Legitimating Power: The Domestic Politics of U.S. International Hierarchy

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Lake
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Distributional Consequences ◽  
Regime Types

The United States has maintained international hierarchies over the Western Hemisphere for more than a century and over Western Europe for nearly seven decades. More recently, it has extended similar hierarchies over states in the Middle East. How does the United States exercise authority over other countries? In a world of juridically sovereign states, how is U.S. rule rendered legitimate? Hierarchy has interstate and intrastate distributional consequences for domestic ruling coalitions and regime types. When the gains from hierarchy are large or when subordinate societies share policy preferences similar to those of the United States, as in Europe, international hierarchy is possible and compatible with democracy. When the gains from hierarchy are small and the median citizen has policy preferences distant from those of the United States, as in Central America, international hierarchy requires autocracy, and the benefits of foreign rule will be concentrated within the governing elite. In the Middle East, the gains from hierarchy also appear small, and policy preferences are distant from those of the United States. As a result, the United States has backed sympathetic authoritarian rulers. Although a global counterinsurgency strategy might be viable over the long term, the costs of establishing effective hierarchies in the region imply that the United States is better off retrenching “East of Suez.”

Western Europe and the collapse of Bretton Woods

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-300
Author(s):  
Michael De Groot
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rate System ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The Us ◽  
Exchange Rate System ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Impact

This article contends that Western Europe played a crucial and overlooked role in the collapse of Bretton Woods. Most scholars highlight the role of the United States, focusing on the impact of US balance of payments deficits, Washington’s inability to manage inflation, the weakness of the US dollar, and American domestic politics. Drawing on archival research in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States, this article argues that Western European decisions to float their currencies at various points from 1969 to 1973 undermined the fixed exchange rate system. The British, Dutch, and West Germans opted to float their currencies as a means of protecting against imported inflation or protecting their reserve assets, but each float reinforced speculators’ expectations that governments would break from their fixed parities. The acceleration of financial globalization and the expansion of the Euromarkets in the 1960s made Bretton Woods increasingly difficult to defend.

Gulf rivals will likely increase US lobbying efforts

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Foreign Influence ◽  
Gulf States

Subject Gulf states lobbying in the United States. Significance The Gulf states have long been among the largest spenders on lobbying initiatives in the United States, promoting their economic interests and perspectives on regional geopolitics. This has intensified since 2017 as the Qatar dispute has polarised the region and both sides have sought to win over crucial US decision-makers. These efforts have often backfired and drawn accusations of improper behaviour that could damage bilateral relationships and may affect US domestic politics. Impacts Others considering influencing US policy will look carefully at the successes but also the controversies this lobbying has generated. There is a risk of long-term damage to some Gulf-US relationships amid growing suspicion of foreign influence. Robert Mueller’s probe into the Trump campaign and Russia, which may conclude this year, may also implicate some Gulf states.

The Mouse that Roared

1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEVE CHAN
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Bilateral Trade ◽  
Coping Behavior ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trade Surplus ◽  
Trade Area ◽  
Damage Limitation ◽  
Containment Policy

This analysis seeks to contribute to the growing literature on the subject of “the weak in the world of the strong.” It examines Taiwan's attempts to cope with U.S. commerical pressure in view of its mounting bilateral trade surplus in the recent years ($10.6 billion in 1985, and $6.2 billion in the first half of 1986). Taiwan's past ability to achieve relatively favorable outcomes in its commerical dealings with the United States is explained at two levels. At the more micro level of bargaining tactics used by the weak in managing the strong, attention is directed to Taiwan's resort to: (1) problem redefinition, (2) damage limitation, (3) exploring loopholes, (4) linkage politics, and (5) transnational coalitions. These measures are complemented by more long-term and basic economic adaptation termed positive adjustment. At the more macro level, two prerequisites suggested by Yoffie (1983) for successful adaptation in a protectionist and competitive economic environment are discussed: (1) Taiwan's policy capacity, and (2) U.S. accommodative behavior. Taiwan's institutional capabilities (especially in terms of the autonomy and strength of the state), and its historical niche in U.S. domestic politics and Washington's Cold War containment policy are examined. The discussion argues that Taiwan's coping behavior in the trade area must be understood in the broader context of a metagame that seeks to preserve vital political and security contributions from the United States as well.

Western Europe and the Gulf Crisis: Towards a European Foreign Policy?

Politics ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-34
Author(s):  
Christine Poulon ◽  
Dimitris Bourantonis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gulf Crisis

If European union means anything, it means having a common foreign policy that amounts to more than expressions of pious platitudes. Europe cannot expect anyone to take it seriously if it leaves the United States to defend its interests in the Middle East. ( Independent, 3 August 1990)

Canada and Pan America

1968 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Regional Power ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Historical Relationship ◽  
East End

Herman Kahn said recently that Canada is a regional power without a region. Canada is something of a sport, a nuisance to those who like their political geography neat—rather like Australia or Albania. There are arguments for attaching us to various regions or groups of states. If there is one region, however, to which Canada does not naturally belong it is the so-called Western Hemisphere. Although the Rio Treaty somewhat presumptuously included Canada and Greenland in the area to the defence of which Argentina would rush, we are for purposes of election to the Security Council attached to Western Europe. The Western Hemisphere, as I understand it, begins in the east end of London, includes most of England, all of Ireland, and then goes westward into Siberia. The term has acquired a certain geopolitical significance because it has been a handy way to describe the unnatural but historical relationship between the United States and Latin America.

scholarly journals Long-term changes of tropospheric NO<sub>2</sub> over megacities derived from multiple satellite instruments

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4145-4169 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Hilboll ◽  
A. Richter ◽  
J. P. Burrows
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central China ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Tropospheric No2

