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402. 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
403. 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
404. 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
405. 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
406. 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
407. 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
408. The new politics of protection? Côte d'Ivoire, Libya and the responsibility to protect
- Author:
- Alex J Bellamy and Paul D Williams
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- The international responses to recent crises in Côte d'Ivoire and Libya reveal a great deal about the UN Security Council's approach to human protection. The Council has long authorized peacekeepers to use 'all necessary means' to protect civilians, in contexts including Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi and Côte d'Ivoire. But Resolution 1973 (17 March 2011) on the situation in Libya marked the first time the Council had authorized the use of force for human protection purposes against the wishes of a functioning state. The closest it had come to crossing this line previously was in Resolutions 794 (1992) and 929 (1994). In Resolution 794, the Council authorized the Unified Task Force to enter Somalia to ease the humanitarian crisis there, but this was in the absence of a central government rather than against one—a point made at the time by several Council members. In Resolution 929 (1994), the Security Council authorized the French-led Operation Turquoise to protect victims and targets of the genocide then under way in Rwanda; this mission enjoyed the consent of the interim government in Rwanda as well as its armed forces. In passing Resolution 1973, the Council showed that it will not be inhibited as a matter of principle from authorizing enforcement for protection purposes by the absence of host state consent. Although its response in Libya broke new ground, it grew out of attitudes and processes evident well before this particular crisis. Most notably, the Council had already accepted—in Resolutions 1674 (2006) and 1894 (2009)—that it had a responsibility to protect civilians from grave crimes, and this was evident in a shift in the terms of its debates from questions about whether to act to protect civilians to questions about how to engage.
- Topic:
- Security, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Paris, Libya, United Nations, Balkans, Netherlands, Rwanda, Alabama, Ninewa, and Lower Dir
409. Seeking peace and security in the Horn of Africa: the contribution of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development
- Author:
- Sally Healy
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- This article assesses the contribution that IGAD has made to regional security in the Horn of Africa since the adoption of its peace and security mandate in 1996. It describes the evolution of IGAD and its mandate in the context of regional conflict and wider African peace and security processes. It explores the local dynamics of the two major IGAD-led peace processes, in Sudan (1993–2005) and in Somalia (2002–2004), and discusses the effectiveness of IGAD's institutional role. A consideration of the wider impact of the peace agreements highlights the way IGAD has enhanced its role by setting the agenda on peace support operations in Somalia. The article concludes that IGAD's successes are more the result of regional power politics than of its institutional strength per se. Despite the obvious need for a better regional security framework, the scope for the IGAD Secretariat to develop an autonomous conflict-resolution capability will remain limited. However, IGAD brings a new diplomatic dimension to conflict management that locks in regional states and locks out interested parties beyond the region. With regard to Somalia, the organization has played a pivotal role in directing African and wider international responses to conflict in the region.
- Topic:
- Security, Development, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Sudan, and Somalia
410. Exceptionalism of a kind: the political historiography of US foreign relations
- Author:
- Michael Dunne
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- The recent US mid-term elections have not only dented President Obama's image at home and abroad, they have seen the return to 'divided government' whereby one party controls the Executive and the other controls either the Senate or the House of Representatives or both. Such divided government has been quite frequent since the Second World War; but the situation is often portrayed by political scientists as dysfunctional, even as they acknowledge that the Founders of the Republic deliberately created a federal system which would minimize concentrations of political power. Yet divided government is only one complaint among many levelled by American commentators at their political system. This article examines such criticisms both theoretically and historically, and also develops a historical approach which discusses American attitudes to the past, particularly US foreign relations. Here the emphasis is upon the ideologies that have powered American expansion, first across the North American continent and then overseas. A peculiar, even 'exceptional' aspect of this expansion has been its rhetorical form, in particular the invocation of past presidents to justify contemporary actions and the creation of a doctrinal canon (classically expressed in the Monroe doctrine). While these two lines of enquiry (emphasizing history and political science) are the methodological double core of the article, they are not treated discretely; rather the focus is on the interplay between the two.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
411. Dr Fox and the Philosopher's Stone: the alchemy of national defence in the age of austerity
- Author:
- Paul Cornish and Andrew M. Dorman
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- The history of British defence reviews has been one of repeated disappointment: a cycle in which policy failure is followed by a period of inertia, giving way to an attempt at a new policy framework which is then misimplemented by the defence leadership. Each failed defence review therefore sows the seeds of its successor. With this in mind, in 2010 the new coalition government embarked upon an altogether more ambitious exercise: a strategy review comprising a National Security Strategy and a Strategic Defence and Security Review. This article suggests, nevertheless, not only that the 2010 strategy review looks likely to follow past performance, but also that it is coming unstuck at an unprecedented rate. This is a pity since the 2010 review had much to commend it, not least the adoption of a risk-based approach to security and defence policy-making. What is the explanation for this outcome? Is it that the British have, as some have suggested, lost the ability to 'do strategy', if ever they had it? The authors offer a more nuanced understanding of the policy process and argue that the coalition government in fact has a very clear and deliberate strategy—that of national economic recovery. Yet the coalition government cannot allow national defence and security to fail. The authors conclude with an assessment of the options open to the defence leadership as they seek to address the failing 2010 strategy review and suggest a variety of indicators which will demonstrate the intent and seriousness of the political, official and military leadership of the Ministry of Defence.
- Topic:
- Security, Economics, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Britain
412. Britain's coalition government and EU defence cooperation: undermining British interests
- Author:
- Clara Marina O'Donnell
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Chatham House
- Abstract:
- The formation of a coalition government by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, combined with the need for important cuts to Britain's armed forces has raised significant uncertainties about Britain's attitude to defence cooperation within the European Union. Since taking office the coalition, while grappling with the implications of Britain's fiscal challenges, has shown an unprecedented interest in strengthening bilateral defence collaborations with certain European partners, not least France. However, budgetary constraints have not induced stronger support for defence cooperation at the EU level. On the contrary, under the new government, Britain has accelerated its withdrawal from the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This article assesses the approach of the coalition to the CSDP. It argues that, from the perspective of British interests, the need for EU defence cooperation has increased over the last decade and that the UK's further withdrawal from EU efforts is having a negative impact. The coalition is undermining a framework which has demonstrated the ability to improve, albeit modestly, the military capabilities of other European countries. In addition, by sidelining the EU at a time when the UK is forced to resort more extensively to cost-saving synergies in developing and maintaining its own armed forces, David Cameron's government is depriving itself of the use of potentially helpful EU agencies and initiatives—which the UK itself helped set up. Against the background of deteriorating European military capabilities and shifts in US priorities, the article considers what drove Britain to support EU defence cooperation over a decade ago and how those pressures have since strengthened. It traces Britain's increasing neglect of the CSDP across the same period, the underlying reasons for this, and how the coalition's current stance of disengagement is damaging Britain's interests.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Europe, and France
413. Adeed Dawisha Iraq: A Political History from Independence to Occupation
- Author:
- Paolo Chiocchetti
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
- Institution:
- Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
- Abstract:
- The historical trajectory of the Iraqi nation-state has been profoundly marked by its role as a political-institutional laboratory of grand imperial projects. Its first master, United Kingdom, first forged Iraq from the three former Mesopotamian provinces of the Ottoman Empire (1918) and then experimented different forms of governance, from direct rule (1918-1920 and 1941-1945) to indirect rule as a Mandate power alongside of the Hashemite monarchy (1921-1932) to informal influence on an independent state (1932-1941 and 1945-1958). Its second master, the United States, treaded down the same path from direct rule through the CPA of Paul Bremer (2003-2004) to indirect rule alongside democratically elected governments (2004-2010) to Obama's envisioned informal rule after the alleged departure of all combat troops (from 2010). The commonality between the two cases cannot be limited to the attempt to exert a political/economic control over the Iraqi territory; in both cases the foreign powers endeavoured to create a self-sustainable nation-state which could serve as a model to all other countries in the region and in the global South: autonomous, yet pro-Western and liberal-democratic.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, and United Kingdom
414. Documents and Source Material: Arab
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- B1. UAE FM Abdullah Bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Letter Urging World Governments to Support Palestinian Statehood, December 2010. B2. Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change, December 2010. B3. Palestinian Youth Groups, Press Release Regarding Attempts to Co-opt March 15th Protests, 9 March 2011. B4. Fatah-Hamas Unity Agreement, Cairo, 4 May 2011.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Gaza
415. Honest Money
- Author:
- Jerry L. Jordan
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- This article addresses some of the recent proposals for the conduct of monetary policies in the post-bubble environment. Advocacy of higher inflation targets is analyzed, and the challenge of maintaining monetary discipline in the face of massive fiscal deficits and mounting government debts is presented. Proposals for reforms of monetary arrangements must be based on consensus regarding the objectives of such reforms. The article concludes with some suggestions for near- and intermediate-term changes to present arrangements, as well as ideas for longer-term reforms.
- Topic:
- Government and Reform
- Political Geography:
- Canada
416. Robust Political Economy: Classical Liberalism and the Future of Public Policy
- Author:
- Richard L. Gordon
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Pennington undertakes a needed effort to provide a systematic, analytic critique of recent efforts to discredit what he terms “classical liberal economics.” His is effectively the standard but hard-to-sell proposition that prescient impartial counselors—Plato's philosopher kings—have failed to emerge from the development of modern knowledge. In particular, Pennington makes good use of Hayek's radical contrast between the competitive testing of concepts in a spontaneous market order and the construction of solutions by government monopolies. As Pennington's conclusions nicely summarize, skepticism of limited government is high and fostered by those who are seeking rents from intervention. Thus, ideas that committed libertarians see as obviously absurd need systematic debunking for a broader audience. Pennington, therefore, pretends that he is treating serious arguments and confronts them respectfully.
- Topic:
- Government and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States
417. They will save us, or shouldn't they? An analysis of the role of the international community in the Albanian print media after the January 21st 2011 demonstrations
- Author:
- Sonila Danaj
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- This article investigates the political controversies related to the role the international community plays and should play in contemporary Albanian politics through an analysis of the media accounts of the January 21, 2011 demonstration. We analyse opinion articles in the mainstream media and find that there are two representations of the political reality that compete for legitimacy: one in favour of the government and the other against it. The picture that emerges from the media accounts is that events, political action and political personalities are subject to the perceived judgement of external actors, whose confirmation or support is taken as the legitimizing factor. Thus, the accepted patterns of power put the international community at the top, from where they control, monitor, confirm or refute political elites. The alternative representation criticizes international intervention as a deterrent to the democratization processes in Albania.
- Topic:
- Government and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Albania
418. Internet forums in Lithuania: a new stimulus for social capital?
- Author:
- Austėj Trinkūnait
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- This article analyzes the process of social capital formation in internet forums. It investigates whether this social phenomenon can originate in online environments and to uncover the steps of its development. Three Lithuanian internet forums are chosen for the analysis according to their discussion topics: professional, family and leisure. The methodology used is participant observation, surveys, and interviews with members of these message boards. Data analysis indicates that interactions in internet forums can contribute to formation of social capital and bridging social capital is the predominant type among Lithuanian message boards. Moreover, there exists a “middle ground” of interaction between online and offline environments and leisure forums contribute to the formation of social capital less than other discussion groups.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Lithuania
419. Multinational Enterprise and International Finance in the History of Light and Power 1878-2007
- Author:
- Simone Selva
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- Global Electrification pulls together a cohort of leading experts in the fields of industrial and financial history of power and light enterprises to offer a global history of electric utility companies since the early steps in the last quarter of the nineteenth century through the late twentieth century from the vantage point of international business history and transnational financial history. The authors do investigate the early beginnings and evolution of the electric utility industry in the background of both the rise to globalism of multinational corporations and the worldwide spread of international investments to crisscross private-sector activities and government-run initiatives, national and transnational concerns and capital flows. They adopt a two-fold research perspective: foreign portfolio investments and foreign direct investments are brought into focus alongside to pinpoint the changing balance between the level of internationalization and the degree of domestication – to borrow from the book's vocabulary – featuring the history of the electricity industry since the early technological innovations, down into the recent attempts over the last twenty years to revive the role of multinational corporations after half a century trend toward either private-sector or state-owned national control.
- Topic:
- Government
420. The Genesis of the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services)
- Author:
- Petros C. Mavroidis and Juan A. Marchetti
- Publication Date:
- 08-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The Uruguay Round services negotiations saw the light of day amidst pressures from lobbies in developed countries, unilateral retaliatory actions, and ideological struggle in the developing world. The final outcome, the GATS, certainly characterized by a complex structure and awkward drafting here and there, is not optimal but is an important first step towards the liberalization of trade in services. This article traces the GATS negotiating history, from its very beginning in the late 1970s, paying particular attention to the main forces that brought the services dossier to the multilateral trading system (governments, industries, and academics), and the interaction between developed and developing countries before and during the Uruguay Round. We will follow the actions, positions, and negotiating stances of four trading partners – Brazil, the European Union, India, and the United States – that were key in the development of the GATS. Finally, we will, indicatively at least, try to attribute a 'paternity' (or, rather, a 'maternity') to some key features and provisions of the agreement.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, India, and Brazil
421. Ayn Rand's Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Examines the essential aspects of her philosophy that give rise to her theory of rights, as against the theories of God-given, government-granted, and "natural" rights.
