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Examines the credibility imperative as an independent variable in explaining the foreign policy and international relations behavior of the U.S. Concepts of reputation and credibility as they relate to state behavior; Discussion of the dynamics of U.S. foreign policy; Effects of the credibility imperative on U.S. foreign policymakers since the end of the cold war.

The American politics literature has demonstrated empirically that political knowledge matters. Many poorly informed individuals would vote differently if they were better informed, collective opinions across a broad range of domestic political issues would be different if the public were better informed, and no amount of media attention appears equal to the task of enabling poorly informed individuals to behave as if they were better informed. However, the empirical approach to investigating information effects in domestic politics has yet to be extended to the realm of foreign policy attitudes in a systematic way (with the exception of a few foreign policy questions examined with other domestic issues). This paper adopts the approach used by Bartels (1996), Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996), Althaus (1998, 2003), and Claassen and Highton (2006, 2009) to measure information effects in individual and collective opinion. The individual information effects will reveal for each individual how different their expressed opinion was compared to what their enlightened (hypothetical, fully informed) opinion would have been. Also the estimates will reveal, by aggregating the absolute size of (not direction of) information effects in the public, when political knowledge matters most across a range of American foreign policy issues and over time. By using American National Election Studies data, this paper provides a new answer to questions about citizen competence in the realm of foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The argument made in this paper is that there are multiple forces that shape U.S. foreign policy to Cuba. Some of these are inconsistent although many of the paradoxes are subtle and relegated to the background in the face of continuing and prominent debates on the critical role of ethnic group interests and domestic politics on U.S. foreign policy to Cuba. Indeed, of the multifarious approaches in the literary oeuvre on foreign policy, ethnic group interests and their influence on domestic politics provide some of the best explanations for U.S./Cuban relations in the post-Cold War era (Haney, Vanderbush, Walt, 1999). But beneath the iceberg of American Cuba policy, there is considerable movement. There are other forces at play which are not often highlighted in the literature and which suggest that inconsistencies may be more prevalent in U.S. foreign policy to Cuba than the theorists acknowledge. Indeed, even while arguing the predominant domestic politics explanation, U.S. policy to Cuba can be viewed a as a multi-level game. This is the position taken in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the foreign policy thinking of neoconservatives, a group that distinguishes itself from others with its pessimistic outlook about world affairs and its belief that the U.S. should spread its values and ideals to the rest of the world, by unilateral force if necessary. This paper argues that the neocons? imperial project of imposing American values (especially democracy) on the world in general, and the Middle East in particular, has certain limits. The most important limits are related to the nature and character of American society, politics, and government. Moreover, people on the receiving end of U.S. power may be ambivalent towards American values and ideals. In order to illustrate these points, I draw on the example of post-war Iraq. It has become clear in Iraq that the neocons overestimated the capacity of the U.S. for nation-building which is a necessary condition for building an empire and establishing a decent democracy. Neocons also underestimated the cultural difficulties involved in transforming the political landscape of Iraq and the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan does not have any official relation with its neighbor North-Korea. With the end of the Cold War Japan has started to assume a greater political role in East Asia has started to engage in a foreign policy approach that is more independent from the security ties Japan has with the United States. North-Korea does play an important role in Japanese Foreign Policy and Security making. North Korea’s likely possession of nuclear weapons and its willingness to use them poses a big security threat to Japan that cannot be ignored. Several Missile tests in 1993, 1994, 1998 and 2003 have demonstrated to the Japanese government that North Korea is a problem that needs to be taken seriously. During the same time (1990-present) Japan has undergone major political changes on the domestic level. In1993 the dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ended and was succeeded by differing coalition governments, that put the LDP first into opposition and then into the status of a coalition partner. The Japanese Socialist Party (JSP), a former major opposition to a more independent approach to foreign policy has collapsed completely after it had provided the Prime Minister from 1994-1996. This opened up the possibility for a turn towards a more militaristic, nationalistic driven foreign policy approach that is more independent from the United States. This has gone as far as Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba announcing that he did not rule out a pre-emptive strike if Japan felt that North Korea was about to launch a missile at Japan. This author argues that this change in foreign policy has been significantly caused by the domestic changes mentioned above. This paper hence wishes to contribute to the research of the influence of domestic factors on foreign policy making and rejects the realist assumption that changes in the International System cause change of foreign policy approaches. Realist theory is not able to explain the change of Japanese foreign policy sufficiently. In its analysis the paper will look at the issues that have influenced the relations between Japan and North Korea. The two most dominant issues will be the Security issue and the abduction issue. The security issue is important as it demonstrates how the different administrations reacted to missile tests by North Koreas. Since those tests happened at different points of time (1993, 1997, 1998, 2003) they are effective in demonstrating the different reactions of Japanese policy makers. The abduction issue is important because it demonstrates that the changes on the domestic level, namely the end of the dominance by the LDP and the need to engage in coalition governments have made the Japanese governments more dependent to public opinion. Due to that, issues like the abduction issue, that raises emotional responses by the Japanese public, cannot be ignored or dealt with silently by the Japanese government. It may require a strong response instead. This then demonstrates, that the domestic factors (changing government set-up, dependence on public opinion) influences Japanese Foreign Policy making towards North Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey and the U.S.: NATO members on divergent paths?The long term political ramifications of the U.S./U.K. deposition of Saddam Hussein in early 2003 are unclear. What is clear is the stress that such an action had on direct U.S.-Turkey relations and U.S.-Turkey relations vis-à-vis NATO. The ‘alliance politics’ that took place prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq are key in understanding the changing nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Turkey as well as the larger U.S.