Beyond the Blank Cheque: Arming Iran during the Ford Administration

When President Gerald Ford decided to maintain and deepen arms relations with Iran, he cemented a momentum that became near impossible for a successor to break by continuing the policy of his predecessor Richard Nixon. Nixon had given the Shah of Iran a “blank cheque” to purchase whatever American arms he desired—short of nuclear weapons. Although Ford’s authority would be challenged by members of his own Administration and a Congress seeking to claw back some of its authority, the need to support allies in the Middle East against the threat of the Soviet Union, even during a time of détente, remained paramount.     

Carter and the Soviets: The Origins of the US Return to a Strategy of Confrontation

Conventional wisdom holds that American foreign policy took a decisive turn towards confrontation under President Ronald Reagan after 1981. However, a reconsideration of the administration of President Jimmy Carter shows that it was Carter who broke with the failed policies of his detentist predecessors, and made opposition to the Soviet system a moral rather than geopolitical issue. These policies were not, however, part of a coherent strategy, but rather were a reaction to the unrestrained nature of Soviet military and geographic expansion; still, the confrontational strategy that emerged in 1981 was rooted in Carter's rejection of détente after 1977.     

Greek-Turkish Rapprochement under New Democracy

New Democracy's victory in the March 2004 Greek elections immediately raised questions about the continued development of the process of rapprochement between Greece and Turkey, begun five years earlier in 1999. However, concerns were misplaced. The incoming administration made it clear that it intended to maintain the policy of détente. Like the previous PASOK government, it sought to minimise the role of Cyprus as a factor in bilateral relations and continued to support Turkey's membership of the European Union. The differences that have arisen between New Democracy and PASOK appear to be more a result of the differing styles of George Papandreou and Petros Molyviatis, the two foreign ministers, than of any significant disparity in basic foreign policy principles.     

“We Can't be more Russian than the Russians”: British Policy During the Liman von Sanders Crisis, 1913–1914

This article examines British policy in the Liman von Sanders crisis, which arose between Germany and Russia in late 1913. It takes issue with recent arguments that Britain was too closely bound to the Dual Alliance of France and Russia, that concern for her Indian empire determined her foreign policy, and that the Anglo-German cooperation in 1912 and 1913 was a hollow détente. Britain played an important role in resolving the crisis, by restraining an erratic Russian policy and appealing to Germany to make concessions. Moreover, Britain was the dominant power in the entente and influenced French restraint in this crisis. This served Britain's interests in Turkey, which aimed at the strengthening of that state. Finally, the resolution of the crisis demonstrated a functioning international system, based on alliances and the Concert of Europe, not a system on the verge of collapse into war.     

Japanese diplomacy towards Korea in multipolarity: history and trend

This article shows that in situations of multipolarity Japan has been active and adroit in dealing with the developments on the Korean peninsula, which is a microcosm of the strategic situation in Northeast Asia. It shows such a dynamic by examining two periods of multipolarity in East Asia: the era of the Russo-Japanese War and the détente era of the early 1970s. Japanese diplomacy in the 1970s was carried out under the constraints of its peace constitution and under United States protection. But, even subject to such conditions, Japan actively worked to diplomatically promote its position on the Korean question. Though mainly a historical review, this article provides evidence that supports a realist explanation for Japan's activist foreign policy. This trend also helps to explain the recent activist initiatives in Japanese diplomacy towards Korea in the post-Cold-War era.     

Shaping the race issue: A special kind of journalism

The paper examines the press coverage of the Los Angeles Times in the 1982 gubernatorial election between Mayor Tom Bradley and George Deukmejian in terms of the proclivity to highlight Bradley's race in campaign news stories. The paper focuses on the statement made by Deukmejian campaign manager, Bill Roberts, in the early days of October, with his candidate trailing badly in the polls, that “there was a hidden anti‐black vote” that would aid Deukmejian on election day. The authors detail the Los Angeles Times coverage of this statement and the tendency of the Times to focus on this story during the entire month of October rather than to report on the issues addressed by the candidates. The analysis notes that as campaign coverage zeroed in on the race issue, so did polls and voter interest. After examining the coverage and Deukmejian's narrow victory, the authors pose questions of ethics to reporters engaged in this writing and outline concerns for such practices in future elections and campaigns.     