- Topic:
- Government
422. A Critique of Representative Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity"
- Author:
- Joshua Lipana
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Paul Ryan—U.S. Republican representative for Wisconsin's First District and current chairman of the House Budget Committee—rose to nationwide prominence in April 2011 when he proposed a long-term budget plan called “The Path to Prosperity.” With overwhelming Republican support, Ryan's plan passed the House on April 15, 2011.1 The Democrat-controlled Senate, however, voted down Ryan's plan on May 25, 2011. Despite its defeat in the Senate,2 Ryan's plan remains influential on and the ideal for many in the Republican party. For this reason, it is worth examining. What follows is a critique of key components of Ryan's Path to Prosperity plan, using the principle of individual rights as a standard of reference. Specific provisions, and the plan as a whole, will be graded from A+ to F according to how much they promote or corrode rights-respecting government. Repeal of ObamaCare Perhaps the best element of the Ryan plan is its commitment to repealing President Obama's “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” more popularly known as ObamaCare. In particular, the individual mandate in ObamaCare is an egregious violation of rights. The mandate forces people to buy a government-approved health-insurance plan from a private company or to face a fine.3 The president's health-care law is described in the Path to Prosperity as taking the United States “one step closer to [a] fully government-run system.”4 The country needs to move away from this centralized system, not towards it. This budget starts by repealing the costly new government-run health care law . . . making sure that not a penny goes toward implementing the new law.5 Ryan's plan often mentions the goal of repealing ObamaCare. On the subject of taxes, Ryan notes that ObamaCare contains “roughly $800 billion in new taxes and tax increases—the result of dozens of changes to tax law that added complexity and unfairness to the code.”6 These include a “0.9 percent surtax on wages and a 3.8 percent surtax on interest, dividends, and capital gains” that would “apply to filers in the top two income brackets” and a Cadillac tax that would, “starting in 2018, impose a new tax on high-cost, employer-provided health plans.”7 This aspect of Ryan's plan, which would reverse America's movement toward full-blown socialized medicine, gets a well-deserved A+. Security and the “Global War on Terror” In Ryan's plan, security spending sees no significant change over the course of ten years. During that time, this year's budget of $711 billion will only increase or decrease by $90 billion.8 . . .
- Topic:
- Government
423. An Interview with John R. Bolton on the Proper Role of Government
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- John R. Bolton is an outspoken advocate of a foreign policy of American self-interest and a domestic policy of free markets and fiscal responsibility. He has spent many years in public service, including a term as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations and a term as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. He is the author of Surrender Is Not an Option (Threshold Editions/Simon Schuster, 2007) and How Barack Obama Is Endangering Our National Sovereignty (Encounter Books, 2010). Mr. Bolton is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on U.S. foreign and national security policy. I spoke with him on August 29, 2011, just before he announced (to my disappointment) that he would not be running in the 2012 presidential election. —Craig Biddle Craig Biddle: Thank you very much for joining me, Ambassador Bolton; it's an honor to speak with you. John Bolton: Thank you. Glad to do it. CB: As a teenager, you found inspiration in Barry Goldwater, whom you praised as “an individualist, not a collectivist.” I take individualism to mean that the individual is sovereign—that he has a right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness—and collectivism to mean that he is not—that he is beholden to the state or society and is not an end in himself. Is that what you mean by these terms? JB: Right, exactly. I think that, in terms of choice of government, what we should look for is a government that enhances the possibility of individual freedom and individual activity and reduces the potential for collective government action. That's just a broad philosophical statement, but I think that's what the political battle has been about for many years and particularly right now. CB: How do individual rights play into that? What is the relation between rights and freedom? JB: I think that the two are closely related. If you look at how mankind comes into civil society, the individuals bring the rights with them—they're inherent in their status as human beings and don't come from the government as a matter of sufferance. So, in a social contract, ideally what you're looking for is benefits that bring mankind together but also maximize individual liberty. That's admittedly easier said than done, but that ought to be the preference—to try and find that balance—rather than to assume that the government is going to take a larger and larger role because some people think, number one, that they're better at making decisions than individual citizens are; and, number two, that it's a politically convenient way to stay in power—to tax and regulate people in order to “spread wealth” and benefit others. CB: So you essentially take the same position as the Founders on rights and freedom: We have inalienable rights, and the purpose of government is to protect them. JB: Exactly, and that, I think, is why they created a government of enumerated powers. We've slipped a long way from that point, but that's not to say that that shouldn't be what we aspire to return to. CB: Why do you think we hear so little in politics today about the proper purpose of government and the principle of individual rights? JB: Well, I think it's been a long slide away from what the intent of the original framers of the Constitution was. And I think it's an important task of political leaders—or should be—to return to that. If the only issues are how much taxation is going to be and what the size of the government is, and as many Republicans learned over the years, so-called “me-too” policies are going to inevitably lead to defeat because the statists can always outbid you. I think that in a time of fiscal crisis, this is the opportune moment to have an adult conversation about what the purpose of government is—a conversation not about how big the size of government programs is going to be, but whether they should exist in the first place. CB: I want to ask some questions about both foreign and domestic policy. Since you turned to domestic policy there, let's begin with that. What do you regard as the fundamental cause of America's economic decline today—crashing markets, skyrocketing unemployment, sheepish investors, and so forth? . . .
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy and Government
- Political Geography:
- America
424. Letters and Replies
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Is Health Insurance of “Monumental Importance”? To the Editor: I agree with the spirit of Paul J. Beard's article “ObamaCare v. the Constitution” [TOS, Summer 2011], but Matt Sissel's refusal to buy a service (health-care insurance) that “he neither needs nor wants” involves a major flaw. No one, young, middle-aged, or old, can predict when a catastrophic illness will strike. Those in our society who develop cancer, a stroke, or a major heart attack could easily be burdened with a medical bill of $50,000, $100,000, or more. Thus, health-care insurance is of monumental importance. The #1 reason for people filing for bankruptcy in America is that they cannot afford to pay their medical bills. Rade M. Pejic, M.D. Michigan City, Indiana Paul J. Beard II Replies: Catastrophic health insurance can be an important purchase if one wishes to insure against financial insolvency. But individuals face countless alternatives in life and must make their own decisions with respect to their personal contexts, resources, and goals. The government has no right and no constitutional authority to force anyone to purchase health insurance of any kind—nor to force anyone to bail out those who go bankrupt due to medical expenses. Individuals morally are and legally should be responsible for themselves. Paul J. Beard II Sacramento, California Would the Federal Government Permit States to Implement a Tax Credits Program? To the Editor: Although I found Michael A. LaFerrara's proposal in “Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits?” to be enticing, the article did not explain how such a tax credit program could be implemented by particular states without first being permitted by the federal tax code. Is there already a provision in the code by which a state might provide its citizens a tax-credit plan such as LaFerrara's? If this plan does require new federal legislation, then activists need suggestions as to how to approach legislators to get something started toward enacting such legislation—a prospect, I suspect, that is as distant as initiating Dr. Bernstein's proposal (in “The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools,” TOS, Winter 2010–2011) to auction off the public schools. A. James Smith, Jr. Naples, Florida Mike LaFerrara Replies: The federal Department of Education states, “The responsibility for K–12 education rests with the states under the [U.S.] Constitution.”1 Consequently, public K–12 education is primarily funded by local and state taxes—91 percent according to the NEA.2 So a well-funded state program would be possible even without federal funding or congressional action. But there are ways that federal funding could be included. Because education dollars flow from taxpayers through the federal government and then back to the states via myriad programs,3 one possible way would be for state tax agencies simply to ignore the federal income tax outflow from its citizens—and thus avoid any need for federal tax reform—and apportion the inflow of federal dollars according to each taxpayer's Education Tax Liability and Average Attendance Cost. That said, federal dollars often flow to the states with “strings” or conditions attached, and such strings might prohibit apportionment of the monies as called for in my plan. In that case, states could seek exemptions from the conditions. If the federal regulatory agencies involved refused to grant exemptions, then state representatives could fight for them through Congress. Meanwhile, states could simply exclude federal dollars from the mix and still implement viable programs. It is worth noting that a transitional tax-credit program such as mine faces far less-onerous legal obstacles than summary, across-the-board privatization would. For example, New Jersey's constitution mandates that “The Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years” (Article VIII, Section 4). My plan would likely pass muster under such mandates, because the public schools would remain adequately funded for any child who would attend them. Dr. Bernstein's plan to auction off the government schools would ultimately require a constitutional amendment in New Jersey (and likely in other states), a daunting task in and of itself. Until our culture is philosophically advanced enough to support the summary abolition of government schools, a transitional plan structured to work within the existing legal context—and in conjunction with popular support for parental school choice—is our best bet. Such a program can get the ball rolling politically at the state level and, over time, with proven success, contribute to a cultural/political environment more conducive to complete privatization. It is also worth noting that tax credits or school auctions is not an either-or proposition. The ultimate goal of both proposals is the same. My plan could pave the way for Dr. Bernstein's: The more success Americans saw in transitioning to private education via the tax-credit program, the more open they would become to the idea of auctioning off government schools. Finally, I wish to emphasize that advocates of free markets in education should not balk at a plan just because it might encounter legal obstacles. To get from where we are to where we need to be, we will have to change some laws. The question is: Will we embrace a plan that can move us in the right direction? Michael A. LaFerrara Flemington, NJ Endnotes.
- Topic:
- Government
425. Rethinking Japanese Public Opinion and Security: From Pacifism to Realism?
- Author:
- Wilhelm M. Vosse
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- Until the Japanese government's decision to participate in the so-called war on terror by first sending maritime self-defense force (SDF) ships to refueling missions in the Indian Ocean in 2001, and then by dispatching ground self-defense force troops to Southern Iraq, the overall view of Japanese security policy had been that it was constrained by article 9 as well as strong public support for perhaps pacifist attitudes. However, these developments and, so it seemed, fundamental changes in Japanese security posture after 9/11 have been taken as evidence that either antimilitarism was vanning, or that the Japanese government, particularly under Prime Minister Koizumi, had been successful in convincing the Japanese public that it was the time for a fundamental shift in Japan's security policy (Green, 2001; Hughes, 2009; Samuels, 2007). This book challenges this assumption and tries to prove that public opinion is not only stable, but also rational, and that it does continue to constrain Japanese government security policy decisions.
- Topic:
- Security and Government
- Political Geography:
- Japan, Iraq, and India
426. Military Responses and Capabilities in Canada's Domestic Context Post 9/11
- Author:
- Chris Madsen
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- If the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on New York City and Washington D.C. were a rude wake-up call for potential security threats to continental North America, the reaction on part of Canada has been measured and typically cautious. The acts were of course immediately condemned and temporary refuge given to thousands of travellers stranded by closure of airspace over the United States until declared safe. The federal government and most Canadians extended sympathy and offers of assistance to their closest neighbour and main trading partner. Close cultural and economic ties between the two countries ensured as much. Unease, however, set in about the tough talk and next progression characterized by President George Bush's now famous “You're either with us or against us” speech. Canada's then Liberal prime minister decided not to send the Canadian military wholeheartedly into the invasion of Iraq, though deployment of Canadian troops in Afghanistan duly became a major commitment. Reassuring the United States of Canada's reliability and loyalty as a partner was imperative. To this end, the federal government tightened up financial restrictions on potential fund-raising by identified terrorist groups, introduced new legislation and bureaucratic structures focused on security issues, and better coordinated intelligence gathering and information sharing activities across government agencies and with principal allies. Canadians convinced themselves that any possibility of a 9/11 scale terrorist attack on Canada was unlikely, and even if one was planned or happened, the effect would be minimized by the pro-active measures of authorities. Selected use of security certificates and arrest of home grown Islamic terrorists, the so-called Toronto 18, apparently showed that the police and intelligence agents were up to the task. The threat of terrorism, if not eliminated, could at least be managed and thwarted when required to provide a reasonable level of safety to the Canadian state and society. Ten years on, the course of events has shown the chosen policy decisions to have been mostly sound. Though the highest leadership of Al Qaeda remain at large and defiant as ever in their stated resolve to attack the West, Canada has not yet experienced a major terrorist incident since 9/11.
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, New York, Washington, Canada, and North America
427. Intervening for Peace? Dilemma's of Liberal Internationalism and Democratic Reconstruction in Afghanistan
- Author:
- Philip Martin
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- In the post Cold War era, the international community has found cause to intervene in extremely volatile environments in order to restore normalcy and order. These situations are characterized by failed states, civil wars, and ethnic extremism. When doing so, the principles of liberal democracy and inclusive governments are frequently invoked as necessary components of the conflict-to-peace transition. Indeed, the idea that elected governments must accompany the broader objectives of stabilization and statebuilding underpins much of what peacebuilders actually do.Yet, despite the large sums of money spent and attention given to them, interventions which aim to facilitate the transition of fragile or failed states to inclusive, democratic governments rarely succeed. What explains this discrepancy?
- Topic:
- Cold War, Government, and Reconstruction
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan
428. Will Oil Drown the Arab Spring?
- Author:
- Michael L. Ross
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Summary: No state with serious oil wealth has ever transformed into a democracy. Oil lets dictators buy off citizens, keep their finances secret, and spend wildly on arms. To prevent the “resource curse” from dashing the hopes of the Arab Spring, Washington should push for more transparent oil markets -- and curb its own oil addiction. MICHAEL L. ROSS is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of the forthcoming book The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations. Even before this year's Arab uprisings, the Middle East was not an undifferentiated block of authoritarianism. The citizens of countries with little or no oil, such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia, generally had more freedom than those of countries with lots of it, such as Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. And once the tumult started, the oil-rich regimes were more effective at fending off attempts to unseat them. Indeed, the Arab Spring has seriously threatened just one oil-funded ruler -- Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi -- and only because NATO's intervention prevented the rebels' certain defeat. Worldwide, democracy has made impressive strides over the last three decades: just 30 percent of the world's governments were democratic in 1980; about 60 percent are today. Yet almost all the democratic governments that emerged during that period were in countries with little or no oil; in fact, countries that produced less than $100 per capita of oil per year (about what Ukraine and Vietnam produce) were three times as likely to democratize as countries that produced more than that. No country with more than a fraction of the per capita oil wealth of Bahrain, Iraq, or Libya has ever successfully gone from dictatorship to democracy. Scholars have called this the oil curse, arguing that oil wealth leads to authoritarianism, economic instability, corruption, and violent conflict. Skeptics claim that the correlation between oil and repression is a coincidence. As Dick Cheney, then the CEO of Haliburton, remarked at a 1996 energy conference, "The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas reserves where there are democratic governments." But divine intervention did not cause repression in the Middle East: hydrocarbons did. There is no getting around the fact that countries in the region are less free because they produce and sell oil.
