured by giving national sovereigns the benefit of ROL requirements in IL. For example, a national sovereign's insistence that IL norms should not be enforced unless they are clear and determinate may mean that individuals have fewer protections against human rights violations. More radically, it may be appropriate to think of national sovereigns more as 'officials' or 'agencies' of the IL system than as its subjects. On this account, we should consider the analogous situation of officials and agencies in a municipal legal system: are officials and agencies in need of, or entitled to, the same ROL protections as private individuals? If not, then maybe it is inappropriate to think that sovereign states are entitled to the same ROL protections at the international level as individuals are entitled to at the municipal level.
- Topic:
- Government and Human Rights
9553. A Bureaucratic Turn?
- Author:
- Alexander Somek
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The article discusses the question whether Waldron's new analogy shifts the paradigm of international governance from a relationship that is based on law to a relationship that views participating actors as involved in some kind of common creative problem-solving effort. The implied change from 'law' to 'process' would raise serious concerns about what it might entail for the rights of citizens.
- Topic:
- Governance and Law
9554. Sovereign Indignities: International Law as Public Law
- Author:
- Thomas Poole
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Two analogies lie at the core of Professor Waldron's article. The first is the claim that the standard analogy by which the state in international law is like the individual in domestic law is misleading; the state in international law is more like a government agency in domestic law. The second is that international law is (or is like) a species of public law and should be treated as such by domestic legal systems. I examine both claims, arguing (a) that even if we accept the first analogy it does not get us to the deeper levels of respect and commitment to international law that Waldron argues for, and (b) that the 'floating normativity' inherent in the second claim leads Waldron to overlook the specific organizational and structural conditions of international law. This leaves Waldron's position weakest where it should have most to offer: namely, in instances where our commitment to international law on one hand and the rule of law on the other seem to pull in opposite directions.
- Topic:
- International Law and Sovereignty
9555. Positivism and the Pesky Sovereign
- Author:
- David Dyzenhaus
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- I argue that Hans Kelsen anticipated the main contribution of Jeremy's Waldron's article: the idea that the place of nation states in the international legal order is akin to that of administrative agencies in the domestic legal order, and thus as wielding delegated rather than original authority. For both wish to understand sovereignty as a kind of metaphor for the unity of a legal system rather than as a pre-legal entity. However, legal positivism is unable to make the move to conceiving of sovereignty that way, since the positivist prejudice against natural law has the result that the idea of a pre-legal sovereign is repressed in one place only to pop up in multiple others. In issue in this debate are two conceptions of the rule of law, a positivistic conception that the rule of law consists mainly of determinate rules and a Fullerian conception in which the rule of law is understood as facilitating a certain process of reason and argument. Since Waldron sees the attraction of the latter conception, and since that conception avoids the problem of the pesky sovereign, I suggest that Waldron should embrace it.
- Topic:
- Sovereignty and Law
9556. Sovereignty, International Law and Democracy
- Author:
- Samantha Besson
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- In my reply to Jeremy Waldron's article 'Are Sovereigns Entitled to the Benefit of the International Rule of Law?', I draw upon and in some ways expand Waldron's important contribution to our understanding of the international rule of law. First of all, I suggest that Waldron's argument about the international rule of law can be used to illuminate how we should understand the legitimate authority of international law over sovereign states, but also how some of sovereign states' residual independence ought to be protected from legitimate international law. Secondly, I argue that the democratic pedigree of the international rule of law plays a role when assessing how international law binds democratic sovereign states and whether the international rule of law can and ought to benefit their individual subjects. Finally, I emphasize how Waldron's argument that the international rule of law ought to benefit individuals in priority has implications for the sources of international law and for what sources can be regarded as sources of valid law.
- Topic:
- International Law and Sovereignty
9557. Response: The Perils of Exaggeration
- Author:
- Jeremy Waldron
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Some of the points made in these comments presuppose that I have a more radical agenda than in fact I have. In this article, I wanted to reorient our understanding of the national state's position in international law, from that of subject to that of source and agency of that legal system, and I wanted to explore the implications of this reorientation for our understanding of the rule of law in the international realm. This reorientation of course requires us to take international law seriously. But it does not necessarily require any particular philosophical view of the relation between international law and national law. 1 In particular it does not direct us to any sort of jurisprudential monism (although it is not incompatible with monism). I think it is quite compatible with a dualist view of the relation between international and national law (not that it commits us to dualism either). It simply assigns the state a somewhat different role from that conventionally assigned in dualist theories. My analysis implies that some of what we would call national state and legal functions can (and should) sometimes be conceived as functions of the international legal system. When a state patrols its borders, for example, it is acting in part as an agency of the international refugee regime. 2 But the exercise of any given legal function can be understood in multiple ways. As I …
- Topic:
- International Law
9558. A Transatlantic Friendship: René-Jean Dupuy and Wolfgang Friedmann
- Author:
- Pierre-Marie Dupuy
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- René-Jean Dupuy and Wolfgang Friedmann were good friends and for a large part shared a common vision of how post-World War II international law was structured and the ways in which it was evolving. It is worth comparing their respective views as they reflect the way in which a generation of international lawyers perceived in particular the impact of international organizations on modern international law seen as a true international legal order. Although influenced by the ideas of that period (the 1960s and 1970s), the views of these two great 'men of vision' remain of immense interest for the present and for times to come.
