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Although historians have paid much attention to American perceptions of Russia, few have looked at Russian views of the United States, particularly in the imperial period. This paper surveys editorial cartoons in Novoe Vremia , one of the few Russian newspapers to publish illustrations as commentary on international affairs. Novoe Vremia published cartoons depicting the United States in the years between 1898 and 1912 in the late imperial period, that is, beginning with the War of 1898 and ending with the abrogation of the U.S.-Russia commercial treaty. This paper finds evidence for the argument that Russian views of American empire and race relations persisted into the Soviet period. However, the Russian Revolution swept away the strong anti-Semitic overtones in many portrayals of the United States, at least in editorial cartoons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income inequality is a growing area of concern in both China and the United States, the world's two largest economies today. Alongside the traditional social welfare system, taxation and philanthropy are two alternative mechanisms to reduce inequality that have received increasing attention worldwide. This paper explores the roles of taxation and philanthropy in reducing inequality. In analyzing policies relating to taxation and philanthropy across several countries, this paper concludes that despite limitations and unintended consequences, under the current systems in China and the United States, taxation and philanthropy can and should be more effectively used to reduce income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nagorno Karabakh conflict remains a perplexing challenge for the regional security of the South Caucasus. In spite of decades of negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group, the final resolution of the conflict remains a distant goal. Against this background, since 2012 several US and Australian states as well as the Basque Parliament started to support the right of the people Nagorno Karabakh to self-determination. The resolutions passed by these states were not only unprecedented but were also inconsistent with the foreign policies of their federal governments. The present paper examines the underlying reasons for nine US states (California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Michigan, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Louisiana, and Colorado), and the most populous state of Australia, New South Wales, to have recognized the right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to self-determination. The paper also looks at the legal and political implications deriving from these resolutions as well as possible prospects for this pattern of recognitions. The paper argues that recognition of de facto states by federal sub-states is a new, albeit isolated, phenomenon. It may potentially enhance visibility of de facto states and help them to gain more support for their pursuit of international recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the long and checkered relationship between Islam and the West entered a new phase. The sense of suspicion and denouncement that swept through the public sphere of many European countries and the United States was accompanied by major changes in governmental policies and a shift in the politics in each country that has witnessed or suffered from the repercussions of these attacks; this has been exasperated further by the rise of Islamic State (ISIS). This study uses different types of data sources and focuses on the previous academic work on establishing institutions of higher education within an existing unique context to examine the challenges that these institutions face on both the policy and political levels due to the prevailing current geopolitical climate vis-àvis Islam. While focusing on the present and offering some insights into the future, this paper provides a base for a more comprehensive historical overview of the main policy changes by creating a timeline of key changes in the policies and mapping the significant events that have had an impact. It is designed to investigate challenges and opportunities of Islamic higher education institutions and programs from a policy perspective and within the changing political governmental agenda specifically in the United States, and it offers a preliminary analysis of the dynamics of these evolving transformations. Considering the emerging need to revisit these institutions and the more recent recurring calls to reform existing Western Islamic studies programs, this paper fills another gap in the literature by providing some recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explores how religion reporters in the United States (n = 20) define religion and privilege religious identities, at times also working to combat dominant hegemonic narratives about some of these religious groups. We find that some religion reporters covered religion in ways that reflect the institutional power of religious traditions, whereas others aimed to combat the hegemonic power structures of dominant religious identities by covering less prominent groups or usurping stereotypical framings of other groups. This paper (1) provides a window into the evolving landscape of religious news in the United States, tracing how many of these journalists aim or at least recognize the need to overcome White, Protestant hegemonic lenses for understanding religion in the United States through their reporting, and (2) demonstrates how religion reporters' approaches to covering religion, even while drawing from secular principles and values of journalism, are a byproduct of religion itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "information age" ushered in an explosion of knowledge and access to knowledge that continues to revolutionize society. Knowledge about turtles, as measured by number of published papers, has been growing at an exponential rate since the early 1970s, a phenomenon mirrored in all scientific disciplines. Although knowledge about turtles, as measured by number of citations for papers in scientific journals, has been growing rapidly, this taxonomic group remains highly imperiled suggesting that knowledge is not always successfully translated into effective conservation of turtles. We reviewed the body of literature on turtles of the United States and Canada and found that: 