- Topic:
- NATO, Government, and Oil
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Ukraine, Middle East, Kuwait, Libya, Vietnam, California, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and Tunisia
429. From Revolution to Transition in Tunisia
- Author:
- Gordon Gray
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Council of American Ambassadors
- Abstract:
- President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's abrupt departure on January 14 set Tunisians upon a new and hopeful path to representative government and greater personal freedom, while setting off a wave of democratic protest across the region. Yet the tumultuous period from mid-December to mid-February—a time of popular uprising, political violence, Ben Ali's departure, and the early instability of a new government—has been followed by months of deliberately paced and publicly debated transition to a new government enjoying popular legitimacy. In fact, what is most remarkable about the process since Ben Ali's overthrow is how the people of Tunisia have, in a largely peaceful and orderly manner, set themselves to the immensely complex task of consolidating their democratic transition.
- Topic:
- Political Violence, Democratization, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Tunisia
430. After the Arab Spring: The Road to Reform in the Middle East and North Africa
- Author:
- William Sweeney
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Council of American Ambassadors
- Abstract:
- Once the first protests erupted in Tunisia in December 2010, a wave of unrest quickly spread across the Middle East and North Africa as citizens expressed their discontent with the region's regimes. The Arab Spring was the result of mounting dissatisfaction with the status quo but also the result of blatant government corruption, brutal human rights violations, the economic downturn, low wages and rising unemployment rates. The socio-economic problems were truly the boiling point that pushed protesters, particularly youth, over the edge.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, North Africa, and Tunisia
431. Privatization Helps: The Hungarian Example
- Author:
- Donald Blinken
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Council of American Ambassadors
- Abstract:
- As Greece works out of financial crisis, it should look to Hungary fifteen years ago for part of the answer. Far too large a segment of the Greek economy remains locked up in public hands. Their sale to the private sector, as Hungarians discovered, while not a panacea, will help reduce catastrophic public debts, and salaries and pensions will become the responsibility of private owners rather than the government. The Greek Parliament's austerity plan would raise 70 billion euros from privatization by 2015. The government will sell stakes in banking, airports, water utilities, motorway concessions, port operations, state land, and mining rights. Selling assets to the private sector will also improve managerial know-how, increase transparency, and encourage confidence in a Greek recovery.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Greece
432. Export Trade Performance of Indian Economy during and Following the Global Financial Crisis
- Author:
- Dr. Sumanjeet Singh
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
- Institution:
- Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
- Abstract:
- Towards the end of 2008 the effects of global recession started getting reflected in international trade. The fall in global demand and the slowing-down in economic growth translated into a substantial reduction in international trade. It affected the cross-border trade of virtually all countries and economic sectors. Indian exports trade could not remain unaffected in a situation where external demand was dwindling globally. The present paper reviews India's export performance during and following the global financial crisis. Indian exports started to decline in July 2008. It declined from US$ 17,095 million in July 2008 to US$ 11,516 million in March 2009, which accounts for almost 33 per cent decline. This growth contraction has come after a robust 25 per cent-plus average export growth since 2003. But, as a result of government policy measures and recovery in global economy, India's exports growth turned positive and exports grew by a whopping 54.1 per cent in March 2010 and recorded the highest growth rate among the world's top 70 economies in merchandise exports. India's merchandise exports during April 2010 at US$ 16.9 billion recorded a growth of 36.3 per cent as compared with a decline of 32.8 per cent registered in April 2009. Exports witnessed huge annualized growth of 56.9 per cent to $25.9 billion in May 2011 in a bright spot for the Indian economy, which is battling high inflation amid signs of a slowdown.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- India
433. Trends in the military research and development strategy of the UK from 1997 to 2010
- Author:
- Joachim Burbiel
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Security Sector Management
- Institution:
- Centre for Security Sector Management
- Abstract:
- The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of issues, trends and changes in British military research and development, with an emphasis on the time of the last Labour government (1997 to 2010). The analysis is focussed on doctrinal documents issued by government institutions. Tensions in British defence matters are highlighted by documenting responses to these documents from parliamentary bodies and a wider public
- Topic:
- Defense Policy and Government
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom and Europe
434. Turkey at the Crossroads: From "Change with Politics as Usual" to Politics with Change as Usual
- Author:
- Ümit Cizre
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- The article analyzes the new roadmap for Turkey after the summer 2011 elections as not a “resumption” of unfinished business from the last nine years, but from the perspective of the ability of Turkey's ruling party, the AK Party, as well as the opposition forces and actors to “transform” some anachronistic features of the dominant politics as well as deal with troubling new trends in society. The AK Party governments made progress in many areas by pushing forward a series of far-reaching reforms which have genuinely changed Turkish politics. However, Turkey under AK Party rule includes a society which has failed to shed its extreme hostility toward different ideas, identities and values. Moreover, current opposition parties and movements in Turkey continue to be weak in imagination, vision, capacity and leadership, which have led to rigidities and even deeper political divisions. More importantly, the new government will have to create new possibilities out of its past failures and turn paradoxes, contradictions and ambiguities in politics and society, in the country and in the region, into positive achievements.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Turkey
435. Brazil's Long To-Do List
- Author:
- Andrew Zimbalist
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Can Brazil build the massive infrastructure it needs to host the Olympics and the World Cup?
- Topic:
- Corruption, Development, Economics, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Brazil
436. Sports Populism
- Author:
- Simon Kuper
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- Fans like their teams—but not necessarily the politicians who support them.
- Topic:
- Development, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Latin America, and England
437. Covering Sports in Latin America
- Author:
- Lisa Delpy Neirotti and Jeffrey Bliss
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Latin America
438. Religion and the State in China: The Limits of Institutionalization
- Author:
- André Laliberté
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- For people reading the mainstream media, the recent travails of the Shouwang Church in Beijing – a Protestant congregation whose followers have been forbidden to worship in public since being evicted from the premises they rented – seem emblematic of a confrontational relationship between religion and state in China today (Jacobs 2011a). This impression appears to be confirmed when we also look at the persecution that adherents to Falungong continue to suffer (Richardson and Edelman 2011) and the difficult relations that Muslims in Xinjiang and Buddhists in Tibet experience. However, this is only one side of the story. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), at least since the administration of Jiang Zemin, has looked with approval at the growth of religion. Party documents have extolled the compatibility between religion and social stability, and the CCP has encouraged the construction or rebuilding of temples all over the country (Ren 2007: 195ff). Intellectuals and local governments are now looking back at China's traditional religions, not long ago dismissed as “superstitions”, as part of a national heritage worthy of preservation. The dramatic expansion of Confucius Institutes all over the world confirms that the party has completely changed its appreciation of traditional culture and religion, now seen as assets (Paradise 2009).
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- China and Beijing
439. Al-Qa'ida's Center of Gravity in a Post-Bin Ladin World
- Author:
- Mitchell D. Silber
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- CTC Sentinel
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- A group of men spend their formative and early adult years in Western urban settings such as London, Hamburg, Copenhagen, New York or Sydney. They take the initiative to travel overseas and then return to the West to launch terrorist attacks in the name of al-Qa`ida. Can this be considered an al-Qa`ida plot? What criteria determine that designation? What is the nature of the relationship between radicalized men in the West and the core al-Qa`ida organization in the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan? For it to be identified as an al-Qa`ida plot, does one of the plotters have to attend an al-Qa`ida training camp or meet with an al-Qa`ida trainer, or can they simply be inspired by al-Qa`ida's ideology? These are critical questions. To truly understand the nature of the threat posed by the transnational jihad, led in the vanguard by al-Qa`ida, it is essential to have a greater and more nuanced understanding of the genesis and attempted execution of plots directed against the West. Al-Qa`ida core's role should not be overestimated or underestimated, as important resource allocation questions for Western governments derive from the answers to these questions. It affects military, intelligence, and policing activities that are dedicated to preventing the next attack. In a sense, determining “where the action is for the conspiracy” before a plot is launched should drive Western counterterrorism efforts. In military terms, this would be akin to identifying what Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz called the “center of gravity,” or critical element of strength of al-Qa`ida plots, to provide insights on how to thwart them.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, New York, and London
440. Can Europe's Divided House Stand?
- Author:
- Hugo Nixon
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Conventional wisdom has it that the eurozone cannot have a monetary union without also having a fiscal union. Euro-enthusiasts see the single currency as the first steppingstone toward a broader economic union, which is their dream. Euroskeptics do, too, but they see that endgame as hell -- and would prefer the single currency to be dismantled. The euro crisis has, for many observers, validated these notions. Both camps argue that the eurozone countries' lopsided efforts to construct a monetary union without a fiscal counterpart explain why the union has become such a mess. Many of the enthusiasts say that the way forward is for the 17 eurozone countries to issue euro bonds, which they would all guarantee (one of several variations on the fiscal-union theme). Even the German government, which is reluctant to bail out economies weaker than its own, thinks that some sort of pooling of budgets may be needed once the current debt problems have been solved. A fiscal union would not come anytime soon, and certainly not soon enough to solve the current crisis. It would require a new treaty, and that would require unanimous approval. It is difficult to imagine how such an agreement could be reached quickly given the fierce opposition from politicians and the public in the eurozone's relatively healthy economies (led by Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands) to repeated bailouts of their weaker brethren (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain). Moreover, once the crisis is solved, the enthusiasm for a fiscal union may wane. Even if Germany is still prepared to pool some budgetary functions, it will insist on imposing strict discipline on what other countries can spend and borrow. The weaker countries, meanwhile, may not wish to submit to a Teutonic straitjacket once the immediate fear of going bust has passed.
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Finland, Greece, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Ireland
441. The True Costs of Humanitarian Intervention
- Author:
- Benjamin A. Valentino
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- As forces fighting Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi consolidated control of Tripoli in the last days of August 2011, many pundits began speaking of a victory not just for the rebels but also for the idea of humanitarian intervention. In Libya, advocates of intervention argued, U.S. President Barack Obama had found the formula for success: broad regional and international support, genuine burden sharing with allies, and a capable local fighting force to wage the war on the ground. Some even heralded the intervention as a sign of an emerging Obama doctrine. It is clearly too soon for this kind of triumphalism, since the final balance of the Libyan intervention has yet to be tallied. The country could still fall into civil war, and the new Libyan government could turn out to be little better than the last. As of this writing, troubling signs of infighting among the rebel ranks had begun to emerge, along with credible reports of serious human rights abuses by rebel forces. Yet even if the intervention does ultimately give birth to a stable and prosperous democracy, this outcome will not prove that intervention was the right choice in Libya or that similar interventions should be attempted elsewhere. To establish that requires comparing the full costs of intervention with its benefits and asking whether those benefits could be achieved at a lower cost. The evidence from the last two decades is not promising on this score. Although humanitarian intervention has undoubtedly saved lives, Americans have seriously underappreciated the moral, political, and economic price involved. This does not mean that the United States should stop trying to promote its values abroad, even when its national security is not at risk. It just needs a different strategy. Washington should replace its focus on military intervention with a humanitarian foreign policy centered on saving lives by funding public health programs in the developing world, aiding victims of natural disasters, and assisting refugees fleeing violent conflict. Abandoning humanitarian intervention in most cases would not mean leaving victims of genocide and repression to their fate. Indeed, such a strategy could actually save far more people, at a far lower price.
- Topic:
- Security, Government, and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- America, Washington, and Libya
442. Why We Still Need Nuclear Power
- Author:
- Ernest Moniz
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- In the years following the major accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, nuclear power fell out of favor, and some countries applied the brakes to their nuclear programs. In the last decade, however, it began experiencing something of a renaissance. Concerns about climate change and air pollution, as well as growing demand for electricity, led many governments to reconsider their aversion to nuclear power, which emits little carbon dioxide and had built up an impressive safety and reliability record. Some countries reversed their phaseouts of nuclear power, some extended the lifetimes of existing reactors, and many developed plans for new ones. Today, roughly 60 nuclear plants are under construction worldwide, which will add about 60,000 megawatts of generating capacity -- equivalent to a sixth of the world's current nuclear power capacity. But the movement lost momentum in March, when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the massive tsunami it triggered devastated Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant. Three reactors were severely damaged, suffering at least partial fuel meltdowns and releasing radiation at a level only a few times less than Chernobyl. The event caused widespread public doubts about the safety of nuclear power to resurface. Germany announced an accelerated shutdown of its nuclear reactors, with broad public support, and Japan made a similar declaration, perhaps with less conviction. Their decisions were made easier thanks to the fact that electricity demand has flagged during the worldwide economic slowdown and the fact that global regulation to limit climate change seems less imminent now than it did a decade ago. In the United States, an already slow approach to new nuclear plants slowed even further in the face of an unanticipated abundance of natural gas.
- Topic:
- Government and Nuclear Power
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, and Germany
443. Counterrevolution in Kiev
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- President Viktor Yanukovych has led Ukraine, no stranger to crisis, into another round of turmoil. He has rolled back democracy while failing to take on corruption or take the country closer to Europe. Now, much of the public has turned against him -- and the country could be headed for more unrest.
