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5332. USIA Films that failed in Africa
- Author:
- Bob Baker
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- While many films made by the US Information Agency (USIA) were very useful in Africa to tell about American society and policies, two were not. These two, one about President Kennedy and the other about American agriculture, had the opposite result from that intended. Local African culture distorted the films’ messages.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Film, Soft Power, and Memoir
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Africa, North America, and United States of America
5333. Tell Me, Miss…
- Author:
- Elizabeth Krijgsman
- Publication Date:
- 04-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- Full disclosure: the Foreign Service was not my first choice of career. I was in college back in the Dark Ages when unmarried women’s business cards said “Miss,” women were called “girls,” and pantyhose hadn’t yet been invented. When it dawned on me that I might not be getting married right after graduation, I began to think seriously about what kind of career I wanted. I decided that it would ideally involve a lot of free time. It would of course pay well. And I thought it would be very nice if it involved travel to exotic places. Being fond of indoor plumbing and not fond of physical labor, I immediately eliminated the Peace Corps as a possibility. During the summer after my junior year in college, I realized—I should become a Diplomatic Courier! Lots of down time on airplanes. Constant travel to those exotic locales. Staying in luxury hotels. Decent pay. And almost no actual work!
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Women, and Memoir
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
5334. James and the Moscow Goons
- Author:
- Peter Bridges
- Publication Date:
- 04-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- Putin’s recent expulsion of hundreds of our colleagues serving at our embassy and consulates in Russia reminded me of my own service in Moscow in the 1960s. You may call this ancient history, though it doesn’t seem so ancient to me. Stalin had been in his grave for a decade, and dear Nikita Khrushchev was now in charge. Under Stalin, two and a half million people had been prisoners in the deadly Gulag camps. Thousands of poor haggard people had been released, and some of the system’s more notable deceased victims were even “posthumously rehabilitated.” The Gulag had officially been closed down in 1960—but an estimated three-quarters of a million inhabitants of the USSR were still in the horrid camps. And nothing had been done to lessen the role of the KGB, at least so far as we could see.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Diplomacy, Economy, and Memoir
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Soviet Union, North America, and United States of America
5335. Getting to Know Jane Goodall
- Author:
- Ralph Bresler
- Publication Date:
- 09-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- My wife Barbara and I, and our children, were fortunate to work closely with Dr. Jane Goodall during our 1987-1991 tour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In 1989 Goodall called on Secretary of State James Baker in order to enlist him in her new cause of trying to save chimpanzees in the wild. After discussing her many years of groundbreaking chimpanzee research in Gombe, Tanzania, Goodall explained that, in addition to destruction of habitat, a major problem was the bushmeat trade. She noted that ten adult chimps were killed in the wild protecting every infant captured, and only one out of ten infant chimps survived the journey to the marketplace after being taken from their mothers. Secretary Baker offered the Department’s assistance to her effort. As the largest chimpanzee population was in the DRC, Kinshasa was her first stop in this new endeavor.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Environment, and Memoir
- Political Geography:
- Africa, North America, United States of America, and Democratic Republic of Congo
5336. “We Found Ourselves Living in the Midst of a Battlefield”: The Experiences of the U.S. Consulate General in Warsaw on the Outbreak of World War II September 1939
- Author:
- David A. Langbart
- Publication Date:
- 04-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- As a result of the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the U.S. consulate general in Warsaw and its staff faced extraordinary circumstances. The Department of State included a brief overview of those experiences in a background report on wartime hazards faced by the Foreign Service during the period before the United States entered World War II. The extreme nature of what the consulate general’s staff faced are such, however, that it is worth presenting the full report of Consul General John K. Davis. Written from Oslo, Norway, after evacuation to that city, Davis’s despatch provides a detailed and evocative description of the events and occurrences that befell the staff in Warsaw. The ordeal was great. As the Consul General noted, “for all practical purposes we found ourselves living in the midst of a battlefield.”