1) the number of citations is biased toward large-bodied species, 2) the number of citations is biased toward wide-ranging species, and 3) conservation status has little effect on the accumulation of knowledge for a species, especially after removing the effects of body size or range size. The dispersion of knowledge, measured by Shannon Weiner diversity and evenness indices across species, was identical from 1994 to 2009 suggesting that poorly studied species remained poorly-studied species while well-studied species remained well studied. Several species listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (e.g., Pseudemys alabamensis, Sternotherus depressus, and Graptemys oculifera) remain poorly studied with the estimated number of citations for each ranging from only 13-24. The low number of citations for these species could best be explained by their restricted distribution and/or their smaller size. Despite the exponential increase in knowledge of turtles in the United States and Canada, no species of turtle listed under the Endangered Species Act has ever been delisted for reason of recovery. Therefore, increased knowledge does not necessarily contribute appreciably to recovery of threatened turtles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the Caucasus region receives much less attention among scholars and decision-makers than a few years ago. Eurasian security studies are currently dominated by the coverage of the armed conflict in east Ukraine and the turbulence in the Middle East. The South Caucasus, however, remains rather unstable due to its geopolitical fragility. As Russia and the United States (US) find themselves in the midst of the most severe crisis in their relations since the end of the Cold War, their relationship in this sensitive part of Eurasia deserves every attention. While looking in this paper at the bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington in the Caucasus region, the authors seek to avoid framing the present state of the relationship as a second edition of the Cold War. Instead, the basic reasons for disagreements between Russia and the US in the Caucasus since the dissolution of the USSR are critically examined. The authors also aim to explain specific reasons driving Russia's and the US' respective engagements in regional security issues. They also focus on similarities and specifics of the US and Russian policies vis-à-vis regional ethno-political conflict resolution processes in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the asymmetric dilemma facing the Philippines and China in the South China Sea tensions. Among American East Asian allies, the Philippines seems to stand on the frontline between two rival powers, the United States and China. Since the US declared its Pivot to Asia policy, the Philippines' foreign policy towards China has become assertive and sometimes appears reckless with some military adventures against Chinese maritime patrols and naval ships, which also further forced China to take a tougher foreign policy against the Philippines. Considering the distinctive asymmetric indicators between China and the Philippines based on military forces, economic capacity, territorial size, and population, the aggressive policy behaviors that the Philippines and China have been displaying against each other cast an inquiry on what drives the two countries into head-to-head collision. While China as the larger power vis-à-vis the Philippines as the smaller power in the relationship has aimed for control and domination of their disputed territory, the Philippines' drastic defiance has also led to China's irritation and possible frustration. Furthermore, the US' renewed attention to Asia has caused shifts of asymmetric bilateral dilemma to triangular entanglement between the US-China-Philippines. It is vital therefore to pay attention to the asymmetric interaction of states and their varying views in order to find possible solutions to the SCS tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The safety of navigation remains an issue in the sense that navigation through the South China Sea is essential for world seaborne trade and communications, and the lingering territorial and maritime disputes would constitute a threat to the safety of navigation there. In recent years, the term 'freedom of navigation' has become a pivotal expression in the rivalry between China and the United States in the South China Sea. This paper starts with addressing the international legal framework concerning navigation, followed by state practice in the South China Sea, including domestic legislation and safety measures. It then discusses the issue of military activities in the exclusive economic zone and their implications for the freedom of navigation. The paper identifies several issues connected to navigation, such as the U-shaped line, law enforcement patrols, and the recent South China Sea Arbitration. A brief conclusion is provided at the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military cooperation is one of the most intriguing dimensions of the Qatari-US relationship. It has progressively evolved, driven by a changing geopolitical landscape and security threats in the Middle East. In fact, it has a significant impact on the overall bilateral relationship, especially economic ties. It rests upon four pillars: a bilateral defence agreement, the use of military facilities, arms sales and military-to-military contacts. This paper analyzes the development of the military relationship that exists between Washington and Doha and offers an assessment of the issues that animate it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, missions of the UN have assisted with constitutional reforms including issues of federalism. The hopes for peace with regard to federal structures have often failed. This paper elaborates possible reasons why these hopes were disappointed. It will show that one should understand the differences between Common Law and continental systems with regard to federalism. Some experts from Common Law countries fail to appreciate the substantial difference between federal Constitutions embedded in a Civil Law culture and those embedded in a Common Law culture. The reasons for the success or failure of past, present and future federal reforms may help to improve UN activities in this field. States of the Common Law tradition are not collective units, which have to steer their