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1. Trump Foreign Policy Impact in the Caucasus: Projecting Azerbaijan-USA relations for the next four years and beyond

Author:
Ahmed Alili
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Economic and Social Development (CESD)
Abstract:
On 20th January, Donald John Trump, an American businessman and TV entertainer is going to be 45th President of the United States of America (US). This is a hard-to-be comprehended statement by the academic and research communities, who did not expect the result of the US presidential elections to turn out this way. The possibility of Trump’s victory was repeatedly denied by the major research centres, and each scandal encouraged researchers to re-state their predictions on the soon-to-be collapse of the Trump election campaign. Needless to say, these predictions were proven false by the final election results. Nevertheless, in the end, the academic and policy research communities have not produced research on what Trump’s presidency would look like. The same stands true for the foreign governments of the EU, Russia, China, and the rest of the world. In order to figure out who is the new US President and what he can do, the world has entered into a phase of intensive research on Trump. This paper is an attempt to puzzle out Trump’s foreign policy for the Caucasus and Azerbaijan.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Political Theory, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
America and Azerbaijan

2. Survival of the fittest: Trump’s not-so-simple nationalism

Author:
Vibeke Schou Tjalve
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Despite the general impression that the US president-elect Donald Trump has given us very little clue to predict his foreign policy doctrine, a guiding framework behind his scattered statements does exist. In this DIIS Policy Brief, Senior Researcher Vibeke Schou Tjalve takes a closer look at the surprisingly consistent philosophy of power and interest that Trump has aired during the past two decades. Trump is labelled a ‘nationalist’ and an ‘isolationist’. These are understandable labels, and yet: Trump is not your classical cultural-conservative nostalgic with deep veneration for old alliances or shared norms. His American nationalism does not linger on the memories of the New World European roots. Rather, it is founded on a deeply Darwinist conception of the world as a cutthroat competition, in which raw strength - not cultural characteristics – matters. As such, Trump will have no sentimentality for NATO or Europe, and he will view the world through largely value-neutral eyes. This leaves Europe with a defining set of questions, and to influence a Trump presidency, we should understand and appreciate this not-so-simple nationalism, Tjalve writes.
Topic:
International Relations, Nationalism, International Affairs, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
America and Global Focus

3. America's Patriotic Assimilation System Is Broken

Author:
John Fonte and Althea Nagai
Publication Date:
04-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
Quantitative analysis of Harris Interactive Survey reveals that the patriotic assimilation of immigrants to American identity is weak and ambivalent. As Congress debates immigration reform legislation many argue that "our immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed." Perhaps. This quantitative analysis of Harris Interactive survey data however (originally commissioned by the Bradley Foundation Project on American National Identity) suggests that our patriotic assimilation system is also broken and needs to be fixed.
Topic:
Civil Society, Political Theory, and Immigration
Political Geography:
America and Germany

4. The development of International Relations theory in the UK: traditions, contemporary perspectives, and trajectories

Author:
Chris Brown
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
British International Relations (IR) theory is distinguished by a concern with institutions and norms, and by an emphasis on history, philosophy, and law rather than the formal methods of the social sciences; in both respects, but especially the latter, it differs from American IR theory. The origins of British IR theory are traced, and the importance of the 'English School' (ES) is stressed, partly because of the work it stimulates, but also because of its role as a brand which helps to establish the independence of British IR from the otherwise dominant American profession. Along with ES scholarship (pluralist and solidarist), political theory and IR, and critical theory, including critical security studies, are the major areas where contemporary IR theory in Britain is located. This is likely to persist, but the generally critical approach taken to social scientific theorizing may be changing, with the increasing importance of historical sociology and critical realist work. It may also be the case that the privileged status of IR theory in British IR may be under challenge.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and America

5. Pragmatismus und wirtschaftliches Handeln

Author:
Jens Beckert
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
What alternatives to rational choice theory do exist to explain economic phenomena? I argue that American pragmatism presents a viable alternative for the explanation of key economic incidences. First I illustrate the foundations of pragmatism using three problems regularly encountered in action theory. Then I show how innovation, institutional change, price formation and actors' preferences can be analyzed based on pragmatist premises. I conclude by reflecting on why pragmatism has found so little recognition in economics.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Political Economy, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United States and America