Overcoming US-North Korean Enmity: Lessons from an Eclectic IR Approach

ABSTRACT

Periods of mutual enmity in US-North Korean relations are typically interrupted by more conciliatory gestures. How can the many twists and turns in this relationship be explained and hopefully overcome so that more long-lasting détente is accomplished? Drawing eclectically on realism and constructivism, we conclude that a nuclear deal should address not only North Korea’s interests in security and regime survival, but also its status concerns. Applying the same theories to the other part of the dyad – the US – we conclude that it may now have material interests in ameliorating the relationship, but that such a development requires US foreign policy discourse to cease depicting North Korea as “irrational” and “evil”.     

Henry Kissinger: Realism,Domestic Politics,and the Struggle Against Exceptionalism in American Foreign Policy

Henry Kissinger was the single most controversial diplomat of the 20th century. This article explores Kissinger's approach to the philosophy of realism in international affairs, his role in Vietnam policy making, and his most recent engagement in the debate over the Iraq War. It argues that Kissinger's realism, although philosophically consistent and having roots within his own life's experience, was always tempered by his desire to exercise influence within the American political system. Once in office under Richard Nixon and then Gerald Ford, Kissinger came to recognise how significantly domestic politics shaped American foreign policy. His involvement in the Vietnam War demonstrates this, and one lesson he took from that conflict was the hope that Americans could be persuaded to move away from their convictions about American exceptionalism and recognise the limits of American power.     

Book Review

During George Bush's presidency the Cold War drew to a close and his administration triumphed in the Gulf War. Some viewed these events as a harbinger of a new world order. Basking in the success of the Gulf War, Bush's approval ratings soared, and prominent Democrats reconsidered challenging him in 1992. Foreign policy themes might have seemed a natural emphasis in campaign rhetoric. Yet, on the eve of the election, Bush abandoned efforts to rally the public with such appeals.

This article identifies primary metaphorical themes employed by Bush to define foreign policy reality. Bush's rhetoric was fundamentally ordered by the orientational metaphor of war. Other themes reinforced central premises of the war metaphor and reflected enduring premises of American exceptional ism. However, critical constraints blunted Bush's rhetorical intentions, and perhaps nullified constraints presidents traditionally have harnessed to define rhetorical situations to fit a preferred world view.

A disjuncture between rhetorical expectations and intentions beset the administration as the 1992 election approached. The electorate turned an anxious gaze to domestic politics and the condition of the economy. Furthermore, the war metaphor met a public demonstrably leery of U.S. meddling in the internal politics of other countries. Preference for the war metaphor, finally, represented a significant challenge to the political identity of Bush and the Republican Party.     

Capitalizing on Contention: Issue Agendas in U.S. Senate Campaigns

This abstract addresses the divergent views that political scientists and members of Congress have about the role of issues in congressional campaigns. The scholarly perspective is based on the assumption that issues and policy are relatively unimportant in the relationship between members and their constituents. In contrast, the political parties in Congress devote a substantial amount of time and attention to developing an effective issue agenda for the campaign season. The research presented in this article is a systematic study of U.S. Senate candidates' campaign messages that assesses the impact of the parties' agenda setting efforts during the election year session. The parties' efforts are compared with mass media, major legislative accomplishments, and party issue ownership as alternative sources of agenda setting in campaigns. The results of this study indicate that Senate candidates do emphasize certain issues in their campaigns and that the contentious election year issues associated with party strategy along with major legislative accomplishments are the issues that the candidates are likely to discuss.     

Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age,by Alasdair Roberts

This article uses Ross Perot's campaign for president in 1992 as a case study in how two key political institutions—the conventional political press and the party system—mediate the effects of political communication. Reporters allocated positive and negative coverage to Perot according to the same rules that they normally follow, and voters were as responsive to this coverage as they were to media coverage of two earlier “outsider” candidates for president, Jimmy Carter and Gary Hart. Part I of this article, which appeared in the previous issue of Political Communication, dealt with the earliest, relatively unmediated phase of Perot's campaign and the takeoff phase of the mediated campaign. Part II deals with the remainder of the campaign, including the general election.     

