Fracas in Caracas: Latin American Diplomatic Resistance to United States Intervention in Guatemala in 1954

The Eisenhower Administration claimed a diplomatic triumph—and a mandate to overthrow the elected government of Guatemala—after the Tenth Inter-American Conference held in Caracas, Venezuela, in March 1954, when 17 nations voted for an American resolution condemning international Communism. This article disputes the official story and some recent scholarly depictions of the conference. Caracas was the scene of intense Latin American opposition to the American agenda. Vote-buying was rampant as Washington made hundreds of millions of dollars worth of concessions to individual countries. Nonetheless, amendments pushed through by Latin American diplomats transformed the interventionist American resolution into a strong statement against intervention. The American “triumph” was actually a fiasco that called into sharp relief the difference between United States and Latin American understandings of the inter-American system, demonstrating Latin American diplomatic resistance to intervention and the limits of diplomacy's potential to constrain the actions of the most powerful American state.     

The Impact of the AIDS Epidemic on the Schooling of Orphans and Other Directly Affected Children in Sub-Saharan Africa

This is the second of two articles that assess the available evidence concerning the impact of the AIDS epidemic on teachers and the schooling of orphans and other directly affected children in sub-Saharan Africa. The two main conclusions of this article are, firstly, that current and future projections of orphan country populations are likely to be serious overestimates. And secondly, while the impact of losing one or both parents on educational attainment is often much less than has been suggested, Ministries of Education need to act decisively in order to mitigate the impact of the epidemic on the schooling of these children.     

Metaphors and Mantras: a comment on Shultz and Vogt's discussion of terrorism,intelligence, and war

Author: HOUGHTON, DAVID PATRICK; US Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis; Reviewer: Gabriel Ben-dor; Author: MALCOLM, NOEL; Kosovo: A Short History; Reviewer: Robert P. Hager; Author: HATINA, MEIR; Islam and Salvation in Palestine: The Islamic Jihad Movement; Reviewer: Ami Pedahzur; Author: WHITE, JONATHAN R.; Terrorism - An Introduction; Reviewer: Ami Pedahzur; Author: CABRITA, JOAO M.; Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy; Reviewer: E. Ike Udogu     

‘Bridging the differences’: political communication experts in Germany

A process of modernisation and professionalisation has been affecting the political communication culture in Germany. The emergence and rise of the so-called ‘spin doctors’ particularly symbolises this trend. But how do the numerous political communication experts in Germany bridge the differences between the diverging objectives of the political and media realms? By what means do they link political issues and images to anticipated media logics? And how successful are their efforts in agenda- and image-building? To answer these questions, first, a contextual framework is provided identifying political communication experts as dually conditioned linking pins. Second, a hermeneutic content analysis of 63 interviews with high-ranked German ‘spin doctors’ gives some empirical evidence of the practical relevance of widely discussed communicative strategies. The longitudinal perspective provides insights into an enormous and expanding set of communicative strategies. Here, the cultivation of interpersonal networks is most promising, although it is a rather shaky tool of modern political communication in Germany. Overall, the new myth of the ‘powerful spin doctor’ has to be modified since their ‘success’ is contingent on individual variables.