Hatchet or Scalpel?Domestic Politics,International Threats,and US Military Spending Cuts, 1950–2014

Abstract

Budgetary cuts are characterized by distinct political, organizational, and psychological dynamics in contrast to increases. Ideally, policymakers rank, prioritize, and assess among likely strategic challenges to identify the appropriate offices, programs, line items, or service branches in which to curtail spending. Targeted cuts—preserving some line items or services while cutting others—occurred during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Ford, and Clinton administrations. In contrast, the Nixon, H.W. Bush, and Obama administrations implemented across-the-board cuts, impacting all areas of the budget uniformly, regardless of strategic priorities. We argue that the ability of the executive to target and redirect spending commensurate with national security needs are constrained by domestic interests. However, the degree to which the threat environment is diverse conditions the number of available policy options and, in turn, executive capacity to implement targeted cuts vis-à-vis parochial interests.     

Hostage Diplomacy: Britain,China, and the Politics of Negotiation, 1967–1969

During the radical phase of the Cultural Revolution in 1967–1969, China's violation of the diplomatic norms of the international community reached an unprecedented level. Two dozen British diplomats and private citizens on the mainland became de facto hostages of their host government. In response to China's hostage-taking, the British government preferred quiet diplomacy to extreme retaliation such as a rupture of diplomatic relations and economic sanctions. It focused on negotiations through minimal publicity and reciprocal gestures. But in China, the British found a culturally different negotiating partner that was obsessed with principles rather than details. Through a step-by-step negotiating approach recommended by the Sinologists in the British Mission, London was finally successful in securing the release of its detained nationals. The lesson of Britain's quiet diplomacy was a culture-sensitive approach to negotiation and the ability to separate the hostage question from the wider political and economic relationship that would facilitate the resolution of future hostage crises.     

An unfulfilling partnership: Ukraine and the West, 1991–2001

The political crisis in Ukraine in early 2001 and then the terrorist attacks against the US and the resulting dramatic change of international setting have sealed the trend that had emerged much earlier: the once promising partnership between Ukraine and the West has ended up in mutual unhappiness. As the West is discovering new ‘geopolitical pivots’ in the aftermath of 11 September, Ukraine has almost disappeared from the radar screen of Western attention. Yet for good reasons what happens in Ukraine, a currently uncertain and weakened country with a poor international reputation, still matters for the West. There has always been a close link between Ukraine's transition and Western attitudes towards Ukraine. This might be the moment to think afresh about past and future Western policies vis‐à‐vis Ukraine.     

Herbert Hoover,Anglo–American Relations and Republican Party Politics in the 1920s

Herbert Hoover is often portrayed as a business-centric relatively non-political historical figure. In particular during his time as Commerce Secretary in the administrations of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, Hoover is often described as supporting a United States foreign policy that first and foremost served the needs of American corporations. This article attempts to recalibrate that picture by stressing Hoover’s political self-interest as a motivating factor in his policies. Far from being politically unconcerned, Hoover was a man desperate to become president of the United States. His disastrous campaign for the Republican nomination in 1920 made him doubly determined to use his power in the Republican cabinets to improve his chances for the nomination later. This can be seen in one of the most famous of Hoover’s foreign policy interventions, the Anglo-American rubber crisis. Far from serving the needs of American business, during this crisis Hoover was acting mostly from political self-interest. In particular attacking the British allowed him to reframe his image, which was seen as Anglophiliac in 1920. In the end it was a very successful rebranding, as Hoover was able to run for the presidency in 1928 from a position of strength when it came to foreign affairs.     

Which Land Is Our Land? Domestic Politics and Change in the Territorial Claims of Stateless Nationalist Movements

Why do stateless nationalist movements change the area they see as appropriately constituting the nation-state they aspire to establish? This article draws a number of hypotheses from the literature on nationalism and state formation and compares the predictions of each about the timing, direction, and process of change to the empirical record in two stateless national movements in the post-Ottoman space: Fatah and the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. Based on this investigation, the article argues that shifts in the areas stateless nationalist movements seek as their nation-states occur as a byproduct of the politically competitive domestic environment in which these movements are embedded. As nationalist movements engage in the competition for mundane power and survival, their leaders may alter their rhetoric about the extent of the desired national state to meet immediate political challenges that are often only loosely related to territorial issues. If these, initially tactical, rhetorical modulations successfully resolve the short-term challenges that spurred their adoption, they can become institutionalized as comprising the new territorial scope of the desired national state.     