- Topic:
- International Law
9559. René-Jean Dupuy and the Tragic City. The Surveyor, the Captain and the Poet
- Author:
- Alix Toublanc
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- R.-J. Dupuy's works are based on a dialectical approach to international law which integrates the inner strife and the various antagonisms that beset the 'terrestrial city'. Nevertheless he refused Hegel's dialectic which opposes thesis and anthithesis to produce a sterile synthesis and leads to rigidity. On the contrary, Dupuy's 'open dialectic' is based on the rejection of mechanistic and deterministic philosophies, and his description of the terrestrial city is dynamic, perpetually confronting opposite points of view through the eyes of the 'Captain', the 'Surveyor', and the 'Poet' symbolizing the need for order, for change, and for transcendence.
- Topic:
- International Law
9560. The Thoughts of René-Jean Dupuy: Methodology or Poetry of International Law?
- Author:
- Evelyne Lagrange
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- If the thoughts of René-Jean Dupuy had to be reduced to an expression, it would be his method of 'open dialectic' applied to international law and society which enabled him to highlight the dynamic opposition of 'relational' and 'institutional' international trends in an impressive array of short surveys and ambitious synthesis. This article first aims to remind readers of the accuracy of Dupuy's comprehensive approach to international law and society, in that he never disregarded the meaning of rules and institutions for actors – mainly political ones – the underlying values and justice considerations or even myths beyond technical rules or political antagonisms. But it does not suffice to celebrate the visionary and rhetorical skills of Dupuy. His contribution to the methodology of international law has to be assessed. Did he build up a new paradigm? Considering some incertainties in the method of open dialectic and some shortcomings in his core concepts (inter alia a quite static conception of sovereignty), it may be doubted.
- Topic:
- International Law and Sovereignty
9561. The Audacity of the Texaco/Calasiatic Award: René-Jean Dupuy and the Internationalization of Foreign Investment Law
- Author:
- Julien Cantegreil
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The Texaco Overseas Petroleum Company and California Asiatic Oil Company v. The Government of the Libyan Arab Republic awards refer to concession contract provisions and a political context that are now obsolete. Thus, this article argues on the one hand that the award on the merits, delivered in January 1977, provides an unparalleled opportunity to survey almost every facet of the world of international investment arbitration of the past. On the other hand, the award must nevertheless also be read as forward-looking. By fostering a shift from the traditional hegemony of national jurisdiction in international investment law to the internationalization of international contracts, the article underlines that the award on the merits remains the finest example of René-Jean Dupuy's long-lasting contribution to international law doctrine. By way of conclusion, it suggests that it provides the very best expression and point of entry into Professor Dupuy's understanding and shaping of what he coined 'la communauté'.
- Topic:
- Government and International Law
- Political Geography:
- Asia, Libya, California, and Arabia
9562. Law Promotion Beyond Law Talk: The Red Cross, Persuasion, and the Laws of War
- Author:
- Steven R. Ratner
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The International Committee of the Red Cross casts itself as both a unique protector of individual victims of war and a special guardian of the body of international humanitarian law. It manages and reconciles these two roles through a complex, unconventional strategy that includes secret communications with warring parties, ambiguity in conveying its legal views to them, and, at times, a complete avoidance of legal arguments when persuading actors to follow international rules. This modus operandi not only challenges some standard views about the methods used by actors seeking to convince law violators to comply with norms; it also opens the door to a richer theoretical understanding of legal argumentation in that process of persuasion. The resulting construct consists of a matrix of inputs that determine how a persuading entity will deploy legal arguments and outputs that convey the dimensions of the resulting argumentation. Both the theory and the ICRC's work suggest that entities concerned with compliance would often do best to settle for a target to act consistently with a norm rather than to internalize it. They also raise difficult moral questions about whether compliance with international law is the optimal goal if it has adverse consequences for the values an institution seeks to uphold.
- Topic:
- War, Communications, and Law
9563. Roaming Charges: Berlin
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Roaming Charges is a new feature of EJIL aimed at enhancing the 'book experience' - a moment of reflection as well as aesthetic pleasure disconnected from any ...