- Topic:
- Government and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Ukraine
444. Africa Unleashed
- Author:
- Edward Miguel
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Steven Radelet's accessible new book argues that much of the credit for Africa's recent economic boom goes to its increasingly open political systems. But Radelet fails to answer the deeper question: why some countries have managed to develop successful democracies while others have tried but failed.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, Asia, and Liberia
445. How Central is Land for Peace?
- Author:
- Elliott Abrams, Oded Naaman, and Mikhael Manekin
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- A HEALTHY OBSESSION Oded Naaman and Mikhael Manekin In "The Settlement Obsession" (July/ August 2011), Elliott Abrams argues: In the end, Israel will withdraw from most of the West Bank and remain only in the major blocs where hundreds of thousands of Israelis now live. Israelis will live in a democratic state where Jews are the majority, and Palestinians will live in a state -- democratic, one hopes -- with an Arab Muslim majority. The remaining questions are how quickly or slowly that end will be reached and how to get there with minimal violence. For Abrams, there can be no other end; all that politics can do is postpone this end or bring it about. Although it would be preferable to end the conflict as soon as possible, there is no immediate need to do so. Any sense of immediacy, Abrams writes, is overblown: he claims that nongovernmental organizations and some in the international community unjustly point to a humanitarian crisis to create unwarranted urgency. In reviewing our book, Occupation of the Territories, Abrams attempts to assuage worries about the need for urgent action, going so far as to compare Israel's military behavior during its 45-year occupation of the West Bank -- in which Israel has expropriated land, seized natural resources, and settled its own population there -- to the United States' behavior during in its ten-year occupation and massive reconstruction of Germany after World War II. Abrams then implies that Breaking the Silence does not provide reliable or sufficient evidence for the claim that, in his words, "the presence of Israeli settlers and IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers in the West Bank is laying waste to the area, reducing it to misery."
- Topic:
- Government and War
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, Palestine, Arabia, and Germany
446. The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Now that the 2012 GOP presidential nominee is almost certain to be either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich (who, in terms of policy and lack of principle, are practically indistinguishable), many on the right are turning their attention to the 2012 Senate races. And they are wise to do so. In the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans gained control of the House but failed to secure a majority in the Senate, leaving Democrats with 53 of 100 seats. Of the 33 Senate seats up for election in 2012, 21 are held by Democrats, 2 by independents. Republicans are likely to retain control of the House, and if they manage to gain control of the Senate as well, they will have the opportunity to repeal Obama Care, Dodd-Frank, and other disastrous laws and regulations, and to begin cutting federal spending. These are crucial short-term goals. But if we want to return America to the free republic it is supposed to be, we must do more than campaign and vote for Republicans. We must embrace and advocate the only principle that can unify our political efforts and ground them in moral fact. That principle pertains to the purpose of government. Government is an institution with a legal monopoly on the use of physical force in a given geographic area. What is the proper purpose of such an institution? Why, morally speaking, do we need it? The proper purpose of government is, as the Founding Fathers recognized, to protect people's inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Government fulfills this vital function, as Ayn Rand put it, by banning the use of physical force from social relationships and by using force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. Insofar as an individual respects rights—that is, insofar as he refrains from assault, robbery, rape, fraud, extortion, and the like—a proper government leaves him fully free to act on his own judgment and to keep and use the product of his effort. Insofar as an individual violates rights—whether by direct force (e.g., assault) or indirect force (e.g., fraud)—a proper government employs the police and courts as necessary to stop him, to seek restitution for his victims, and/or to punish him. Likewise for international relations: So long as a foreign country refrains from using (or calling for) physical force against our citizens, our government properly leaves that country alone. But if a foreign country (or gang) attacks or calls for others to attack us, our government properly employs our military to eliminate that threat. As Thomas Jefferson summed up, a proper government “shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”In order to begin moving America toward good government, we must explicitly embrace this principle, and we must demand that politicians who want our support explicitly embrace it as well. To do so, however, we must understand what the principle means in practice, especially with respect to major political issues of the day, such as “entitlement” programs, corporate bailouts, “stimulus” packages, and the Islamist assault on America. . . .
- Topic:
- Government and Islam
- Political Geography:
- America
447. The Assault on Abortion Rights Undermines All Our Liberties
- Author:
- Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Surveys the expanding efforts to outlaw abortion in America, examines the facts that give rise to a woman's right to abortion, and shows why the assault on this right is an assault on all our rights
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
- Political Geography:
- America
448. 2011 Essay Contest Winner: "'Dog Benefits Dog': The Harmony of Rational Men's Interests"
- Author:
- Antonio Puglielli
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Responds to the prompt: In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand dramatizes the principle that "there are no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned . . . men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them." Elucidate and concretize this principle using examples from both Atlas and real life.
- Topic:
- Government
449. Disabling America: The Unintended Consequences of the Government's Protection of the Handicapped
- Author:
- Joshua Lipana
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Nashville: WND Books, 2004. 240 pp. $17.99 (hardcover). Reviewed by Joshua Lipana For the purpose of “helping” the disabled, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law in 1990. In Disabling America, Greg Perry tells us that the “ADA infiltrates the lives of average Americans in ways far beyond what we usually think—wheelchair signs in parking lots and grab bars in public restrooms” (p. 2). And as the book shows, the ADA affects virtually everything in the private sector. Perry, a successful writer and businessman who was born with one leg and only three fingers, explains in chapter 1, “Compassion or Coercion,” why he believes the ADA is immoral. He compares a situation in which a person voluntarily helps an elderly lady cross a street with a situation in which the government forces you to help the lady to cross the street. In the guise of compassion, we get state coercion. With a legal gun to your head, the government now states that you will be compassionate to the disabled and you must implement that commission exactly [how] the government spells out that you are to do so. Such force is cruel to both the disabled and the non-disabled. (p. 3) Perry moves on to show the damage that government intervention in the name of the disabled has done to businesses, including forcing some to close down. He reports on how business owners have had to spend hundreds of thousands—in some cases millions—of dollars fighting baseless lawsuits and complying with ADA standards, and how their overall freedom has been diminished. . . .
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- America
450. From the Editor
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Merry Christmas, readers! And welcome to the Winter 2011 issue of The Objective Standard. I'd like to begin by congratulating Antonio Puglielli, the winner of the second annual TOS essay contest. Mr. Puglielli's entry, “'Dog Benefits Dog': The Harmony of Rational Men's Interests,” won him $2,000 and publication of his essay in TOS (see p. 67). Second place went to Caleb Nelson (winning $700) and third place to Deborah B. Sloan (winning $300). Congratulations to Mr. Nelson and Ms. Sloan, as well! As Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich vie for the GOP presidential nomination, and as Republicans marshal efforts to secure as many Senate seats as possible, advocates of liberty need to keep an eye on the one principle that unifies our political goals and grounds them in moral fact. In “The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty,” I identify that principle and discuss its application to issues of the day, including “entitlement” spending, corporate bailouts, and the Islamist threat. If you wonder which side of the abortion debate has the facts straight—or why the issue should matter to anyone other than pregnant women—you will find answers in “The Assault on Abortion Rights Undermines All Our Liberties,” by Diana Hsieh and Ari Armstrong. And if you already know the answers, I think you'll agree that this is the article to circulate on this matter. You may think that Steve Jobs was an impatient man, and you may know of evidence to support that idea, but in Daniel Wahl's “The Patience of Jobs,” you'll discover that Jobs, once again, breaks the mold. He was not patient, yet he was. How can that be? (Hint: The answer has nothing to do with Buddhism.) Get ready to fall in love with Linda Mann's still lifes and her manner of discussing them. Why do they grab your attention? Why do they hold it? Why are they so fascinating and rich and beautiful? I press Ms. Mann for answers, and she delivers. The interview is accompanied by color images of the paintings discussed. What's so great about the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.? Sanctum sanctorum—it's the holy of holies—says Lee Sandstead, and he has facts and photos to prove it. Chris Wolski reviews the movie The Help, directed by Tate Taylor. And the books reviewed in this issue are: Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson (reviewed by Daniel Wahl); This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House, by Herman Cain (reviewed by Gideon Reich); American Individualism—How a New Generation of Conservatives Can Save the Republican Party, by Margaret Hoover (reviewed by Michael A. LaFerrara); Disabling America: The Unintended Consequences of the Government's Protection of the Handicapped, by Greg Perry (reviewed by Joshua Lipana); The Right to Earn a Living: Economic Freedom and the Law, by Timothy Sandefur (reviewed by Loribeth Kowalski); Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics, by Nicholas Wapshott (reviewed by Richard M. Salsman); Capitalist Solutions: A Philosophy of American Moral Dilemmas, by Andrew Bernstein (reviewed by Ari Armstrong); Toyota Under Fire: Lessons for Turning Crisis into Opportunity, by Jeffrey K. Liker and Timothy N. Ogden (reviewed by Daniel Wahl); Dare to Stand Alone: The Story of Charles Bradlaugh, Atheist and Republican, by Bryan Niblett (reviewed by Roderick Fitts). This issue of TOS completes our sixth year of moving minds with the ideas on which a culture of reason and freedom depend. Our seventh year will be, as every year is, bigger and better than the last, and we thank you for your continued business and support. We couldn't do what we do without you. Have a joyful Christmas, a happy New Year, and a prosperous 2012. —Craig Biddle
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
- Political Geography:
- New York, America, and Washington
451. Sudan's Secession Crisis
- Author:
- Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Ahead of last weekend's secession referendum in Sudan, Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz wrote on the prospects for compromise and reconciliation between the country's north and south.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Sudan
452. The Political Power of Social Media
- Author:
- Clay Shirky
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Discussion of the political impact of social media has focused on the power of mass protests to topple governments. In fact, social media's real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere -- which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States
453. Letter to the Editor: Legalize It
- Author:
- Terry Nelson
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Robert Bonner writes that "destroying the drug cartels is not an impossible task" ("The New Cocaine Cowboys," July/ August 2010). But he really should have written, "Destroying some drug cartels is not an impossible task."
- Topic:
- Security, Government, and War on Drugs
- Political Geography:
- United States
454. Welfare and Capitalism in Postwar Japan
- Author:
- Michael W. Donnelly
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
- Institution:
- Japan Association of International Relations
- Abstract:
- How the welfare state and capitalism coexist is an enduring and highly contentious research question. According to Margarita Estevez-Abe, Japan's welfare state is not easily classified in standard, comparative ways. Despite relatively modest government social spending and benefit levels, for decades the country achieved an egalitarian form of capitalism. Existing theories have been unable to explain the Japan puzzle, we are warned, the odd combination of equality, meager redistributive social spending, and extensive protection from market risk without heavy taxes and massive government expenditures. Yet, recent shifts in welfare policies make explanation all the more urgent.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- China and Germany
455. Aynsley Kellow and Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen (eds.), The International Politics of Climate Change (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2010).
- Author:
- Emilian Kavalski
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- The problems associated with climate change and their unintended consequences have challenged the capacities for comprehension. At the same time, the issues provoked by environmental degradation tend to evince the fickleness of established models for their management. Equally significantly, the dynamics associated with climate change have come to indicate the pervasive uncertainty of the post-Cold War climate of international interactions and the unpredictability of the emerging global patterns. While not new in themselves, the cumulative effects of intensifying environmental threats have drawn the attention of international relations theory to the complex challenges posed by climate change.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Romania
456. A View to Our Land
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- Government and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- Island
457. Operación Primicia: El ataque de Montoneros que provocó el golpe de 1976
- Author:
- Janie Hulse
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Americas Quarterly
- Institution:
- Council of the Americas
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- Environment, Government, and Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- South America
458. The Ideological Origins of American Federalism
- Author:
- Ilya Somin
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- As has often been the case in American history, federalism is once again a major focus of political debate. Numerous recent political conflicts focus at least in part on the constitutional balance of power between the states and the central government. The lawsuits challenging the recently passed Obama health care plan, the federal bailout of state governments during the current economic crisis, and the conflicts over social issues such as medical marijuana and assisted suicide are just a few of the more prominent examples.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- America
459. The Economics of Microfinance
- Author:
- Bryan Barnett
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- It is one of the sad facts of recent human history that the economic prosperity enjoyed by so many remains unknown to most of the rest. The causes of poverty have long been debated and much has been spent in the effort to ameliorate it. Reliable estimates suggest as much as $2.3 trillion has been spent over the last several decades, most of it in the form of sponsored aid programs conceived and pursued by governments and large foundations in developed countries. Despite this investment, however, poverty remains widespread and has worsened in many places, especially in Africa. These basic facts now fuel a vigorous debate over the scale and ultimate value of traditional aid programs and a search for more effective solutions.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Africa
460. Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits?
- Author:
- Michael A. LaFerrara
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- More and more Americans are coming to recognize the superiority of private schools over government-run or “public” schools. Accordingly, many Americans are looking for ways to transform our government-laden education system into a thriving free market. As the laws of economics dictate, and as the better economists have demonstrated, under a free market the quality of education would soar, the range of options would expand, competition would abound, and prices would plummet. The question is: How do we get there from here? Andrew Bernstein offered one possibility in “The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools” (TOS, Winter 2010-11): Sell government schools to the highest bidders, who would take them over following a transitional period to “enable government-dependent families to adjust to the free market.” This approach has the virtues of simplicity and speed, but also the complication of requiring widespread recognition of the propriety of a fully private educational system—a recognition that may not exist in America for quite some time.
