The transatlantic dialogue on Iran: the European subaltern and hegemonic constraints in the implementation of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran

This article analyses the US–EU transatlantic dialogue on the Iranian nuclear dossier with a particular view to the implications for EU foreign policy on Iran. Doing so, it uses neo-Gramscian scholarship to put the EU’s “over-compliance” with Iran sanctions into perspective. Constrained by the imperatives of hegemonic coercion in the form of US financial Iran sanctions against third country entities and with the hegemonic consent of a Western US-led “historic bloc”, Europe was relegated to a subaltern below its mediatory potential. It will be shown how this finding complicates the EU’s ambition to renew relations with Iran. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with experts and delegation members from the P5+1, this article thus analyses “the normative element” in the transatlantic security dialogue on Iran at a time where the latter is undergoing a sea change in the wake of the implementation of the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” of July 2015.     

Obama's Legacy The Foreign Policy of the Late-Term Obama Administration

The year 2014 was a tipping point for the Barack Obama Administration-that was the year when it strove to forge a legacy of the Obama era but came up against challenges arising from major changes that were taking place internationally and domestically.The Administration was then focused on maintaining a fragile balance between creating this legacy and responding to these challenges.Obama stuck to his fundamental principles when dealing with overseas affairs,but he also came up with new responses.The dynamic balance struck between these two formed the basis of the global strategy of the late-term Obama Administration.The Administration's focus at this time highlights the dilemma it faced in forging a legacy.Further,the foreign policy of Obama and Trump are actually not so different;they both supported some degree of isolationism with a focus on domestic issues.     

Drones and the uninsurable security subjects

This paper engages with the security dynamics underlying the use of drones and their impact on security subjects – individuals and groups that are the ultimate recipients of specific security policies, regardless of whether these have beneficial effects on them. Using Mark Duffield’s distinction between the insured Global North and the non-insured Global South, this paper discusses how drones generate a radical dissociation between the intervener and the intervened that ultimately produces new security environments at the margins of the international system. These new security environments are defined by the articulation between space, technologies and bodies: bodies of invisible subjects; bodies that are uninsurable.     

The carcass of dead policies: lessons for Obama in dealing with Iran

The United States has spent 30 years clinging to variations of the same policy towards Iran, to no avail. ‘Doing the right thing’ has proved perplexing, complicated and, ultimately, elusive. In 1979, the United States struggled to come to terms with Iran's transformation from consort to adversary. Washington had difficulty fitting Iran into the hierarchy of regional and international priorities, often viewing it through the prism of its other regional concerns. Administration tensions, varying levels of dysfunction and wider governmental conflict also affected policy formulation and execution by producing different agendas, and, occasionally, a range of different assessments of US policy. Underpinning and exacerbating these problems was the fact that policymakers were doing a jigsaw with missing pieces. Two types of intelligence failures, missing and poor information and flawed interpretation, proved debilitating. A further complication was the fact that the United States and Iran engaged in a dialogue of the duff for nearly 30 years. Besides not hearing each other (and when they did, regularly misunderstanding the message), bad timing and the intervention of events conspired repeatedly to frustrate initiatives and confound a breakthrough. This case-study-based analysis of policymaking and policy explores why successive administrations have failed to ‘park Iran in a better place’ and offers a set of lessons for the Obama administration as it confronts this unique ‘non-relationship’.     

大部制：我国行政改革的科学呼唤

大部制是中共十七大提出的关于行政改革的新理念、新思维，也被学界认为是我国行政改革的新起点、新突破。大部制究竟为何物？其内在的深层次思考和价值取向是什么？为什么大部制是我国行政体制改革的科学呼唤？对于这些问题目前学界论述很少，大多只是停留在共时态的点状思索，本文试图从我国行政改革的历时态回顾中对这些问题进行系统性思考。     

美国的伊拉克困局及伊拉克战争的遗产

2003年,美国发动伊拉克战争,虽然美国赢得了最初的军事上的胜利,但是四年过去了,布什政府在伊拉克问题上陷入一种"撤不得、留不得、打不赢"的尴尬境地。美国之所以在伊拉克陷入困境,主要是由于布什政府在国家安全战略和对伊拉克占领政策的制定、执行方面出现了偏差。为了应付国内和国际社会的双层压力,在过去几年中,布什政府不得不不断调整其对伊拉克和中东地区的政策,改组其外交决策团队,排除新保守主义分子,逐渐向现实主义回归,但却始终未能稳定伊拉克的局势。伊拉克战争已经并将继续对美国、中东格局和世界格局产生深远的影响。     

美国的宪法制度与其法律文化渊源

美国宪法秉承了人类文明中许多重要的价值理念,这是值得充分肯定的;但它同时也受到西方文化的某些偏执性和局限性的影响,因而欠缺了对宪法的现代性因素的发掘力和整合力。宪法的现代性因素是构建现代民族国家政治文明以及国际和谐的基石。     

Compromising coalitions and duplicitous diplomacy: US support for Tajikistan after 9/11 and its security implications

This article investigates the development of democracy in Tajikistan and analyzes what has earned it the most international acclaim: its secular-Islamic governing coalition. The investigation reveals a compromised and illegitimate coalition that, with American collusion in local regime repression, poses great dangers to international security. The article argues that government repression, leading to increasing radicalization, combines with foreign aid to damage long-term democracy potential in Tajikistan but also works against global security interests by creating doubt about American intentions and possibly allowing a concomitant rise in Islamic radicalism.     

The shaman hunts and the postwar revival and reinvention of Okinawan shamanism

In the 1930s and 1940s shaman hunts (yutagari) were conducted by the Japanese Special Higher Police in Okinawa, Japan's most southern and remote prefecture. This was not the first time that attempts had been made to remove these women from Okinawan society. The fact that the yuta were hunted down and incarcerated, driven underground, and in some cases executed says much about how influential and threatening Japanese authorities perceived them to be. At the end of the Battle of Okinawa, more than one quarter of all Okinawan civilians were dead, and in many cases their remains were unrecoverable due to the extent of the destruction. The absence of appropriate mortuary rituals and religious specialists to perform these rituals, many of whom had been removed by authorities, led to severe spiritual dislocation for many Okinawans. In the chaotic postwar environment a path was opened for the revival of the previously hunted shamans to treat those who had suffered physical, family and spiritual loss, through providing help for these clients in dealing with settling the unsatisfied dead. It also led to the emergence of the ‘new’ yuta, those shamans who followed different routes to becoming religious advisors. This paper first outlines some of the circumstances that led to the shaman hunts, and then assesses the role of the Battle of Okinawa and its aftermath in rehabilitating shamanism in postwar society.