The Political Perils of Cold War Foreign Relations: Adlai Stevenson’s Democrats and Foreign Policy in the 1956 Presidential Election

This analysis uses the case of the 1956 American presidential election between Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower to highlight the ways that an obsession with foreign relations could prove problematic to a campaign. Focusing primarily on Stevenson’s advisors, long-standing problems in the Democrats’ strategy on foreign relations, coupled with the emotional attachments that several key advisors had to the issue, combined to ensure that the Democrats failed to develop an effective foreign policy platform—particularly when running against a president believed to be so successful in that arena. Ultimately, it argues that the Stevenson campaign’s failure to forge an effective position highlights the problematic relationship between domestic policies and foreign relations.     

Jimmy Carter and the Sale of the AWACS to Iran in 1977

It appeared that as 1977 dawned, the political climate in the United States might render multi-billion dollar arms sales into unstable regions a thing of the past. Jimmy Carter triumphed in the presidential election of November 1976 on a popular platform of arms control and the introduction of human rights considerations into American foreign policy. His transition from that idealistic candidate to the president who agreed to sell Iran a fleet of highly advanced AWACS aircraft, as part of a record breaking $5.7 billion arms package, is therefore outwardly confusing. Yet, when examining the entrenched policy path that Carter inherited regarding arming Iran, and the larger needs of Cold War containment, the logic of Carter’s decisions essentially to betray his own policies in this case becomes clear.     

Political Liberalization in Bin Ali's Tunisia: Façade Democracy

In considering political liberalization in post-Bourguiba Tunisia since 1987, it is hard to argue the case for the reforms initiated by his successor, President Bin Ali, without noticing their limitations and even contradictions. In a world characterized by increasing democratization, the Tunisian example seems to buck the global trend, despite several noteworthy achievements - periodic elections, licensed political parties, sustained economic growth and stability. To a considerable extent the analysis of Bin Ali's 'façade democracy' here confirms this assessment, owing especially to the exclusionary and corporatist character of the democracy. Bin Ali's much hailed 'era of change' may well be not much different from the regime of his predecessor. Like Bourguiba, Bin Ali continues to exclude Islamists and other potentially formidable opposition from more secular forces from political participation and contestation. Similarly, the start of a presidential campaign by the ruling party to amend the constitution, in 2001, to enable Bin Ali to remain president beyond his constitutionally mandated second and last term which ends in 2004, gives a strong sense of déjà vu: Bourguiba's presidency-for-life.     

The structure-identity nexus: Syria and Turkey’s collapse (2011)

The relation between Syria and Turkey transformed from enmity in the 1990s to détente in the early 2000s, grew into amity after the rise to power of the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP, Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi) in 2002, and reverted to enmity in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. This research suggests that a combination of structural and identity-based factors, at regional and domestic levels, induced the collapse of the decade-long amity. This paper builds on the notion of a “structure-identity nexus”; and determines the orientation of foreign policy outcomes from the 1990s until 2011. The discussion outlines the merits of a hybrid theoretical perspective by elaborating on Barkin’s idea of ‘realist constructivism’, which draws on two rival traditions, realism and constructivism. The structure-identity framework explains the double transformation in the relationship, considering the return to inter- and intra-state conflict in 2011. The research draws on extensive primary and secondary sources, as well as interviews carried out with key figures. In addition to the relationship between Syria and Turkey, the structure-identity nexus provides potential broader explanations that fuel the shift from amity to enmity in the complex network of states found in the Middle East.     

大选后的岸田文雄内阁:执政基础与政策取向

日本岸田文雄内阁的诞生,是执政的自民党为应对大选而"临阵换帅"的结果。执政联盟利用广大选民对新内阁的"政策期待",加之国内疫情趋缓、在野党势力孱弱以及选举对策缜密,从而赢得了大选。大选后岸田内阁的执政基础虽暂且趋稳,但在权力交接、路线调整及国政选举等层面上仍面临诸多严峻挑战,其政治稳定性不容乐观,实现长期执政的难度较大。随着岸田内阁施政渐次展开,其在防控疫情、强化日美同盟与推进印太战略上将保持较强的政策延续性,而在经济增长方式与国家安全保障上将实施政策调整。岸田内阁提出构筑"建设性且稳定的中日关系"并奉行现实主义对华外交方针,但其对外政策取向仍将保持涉华指向明显的惯性,经济安全保障、"人权外交"等政策主张或将加大中日关系摩擦几率。     