-Turkey-NATO picture. This paper provides a better comprehension of pre and post-war ‘alliance politics’ by examining Turkey’s domestic politics, the decisions made by its policymakers and the potential reasons behind those decisions in the face of intense U.S. pressure to allow the stationing of its troops on Turkey’s southern border with Iraq. A combination of interviews with Turkish MP’s, reviews of pertinent pre & post-war literature and official U.S. action/reaction will prove to be an adequate means to enhance the aforementioned comprehension. Furthermore, the paper will not only demonstrate the ‘looseness’ of the NATO alliance in the current era it will also address the degree to which the U.S.-Turkey relationship has shifted to a realm somewhere between an alliance and an alignment. This will be most easily accomplished with an examination of the ‘systemic context of alliance’ as outlined by Glenn Snyder (1997), in which the structure, relationships, interactions and units are all taken into account. This will open the door for future research into the ‘alliance politics’ of NATO in general and U.S.-Turkey in particular, in the wake of the second Gulf War as issues of entrapment and abandonment continue to cloud U.S. relations with its allies. Keywords: alliance politics, Turkey-U.S. relations, NATO Contact information: Nick L. Beatty Balkan Devlen E-mail: nlbfgd@mizzou.edu E-mail: bdff5@mizzou.edu Phone: 573-815-9813 Phone: 573-771-4264 Affiliation: Department of Political Science University of Missouri – Columbia phone: 573-882-2843 fax: 573-884-5131 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper approaches the analysis of the environmental policies with the concept and view of international political economy. This paper, with the question of which elements determine the making of the environmental foreign policy?, has tried to analyze two cases in the period of Reagan administration of the United States; the ozone layer depletion and acid rain. These two cases have similar features, that is, both of them are long-range air pollution phenomena and were under spotlight contemporarily. However, the policies of the administration for these environmental problems were totally different. Therefore, this paper tries to analyze the cause which has brought about different outcomes in similar policy areas. This paper presents a hypothesis as follows: in the process of forming the environmental foreign policy in the Reagan administration, the decision makers focused on the relative economic gains. In the 1980s, the CFCs industry of the U.S. was in trouble as a result of the ban on the use of CFCs for the aerosols in 1979. The profit decreased and competitiveness in the international market was weakened compared with its rival in Europe. Reagan administration wanted to stop the steady decrease in the competitiveness of CFCs industry and make European CFCs industry share the burden for protecting the ozone layer through the international regulation on the production of ozone layer-depleting materials. Furthermore, through the regulation on the de facto worldly CFCs production, Reagan administration wanted to offer to U.S. CFCs industry the economic incentive to develop and commercialize the alternatives to CFCs. U.S. chemical firms had an advantage in the development of alternative materials for CFCs, having continued researching for alternatives since 1970s in order to prepare for coming regulations. As a result, the international regulation on CFCs could be more profitable for U.S. firms than European firms. For these reasons, the United States advocated the international regulation on the production and use of CFCs, and succeeded in reaching an agreement with Europe and making the Montreal Protocol in 1987. In the acid rain problem between the U.S and Canada, the recognition that the materials from the U.S. was damaging Canadian atmosphere seriously and causing acid rain there pervaded the decision makers of two states. This recognition was due to the economic size of the U.S., its thermal power generation-dependant economic structure, and the prevailing westerlies. Therefore, Canadians came to the conclusion that the pollution of their atmosphere could be accounted to the U.S. largely, and argued that the U.S. must take appropriate action. However, those in the U.S. knew that the U.S. must pay more costs than Canada if the U.S. cooperates with Canada for solving the acid rain problem. Furthermore, there was concern about the competitiveness of power generation industry and the industries which are dependant on the use of electricity to a great extent because thermal power stations were the main emitters of sulfur dioxide, the principal cause of acid rain. Consequently, the Reagan administration has not made and implemented any substantial policy for acid rain problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although investigations of the domestic politics of international relations have proliferated in the past decade, studies of the use of force in American foreign policy regularly overlook the partisan struggles that regularly erupt between presidents and Congress. In this paper, we examine whether two government functions -- writing laws and coordinating military ventures abroad -- have common domestic institutional linkages. Specifically, we explore the possibility that partisan alignments between executive and legislative branches simultaneously promote the production of laws and the president?s discretion to respond militarily to foreign crises; or, alternatively, whether inter-branch dynamics reverse course when presidents move away from advocating their legislative agenda, and towards contemplating the exercise of military force abroad. This paper illustrates how International Relations research can usefully adapt theories developed in American Politics and suggests ways in which separation-of-power theories might incorporate other empirical investigations of inter-state relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, religious conflict has occurred when two distinct religions meet at a specific geographic frontier or border (i.e. Ireland/England, Pakistan/India, Yugoslavia, etc.). In each of these cases, religion was not necessarily the exclusive source of conflict, but quickly established itself as the focal point around which individuals defined their identity. Although the differences between the two groups may have been numerous (political, economic, cultural, etc.), religion provided the easiest and most prominently accessible tool for mass mobilization and identity differentiation. Once this shift occurs, the religious identities become so salient that all future interactions tend to be defined along religious lines, which in turn lends itself to intractability. This paper argues that globalization has fundamentally changed the nature of international interactions and has eliminated geographic proximity as a necessary condition for the development of religious conflict. Groups previously isolated from one another now find themselves interacting to a degree never before seen in history. While much of the world has accepted globalization, certain groups (i.e. Al-Queda) have viewed it as a threat to their lifestyle and have reacted with force and religious rhetoric. U.S. response to these actions (i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq, support for Israel, etc.) has been perceived as overzealous by many in the Middle East and has sparked a growing frustration with U.S. foreign policy. Although many within the region may not have initially seen this conflict along religious lines, Islam provides the most prominent and convenient forum for articulating their frustrations. The similarities between the current U.S./Islamic tensions and the early stages of other historic religious conflicts are striking. In this paper, parallels are drawn between previous intractable religious conflicts (Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia) and the current developing conflict between the United States and the Islamic