U.S. Leadership in a Shrinking World: The Breakdown of Consensuses and the Emergence of Conflicting Belief Systems

1983 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
James N. Rosenau ◽  
Ole R. Holsti

The adaptation of the United States to its declining role as a superpower is examined through an inquiry into the belief systems of the society's leaders. Three sets of mutually exclusive domestic policy belief systems are identified, along with three sets of mutually exclusive foreign policy belief systems. The degree to which they are linked to each other is explored, and the connections are found to be tenuous—suggesting that the cleavages at work in American society are more enduring and less subject to change than may be readily apparent. The last section of the paper uses more recent data from a sample of American leaders to examine the degree to which foreign policy belief systems are susceptible to change over time, allowing for an analysis of the extent to which the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan affected pre-existing belief systems. The overall finding is that the impact was negligible, and that foreign policy belief systems are largely resistant to change.

2021 ◽  
pp. 80-126
Author(s):  
Derek Chollet

This chapter examines how Eisenhower, H. W. Bush, and Obama reacted when their foreign policy strategies were tested by crises and unexpected events. This chapter revisits Eisenhower’s aid to besieged French forces at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954. It also discusses his handling of two crises in October 1956 over Suez and the Soviet invasion in Hungary, just days before his reelection. It examines how Bush led the United States during the critical period of 1991—with the aftermath of the first Persian Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union after a failed coup in August 1991. Finally, the chapter also analyzes how Obama approached the Arab Spring, which started in 2011, specifically focusing on his response to conflicts in Libya and Syria.


Author(s):  
James Dunkerley

This chapter examines US foreign policy in Latin America and the historical evolution of US relations with the region. It first considers the Monroe Doctrine and manifest destiny, which sought to contain European expansion and to justify that of the United States under an ethos of hemispherism, before discussing the projection of US power beyond its frontiers in the early twentieth century. It then explores the United States’ adoption of a less unilateral approach during the depression of the 1930s and an aggressively ideological approach in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. It also analyzes US policy towards the left in Central America, where armed conflict prevailed in the 1980s, and in South America, where the Washington Consensus brought an end to the anti-European aspects of the Monroe Doctrine by promoting globalization. Finally, it looks at the impact of the Cold War on US policy towards Latin America.


2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert N. Lupton ◽  
Steven M. Smallpage ◽  
Adam M. Enders

The correlation between ideology and partisanship in the mass public has increased in recent decades amid a climate of persistent and growing elite polarization. Given that core values shape subsequent political predispositions, as well as the demonstrated asymmetry of elite polarization, this article hypothesizes that egalitarianism and moral traditionalism moderate the relationship between ideology and partisanship in that the latter relationship will have increased over time only among individuals who maintain conservative value orientations. An analysis of pooled American National Election Studies surveys from 1988 to 2012 supports this hypothesis. The results enhance scholarly understanding of the role of core values in shaping mass belief systems and testify to the asymmetric nature and mass public reception of elite cues among liberals and conservatives.


Author(s):  
Phil Tiemeyer

The impact of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) issues on U.S. foreign relations is an understudied area, and only a handful of historians have addressed these issues in articles and books. Encounters with unexpected and condemnable (to European eyes) sexual behaviors and gender comportment arose from the first European forays into North America. As such, subduing heterodox sexual and gender expression has always been part of the colonizing endeavor in the so-called New World, tied in with the mission of civilizing and Christianizing the indigenous peoples that was so central to the forging of the United States and pressing its territorial expansion across the continent. These same impulses accompanied the further U.S. accumulation of territory across the Pacific and the Caribbean in the late 19th century, and they persisted even longer and further afield in its citizens’ missionary endeavors across the globe. During the 20th century, as the state’s foreign policy apparatus grew in size and scope, so too did the notions of homosexuality and transgender identity solidify as widely recognizable identity categories in the United States. Thus, it is during the 20th and 21st centuries, with ever greater intensity as the decades progressed, that one finds important influences of homosexuality and gender diversity on U.S. foreign policy: in immigration policies dating back to the late 19th century, in the Lavender Scare that plagued the State Department during the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies, in more contemporary battles between religious conservatives and queer rights activists that have at times been exported to other countries, and in the increasing intersections of LGBTQ rights issues and the War on Terror that has been waged primarily in the Middle East since September 11, 2001.