It Can't Happen Here,1 or Has It? Sinclair Lewis's Fascist America

Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, anticipated many aspects of Donald J. Trump's 2016 campaign and election in his 1935 satirical dystopia, It Can't Happen Here. It was his most popular novel to date and is still satisfying, thought-provoking political theater. Lewis was influenced by growing totalitarianism in Europe, reported on by his second wife, foreign correspondent, Dorothy Thompson. Noting the power of Father Coughlin and Huey Long, among others, to mobilize a public still suffering from the Great Depression, Lewis feared a fascist takeover of the American government by democratic means. Lewis's fictional nightmare features a loutish, ignorant demagogue, who is manipulated by a sinister ghostwriter adviser. With support from a resentful League of Forgotten Men, the demagogue is elected President and quickly establishes a military, racist, and anti-Semitic dictatorship. It Can't Happen Here dramatizes the dire consequences of this takeover, which is not taken seriously at first by Lewis's newspaper editor protagonist, but then is increasingly resisted. Lewis is a social satirist in the Mark Twain tradition, and his novel is worth reading today for its suggestive parallels with current history and its good-hearted humor.     

The power of Trump-speak: populist crisis narratives and ontological security

Abstract

For most observers, the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States (US) came as a shock. This has been widely recast as the culmination of the American public’s long-standing dissatisfaction with the political elite and deep-seated frustrations with broader socio-economic conditions. We argue that the Trump campaign’s success also stemmed from its effective use of an emotionally charged, anti-establishment crisis narrative. With insights from political psychology, we examine the socio-linguistic mechanisms that underlie the effectiveness of ‘Trump-speak’ through both quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Trump’s communications toolkit during the 2016?US presidential election campaign. We show that his leadership legitimation claims rest significantly upon ‘crisis talk’ that puts his audience in a loss frame with nothing to lose and explain why ‘crisis talk’ impacts on political behaviour. As we demonstrate, the crisis stories that political agents tell simultaneously instil ontological insecurity among the American public and serve to transform their anxiety into confidence that the narrator’s policy agendas are the route back to ‘normality’. Through these rhetorical mechanisms, the Trump campaign manipulated individuals’ ontological (in)security as a tool in the politics of reassurance at the broader, societal level.     

2011年新加坡大选中工人党的竞选策略探析

在2011年国会大选中,新加坡工人党在保住后港单选区的基础上,在阿裕尼集选区击败外交部长杨荣文率领的人民行动党团队,共取得了6个议席。这是自新加坡1988年集选区制度实行以来,反对党第一次战胜人民行动党拿下集选区,也是1966年以来反对党取得议席最多的一次大选。这届大选被认为是新加坡的政治分水岭。工人党之所以能取得如此战绩,是由于它采取了正确的竞选策略：工人党整合人才资源,物色到了可媲美人民行动党的候选人;抓住转战时机,刘程强适时走出后港;提出了“第一世界国会”“副司机”等全国性课题;不为反对而反对,打造理智的建设性反对党形象;挟上届大选余威,综合考量历史、地理因素;准确把握竞选过程中的细节。     

Profiling candidate images in televised political spot advertisements for 1984: Roles and realities of presidential jousters at the height of the Reagan Era

Continued growth in the use of televised political spot advertisements in presidential campaigns justifies the increasing attention given to analyzing the role and content of such messages in the larger political system. The 1984 campaign offered a unique opportunity for theorists to investigate the potential for such messages either to reflect accurate images of candidates, or to evoke more dissonant themes between the images of candidates fabricated for the electorate, and the substantive candidates those images are intended to represent. This study analyzed the character attributes presented for ten presidential hopefuls in 201 televised spots, produced for 1984's primary and general election campaigns, and finds that while political spots can offer accurate portrayals of presidential candidates, the role of such messages can be nullified by perceived dissonance in the images they convey about their subjects.