- Political Geography:
- Berlin
9564. What has Become of the Emerging Right to Democratic Governance?
- Author:
- Susan Marks
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- In 1992 the American Journal of International Law published an article by Tom Franck entitled 'The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance'. The article inaugurated an important debate on the relationship between international law and democracy. Reviewing that debate, I examine four different ways of thinking about the contemporary significance of the emerging right to democratic governance. While not claiming that any is wrong, I consider some respects in which each is limited. I also discuss Haiti, as a country which inspired the thesis of the emerging democratic entitlement, and one which remains illuminating for it today.
- Topic:
- Governance
- Political Geography:
- America
9565. A Democratic Rule of International Law
- Author:
- Steven Wheatley
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article examines the way in which we should make sense of, and respond to, the democratic deficit that results from global governance through international law following the partial collapse of the Westphalian political settlement. The objective is to evaluate the possibilities of applying the idea of deliberative ('democratic') legitimacy to the various and diverse systems of law. The model developed at the level of the state is imperfectly applied to the inter-state system and the legislative activities of non-state actors. Further, regulation by non-state actors through international law implies the exercise of legitimate authority, which depends on the introduction of democratic procedures to determine the right reasons that apply to subjects of authority regimes. In the absence of legitimate authority, non-state actors cannot legislate international law norms. The article concludes with some observations on the problems for the practice of democracy in the counterfactual ideal circumstances in which a plurality of legal systems legislate conflicting democratic law norms and the implications of the analysis for the regulation of world society.
- Topic:
- International Law
- Political Geography:
- Westphalia
9566. The Rise and Fall of Democracy Governance in International Law: A Reply to Susan Marks
- Author:
- Jean d'Aspremont
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Although going down a different path, this article reaches similar conclusions to those formulated by Susan Marks. It starts by showing that the years 1989–2010 can be hailed as an unprecedented epoch of international law during which domestic governance came to be regulated to an unprecedented extent. This materialized through the coming into existence of a requirement of democratic origin of governments which has been dubbed the principle of democratic legitimacy. However, this article argues that the rapid rise of non-democratic super-powers, growing security concerns at the international level, the 2007–2010 economic crisis, the instrumentalization of democratization policies of Western countries as well as the rise of some authoritarian superpowers could be currently cutting short the consolidation of the principle of democratic legitimacy in international law. After sketching out the possible rise (1) and fall (2) of the principle of democratic legitimacy in the practice of international law and the legal scholarship since 1989, the article seeks critically to appraise the lessons learnt from that period, especially regarding the ability of international law to regulate domestic governance (3) and the various dynamics that have permeated the legal scholarship over the last two decades (4). In doing so, it sheds some light on some oscillatory dynamics similarly pinpointed by Susan Marks in her contribution to this journal.
- Topic:
- International Law
9567. Demystifying the Art of Interpretation
- Author:
- Michael Waibel
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Despite its codification by the Vienna Convention more than 40 years ago, treaty interpretation in international law continues to evolve as its function of providing predictability in international relations remains as important as ever. The voluminous recent literature testifies to the continuing scholarly interest in interpretation, even if sometimes at the cost of over-theorizing. This essay reviews six books that seek to demystify the art of treaty interpretation. Written by European scholars, the books take a fresh look at interpretation but differ in their approaches and scope of analyses. While all six authors study the interpretive practice of international courts and tribunals, Gardiner, Linderfalk and Van Damme focus on treaty interpretation; Fernández de Casadevante Romani, Kolb and Orakhelashvili also examine the interpretation of decisions by international organizations, unilateral acts and customary international law. Kolb and Orakhelashvili opt for a comprehensive, theoretically-grounded approach, whereas Van Damme focuses on the interpretative practice of the WTO Appellate Body. On the strength of her perceptive and nuanced analysis of WTO jurisprudence, the book is the best guide among the six to interpretation in international law generally. In addition to Van Damme's work, the practitioner will also find Gardiner's book particularly useful.
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Vienna
9568. Stephan W. Schill. The Multilateralization of International Investment Law
- Author:
- Sergey Ripinsky
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Stephan Schill's book, The Multilateralization of International Investment Law, stands apart from the rest of the literature on international investment law which has burgeoned in the past few years. In contrast to most publications on the market, this volume, adapted from the author's Ph.D. thesis, does not attempt to summarize and systematize the developments in arbitral practice. Instead, it reveals an important and previously unexplored dimension of the investment treaty phenomenon by presenting an original vision of the landscape formed by more than 3,000 international investment agreements (IIAs). The author advances and substantiates the seemingly counter-intuitive thesis that these predominantly bilateral instruments do not result in chaotic fragmentation but, taken together, 'function analogously to a truly multilateral system' (at 15).
