TPP Reflects the United States' Asia Complex

The 18th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting was held in Yokohama,Japan in November 2010.In the outcome document Pathways to a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific,Trans-Pacific Partnership(TPP) was officially cited as a pathway to implement the concept of the free trade area of the Asia-Pacific(FTAAP).Only a     

United States' strategic possibilities in the South Caucasus

South Caucasus is an area where the United States can obtain a wide number of strategic advantages if a coherent policy towards South Caucasus and the Caucasian Region is developed. This article seeks to throw light on some of the most important objectives the United States can obtain in the region, and explain how the policy of multiple outlets is a cornerstone in American policy for South Caucasus. Furthermore we look at the problems of the current policy, especially those concerning the Baku‐Ceyhan pipeline.     

Financing the United Nations: Explaining variation in how donors provide funding to the UN

When donors contemplate providing financial support to United Nations institutions they encounter a menu of funding options. Some UN institutions require mandatory dues, but most rely substantially on voluntary contributions, which donors can choose to earmark for specific purposes. How donors provide resources has widespread effects on the authority of UN governing bodies, donor control over UN programs, and the efficiency of UN operations. What explains how donors choose to fund UN programs and agencies? We advance a theory that emphasizes member state preferences over the affordability and policy substance of IO activity. Using data from two novel experiments and a case study of U.S. funding practices toward the United Nations (1945–1980s), we provide mixed-method evidence showing that a state is more likely to provide voluntary contributions when its preferences over the affordability and policy of IO activity differ from those of the governing coalition and more likely to provide mandatory contributions when its preferences are consistent with those of the governing coalition. Further, we demonstrate that preferences over policy substance are particularly important in explaining recent trends in donor earmarking.     

How some reflections on the United States' experience may inform African efforts to build court systems and the rule of law

This study examines how court systems capable of holding public officials accountable evolve. Although its main purpose is to inform the way we understand this process in Africa and other parts of the developing world, the account tries to make general points by way of a short, idiosyncratic excursion through United States' judicial history. The purpose is to examine more closely important aspects of explanations often not considered. Reform requires more than an incentive to seek change. Leadership, appropriate framing, a supply of ideas, and institutional capacity all matter too. Rarely do these things come together at the same moment, although happy conjunctions are more likely to occur in some political systems than in others. Change happens slowly, in fits and starts, with the benefits realized only after the ingredients are all assembled. Whether it is possible to sustain the impetus for reform while the pieces come together may depend heavily on the existence of organized civic groups and the links between the members of these groups and those in power.     

The United States' approach to Algeria's civil conflict: Implications for democratization,internal peace and anti-American violence

The United States' approach to Algeria's civil conflict has been based on the stringent assumption that a choice must be made between a secular government that is prowestern (although corrupt and repressive) and an Islamist regime that is anti-western (although equally repressive if allowed to govern). The article shows that this approach not only works to sustain authoritarianism in Algeria and reinforce a vicious cycle of poverry and civil violence, but also ignores the causal links between the practice of dictatorship in the country and the rise of anti-American violence. In this sense, America's foreign policy towards Algeria is a contributory factor to transnational terrorism. An alternative approach that is based on economic development and democracy promotion is proposed here to achieve sustainable democracy and internal peace in Algeria and weaken the forces that give rise to antiAmerican violence.     

Explaining and Forecasting Leaders' Decisions: A Poliheuristic Analysis of the Iran Hostage Rescue Decision

In an increasingly dangerous world, forecasting national leaders' decisions during crises is a central concern of policy analysts. But with a wide range of specific military responses available to leaders, pinpointing a likely decision can be difficult. This essay argues that the poliheuristic theory of foreign policy decision making is a useful tool for aiding policy analysts in forecasting the decisions of national leaders. The theory's emphasis on a noncompensatory decision dimension facilitates the elimination of many of the possible decision alternatives, reducing uncertainty. Then, surviving alternatives are weighed against additional, nontrivial dimensions, producing a likely decision. As an illustrative case, I examine Carter's decision to implement the hostage rescue mission, demonstrating that Carter ruled out alternatives that failed to satisfy criteria on the noncompensatory decision dimension—reelection. The president's final choice was selected from the remaining alternatives according to its ability to simultaneously maximize net benefits with respect to military and strategic concerns. Following a comparison of the analysis with compensatory models of decision making, I suggest a general forecasting framework rooted in the poliheuristic theory. The theory can be applied to international crises provided that policy analysts obtain information concerning (1) the leader's noncompensatory decision criteria, (2) the set of alternatives that satisfy those criteria, and (3) the expected net benefits of the remaining alternatives on other dimensions (i.e., the military and strategic dimensions).     

The Role of the Practitioner-Scholar: Johan Kaufmann's Contributions to Scholarship on Decision Making in the United Nations System

The significant role that practitioner-scholars can play in research on the UN system is illuminated through analysis of the contributions of Johan Kaufmann who represented The Netherlands as Permanent Representative to UN agencies in New York and Geneva and to OECD in Paris. He combined scholarship with practice throughout his thirty-eight years in the Foreign Service and until his death in 1999. He was a keen observer of the impact on UN decisions of different negotiating styles, psychological and cultural characteristics, and professional backgrounds, as well as the significance of the diversity of roles played by representatives of states, elected officers of UN bodies, UN Secretariats, regional organizations, and NGOs. He had a penetrating awareness of the importance of the physical surroundings of conference diplomacy. He was a systemic thinker, continually placing activities near at hand in the larger context of the UN system and beyond. His scholarship most certainly reveals that practitioner-scholars can make vital contributions to international studies.     