world. Although the United States has made a concerted effort to declare a war on “terror” and not Islam, the perceived threat associated with current U.S. foreign policy behavior is encouraging the redefinition of Middle Eastern identity in Islamic terms and creating the possibility of intractable religious conflict on a global scale. Ironically, it appears that the use of conventional military and political approaches to the war on terror will likely exacerbate and strengthen the Islamic identity of individuals in the Middle East contrary to the desires of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early days of the Cold War, prominent students of American foreign policy firmly rejected the notion that the United States could initiate preventive wars against its adversaries. Preventive war is a persistent theme in the history of international politics. Unlike a conflict fought over a specific disputed issue, preventive war is fought to prevent the erosion of relative power to a rising adversary (even though that adversary does not pose an imminent threat). The logic of preventive war simply asserts that it is better to fight a war today under more favorable circumstances than to face a possible war in the future after an adversary has achieved military gains that raise the likely costs and risks of war for the dominant state. Despite the apparent rationality of initiating military conflict under these conditions, preventive war presents serious normative problems that have traditionally been considered too odious for a democratic state to overcome. Morgenthau, Kennan, Brodie, and Kissinger, among others, all argued that for democracies, launching preventive wars is taboo. More recent scholarship claims that no democracy has ever fought a preventive war because democratic public opinion simply considers preventive war, in the absence of a clear impending threat, to be morally abhorrent (even against a morally abhorrent adversary). ..ASA-Events of the past year, however, fundamentally challenge this claim about democracy and preventive war. Less than a year after President Bush declared that America would not tolerate unbalanced dictators seeking weapons of mass destruction, the United States was engaged in a preventive war against Iraq that ended with the destruction of the Iraqi regime and American occupation. Coupled with the president’s National Security Strategy of September 2002 that articulated a general vision of fighting pre-emptive wars in such cases, this event generated broad speculation and debate over whether America would turn its military might next against Syria, Iran or North Korea. In this period of weak international constraints on how America uses its power abroad, the potential for domestic constraints becomes crucial for understanding the degree to which American hegemony will be restrained in coming years. This paper examines several aspects of this issue. First, it measures the extent of anti-preventive war sentiment that actually exists in the United States as reflected in Congress and among the American public. Evidence for this question was generated from content analysis of the congressional debate over war with Iraq and public opinion surveys before the war. Second, it examines a related question: does congressional and public support for war with Iraq mean that the logic of preventive war has fully trumped the normative limits that may have prevented the United States from engaging in this particular form of war in the past? The paper presents evidence showing that domestic support for war cannot be explained outside the context of the terror attacks of September 11. It was not the purported threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction development that motivated majority support, but the link the administration drew between Iraq and terrorists that moved many to accept war. Third, the paper examines whether 9/11 has produced a shift in domestic attitudes about preventive war that extends beyond the Iraq case. To what extent do members of Congress and the public accept the general logic of preventive war as articulated in the administration’s pre-emption strategy? To what degree does anti-preventive war sentiment still exist in the U.S. after the Iraq war? To what extent are members of Congress and the public willing to support the logic of preventive war in other cases? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. foreign policy has always been controversial. Recently, however, the controversy has intensified. American actions in Iraq in particular, and more generally its seemingly growing willingness to act militarily on the international stage without the prior endorsement of U.N. Resolutions (as in Kosovo and Afghanistan) have exacerbated the controversies, even among America’s closest allies, and Americans themselves. These controversies have been further aggravated by the inability of American officials to elaborate a clear framework for American foreign policy, including the criteria by which decisions to intervene are taken. By consequence, U.S. policy winds up looking ad hoc, reactive, even capricious, and this perception reinforces worries that American policy is destabilizing the international political system. This paper offers a paradigm, bearing the seemingly oxymoronic title pluralist imperialism, which purports to explain the rationale behind recent U.S. interventions and to provide a basis for predicting future U.S. actions. The background for the pluralist imperialist paradigm is the recognition that while the U.N. and other multilateral international institutions are extremely important, there are real limits on what we can expect such institutions to contribute. In the face of some crises, international institutions can be paralysed by their political structure (as in Kosovo), or by their limited capabilities and resources (as in part, for example, in Rwanda). In short, international institutions need to be supplemented by the strong and independent actions of individual states, especially leading states, and most particularly the leading state. American foreign policy should be understood as emphasizing not only the privileges, but also the core minimal obligations of state sovereignty. Four obligations in particular have been reflected in recent U.S. policy: (1) states must not engage in gross violations of human rights; (2) states must not foment terrorism; (3) states must not develop weapons of mass destruction; and (4) states must not invade other states without just cause (where just cause is defined as obligations 1 to 3) Where states violate an (or several) obligation(s), the U.S. retains the right to suspend respect for their sovereignty, and to intervene to change the government. Where it does intervene, the U.S. will work to establish democracy and then withdraw. As long as states respect their core, minimum obligations they may be of any type ? the U.S. foreign policy embraces moral and cultural pluralism. When they violate minimum obligations, however, the U.S. retains the right to remove the offending government and establish democracy ? it embraces a minimal imperialist role. In this way, it can supplement the U.N. by encouraging respect for minimal obligations, while at the same time respecting moral and cultural diversity. Finally, I argue in the paper that these minimal obligations provide a useful framework for explaining U.S.