9569. Nancy A. Combs. Fact-Finding Without Facts. The Uncertain Evidentiary Foundations of International Criminal Convictions
- Author:
- Chris Stephen
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The field of international criminal law (ICL) is synonymous with the crowded courtroom and the infamous individual in the dock; Adolf Eichmann, Slobodan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, and now Radovan Karadžić. The actions of such individuals have taken place within the various conflicts and mass atrocities that have proven to be lamentably frequent both during the last century and now into this one. In the aftermath of this sustained bloodshed, trials, whether national (Klaus Barbie in France, John Demjanjuk in Germany) or international (Jean Kambanda before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)), have constituted a frequent (David Scheffer's pronouncement of 'tribunal fatigue' suggests perhaps too frequent) reflex reaction by states and have formed the backbone of ICL. Beginning with the Leipzig trials, then via Nuremberg and Tokyo, Yugoslavia and Rwanda to the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), successive tribunals have sought to build upon the strengths (and weaknesses) of their predecessors. For example, the recent rise of hybrid courts such as the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) can be attributed, at least in large part, to the flaws of previous international judicial institutions; a perceived lack of legitimacy, huge running costs, and detachment from victims, communities, and the locus delicti. The evolution of ICL thus proceeds through a series of trials and error.
- Political Geography:
- France, Cambodia, Tokyo, and Lebanon
9570. Armin von Bogdandy and Jürgen Bast (eds). Principles of European Constitutional Law
- Author:
- Birgit Schlutter
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- After the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty on 1 December 2010, and right in the middle of the European response to the recent financial and economic crisis, the review of the second edition of Armin von Bogdandy's and Jürgen Bast's Principles of European Constitutional Law appears to be a timely and anything but anachronistic or cynical enterprise. The European effort to combat the financial crisis and set up a joint framework to regulate the banking sector shows the constant need for research on the 'founding principles of the polity' and the sources of its legitimacy (at 1). And indeed, the second edition of the book, too, provides a thorough examination of the main themes underlying a more closely connected Europe.
- Topic:
- Law
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Lisbon
9571. Donatella della Porta and Manuela Caiani. Social Movements and Europeanization
- Author:
- Rebecca L. Zahn, Dr. jur
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- There is an ever-growing body of literature in law and political science on the illusive concept of Europeanization. A lot of the discussion in the literature attempts to define Europeanization and, on the basis of such a definition, to elaborate on the content of the concept. Donatella della Porta and Manuela Caiani, who both work in political science departments, contribute to this discussion by combining insights from the existing body of literature with new empirical findings in order to demonstrate the relevance of the European Union to social movements. The authors situate the discussion surrounding the involvement of social movements in the process of Europeanization within the aftermath of the failed referenda on the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands in 2005 in order to illustrate the contribution of social movements to the debates on European integration. The authors refer to the literature in the area of social movement studies.1 However, they also go beyond the field and combine insights from the literature on Europeanization with empirical research in order to address the involvement of social movements in the process of Europeanization. An example of such involvement is the European-wide campaign against the so-called 'Bolkestein' Directive in which social movements actively participated. Social movements, in this context, are defined as 'dense informal networks of collective actors involved in conflictual relations with clearly identified opponents, who share a distinct collective identity, using mainly protests as their modus operandi'.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
9572. Nikolaus Forgó, Regine Kollek, Marian Arning, Tina Kruegel and Imme Petersen. Ethical and Legal Requirements for Transnational Genetic Research
- Author:
- Hans Christian Wilms
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The ethical and legal challenges of biomedical research are among the most crucial and interesting questions in law nowadays. One of these questions concerns the regulation of research on human genetic data in transnational constellations. Genetic research promises therapies and prevention for diseases like cancer and HIV, but it is highly dependent on genetic material derived from donors of tissue or blood. For significant advancements in cancer research, for instance, a large number of genetic data of patients is needed. Such data are most effectively collected in and made available by databases or biobanks that allow the exchange of genetic data by various research facilities. To enhance the possibilities and enlarge the amount of genetic data available for researchers the European Union through its 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission under the Action Line 'Integrated biomedical information for better health' funded the so-called 'Advancing Clinico-Genomic Trials on Cancer' research project (ACGT). This project aimed to deliver to the cancer research community an integrated clinico-genomic information and communication technology environment designed to become a pan-European voluntary network connecting individuals and institutions to enable the sharing of data and tools. However, broadening the scope to the European level causes problems of integration of different national views on ethical issues and their legal framework.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
9573. Impressions: Georg Dahm. Völkerrecht, 3 volumes (1958–1961)
- Author:
- Karl Doehring
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- With Impressions, as the name indicates, we wish to provide a forum for a more personal, historical-contextual approach to book reviewing. We have asked some of our older, possibly wiser, scholars of public international law to revisit a book which very much influenced their thinking, a book that indeed made a lasting impression on them. Rather than presenting a critical assessment of the book, our reviewers will offer personal reflections on the impact a book has had on their own thinking as well as its past and continued relevance for public international law scholarship.
