A Really Hard Case: Iranian Space Ambitions and the Prospects for U.S. Engagement

On 27 October 2005, the first Iranian satellite—Sinah-1—was launched. The satellite failed soon after launch, but it represented a significant technological step by the Islamic Republic, and was also a statement of intent on behalf of Iranian space ambitions. Current and projected Iranian space capabilities are highly dependent upon foreign technologies and expertise, but the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programmes offer a glimpse of how Iran's space programme may yet develop. This essay provides an overview of Iranian space capabilities, and places it within contemporary Iranian domestic and strategic contexts. It also offers an insight into how Iran's space programme is organized, and lastly, offers a view on how best the United States might influence Iran's space programme.     

Iran's active neutrality during the Kuwaiti crisis: Reasons and ramifications

Abstract

Since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, Iranian foreign policy has become increasingly moderate. Iran's active neutrality during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait is symptomatic of this moderation. The policy of active neutrality became possible because Rafsanjani centralized the foreign policy decision‐making process before the start of the crisis and introduced his “new‐thinking” in the Persian Gulf. This new thinking was a part of his strategy to rebuild Iran's shattered economy and to improve relations with the West and with the Arabs of the Persian Gulf.

Without a single shot and without any casualty, Iran benefited enormously from the Kuwaiti war. Rafsanjani's domestic opponents were weakened. Iranian financial gains were significant. Iran's negative image improved. Relations improved with the West and with the Arab nations of the region. And the military and economic infrastructures of Iraq, Iran's archenemy, were seriously damaged, making Iran the region's most powerful indigenous force.

This article is partially based on interviews with Iranian policy‐makers conducted in 1991.     

Compromising liberty: Friedrich Hayek's The road to serfdom in practice

Abstract

This paper examines a rare and unstudied piece of consultancy work undertaken in 1944 by Friedrich Hayek for the British Colonial Office and for the Government of Gibraltar. Hayek's subsequent reports suggested the reorganization of the state-regulated Gibraltar housing market in line with free market principles designed to relocate the colony's working-class population into neighbouring Spain. However, rather than freeing Gibraltarians from the evils of state planning, as identified in The road to serfdom (also 1944), this proposal would have delivered them into the dictatorship of General Franco. Not only was Franco's regime brutal, but it also practised autarkic economic policies virtually identical to those which Hayek maligned in The road to serfdom. In sum, Hayek's proposals would have benefited Gibraltar's landlords at the expense of the liberty of the majority of the civilian population.     

Lebanon’s interlocking challenges

Lebanon currently faces major interlocking challenges that threaten its stability. These include potential hostilities between Israel and Hizbullah (as Iran's proxy); Sunni–Shia strategic rivalry in the region; and the erosion of Lebanon's economy by the Syrian civil war.     

An Assessment of Anti-Satellite Capabilities and their Strategic Implications

ABSTRACT

The success of space-based communications, navigation and reconnaissance programs – in both the commerical and military arenas – presents a significant vulnerability. Intuitively, as the economic importance and military indispensability of space systems grows, so will their attractiveness as targets. Although attacks against satellites would involve significant operational challenges, economic costs and diplomatic risks, it is well within the realm of technological possibility. For example, China's decision to research ASATs is an indication of its long-term strategic goal of weakening America's monopoly on military space capabilities. This essay describes the current capabilities of anti-satellite (ASAT) technology, assesses its military impact and considers its broader policy and security implications. In light of the broad implications of ASAT weapons on the debate about missile defense in particular and space weaponization in general, the author concludes that the best way to protect America's space-related economic and military functions is to avoid ASATs development.     

Iran under Rouhani: increasing constraint

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, though easily re-elected last May, faces a more confrontational United States, a more aggressive Saudi Arabia, and lower expectations of economic benefits from the nuclear deal than he did in his first term. These factors are emboldening hardliners in Iran's non-elected institutions, who are likely to constrain Rouhani's reformist agenda in both the domestic and international arenas.     

Slow disarmament progress will hamper NPT review

The month-long NPT ‘RevCon’ will take place against the background of several regional confrontations and conflicts. Recent agreement in talks on Iran's nuclear programme may generate some optimism, but Russia's actions in Ukraine have considerably altered threat perceptions in the West.     

Ballistic Missiles and Space Launch Vehicles in Regional Powers

International security concerns about ballistic missile proliferation have frequently highlighted the links between ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles. This article examines the extent of these links through a comprehensive survey of ballistic missile and space rocket programs in regional powers. It notes that missiles were derived from existing space launchers in just a small fraction of these cases. In a slightly greater fraction, space launchers were drawn from existing missile programs. This analysis suggests that though security concerns about space launchers being used as ballistic missiles are valid, the reverse trend, that of ballistic missiles being used as space launch vehicles, cannot be ignored. At the same time, as long as regional powers are limited to short-range and medium-range systems, their missile and space projects would only raise limited missile proliferation and space security concerns.     

