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6121. France's Double-Talk on Globalization

Author:
Sophie Meunier
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
France has become a worldwide champion of anti-globalization. French intellectuals have long denounced the cultural and economic shortcomings of US-led globalization, while French politicians, on the Left as on the Right, load their speeches with rhetoric critical of a phenomenon that gets a lot less attention in other European countries and in the United States. Yet, at the same time, France is a country whose economy and society have adapted well to this much-criticized globalization. Why this double-speak? Why this disjuncture between words and actions? This article explores this paradox, analyzes the role that France's double discourse on globalization has played in producing the surprising outcome of the 2002 elections, and reflects on the options open to the main political parties today.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and France

6122. Creating a Tourist's Paradise: The Marshall Plan and France, 1948 to 1952 [Dossier: Promoting American Tourism in Postwar France]

Author:
Brian A. McKenzie
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
This article examines the promotion of American tourism to France during the Marshall Plan. The paper assesses the cultural and economic goals of the tourism program. Economic aid provided by the United States was essential for the post-war reconstruction of the French tourism industry. Furthermore, transatlantic air carriers adopted new guidelines for tourist class airfares at the urging of U.S. officials. The paper also examines marketing strategies and the creation of tourism infrastructures that facilitated transatlantic tourism. Representatives from the French tourism industry visited the United States to study American hotels and they agreed to adopt practices and rebuild French hotels in ways that would be congenial to American tourists. The paper demonstrates that French and American officials and tourism professionals Americanized the French tourism industry during the Marshall Plan.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States, America, and France

6123. Gopnik and Company: A Literature of Accommodation

Author:
Edward C. Knox
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
French Politics, Culture Society
Institution:
Conference Group on French Politics Society
Abstract:
In search of authenticity and a tradition of quality, and as a response to an increasingly standardized US, personal narratives set in Paris or the provinces recount attempts at cultural integration, through mastery of French cooking, learning French, or redoing a house into a home.
Political Geography:
United States

6124. The USA and UNESCO: Building Knowledge, Building Cultures

Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, was founded after World War II to contribute to peace and security. Collaboration among nations through education, science and culture remains a cornerstone of a peaceful world order. The founders of UNESCO believed that the rule of law, respect for human rights, and freedom of expression would be strengthened through international cooperation. The need for the world community to renew its efforts to advance these principles has never been more urgent. American leadership in the service of peace and security can help mobilize multilateral institutions, including UNESCO, to stand up for common values that promote tolerance and thwart terrorism. The sanctity of human life must be a common commitment.
Topic:
International Relations, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States

6125. The Effect of Exchange Rate Fluctuations on Multinationals' Returns

Author:
Jane Ihrig and David Prior
Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
<p>This paper examines if the type of exchange rate used or size of the movement in the exchange rate matters in estimating exchange-rate exposure of U.S. nonfinancial multinationals. We find that switching from a broad trade-weighted exchange rate to a 2-digit SIC industry exchange rate increases the number of significantly exposed firms in a simple Jorion (1990) regression by 60 percent. Then separating crisis from non-crisis months we find additional evidence of exposure. Although the value of exposure does not change with the size of the exchange rate movement, we find some firms have significant exposure only in crisis periods while others have significant exposure only during normal fluctuations in exchange rates. All told, we find about 1 in 4 firms' returns is significantly affected by movement in the exchange rate between 1995 and 1999. </p><blockquote><p> </p> </blockquote><p> </p><p> </p>
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States

6126. SARS: Down But Still a Threat

Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was requested by Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson and Ambassador Jack Chow, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Health Affairs. It highlights the evolution of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the potential implications of the disease for the United States under several scenarios; this paper does not attempt to provide a scientific assessment of the epidemiology of SARS. Even though SARS has infected and killed far fewer people than other common infectious diseases such as influenza, malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS, it has had a disproportionately large economic and political impact because it spread in areas with broad international commercial links and received intense media attention as a mysterious new illness that seemed able to go anywhere and hit anyone.
Topic:
International Relations, Human Welfare, Poverty, and Third World
Political Geography:
United States