9574. Midas
- Author:
- Laura Coyne
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Midas Midas that tough, successful alchemist Before his time Could turn the wind to gold, …
9575. Re-presenting Ireland: tourism, branding and national identity in Ireland
- Author:
- Michael Clancy
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article examines sources of national identity formation under rapidly changing social and economic conditions. Specifically, it links constructivist notions of national identity formation and reformulation to the growing practice of nation branding. Following a discussion of the contributions of constructivism to the literature on national identity, the article summarises the emergence of nation branding as a contemporary strategy to promote a particular image of the nation to a specific audience. While that audience was once confined to political and economic elites, it has broadened in recent years to include potential tourists, diaspora communities and even one's own citizens. The case study of tourism branding in Ireland demonstrates that while the branding message often differs from reality, its content constitutes a powerful tool for the state in reinforcing a particular notion of national identity.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Ireland
9576. Civilianising warfare: ways of war and peace in modern counterinsurgency
- Author:
- Colleen Bell
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This article examines the emergence of counterinsurgency doctrine in Coalition interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. While counterinsurgency is complimentary to the tenets forwarded by its classical military predecessors in several respects, the article shows that it is also more than a refashioning of conventional military practice. Counterinsurgency is intimately tied to institutional practices that shape global liberal governance. It can be traced to dominant trends in international humanitarian, development and peace interventionism since the end of the Cold War and it deepens the links between the social development of war-affected populations and the politics of international security. Rather than simply a shift in military practice, counterinsurgency is distinguished by its investment in civilian modes of warfare. Counterinsurgency retells the narrative of intervention as part of the evolution of political and economic liberalisation, marking a passage from interventionary force to post-interventionary governance. Modern counterinsurgency, it is concluded, exposes the widening indistinction between contemporary modes of peace and those of war in international relations.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Cold War, Economics, War, Counterinsurgency, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Iraq
9577. Civil–military cooperation in crisis management in Africa: American and European Union policies compared
- Author:
- Gorm Rye Olsen
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Cooperation between civilian and military actors has become a catchphrase in international crisis management and development policy in the 21st century. This paper examines the crisis management policies adopted in Africa by the United States and the European Union (EU), respectively. It is hypothesised that both actors' crisis management policies are likely to be path dependent, despite recent significant changes in policy preferences. It is shown that the priority combining civilian and military resources in American crisis management is only implemented to a limited degree. It is consistent with the persistent predominance of the Pentagon and of the military instruments in US Africa policy. It illustrates the conspicuous institutional path dependency of US Africa policy, which by some is described as 'militarised'. The EU has been able to apply both civilian and military instruments in crisis management in Africa, suggesting the policy is not path dependent. The European situation is arguably attributable to the widespread consensus among European actors that it is necessary to combine civilian and military instruments in crisis management.
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, and America
9578. What is critical IPE?
- Author:
- Ian Bruff and Daniela Tepe
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- International Political Economy (IPE) has, since its emergence in the 1970s, never been a settled discipline. From the beginning there have been disputes over whether one should seek to understand the agents acting within the international economic system or instead focus on ontological enquiries into the historical evolution of world order itself.
- Topic:
- Economics and Political Economy
9579. Where did the critical go?
- Author:
- Owen Worth
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- The study of international political economy (IPE) has long proclaimed to have a critical side or focus. Accounts of the intellectual history of IPE were often concerned with the difference between the 'empiricist' or 'positivist' and the 'critical' approach to the discipline (Murphy and Nelson 2002; Cohen 2008)
- Topic:
- Political Economy and History
9580. 'What's "critical" about critical theory': capturing the social totality (das Gesellschaftliche Ganze)
- Author:
- Daniela Tepe and Anita Fischer
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- This is neither the first article to address the nature of Critical Theory,1 nor the first article to address the necessarily feminist character of Critical Theory. Given that most of the writing concerned with the latter was (largely) neglected in International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy (IPE) scholarship, it seems appropriate to do so again.
- Topic:
- International Relations and International Political Economy
9581. Finding space in critical IPE: a scalar-relational approach
- Author:
- Huw Macartney and Stuart Shields
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- Our aim in this essay is to explore how critical international political economy (IPE) is spatially impaired, and how a scalar-relational approach offers a potential solution. By this, we mean that despite the plethora of spatial terms (national, international, global, transnational) applied as levels of analysis, the counter-hegemonic aspects of critical IPE are hamstrung by an inability to account for the production of space and the relations between particular scales.
