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52. Counter-State Zionism and Political Zionism
- Author:
- Ephraim Nimni
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Zionism: One or many? Obsolete? Irreconcilably divided? Ethnocentric? Is there a Zionism compatible with nondiscrimination of Palestinians? These two books, Nation and History: Israeli Historiography between Zionism and Post-Zionism by Yoav Gelber and Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: Rawidowicz, Kaplan, Kohn by Noam Pianko, present opposite points of view, one backward looking and abortive, the other forward looking, expressing hope for change. Both are grounded in historical discussions with considerable relevance to the present. Both draw legitimacy by adhering to a Zionist dream. The two opposing dreams, however, negate each other.
- Topic:
- Security and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, Soviet Union, Palestine, and Arabia
53. Libertarian Roots of the Tea Party
- Author:
- David Kirby and Emily McClintock Ekins
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Many people on the left still dismiss the tea party as the same old religious right, but the evidence says they are wrong. The tea party has strong libertarian roots and is a functionally libertarian influence on the Republican Party.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Economics, Politics, Insurgency, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- United States
54. Envisioning 2030: US Strategy for a Post-Western World
- Author:
- Robert A. Manning
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- The National Intelligence Council in its new report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, argues that the historic moment the Obama Administration now confronts “recalls past transition points–such as 1815, 1919, 1945, and 1989–when the path forward was not clear-cut and the world faced the possibility of different global futures.”
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Economics, Globalization, Politics, and Hegemony
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Atlantic Ocean
55. 'Change we can believe in?' Barack Obama, race and the 2008 US presidential election
- Author:
- Kevern Verney
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Politics
- Institution:
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Abstract:
- This article addresses two questions. It begins by comparing the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest with the 1980s campaigns of Jesse Jackson. It examines the different background and personalities of Obama and Jackson, together with an analysis of what has changed in US political life in the intervening decades, in an attempt to understand why Obama succeeded where the earlier Jackson campaigns failed. The second part of the article analyses the subsequent general election with a view to determining whether Obama's defeat of John McCain should be seen as a result of a unique set of political circumstances, or evidence of the increasing irrelevance of race in US electoral politics. In particular, this discussion assesses the validity of the claims made by some commentators that Obama's victory marks the beginning of a new 'post-racial' era in American political life.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
56. International Visitor Leadership Program: A Valuable Tool in the Public Diplomacy Kit
- Author:
- Jinnie Lee
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Council of American Ambassadors
- Abstract:
- Celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) is the State Department's flagship citizen exchange program. The IVLP is a professional exchange program that seeks to build mutual understanding between the United States and other nations through carefully designed short-term visits to the United States. These visits to the United States reflect the International Visitors' professional interests and support the foreign policy goals of the United States. The participants are current and emerging foreign leaders in government, politics, journalism, education, arts, business, and other key fields identified as such by officers serving in US embassies. Almost 200,000 individuals have participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program, including more than 300 current and former chiefs of state and heads of government, and thousands of leaders from the public and private sectors.
- Topic:
- Education, Government, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States
57. Global Oil Supplies: The Impact of Resource Nationalism and Political Instability
- Author:
- Giacomo Luciani
- Publication Date:
- 05-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for European Policy Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper looks at resource nationalism and political instability as potential causes of disruption to global oil supplies. It points to depletion preferences and strategies as one form of resource nationalism. In most cases, resource nationalism appears to be motivated by rent maximisation. Hence, we see the adoption of more restrictive policies when prices rise. Conversely, when oil prices are low, increasing export volumes becomes more important. Restrictions on exports are common, especially for natural gas, which is sometimes reserved for national consumption. Export taxes are a tool used by some countries to extract revenue from oil producers. Domestic prices of gas and petroleum products are frequently much lower than international prices, also in some sense reducing availability for export. Political instability has a much more elusive impact on oil and gas exports, and historical experience points to contradictory potential outcomes. This paper concludes that political instability and resource nationalism are rarely associated with acute supply crises or shortfalls. Their effect is rather gradual and normally compensated by action in other parts of the system.
