Selective Perceptions: The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust

Abstract

Adamson's conference report focuses on those speeches delivered at the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust that evinced a nationalistic tendency, particularly those given by delegates from Bulgaria, Latvia, Hungary and Turkey. He addresses the relationship between social conditions and solidarity with local Jewish communities, and shows, for instance, that whereas the representatives from Latvia and Turkey suggested that hardship was likely to threaten solidarity, the representative from Bulgaria argued rather that hardship was likely to enhance it. Another issue taken up concerns how moments from the historical past are put to use as constituents of national myths: whereas the speakers extolled resistance against the Nazis as the heroic acts of individuals, any collaboration was drained of intelligibility and a sense of responsibility, and reduced to being merely an episode of the national tragedy. Adamson also observes that the representatives from Latvia and Hungary put considerable emphasis upon their respective domestic legal statutes and their prohibition of racial hatred; this, he argues, is a very weak source of moral justification. Adamson then goes on to analyse and criticize the speeches delivered by the Bulgarian and Latvian delegates. On this subject he concludes that, in terms of, for instance, self-sacrifice or resistance against the Nazis, the former's speech considerably exaggerated the benevolent character of the Bulgarian people as a whole; it also, falsely, suggested that deportations of Jews in particular areas outside Bulgarian borders were not carried out by ‘Bulgarians’, and described, contrary to the evidence, the Bulgarian parliament as unanimously opposed to antisemitism. The Latvian delegate, in her turn, offered a rather subjective theory of the origins of ‘barbarity’ that was historically dubious.     

Education Reform and the Politics of 2000

The year 2000 was expected to be pivotal in education policy.The presidential candidates chose to make education a nationalissue and offered fundamentally different approaches to improvingeducation. Education measures occupied prominent places in manystates and the U. S. Supreme Court appeared ready to decidethe constitutionality of vouchers. This article examines theresults of the 2000 elections and evaluates whether the electionof George Bush, the institution of a national testing program,and a voucher ruling by the Court are likely to alter fundamentallythe federal-state relationships in American education policy.     

Beyond the Cartoon: George W. Bush and his Biographers

Many people seem to see George W. Bush as little more than a caricature. While I acknowledge that Bush's electoral success is quite confounding, I argue that a more nuanced and deeper understanding of Bush is required to account for this success and to better comprehend how he makes political decisions. To go beyond the cartoon caricature, I examine the biographies on Bush to explore three key elements of his background and character: Bush's relationship with his father; his personal faith; and his development of a Texan persona. Unfortunately this analysis can only be taken so far given that much of the biographical literature is excessively partisan and poorly researched. Thus I conclude by calling for more serious scholarly investigation into Bush's personal history and political record.     

The Politics of Regulatory Change: National Forest Management Planning under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush

This paper examines regulatory change from the William J. Clinton administration through the presidency of George W. Bush by focusing on their respective efforts to alter national forest planning procedures mandated by the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA). While rule making has become an important alternative pathway for making policy, the strategies used to develop a new rule may vary among presidents because of differing values and management styles. Both presidents were adept at framing the planning regulation to reflect dominant values such as preserving ecosystems (Clinton) or administrative efficiency (Bush). Between‐administration differences in regulatory tactics also tended to alter the relative importance of institutional venues and, by extension, the influence exercised by differing political constituencies.     

The New Public Management, Homeland Security, and the Politics of Civil Service Reform

This article examines the George W. Bush administration's efforts to apply New Public Management reforms to the Department of Homeland Security. The primary focus is the administration's attempt to implement the law. The managerial strategy that Department of Homeland Security and Office of Personnel Management executives used to carry out the law in the massive new department receives attention, with a special focus on the approach used in dealing with the federal courts. The article suggests five general lessons concerning civil service deregulation at the federal level. The case reaffirms the notion that successful administrative reform requires a keen appreciation for the politics that shape it.     

The ASEAN Regional Forum in United States East Asian strategy

This paper analyses the development of the US approach to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), from 1991 onwards. It examines theories of why a superpower would participate in a multilateral security institution, and investigates the motivations for the attitudes and extent of participation of the George H. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush administrations towards the ARF. It argues that, in the post-Cold War period and in the face of a rising China, US East Asia strategy has been geared towards retaining the American preponderance of power. Thus, the US has pursued a strategy of containment and deterrence centred upon the regional bilateral alliance structure. Multilateral institutions have been treated as a supplementary means of supporting the secondary strategy of engaging with China. However, the ARF is not viewed as one of the important institutions through which to fulfil this supplementary aim. Because it cannot deal with the key regional security issues, the ARF is seen as a low-stakes arena by Washington. But the paper concludes that US participation in the ARF may nevertheless be crucial in boosting the legitimacy of American security interests in the region, thus helping to safeguard US preponderance.     