society. The Jacobins of the French Revolution, considered the State as their instrument to transform feudal society into a society of equal individuals. The Civil Law tradition has its roots in the French Revolution and in the sovereignty of the national legislative assembly as the only legitimate lawmaker of the State. The unity of the law does not depend on decisions of courts but only on the legislature. Constitutions of Civil Law federations need to enable the specified governmental branches of the federation to impose sanctions against federal units that fail to comply with federal laws. According to the perspective of the Civil Law one has to deal with two 'States' claiming sovereignty in a hierarchy, while from the perspective of the Common Law one has to deal with mere 'governments. ' Constitutions of multicultural federations embedded within the Civil Law culture will have to empower not just the federation but also the federal units to develop the different cultural identities. To foster different cultures is however, not a major function of the State of the Common Law tradition. Federalism of the Civil Law tradition is more complex than according to the Common Law tradition. Important differences between federations of a Common Law and Civil Law tradition lies in the lawmaking power of the courts. In Common Law, courts and legislature share the task of lawmaking; in Civil Law countries, the legislature regulates all issues of civil and criminal law. In a Civil Law country, legislatures, executives and courts cannot function if there is no valid local Constitution empowering those branches of the federal units. Thus, the federal Constitution of a civil law country has to establish the powers of the governmental branches of the federal units. Within federal system of the Civil Law, the federal units administer, implement and execute the laws of the federation. Constitutions of Civil Law federations need special provisions for the power of the federation to control and implement federal laws in the federal units. The civil law judiciary has no contempt of court against the administration and against authorities of federal units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Qur'ān is Islam's Holy Book and has been available to non-Muslim interpreters since the 8th century. Three negative interpretative paradigms derived from John of Damascus (676-749), Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) and Martin Luther (1483-1546) continue to inform many Christians about the Qur'ān and shape many Western views of Islam and attitudes toward Muslims. Other Christians have offered some basic insights about the Qur'ān through too brief comments prefacing translations of the Qur'ān or explicating Qur'anic themes. Others have written about the Qur'ān yet introduced questionable judgments about it and Islam generally. Today, it is essential for Christians to interpret the Qur'ān to non-Muslims without Orientalist biases. Efforts such as those by Miroslav Volf (Allah: A Christian Response, 2011) and my Opening the Qur'an (2008) point toward developing a comprehensive hermeneutical perspective. In the paper I propose a methodological approach derived from my teaching experience with largely Christian and secularized undergraduate and graduate school students in the United States of America. Part One sets the interpretative contexts in the United States. A proposed methodology in four steps constitutes Part Two. I adapt insights from Muslim scholars such as Farid Esack, Fazlur Rahman, Ingrid Mattson, and Mahmoud Ayub. Part III proposes that Muslim and non-Muslim scholars may employ cyberspace technology to continue fruitful discussions about our respective scriptures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I want to reconstruct the genealogy of relating Islam to fascism and fascism to Islam by assembling evidence from Western discourses. Such a reconstruction of course suffers from the fact that it has to draw a picture based solely on a collection of idiographic interpretations. The result is more a mosaic than a coherent narrative. My purpose is not to discuss again the meaning of the current ideological discourse on Islamofascism and the use of Fascism as an epithet for Islamism or even for Islam. Nor do I want to examine the fallibility of identifying certain Islamic political traditions as "fascist" or to explore the historical interaction between Islamic political discourses and Fascism from the 1920s to the 1940s. My intention is to study the mechanism and meaning of relating Fascism to Islam and Islam to Fascism. Starting with a look at the semantic expressing this relation, I will continue by examining the scope of the current usage in the Western public. Next I will investigate the general application of Islam as an epithet for secular political traditions and cultures since the early 19th century. Finally, I will concentrate on the use of Islam as an epithet for Fascism and Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s. I will conclude with some observations on current practice, which fuses and equates the epithetical use of Islam and Fascism. My main thesis is that Islam has been instrumental in splitting off ideological and cultural traditions considered adversarial from one's own social, political, or cultural context. The current usage of Islamofascism reverses this mechanism, as now fascism has become instrumental in splitting off Islam from the Western context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the migration rates from both China and India to the U.S. have accelerated. Since 2000 more than a third of foreign-born Chinese and 40% of foreign-born Indians have arrived in that country. This paper will document the evolving patterns of immigration from China and India to the U.S. by tracing the history of immigration and racial discrimination, the dramatic transitions that have occurred since the mid-20th century, and the current demographic and socioeconomic profiles of these two migrant groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes factors influencing the growth of the number of dairy product manufacturing establishments in the United States. We hypothesize that the growth pattern is affected by the size of the establishments. The empirical findings presented in the paper suggest that the growth of the number of small-size dairy product manufacturing establishments is strongly affected by the proximity of both