Cash or Combat? America’s Asian Alliances During the War in Afghanistan

Abstract

A basic trade-off in military cooperation exists: States must respond to the dominant ally’s demands and act as a reliable partner while simultaneously making a decision that is acceptable to domestic audiences. We argue that compensatory burden-sharing strategies are imperfect but dependable solutions to manage foreign policy decisions at the domestic and alliance levels. Our theoretical expectations are tested using the US-Japan and US-Republic of Korea alliances and, in particular, the contribution of each country to the war in Afghanistan. We find that foreign aid commitments to third parties are made as a form of compensation when alliance expectations are substantial, but the secondary ally's ability to contribute militarily is highly constrained. Foreign aid has therefore served as an alliance management tool.     

Explaining Canada–US differences in attitudes toward the role of government: a test of S.M. Lipset’s ‘Continental Divide’

For decades scholars have engaged in a lively debate about the distinctiveness of Canadian and American value systems. Lipset (1990) argues that divergent responses to the American Revolution led Canada to embrace Tory values of ‘peace, order, and good government’ while Americans pursued classical liberal values of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’. Other scholars question the extent, or even the existence, of the differences Lipset describes. Using surveys of students from Canadian and American universities close to the Canada–US border, we identify compelling support for Lipset’s hypothesised differences on the role of government in the least likely setting imaginable.     

Transforming the Unbound Elephant to the Lovable Asian Hulk: Why is Modi Leveraging India’s Soft Power?

Prime Minister Modi’s administration has renewed emphasis on highlighting India’s soft power resources such as yoga, democratic values, spirituality, etc. Modi has also launched an aggressive public relations and marketing campaign to boost India’s economic growth. This article examines the role and importance of soft power resources in Modi’s foreign policy. The author argues that Modi is applying a two-pronged strategy of simultaneously adopting an aggressive sales pitch to boost India’s economic growth and leveraging India’s soft power to mitigate potential threats emanating from the country’s growing hard power. While soft power resources generally supplement a state’s hard power towards achieving foreign policy goals, Modi is using India’s soft power to draw attention away from the state’s rising military power. While India is enhancing its existing military power, Modi is engaging India’s neighbours and other great powers to ensure that its rise is intended to be peaceful, non-threatening and entirely benevolent. This is in stark contrast to how Asian states as well as the world perceive China’s rise. This article also questions the effectiveness of this strategy and predicts that this strategy should bode well for India in maintaining its international reputation and relationships.     

Japan’s Bilateral FTAs: No Obstacle to Progress in the Doha Round

This paper examines Japan’s FTAs with Mexico and the Philippines in the context of parallel negotiations in the Doha Round. Although the limited results produced by these FTAs represent an inferior outcome to what might be achieved with multilateral trade liberalization, there is no evidence that these agreements have weakened the political will of Japanese export interests to push ahead with trade liberalization in the WTO or increased the leverage of protectionist interests in opposing that goal. The greatest hope for increased Japanese flexibility in WTO agricultural talks lies in accelerated reform of domestic farm policy rather than reduced emphasis on pursuit of FTAs.

Soviet studies on workers’ movements in the Middle East

Rabochiy klass Afriki (The working class of Africa), edited by I. P. Yastrebova, Moscow, Africa Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Nauka Press: 1966.

K. A. Guseynov's Rabochiy klass i Profsoyuzi Afriki {The working class and the trade unions of Africa), Moscow, Profizdat: 1969.

B. A. Shabayev's Rabochiy klass strait Magriba (The working class of the Maghrib lands), Moscow, Asia Institute¹ of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Nauka Press: 1968.

Willard A. Beling's important Modernization and African Labor: a Tunisian Case Study, N.Y., Praeger: 1965).

F. M. Atsamba and L. A. Fridman and titled Rabochiy klass stran Azii i Afriki (The working class in the countries of Asia and Africa), Moscow, Moscow University Press: 1966.

F. M. Atsamba's ‘The workers’ movement in Egypt on the eve of the Second World War, 1929–1939’ (pp. 266–94)

Selskohozyaystvenniye rabochiye v stranah Azii i Afriki (The agricultural workers in the countries of Asia and Africa), edited by G. G. Kotovskiy and I. A. Svanidze, Moscow, Oriental Institute and Africa Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Nauka Press: 1969.