-led interventions in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws on IR regime theories and outlines possible implications of EU Enlargement for US-EU relations in the areas of environmental and trade relations. In particular, the paper highlights the role of bilateral and (global) multilateral negotiations and institutions. Lastly, the paper will assess recent examples of EU-US cooperation and discord around trade and environmental issues, offering a preliminary assessment of which aspects of regime theories appear to explain changing EU-US relations better than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at analyzing the recent changes in the US foreign doctrine and Brazil’s strategy of international relations under thenew government that took power in January 2003. The U.S. and Brazil agendas and strategies are discussed in light of the FTAA process. Several questions are addressed in the paper, including: How can the ganeda be reconciled to accommodate national interests and at the same time to keep the momentum of the FTAA process? How can US hegemony be accommodated in a more cooperative hemisphere? How does Mercosur fit in with the FTAA project? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the intervening period between the 9/11 World Trade Tower catastrophe and the initial bombing of Iraq, the United States embarked on a dramatically more aggressive foreign policy against terrorism and the axis of evil. The topic to be explored in this paper is China’s role in this transformation of international relations. Unlike France, Germany and Britain, China played a relatively low-keyed part in the disputes attending the build-up of a U.S. war in Iraq. The outbreak of an unmistakeable weapon of massive human destruction -- SARS, that began in the southern province of Guangdong and Hong Kong had effectively sidelined the question in Asia of whether or not Iraq possessed chemical, biological or nuclear weapons that were a threat sufficient to wage a preemptive war. Thrust onto the centerstage of international relations by its earlier benign neglect of the deadly SARS virus, China found itself embroiled in a domestic war against both SARS and the official manner of handling such public crises. In this paper we shall focus on these simultaneous wars -- one waged by the US in Iraq, the other waged by Chinese officials domestically as part of the overall transformation of international relations in the post-cold war world, particularly in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the U.S. It will be argued that both these events are adaptations by world powers -- one in decline, the other in ascendancy, to the circumstances of a fundamental process of transformation in the global world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most analysts of US policy in Colombia argue that the US has switched from targeting communist guerrillas to a war on drugs and a new war on terror. This paper shows that contrary to these claims the US continues to back Colombian counter-insurgency efforts which essentially amount to a strategy of state-terrorism under a democratic façade (terrorocracy). Moreover, this policy continues to be pursued because the US has long employed counter-insurgency both to protect the economic interests of transnational capital, but more importantly to reproduce forms of (neo)-liberal political stability throughout the Third World. Counter-insurgency is thus the military strategy par-excellence for the policing and reproduction of global capitalism via localised proxy forces. This paper argues that in the case of Colombia both strategic US oil interests and the reproduction of liberal political stability drive US policy. Moreover, and in direct contradiction to the vast majority of analysts, this paper shows that integral to this policy of terrorocracy promotion is the strategic use and deployment of Colombia?s biggest drug traffickers and terrorists: the Colombian paramilitaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the multiple disconnects separating neorealist international relations theory and the practice of foreign policy. Below, several of these that have already received great attention by scholars in the field are very briefly summarized. For example, neorealists carefully separate IR theory from foreign policy analysis. One cannot say much about the behavior of a single state, they repeatedly warn, based on a systemic IR theory. Foreign policy, neorealists acknowledge, is likely to reflect elements of domestic politics as well as international constraints. Then, much greater scrutiny is directed at an important disconnect that has not received close examination ? the divergence between the neorealist theory of international politics and the real world practice of American neorealists who often assume prominent roles in academic and policy debates about US foreign relations. Based on neorealist participation in these academic and policy debates, as well as the scholars? own explanation of their role in these controversies, the paper concludes that these neorealists arguably embrace reflective, communicative, and emancipatory notions of foreign policy decision-making. These are, of course, foundational theoretical concerns of constructivist and critical international relations theorists and are often disparaged by neorealists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional theories of alliance formation emphasise the distribution of power or the balance of threats in determining when alliances will be created. While these theories offer important insights and have the advantage of parsimony, they are underdetermining when it comes to the question of alliance form and quality. After World War II, for example, the United States formed the multilateral NATO alliance to deter the threat of Soviet invasion in Europe. However, in Asia it only responded to perceived Soviet and Chinese threats with a series of ‘hub and spokes’ bilateral alliances. Neither power nor threat-based realism can easily explain this difference in form, nor why European allies were consulted in military planning and given intelligence by the US (features of qualitative multilateralism), while Asian allies were not. This paper argues that to understand the patterns of alliance formation in post-war Asia and the Pacific, it is critical to incorporate non-materialist variables such as culture and identity. In particular, a careful analysis of the official primary source documents that describe the creation of US alliances in the region ? especially the formation of ANZUS in 1951 - shows the important ways in which ideas and assumptions based on race and ‘civilization’ influenced key policy makers and shaped their expectations of would-be allies. Drawing on a rich literature in diplomatic history and sociology the paper makes a broader argument for the inclusion of race as a factor in our analysis of national security decision making in International Relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the distinction Martin Hollis and Steve Smith make between explaining international relations from the outside, and understanding international relations from the inside as the basis for reconsidering the place of culture and religion in international relations theory. It shows how much of the literature in the first year or so after September 11 fits into these two appraoches. It argues, however, that interpretative approaches can bring out the relevance of some aspects of social constructivism for understanding culture and religion in international relations as well as its limits. Some of these limits can be more clearly seen when culture and religion are examined using Alasdair MacIntyre’s narrative theory of idenity and social action, and so the paper ends up by applying MacIntre’s narrative approach to understanding the September 11 tragedy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares and contrasts the George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton and George W. Bush administrations’ development and implementation of foreign and security policies toward Iraq from 1989-2003. It does so in the context of the long-standing debate among scholars of international relations--historians and political scientists alike--over the potential of individuals to drive events within the international system. In particular, the paper addresses the following five research questions: First, to what extent has personal diplomacy proven indispensable to the development and implementation of American foreign and security policies toward the Persian Gulf generally and Iraq specifically since 1989? Second, which general presidential policymaking model--one plus one, one plus a few, or one plus many--did the Bush I, Clinton and Bush II administrations, respectively, utilize in dealing with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein? Third, which of these approaches proved most useful and why? Could any of the above administrations have pursied US interests in the Persian Gulf more effectively by switching to one of the two models it did not choose to employ? Fourth, what were the Bush I, Clinton and Bush II administrations’ most significant strengths and weaknesses in their use of personal diplomacy as a means to minimize the threats posed by Saddam’s regime to US interests at home and abroad? Fifth, given those strengths and weaknesses, what type of policymaking approach is likely to prove most effective in future American dealings with Persian Gulf states in general and Iraq in particular? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To realists, unipolarity is short-lived and conflict-ridden; other states will ally against the preemininent state, thus restoring the balance of the system. Yet, historical evidence suggests that unipolar periods have been more than just short-lived interludes, and that states sometimes tolerate unipolarity. Why? This paper identifies historical instances of such tolerance, and suggests an answer to their longevity beyond hegemonic stability theory. By overlooking the normative aspects of hegemony, hegemonic stability theory confuses unipolarity and hegemony. A hegemon is a pre-eminent power in a unipolar power, but not all unipolar systems are hegemonies. Unipolarity is exercized through military and economic power; hegemony also involves normative power. Implying: if a pre-eminent power is non-hegemonic, it will be perceived as acting only in its own self-interest; other states will then ally against it, establishing a balance of power. However, if a pre-eminent power is also a hegemon, it will be perceived as acting in the interest of the entire system; other states may then consider it legitimate and refrain from balancing ? in which case unipolarity may persist. The paper also discusses US foreign policy, in particular since 9/11 and the war in Iraq, in the light of this view of hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intervention of the international community ? and specifically the form of new multilateralism activated by the Organization of American States (OAS) ? to crises in Peru and Venezuela. Although from a comparative politics perspective, these two cases present striking contrasts, with respect to the study of global governance it is the commonalities in the response that attractions attention. Reshaping existing regional sovereignty norms and practices, both interventions contained extensive ?internal? as well as ?international? components in which the boundaries or barriers between diplomacy and domestic politics were blurred. The centrepiece of both initiatives was the establishment of a ?mesa,? an OAS-facilitated dialogue roundtable or forum involving key domestic political and civil society actors from government and opposition in a sustained collective effort to negotiate a consensual and peaceful solution to political crisis. In the body of the work the process of this ?tale of two mesas? is traced through three distinctive components: the actors at the table; the agendas; and, relative achievements. As our paper demonstrates, significant differences between the two mesa processes make it difficult to articulate a single, coherent model. Nonetheless, we conclude that both the Peruvian and Venezuelan mesas exemplify a promising mode of multilateral intervention: ?intervention without intervening.? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on explaining how alliance security dilemma worked between the United States and South Korea in their approach toward North Korea since the 1990s. I so doing, I develop a model that combines Glenn Snyder’s alliance model and Domestic Politics. Although Snyder’s theory of alliance security dilemma (entrapment & abandonment) is one of the most useful theories on alliance, it does not satisfactorily explain the dynamics of the dilemma that the US and ROK experience since the end of the Cold War. This is because, I argue, how an ally (South Korea) experiences fear of abandonment or entrapment by its partner (US) differs based on its policy preference, which is determined by the ally’s leadership. For instance, Kim Dae-jung did not feel fear of abandonment by Clinton’s North Korea policy because it served his sunshine policy, whereas he felt strong fear of entrapment by Bush’s hawkish North Korea policy. On the other hand, Kim Yong-san felt strong fear of abandonment when Clinton Admin. pursued engagement policy toward North Korea because the Kim gov’t was pursuing hawkish North Korean policy. After presenting the theory that combines Snyder’s and Putnam’s models, I use it to explain how the US and South Korean policies toward North Korea sometimes worsen their alliance security dilemma, while sometimes mitigated the dilemma In so doing, I divide the period of investigation into the following: 1) 1st Clinton-Kim Yong-san period during the NPT crisis (ROK felt both entrapment & abandonment by the US) 2) 2nd Clinton-Kim Yong-san period (ROK feared abandonment by US) 3) 1st Clinton-Kim Dae-jung period before the Perry Review (no clear policy initiative, tention with North Korea rose) 4) 2nd Clinton-Kim Dae-jung period after the Perry Review (policy coordination worked, ROK’s fear of abandonment by the US reduced) 5)Bush-Kim Dae-jung period (ROK’s fear of entrapment magnified). This paper fits into panels on alliance, IR theory focused on interaction effects, foreign policy analysis, northeast Asian security, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparing three theoretical approaches to congressional-presidential interplay in foreign policy, this paper argues that the most useful and convincing theoretical explanation of congressional deference to the George W. Bush administration national security policy focuses on three variables: a) Congress?s perception of the existence of a global threat to U.S. national security; b) presidential success in foreign affairs; and c) the presence of an undivided government in Washington (with both Congress and White House controlled by the same party). Of the three variables, a) seems to be the most significant important. Thus, this paper concludes that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have created the conditions for a Cold War-like consensus in the United States. The general agreement that international terrorism is a global threat that needs to be fully assessed by the U.S. government reverts back to the Cold War pattern with respect to national security affairs of a dominant presidency and a compliant Congress in U.S. legislative-executive relations. In the near future, Congress may assert its foreign policy powers to a greater degree if the White House experiences difficulties with the global war on terrorism or if the Democratic Party regains control of the Senate and/or the House of Representatives. However, it seems that as long as Congress perceives that U.S. national security is threatened by the ?global and urgent threat? of terrorism, the presidency will be able to concentrate national security powers in its own hands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do ideas play in the establishment and maintenance of hegemony? The proposed paper seeks to answer these questions by building upon the model of international relations (Role Realignment theory) described in International Political Science Review 24/1 (January 2003), and refined in The Precarious Balance Revisited: The War on Terrorism and System Transformation (CEISA/ISA Conference, Budapest, 26-28 