9582. Facing up to financialisation and the aesthetic economy: high time for aesthetics in international political economy!
- Author:
- Claes Belfrage
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- 'Aesthetics' has been a core concern of modern European philosophy1 (and other subject areas in the Humanities) since Baumgarten's Aesthetica (1750). Its reified dominant meaning is the result of deep struggle and is linked to dominant ideological forms in the capitalist economy, of which International Political Economy (IPE) forms part.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
9583. The case for a foundational materialism: going beyond historical materialist IPE in order to strengthen it
- Author:
- Ian Bruff
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Relations and Development
- Institution:
- Central and East European International Studies Association
- Abstract:
- In recent years, historical materialist International Political Economy (IPE) has been criticised frequently for a worldview that, it is claimed, emphasises in principle the inherently open-ended and contingent nature of societal evolution, but in practice adheres to a deterministic outlook. This, for (especially constructivist and post-structuralist) critics, is the case in even neo-Gramscian contributions, which explicitly discuss the role of ideas and culture as well as class conflict rooted in capitalist production relations.
- Topic:
- Political Economy
9584. AQAP's 'Great Expectations' for the Future
- Author:
- Bruce Riedel
- Publication Date:
- 08-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- CTC Sentinel
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- American counterterrorism officials recently warned that al-Qa`ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is trying to produce the lethal poison ricin to be packed around small bombs for use in attacks against the U.S. homeland. This latest development is further evidence of AQAP's growing threat to the United States. The group has demonstrated remarkable resiliency and adaptability in its history, surviving several leadership changes and major crackdowns in both Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Its success in the face of adversity is a model for other al-Qa`ida units now threatened. In particular, with al-Qa`ida's core in Pakistan under severe pressure due to Usama bin Ladin's death in May 2011, AQAP provides insights into the jihad's capacity to rally back from defeat.
- Topic:
- Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, America, Yemen, and Arabia
9585. Seeing Russia Straight
- Author:
- Ilan Berman
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Journal of International Security Affairs
- Institution:
- Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
- Abstract:
- As Russians look to the future, three recent events have shaken the complacency of those hoping for a democratic evolution in the country. The first was the New Year's Eve jailing of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov for his participation in an anti-Kremlin rally. The second was the guilty verdict in the trial of Mikhail Khodor - kovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company on fresh (and clearly fabricated) corruption charges. The third was the devastating terrorist attack at Domodedovo Airport that left 35 dead and 41 seriously injured.
- Topic:
- Corruption
- Political Geography:
- Russia
9586. Introduction
- Author:
- James Pattison
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The NATO-led intervention in Libya, Operation Unified Protector, is noteworthy for two central reasons. First, it is the first instance in over a decade of what Andrew Cottey calls “classical humanitarian intervention”— that is, humanitarian intervention that lacks the consent of the government of the target state, has a significant military and forcible element, and is undertaken by Western states. Not since the NATO intervention in 1999 to protect the Kosovar Albanians from ethnic cleansing has there been such an intervention. To be sure, since 2000 there have been some robust peace operations that fall in the gray area between classical humanitarian intervention and first-generation peacekeeping (such as MONUC, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo). But, even if these operations were to some extent forcible, they had the consent of the government of the target state.
- Topic:
- United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Libya, Kosovo, and Albania
9587. Civilian Protection in Libya: Putting Coercion and Controversy Back into RtoP
- Author:
- Jennifer Welsh
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- As noted by other contributors to this roundtable, the response of the international community to civilian deaths in Libya—and the threat of further mass atrocities—is unusual in two key respects. First, Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized “all necessary measures” to protect civilians without the consent of the “host” state. The Council's intentions, and actions, could not be interpreted as anything other than coercive. Second, in contrast to other crises involving alleged crimes against humanity (most notably Darfur), diplomacy produced a decisive response in a relatively short period of time. Both of these features suggest that many analysts of intervention (including myself) need to revise their previously pessimistic assessments of what is possible in contemporary international politics.
- Political Geography:
- Libya
9588. Libya and the Responsibility to Protect: The Exception and the Norm
- Author:
- Alex J. Bellamy
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) played an important role in shaping the world's response to actual and threatened atrocities in Libya. Not least, the adoption of Resolution 1973 by the UN Security Council on May 17, 2011, approving a no-fly zone over Libya and calling for “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, reflected a change in the Council's attitude toward the use of force for human protection purposes; and the role played by the UN's new Joint Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect points toward the potential for this new capacity to identify threats of mass atrocities and to focus the UN's attention on preventing them. Given the reluctance of both the Security Council and the wider UN membership even to discuss RtoP in the years immediately following the 2005 World Summit—the High-level Plenary Meeting of the 60th Session of the General Assembly that gave birth to RtoP—these two facts suggest that significant progress has been made thanks to the astute stewardship of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is personally committed to the principle. Where it was once a term of art employed by a handful of likeminded countries, activists, and scholars, but regarded with suspicion by much of the rest of the world, RtoP has become a commonly accepted frame of reference for preventing and responding to mass atrocities.