input and output markets as well as by the presence of competition from medium-large-size establishments. In contrast, the growth of the number of medium-large-size establishments is affected by the proximity of the input market and the absence of competition from small-size establishments. The proximity of the output market does not seem to have a strong effect on the growth of the number of medium-large-size establishments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anson Burlingame (1820-1870), often neglected or misunderstood today, was an ardently antislavery congressman from Boston whom Abraham Lincoln appointed minister to China in 1861. Burlingame developed a Cooperative Policy that advocated peaceful means while upholding China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Chinese government subsequently appointed him China's first envoy to the Western powers. The first stop of the so-called Burlingame Mission was America, from March to September 1868. is article focuses on three topics: (1) How the mission's reception reflected the partisan struggle over Reconstruction and the push for racial equality. Republicans, the party of Reconstruction, proved sympathetic to the mission and to China, while the opposition Democrats were hostile. (2) How Burlingame presented Americans with a strongly favorable image of China to emphasize treating it with full respect and as a normal nation. (3) The Burlingame Treaty, the first equal treaty between China and a Western power after the Opium War, which sought to place China on a full and equal status in international affairs and to place Chinese in America on an equal footing with immigrants from other nations. Burlingame's friend, Mark Twain, wrote supportive articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article addresses the question of why, despite a handful of certain overlapping interests, the U.S and Russia ultimately failed to reach a compromise during their negotiations at the start of the Ukrainian crisis. We aim to reveal the effects of competing national security narratives from both the United States and Russia, and its role in the deterioration of these relations. Though the current crisis in U.S. – Russia relations has been sometime in the making, it became particularly evident in the context of Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine. Based on paradigmatic narrative interpretations, a qualitative text analysis, and a comparative analysis, we examine the two main aspects of the counties' competing narratives: "national security storytelling" and state "threat perception". We argue that due to their antagonistic identities, competing worldviews, and equally posing threat perceptions, these narratives have damaged the possibility to overcome contradictions between the United States and Russia. In the long term, these competing narratives may create the preconditions for a systemic confrontation between the countries in world politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generations of scholars have declared the Articles of Confederation to be inadequate to the needs of the nation of necessity replaced by the Constitution of 1787. This interpretation rests on three methodological flaws. First, it is anachronistic by which I mean that scholars use as a standard of judgement answers to questions of constitutional policy embedded in the Constitution. They then judge the alternative answers of the Articles to be wrong. Secondly, they compare the Articles in practice to the words of the Constitution incorrectly assuming the "promises" of the latter became effective public policy during the Early National period. Thirdly, they interpret comparable events in accordance with their preconceived judgement. Events like Shays' Rebellion during the Confederation era are interpreted as signs of weakness. Comparable events in the Constitution era, like the Whiskey Rebellion and its aftermath, are judged signs of strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South Pacific Ocean is emerging as an arena of U.S.-China strategic competition while the practices of the two countries in some areas suggest that the model of cooperation could benefit the regional States. It is hard to foresee whether competition or cooperation will drive the future development of the South Pacific or whether the two phenomena may co-exist. It is determined not only by policies taken by the two States themselves and their perspective engagements with both external stakeholders and regional States. Also, it is critical to understand how the regional states view the United States and China and how they are responding to U.S.-China competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits the scholarly debate on the profitability of historical slavery. The article examines the case of the antebellum US South, using slave hire rates as a proxy for the net rent on investments in slavery. It employs empirical data and a more advanced methodological approach to the issue than in previous research. The results suggest that the profitability of slavery was much higher than what most previous research has shown, around 14–15 per cent per year on average after adjusting for mortality risk, but that the return also fluctuated over time. It was on average more profitable for Southern capital owners to invest in slaves than investing in many alternatives such as financial instruments or manufacturing activities in the US South, as long as slavery remained a legal institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1970s, violent encounters between Ecuador's navy and U.S. fishermen off the coast of South America reignited a long-running dispute over tuna fisheries in the region. The dispute centered on a basic question about who could fish in the waters off Ecuador's coast. U.S. fishermen believed they had a right to fish the area, while Ecuadorians understood the waters as their natural patrimony. Yet despite this heated debate, U.S. and Ecuadorian officials appeared willing to settle the dispute. Nevertheless, repeated attempts at diplomatic negotiations failed to produce a durable solution. The difficulty owed in large part to the ocean environment itself. Competing conceptions of the ocean and a range of conflicting interests together frustrated diplomatic efforts. Ultimately, the fisheries dispute between the United States and Ecuador demonstrates how the environment can complicate international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts of articles related to social sciences and humanities including "Medical missionaries and modernizing emirs in colonial Hausaland: Leprosy control and native authority," by Shobana, Shankar, "Language, medical auxiliaries, and the re-interpretation of missionary medicine in colonial Mwin-ilunga, Zambia, 1922-51," by Walima T. Kalusa and "Religion and transformation in South Africa?: Institutional and discursive change in a charismatic congregation," by Gladys Ganiel.