6127. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Sea Basing

Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Sea basing is a critical capability for the United States in a world where flexible, quick-response military action will be required in areas far from fixed bases available or suitable for American military use. The seabase replaces or augments the fixed, in-theater airports and seaports, on which past military operations have focused and depended, with a maneuverability facility at sea - a mobile base of operations, command center, logistics node and transportation hub. A commander can place a seabase where and when he chooses to exploit enemy weaknesses and employ the element of surprise, confusing enemy defensive preparations. A seabase can be a center for reconstitution and redeployment of forces in succeeding stages of complex operations.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Development, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

6128. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Enabliing Joint Force Capabilities

Publication Date:
08-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
U.S. national security leaders face a complex, dynamic set of demands in protecting the interests of the United States and its allies. Three key trends shape the nature and capability of the military forces required to meet these demands: 1. The limited ability to predict when, where, and under what conditions we will need to commit U.S. military forces, particularly for smaller-scale contingencies; 2. The need for forces that enjoy dominant superiority over potential adversaries, not simply an incremental advantage over an aggregate set of threats; and 3. The rapid development and global availability of information technology (IT). Taken together, these trends underscore the need for enhanced joint capabilities.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Development, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

6129. Strategic Reactions to American Preeminence: Great Power Politics in the Age of Unipolarity

Author:
John G. Ikenberry
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
American global power – military, economic, technological, cultural, and political – is one of the great realities of our age. Never before has one country been so powerful and unrivaled. The United States began the 1990s as the world's only superpower and its advantages continued to grow through the decade. After the Cold War, the United States reduced its military spending at a slower rate than other countries and its economy grew at a faster pace. The globalization of the world economy has reinforced American economic and political dominance. No ideological challengers are in site. More recently, in response to terrorist attacks, the United States has embarked on a massive military buildup. In the recent National Security Strategy, the Bush administration has articulated an ambitious and provocative global military role for the United States in confronting new-age threats. Overall, American power advantages are multidimensional, unprecedented, and unlikely to disappear any time soon. The world has taken notice of these developments. Indeed, the post-Cold War rise of American power -- what might be called the rise of American "unipolarity" -- has unsettled world politics. Governments everywhere are worried about the uncertainties and insecurities that appear to flow from such extreme and unprecedented disparities of power. The shifting global security environment – triggered by the terrorist attacks of September 11th –also has conspired to upset old relationships and expectations. The American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have put American power on display and raised far-reaching questions about the use of force, alliances, weapons of mass destruction, sovereignty and interventionism. The world is in the midst of a great geopolitical adjustment process. Governments are trying to figure out how an American-centered unipolar order will operate. How will the United States use its power? Will a unipolar world be built around rules and institutions or the unilateral exercise of American power? This global worry about how a unipolar world will operate – in which the most basic questions about the character of world politics are at stake, namely, who benefits and who commands – is the not-so-hidden subtext of all the recent controversies in America's relations with the rest of the world. The question posed in this report is: how are the major countries around the world responding to American global preeminence? Overall, strategies and policies are mostly still in flux around the world. Responses up to now have been mostly ad hoc. Governments are learning, adapting, negotiating, and reacting – thus it is not possible to identify fixed "strategies of response." This report seeks to help us understand these evolving responses in two ways: first, it will provide conceptual tools to identify and track strategic responses by major states to American preeminence, and second, it will offer some preliminary characterizations of the patterns of response, particularly by Western Europe, Russia, and China. This report might be seen as a sort of "field guide" to global reactions rather than a definitive theoretical and empirical statement on the subject. I begin by offering a summary of the findings. After this, I look at the rise of American unipolar power and the variety of ways that American power is "experienced" around the world. In the next section, I survey the deeper sources and multifaceted character of American unipolar power. Next I explore the limits of the basic strategies of response to concentrated power – balancing, bandwagoning and binding. In the next section, I explore some of the emerging strategies that are appearing among the major countries. Finally, in the conclusion I return to the issue of unipolar power and rule-based order.
Topic:
International Relations, Politics, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States and America

6130. Battling International Bribery 2003

Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
The Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (Antibribery Convention) of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is one of the most important instruments through which the U.S. government fights transnational corruption. The Convention obligates the Parties to criminalize bribery of foreign public officials in the conduct of international business. It is aimed at proscribing offers, promises or payments of bribes by companies based in the OECD signatory countries that engage in transactions in other countries.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States