June 2003). The paper will explore the proposition that this theory sheds light on the process of endogenous norm generation in international relations. The model incorporates ideas/ideology as endogenous variables alongside traditional measures of power in a closed-system model that emphasizes the process dynamics through which ideas/ideologies compete for acceptance/dominance in international relations. The four major variables (foreign policy role elements) are operationalized using metrics that can be tested historically, producing an explanatory rather than a normative theory. Findings will emphasize U.S. foreign policy role behavior and its impact on America’s leading role in world affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the revival of security assistance within the mix of US development/military aid. The latter has been on the decline since the Cold War, in line with the normative expectations of the OECD-ODA regime, but has returned as a central element of the US war on terrorism. The focus is on front-line states in the conflict, and the volumes of US assistance are large. Paradoxically, this may push up the US aid/GNP ratio that had fallen to the lowest level among OECD donors. The paper would review the determinants and distribution patterns of US security assistance, the linkages between security and development assistance, and the correlates of both to recipient pc-gnp, lifexp, regime type, bilateral trade, and other variables. A more general discussion would examine the normative questions within the aid regime regarding military aid, and the utility of such aid in projecting U.S. influence in front-line regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As many commentators have made the point, G.W. Bush’s War on Terrorism is an assault on democracy. One of the many effects of this assault within the U.S. is the recasting of the ideal American citizen. In an erosion of historical efforts to enlarge the legal and cultural definitions of citizenship to include non-white and non-male people, this current war, fought by what Arundhati Roy calls, a multi-tiered edifice of falsehood and deceit, coordinated by the U.S. government and faithfully amplified by the corporate media, is successfully reshaping the real American as embodiment of white masculinity primarily through its representations in mainstream news. This paper will consider the growing impossibility of multiracial and non-gendered citizenship in the U.S. through popular representations of the war on terror Joanne Nagel argues that an unseemly, sometimes hysterical resistance to diversity that clearly exists outside of military boundaries in regard to the entrance of Blacks, women and homosexuals into the military makes more sense when it is understood that these men are not only defending tradition but are defending a particular racial, gendered and sexual concept of the self: a white, male, heterosexual notion of masculine identity loaded with all the burdens and privileges that go along with hegemonic masculinity. Klaus Theweleit argues a similar point in his Male Fantasies: that the sense of the soldier self and the cohesion of soldiering units is produced in opposition to a feminized, lower race and lower class animal who must be excluded for fear of internal pollution and disintegration. Given these claims about soldiers and armies who battle for the nation whilst battling for their racialized masculinity, how might we understand President Bush’s celebration of green card soldiers and the accelerated naturalization process for them in relation to the growing impossibility of a multicultural US? This paper considers the production of a second tier of US soldiers, non-citizens whose precarious citizenship is acquired through the use of legalized national violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested by those writing on contemporary forms of empire that the persistent and regular breaches by the United States of international law are not in keeping with some of the oldest democratic traditions of the country. Drawing on Hannah Arendt, this paper suggests that the opposite may more accurately be the case. While aware of the complex origin of the relevant international law, the paper traces - with Arendt - some of the imperial origins of our current legal predicaments surrounding ?imperial/humanitarian? war to processes crucial to defining the official US state-public sphere. In doing so, it joins others in interrogating the space opened for violence by law and recent invocations of human rights ideologies in the context of US hegemony. For a copy of this paper email: powens@usc.edu [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perhaps nowhere has the shift from divergence toward convergence in politics, economics, and development thinking been more acute than in Latin America, home from the 1950s through the 1980s to leftist revolutionary movements of varying scope and coherence, as well as the native soil of a series of distinguished social scientists (e.g., Raúl Prebisch, Pablo González Casanova, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Jorge Castañeda) who offered influential critiques of liberal modernization theory. At the outset of the 1990s, this convergence was seen by many as reflective of the political and economic norms promoted by the region’s hegemonic power, the United States. It was thought by many Washington policymakers that the remaining challenge was merely for the United States to translate its victory in the realm of democratic norms and ideas and market practices into mutually beneficial, tangible results. However, this process of translation was not unproblematic. The wave of political and economic reforms that swept Latin America and the Caribbean produced disappointing results, and frustration throughout the hemisphere is high. Today, the fierce and wide-ranging ideological debates of the past have been superseded by a much narrower but still sometimes very heated discussion over the flaws, limits, and insecurity of globalization; the need for further reforms; and the search for a development strategy capable of producing sustained growth and greater equity. There are strong fears that the region, so full of promise in the early 1990s, may face a considerably darker future in the early twenty-first century. However, while some U.S. policymakers share this alarm, the actual policies of the regional hegemon remain unchanged and continue to push for ever-deeper market reforms and fuller accommodation to the forces of globalization. This paper explores the sharpening contradictions in the Americas between the hegemonic vision of the United States and the actual political economy of discontent in Latin America and the Caribbean. It does this by closely examining two spheres of politics, ideology, and power presently in contention: 1) development strategy and 2) the redefinition of security. Based on this conceptual and empirical discussion, the paper concludes by reflecting upon the broader implications of these contradictions for U.S. hegemony in the international system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, which should be titled "Et tu? Classical and Modern Republicanism in Early America and the Betrayal of Rome," examines the resemblance (or lack thereof) between American republicanism and classical Roman republicanism. After tracing the evolution of the classical republican tradition with special focus on Rousseau’s contribution, the paper concludes that while the early American republic abandoned some of the virtues that were held dear in classical Rome, its ability to blend a variety of influences together in its political institutions was an accomplishment that the Romans would have admired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many American foreign policy experts have spoken out against the Bush doctrine–and against its first application, the war on Iraq. But at the same time they have overwhelmingly