The article presents abstracts of several researches including "Books in Heaven: Dreams, Texts and Conspicuous Circulation," by Isabel Hofmeyr, "Culture as Cure: Civil Society and Moral Debates in KwaZulu-Natal After Apartheid," by Preben Kaarsholm, and "Islam in Northern Mali and the War on Terror," by David Gutelius.

This article presents anti-communism as a flexible, chameleon-like phenomenon that took on various guises in different countries, depending on their specific domestic circumstances. Historical scholarship remembers both the Netherlands and the United States as strongly anti-communist. However, in the 1950s Dutch officials contrasted their own supposedly sober-minded approach to communism with what they regarded as emotional responses to communism in America. Based on the private correspondence of Dutch ambassador in Washington, Herman van Roijen, and his interactions with The Hague, it is argued that the Red Scare in the United States (1947–54) unsettled Dutch policymakers and diplomats. The initial phase of the transatlantic alliance was complicated by disagreements between allies about geostrategy and budgetary questions, but also by anti-communism, which revealed a deep cultural divide between Europe and the United States and tested allied relations from the outset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of the Far Right has been a steady global phenomenon, illustrated by political leaders such as Narendra Modi, Geert Wilders and Jair Bolsonaro. One of the main facilitators of this rise is Russia, supporting Far Right campaigns and movements in various regions of the world. Moreover, the Far Right parties around the world look to Russia as a beacon of hope, enticed by the messaging of Russia Today , Russia's state-run international news network, and other curated social media platforms. While some argue that Russia's support of the Far Right is an extension of its domestic values, we posit that this support is mainly to serve Russia's strategic foreign policy and that the Far Right ideology has little to do with Russia's domestic values and policy. In fact, Russia's domestic stability depends on values that are contrary to classic understandings of the Far Right. Given the multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition of the Russian Federation, the classic parameters of Far Right discourse would undermine the stability so dear to Putin. To support our propositions, we use comparative case studies of Russia's messaging abroad in Germany and the U.S. We then contrast this messaging and support with Russia's domestic rhetoric. In all cases, we engage in a systematic analysis of relevant documents, transcripts of elite speeches and media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the challenges that face Russia when reflecting on her obligations to the UN system, and on the limits of what is possible in trying to 'master' globalization. These challenges are not simply practical questions about the choice of foreign policy. They are deeper questions about worldview and how best to understand and navigate contemporary world politics. Several schemes have been presented to help identify and explain the foundations of our contemporary world order: geopolitical frameworks, civilizational ones, and some that are explicitly ideological. In engaging with and critiquing some of the best-known of these frameworks, the article makes the case for a worldview for Russia that is realist and progressive. This worldview recognizes the hierarchy of states and the logic of power politics in a UN-centered world, but it also moves beyond this pragmatic focus to consider the possibilities for a global dialogue of 'pluralistic convergence' and peaceful change that is facilitated by Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vaccine hesitancy highlights a problem within current rights constructs under US law. Refusal to vaccinate is ineluctably cast as a contest between parental choice, to which the law traditionally defers, and state concerns for public safety and the individual welfare of children. But rarely is the discussion cast in terms of the child's right to be vaccinated because our rights talk revolves around the capacity (or lack thereof) of the rights holder. If, however, we recast rights in terms of empowerment, then we can see that rights flow to the child, not because she has the requisite capacity but because she is less powerful. In this sense, rights exist for children because they are children. The authority of the state to mandate immunisation under US law also may be reconsidered because the state is acting to protect the rights of those less powerful – the children who cannot be vaccinated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article designs an empirical model to compare the level of engagement of de facto states in Eurasia by three great powers and non-great power patron states. The authors build diagrams based on three variables – military, political, and economic – whose indicators are determined by an expert survey. Russia engages the most de facto states and to the greatest degree, while the US falls behind since engaging the de facto states is not a key national security concern. However, neither holds a universal principle of engaging de facto states – each case is treated based on broader political and national security considerations. China, wary of domestic separatism, has no military ties with the de facto states and limited economic and political engagement. Taiwan scores the highest among the de facto states with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Abkhazia falling behind by a large margin. The Peoples' Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk and Transnistria score the lowest. The study reveals, the degree of engagement matters more than the number of the UN member states formally recognizing a de facto state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relevance of readiness theory's analytical framework in illuminating the fundamentals that contribute to the de-escalation process in international crises. By applying this analytical framework to the U.S.