The repercussions of the Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum

Iraqi Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani appears to have overreached in holding a referendum on independence, although almost 93% voted for it. Major powers support Iraq's territorial integrity. The Iraqi government has asserted military control over the region with Iran's help. Facing political and economic isolation, the Kurdistan Regional Government's authority and cohesion has been weakened. Barzani's futility has likely hardened the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK)'s position in Turkey and increased its regional freedom of action.     

The Struggle for Reform in Iran

Since the election of the reformist President Muhammad Khatami in 1997, the conflict between the reformers and the religious conservatives has intensified. The reformers command the majority in the city councils and, more importantly, in parliament, but they have been unable to carry through their proclaimed agenda for social and political reforms. This is mostly because the conservatives, who control most of the institutions of power like the army, the security forces, and the judiciary, have blocked the reforms. They have banned most of the pro-reform newspapers, jailed newspaper editors, journalists, and secular intellectuals. They have even harassed and jailed parliamentarians. Khatami's government, however, has succeeded in improving Iran's relations with the West, Russia, China, and the Persian Gulf states. In Iran a central issue is how to increase the constitutional powers of the popularly elected president and curb the almost unlimited authority of the non-elected supreme leader.     

‘A willing Odysseus’: The life and times of Albert O. Hirschman

Abstract

In this review essay of Jeremy Adelman's biography of Albert O. Hirschman, A worldly philosopher, supplemented by references to other secondary works on Hirschman, I take the opportunity to discuss the relationship between the economist's life and his main publications. I argue that in times of crisis more attempts like Hirschman's political economy are needed. I further argue that Hirschman has given us a good idea of what a new moral economy, which really deserves this name, would look like.     

Why Mussolini turned on the Jews

ABSTRACT

Mussolini's abrupt turn towards antisemitism in October 1938 is conventionally explained by virtue of external factors, most importantly, as an aspect of Fascist Italy's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany. Adler explores a complementary hypothesis that accounts for racism in terms of factors internal to the dynamics of Italian Fascism itself, namely, a progressive radicalization of the regime during the 1930s aimed at the realization of a new imperial-totalitarian state, one that, in turn, would create a new homogeneous nation and indeed a New Man, a uomo fascista. Unlike Nazi racism, oriented backward towards the preservation of a given racial purity, Fascist racism categorically rejected Italians as they had been constituted historically. Instead, it was oriented towards a future project, an anthropological revolution that would create nothing less than a new race. Jews were seen as obstacles to this cultural transformation because they were historically bound to the decadent liberal state, as well as to the corrupting bourgeois spirit that informed it.     

The Modernising Antecedents and Historical Origins of One Nation Labour

Launched at the 2012 conference, Ed Miliband's One Nation Labour initiative draws heavily on the party's experience under Neil Kinnock during the late 1980s as well as from Tony Blair's tenure as leader of the opposition between 1994 and 1997. In policy terms, Miliband promised a Labour government would prevent firms from ‘poaching’ trained workers from other businesses and would stop short term predatory behaviour in the economy by offering companies greater protection from takeovers. Both proposals echo those at the heart of Labour's 1989 policy review document, Meet the Challenge, Make the Change. The link between One Nation and Tony Blair's New Labour concerns the discourse with which the party's outlook is articulated. As such, One Nation Labour has not been shaped by current political debates. Rather it reflects the party's ability to learn from previous initiatives, building on their strengths in a reflective fashion.     

Effective Counter‐Terrorism: Rockets,Iron Dome,and the Israeli Housing Market

How effective is counter‐terrorism and what are the underlying mechanisms? Relying on a unique experiment and detailed micro data from Israel, we show that the deployment of the Iron Dome anti‐rocket system mitigated the negative effect of rocket attacks on house prices and lowered the price premium associated with in‐house shelters. Analysis of surveys and data on purchases of anti‐anxiety drugs yields evidence consistent with a psychological mechanism: by reducing the negative effects on daily routine, subjective well‐being, and psychological distress, Iron Dome lowered the disamenity associated with living under the shadow of the rocket threat.     

Rising Israeli–Iranian tensions

Tensions between Israel and Iran have increased since 10 February, when Israel shot down an Iranian-made drone launched from Syria and attacked military targets there, including Iranian installations. Policymakers in both Israel and the United States believe that Iran's strategy is to make Syria a platform for war against Israel, and broadly favour rolling back Iran in Syria. In this light, the prospect of a regional war looms larger.     