- Topic:
- United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Libya
9589. The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention in Libya
- Author:
- James Pattison
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Wars and interventions bring to the fore certain ethical issues. For instance, NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 raised questions about the moral import of UN Security Council authorization (given that the Council did not authorize the action), and the means employed by interveners (given NATO's use of cluster bombs and its targeting of dual-use facilities). In what follows, I consider the moral permissibility of the NATO-led intervention in Libya and suggest that this particular intervention highlights three issues for the ethics of humanitarian intervention in general. The first issue is whether standard accounts of the ethics of humanitarian intervention, which draw heavily on just war theory, can capture the prospect of mission creep. The second issue is whether epistemic difficulties in assessing the intervention's likely long-term success mean that we should reject consequentialist approaches to humanitarian intervention. The third issue concerns selectivity. I outline an often overlooked way that selectivity can be problematic for humanitarian intervention.
- Political Geography:
- Libya and Kosovo
9590. "Leading from Behind": The Responsibility to Protect, the Obama Doctrine, and Humanitarian Intervention after Libya
- Author:
- Simon Chesterman
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Humanitarian intervention has always been more popular in theory than in practice. In the face of unspeakable acts, the desire to do something, anything, is understandable. States have tended to be reluctant to act on such desires, however, leading to the present situation in which there are scores of books and countless articles articulating the contours of a right—or even an obligation—of humanitarian intervention, while the number of cases that might be cited as models of what is being advocated can be counted on one hand.
- Political Geography:
- Libya
9591. RtoP Alive and Well after Libya
- Author:
- Thomas G. Weiss
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- With the exception of Raphael Lemkin's efforts on behalf of the 1948 Genocide Convention, no idea has moved faster in the international normative arena than “the responsibility to protect” (RtoP), which was formulated in 2000 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). Friends and foes have pointed to the commission's conceptual contribution to reframing sovereignty as contingent rather than absolute, and to establishing a framework for forestalling or stopping mass atrocities via a three-pronged responsibility—to prevent, to react, and to rebuild. But until the international military action against Libya in March 2011, the sharp end of the RtoP stick—the use of military force—had been replaced by evasiveness and skittishness from diplomats, scholars, and policy analysts.
- Political Geography:
- Libya
9592. Editor's Note
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- There is no better instrument than the ballot box to decide “who is to govern” if we care about popular legitimacy. No one can question the mandate given by the people through a free and fair election to a political party, irrespective of its ideology, identity and program.
- Political Geography:
- Turkey and Middle East
9593. Unrest in the Arab World: Four Questions
- Author:
- Dietrich Jung
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- This essay addresses four questions that the “Arab spring” has raised with respect to academic scholarship and policy advice. Why did scholars fail to predict the recent developments? Should we throw the work on Middle Eastern authoritarianism in the garbage bin of academic misinterpretations? In which ways can we support the move toward democracy in the region? Is there a “new Middle East” in the making? In critically examining the scholarly debate about the resilience of Arab authoritarianism, it rejects demands requesting both the predictive power of academic analyses and their direct applicability in foreign policy-making. The continuing interpretation and re-interpretation of the relationship between Islam and politics have absorbed our analytical capacities at the expense of a closer inspection of societal change. In putting the recent events into their international and regional context, the essay tries to give a tentative answer to the question whether we are witnessing a new Middle East in the making.
- Political Geography:
- Middle East
9594. Russia's Counter-Revolutionary Stance toward the Arab Spring
- Author:
- Pavel K. Baev
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- The wave of uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa has not only affected Russia's interests but also opens some new opportunities for strengthening Russian influence. Nevertheless, the prevalent attitude in Moscow towards these dissimilar but inter-connected crises is negative, which is caused primarily by the nature of its own corrupt quasi- democratic regime haunted by the specter of revolution. The stalled NATO intervention in Libya has re- focused the attention of the Russian leadership on the issue of sovereignty, which determines the decision to disallow any UN sanctions against Syria. Russia's position has evolved in synch with the course taken by China, and Moscow is interested in strengthening this counter- revolutionary proto-alliance by building up ties with conservative Arab regimes, including Saudi Arabia, and also by upgrading its strategic partnership with Turkey. Harvesting unexpected dividends from the turmoil in the Arab world,Russia cannot ignore the risks of a sudden explosion of a revolutionary energy – and neither can it effectively hedge against such a risk.