- Topic:
- Economics, Education, and Government
- Political Geography:
- America
461. An Interview with Atlas Shrugged Movie Producer Harmon Kaslow
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Craig Biddle: Thank you for joining me today, Harmon. I'm very excited about the Atlas Shrugged movie, and I know that TOS readers want to hear all about it. Harmon Kaslow: It's my pleasure. CB: How and when did you get involved in making this movie? HK: I got involved in April 2010 after being contacted by John Aglialoro, my coproducer. At that point, a movie had to be made quickly or John would lose the rights to it. So he contacted me to see if I might be able to help him put together a lower-budget version in short order. CB: As coproducers, what have been John's and your respective roles in the movie? HK: John's role was to keep the movie faithful to the book. Mine was to get the movie into production before June 15. John has probably read Atlas more than a dozen times, and during the process of writing the screenplay and getting the film into production, he was constantly rereading chapters, mulling over the elements of the story, and working to ensure that the production remained true to Rand's ideas. My job was to work with John to make the movie happen, to get all the pieces together so that we could say “action” and make certain the film was completed. CB: Atlas Shrugged is a 54-year-old story. Why do you think it matters today? HK: For starters, many events from the story parallel real-life events today. For instance, whereas in the story the government passes business-thwarting laws such as the “Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule” and the “Equalization of Opportunity Bill,” in real life today the government is passing laws such as the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act” and the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” But more fundamentally, the story matters because it dramatizes timeless philosophic truths about human nature, the role of reason in human life, the morality of rational self-interest versus predation or “greed,” the role of the government and of the citizen, and man's need of political and economic freedom. These truths will always matter. . . .
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
462. A Symphony of History: Will Durant's The Story of Civilization
- Author:
- Dan Norton
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Eleven years ago, toward the end of my undergraduate years as a philosophy major at the University of Virginia, I was feeling dissatisfied with my knowledge of history. I had taken several history courses but wanted more. Because my immediate interest was ancient Greece, I decided to try a friend's recommendation, The Life of Greece by Will Durant. Finding the book at the library, I was surprised to see that it was but one volume in a massive series called The Story of Civilization—eleven substantial volumes spanning two feet of shelving.1 Although I wanted to learn more about history, I wasn't sure I wanted to learn that much. It turned out that I did. Reading those volumes—sometimes poring over large portions of them multiple times—would be one of the most enlightening and enjoyable experiences of my life. First published between 1935 and 1975, The Story of Civilization is a work of great and enduring value. Exceptional for its masterful prose as well as its size and scope, the Story is a powerful combination of style and substance. An author of rare literary talents, Durant (1885–1981) won a wide readership through his ability to make history intriguing, lively, and dramatic. His volumes, intended for the general reader and each designed to be readable apart from the others, have sold millions of copies. Some even became best sellers, and the tenth volume, Rousseau and Revolution, won a Pulitzer Prize. Individual volumes have been translated into more than twenty languages.2 Having earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1917 from Columbia University, Durant first won fame and phenomenal success with The Story of Philosophy (1926). This book sold two million copies in a few years and has sold three million copies to date; eighty-five years later, the book is still in print and has been translated into nineteen languages.3 Durant followed this book with another best seller, The Mansions of Philosophy (1929).4 His earnings from these and other books, as well as from articles and public lectures, helped free his time for writing The Story of Civilization, which would be his magnum opus. His wife, Ariel Durant (1898–1981), assisted him throughout his writing of the Story, her assistance increasing to the point that, beginning with the seventh volume, she received credit as coauthor.5 The Story of Civilization begins with Our Oriental Heritage, a volume on Egypt and Asiatic civilizations. The remaining ten volumes tell the story of Western civilization (with a substantial treatment of Islamic civilization in one of the volumes6). Durant's original intention was to tell the story of the West up to the present, but, despite working on the Story for more than four decades, he was unable to do so: “[A]s the story came closer to our own times and interests it presented an ever greater number of personalities and events still vitally influential today; and these demanded no mere lifeless chronicle, but a humanizing visualization which in turn demanded space” (vol. 7, p. vii). The increasing space he gave to each period of European history resulted in his having to end the Story with the downfall of Napoleon in 1815; moreover, he had to omit the history of the Americas entirely. He was ninety when the Story's last volume was published and had carried it as far as he could. In each volume Durant takes a comprehensive approach, covering, for each nation and in each period of its history, all the major aspects of civilization: politics, economics, philosophy, religion, literature, art, and science.7 He called his approach the “integral” or “synthetic” method, and regarded it as an original contribution to historiography.8 Elaborating on the origin of his method, he writes: I had expounded the idea in 1917 in a paper . . . “On the Writing of History.” . . . Its thesis: whereas economic life, politics, religion, morals and manners, science, philosophy, literature, and art had all moved contemporaneously, and in mutual influence, in each epoch of each civilization, historians had recorded each aspect in almost complete separation from the rest. . . . So I cried, “Hold, enough!” to what I later termed “shredded history,” and called for an “integral history” in which all the phases of human activity would be presented in one complex narrative, in one developing, moving, picture. I did not, of course, propose a cloture on lineal and vertical history (tracing the course of one element in civilization), nor on brochure history (reporting original research on some limited subject or event), but I thought that these had been overdone, and that the education of mankind required a new type of historian—not quite like Gibbon, or Macaulay, or Ranke, who had given nearly all their attention to politics, religion, and war, but rather like Voltaire, who, in his Siècle de Louis XIV and his Essai sur les moeurs, had occasionally left the court, the church, and the camp to consider and record morals, literature, philosophy, and art.9 Durant's integral history does not only occasionally consider these latter areas (which he calls “cultural history” or “the history of the mind,”)10 it emphasizes them. “While recognizing the importance of government and statesmanship, we have given the political history of each period and state as the oft-told background, rather than the substance or essence of the tale; our chief interest was in the history of the mind” (vol. 10, p. vii). (Nevertheless, the Story contains ample and excellent material on politics.) The Story is by far the most massive and thorough treatment of Western civilization by a single author (or team of two) that I have been able to find. Large teams of historians have collaborated to produce similarly large, or even larger, works. But such works, writes a respected historian, “while they gain substantially in authoritative character, are seriously lacking in correlation and are not written from a . . . harmonious point of view.”11 Harmony is indeed one of the cardinal virtues of Durant's work; readers find therein a beautifully integrated tale of man's past, a veritable symphony of history. For this reason and others—notably, Durant's grand, philosophical overviews and scintillating style—I believe that many, and perhaps most, readers will find no better place to turn for a large treatment of Western civilization than The Story of Civilization. . . .
- Topic:
- Government and History
- Political Geography:
- America and Europe
463. Around the World: "The Communist War against the Philippines and Why It Rages On"
- Author:
- Joshua Lipana
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- An insurgency led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is ravaging the nation's countryside.1 Children as young as twelve are forced to join the “New People's Army” (NPA) and to fight for the communist cause.2 Farmers are often killed for refusing to support or join the communist cause. Businessmen are threatened with death or the destruction of their property should they not pay taxes to the revolutionaries. Politicians in areas of strong communist influence either become puppets of the CPP-NPA or are murdered. This insurgency has killed more than 120,000 Filipinos to date, and the body count is rapidly rising.3 The communist insurgents' ultimate goal is to conquer the nation, and they are fighting toward this end via two means. The first of these is armed force. According to Jun Alcover, a former high-ranking Communist Party member turned anticommunist congressman, the CPP hopes “to win the revolutionary struggle and change the social, economic, and political landscape in the Philippines—[through] armed revolution, Mao Zedong style.”4 Yettan Verita Liwanag, a coauthor with Alcover of the book Atrocities Lies: The Untold Secrets of the Communist Party of the Philippines, details the communists' plan to carry out this bloody insurrection. The first step would be to draw a significant number of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) away from the island of Luzon (where the capital is) to the southern Island of Mindanao, where the NPA, allied with secessionist forces such as the Moro National Liberation Front and the Bangsa Moro Army, would be able to bog down the AFP. “Attacks from the combined forces would tie down a large part of the AFP in the south. By splitting the AFP, NPA forces in the Visayaz could then contribute to the uprising by simultaneously assaulting their areas of responsibility. Finally, after achieving strategic advantage over the elements of the AFP by dividing its attention,” the communists in Luzon could “then strike the National Capital Region by surrounding it with pockets of Red-controlled areas and enveloping it from the inside” with a massive uprising of armed and non-armed supporters, ranging from workers to leftist students.5 This is the communist dream of violent revolution as envisioned by the founder and leader of the New People's Army—however, it is a long shot.6 The communists know that the AFP, which is far more powerful than their own modest forces, would almost surely win an all-out military conflict. So the communists are also fighting for control of the Philippines on a second, more insidious front. The CPP-NPA is trying to increase its reputation as a legitimate political party within the international community; meanwhile, it is smearing the Philippine government and the AFP as human-rights violators and mass murderers. The communists hope ultimately to cause enough commotion to invite direct intervention in Filipino affairs from foreign entities (including the United Nations), leading to pressure from those entities to accommodate the communists and perhaps even create a coalition government with them.7 In this way the CPP-NPA could wield much power in the Philippines while reducing the damage to its insurgency force. Even more amazing than the fact that a remnant of the Cold War severely threatens the Philippines is the fact that the Philippine government is permitting it to do so. From its prime in the 1980 of tens of thousands of “comrades,” the NPA has been reduced to a few thousand—a number that the Philippine government could easily squash. Yet a continuous policy of accommodation and appeasement from the Philippine government has allowed the NPA to survive, threatening the prosperity and lives of all Filipinos. . . .
- Topic:
- Government and War
- Political Geography:
- Philippines
464. Atlas Shrugged: Part I
- Author:
- C.A. Wolski
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Although Ayn Rand published her epic novel Atlas Shrugged fifty-four years ago, and although it has consistently sold hundreds of thousands of copies annually, Rand's magnum opus has spent decades mired in Hollywood “development hell.” Numerous producers, stars, screenwriters, and film production companies have endeavored but failed to execute a film version (see: “Atlas Shrugged's Long Journey to the Silver Screen,” p. 35). All the while, fans of the novel have anxiously waited for the day when they could watch the story come to life on the silver screen. That day is finally here. Atlas Shrugged: Part I, the first in a planned trilogy, should, for the most part, please the novel's patient fans. Fortuitously following a blueprint similar to one outlined by Rand in the 1970s (see “Adapting Atlas: Ayn Rand's own Approach,” p. 38), the film covers the first third of the story. Like the novel, the movie focuses on Dagny Taggart as she endeavors to save her struggling railroad from both intrusive government regulations and the mysterious John Galt, who is hastening the nation's collapse by causing the great entrepreneurs and thinkers of the country to disappear. She is aided in her efforts by Henry “Hank” Rearden, a steel magnate who is also being squeezed by government regulations and is anxious to put an end to John Galt's activities. Those familiar with the novel know generally what to expect: the disappearance of more and more industrialists and other great producers, the banning of Rearden Metal, the “Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule,” the initial run of the John Galt Line, and finally Wyatt's Torch and the collapse of Colorado.
- Topic:
- Development and Government
- Political Geography:
- America, Middle East, and Colorado
465. The King's Speech
- Author:
- C.A. Wolski
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- It is 1939 and England is in crisis—war looms, the government is in chaos, the people are in despair. All eyes turn to the country's reluctant, recently crowned monarch, George VI, to offer stirring words that will brace them for the coming storm. But there's the rub. The king suffers from a paralyzing stammer, and there are grave doubts that he will be able to deliver the speech that will unite his nation. Tom Hooper's Academy-Award winning The King's Speech is much more than a simple, inspiring wartime tale of a historical figure overcoming a physical and psychological ailment. The story of how Albert, Duke of York, later King George VI, overcame his stammer to give a series of rousing wartime speeches that united and inspired his nation is indeed the framework of the film. But at its heart, the film is the story of the power of the human mind and how hard work and perseverance—not miracles and wishes—are the bulwarks of the human spirit. The film opens in 1925. Albert (played by Colin Firth) must deliver the closing speech of the Empire Exhibition. The king's second son is terrified. He is led to the podium where his speech will not only be heard by the assembled crowd but is being simultaneously broadcast across the Empire. The time comes, and in what can only be described as sheer agony, Albert chokes out the first few words. He is next seen several months later at a session with a so-called “speech therapist” who insists that smoking will “relax the throat” and that stuffing one's mouth full of marbles is the “classic” cure for stuttering. Both remedies, unsurprisingly, fail. Albert, with the help of his wife, Elizabeth (played by Helena Bonham Carter), eventually lands himself in the offices of Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian speech therapist, who promises that he can help Albert (whom he insists on calling “Bertie” to the prince's continuing disdain) overcome his stammer and speak clearly. The eccentric speech therapist delivers. Through hard work, setbacks, and triumphs, Logue, with sometimes unusual therapeutic techniques and a wry bit of psychoanalysis, treats the prince and helps him rediscover the confidence and self-esteem that had been robbed from him during his bleak childhood. The efforts culminate in the pivotal speech that Albert, as king, must give. Success is the only option—and the psychological tightrope the king must cross during this moment is more compelling than any explosive action sequence one might imagine. . . .
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Australia and England
466. The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World
- Author:
- Roderick Fitts
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- In The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World, Dr. Laura Snyder contrasts the early 19th-century man of science (or “natural philosopher”) with the modern scientist. Yesteryear's men of science were usually wealthy (often from an inheritance), pursuing their scientific interests with no support from a government, university, or corporation. Their discoveries, though long used by kings and governments, were rarely regarded as something that could improve the lives of ordinary men and women. The men of science would hardly ever meet, and they would never debate the merits of their work or papers publicly. Unsurprisingly then, they had reached no consensus as to a proper “scientific method,” and no single process of reaching theories was upheld above any other. The modern scientist, by contrast, is a specialized, credentialed professional who usually works for a government or university while conducting research. This scientist routinely defends his work from contemporaries in the same field, is answerable to the public, and is even seen as a social reformer of sorts, capable of dramatically improving lives politically, economically, or socially. On top of it all, he adheres to a standard account of the scientific method, even as ongoing debates about the specifics of that method emerge and are assessed. Who or what accounts for the transformation of the field of science and of its practitioners? The dominant thesis of Snyder's Philosophical Breakfast Club is that the efforts and achievements of four Cambridge graduates, friends, and men of science—John Herschel, Charles Babbage, Richard Jones, and William Whewell (pronounced “Who-ell”)—are largely responsible for our modern conception of what it means to be a scientist. To support her claim, she presents a biographical account of their lives, discussing their scientific, family, and social lives as well as their goals, personal interests, and the social context surrounding them. Each chapter presents aspects of what the four accomplished (or attempted to accomplish), along with the contextual background necessary to understand the importance of their work. The result is a clear view of the social and scientific atmosphere in which these men lived, and an even clearer understanding of exactly what they wanted to change in the world of science, and why. . . .