- Topic:
- Energy Policy, Nationalism, Oil, Politics, and Natural Resources
- Political Geography:
- United States
58. "After Unipolarity: China's Visions of International Order in an Era of U.S. Decline"
- Author:
- Randall Schweller and Xiaoyu Pu
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The emerging transition from unipolarity to a more multipolar distribution of global power presents a unique and unappreciated problem that largely explains why, contrary to the expectations of balance of power theory, a counterbalancing reaction to U.S. primacy has not yet taken place. The problem is that, under unipolarity and only unipolarity, balancing is a revisionist, not a status quo, behavior: its purpose is to replace the existing unbalanced unipolar structure with a balance of power system. Thus, any state that seeks to restore a global balance of power will be labeled a revisionist aggressor. To overcome this ideational hurdle to balancing behavior, a rising power must delegitimize the unipole's global authority and order through discursive and cost-imposing practices of resistance that pave the way for the next phase of full-fledged balancing and global contestation. The type of international order that emerges on the other side of the transition out of unipolarity depends on whether the emerging powers assume the role of supporters, spoilers, or shirkers. As the most viable peer competitor to U.S. power, China will play an especially important role in determining the future shape of international politics. At this relatively early stage in its development, however, China does not yet have a fixed blueprint for a new world order. Instead, competing Chinese visions of order map on to various delegitimation strategies and scenarios about how the transition from unipolarity to a restored global balance of power will develop.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States and China
59. Rory McVeigh, The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan - Right-Wing Movements and National Politics (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2009).
- Author:
- Adriana Marinescu
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Central European University Political Science Journal
- Institution:
- Central European University
- Abstract:
- The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) often appears to the European reader as a spectacular source of racial violence. The Invisible Empire, the hooded people, and the fiery crosses seem just another eccentricity in the land of the mighty rule of law and civil rights. However, through a sharp analysis of the mobilization of the Klan as social movement, Rory McVeigh conveys a deeper insight into the roots of the KKK's growth and decline. As a professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, he has continuously delved into right-wing mobilization and the echoes of the Ku Klux Klan. His latest book provides an analysis on how social theories can explain this kind of mobilization and thus develop strategies for preventing the harm that right-wing extremism can cause to individuals and to the social fabric of the communities. Moreover, what makes this research more than an explanatory flashback is the existence of yet common situations such as vigilante groups patrolling the border between the United States and Mexico or neo-Nazis boldly marching through European cities
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States and Mexico
60. Tokyo's Transformation
- Author:
- Richard J. Samuels, Ely Ratner, and Eric Heginbotham
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- The earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, caused almost unimaginable damage and misery. In a surge of floodwater that lasted just two minutes, Japan lost nearly as many people as a proportion of its population as the United States did during the entire Vietnam War. The subsequent meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear reactors deepened the crisis. But some see a silver lining to these dark tragedies. After 20 years of economic stagnation, the crisis could bring the Japanese together, catalyze much-needed reforms, and reverse decades of malaise. Many in the United States predict that the disaster will give a welcome boost to the U.S.-Japanese alliance. In an interview with Japan's national public television network on March 22, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed, "Our alliance, which was already strong and enduring, has become even more so." Indeed, the U.S. response to the disaster showcased its lasting commitment to Japan, as well as the unique logistical and material capabilities that the U.S. military forces stationed in the Pacific can provide. In what was dubbed Operation Tomodachi (Operation Friendship), the United States mobilized some 20,000 service members to assist with relief activities. It was the largest joint operation in the history of the alliance, and it generated widespread public support in both countries. Despite the warmth of that the moment, however, deeper trends portend a far less certain future for the U.S.-Japanese relationship. Japan is undergoing profound changes aimed at empowering the political leadership at the expense of its historically preeminent bureaucracy. But rather than bringing about a clean transfer of institutional authority, the reforms have triggered battles among politicians and between politicians and bureaucrats, creating a power vacuum and undermining the government's ability to make policy. Complicating matters further are Japan's piecemeal policymaking institutions, a hypercompetitive media environment, and an increasingly dire fiscal outlook. The result has been uncertainty and gridlock, which are affecting alliance policymaking and are unlikely to disappear in the years ahead.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, and Tokyo