大国格局变化与传统政治的回归

自2003年3月23日美国发动伊拉克战争迄今已历四年。四年来,美国软硬实力、内政外交因为这场战争而发生了什么样的变化?国际战略形势又随之出现了哪些变迁?对中国而言,加速发展的战略机遇期是否还将持续?伊拉克战争本身又带来哪些启示?围绕这些问题,《现代国际关系》编辑部举办了“伊拉克战争四周年国际战略形势”专题研讨会,邀请一些知名国际问题专家进行了深入探讨。现将与会专家学者的主要观点辑录刊发,以期对读者更好地理解和把握这些问题有所裨益。     

The Making of an Accidental Crisis: The United States and the NATO Dual-Track Decision of 1979

This analysis re-examines the Carter Administration’s formulation of policy on the theatre nuclear force issue following the neutron bomb affair. It demonstrates that European leaders did not foist the arms control component of the NATO dual-track decision on Jimmy Carter. Rather, the Carter Administration understood the merits of an arms control component following the August 1978 PRM-38 review and thought that Soviet–American arms control negotiations would play a crucial role in resolving the conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact over theatre nuclear forces. This analysis also considers the previously unexamined interactions between the United States and the Soviet Union in the months leading to the dual-track decision. It reveals that American officials underestimated the degree of Soviet anger over the dual-track decision, believing that arms control negotiations with the Soviets on theatre nuclear forces would be possible and productive. The Carter Administration did not foresee the Euromissiles crisis.     

Predictors of the Authorities' Decision to Grant Asylum in Denmark

With the aim of identifying predictors for being granted a residencepermit, adult members of 149 refugee families from the MiddleEast answered a structured interview shortly after arrival onsocial and demographic background and family exposure to organizedviolence. At follow-up, 90 families (60.4 per cent) had beengranted a residence permit. This was positively associated withIraqi nationality, with the duration of the father's educationand the family's religion being another than Islam, and negativelywith being a single mother family. No association was foundwith exposure to war, having lived in a refugee camp or to humanrights violations. Without transparency of the asylum grantingdecision process the conclusion is that this seems to favourthe selection of socially and culturally well situated refugees,while human rights violations seem to play a diminishing role.In order to develop its quality, continuous and transparentmonitoring of the asylum granting decision process appears relevant.     

Back to prehistory: the quest for an alternative IR founding myth

Abstract

Searching for an alternative founding myth for international relations (IR) entails going back long before the 1648 Westphalian milestone. Drawing from a world historical approach, this article makes the case for investigating the origins of the subject matter of IR in the pre-state era: its founding moment may be traced back to a first encounter between two distinct bands of nomadic Homo sapiens hunter-gatherers in the Palaeolithic period. As the outcome of this interaction was not predetermined, four scenarios are considered: absence of relations by retreat and isolation; conflict triggered by self-preservation (birth of war); cooperation, barter or other types of exchange; and merging together. Following the initial engagement, intergroup relations became much more intertwined. Once the stranger was no longer unknown, the original distinction between Us and Them began to fade away. The ensuing relationship shaped their co-constructed social reality, in a long process of extending trust beyond the family circle.     

Diplomacy at the United Nations: The dual agenda of the 1992 security council summit

The Security Council summit meeting of 31 January 1992 was supposed to be a momentous event that would determine the course of the world body and international peace and security in the post-Cold War era. Despite high expectations, though, the actual meeting did not produce much more than a broadly-phrased declaration of good intentions. The article examines the hypothesis that the meeting had a dual agenda, with a hidden as well as a public part. It is argued that the main item on the hidden agenda was the confirmation, beyond any doubt or potential challenge, of Russia as the rightful successor to the USSR permanent seat on the Security Council. This suited well the weakened major remnant of the former Soviet Union as well as the other permanent members of the Security Council, especially the UK and France, who had good reasons to want to defer indefinitely any reexamination of the Council's composition and powers.     

Diplomacy at the United Nations: The dual agenda of the 1992 security council summit

The Security Council summit meeting of 31 January 1992 was supposed to be a momentous event that would determine the course of the world body and international peace and security in the post‐Cold War era. Despite high expectations, though, the actual meeting did not produce much more than a broadly‐phrased declaration of good intentions. The article examines the hypothesis that the meeting had a dual agenda, with a hidden as well as a public part. It is argued that the main item on the hidden agenda was the confirmation, beyond any doubt or potential challenge, of Russia as the rightful successor to the USSR permanent seat on the Security Council. This suited well the weakened major remnant of the former Soviet Union as well as the other permanent members of the Security Council, especially the UK and France, who had good reasons to want to defer indefinitely any reexamination of the Council's composition and powers.     

Climbing off the Back Burner: Lyndon Johnson's Soft Power Approach to Africa

The general historiography of United States–African relations in the 1960s holds that the policies of Lyndon Johnson towards this continent were a failure. Johnson, most historians suggest, generally ignored Africa and, in doing so, squandered the good feelings that many Africans had developed towards his more charming and polished predecessor. However, such views do a disservice to the Johnson Administration, which in fact embarked on a quiet African programme rooted in American cultural and economic power, and which proved to be more successful than is generally believed. Two factors lay at the heart of Johnson's decision to rely on a soft power policy in Africa: the domestic political constraints of the civil rights movement at home; and the belief in modernisation theory that had emerged as a guiding principle for many of his advisors. Johnson, to put it simply, may have lacked his predecessor's style but he compensated with a substantive and imaginative policy that quietly produced a superior method of advancing both American and African interests.