-North Korea crisis management episode of 2017–2018, this study elucidates the interplay of elements that led to the winding down of the intense crisis and to the parties' agreement to formally embark on negotiations at the end of the Singapore Summit in June 2018. The study shows how the multiple variables underlying the movements in conflict transformation, as outlined by readiness theory, can help to explain the effect of bilateral strategies applied by the U.S. and North Korea and the role of third-party involvement by South Korea and China in managing the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the European Union (EU)'s strategic adaptation to the relative decline of the United States (US)-led Western world order by introducing the concept of hedging: a strategy of concomitant engagement with the system leader and its competitors aiming to minimise the risks of confrontation with either of them. To grasp the EU's shift towards strategic hedging, the article analyses the subsequent 2003 Security Strategy, 2008 Implementation Report, 2015 Strategic Review and ongoing 2016 Global Strategy, and then puts the latter's core concepts of 'principled pragmatism' and 'strategic autonomy' into perspective vis-à-vis international developments since 2016, related to 'America First' and the Sino-American rivalry. The article ultimately argues that, confronted with global power diffusion but constrained by the preponderance of transatlanticism, hedging has become a primary strategic option for the EU to emancipate from the US without alienating it and to compensate for the waning of the Western world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese diaspora seen as a movement, at least in the years before the mid-twentieth century, is characterised largely as one of men. But the majority of these men stayed in close connection with an equally great, if not larger, group of women who remained at home in their south China villages. It is argued here that the role and significance of these women of the villages in the Chinese diaspora has been greatly under-researched. It is also argued that such neglect has meant that too great an emphasis has been put in the literature on leaving and settlement, as opposed to remaining and returning. Life for these women in the villages was one dependent on remittances, which in turn was a mixture of relative wealth and poverty, dependence and independence, authority and anxiety, and loneliness and freedom. It is concluded that the integration of half the participants in the Chinese diaspora – in so far as our largely male-based sources allow – into the literature of the Chinese overseas has much to offer in terms of our interpretation of the impact of the restrictive laws of the white-settler nations and of the motivations of those who returned to the villages and of those who did not. 摘要: 二十世纪初至中叶，华人散居海外被视为是以男人为主体的活动，而这些男人大多与留守在华南村庄的妇女保持着密切的联系。这些妇女在散居海外华人历史中扮演的角色与意义，却极缺学者的研究与关注，也因此造成已发表的文章有人认为，过于偏重男人离乡背井与安顿异地，而轻忽留守的女人与最终男人的返乡。这些住在村庄的妇女主要仰赖海外汇款，而汇款引发出混杂的相对因素如财富与贫困、依赖性与独立性、权威与焦虑以及孤独与自由。结论是虽然大量的海外华侨资料来自于男性，在可发掘范围内把华侨历史轨迹中女性角色彰显出来，再融会解读如白人国家限制性法律对海外华人的影响、返乡团聚男人的思绪与流落异乡耆老，力图了解不论身处何方，散居海外带给侨民，留守妇女以及整个家庭的影响。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concrete utopias have received little international comparison. In order to contribute to a comparative sociology of such social experiments, this article is interested in the case of France and the United States in the 19th century. To mirror concerns that were important at that time in both of these countries (the "social question" and the "question of women"), attention is focused on local experiments where work and gender were the subject of some notable innovations. After highlighting the form, importance and dynamics of abstract and concrete utopias in France and the United States, two communities inspired by C. Fourier are compared: the Familistère de Guise (France), and the Oneida Association (United States). If both learn about the Fourierist utopia, they put it into practice differently, in particular because of issues specific to each of the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 crisis has prompted ongoing debates over the implications of the pandemic for the future of globalization, international order, and the deepening U.S.–China strategic rivalry. Too often, however, these debates betray a disinclination to think historically about the nature of globalization. Yet globalization has deep historical roots, and its development and periodic crises throughout history have been closely linked to shifting geopolitical conditions. This article therefore argues and seeks to demonstrate that "global history," with its roots in the study of empires and transnational integration, provides a useful intellectual framework for better understanding the powerful forces currently reshaping the international system—most significantly geopolitical competition and economic decoupling between the United States and China in the age of Covid-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Jesuit mission in the United States expanded to the west in the early nineteenth century, the Society bought, owned, hired, sold, and forcibly moved enslaved people to support their activities. Enslaved people lived and labored at Jesuit schools, scholasticates, churches, and farms in Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Kansas. Aspects of their lives, including names and family relationships, can be gleaned from Jesuit and other archival materials. These records show what daily life was like for enslaved people owned by the Jesuits as they built communities, sought to protect their families, and resisted their enslavement. They negotiated with the Jesuits to be allowed to purchase their freedom; sued the Jesuits for their freedom in court; and ran away. Undertaken by the Jesuits of Canada and the United States, the Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project endeavors to shed light on this history and its contemporary legacies while working with descendants of the people the Society of Jesus held in slavery to determine steps forward today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following is an account of an early Socialist approach to American historiography, including a biographical note on Fedor Kapelusz (1876–1945). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a translation of an article which appeared in 1928 in the journal Red Virgin Soil (Krasnaya nov) founded by Aleksandr Voronsky. Its author, the Russian Marxist Fedor Kapelusz, makes use of the now largely-ignored book of Algie Simons, Social Forces in American History (1911). In comparing America's past to its present, Kapelusz offers a sharp political assessment and at the same time a contribution to the materialist conception of American history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2018, then U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton delivered a speech that ushered in a new, more aggressive era of U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis the International Criminal Court (ICC). Washington's disapprobation over the ICC's interest in the alleged crimes of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan has been seen as the cause for this change. While this is certainly partly true, little attention has been paid to Fatou Bensouda's prosecutorial behaviour as an explanatory factor. Using the framework from David Bosco's Rough Justice , this article demonstrates that a distinct shift in prosecutorial behaviour occurred when Fatou Bensouda took over as Chief Prosecutor. In contrast to Luis Moreno Ocampo's strategic approach, avoidant of U.S. interests, Bensouda's apolitical approach directly challenged the U.S. This shift in prosecutorial behaviour ruptured the 'mutual accommodation' that previously characterised the ICC-U.S. relationship and, in turn, produced the shift in U.S. policy that now marginalises the Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains why R2P failed to motivate action to protect vulnerable Syrians in the first two years of the crisis. We focus on the United States and argue that official discourse 'localised' the meaning R2P by grafting it on to preconceived ideas of America's role in supporting democratic revolutions, which is how the situation was understood. American 'exemplarism' demanded the US support democracy by calling on Assad to go while not corrupting the 'homegrown' revolution through foreign intervention. The call for political and criminal accountability aligned exemplarist democracy promotion to R2P, but it did nothing to protect vulnerable populations from the conflict that ensued. This refraction of the norm complicated the United Nations sponsored peace process, which provided an alternative means of protecting the Syrian population. We address a gap in the literature by examining Western localisation and draw policy lessons, namely the importance of examining national predispositions when implementing R2P. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Fraternité Notre Dame is a traditionalist Catholic Marian movement founded in 1977 by Bishop Jean Marie Kozik, né Roger Kozik. Kozik received monthly visions, primarily of the Virgin Mary, and established the Fraternité as a Marian devotional movement in Fréchou, southern France. This article analyzes and contextualizes the history of the Fraternité Notre Dame and its founder Bishop Jean Marie, showing how Jean Marie and his movement responded as religious entrepreneurs, innovating in response to the growing tension between the Fraternites and their religious-cultural context, which culminated in their choice to leave France and reestablish themselves in Chicago. The article analyzes the content of the visions, which both reflected this disconnect as well as spurred it onwards. The visions are contextualized within postconciliar Catholicism and the conservative backlash to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and reflect both a specific French Catholic context and a global apocalyptic vision of a threatened Catholic Church. Finally, the article considers the group's institutionalization in Chicago as the culmination of the friction between the Fraternité Notre Dame and its cultural and religious origin in Catholic France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disparate fates of the polluter pays principle (PPP) as an instrument of municipal environmental governance in the environmental law of China, India, and the United States illustrate how institutions and culture can shape its use. In China, essential elements of the Chinese legal tradition and an institutionalized devolution of power from the central government to local governments essentially neutralized the Chinese variant of the PPP in one important context by mobilizing certain culturally defined behavioural norms at the local level. In India, the Supreme Court has behaved in accordance with the socially revolutionary role intended for it by the framers of India's Constitution by recognizing a maximalist conception of the PPP as part of Indian law, although other features of India's unique legal culture and institutions have reduced the impact of this development. In the United States, the institutionalized fragmentation of the law-making process within the Federal Government has undermined even the implicit implementation of the PPP, to which US environmental statutes do not refer. The implications of these developments for the PPP as an instrument of municipal but also global environmental governance in climate change mitigation law flow less from the nominal status of the PPP in the laws of China, India, and the United States than from the unique institutional and cultural conditions that prevail there. The result is a case study in how institutions and culture can transform the implementation of a principle of environmental governance that at first glance might seem to be a simple exercise in economic rationality into a different exercise that is not simple at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After multiple wars, Greece and the newly-founded Republic of Turkey made peace through the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the 1930 Treaty of Ankara. A critical component of this rapprochement was the mutual exchange of population and property involving the transfer of some two million people. As part of the exchange, Greek Orthodox inhabitants of the Republic of Turkey – with the exception of those who remained in Istanbul as of the Treaty of Ankara – became Greek nationals. This article explores how the agreements between Turkey and Greece indirectly