Rabocheye dvizheniye v Azerbayzhane v godi novogo revolyutsiyonogo podyoma, 1910–1914 (The workers’ movement in Azerbaijan during the revolutionary progress, 1910–1914), Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences: 1967.

A. I. Shamide, Rabocheye i profsoyuznoye dvizheniye v Irane posle vtoroy mirovoy voyni, 1946–1953 (The workers’ and trade‐union movement in Iran after the Second World War, 1946–1953), Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences: 1965

Z. Z. Abdullayev, Formirovaniye rabochego klassa Irana (The formation of Iran's workers’ class), Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences: 1968.

Sh. M. Badi, Rabochiy klass Irana (Iran's workers’ class), Moscow, the Asia Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Nauka Press: 1965, is a smaller book (130 pages).

M. S. Ivanov, Rabochiy klass sowemennogo Irana (The workers’ class of contemporary Iran), Moscow, Ethnography Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Nauka Press: 1969.     

Population displacement in the baltic region in the twentieth century: from ‘refugee studies’ to refugee history

This article explores how Baltic migration, and particularly the experience of forced migration, relates to broader comparative and methodological issues and debates in the emerging field of refugee history. Attention is given to the impact of two world wars and their aftermath in the Baltic, with particular emphasis on the ways in which refugees from the Baltic and elsewhere have related their experiences. The article concludes by drawing attention to the multiple readings of population displacement that historians need to entertain.     

Taiwan’s Pivot to the Indo-Pacific

This article analyzes the Indo-Pacific pivot currently being pursued by Taiwan. It moves from theory application to policy analysis. Theory is applied in the shape of classical and critical geopolitics, social constructivism theory, social identity theory, role theory, strategic narrative theory, and balance of threat theory. Disputed identity and perceptions run through such theory application. Policy analysis is applied to Taiwan’s reaching out to South-east Asia, Australia and India via its New Southbound Policy, to Taiwan seeking entry to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to Taiwan reactivating the Austronesian Forum, and to Taiwan embracing the Free and Open Indo-Pacific framework being pushed by Japan and the US. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) emerges as the clear driver behind Taiwan’s Indo-Pacific pivot. The article concludes by judging the effectiveness of Taiwan’s pivot, against the shadow of increasing pressure from the PRC to curtail such regional space sought by Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific.     

B.H.P.’s “Place in the Industrial Sun”: Whyalla in its Golden Age

Whyalla epitomised the promises of industrialism and consumerism during Australia’s Golden Age of capitalism, roughly 1945–1975. Located on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, Whyalla was a bustling industrial town (later a city) following the Second World War. It was home to the shipyard of Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited (BHP) and, from 1965, a steelworks. Before the war, Whyalla had been a company town, one planned and directed by BHP. Following the Second World War, it had morphed into a hybrid public–private town, albeit one that was heavily influenced by BHP, so much so that many still considered Whyalla to be a company town. Drawing from company materials, parliamentary records, oral histories, and the Whyalla News, this article argues that, together, BHP, the South Australian government, and residents conveyed and developed Whyalla to be an “Industrial Eden”. These actors forged postwar Whyalla to be a metaphor for what BHP, South Australia, and, ultimately, Australia had to offer. Whyalla represented progress, modernity, abundance, and stability. Moreover, it was presented and even accepted as a great place to live and work. For a moment, Whyalla was a capitalist utopia.     

Sex as a Ritual: Transforming Women’s Sexual Being from ‘Human-like’ to ‘Animal-like’ in Taiwan

This paper aims to explicate the cultural meaning of sex in the Chinese society of Taiwan with reference to marriage in the Chinese kinship system in Taiwan. Through an examination of how Taiwanese informants talk about sex and their sexual behaviours, we demonstrate that their discourse on sex involves not only the notion of active-male/passive-female but also a symbolic transformation of the ‘human-like’ woman into an ‘animal-like’ man. This is arguably the core meaning of sex in Taiwan: sex is a ritual through which women’s sexual beings are symbolically transformed from ‘human-like’ into ‘animal-like’. As we shall show, the transformative nature of sex has a significant parallel with the logic of marriage in Chinese kinship system in Taiwan. In other words, there is a significant parallel between marriage in kinship system and sexual discourses in Taiwan. In conclusion, we shall spell out the epistemological implications of this parallel to the studies of Chinese societies: the relevance of kinship studies to the understanding of Chinese societies.