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, History, World War II, and Memoir
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Poland, North America, and United States of America
5337. Abraham Lincoln, Hillary Clinton, and Liu Xiaobo
- Author:
- Beatrice Camp
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- Celebrating the bicentennial birthday of our 16th president seemed like a fairly safe event for our Shanghai consulate to undertake, considering that Abraham Lincoln was popular in China and former President Jiang Zemin was well known for quoting from the Gettysburg Address. And, of course, Lincoln provided us an opening to talk about “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. Sometime after we decided on the program, the State Department announced that Hillary Clinton would travel to Beijing on her first trip as Secretary of State to highlight the importance of the U.S.-China relationship for the new administration. Shanghai wasn’t on her itinerary and yet, somehow, our consulate preparations to hold a 200th birthday party for Abraham Lincoln in February 2009 almost threw a wrench into this important SecState visit.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Diplomacy, Government, and Memoir
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, North America, and United States of America
5338. Finding the good in EVEL: An evaluation of ‘English Votes for English Laws’ in the House of Commons
- Author:
- Daniel Gover and Michael Kenny
- Publication Date:
- 01-2018
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
- Abstract:
- Recent political developments have focused attention on the ‘English Question’. In response to the 2014 Scottish referendum result, the UK government initiated a procedural reform in the House of Commons known as ‘English Votes for English Laws’ (EVEL), which was formally adopted in October 2015. This report results from an in-depth academic research project into EVEL. It evaluates how the procedures fared during their first year in operation, and weighs arguments for and against such a reform. Based on this analysis, it makes a series of constructive proposals to improve the current system.
- Topic:
- Politics, Law, Elections, Democracy, Identities, and Voting
- Political Geography:
- Britain and United Kingdom
5339. Britain’s party members: who they are, what they think, and what they do
- Author:
- Tim Bale, Paul Webb, and Polettim Monica
- Publication Date:
- 01-2018
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
- Abstract:
- Labour’s membership also comes nearer to gender parity than the other three parties’. Getting on for two-thirds of Lib Dems, and not far off three-quarters of Tory members are men. And, while it’s true to say that all four parties are disproportionately middle-class, it’s even more true of Tory and Lib Dem members, nearly nine out of ten of whom can be classified as ABC1.
- Topic:
- Politics, Elections, Domestic politics, Identities, and Voting
- Political Geography:
- Britain and United Kingdom
5340. Busier than Ever? A Data-Driven Assessment and Forecast of WTO Caseload
- Author:
- Joost Pauwelyn and Weiwei Zhangb
- Publication Date:
- 04-2018
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Trade and Economic Integration, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
- Abstract:
- Conventional wisdom has it that, in recent years, the legalized mechanism of dispute settlement before the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been “busier than ever”, “a victim of its own success”. This paper uses count data to assess the WTO’s current caseload and examines how it has evolved since the WTO’s creation in 1995. We also forecast panel and Appellate Body (AB) caseload ten years from now using different scenarios. WTO dispute settlement does, indeed, currently experience a peak in terms of the total number of cases pending before panels and the AB (as of 30 April 2018, respectively, 18 and 8). However, this is not due to an increase in new cases filed (new consultation requests markedly reduced, from a high of 50 in 1997 to “only” 17 in 2017), but rather because pending cases take much longer to conclude as they have become more complex and are often delayed for lack of human resources. In addition, fewer cases filed get formally settled (from 20% in the first five years of the WTO to almost zero after 2014), appeal rates remain very high (on average 68%), and the share of follow-up disputes over compliance (DSU Art. 21.5) has markedly increased, all three factors leading to more (pending) caseload without actually more (new) cases filed, or more panel or AB reports issued (the number of reports produced per year has actually gone down, dropping from a peak of 26 panel reports and 13 AB reports in 2000, to “only” 13 panel reports and 6 Appellate Body reports in 2017).
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, World Trade Organization, and Global Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Switzerland and Global Focus