- Topic:
- Government
467. Letters and Replies
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- New York and America
468. An Unfinished Revolution
- Author:
- Shadi Hamid
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- On 25 January 2011, the first day of Egypt's uprising, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed: "our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable." Eighteen days later, Egypt had a revolution, which concluded when the Egyptian military forced President Hosni Mubarak to step down from his position. After this remarkable turn of events, the Egyptian regime was simultaneously thought to be both more ruthless and more unified. After several years of impressive economic growth, the regime had the support of a powerful emerging business elite. It also had the United States as its primary benefactor. None of that was enough.
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States and Egypt
469. Editor's Note
- Author:
- Michael McKeon and Imani Tate
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Espionage and intelligence-gathering activities have evolved significantly since the end of the Cold War. State governments are no longer the only actors to make use of these practices, and information collection methods range from covert surveillance activities to monitoring financial transactions. Espionage plays an ever-greater role in the operations of states, non-state actors, and corporations, and has, as a result, created a host of new challenges to U.S. interests. The authors in this issue's Forum provide a glimpse into the ubiquity and complexity of espionage and intelligence-gathering, and offer insight into the implications of their use in finance, industry, and national security. Other contributions to this issue include articles about the end of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan, constitutional reform in Burma, anti-human trafficking policies, and power politics in Kenya's Mau Forest Complex. We are proud to remain a source of information on a wide range of topics, and to give voice to leading academics, policy experts, and practitioners in the field of international affairs. We thank our staff, advisers, supporters, and the School of Foreign Service for their tireless work and dedication to this publication.
- Topic:
- Cold War and Government
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, United States, and Burma
470. Introduction
- Author:
- Catherine Lotrionte
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Espionage and intelligence-gathering activities have evolved significantly since the end of the Cold War. State governments are no longer the only actors to make use of these practices, and information collection methods range from covert surveillance activities to monitoring financial transactions. Espionage plays an ever-greater role in the operations of states, non-state actors, and corporations, and has, as a result, created a host of new challenges to U.S. interests. The Forum of this issue addresses the changing threat of espionage after the Cold War, some of the new consumers of intelligence, and the unique and effective ways that actors have begun to use these practices.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Government, and Intelligence
- Political Geography:
- United States
471. Ethnicity, Elections, and Reform in Burma
- Author:
- David C. Williams
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- In November 2010, Burma elected a partially civilian government after fifty years of military rule. The country's ethnically diverse citizenry is rightfully concerned that the Junta will seize power again, as Burma's constitution permits. The international community must work closely with Burma's new government, composed of military personnel and civilian office-holders, to ensure basic rights, fair treatment, and political voice for all of the country's inhabitants.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Burma
472. Reducing Inequality: The Role of Reforms in Brazil
- Author:
- Phillipe G. Leite
- Publication Date:
- 02-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Government programs have significantly reduced inequality in Brazil over the past fifteen years. Much work remains, however, to ensure these initiatives remain sustainable.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Brazil
473. "Cosmopolitan Regard: Political Membership and Global Justice"
- Author:
- David Miller
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This volume is an impressive addition to the small but growing body of literature on global justice that tries to find a midpoint between cosmopolitanism and statism or nationalism (other books in this category include Kok-Chor Tan's Justice without Borders and Gillian Brock's Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account). The aim is to make room for the idea that we owe special duties to our fellow citizens by virtue of some feature of our relationship, while at the same time to show that these duties are only defensible if we also acknowledge certain cosmopolitan responsibilities. Vernon follows an original path to this conclusion. The argument is quite intricate, and I cannot engage with all of it in the space of a short review, so I will focus on what I take to be the book's central claims.
- Topic:
- Government
474. Andreas Goldthau and Jan Martin Witte (eds.) Global Energy Governance. The New Rules of the Game
- Author:
- Paula Ganga
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- Traditionally, when energy is discussed the focus is placed primarily on the supply side of the chain, on state-to-state competition in which one country's energy gain is another one's loss and on the struggle to achieve energy security and be protected against a possible “energy weapon”. Both the academic and the policy worlds still use this zero-sum approach to analyze the energy domain while the changes that have occurred in the global energy landscape should have made this geopolitical paradigm obsolete. With these observations in mind the authors have embarked on addressing this research gap by shifting the focus of the energy discussion from a narrow security perspective to a broader governance-centered view on energy emphasizing the role played by rules and institutions.
- Topic:
- Government
475. Somali Parent-Child Conflict in the Western World: Some Brief Reflections
- Author:
- Amin Mohamed and Ahmed Yusuf
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
- Institution:
- Macalester College
- Abstract:
- According to UNICEF, there are about 14.5 million refugees, of whom 41 percent are believed to be children under age 18. It is also estimated that 1.5 billion children (two-thirds of the world's child population) live in 42 countries that are affected by violent and high intensity conflict. Among these is Somalia, a country without a central government since 1991, and suffering a never-ending cycle of hostilities. As a result, Somali parents, along with their children, are scattered all over the world for safety reasons and for a better future for their children.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Somalia
476. Peace Before Freedom: Diplomacy and Repression in Sadat's Egypt
- Author:
- Jason Brownlee
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- The Egyptian – Israeli Peace Treaty of April 1979 capped four major wars and inaugurated a new U.S. – Egyptian relationship. Henceforth, U.S. presidents would regard the Egyptian – Israeli treaty as a cornerstone of American interests and values in the region. In 2003, President George W. Bush recognized Egypt as a trailblazer of peace and urged the country to “ show the way toward democracy in the Middle East. ” 1 The remark spoke to Washington ʼ s success reconciling historic adversaries and its ostensible hope for political reform in Cairo. Between the U.S. and Egyptian governments, though, peace and democracy had been at odds since the treaty ʼ s drafting. The autocratic prerogatives of President Anwar Sadat (r. 1970 – 1981) were a sine qua non of successful bargaining. Negotiators on all sides presupposed tight policing within Egypt. At this crossroads of diplomacy and domestic poli- tics, Sadat fused international peace and internal repression.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, Middle East, and Egypt
477. Sovereign Wealth Funds in Nondemocratic Countries: Financing Entrenchment or Change?
- Author:
- Sven Behrendt
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- The rising prominence of sovereign wealth funds—investment funds that are owned or controlled by national governments—has stirred debate about their potential use as tools to pursue global political interests rather than economic or financial ends. Recent sanctions levied on the Libyan Investment Authority, formerly operated by the government of Muammar al-Qaddafi, underscore this question. This article argues that the governance, accountability and transparency arrangements of sovereign wealth funds reflect the quality of political institutions within the countries that own them. In contrast to funds based in democratic states, those managed by authoritarian governments are distinguished by a lack of public oversight and are instead tightly controlled by the prevailing political leadership. The link between political leadership and fund management in many authoritarian countries allows governments more flexibility in using financial assets to pursue immediate political agendas.
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
- Political Geography:
- Libya
478. Iran's Regime of Religion
- Author:
- Mehdi Khalaji
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic has modernized and bureaucratized the clerical establishment, redefined religion and created institutions to enforce this new definition. The effect has been a transformation of religion into a symbolic form of capital. By monopolizing religious affairs, the political system has become a regime of religion in which the state plays the role of central banker for symbolic religious capital. Consequently, the expansion and monopolization of the religious market have helped the Islamic Republic increase the ranks of its supporters and beneficiaries significantly, even among critics of the government. This article demonstrates how the accumulation of religious capital in the hands of the government mutually influences the nature of the state and the clerical establishment and will continue to do so in Iran's uncertain future.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Iran
479. New Media Entrepreneurs in China: Allies of the Party-State or Civil Society?
- Author:
- Johan Lagerkvist
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- Today more than 500 million Chinese Internet users roam social networking websites. Of them, as many as 300 million are part of a rapidly growing microblogosphere. This article examines the predicament of companies providing social networking services inside China's Great Firewall—specifically, the way in which they handle conflicting demands from the party-state and emerging civil society. In light of the phenomenal growth of microblogging and the Chinese government's tighter control over netizens in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, the issue of social agency comes to the fore. This article asks if the Chinese entrepreneurial class—the so-called “red capitalists”—could become agents of democratic political change. Are Internet entrepreneurs allies of civil society or the government? Based on their current esprit de corps with the state, it is unlikely that they will directly assist social change in the foreseeable future. Yet willingly or not, by providing civil society with tools to challenge the regime, they are becoming key players in the process of creating a more inclusive and accountable politics in China.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- China
480. A Zhabdrung Phunsum Tshogpa (zhabs drung phun sum tshogs pa) Thangka from the National Museum of Bhutan Collection∗
- Author:
- Ariana Maki
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Bhutan Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
- Abstract:
- Visions, and the ability to articulate them in an accessible fashion, play a crucial role in disseminating religious tradition, lineage and claims to legitimacy. Further, visions can and do stand as testimony to significant persons, entities and events. The visions of religious masters and treasure revealers give rise to new doctrines and practices, while a leader’s vision frequently provides the impetus for the development and implementation of institutions and ideals. And the visions of artists offer tangible forms to religious and philosophical concepts. The third king of Bhutan, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck (‘jigs med rdo rje dbang phyug, 1928-1972, r. 1952-1972), was a key visionary who redefined the path of his kingdom in many ways, by bringing Bhutan into the UN, abolishing labour taxes, and significantly overhauling the structure of the government. It was also his foresight that established the National Museum of Bhutan (‘brug rgyal yongs ‘grems ston khang; Figure 1). When the National Museum opened in 1968, only a few personal guests of the royal family and some government officials visited. Today, the number of museum guests surpasses 20,000 annually. Seven floors of galleries showcase Bhutanese visual culture from its earliest phases, and span archaeological finds, paintings, postage stamps, weaponry, bronze ware, traditional crafts, natural history specimens and religious treasures. The article intends to illustrate how iconography can frequently illuminate what lies behind a particular work of art, and as a result can increase our understanding of the time, place and context that gave rise to it. This painting, like so much of Bhutanese art functions in the religious and philosophical realms, and, due to the circumstances of its creation, carries with it strong political overtones as well. Beyond attesting to a lineage, some works illustrate how particular individuals saw themselves, or, how they wanted to be perceived.
- Topic:
- Government, Religion, Culture, Philosophy, and Museums
- Political Geography:
- South Asia and Bhutan
481. Convergence of State Policy Analyses in the Context of Globalization : An Application of the 'Herbert Kitschelt' Model
- Author:
- Alex Igho Ovie-D'Leone
- Publication Date:
- 11-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
- Institution:
- Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
- Abstract:
- The effects or indeed impacts of ongoing globalization have been quite fundamental in all facets of human endeavours. The world has become closely more interconnected, interdependent within the context of a global village. Consequently, sovereign national borders have been increasingly breached with impunity and in alarming frequencies by events occurring in very remote locations across the world. There are now obvious constraints on the manner states have to make and formulate their policy decisions, knowing fully well that they could almost invariably affect trends in far flung locations worldwide. Viewed then against this backdrop, it is obvious that the borderline that traditionally separates domestic from foreign policies now also appear blurred increasingly by such intervening influences of globalization. If we then take this position as given, there appears to be an urgent need to rethink the basic theoretical props utilized over time in analyzing government policies generally. The intention here is to devise a common analytical model that could be readily applicable to both domestic and foreign policies. This paper examines critically the so-called 'Kitschelt Model' and submits that, as an analytical frame, and under the intervening influences of ongoing globalization, there is a veritable basis now to analyze almost any government policy whether they are oriented towards the domestic or foreign context from a central point of convergence.
- Topic:
- Government
482. Russia's Financial Crisis: Economic Setbacks and Policy Responses
- Author:
- Padma Desai
- Publication Date:
- 06-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- The financial turmoil originating from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis hit Russia by early September 2008, prompting the Russian government and the Central Bank of Russia to undertake a set of speedy and concerted measures to soften the impact of the crisis. These initial measures supported the value of the ruble as ruble holders, domestic and foreign, switched to dollars. They also provided hard currency to major Russian banks and Russian big business (the so-called oligarchs) which had borrowed heavily from foreign banks for their expanding operations from 2000 to 2007.
- Topic:
- Government and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Russia and United States
483. Adjusting to Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations
- Author:
- Robert Hoekstra and Charles Tucker Jr.
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Drawing on the lessons learned from coalition interventions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, by mid-2004, a consensus developed within the executive branch, Congress, and among independent experts that the U.S. Government required a more robust capacity to prevent conflict (when possible) and (when necessary) to manage “Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations [SROs] in countries emerging from conflict or civil strife.”
