“Open skies”

Abstract

As a result of the convergence of telecommunications and mass communications technologies, American policymakers face a series of critical decisions about infrastructural investment, technical architecture, and regulation that will determine the character of the U.S. electronic industrial base. This article develops the argument that the current policy trajectory will likely lead to some awkward choices. Powerful vested interests have distorted the communications policy process. Regulatory inertia has come to tie the hands of the regulators as well as the hands of industry leaders. We argue that there exists a critical opportunity for independent communications policy research to make a difference and to anticipate and facilitate a paradigm shift in telecommunications regulation.     

Geopolitical perceptions of the world today

Abstract

This article is based on the author's study of geopolitical perceptions of the power of nations made during the last decade.

He describes the thinking of scholars, especially Mackinder, Mahan, and Spykman, as they have related geopolitics to international affairs.

He cites the Soviet domination of Afghanistan as one of the primary current examples of a classical geopolitical objective of the USSR to obtain access to territory opening the way eventually to the Indian Ocean.

He points out that the Soviet Union, dominating much of the landmass of Eurasia, the Mackinder “Heartland,” has polarized world politics and military security alignments because of its totalitarian political system and its expansion into other crucial areas of the world.

For fifty years, the author explains, the United States has been forced to take defensive measures against totalitarian states, in recent times principally the USSR, to prevent their domination of the economic resources and peoples of the world.

The author proposes that the United States, destined geopol‐itically to be a sea power, must have sufficient military strength to develop and protect global maritime and trading links with other seafaring nations on the periphery of Eurasia and in the Southern Hemisphere. The U.S. forces would constitute a peacetime constabulary of the sea to insure the security and prosperity not only of Americans but of their friends and allies.     

A Turn Toward Avoidance? Selective Exposure to Online Political Information, 2004–2008

Scholars warn that avoidance of attitude-discrepant political information is becoming increasingly common due in part to an ideologically fragmented online news environment that allows individuals to systematically eschew contact with ideas that differ from their own. Data collected over a series of national RDD surveys conducted between 2004 and 2008 challenge this assertion, demonstrating that Americans’ use of attitude-consistent political sources is positively correlated with use of more attitudinally challenging sources. This pattern holds over time and across different types of online outlets, and applies even among those most strongly committed to their political ideology, although the relationship is weaker for this group. Implications for these findings are discussed.     

Is sextremism the new feminism? Perspectives from Pussy Riot and Femen

As Pussy Riot has changed the face of political protest in Russia, to the south, Ukraine has seen the emergence of Femen, famous for their topless protests against everything from sex tourism and trafficking to hot water shut-offs in Kyiv to sexism in the Ukrainian government to Putin's visits to Ukraine. Their concurrent appearance in the post-Soviet sphere encourages a discussion around the mobilization of sexuality as protest in the region. Both groups appropriate sexual language and imagery as well as physical sexuality in protest of their current regimes. This article engages the question of similarities between the two groups’ efforts and considers what differences structure their political goals and philosophies. What potential does the global visibility of these groups have to influence an emerging women's movement, and, more generally, how can sexuality be harnessed as a unifying force in anti-government activism in post-socialist Russia and Ukraine?     

Soviet footprints in St. Peter's Square

Abstract

The collapsing political and economic structures, the rise of Islamic nationalism, and the defeat in Afghanistan are viewed as contributing factors to potential terrorism within the Soviet Union. These factors are discussed within the framework of nationalist terrorism. An attempt is made to predict, based on the current trends, sociopolitical results if nationalistic terrorism becomes a reality in the Soviet Union.     

The Chicago Fire of 1871: a bottom-up approach to disaster relief

Can bottom-up relief efforts lead to recovery after disasters? Conventional wisdom and contemporary public policy suggest that major crises require centralized authority to provide disaster relief goods. Using a novel set of comprehensive donation and expenditure data collected from archival records, this paper examines a bottom-up relief effort following one of the most devastating natural disasters of the nineteenth century: the Chicago Fire of 1871. Findings show that while there was no central government relief agency present, individuals, businesses, corporate entities and municipal governments were able to finance the relief effort though donations. The Chicago Relief and Aid Society, a voluntary association of agents with a stake in relief outcomes, leveraged organizational assets and constitutional rules to administer aid.