George W.Bush Reelected & the Sino-U.S.Relationship

The US presidential election of 2004 is a big event of the year that has attracted worldwide attention. After a fierce fight, George Walker Bush, the GOP's candidate and incumbent president, won the reelection at last. How will Bush's foreign policy and China policy be like in his second term? The question has now drawn widespread concern in the academic circles.     

Devant L'Empire: France and the Question of “American Empire,” from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush

Many observers of contemporary French politics would find it difficult to resist the temptation to conclude that France, alone among the European allies of the United States, has consistently had the greatest difficulty in adjusting to the reality of America's power. When that power occasions, as it frequently does, debates about “American empire,” French opposition to American influence seems to become even more pronounced. In fact, there has in recent decades been a distinctive French negative assessment of the merits of American empire, but it would be a mistake, or so this paper argues, to assume that French interests have invariably been at odds either with American power or with American empire. Using four eponymous figures to illustrate the French perspective on American empire in the past 100 years, this essay highlights how and why that assessment has evolved.     

A Review of: “With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right”∗

Recent evidence supports the important political role that political network size and distribution plays at both the individual and system levels. However, we argue that the evidence is likely stronger than the current literature suggests due to network size measurement limitations in the extant literature. The most common approach to measuring political network size in sample surveys—the “name generator” approach—normally constrains network size measurement to three to six individuals. Because of this constraint, research often undercounts individual network size and also leads to a misrepresentation of the distribution of the underlying variable. Using multiple data sets and alternative measurement approaches, we reveal that political network hubs—individuals with inordinately large network sizes not captured by name generators—exist and can be identified with a simple summary network measure. We also demonstrate that the summary network size measure reveals the expected differences in communicative, personality, and political variables across network size better than name generator measures. This suggests that not only has prior research failed to identify network hubs, but it has likely underestimated the influence of political network size at the individual level.     

Evolution of the Middle East Situation and Policy Adjustment by the Bush Administration

Since U.S. president Bush adopted the new Iraq plan on January 10,2007 for sending more troops to Iraq,the situation in Iraq has remained in a state of chaos. The Iraq issue continues to stand as a focal point of the Middle East crisis,     

'His Finest Hour?' George Bush and the Diplomacy of German Unification

This article examines the diplomatic record of the Bush administration with particular reference to its role in German unification. Based upon memoir material and new sources made available since 1989, it argues that the administration in general - and George Bush in particular - played an indispensable role during these critical years. First, Bush's unequivocal support for unification drove the process forward and reinforced Germany's commitment to NATO. By reassuring countries like France, the US also managed to compel reluctant Europeans to accept unification. Finally, by working closely with Gorbachev and Shevarnadze, Washington was also able to persuade the USSR to accept what many had once thought quite unacceptable to the Russians: a united Germany within NATO. Given the part that the President played in all this, the authors suggest that the generally accepted view of Bush as a politician without purpose or plan has to be questioned. The 'statesman without a vision' who emerges from this reading of events is seen as having been a more forceful and effective diplomatic leader than some of his critics have been prepared to concede.     

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.     

Curzon,Lloyd George and the control of British foreign policy, 1919–22: A reassessment

This article reappraises the complex relationship between Lord Curzon and Lloyd George in the years between the former's appointment as Foreign Secretary and the latter's fall from office as Prime Minister in 1922. It argues that the widely held view that Lloyd George held Curzon in contempt and marginalized him in the conduct of foreign affairs is not accurate. Their relationship is presented as being one of mutual respect and significant levels of cooperation. The article thus questions the extent to which the Foreign Office suffered an ‘eclipse’ in this period.     

‘A conference now': Lloyd George and peacemaking, 1939: Sidelights from the unpublished letters of A.J. Sylvester

Lloyd George's latest infatuation [with Hitler, after his visit to Germany in 1936] was something more than the momentary lapse of a failing dotard. To sup with the devil was completely in character for the man who, at the summit of affairs in 1919, had been drawn to power like a moth to a candle, who had come to worship success for its own sake and on its own terms and to make it the first and last determinant oi his actions; and who, for his final appearance on the world stage, a few years after the Berchtesgaden visit, aspired to a role that would reconcile power with practical politics ‐ that of a British counterpart to Marshal Petain; in which capacity, let it be said, he would doubtless have pulled off a better “deal” than most. (A. Lentin, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and the Guilt of Germany. An Essay in the Pre‐history of Appeasement, 1984, p. 154.)     

Ethnic Actors and International Crises: Theory and Findings, 1918–2001

One of the most sustained debates among students of international politics concerns the linkage of systemic polarity to levels of stability. The present investigation attempts to contribute to this dialogue in two ways.

First, prior studies of polarity and stability are reappraised in terms of the central concepts and presumed causal linkage, leading to several changes in approach. Specifically, polarity cannot be assessed only in terms of the distribution of power; the concept also should incorporate the notion of autonomous decision centers. With respect to instability, war is considered to be a less complete indicator than international crisis. Incorporating these revised concepts, a model of security regimes is devised deductively, including a rank‐ordering of polarity configurations in terms of stability levels.

Second, renewed testing focuses on the presumed ordering of configurations from most to least stable: bipolarity (1945–62), multipolarity (1929–39) and polycentrism (1963–85). Data from the International Crisis Behavior Project on 292 cases from 1929 to 1985 provide the evidence to compare the phases of polarity. A set of bivariate indicators and a multivariate index are used in the assessment of instability, with each confirming the hypothesized ordering of polarity configurations.     

Sir George Clerk and the struggle for British influence in central Europe, 1919–26

During the Great War, Sir George Clerk was a senior Foreign Office official, strongly sympathetic to the cause of the ‘oppressed nationalities’ of Austria‐Hungary and the liberal ideals associated with the journal, The New Europe. In 1919 he was granted a unique opportunity to shape the face of the New Europe when he embarked on his mission to Hungary. As British minister to Czechoslovakia in the early 1920s, Clerk harnessed his idealism for the Czechs to his ambition to make Prague a centre of British influence and power in central Europe. Though this policy ultimately failed, Clerk showed a greater rapport and sympathy for the Czechs than any of his successors.     

Civil War Diffusion and the Emergence of Militant Groups, 1960–2001

In this research note, I argue that scholars of the international diffusion of civil conflict would benefit from directly measuring rebel mobilization prior to the onset of civil war. To better understand the way in which international processes facilitate dissidents overcoming the collective action problem inherent in rebellion, I focus on militant organizations and model the timing of their emergence. I use several data sets on militant groups and violent nonstate actors and rely on Buhaug and Gleditsch’s (2008) causal framework to examine how international conditions predict militant group emergence. While Buhaug and Gleditsch conclude that civil war diffusion is primarily a function of internal conflict in neighboring states, once militant group emergence is substituted in the dependent variable, I observe that global conditions affect rebel collective action. A final selection model links militant groups with civil conflict onset and demonstrates the variable performance of diffusion effects. The results indicate that many rebels mobilize in response to more global events and then escalate their behavior in response to local conditions.