6. Uluslararası İlişkiler Teorisinde Yerel- Görüşlülük ve Doğu\'nun Özneselliği

Author:
Bahar Rumelili
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
I argue that International Relations Theory has not been able to transcend its parochialism because it continues to negate the agency of the East. By analyzing the articles published in four leading journals of the discipline between 2002-2007, I find that the number of studies that focus on the East have indeed increased, but most of these studies continue to situate the cases derived from the East in the context of West-centric theories. Even critical approaches continue to position the West as the main subject of international relations and dismiss the mutual constitution and interaction between the East and the West, and the local and global. I contend that the generation of non-Western IR theories is not going to pose an adequate challenge to West-centrism; what is necessary is the formulation of specific propositions on East-West relations that directly counter the established assumptions of West-centric theories.
Topic:
Political Theory
Political Geography:
America, Europe, and Asia

7. Manage Radical Disputes: Public Reason, The American Dream, and the Case of Same-Sex Marriage

Author:
Keith J. Bybee and Cyril Ghosh
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper proposes that ambiguous arguments play a crucial role in the management of radical disputes in democratic deliberation. Lofty though it might be, "public reason" is an impoverished ideal, and its celebrated role in democratic deliberation is vastly overrated, particularly among liberal theorists. In the courts of law and in the larger world, radical disputes unfold as messy, incomplete, ambiguous arguments are proposed by parties. This does not mean that all communication between parties must break down because parties do not abide by the "rules" of argumentation and evidentiary reasoning. It only implies that the language of ambiguity offers possibilities for democratic deliberation that are different from those presented in the discourse on "public reason." Ordinary people have strong opinions but their arguments are, more often than not, incompletely theorized – a fact that by no means indicates that such arguments are failures. We illustrate our argument by examining the ambiguous, fragmented use of American Dream talk in the debate over same-sex marriage.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Political Theory, and Sociology
Political Geography:
America

8. Solidarism or Pluralism? Political Ideas of the American Union and the European Union

Author:
Robert Jackson
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Peace and Security Studies
Abstract:
Writing in the late 18th century Edmund Burke characterized the British East India Company as "a state disguised as a merchant." What, in these terms, is the United States? Is it an empire disguised as a republic dis guised as a democracy? What is Canada? Is it an international system disguised as a confederation disguised as a federation? What, finally, is the European Union? It is somewhat ambiguous. But I shall argue that it is an international organization thinly disguised as a political community.
Topic:
International Relations, International Organization, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Europe

9. "Transnations" Among "Transnations"? The Debate on Transnational History in the United States and Germany

Author:
Kiran Klaus Patel
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Comparing the rise of transnational history in the United States and Germany is difficult, mainly because of the many connections between these historiographies. Still, the article argues that the paths into a transnational historiography were quite different on both sides of the Atlantic. Apart from similarities and connections, the text therefore highlights the intellectual as well as institutional differences of the debates in the U.S.A. and Germany.
Topic:
International Relations and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United States, America, Europe, and Germany

10. Markets, Rights and Power: The Rise (and Fall?) of the Anglo-American Vision of World Order, 1975-2005

Author:
James Cronin
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The so-called “special relationship” has been a fixture of international relations since at least 1940, but it seemed of declining significance during the 1960s and 1970s. It has nevertheless been revived, even refounded, since then; and it has served as the strategic base on which a new Anglo-American vision of the world has been articulated. At the core of the new connection, and the vision to which it gave rise, is a strong preference for the market and a set of foreign and domestic policies that privilege markets and see their expansion as critical to peace, prosperity and the expansion of democracy. This essay examines the origins of this new paradigm as a response to a set of interrelated crises in the 1970s, its elaboration and application during the 1980s under Reagan and Thatcher, its curious history since the end of the Cold War, and the way it evolved into the failed policies of the post-9/11 era.
Topic:
International Relations, Cold War, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
America and Europe