Introduction: In Defence of Politics

In a world that is increasingly dominated by literary hyperbole there can be no doubt that Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics remains a classic text. Classic not just in the sense that it provides a masterly account of the essence, meaning and fragility of democratic politics but classic in the sense that it is written with a style, verve and passion that is rarely found within political science. If the test of pretensions to ‘a classic’ status is that a book defies the passage of time in terms of significance and argument then Crick's Defence would also make the grade for the simple fact that its arguments remain arguably far more important today than they were when they were first published exactly fifty years ago. This article reflects on the contemporary significance of Crick's Defence by defending politics against an updated set of adversaries in the form of: public expectations, marketisation, depoliticisation, the media, and crises before locating the book within the contours of current debates about public disengagement, the rise of ‘disaffected democrats’ and questions concerning the future and relevance of political science.     

Antisemitic Europe and the ‘Third Way’: The Ideas of Maurice Bardèche

Abstract

Maurice Bardèche is an important neo-fascist writer whose ideas derive from those of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle and Robert Brasillach. After 1945 he argued that right-wing thought had been ghettoized and even imprisoned by a post-Nuremberg liberal political establishment. In the face of a US military and cultural occupation of Western Europe and an encroaching Communist Soviet menace, Bardèche argued for a united European ‘third force’ to confront these two enemies. His dream was of a fascist-ruled Europe that would regenerate and defend the continent and the West against Communism and liberalism. Organic and idealist fascist states, without the faults of Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy, would implement a moral revolution, bolster economic affairs and prevent Europe being swamped by foreign goods, such as Asian electronics. He regretted Europe's membership of NATO and its being sucked into Cold War conflicts in the Middle East and in support of Israel. Europe's and fascism's enemies were blamed for all their ills, and a Jewish conspiracy was blamed for its campaign against the world whether in the guise of US financial power or through its control of Bolshevism, the latter being judged responsible for terrorism and subversion in the developing world. Bardèche was purely a warrior of the pen, and was important primarily for providing a link between fascism and neo-fascism and a training ground for new fascist writers in his journal Défense de l'Occident.     

Between Deadlock and Decentralization: Bargaining Dynamics in Federal States

A classic way to meet regionally diverse interests is to grant partial autonomy to sub-national entities, either by assigning them the right to decide upon policies (federalism), to implement policies (decentralization), or both. This article argues and formally elaborates that central governments may intentionally choose to increase decentralization in an effort to facilitate agreements that otherwise would be deadlocked. In this regard, a central government's decision to promote decentralization depends on its own relative valuation of policy change and congruence. We illustrate the empirical validity of our argument with a case study pertaining to the Swiss New Regional Policy.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. Democratic Flaws
RICHARD BOURKE The Life and Death of Democracy, by John Keane. Flawed democracy
Gianfranco Pasquino Democracy Inc. Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, by Sheldon Wolin. Democracy in the Land of Good Things (Britain)
Richard Mullender Democracy: 1,000 Years in Pursuit of British Liberty, by Peter Kellner. The soldier's right to kill
Christopher Finlay Killing in War, by Jeff McMahan. Facts from Eastern Europe and elsewhere
Richard Briand Facts are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade without a Name, by Timothy Garton Ash. The soul of Tony Blair
Ilaria Favretto Losing Labour's Soul? New Labour and the Blair Government, 1997–2007, by Eric Shaw. Greeks and Turks in Europe and Cyprus
Mehmet Ugur Turkey's Accession to the European Union: An Unusual Candidacy, by Constantine Arvanitopoulos. Cyprus: The Post‐Imperial Constitution, by Vassilis K. Fouskas and Alex O. Tackie. Obama's last chance
Tony Klug The Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance, by David Gardner. Thatcher's grandchildren
Mark Garnett Thatcher's Britain: The Politics and Social Upheaval of the 1980s, by Richard Vinen.     

Whither Power in Public Administration? Attainment,Dissipation, and Loss

Norton Long's 1949 essay, “Power and Administration,” has a complicated legacy. First, analysis reveals both support for and important refinements of Long's arguments since the article's publication. Second, Long's claim has proven problematic that competition among agencies for power would bring more coordination and a cross‐agency sense of purpose to the federal government. Third, the bureaucratic pluralism that he explained and defended produced special interest biases that were off‐putting to large segments of citizens and thus helped create an unsupportive political environment for needed capacity building in the federal government. Fourth, by not considering how institutions “coevolve,” Long failed to warn that “horizontal power” building by individual agencies would provoke efforts by elected officials to enhance their control over bureaucracy in ways that, over time, diminished their collective sources of power. Finally, much remains to be done before what Long called a “realistic science of administration” incorporating the “budgeting of power” exists in public administration.