refrained from criticizing its assessment of the new dangers that face America today. Why have even most American critics of the Bush doctrine accepted the threat assessment upon which it rests? This is the primary puzzle addressed in this paper. The paper argues that the absence of significant debate about the nature of the threat neither reflects "obvious" world realities, nor is it a "natural" reaction to the events of September 11. Rather, the Bush doctrine’s mainstream critics have endorsed its threat assessment because in fact they had long since arrived at the very same assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks answers to the puzzle, "How is that, in the face of an overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is real, the advanced industrialized countries cannot agree on measures to deal with the problem?" The paper is guided by two intuitions: (1) national-level decision-making processes may foreclose mutually acceptable bargains between countries and (2) the ways international norms get framed may make getting on the agenda more likely but success at the decision stage less likely and The study concludes that the international arena’s early commitments froze in preferences that were too distant from those of important players in U.S domestic politics, both Congressional and larger societal (i.e. corporate interests). At the same time, as depicted by a simple spatial model, the preferences of European polities restricted the range of acceptable compromises that could be made, thus leaving the U.S. and its European allies at odds. Through the example of global warming, the paper also seeks to ascertain the gravity and significance of the foreign policy differences between the U.S. and its allies. Here, the argument emphasized the proxy nature of global warming as part of a larger European concern about U.S. unilateralism and diffidence. Implicitly, the paper favored the notion that the character of American hegemony matters for cooperation, and that the conflict with Europe over global warming and other issues may significantly undermine the capacity for Europe to cooperate with the U.S. on issues of interest to the Americans. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on U.S. foreign policy and judicial decision making by focusing on the role of the federal appellate courts since World War II. Specifically, the paper addresses the question whether appeals court judges are defenders of civil liberties or champions of national security. Using an original dataset of 300 cases randomly selected from 1946-2000 in the U.S. Courts of Appeals, I test whether specific institutional characteristics, legal challenges or case issues significantly affect whether appellate judges rule in favor of federal government interests or civil liberties claims. The empirical results indicate that for a majority of cases appellate judges support the interests of the federal government to the detriment of civil liberties. However, certain institutional characteristics will induce the courts of appeals to curtail federal interests. If Democratic judges dominate an appellate panel or if the lower courts ruled in favor of civil liberties, then the appeals courts will render decisions against the interests of the federal government. However, if judges must resolve a threshold issue or contend with a national security defense then the ruling will most likely favor federal interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the impact of the End of the Cold War and the forces of globalism on American Foreign Policy and the institution of the Presidency. The paper utilizes the paradigm of the "Two Presidencies." It argues that the End of the Cold War has transformed the Presidency because it no longer is the heroic figure protecting American physcial and ideological security. In addition, the forces of globalism have created the problem of weaker states where problems of terrorism, weapon sales,environmental degredation and drug and crime cartels abound. It is more difficult for Presidents to sustain political support for actions against a more ambiguous foe. In addition, the issues are no longer foreign policy or domestic but rather intermestic thereby inviting the Congress and other political players into this policy area. Finally, the nature of the solution to many of these problems are Collective Actions involving public goods. Presidents have found it necessary to secure support from other states and bound the nation into webs of agreement to limit "free riders." This limits the President and reduces the power and presitige of the office. The paper concludes that there is a transformation of the instituion of the Presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how presidents work with the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.) to build support at the U.N. for American foreign policy. Despite the clear importance of personality and individual relationships in establishing the Ambassador’s power, an examination of the post’s evolution in the past fifty-plus years reveals some common features across administrations. This paper finds that a U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.’s influence on foreign policy making depends primarily on the president’s view of the Ambassador’s role in the policy-making process and the Ambassador’s own aspirations. To examine these factors systematically, the paper identifies four, sometimes overlapping, roles for U.S. Ambassadors to the U.N.: independent spokesperson, personal adviser to the president, professional diplomat, and policy maker. For Ambassadors who occupied the position long enough to become involved in the policy-making process, this classification is useful in identifying their role in the president’s foreign policy advisory team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the assumption has always been that, compared to diplomacy or open military intervention, covert action is a quick, easy, and comparatively cheap way to accomplish certain foreign policy goals, in fact past covert operations have incurred significant financial, security, and reputational costs. The question this paper seeks to answer is why, despite the risks of increasing instability and mistrust of the United States, presidents decide to overthrow foreign governments? Drawn from a larger study of a structured, focused comparison of cases involving decisions both to use and not to use covert action from Eisenhower (Indonesia, Cuba, and Egypt) and Kennedy (Cuba, British Guiana, and Laos), this paper identifies the different causal mechanisms that can lead to a decision to use covert action. Decisions not to use covert action differed from the use cases in two key respects: first, policymakers conducted a thorough analysis of the available options and, second, and more importantly, the president was involved in the decision process. The decisions in the four use cases all involved the activation of schemas, which, in effect, overrode the normal process of policy evaluation. Thus, the non-use cases conformed to the rational choice interpretation of decision making, while the use cases showed the importance of individual differences. The cases also showed that the most important factor determining presidential involvement in the decisions was the degree of perceived risk; i.e., where there was a stronger chance of covert action leading to a confrontation with the Soviets, presidents were more involved and called for a more thorough analysis of policy options. The study found no support for the democratic peace hypothesis, or for the "CIA as rogue elephant" or the economic interests explanations of covert action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The starting point of this paper is questions that (1) why the American forces withdrew from Koran on the eve of Korean War; (2) why the Truman administration misperceived the Koran situation. The answers are discussed with reference