Envoys’ Speeches at the Peace Negotiations of 561–562 AD between the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Kingdom

The most prominent feature of ancient historiography appears to be the matching and welding of two essential components: narrative and speech. The rhetorical feature of envoys’ speeches should not encourage the belief that they are mere literary evidence, as their presence in the narration is normally proportional to the historian’s interest in diplomatic events. This analysis focusses on envoy speeches during the negotiations of the peace treaty of 561–562 AD between Emeror Justinian I and the Persian King Khosro I as reported by the Byzantine historian Menander the Guardsman in the fragment 6.1 of his History. Since no documents survived after the destruction of the Byzantine archives, Menander’s documents are a precious witness. The envoy’s speech was not a distinct rhetorical genre; rather, it developed from the epidictic discourse for petitions and praise during the Hellenistic and Roman eras as a means of political communication between provincial cities and the central administration. Indeed, a fiction of internationality shaped the language of Roman diplomacy until late Antiquity. The speeches delivered by Roman and Persian delegates before laying down the treaty of 561–562 display discursive strategies articulated on the sharing of communal political and moral values.     

“A Trivial and Unimportant Ally”? Britain and the West German-Soviet Treaty Negotiations, 1970

ABSTRACT

This analysis explores British perceptions and roles regarding the negotiation of the West German-Soviet Moscow treaty of 1970. Whilst supportive of West German Ostpolitik, Britain has received a very marginal role in the historiography of the treaty. By exploring the consultation process in the so-called Bonn Group of the United States, Britain, France, and West Germany, this exegesis explains that Britain played a leading role in building consensus and forming schemes to resolve the issue of the treatment of Quadripartite Rights and Responsibilities concerning Berlin in the Moscow treaty package. As background, this essay also explains the policies of the Harold Wilson’s Labour government and Edward Heath’s Conservative government regarding European détente in Europe, including West German Ostpolitik.     

Domestic politics and interstate disputes: Examining US mid involvement and reciprocation, 1870–1992

Increasingly scholars have become interested in conflict behavior that falls short of war. Chan (1997), for example, has insisted that a concern for less intense engagements is crucial for fully understanding the conflict‐proneness of different regimes. Chan (1997) furthermore noted that scholars have generally failed to account for whether a state was the initiator or target of a dispute. Such a distinction, however, is crucial for discriminating the pacific effects of democratic culture and institutions. In this paper, I investigate the domestic determinants of US MID involvement and reciprocation from 1870 to 1992. I find that politics does not stop at the water's edge. Unlike Gowa (1998) who found no relationship between the use of force and dissatisfaction with the status quo, I uncover an association between US domestic conditions and whether the US was an initiator or target of a MID. Not only is the US more likely to be targeted during periods of domestic political weakness, but Democratic administrations also appear to be challenged to a greater extent than their Republican counterparts. Furthermore, when targeted, the US is much more likely to reciprocate when the initiating state is a non‐democracy suggesting that regime type continues to play an important role in conflict propensity even after a demand has been made.     

Third-Party Intermediaries and Negotiated Settlements, 1946–2000

Past studies regarding the success and/or failure of conflict management activities have brought about a wide range of results. In this paper we attempt to gain more definitive conclusions about effectiveness by accomplishing two tasks. First, using a basic theoretical framework we identify expectations of efficacy as they relate to differences between states, coalitions, and IGOs. Second, we also examine the utility of different conflict management techniques in an effort to place in greater perspective the effectiveness of mediation, the most utilized technique of third party intermediaries. Using a new dataset on third-party intermediary behavior in militarized disputes from 1946 to 2000, we find that while all conflict managers are useful in assisting belligerents in reaching a negotiated settlement, IGOs are the most effective. Additionally, while mediation is an effective technique to produce settlements, military intermediary actions, such as peacekeeping, are much more useful.     

Two-Level Negotiations and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Failure of the Johnson Plan for the Palestinian Refugees, 1961–1962

The Kennedy administration sought to resolve the Palestine refugee problem in 1961–62 with a plan for compensation, resettlement, or repatriation under the formal auspices of the United Nations Palestine Conciliation Commission and negotiated by UN special envoy Dr. Joseph Johnson. The negotiations failed and the plan was canceled by the administration in December 1962. The article utilizes a multi-level conceptual model which examines the links between interstate negotiation, domestic politics and boundary-crossing interactions between foreign states and non-state domestic actors and their impact on foreign policy. It analyzes the multi-level negotiations that were conducted between representatives of the governments of Israel and the United States regarding the Johnson proposals, discussions held between Israel representatives and American Jewish leaders and prominent Jewish individuals, and between American government representatives and these same Jewish leaders and individuals. The study analyzes the factors that contributed to the failure of the plan and illustrates the nexus between foreign policy and domestic politics and the role of non-state actors in foreign policy decision making.     