Abstract. Tropospheric NO2, a key pollutant in particular in cities, has been measured from space since the mid-1990s by the GOME, SCIAMACHY, OMI, and GOME-2 instruments. These data provide a unique global long-term dataset of tropospheric pollution. However, the observations differ in spatial resolution, local time of measurement, viewing geometry, and other details. All these factors can severely impact the retrieved NO2 columns. In this study, we present three ways to account for instrumental differences in trend analyses of the NO2 columns derived from satellite measurements, while preserving the individual instruments' spatial resolutions. For combining measurements from GOME and SCIAMACHY into one consistent time series, we develop a method to explicitly account for the instruments' difference in ground pixel size (40 × 320 km2 vs. 30 × 60 km2). This is especially important when analysing NO2 changes over small, localised sources like, e.g. megacities. The method is based on spatial averaging of the measured earthshine spectra and extraction of a spatial pattern of the resolution effect. Furthermore, two empirical corrections, which summarise all instrumental differences by including instrument-dependent offsets in a fitted trend function, are developed. These methods are applied to data from GOME and SCIAMACHY separately, to the combined time series, and to an extended dataset comprising also GOME-2 and OMI measurements. All approaches show consistent trends of tropospheric NO2 for a selection of areas on both regional and city scales, for the first time allowing consistent trend analysis of the full time series at high spatial resolution. Compared to previous studies, the longer study period leads to significantly reduced uncertainties. We show that measured tropospheric NO2 columns have been strongly increasing over China, the Middle East, and India, with values over east-central China tripling from 1996 to 2011. All parts of the developed world, including Western Europe, the United States, and Japan, show significantly decreasing NO2 amounts in the same time period. On a megacity level, individual trends can be as large as +27.2 ± 3.9% yr−1 and +20.7 ± 1.9% yr−1 in Dhaka and Baghdad, respectively, while Los Angeles shows a very strong decrease of −6.00 ± 0.72% yr−1. Most megacities in China, India, and the Middle East show increasing NO2 columns of +5 to 10% yr−1, leading to a doubling to tripling within the study period.

scholarly journals Islamic Political Radicalism

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-121
Author(s):  
Sajjad H. Rizvi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pertinent Question ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The University ◽  
Political Radicalism

As jihadi ideology shifts from articulating a perpetual conflict against the“far enemy” (read: the United States and its allies) and the “near enemy”(read: the United States’ clients) within the Middle East and the wider Muslimworld to taking the conflict to the heart of the far enemy in NorthAmericaand Western Europe, it is time for academics to take stock of what hashappened, how it has happened, and why. The “radicalization” debate, as itis called, tries to ask the pertinent question of why some Muslim male citizensof these “western” states feel so disenchanted, dis-integrated, and alienatedfrom their immediate communities that they can perpetrate such grossacts of violence as the bombings in Madrid in March 2004 and 7/7 in London.The challenge of such violent radicalism (and it is important to qualifyit as such, since radicalism traditionally has been a political virtue of the Leftdemanding change) affects security policy as well as the integrity and dignityof Muslim communities. Tahir Abbas, a reader in sociology at the University of Birmingham anda leading expert on the sociology of Britain’s Muslim communities, hasassembled a vibrant interdisciplinary circle of specialists, comprisingMuslimand non-Muslim academics and activists, to tackle this question. The collectionbrings together studies in political science, political sociology (the primaryfocus for the debate on radicalism), anthropology, psychology, criminology,and related disciplines.The contributors concentrate on Britain, albeitwithin a European context, and thus this book might be of value for thosestudying Islamismin otherMuslim-minority contexts (particularly the UnitedStates) and even in Muslim-majority contexts as a base of comparison ...

Beyond Belief?

2019 ◽  
pp. 313-329
Author(s):  
Julie Hollar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marriage Equality ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
The World

This chapter analyzes the expansion of same-sex marriage around the world, its causes and its consequences. It argues that the domestic and transnational factors shaping a country’s adoption of same-sex marriage depend crucially on both time and place, encompassing the domestic and the transnational. It further suggests that the effects of same-sex marriage are likewise context-dependent, in most cases producing mixed results for LGBTQ people and movements. Incorporating cases outside of western Europe and the United States, this study urges a broader lens and a new focus on the short-term and long-term political effects of pursuing marriage equality.

Part III: New Perspectives on International Migration to Europe: International Comparisons and International Relations: North American Free Trade and the European Situation Compared

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 506-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney Weintraub
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Treaty Of Rome ◽  
Trade Preferences ◽  
The Right ◽  
European Situation

While both the EC and NAFTA are designed to provide trade preferences to the member countries, the two groupings differ markedly in other respects. The Treaty of Rome, establishing what is now the EC, consciously used economic means to foster political cohesion in Western Europe; whereas, the NAFTA negotiations seek free trade rather than more comprehensive economic integration precisely to minimize political content. The EC contains many social provisions absent from the NAFTA discussions, the most important of which is the right of migration from one EC country to another. However, migration between Mexico and the United States, both legal and undocumented, is more extensive than between any of the EC countries. This migration is unlikely to diminish in the near to medium term because of the great disparity that exists in the levels of income of the two countries. However, a reduction in the pressure to emigrate from Mexico over the long term requires sustained economic growth there, to which free trade with the United States can contribute.

Social and cultural policies to confront the Takfiri speech in Iraq after the year 2003

2020 ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Ahmed Ghaleb Mohi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle East ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Political System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
American Occupation ◽  
East Region ◽  
Middle East Region

The American occupation of Iraq in 2003 represented a detailed event whose repercussions and repercussions affected not only the level of changing the Iraqi political system, but this event had geo-political and strategic long-term dimensions, as the United States of America was able to redraw the paths of the Middle East region again, in line with The strategic dimensions that I planned to achieve.

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