An assessment of the 2000 US presidential election: a set of political marketing guidelines

This paper comprises a set of marketing guidelines using the 2000 presidential election as an example, and analysing the image building of the two candidates, Al Gore and George W. Bush. It is not hard to understand, with hindsight, why Bush was the winner. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Federal Government Reform: Lessons from Clinton’s “Reinventing Government” and Bush’s “Management Agenda” Initiatives

Newly elected presidents oftentimes set out to reform the executive branch. This has been the norm for more than 100 years, and indications are that the next president will follow this pattern. The authors have had firsthand experience over the past 15 years with White House–led government reform efforts. They provide their insights on President Bill Clinton’s reinventing government initiative and President George W. Bush’s management agenda efforts. Based on their experience, they offer lessons to the next president’s team on what they might do to get a reform effort started successfully and how to get reform initiatives implemented and sustained.     

Why George W. Bush Is a Unilateralist and How It Will Affect the 2004 Presidential Election

ABSTRACT

U.S. President George W. Bush has had a stormy relationship with Europe. Bush campaigned on a theme of putting America's interests first and eschewing multilateralism when necessary. Since taking office, Bush has been true to his campaign pledges. Bush's style and substance have caused many in Europe to regard him as a “buffoon” at best and a dangerous cowboy at worst. What the Europeans do not seem to understand is that, for better or worse, George W. Bush's view of the world is held by a substantial portion of the American people, and even when the U.S. had a more Euro-friendly leader in President Bill Clinton, America's policies were often at odds with those preferred by its allies in Europe. This is due to a fundamental difference that has developed between Europe and the United States over the last century. Today, no matter who occupies the White House, American foreign policy is likely to be in conflict with Europe's. Far from being a liability, this difference is likely to be a political asset to George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.     

Is the Death of Inheritance Tax Inevitable? Lessons from America

In 2001, George Bush repealed estate tax in America. This was a shock to many in the US as inherited privilege had never been popular in a country where individuals were supposed to secure the American Dream through their own efforts. The tax had existed for over a century and only 2 per cent of the richest Americans paid it. But the repeal lobby managed to build an unlikely and broad alliance against the 'Death Tax' (as they managed to rename it). The key to their campaign was a moral case against the tax, illustrated with a few well-chosen narratives. The opposition fought back, ineffectively, with pragmatic arguments and statistics. This paper will apply lessons from America to the UK politics of taxation. It will focus on the role of lobby groups and the power of moral arguments and narrative evidence over more pragmatic arguments and 'scientific' forms of evidence.     

Using Parallel Strategies to Promote Change: Forest Policymaking under George W. Bush

This study of policy change examines the parallel strategies the administration of President George W. Bush has used to substantially alter the direction of forest policy during his first term. Using the Healthy Forests Initiative as a case study, this analysis explains how, by framing the problem of wildfires and forest health in terms of process and pointing blame at environmental groups misusing appeal procedures, the administration was able to emphasize process, rather than the content of existing forest policy. It also provided a reasonable explanation for the president to take a lead in seeking both legislative as well as regulatory change. We contend that the use of two parallel policymaking paths—legislative and administrative—enabled the president to pursue policy change more rapidly, and, from a strategic standpoint, more effectively, than by relying upon the legislative process alone. We offer that the Bush administration's approach to changing forest policy represents a redirection that is likely to serve as a template for further environmental policy change.     

Fear in the Voting Booth: The 2004 Presidential Election

Every presidential election offers interesting questions for analysis, but some elections are more puzzling than others. The election of 2004 involves two linked and countervailing puzzles. The first is: How did President George W. Bush manage to win at all, avoiding the fates of George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter? The other is: Why didn’t he win by a more substantial margin than in his first election, as all reelected presidents since Eisenhower were able to do? On the one hand, in the wake of September 11, the president had approval ratings around 90% and the threat of terrorism remained a substantial concern through Election Day. This would seem to afford Bush an overwhelming advantage. On the other hand, the public’s views of the state of the economy and of the course of the war in Iraq were negative. We think that the juxtaposition of these questions will help to explain the outcome of the election and of the pattern of the results. Moreover, by unpacking our explanation of the vote into three policy-related issue components—economic retrospective evaluations, domestic policy views, and foreign policy views—we examine the way these preferences contributed to the electorate’s voting decisions.     

