Obama’s Africa Policy: The Limits of Symbolic Power

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Tiyambe Zeleza

Abstract:The election of Barack Obama as the first African-descended president of the United States in 2008 was greeted with euphoria in the U.S. and around the world, including Africa. Little, however, changed in the substance of U.S.–Africa relations. This underscores the limits of the symbolic politics of race and presidential personalities in the face of the structural imperatives of U.S. power and foreign policy in which African interests remain marginal and subordinate to U.S. interests. The article explores the structural contexts of foreign policy-making in the United States and what might be expected from the second Obama administration.

Author(s):  
Caroline Kennedy-Pipe

This chapter examines U.S. foreign policy after 9/11 with a view to looking at continuities as well as the disjunctions of Washington’s engagement with the world. It first considers the impact of 9/11 on the United States, particularly its foreign policy, before discussing the influence of neo-conservatism on the making of U.S. foreign policy during the presidency of George W. Bush. It then analyses debates about the nature of U.S. foreign policy over the last few decades and its ability to create antagonisms that can and have returned to haunt the United States both at home and abroad. It also explores how increasing belief in the utility of military power set the parameters of U.S. foreign policy after 9/11, along with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and concludes with an assessment of Barak Obama’s approach with regards to terrorism and his foreign policy agenda more generally.


Author(s):  
Scott Lucas

President Eisenhower easily swept to victory in 1956, defeating Adlai Stevenson, whom he had also beaten in 1952, despite crises and wars that had suddenly flared in Hungary and Egypt. When the events of 1956 are examined through public and private records, the president’s response to these crises appears to confirm his claim that he would not allow policy making to be hostage to the wishes of the public. Instead, he made clear time and again that he would proceed with what he thought was the “right” course for US interests, irrespective of the American public’s reaction to the policy or to his reelection campaign. At the same time, he was ready to invoke public opinion in the United States and throughout the world to try and bend other statesmen to his will.


2014 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
Lana Perić

The topic over whether or not the U.S. can be considered an imperial power has been largely debated over since the aggressive foreign policy tactics observed by former President George W. Bush. Since then, an anti-American attitude has had many accusing the U.S. of attempting to build an empire. The problem with many arguments is that they often inaccurately portray the idea of imperialism or the arguments are made with little understanding of the American institutions and how foreign policy is made. This research paper hopes to present the idea that there are various branches of imperialism to consider and that the United States have exhibited a liberal imperialist behaviour. To prove this thesis, this paper will show how the foreign policy system of the United States is altered to the external events in the world and that has assisted the United States in acting as a liberal imperial power.


1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. A. LEE

This study represents part of a long-term research program to investigate the influence of U.K. accountants on the development of professional accountancy in other parts of the world. It examines the impact of a small group of Scottish chartered accountants who emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Set against a general theory of emigration, the study's main results reveal the significant involvement of this group in the founding and development of U.S. accountancy. The influence is predominantly with respect to public accountancy and its main institutional organizations. Several of the individuals achieved considerable eminence in U.S. public accountancy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-107
Author(s):  
Richard Francis Wilson

This article is a theological-ethical Lenten sermon that attempts to discern the transcendent themes in the narrative of Luke 9-19 with an especial focus upon “setting the face toward Jerusalem” and the subsequent weeping over Jerusalem. The sermon moves from a passage from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through a series of hermeneutical turns that rely upon insights from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Will Campbell, Augustine, and Paul Tillich with the hope of illuminating what setting of the face on Jerusalem might mean. Tillich’s “eternal now” theme elaborates Augustine’s insight that memory and time reduce the present as, to paraphrase the Saint, that all we have is a present: a present remembered, a present experienced, and a present anticipated. The Gospel is a timeless message applicable to every moment in time and history. The sermon seeks to connect with recent events in the United States and the world that focus upon challenges to the ideals of social justice and political tyranny.


1991 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-13
Author(s):  
David S. Wiley

Linking scholars to the Congress is difficult primarily because of the weakness of Congressional interest in Africa, but also due to the low levels of interest among academics in both Congress and its Africa foreign policy and the poor resources of African studies in the U.S. to build a foundation of knowledge useful to the Congress.


Author(s):  
Kai Erikson

This chapter tells the story of peasants from rural Poland who entered a migrant stream around the turn of the twentieth century that carried them, along with tens of millions of others, across a number of clearly marked national borderlines as well as a number of unmarked cultural ones. The peasants were a couple named Piotr and Kasia Walkowiak, and the words spoken by them as well as the events recalled here are based on the hundreds of letters and diaries gathered in the 1910s by two sociologists from the University of Chicago, W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki. The chapter first describes the world into which Piotr and Kasia were born, focusing on family, village, and land. It then considers their journey, together with millions of other immigrants, and how they changed both the face of Europe and the face of the United States.


Author(s):  
M. Share

On April 30 the United States and the World marked the 100th day in office of Donald Trump as President of the United States. The first 100 days are considered as a key indicator of the fortunes for a new President’s program. This article briefly reviews the 2016 campaign and election, the 11 week transition period, his first 100 days, a brief examination of both American-Russian relations and Sino-American relations, and lastly, what the future bodes for each under a Trump Presidency. The 100 Day period has been chaotic, shifting, and at times incoherent. He has made 180 degree shifts toward many major issues, including Russia and China, which has only confused numerous world leaders, including Presidents Putin and Xi. There has been a definite disconnection between what Trump says about Russia, and what his advisors and cabinet officials say. So far Trump has conducted a highly personalized and transactional foreign policy. All is up for negotiation at this a huge turning point in American foreign policy, the greatest one since 1945. Given all the world’s instabilities today, a rapprochement between the United States and Russia is a truly worthwhile objective, and should be strongly pursued.


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