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution and Government
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Kosovo
484. Organized Crime in Iraq: Strategic Surprise and Lessons for Future Contingencies
- Author:
- Phil Williams
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the United States encountered a series of strategic surprises, including the hostility to the occupation, the fragility of Iraq's infrastructure, and the fractious nature of Iraqi politics. One of the least spectacular but most significant of these surprises was the rise of organized crime and its emergence as a postconflict spoiler. This development was simply not anticipated. Organized crime in Iraq in the months and years after March 2003 emerged as a major destabilizing influence, increasing the sense of lawlessness and public insecurity, undermining the efforts to regenerate the economy, and financing the violent opposition to the occupation forces. In 2003, the theft of copper from downed electric pylons made the restoration of power to the national grid much more difficult. In 2008, the capacity to generate funds through criminal activities enabled al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) to continue resisting both the U.S. military and the Iraqi government. Moreover, with the planned U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, organized crime in the country will continue to flourish by maintaining well established crime-corruption networks. It might also expand by exploiting the continued weakness of the Iraqi state.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iraq
485. Unions, the Rule of Law, and Political Rent Seeking
- Author:
- Armand Thieblot
- Publication Date:
- 02-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Under the Obama administration, the influence and involvement of trade unions in government policy decisions has surged to unprecedented levels. Some of the more egregious examples include the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which abolishes the secret ballot among workers deciding on union representation and imposes forced interest arbitration of contract disputes; the selective protection of union healthcare benefits from proposed “reform” legislation; the awarding of assets seized from major automotive companies to the United Automobile Workers; and the involvement of union personnel, especially members of the Service Employees International Union, in electioneering efforts and counter-demonstrations on behalf of the Democratic party. That all of this has occurred within less than a year is especially troublesome. What makes it more so is the well-established pattern, on the part of unions, to disregard and disrespect the rule of law.
- Topic:
- Government
486. Armistice Now: An Interim Agreement for Israel and Palestine
- Author:
- Ehud Yaari
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- More than 16 years after the euphoria of the Oslo accords, the Israelis and the Palestinians have still not reached a final-status peace agreement. Indeed, the last decade has been dominated by setbacks -- the second intifada, which started in September 2000; Hamas' victory in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections; and then its military takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 -- all of which have aggravated the conflict.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- America, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
487. India's Rise, America's Interest: The Fate of the U.S.-Indian Partnership
- Author:
- Evan A. Feigenbaum
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Until the late 1990s, the United States often ignored India, treating it as a regional power in South Asia with little global weight. India's weak and protected economy gave it little influence in global markets, and its nonaligned foreign policy caused periodic tension with Washington. When the United States did concentrate on India, it too often fixated on India's military rivalry with Pakistan. Today, however, India is dynamic and transforming. Starting in 1991, leaders in New Delhi -- including Manmohan Singh, then India's finance minister and now its prime minister -- pursued policies of economic liberalization that opened the country to foreign investment and yielded rapid growth. India is now an important economic power, on track (according to Goldman Sachs and others) to become a top-five global economy by 2030. It is a player in global economic decisions as part of both the G-20 and the G-8 + 5 (the G-8 plus the five leading emerging economies) and may ultimately attain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. India's trajectory has diverged sharply from that of Pakistan. With economic growth, India acquired the capacity to act on issues of primary strategic and economic concern to the United States. The United States, in turn, has developed a growing stake in continued Indian reform and success -- especially as they contribute to global growth, promote market-based economic policies, help secure the global commons, and maintain a mutually favorable balance of power in Asia. For its part, New Delhi seeks a United States that will help facilitate India's rise as a major power. Two successive Indian governments have pursued a strategic partnership with the United States that would have been unthinkable in the era of the Cold War and nonalignment. This turnaround in relations culminated in 2008, when the two countries signed a civil nuclear agreement. That deal helped end India's nuclear isolation by permitting the conduct of civil nuclear trade with New Delhi, even though India is not a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Important as the agreement was, however, the U.S.-Indian relationship remains constrained. For example, although U.S. officials hold standing dialogues about nearly every region of the world with their counterparts from Beijing, Brussels, and Tokyo, no such arrangements exist with New Delhi.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Washington, India, and New Delhi
488. From the Editor
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- This issue of The Objective Standard begins our fifth year of publication, and 2010 is shaping up to be our most exciting year to date. A few items of note: TOS is now on more than four hundred newsstands, and this number is increasing steadily. Look for us in Barnes Noble, Bookstar, Hastings, and other bookstores and newsstands nationwide.
- Topic:
- Government
489. Letters and Replies
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Thank you for publishing Paul Beard's excellent article regarding the California Coastal Commission. Perhaps it was intended to be implied, but nowhere in the article was it stated that Pacific Legal Foundation, whose Coastal Land Rights Project Mr. Beard now heads, has represented the property owners in all of the cases he described.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States
490. Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech in America
- Author:
- Steve Simpson
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- The Supreme Court's recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC is one of the most important First Amendment decisions in a generation and one of the most controversial. In it, the Supreme Court struck down a law that banned corporations from spending their own money on speech that advocated the election or defeat of candidates. In the process, the Court overturned portions of McConnell v. FEC, a case in which the Supreme Court, a mere six years ago, upheld McCain-Feingold, one of the most sweeping restrictions on campaign speech in history.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- America
491. Government-Run Health Care vs. the Hippocratic Oath
- Author:
- Paul Hsieh
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- When medical students graduate from medical school, they take an oath-the Hippocratic oath-in which they solemnly swear, above all, to use their best judgment in treating their patients. Doctors hold this oath as sacrosanct; they regard upholding it as morally mandatory, and violating it as out of the question. But in order to uphold this oath, in order to practice medicine in accordance with their best judgment, doctors must be free to practice in accordance with their best judgment. Unfortunately, U.S. politicians are working feverishly to prevent doctors from upholding the Hippocratic oath. How so? By implementing government-run health care. Politicians' efforts to impose government-run health care include their goal of "guaranteeing" health care to everyone. But whenever the government attempts to "guarantee" health care, it must also control the costs of that service-which means, it must dictate how doctors may and may not practice. Toward this end, as Harvard professor Martin Feldstein notes, advocates of government-run health care call for "comparative effectiveness" practice guidelines. Quoting the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Feldstein points out that these guidelines are designed to ration health care and reduce spending by "implementing a set of performance measures that all providers would adopt" and by "directly targeting individual providers . . . (and other) high-end outliers."1 ("High-end outliers" is government-speak for "physicians who order more tests or perform more procedures than the government deems appropriate.") An example of such "effectiveness" guidelines is the new federal recommendations for screening mammography. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently recommended restricting mammogram screening to women over age fifty, despite the fact that medical organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the American College of Radiology-whose conclusions are based on years of peer-reviewed scientific research-have long recommended that women begin routine mammography at age forty.2 The USPSTF argues that eliminating mammograms for women between ages forty and forty-nine would result in only one additional cancer death per nineteen hundred women screened-an increase in death that they evidently consider acceptable.3 The announcement of these new guidelines caused so much public controversy that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius quickly backpedaled and stated that these particular USPSTF recommendations would be "nonbinding."4 But what does "nonbinding" mean when it refers to the guidelines of a government agency? The government is an agent of force. Any government "recommendations" come with at least the implicit threat that recalcitrant doctors may face negative consequences. Not surprisingly, government medical agencies have already adopted the new guidelines. The California state government has begun using the USPSTF guidelines to determine which services patients in the Medi-Cal program may and may not receive.5 (Medi-Cal is the California equivalent of Medicaid in other states.) Government-funded health programs in New York and Ohio have already begun turning away women under fifty seeking mammograms.6 And, Sibelius's reassurances notwithstanding, Congress is considering giving the USPSTF legal authority to determine which screening tests will or will not be covered for patients with private health insurance.7 How are American physicians responding to these developments? Fortunately, many have chosen to ignore the guidelines, to continue practicing according to their best medical judgment, and to order mammograms on their female patients between ages forty and fifty as they see fit.8 But bear in mind that the White House Council of Economic Advisers has already pejoratively labeled such physicians "high-end outliers." If the government decided to enforce its "comparative effectiveness" guidelines, such doctors could be punished at any moment. And bear in mind what the punishment would be for: upholding their Hippocratic oath, their promise to practice according to their best judgment for the best interests of their patients.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States
492. The Practicality of Private Waterways
- Author:
- Alan Germani and J. Brian Phillips
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- For centuries, few have questioned the idea that waterways-streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans-are or should be "public property." The doctrine of "public trust," with roots in both Roman and English common law, holds that these resources should not be privately owned but rather held in trust by government for use by all. The United States Supreme Court cited this doctrine in 1892, ruling that state governments properly hold title to waterways such as lakes and rivers, "a title held in trust for the people of the state that they may enjoy the navigation of the waters, carry on commerce over them, and have liberty of fishing therein freed from the obstruction or interference of private parties."1 This "public ownership," however, is increasingly thwarting the life-serving nature of waterways as sources of drinking water, fish, and recreation. Predictably, when a resource-whether a park, an alleyway, or a pond-is owned by "everyone," its users have less incentive to protect or improve its long-term value than they would if it were owned by an individual or a corporation. Users of "public property" tend to use the resource for short-term gain, often causing the deterioration of its long-term value-the well-known "tragedy of the commons." This phenomenon is perhaps nowhere clearer than in the case of waterways. "Public ownership" of waterways has led to, among other problems, harmful levels of pollution and depleted fish populations. Many waterways around the world have become so polluted that they are no longer fit for human use. In 2004, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that one-third of America's lakes and nearly one-fourth of its rivers were under fish-consumption advisories due to polluted waters.2 In 2005, officials in China estimated that 75 percent of that nation's lakes were contaminated with potentially toxic algal blooms caused by sewage and industrial waste.3 And the World Commission on Water has found that half the world's rivers are either seriously polluted or running dry from irrigation and other human uses or both.4 By one estimate, the contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation that result from pollution and low water levels account for five to ten million deaths per year worldwide.5 In addition to containing harmful levels of pollution, many of the world's waterways are being fished in a manner that is depleting fish populations and threatening with extinction fish species such as red snapper, white sturgeon, and bluefin tuna-species highly valuable to human life.6 By 2003, primarily due to fishing practices associated with public waterways, 27 percent of the world's fisheries (zones where fish and other seafood is caught) had "collapsed"-the term used by scientists to denote fish populations that drop to 10 percent or less of their historical highs.7 In 2006, the journal Science published a study that offered a grim prediction: All of the world's fisheries will collapse by 2048.8 Whether or not all of the world's fisheries will collapse in a mere forty years, the data clearly show that current fishing practices are depleting supplies of many species of consumable fish. At best, at the current rate of fish depletion, many fishermen will lose their livelihoods and consumers will have fewer and fewer species from which to choose, species that will become more and more expensive. What solutions have been proposed? Federal and state governments have attempted to remedy these problems through regulation-violating rights and creating new problems in the process. For example, twenty-five states prohibit or severely restrict the use of laundry detergents containing phosphates, substances that harm aquatic life when present in water in high quantities.9 A growing number of state and local governments-including Westchester County, New York, and Annapolis, Maryland-are enacting similar regulations on phosphate-containing fertilizers.10 These laws violate the rights of detergent and fertilizer manufacturers by precluding them from creating the products they choose to create-and they violate the rights of consumers who want to buy such products rather than more-expensive, less-effective alternatives. Further, these rights-violating prohibitions have proven impractical in achieving their purpose: Despite many such regulations having been in effect for nearly forty years,11 an estimated two-thirds of America's bays and estuaries still contain harmful amounts of phosphates.12 Regulations regarding sewage treatment have proven similarly impractical: Since 1972, the federal government has forced water utilities to spend billions of dollars upgrading water treatment facilities, and yet, during the past four years, record numbers of beaches have closed due to pollution from sewage.13 And, for what it is worth, the EPA predicts that by 2016 American rivers will be as polluted by sewage as they were in the 1970s.14 Government efforts to address depleted fish populations have proven similarly impractical. The history of the halibut industry in Alaska is an illuminating case in point. In the 1970s, the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC)-a U.S.-backed intergovernmental regulatory agency-established a five-month fishing season in public waters off the Alaskan coast with the hope of maintaining halibut populations, which had become severely depleted. But forcibly limiting the time during which fishermen could operate did little to improve the fishery's viability: Fishermen simply worked more vigorously during the season, and the halibut population remained at historically low levels. So, in the 1980s, the IPHC attempted to remedy the problem by reducing the five-month fishing season dramatically-to as few as two days.15 During these shortened windows of opportunity, fishermen took extreme risks to maximize their catches, only to be "rewarded" onshore with the plummeting prices of a glutted market. And, in the end, the huge catches brought in by fishermen on these days were still large enough to jeopardize the halibut population.16 So, in 1995, the IPHC dropped the idea of a short fishing season and instead introduced a "catch share program," through which it limits each fisherman's yearly catch to a percentage of what it deems to be a "safe" overall halibut harvest. But neither has this policy helped the situation; today, after more than two decades of shifting regulations, the usable halibut population in Alaskan waters is less than in 1985.17 Although some claim that still more government regulations are required to combat the ongoing problems of pollution and depleted fish populations, any such coercive measures are in principle doomed to failure because they attempt to treat problems in the waterways while ignoring their actual cause: "public ownership." Government force may provide a disincentive for certain behaviors, but this disincentive does not motivate the users of waterways to maintain or enhance the life-serving value of these resources. As a result, America's waterways remain largely and significantly polluted, and fish populations, even where they are stabilizing, remain at levels insufficient to meet the growing demand for seafood. . . . Endnotes The authors would like to thank Craig Biddle, Dwyane Hicks, and Thomas A. Bowden for discussions that aided the authors' understanding of the issues discussed in this article, and Matthew Gerber, Ben Bayer, and Steve Simpson for helpful comments made to earlier drafts. 