2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Facundo Alvaredo ◽  
Anthony B Atkinson ◽  
Thomas Piketty ◽  
Emmanuel Saez

The top 1 percent income share has more than doubled in the United States over the last 30 years, drawing much public attention in recent years. While other English-speaking countries have also experienced sharp increases in the top 1 percent income share, many high-income countries such as Japan, France, or Germany have seen much less increase in top income shares. Hence, the explanation cannot rely solely on forces common to advanced countries, such as the impact of new technologies and globalization on the supply and demand for skills. Moreover, the explanations have to accommodate the falls in top income shares earlier in the twentieth century experienced in virtually all high-income countries. We highlight four main factors. The first is the impact of tax policy, which has varied over time and differs across countries. Top tax rates have moved in the opposite direction from top income shares. The effects of top rate cuts can operate in conjunction with other mechanisms. The second factor is a richer view of the labor market, where we contrast the standard supply-side model with one where pay is determined by bargaining and the reactions to top rate cuts may lead simply to a redistribution of surplus. Indeed, top rate cuts may lead managerial energies to be diverted to increasing their remuneration at the expense of enterprise growth and employment. The third factor is capital income. Overall, private wealth (relative to income) has followed a U-shaped path over time, particularly in Europe, where inherited wealth is, in Europe if not in the United States, making a return. The fourth, little investigated, element is the correlation between earned income and capital income, which has substantially increased in recent decades in the United States.


1951 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin V. Cohen

During the last five years the United States has been an active participant in the work of the United Nations. During this period the most vital international issues have come before various organs of the United Nations, have been discussed, and in various ways have been acted upon. The question naturally arises what has been the impact of the United Nations on the foreign policy of the United States?


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Chin ◽  
Dennis M. Feehan ◽  
Caroline O. Buckee ◽  
Ayesha S. Mahmud

SARS-CoV-2 is spread primarily through person-to-person contacts. Quantifying population contact rates is important for understanding the impact of physical distancing policies and for modeling COVID-19, but contact patterns have changed substantially over time due to shifting policies and behaviors. There are surprisingly few empirical estimates of age-structured contact rates in the United States both before and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic that capture these changes. Here, we use data from six waves of the Berkeley Interpersonal Contact Survey (BICS), which collected detailed contact data between March 22, 2020 and February 15, 2021 across six metropolitan designated market areas (DMA) in the United States. Contact rates were low across all six DMAs at the start of the pandemic. We find steady increases in the mean and median number of contacts across these localities over time, as well as a greater proportion of respondents reporting a high number of contacts. We also find that young adults between ages 18 and 34 reported more contacts on average compared to other age groups. The 65 and older age group consistently reported low levels of contact throughout the study period. To understand the impact of these changing contact patterns, we simulate COVID-19 dynamics in each DMA using an age-structured mechanistic model. We compare results from models that use BICS contact rate estimates versus commonly used alternative contact rate sources. We find that simulations parameterized with BICS estimates give insight into time-varying changes in relative incidence by age group that are not captured in the absence of these frequently updated estimates. We also find that simulation results based on BICS estimates closely match observed data on the age distribution of cases, and changes in these distributions over time. Together these findings highlight the role of different age groups in driving and sustaining SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the U.S. We also show the utility of repeated contact surveys in revealing heterogeneities in the epidemiology of COVID-19 across localities in the United States.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Margaret Maile Petty

<p>Cultures of Light is set within a period that stretches from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century in the United States, an era in which nearly every aspect of American life was impacted to a lesser or greater degree by the introduction, distribution and integration of electric power and light. By no means attempting to comprehensively examine the impact and effects of this expansive transformation, this thesis has a narrow but meaningful target, defined by key intersections of electric lighting and American culture. Primarily concerned with the investigation of culturally bound ideas and practices as mediated through electric light and its applications, my thesis is focused on particular instances of this interplay. These include its role in supporting nationalizing narratives and agendas through large-scale demonstrations at world’s fairs and exhibitions, in the search for and expression of modernism and its variations in the United States. Similarly electricity and electric light throughout the better part of the twentieth century was scaled to the level of the individual through a number of mechanisms and narratives. Most prominently the electric light industry employed gendered discourses, practices and beliefs in their efforts to grow the market, calling upon the assistance of a host of cultural influencers, from movie stars to architects to interior designers, instigating a renegotiation of established approaches to the design of architecture and the visual environment. Connecting common themes and persistent concerns across these seemingly disparate subject areas through the examination of cultural beliefs, practices, rituals and traditions, Cultures of Light seeks to illustrate the deep and lasting significance of electric light within American society in the twentieth century.</p>


Author(s):  
V. Mikheev ◽  
S. Lukonin ◽  
Y. Safronova

The article deals with the development of China. Forward-looking assessments are made on the basis of an analysis of the country’s new concept of national development. The authors specify five areas that demand for new conceptual solutions: ideology, domestic policy, economy, social issues and foreign policy. As for Russia and its positions in the hierarchic and polycentric world, the authors point out that the ongoing change of China’s social development model is no less important than the dynamics of development of the United States and the EU.


2006 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy von Heyking

History, civics, and social studies courses in Canadian schools have always represented some official understanding of Canadian citizenship, even Canadian identity. They have prepared children for citizenship and the exercise of their adult duties in the community. As historian Ken Osborne argues, citizenship remains a “flexibly protean” term, changing over time according to setting, and always resisted or undermined by those who disagree with the official understanding imposed upon them. While it may be difficult to assess the impact of the school's messages on students, we can identify the official ideas about English-Canadian citizenship and identity transmitted by schools.


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