to the literature on misperception and bureaucratic model. First, the position in the institutional hierarchy determines perception. On the eve of the Korean War, the State Department and the military had the different pattern of perceptions. While State Department objected to withdraw the U.S. forces from Korea, the military persisted that the U.S. forces should leave hastily. Second, this paper defines the concept of the bureaucratic dominance structure of decision making. In the decision of the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Korea President Truman played the role as an umpire. Third, because of the different perceptions of the state and the military, the withdrawal decision-making process produced severe interbureaucratic conflicts. The final decision to withdraw from Korea reflected ?bargaining and compromise? and ?pulling and hauling? between the State Department’s and the military’s perceptions. This paper concludes that the relative weight of the military establishment in the policy-making process concerning the withdrawal from Korea increased until the inception of the Korean War when the White House and the State Department reestablished predominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the next 20 years, China will possess the largest economy in the world. If growth and technological progress continues, China will become the dominant economic and military power by the middle of this century. How do citizens of the United States and Japan view this impending change? Realist theories indicate that such a tremendous shift in power should be viewed with trepidation. Liberals and constructivists argue that engaging China and encouraging its economic and political development will reduce the threat posed by China due to a convergence of identity. This paper examines these theoretical arguments from the public’s perspective. The survey data reveals that while Americans are evenly split between the realist and liberal-constructivist camps, the Japanese public falls squarely in the later. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper prepared for presentation at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Washington, D.C., on August 28-31, 2014 is presented. It examines impact of Intelligence Analysis on foreign policies of the U.S. It also discusses frequent disregard of intelligence analysis by policymakers based on a evaluation of the role that intelligence analysis that plays a part in the policymaking process.

The story of American foreign relations as it is traditionally told is the story of presidential power. While few doubt that the president is the dominant actor in foreign affairs, new work has called into question many assumptions about Congress's supposed weakness over executive actions in foreign affairs. Yet this scholarship tests congressional influence almost exclusively during the postwar era--a period in which the executive has had undisputed informational advantages and in which Congress has rarely exercised its formal powers to limit presidential action. Drawing on extensive archival research, this paper uses historical data from the American empire in the Philippines to investigate presidential power in an earlier age of congressional dominance. I find that fear of congressional sanction profoundly shaped the development of American colonialism, leading presidents and executive officials to design colonial policies to avoid congressional scrutiny and control. Ironically, it was the power of Congress, rather than its weakness, that increased the executive's power in American foreign affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do we have an international anti-bribery regime? This paper will argue that the lack of an international bribery regime was an international collective action problem that was overcome by the US through the economic and political power the US wields in the international arena. Economic interdependence, political similarity, and cultural similarity with the US increases a states likelihood of joining the international anti-bribery regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. executive depends upon organized civil society to help set policy and facilitate its implementation. There are currently over one thousand authorized Federal Advisory Committees (FACs) in which such consultation takes place, including 160 that address matters of national security. FACs offer outside organizations, including business firms, voluntary associations, relief organizations, universities, and other private enterprises an important opportunity to exert influence over the direction of foreign policy. I argue that this influence primarily involves covertly helping the administration plan and execute a political strategy for securing consent to pursue a chosen policy. This paper offers an analysis of FAC appointments between 1997 and 2012, based on data published by the General Services Administration, which I have extended in several ways. It has three core empirical findings. First, consistent with the literature on the "two-presidencies" thesis, these data show that congressional involvement is much lower in national security FACs than in other policy domains. Second, these data show that association appointments increase for FACs addressing the most contentious geopolitical issues when the opposition has a more powerful, unified caucus in Congress. Third, association appointments increase when the president is popular among the public. This supports the proposition that interest group access improves when the executive needs help with its political strategy, to mobilize the public as a means to overcome an oppositional Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents preliminary work on a project that analyzes strategic framing by U.S. elites during debates over policy responses to the Arab Spring. When completed, the goal of this project is to demonstrate a causal link between the way U.S. elites frame a conflict and the ultimate U.S. policy response. I present preliminary work on one case study -- the domestic debate over proposed U.S airstrikes against Syria in fall of 2013. This case demonstrates a framing contest, with the President asserting that U.S. airstrikes against the Assad regime would promote U.S. values and interests; in contrast, a bipartisan coalition of Representatives and Senators were opposed to the airstrikes. I conclude by outlining my plans for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States' record of participation in international institutions is paradoxical. No country has done more to promote the creation of new institutions. Yet the US has also failed to join some of the very institutions it has proposed, or has joined them only after making changes that leave the institutions substantially weaker. The ultimate rejection of the League of Nations, which America's own president had conceived and championed, is the classic example of this phenomenon; and nearly a century later, it remains one of the great puzzles of American foreign relations. This paper proposes a novel explanation of the League defeat, showing the decisive influence of an idea from the country's distinctive constitutional tradition: the doctrine of checks and balances. While President Woodrow Wilson, a proponent of British constitutionalism, considered the safeguards in the League plan sufficient, senators schooled in the American tradition of checks and balances objected to the plan's consolidation of power, arguing that it would inevitably lead to abuses of discretion. The difficulty of reconciling checks and balances with the inherent limitations of international delegation represents an enduring dilemma for American foreign policy, helping to explain the country's rejection of the International Criminal Court, its scaling back of plans for the United Nations, and its second thoughts about joining the World Trade Organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]