facilitated a 'second exchange' involving the deportation of Ottoman-born Greeks from the United States during the 1930s. As the American deportation state grew to deport upwards of 20,000 people at the outset of the Great Depression, groups targeted by stringent immigration quotas such as communities of the former Ottoman Empire were deported in large numbers. The exchange of populations provided a framework for resolving the ambiguous nationalities of Greeks in the US, allowing American diplomats to secure Greek passports for prospective deportees. As we further demonstrate, only the terms of this agreement – not national affinity nor diplomatic relations with the US – could be invoked to secure these passports in a number of cases. When it came to immigration enforcement, how people self-identified in racial, ethnic, religious, or national terms was virtually irrelevant. What mattered was how states identified them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open access to electric markets supports the integration of growing renewable energy resources. This is increasingly important as more US states aim to meet 100 percent of their energy needs with zero-emission resources. Currently states employ a wide variety of renewable energy targets and eligibility requirements. An example of the increasingly complex US state policy patchwork is state-mandated zero-emission credits (ZECs) for nuclear facilities. Rather than increase conflict between clean energy goals and wholesale electric markets, there is a need for a more comprehensive regional approach that provides the appropriate price signals for carbon through existing market mechanisms. A carbon charge could be designed to eliminate the need for out-of-market ZEC payments to nuclear generation and significantly reduce state payments for renewable energy credits. This article examines the growing conflict between regional electricity markets and more localized clean-energy goals and explores how a carbon charge in the US regional electricity markets both mitigate this conflict and expedite the low-carbon transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reiki practitioners commonly claim to channel a power called reiki that is capable of physical, mental, and spiritual healing. Prior scholarship has assumed that the concept of reiki has remained similar from Reiki's founding in 1922 Japan to the present day, when it is practiced worldwide. This article presents a genealogy of reiki from Reiki's early days in Japan to its adaptations for the Japanese American community of Hawai'i in the 1930s and for white Americans in the postwar decades, and its return to Japan in the 1980s. It shows that, over time, reiki became understood as "energy," in part as an appeal to scientific authority, and as "universal," in the dual sense that it pervades the cosmos and is accessible to all people. In the back-translation of "universal energy" into Japanese, this double meaning of "universal" in English was lost but, as "universe energy" (uchū enerugii), took on new, extraterrestrial connotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the nationalist policies of the current U.S. administration have taken the appearance of a radical shift away from the (neo)liberal approaches of preceding governments, they in fact represent the latest protectionist manifestation of the American system of industrial development and trade, characterised by economic nationalism since the Civil War of 1861-1865 and beyond. Recent trade disputes between the U.S. and Canada, from this perspective, have to be construed in light of a century and a half long evolution of trade relations between the two countries, profoundly marked by the mutations of American economic nationalism. Yet, Canada itself was never immune to protectionist tendencies. In fact, Canada was for a long time during the 20th century more protectionist than the U.S., and many of its own nationalist trade policies from the 1860s onward had significant effects on commercial relationships with the latter. The main objective of this article is therefore that of contextualisation: it paints a picture of the evolution of Canada-U.S. trade policies and relationships which brings "economic nationalism" back in. Its main argument is that these relationships have been characterised by a constant tension between liberalisation and protection, to which Canadian governments have contributed in many ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article establishes historically specific connections between American artist Roger Shimomura's paintings about Japanese American Incarceration and Incarceration Redress from roughly 1978 to 2003. Deploying a kind of history painting in the Minidoka series before turning to personal narrative in Diary and the juxtaposition of contrasting visual tropes in Stereotypes and Admonitions , Shimomura's varying approaches reflect connections to timely emphases on raising awareness, sharing testimony, and preventing reoccurrences associated with significant moments in the detainment's afterlife. Throughout these shifts in focus, Shimomura's use of visual stereotype increasingly frames incarceration within its broader social meaning, rather than through its historical progression or its personal resonances. I show how Shimomura's work comes to connect incarceration to its enduring social consequences, making it but one of many recent, racially motivated transgressions that provide greater lessons about the perpetuation of naturalized prejudice in the United States and its material effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To clarify why research examining the responsiveness of governments to public opinion produces mixed results, the authors focus on issues involving contested moral values that are known to be highly salient to the public and hence more likely to be linked to public policy. Canada and the United States, where the same issues have emerged, allow them to isolate the factors resulting in majoritarian congruence, where policies follow public opinion. The authors attribute finding even less congruence than previous research to the dominance of the courts in ruling on morality issues, although they also find a greater role for the legislature in Canada. The authors raise the possibility that the very salience of the issues inhibited political action from conflict-avoidant politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]