美国在印尼试验"转型外交"对地区关系的影响

美国公开提出“转型外交”前,已经在印尼试验“转型外交”。本文在简述美国“转型外交”核心思想和特点的基础上,从实证角度分析美国在印尼试验“转型外交”的案例——棉兰驻外点,并从该驻外点的地理位置选择、规模、人员配备以及工作内容和方式上进行剖析,从中了解“转型外交”的运作概况,透视“转型外交”在亚洲进一步扩散和推广的基本路径和方式。美国在印尼推进“转型外交”,并对其寄予厚望,对地区事务将产生重要的影响。     

From Porto Rico to Puerto Rico: Citizenship,Race and the Politics of Worthiness

The English-language text of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the accord conceding Puerto Rico to the United States, misspelled the island's name as Porto Rico. The treaty's ratification entrenched the error in US law and prompted a decades-long campaign to restore the territory's original name. More than a comedy of errors, this incident exposes conflicting interpretations of US citizenship and the worthiness of different sets of citizens. Puerto Ricans discovered that the statutory citizenship they acquired was attenuated by their perceived worthiness: a status limited by their membership of the so-called Spanish race.     

超越生物防御：“两用性”安全叙事与美国生物技术政策的演进

生物技术对人类社会的进步既有巨大推动作用,也有巨大的潜在风险,这种现象被称为生物技术的“两用性”。自九一一事件后,美国政府开始对生物技术“两用性”概念进行话语操弄,形成了一套独特的安全叙事,也推动了美国生物技术政策的演变。从小布什政府到拜登政府,在“两用性”安全叙事下的生物技术具有了多重的安全效应,并逐渐形成了生物技术政策领域防御性与竞争性的两种目标。从理论逻辑上看,此种防御性目标与竞争性目标之间存在着明显的矛盾,这揭示了在当前大国竞争的背景下,美国霸权逻辑已经开始侵蚀正常的决策理性。从实践上看,为了维护霸权,美国的生物技术政策已经逐步超越其生物防御战略,企图采取科研“脱钩”和加强军事化投资的方式来打压竞争对手,以此维持美国的生物技术领导地位。新兴生物技术的发展功在全球化、利在全人类。美国霸权逻辑下的政策行为是违背科研发展规律的,必将遭到客观现实的严厉“回击”,这对美国自身的生物技术发展和全球的生物安全都将带来严重的负面影响。     

论日内瓦会议后美国与柬埔寨关系的演变(1954-1960)

本文详细考察了1954-1960年间美国与东南亚小国柬埔寨之间的关系演变历程。独立后的柬埔寨,一度对美国怀有好感,希望通过获得美国的经济、军事援助来发展本国经济、维护国家的安全与独立。美国虽愿意对柬埔寨进行援助,但是其根本目的却是要将柬埔寨融入到美国在东南亚编织的反共体系中。随着时间的推移,双方在美援根本目标上的分歧与矛盾逐渐显露并激化。美国无法容忍柬埔寨独立、自主的中立路线,试图通过削减美援、甚至策划政变的方式改变柬埔寨的外交政策。然而,美国并未达到目标,相反使一度对美国怀有好感的柬埔寨走向自己的对立面。美柬关系的演变对研究这一时期美国与其他新兴独立的中小国家间的关系具有重要的参考和启发意义。     

Is There an Emerging Age Gap in US Politics?

There is evidence of a realignment among voters entering the electorate in recent years, with younger voters deviating from older voters in their ideological and partisan preferences. Younger voters today tend to be more liberal and more supportive of Democratic candidates than other age groups. Younger Americans are generally favor a more activist government, as demonstrated by their views on equality, the role of government, health care, and spending for public schools and child care. The leftward movement of younger Americans ideologically is also the result of the increasing political emphasis on cultural issues. Younger Americans as a group are less religious and less conservative on social issues than other age cohorts. They put less emphasis on traditional values and are more tolerant than other age groups on social issues such as gay rights. Older voters, on the other hand, tend to be more conservative on policy issues and less supportive of Democrats than they used to be. At the state level, the partisan polarization in the United States is even greater among younger Americans than it is for the nation as a whole. This suggests that if younger Americans follow other generations in keeping the same partisan voting patterns throughout their life, the blue states will become bluer and the red states redder.

When Killers Become Victims: Diversionary War,Human Rights,and Strategic Target Selection

The diversionary theory largely focuses on the incentives leaders have to use force. However, little attention has been given to the characteristics that make for a good target. We argue that US presidents choose targets that repress human rights since they are the easiest to sell to international and domestic audiences. By targeting repressive states US presidents can justify their use of force by cloaking their motivation in the language of human rights, responding to calls for intervention, pointing to the failure of international actors and institutions to resolve these problems, and building upon emerging norms that allow for intervention in repressive states. Updating US Use of Force data, we empirically test and find support for our hypothesis that presidents target human rights abusers when they face trouble at home. This paper contributes to target selection process by offering a complete theory of diversionary conflict accounting for cost/benefit calculation of presidents. Moreover, we believe that our findings reveal human rights practices’ role in international conflict, as well.     

Explaining United States–China relations: neoclassical realism and the nexus of threat–interest perceptions

How to understand and explain the evolutions as well as predict the future directions of bilateral relations between the United States and China has become an imperative task for both policy makers and academic scholars. Borrowing insights from neoclassical realism, this paper suggests a three-stage, perceptual model of ‘threat–interest’ to explore the dynamics of Sino–US relations from 1949 to 2015. It argues that the nature of US–China relations, either cooperation or competition, is mainly shaped by the perceptions of leaders regarding security threats and economic interests between the two nations. How to manage their perceptions regarding each other and how to find a balance between cooperation and competition are the key issues for leaders in both the United States and China to manage bilateral relations in the future. The next decade or two may be the best or the worst times for US–China relations.     

War over framing: base politics in South Korea

When do anti-base movements manage to influence policy, and when do they fail to do so? Base scholars have largely overlooked what I argue is a significant factor that can shape public and government response to anti-base movements: political opportunities associate with framing efforts by key actors involved. Based on two cases of anti-base movements in South Korea, I show how framing battles between activists and media shape political opportunities afforded to anti-base movements and can ultimately influence movement success.     

US-Arab Gulf Relations amidst Regional and Global Changes

Abstract

The Arab Gulf has long enjoyed privileged relations with the United States. Being home to the world’s largest oil reserves, the US saw it in its strategic interest to keep Arab Gulf states in its camp during the Cold War. The relation developed over the years to include other areas of cooperation such as in the military, economic and even academic fields. However, many factors today challenge this relationship. In the face of the US’ evident retrenchment from the region, the Arab Gulf is showing more inter-GCC cooperation, and Saudi Arabia is trying to forge alliances independently from the US. At the same time, Arab Gulf countries are intensifying their lobbying efforts in the US.     

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.