Politics,exit strategy and political settlement in Sierra Leone: a critical analysis of a laboratory experiment (1991–2015)

Abstract

A glance at key indicators—in terms of growth forecast and stable elections—will project Sierra Leone as a political settlement model for a post-conflict state. Sierra Leone has been an important laboratory for UN and international donors’ interventions and thinking. However, efforts by the international donor community to decentralise power to the margins, both geographically and demographically, have failed. Instead, this focus on the institutions of governance has allowed the same elite to maintain power. Sierra Leone today shares similar socio-economic and political conditions with the Sierra Leone before the outbreak of the civil war. A detailed analysis of the country’s socio-economic trends, its political institutions and the logic and dynamics of violence show a disturbing picture. While the international community considered that an exit strategy was feasible, the political settlement remains an experiment in that it is detached from everyday life and livelihood concerns of Sierra Leoneans and reveals the structural violence behind this process.     

Mediation and Psychotherapy: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Some mediators believe that mediation and psychotherapy are quite similar, and that when doing mediation, the mediator also is practicing an art form similar to psychotherapy. On face value, some forms of mediation (e.g., evaluative) and some forms of psychotherapy (e.g., psychoanalysis) are so far apart in theoretical conception and in actual practice that they cannot be compared meaningfully. However, the forms of mediation known as facilitative and transformative and the forms of brief or focused psychotherapy that often involve families or couples do have considerable similarity. Overall, numerous resonances exist between these two approaches to mediation and to couples or family-oriented psychotherapies, especially when differences in terminology, licensure, and training requirements are not allowed to obscure commonalities.     

Women’s Participation in Peace Negotiations and the Durability of Peace

There is an emerging consensus that women’s participation in peace negotiations contributes to the quality and durability of peace after civil war. However, to date, this proposition has remained empirically untested. Moreover, how women’s participation may contribute to durable peace has not been systematically explored. This article uses a mixed method design to examine this proposition. Our statistical analysis demonstrates a robust correlation between peace agreements signed by female delegates and durable peace. We further find that agreements signed by women show a significantly higher number of peace agreement provisions aimed at political reform, and higher implementation rates for provisions. We argue that linkages between women signatories and women civil society groups explain the observed positive impact of women’s direct participation in peace negotiations. Collaboration and knowledge building among diverse women groups contributes to better content of peace agreements and higher implementation rates of agreement provisions. We substantiate this argument with qualitative case study evidence and demonstrate how collaboration between female delegates and women civil society groups positively impacts peace processes. Our findings support the assumption that women’s participation in peace negotiations increases the durability and the quality of peace.     

Troublesome Peace Making: How American Views on Terrorism Affected Norwegian Mediation in Sri Lanka, 2000–2009

Weak mediators normally need to borrow leverage from more powerful players to provide efficient mediation. This situation requires strong co-operation between the weak mediator and more powerful actors or coalitions involved in a peace process. But what if this co-operation fails? This analysis demonstrates how lack of productive co-operation with the United States negatively affected Norway’s 9-year-long attempt to mediate in the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam between 2000 and 2009. More specifically, it explores how the United States views on terrorism in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 limited Norway’s room for diplomatic manoeuvre. Based on a unique set of classified sources from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and interviews with key actors, the analysis demonstrates how diverging perceptions of a conflict can make mediation painfully challenging.     

German Military Reform 1998–2004: Leadership and the Triumph of Domestic Constraint over International Opportunity

Abstract

The article analyses the processes and outcomes of military reforms during the two Schröder governments (1998–2005). These reforms are the litmus test for Germany's willingness and ability to play an important role in crisis-management tasks as part of NATO, CESDP and the UN. The study argues that, despite its strengths, the concept of strategic culture provides only a partial explanation of military reform in Germany. The article illustrates the strongly self-referential nature of Bundeswehr reform, despite adaptational pressures from the EU and NATO and the role of ‘international structure’. The domestic politics of base closures, ramifications for social policy, economic and financial restrictions consequent upon German unification and commitment to EMU's Stability and Growth Pact were critical in determining the outcomes of the reform processes undertaken by Defence Ministers Rudolf Scharping and Peter Struck. The study also draws out the important role of policy leaders in the political manipulation of reform as entrepreneurs, brokers or veto-players and in controlling the extent of adaptational pressure from NATO and the EU. In doing so, the article shifts the focus of leadership studies in Germany away from the Chancellor to an examination of the role of ministerial and administrative leadership within the core executive.     

The Role and Influence of the Orthodoxy in Russian Politics

The Orthodoxy has been in existence in Russia for more than 1000years and has fully merged itself into the nation,creating a strongsense of religious culture.During the long years of the reigns by differ-ent regimes from the Czarist Russia to the Soviet Union and then to thenew Russia,the religion went through the process of ups and downs inits development.Having once played a very important role in the social