Eva Bertram analyzes the effects of welfare reform initiatives undertaken by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. She argues that liberalizing reforms of the 1960s created opportunities for conservative Democratic lawmakers to seize the policy agenda, laying the groundwork for a turn toward workfare that would culminate in the 1990s.
David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam ask how America can simultaneously be religiously devout, religiously diverse, and religiously tolerant. They argue that America's relative religious harmony lies in the frequency of “religious bridging.” Almost all Americans have a friend or close family member of another religion, and these personal relationships keep America's religious melting pot from boiling over.
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.
YELENA BIBERMAN discusses the causes and implications of the diplomatic drain since the early 1990s–inside the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Drawing on an original survey of students at academic programs in elite Russian universities designed to train diplomats, she challenges the idea that inadequate material benefits limit interest in Russian diplomatic careers. Instead, she demonstrates that concerns over the relative power and prestige of the diplomatic corps guide prospective diplomats in their career choices.
“ Tell me, how does this end? ” General David Petraeus famously asked in 2003 as the rapid toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime by U.S. forces was giving rise to a deadly insurgency in Iraq. In his sweeping study of American wars from World War I to Iraq — an amalgam of history, “ neoclassical ” realist theory, and policy prescription — Gideon Rose elucidates how the country ʼ s leaders have not adequately met “ the Clauswitzian challenge ” of planning for the post-war period even as they are conducting military operations against an adversary.
Two questions have been central to the study of political parties: what brings them together and how do they change. John Aldrich provided an insightful interpretation of the first question in his 1995 Why Parties? In this update, he gives significant attention to the latter question. The analysis is an effort to reconcile the emergence of candidate-centered campaigns with party polariza-tion within the rational choice framework (p. 219). How do the sum of indi-vidual activities yield collectives so opposed to each other, and what is the nature of party in such a situation?
China's relationship with the rest of the world is increasingly pivotal to the existing international order, and progressively more complex. Yet, academics and policymakers alike have found it exceedingly difficult to come to terms with these trends. In contrast, Rosemary Foot and Andrew Walter's remarkable China, the United States, and Global Order comprehensively elucidates the main dynamics within contemporary Chinese (and American) foreign policy, and does so in a manner that is both conceptually sophisticated and empirically rich. The book weaves together three broad issues: global governance, great-power politics, and international regimes. It asks to what degree China and the United States have contributed to the contemporary global order, how much both actors are constrained by this production (and its attendant international regimes), and to what extent their relationship with each other is both framed by, while at the same time constitutive of, such a construct.
The 2012 presidential race is well under way, and with it comes a groundbreaking study of the Iowa caucuses and the U.S. nomination system. Why Iowa is fascinating, rich in new gems unearthed in its data that will substantially advance the U.S. presidential nomination literature.
Since the mid-1990s, China's military modernization has focused on deterring Taiwan independence and preparing for a military response if deterrence fails. Given China's assumption of U.S. intervention in a Taiwan conflict, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been developing military capabilities to deter, delay, and disrupt U.S. military support operations. The 2008 election of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, however, has contributed to improved cross-strait economic and political cooperation and dramatically reduced the threat of Taiwan independence and war across the Taiwan Strait. Cooperation has included full restoration of direct shipping, flights, and mail across the strait, Taiwan's participation in the World Health Assembly, regularized cross-strait negotiation mechanisms that have already reached several agreements, and the recent signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Climate Change, Diplomacy, and Bilateral Relations
Today, economically wounded though it is, the United States nonetheless remains the world ʼ s most powerful state when power is measured in terms of economic and military assets. In the future, the U.S. economy will continue to grow, and the United States will remain the most powerful military nation on earth for some time to come. However, America ʼ s economic and military edge relative to the world ʼ s other great powers, will inevitably diminish over the next several decades.