Due Processes of Governance: Terror, the Rule of Law, and the Limits of Institutional Design

The George W. Bush administration was more aggressive than most in asserting independent executive competence pursuant to the president's joint roles as commander in chief of the armed forces and as head of the executive branch. One of its legacies is that the rule of law is an unsettled matter, both intellectually and practically. While constitutional reform to provide a framework for law-based governance under emergency conditions may be required, it is unlikely to occur. Analysis should consider how to improve the design and operation of microstructures within the executive branch. This article surveys options for instituting design changes but concludes that no such option is compelling, given the requirements of good lawyering about contentious issues within the executive branch. It recommends systematic deliberation about "best practices" in executive branch lawyering—with the ambition of articulating a practical theory on the due processes of governance that encompasses the special circumstances of emergency conditions.     

Federalism in the 2000 Presidential Election

Federalism was not an explicitly prominent feature of the 2000presidential election, but it exerted significant influencein shaping the political landscape as well as the candidates'positions on the role and purposes of the federal government.America's federal system created powerful undercurrents thatinfluenced the selection of the two major presidential candidates,the campaign issues, and the candidates' messages. At the sametime, George W. Bush and Albert Gore differed considerably intheir answers to how the United States' federal system shouldfunction and the objectives it should seek. Bush favored a federalgovernment that promotes economic opportunity through a marketplaceand allows state and local governments to determine their ownmoral and policy objectives. Gore preferred a national commonwealth,where the federal government determines the moral objectivesand the states cooperate to achieve those objectives.     

从9·11事件到伊拉克战争泥潭——布什政府言论的历史

围绕美国在伊拉克战争受挫过程描述布什政府危机言论的历史。布什总统9·11之后发表了煽情的夸大危机的言论,反恐备战和占领伊拉克过程中将此类言论充分展开,美国陷入战争泥潭后此类言论一度达到高潮,布什第二届总统任期中,他的"立场坚定"的美名就已失去了修辞的魅力。     

Inventing the ‘axis of evil’: the myth and reality of us intelligence and policy-making after 9/11

George W. Bush has claimed that the latest intelligence estimates single out Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an ‘axis of evil’ fomenting terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. However, the intelligence itself demonstrates that this concept has been largely manufactured and the CIA bypassed in favor of a pre-existing political consensus among right-wing Republicans. In reality, the ‘axis’ serves to perpetuate an American ‘preponderance of power’. It justifies specific policies which had already been decided before Bush came to power and which now have popular acceptance through their association with the successful war on terrorism.     

Germany and the Eurozone Crisis: Between Hegemony and Domestic Politics

This paper explores Germany’s centrality to the outcome of the eurozone crisis. It argues that the eurozone crisis has led Germany’s ordo-liberal principles to trump its other longstanding commitment – i.e. to European integration. These two principles are explored in order then to shed light on how they have played out during the crisis. German centrality has created high expectations for it to provide leadership. Exploring hegemony conceptually and in practice, it is argued that international legitimacy and increasing domestic constraints have limited a leadership role. Indeed, it is argued that it is the domestic political situation that explains why ordo-liberalism has trumped pro-Europeanism. Ordo-liberal emphasis on stability culture has provided a valuable strategic resource for securing German objectives within the eurozone while satisfying the requirements of domestic politics.     

The influence of state-level economic conditions on the 1992 U.S. presidential election

Evidence is found that state-level economic conditions played a significant role in the defeat of George Bush in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. Evidence is also found which indicates that the entrance of Ross Perot into the race as an independent candidate was not instrumental in the Bush loss.     

Viewpoint: Bureaucratic Politics and the Case of Satellite Export Controls

The export control regime applied to commercial satellites in the United States (U.S.) is not rational suggesting that the desired policy outcome of this regime is not met. The regime under review is the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Commercially available technologies were placed within this regime to make sure that such technologies do not harm U.S. national security interests. It is argued in this viewpoint that not only does this regime weaken national security, but it also affects commercial space. The commercial space sector is affected through a cost of compliance with the regime. Discussed herein is the political process of export control and commercial satellites with particular attention to how that process is influenced by bureaucratic politics.     

Tracing the Gordian Knot: Indeterminate‐Sentenced Prisoners and the Pathologies of English Penal Politics

This article explores some of the key pathologies of English penal politics by applying an interpretive political analysis perspective to the specific issue of the plight of the ‘prisoners left behind’, the thousands of indeterminate‐sentenced IPP (imprisonment for public protection) prisoners who remain incarcerated, notwithstanding the abolition in 2012 of this sentencing option targeted at ‘dangerous offenders’. The article draws on research findings from an ESRC funded study of penal policymaking to examine why the Gordian knot of the prisoners left behind has proved to be so hard to untangle. The broader lessons of this specific story are then set out. In particular, it is argued that the public and political debate around criminal justice has become damagingly narrow over recent years.