1 Illinois Central R.R. Co. v Illinois (1892) 146 U.S. 387, 452. 2 Jaime Holguin, "Pollution Overtaking Lakes, Rivers,," CBSNews.com, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/24/tech/main638130.shtml. 3 Antoaneta Bezlova, "China's Toxic Spillover," Asia Times, December 2, 2005, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/GL02Cb06.html. When consumed by fish, shellfish, and livestock, such hazardous algae can enter the human food chain. 4 Mary Dejevsky, "Half of World's Rivers Polluted or Running Dry," The Independent, November 30, 1999; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/half-of-worlds-rivers-polluted-or-running-dry-1129811.html. 5 http://www.grinningplanet.com/2005/07-26/water-pollution-facts-article.htm. 6 http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/species/red_snapper.htm , Species l ist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/SpeciesReport.do?groups=E=L=1; http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/07/060724-bluefin-tuna.html. 7 "Catch Shares Key to Reviving Fisheries," Environmental Defense Fund, http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?contentID=8446. 8 Cornelia Dean, "Study Sees 'Global Collapse' of Fish Species," New York Times, November 3, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/science/03fish. 9 http://enviro.blr.com/enviro_docs/88147_9.pdf. 10 Juli S. Charkes, "Board Votes to Ban Phosphate Fertilizers," New York Times, May 1, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/westchester/03lawnwe.html; Karl Blankenship, "Annapolis to Ban Use of Fertilizer with Phosphorus in Most Cases," Bay Journal, http://www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=3511. 11 Michael Hawthorne, "From the Archives: Banned in Chicago but Available in Stores," Chicago Tribune, April 4, 2007, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-daley-phosphates,0,2871187.story. 12 http://www.grinningplanet.com/2005/07-26/water-pollution-facts-article.htm. 13 http://www.nrdc.org/water/oceans/ttw/titinx.asp and http://epa.gov/beaches/learn/pollution.html#primary. 14 Martha L. Noble, "The Clean Water Act at 30-Time to Renew a Commitment to National Stewardship," Catholic Rural Life Magazine, vol. 45, no. 2, Spring 2003, http://www.ncrlc.com/crl-magazine-articles/vol45no2/Noble.pdf. 15 http://www.fishex.com/seafood/halibut/halibut.html. 16 Halibut populations continued to decline, and the IPHC decreased the allowed catch more than 26 percent between 1986 and 1995. http://www.iphc.washington.edu/halcom/commerc/limits80299.htm. 17 The total catch share for halibut-which is based on "exploitable biomass"-declined between 1985 and 2009. For 1985 limits, see http://www.iphc.washington.edu/halcom/commerc/limits80299.htm. For 2009 limits, see http://www.iphc.washington.edu/halcom/newsrel/2009/nr20090120.htm.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
493. Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Taught People To Feed Themselves
- Author:
- Audra Hilse
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- In 1970, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a man named Norman Borlaug. His achievement? Saving hundreds of millions of people from death by starvation. Yet today, few people in America and the West even know his name. This is unfortunate, for his story is heroic. Borlaug was a geneticist and plant pathologist who discovered ways to produce heartier and faster-growing varieties of wheat and other grains, brought these methods to various parts of the world, and taught people how to implement them. Thanks to his work, farmers and agriculturalists were-and are-able to produce orders of magnitude more food than they could prior to his discoveries. Borlaug was born in Iowa on March 25, 1914. His parents were farmers, and he was educated in a one-room schoolhouse through the eighth grade. He did well in high school, and wanted to pursue a college degree. In 1933, on the recommendation of a friend, and despite the onset of the Depression, he hitched a ride north to enroll at the University of Minnesota. He started in the General College, and later chose forestry as his major. He earned his degree in 1937, and was planning to enter the Forest Service until he attended a lecture presented by Dr. E. C. Stakman, a plant pathologist. That talk, Borlaug later said, "changed my life, my whole career."1 Stakman\'s lecture, "These Shifty Little Enemies that Destroy our Food Crops," discussed the spread of plant "rust" that was killing off grains across the United States.2 Borlaug was so fascinated by the subject that, instead of joining the Forest Service, he enrolled in the university\'s graduate program for plant pathology, where he proceeded to earn both a master\'s degree (1937) and a doctorate (1942). After receiving his doctorate, Borlaug took a job as a microbiologist with the DuPont de Nemours Foundation, but he did not stay there long.3 In September 1943, the Rockefeller Foundation offered him a position running a joint program with the Mexican government, helping Mexican farmers to improve agricultural technology and increase their wheat production. Borlaug accepted the job, moved to Mexico with his wife and children, and launched the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program. . . . End Notes 1 Vicki Stavig, "Bread and Peace," Minnesota, January-February 2004,http://www.alumni.umn.edu/Bread_and_Peace (accessed December 29, 2009). 2 Mark Stuertz, "Green Giant," Dallas Observer, December 5, 2002, http://www.dallasobserver.com/2002-12-05/news/green-giant/ (accessed December 29, 2009). 3 Stavig, "Bread and Peace" (accessed January 6, 2010).
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States
494. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Author:
- Heike Larson
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Infidel is a heroic, inspiring story of a courageous woman who escapes the hell of a woman's life in the Muslim world and becomes an outspoken and blunt defender of the West. Ms. Hirsi Ali takes the reader on her own journey of discovery, and enables him to see, through concretes and by sharing her thought processes, how she arrived at the conclusion that Islam is a stagnant, tyrannical belief system and that the Enlightenment philosophy of the West is the proper system for human beings. In Part I, Ms. Hirsi Ali describes her childhood in Muslim Africa and the Middle East. With her father imprisoned for opposing Somalia's communist dictator Siad Barré and her mother often preoccupied with finding food for her family, young Ayaan and her siblings grew up listening to the ancient legends their grandmother told them-legends glorifying the Islamic values of honor, family clans, physical strength, and aggression. Born in 1969 in Somalia, Ms. Hirsi Ali moved frequently with her family to escape persecution and civil war, living in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. At a colonially influenced Kenyan school, she discovered Western ideas, in the form of novels, "tales of freedom, adventure, of equality between girls and boys, trust and friendship. These were not like my grandmother's stark tales of the clan, with their messages of danger and suspicion. These stories were fun, they seemed real, and they spoke to me as the old legends never had" (p. 64). Forced into an arranged marriage, she was shipped to Germany to stay with distant family while awaiting a visa for Canada to join the husband she didn't know. At age twenty-two, alone and with nothing but a duffle bag of clothes and papers, she took a train to Holland to escape the dreary life of a Muslim wife-slave. "It was Friday, July 24, 1992, when I stepped on the train. Every year I think of it. I see it as my real birthday: the birth of me as a person, making decisions about my life on my own" (p. 188). In Part II, Ms. Hirsi Ali shares her wonder of arriving in modernity, and her relentless effort to create a productive, independent life for herself. After being granted asylum, she worked menial jobs, learned Dutch, became a Swahili translator, earned a vocational degree, and finally graduated with a degree in political science from one of Holland's most prestigious universities. An outspoken advocate of the rights of Muslim women, she was elected to the Dutch parliament in 2003, as a "one-issue politician"-she "wanted Holland to wake up and stop tolerating the oppression of Muslim women in its midst" and to "spark a debate among Muslims about reforming aspects of Islam so people could begin to question" (p. 295). She became a notorious critic of Islam, at one point daring to call the Prophet Muhammad a pervert for consummating marriage with one of his many wives when she was only nine years old. In 2004, she made a short film called Submission: Part 1 in which she depicted women mistreated under Islamic law raising their heads and refusing to submit any longer. Tragically, the film's producer, Theo van Gogh, was brutally murdered by an offended Muslim, who left on van Gogh's body a letter threatening Ms. Hirsi Ali with the same fate. Since 2004, Ms. Hirsi Ali has had to live under the constant watch of bodyguards, often going into hiding for months at a time. Although the straight facts of her life are in and of themselves admirable, Ms. Hirsi Ali's intellectual journey as presented in Infidel is truly awe inspiring. This journey begins in Africa in the disturbingly dark world of Islam-with its disdain for thought and reason, its self-sacrificial ethics, and its corrupt, tyrannical politics-and ends in the West with her having become an outspoken champion of reason and freedom.
- Topic:
- Government and War
- Political Geography:
- Kenya, Africa, Canada, and Germany
495. Why Are Jews Liberals?
- Author:
- Gideon Reich
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- Norman Podhoretz, Jewish neoconservative and former editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine, attempts in his book Why Are Jews Liberals? to answer the perplexing commitment of American Jews to modern liberalism. Jews, according to Podhoretz, violate "commonplace assumptions" about political behavior, such as that "people tend to vote their pocket books"; they "take pride . . . in their refusal to put self-interest . . . above the demands of \'social justice\'"; and they have consistently sided with the left in the "culture war" (pp. 2-3). According to statistics cited by Podhoretz, 74 percent of Jews support increased government spending and, since 1928, on average, 75 percent have voted for candidates of the Democratic Party. Such political behavior "finds no warrant either in the Jewish religion or in the socioeconomic condition of the American Jewish community" (p. 3), argues Podhoretz; it can be explained only by realizing that Jews are treating liberalism as a "religion . . . obdurately resistant to facts that undermine its claims and promises" (p. 283). Podhoretz traces the prevalent political orientation of present-day Jews to conditions suffered by their Jewish ancestors in medieval Europe and later in the United States. During the Dark and Middle Ages, Christian authorities in Europe placed severe restrictions on Jews, including where they could live and what professions they could practice. In later centuries, as the influence of Christianity declined, liberal revolutions swept much of the European continent, and, in the 19th century, Western European governments began recognizing the rights of Jews and treating them as equal under the law (p. 57). Even so, conservative Christians, who still supported the monarchies, remained opposed to the "emancipation" of the Jews (pp. 55-57). Consequently, Jews entered politics in Europe almost exclusively as liberals, in opposition to the Christian right that had oppressed them and their ancestors (pp. 58-59). Governments in Eastern Europe and Russia, however, continued to persecute Jews well into the early 20th century (pp. 65-67), and, between 1881 and 1924, two million Jews immigrated to America, where they would be treated equally before the law. Most were poor, and few ventured out of Lower East Side Manhattan, where the majority found jobs in the textile industry, working more than sixty hours a week for low wages, and where even "modest improvements in their condition" were achieved only by the efforts of a Jewish labor movement (pp. 99-100). . . .
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- Russia, America, and Europe
496. Helping Others Defend Themselves
- Author:
- Robert M. Gates
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- In the decades to come, the most lethal threats to the United States' safety and security -- a city poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack -- are likely to emanate from states that cannot adequately govern themselves or secure their own territory. Dealing with such fractured or failing states is, in many ways, the main security challenge of our time.
- Topic:
- Security and Government
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq
497. The Brussels Wall
- Author:
- William Drozdiak
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- These days, there is a great deal of talk about the dawn of an Asian century -- hastened by the rise of China and India. Meanwhile, the fractious Atlantic alliance, enfeebled by two wars and an economic crisis, is said to be fading away. But the West is not doomed to decline as a center of power and influence. A relatively simple strategic fix could reinvigorate the historic bonds between Europe and North America and reestablish the West's dominance: it is time to bring together the West's principal institutions, the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. When NATO's 28 leaders gather in Portugal later this year to draw up a new security strategy for the twenty-first century, they will consider a range of options, including military partnerships with distant allies such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea. Yet the most practical solution lies just down the road from the alliance's sprawling headquarters near the Brussels airport. Genuine cooperation between NATO and the 27-nation European Union would allow Western governments to meld hard power with soft, making both organizations better equipped to confront modern threats, such as climate change, failed states, and humanitarian disasters. A revitalized Atlantic alliance is by far the most effective way for the United States and Europe to shore up their global influence in the face of emerging Asian powers. NOT-SO-FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS Anybody who spends time in Brussels comes away mystified by the lack of dialogue between the West's two most important multinational organizations, even though they have been based in the same city for decades. Only a few years ago, it was considered a minor miracle when the EU's foreign policy czar and NATO's secretary-general decided that they should have breakfast together once a month. An EU planning cell is now ensconced at NATO military headquarters, but there is scarcely any other communication between the two institutions. With Europe and the United States facing common threats from North Africa to the Hindu Kush, it is imperative for Western nations to take advantage of these two organizations' resources in the fields of law enforcement, counterterrorism, intelligence gathering, drug interdiction, and even agricultural policy.
- Topic:
- NATO, Economics, and Government
- Political Geography:
- China, Europe, Asia, North America, and Brussels
498. Getting Deradicalization Right
- Author:
- Jessica Stern and Marisa L. Porges
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- Government, Islam, and Reform
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia
499. Spain-United States: A Strong Partnership
- Author:
- Jorge Dezcallar
- Publication Date:
- 05-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Council of American Ambassadors
- Abstract:
- Relations between Spain and the United States are rooted in historical ties that date back to 1778, when Spain provided military and financial assistance to the fledgling nation during the American War of Independence. Since that time and following several historical developments, Spain and the United States have become friends and allies. We share the same values; we deal with the same threats. Our strategic vision of the world is similar, and we work together to meet today's global challenges.
- Topic:
- Government and War
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, and Spain
500. Turkish Foreign Policy in 2009: A Year of Pro-activity
- Author:
- Ufuk Ulutaş
- Publication Date:
- 03-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Since the early 2000s, Turkish foreign policy has experienced a fundamental transformation. Turkey's regional and global position, its relations with the countries in surrounding regions, and its long-lasting disputes with its neighbors were reshaped through the adoption of the "zero-problem with-neighbors" policy. In line with this policy, Turkey has taken a pro-active stance and followed a multi-dimensional foreign policy approach to establish itself, first, as a conciliatory partner for peace with its neighbors, and second, as an agent of mediation between its clashing neighboring countries. 2009 was a year of foreign policy initiatives towards Syria, Armenia, and Iraq, including the Kurdish Regional Government. And it marked the beginning of more positive and constructive relations between Turkey and the United States. Turkey gained substantial ground in becoming a regional hub for energy by undersigning two critical energy deals. Yet, two major issues remain as challenges for Turkish foreign policy: a) the EU accession process, and b) the Cyprus dispute.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, and Syria