Debating War and Peace: US Congress and the Domestic Legitimization of Military Interventions

This article investigates how members of US Congress legitimized their votes in four cases of military interventions after the Cold War (Iraq 1991, 2002–2009; Somalia 1993; Libya 2011). Using an original dataset on congressional rhetoric, the qualitative content analysis highlights that the domestic legitimization of military interventions hinges on members of Congress’s perception of external threats and national interests. So far, international relations research focused on the executive and the war powers literature offered mainly quantitative accounts on voting patterns within the legislative branch―especially for the US case. The relevance of national interest arguments within congressional debates confirms the expectations of neoclassical realism while contradicting previous studies about a dominant discourse in US society, which legitimizes interventions with universal values, such as democracy promotion or human rights.     

冷战结束后日本马克思主义研究综述

日本马克思主义在经受了苏东剧变所带来的世界反马克思主义浪潮的严峻考验后,逐渐复苏并呈现出蒸蒸日上的发展态势.本文对此进行了梳理,并对全球化理论、环境思想以及社会主义理论等日本马克思主义研究的理论热点进行了重点概述.     

Les Occidentaux: Western Europe and the United States since the Second World War

In his recent book, Les Occidentaux, Alfred Grosser describes and analyses the complex conundrum of relations between the countries of Western Europe and the United States since 1945. In the late 1970s, this story is of course still incomplete, because there has been no ‘end of an era’ in transatlantic relations, in spite of the deep economic crisis which has affected all the countries involved. His study focuses not only on the facts, but also on how these facts were perceived by those involved; in so doing it poses, answers and provokes many questions. In the following edited and translated extract from the Conclusion of his book, Professor Grosser briefly re‐examines some of the more significant problems he has considered and takes another look at his solutions and their implications.