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Middle East, Arabia, Moscow, Saudi Arabia, and North Africa
9595. Prospects for Palestinian Unity After the Arab Spring
- Author:
- Yousef Munayyer
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- If the revolutions sweeping then Arab world are in fact its “spring” then the Hamas/Fateh reconciliation deal may very well be the first buds this season produced. Whether or not this reconciliation deal will bear any fruit for the Palestinian people, however, is yet to be seen. To best understand the factors affecting the success of the deal, one must have grasp of the history of the relationship between Hamas and Fatah and the role of external actors in that relationship as well. In this commentary I lay out a history of tensions and the role of the US and Israel in driving wedges between the parties. Similar challenges will undoubtedly face this reconciliation attempt and the greatest chances of success can be achieved when both parties put the interests of the Palestinian people ahead of the demands of their external patrons.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
9596. Turkish Foreign Policy in the Balkans and "Neo-Ottomanism": A Personal Account
- Author:
- Hajrudin Somun
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- This essay examines the influence and performance as well as the perception of the new, pro-active Turkish foreign policy in South-East Europe. It emphasizes that certain political and intellectual circles in the Balkans have a different take on Turkey's policies in the region. The paper assesses how Turkey's activism in the Balkans has revived the debate on the Ottoman legacy in the region and Turkey's perceived aspirations to renew its influence under the guise of “neo-Ottomanism.” This paper will also address the impact in this debate caused by the recent book of the well-known Serbian orientalist, Darko Tanaskovic, entitled “Neo-Ottomanism – the Return of Turkey to the Balkans.”
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Turkey, Serbia, and Balkans
9597. Turkey's 2011 General Elections: Towards a Dominant Party System?
- Author:
- Ali Çarkoğlu
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Since 2002, the Turkish electoral environment and the party system have been undergoing a significant transformation. The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) has continued to increase its electoral support for a third time in a row. The declining volatility and fractionalization in the election results together with the expanding geographical base of AKP electoral support may be taken as signs of the emergence of a dominant party system in Turkey. This article offers a descriptive account of the election results and links those results to the literature on the dominant party system. A discussion on the implications of this new development for the evolution of Turkish party system, Turkish political landscape and future elections concludes the article.
- Political Geography:
- Turkey
9598. Economic Liberalization and Class Dynamics in Turkey: New Business Groups and Islamic Mobilization
- Author:
- Gül Berna Özcan and Hasan Turunç
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- The growth of new capitalist classes since the 1980s has transformed social stratification, multi-party politics and the international political orientation of Turkey. New business groups energized by Islam have facilitated much-needed class mobility. In this process, there has also emerged a confrontational split in middle-class positions between Islamic and secular political outlooks. These new middle classes are engaged in promoting Islam as a strategic resource in the class politics of Turkey and seek protection from the negative effects of market capitalism. More dramatically, these new capitalist classes have redefined the allocation of markets and the distribution of assets while they have increased opportunities for their affiliated groups at home and in foreign markets. However, the paradox between modernity and authenticity remains unresolved for Turkey's old middle classes and the new pious elite alike. Although the Islamic-leaning business groups have become the winners of the new regime, they have increasingly lost their cutting-edge idealism and originality and are being “normalized” as the new establishment.
- Political Geography:
- Turkey
9599. The Syrian Opposition in the Making: Capabilities and Limits
- Author:
- Ufuk Ulutas
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Syria became the latest Middle Eastern country to join the chain of protests sweeping across the Middle East. The protests have since spread to several other cities with varying frequency and numbers, and the violent handling of the protests by the Syrian regime has created a protest movement, which has brought forth an array of demands from political reform to the fall of the regime. Opposition in different forms has always existed in Syria and among the Syrian diaspora. However, legal restrictions on social and political activities and the long-lasting atmosphere of fear, perpetrated by the Ba'ath Party and pervasive intelligence services, have so far limited the opposition's organizational capabilities. Despite difficulties and restrictions, the Syrian opposition is in the making. This paper presents a brief analysis of the opposition in Syria, surveys the opposition's fight for survival under the Ba'ath regime, and assesses its current strength and weaknesses.
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Syria
9600. The EU and the Arab Spring: Between Spectatorship and Actorness
- Author:
- Tobias Schumacher
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Throughout the first seven months of the Arab Spring, starting with the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010, the EU clearly revealed itself as both an actor and spectator by resorting to both activism and passivism in a seemingly erratic fashion. Against this background and based on the EU's recently adopted Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean, this article aims at understanding this dualism more precisely and shedding some light on the EU's rather anachronistic foreign policy behavior in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in recent months. The article identifies five dichotomies, all of which contribute to the situation in which the EU continues to be torn between being a relevant political actor in the MENA region and a simple spectator that continues to be overwhelmed by local and regional political developments.
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Arabia, and North Africa