September 11th and U.S. Hegemony—Or Will the 21st Century Be American Too?

The tragedy of September 11 highlights the stark contrast between the real and measurable capabilities possessed by one state, and the almost inevitable resentments which the possession of those capabilities engendered in others. The purpose of this article is not to interrogate the strengths and weaknesses of arguments of American decline. Nor is it to speculate at length about September 11th. It is instead to set the scene and try and identify the underlying causes of America's transition from presumed crisis in the 1970s and 1980s to new self-confidence in the 1990s—a self-confidence that some now feel has been shattered by the events of September. While there were important structural reasons why the United States was unlikely to go the way of other powers, it was a peculiar conjuncture of mainly unforeseen developments that combined together after 1989 to improve the U.S. position within the world. We will then move on to discuss the most effective way of characterizing this position. Here, we will mount a defense of the somewhat contentious notion of "hegemony" While recognizing the problems associated with the idea, it will be argued that as a concept it has serious intellectual advantages over its various theoretical competitors. If nothing else, because it focuses on the American role within the world system, rather than just its statically defined position, it is theoretically more suggestive than the less dynamic idea of unipolarity.     

个性化、多元化教育与创新性人才的培养--哈佛、耶鲁的本科课程制度及其启示

在规模化教育过程中实现个性化与创新性人才的培养,哈佛、耶鲁等美国高校在本科课程设置与培养制度方面的经验值得借鉴。通过课程的自由选择与组合,学生形成各不相同的知识结构与创新意识,并且提供制度路径来鼓励学生自我探索和设计新的课程与未知专业;融入人性化与人文关怀,注重个性化与多元文化的感悟和体验。各高校直接面向市场与社会,其竞争与不拘一格使美国的多元化教育与创新性人才更呈现千姿百态的格局。     

日本幕末开国对策探析

19世纪中叶,德川幕府统治下的日本面临着欧美列强的军事威胁和外交压力,处于开国抑或攘夷的十字路口。通过考察欧美国家对日本的冲击以及日美交涉过程,可以看出,开国与开港给日本带来了积极的影响,但由于不平等条约的签定,尽管近代日本并未遭遇中国那种割地赔款的命运,却使近代日本具有了殖民地的特征。     

从NAFTA到USMCA:投资争端解决机制的变化、成因及启示

2020年7月生效的《美国—墨西哥—加拿大协定》在投资争端解决机制上一改《北美自由贸易协定》下偏重对投资者权利保护的“新自由主义”精神,回归对国家规制权能的重视。在适用对象、适用争议、适用程序上作出变化与革新。全球价值链收缩及“慢球化”、投资争端解决机制的内在合法性危机以及对东道国规制权力的削弱,是国际投资争端解决机制发生变化的深层次经济、法律与政治动因。《美国—墨西哥—加拿大协定》投资争端解决机制的变化与革新将进一步推动“卡尔沃主义”的回归以及加剧国际投资法体制内部的碎片化趋势。中国应积极支持及推进投资争端解决机制改革,使其发挥正面作用,同时辩证吸收“卡尔沃主义”的合理因素,积极探索诸如前置协商、投诉与帮助以及调解等解决投资者与东道国之间投资争议的多元渠道。     

Gender Differences in Self-Perceptions and Academic Outcomes: A Study of African American High School Students

There is increasing divergence in the academic outcomes of African American males and females. By most accounts, males are falling behind their female peers educationally as African American females are graduating from high schools at higher rates and are going on to college and graduate school in greater numbers. Some have suggested that school completion and performance is associated with how students feel about themselves. The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences in the relationship between self-perceptions and 2 academic outcomes among a sample of 243 African American high school sophomores. The results suggest that, overall, females are more favorably oriented toward high school completion. Both male and female students with more positive self-perceptions have stronger intentions to complete the current year of high school. Higher grade point averages were more strongly associated with greater self-efficacy for females than for males. Given these findings, increased attention to educational programming, societal messages, and future research is warranted.     

美国霸权与中国崛起

在分析美国霸权与中国崛起的关系时,可以得出3点结论。首先,在相当长的时间内,中国崛起对美国的机制霸权、经济霸权、政治和意识形态霸权、军事霸权都不构成严重挑战;在美国构筑的全球霸权体系下,中国也还有相当大的崛起空间。其次,中国崛起对美国在亚太地区的霸权地位形成结构性的挑战。最后,从思维框架上说,我们既不能丢弃对国际权力格局的传统分析方法,以为信息和思想的沟通以及经济等领域的国际合作能够自然生成国家间的友好关系,消解国际冲突,也不能忽略国家及其以下的行为体的主观能动作用,以为权力格局的变化必然造成国际秩序的混乱。现在,中美领导人都认识到两国相互对抗的危害性,因此中美关系有望继续维持稳定,并逐渐建立起更为稳定的战略框架。     

新思想库与奥巴马政府的亚洲政策决策——以新美国安全研究中心为例

在美国对外政策决策体系中,思想库在政策理念创新、人才储备、打造政策辩论平台以及教育和引导公众等方面具有非凡的作用。新近兴起的新美国安全研究中心对奥巴马政府的对外政策影响巨大。该中心的亚洲政策研究强调务实的态度,注重美国对亚洲事务的重新"参与",倡导强化和升级美国在亚洲的联盟关系,推动美国积极介入地区多边制度,其政策建议通过"旋转门制度"等对当前美国的亚洲政策决策产生了深刻影响。     

Negotiating normative premises in democracy promotion: Venezuela and the Inter-American Democratic Charter

ABSTRACT

This article analyses negotiations on democracy promotion by looking at the case of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It argues that Venezuela contested the concept of representative democracy during the Charter negotiations, advancing the notion of “participatory and protagonist democracy” and that, even if it was unsuccessful in its demands, the country contributed to deepening the debate on the concept of democracy, on which there is far from worldwide consensus. The article suggests that the main drivers of the negotiation process and the final agreement were domestic political changes in Venezuela, specific features of the negotiations, and the structural position of Venezuela in the field of democracy promotion in the global and regional contexts, which were, at the time, favourable to a compromising attitude to conclusion of the Charter, even if not to the concept of democracy.     

Do volatile voters vote less correctly? An analysis of correct voting among vote (intention) switchers in US presidential election campaigns

The literature on electoral volatility and the literature on electoral campaigns hold contradictory views on voters switching vote (intention) during the campaign. In this note, we shed new light on this contradiction, making two contributions. First, we investigate the extent to which stable and volatile voters choose the correct party. Second, we distinguish levels of correct voting and the impact of the act of switching on the correctness of the vote. Our analyses of vote-switching in American elections show that, while volatile voters are less likely to vote correctly, they are more likely to switch from an incorrect to the correct party than vice versa. Furthermore, we show that following the campaign more closely makes voters more likely to switch vote (intention) towards the correct party.     

Conflict reduction by mutual disengagement

This study attempts to discover what variables, if any, will induce opponents to cooperate. The author isolated 12 independent variables and grouped the first five together in his refined model as variable 6. The remaining variables are: worthlessness, supervision, conspicuousness, previous neutralization, absence of internal segmentation, military potential, and tradition as a neutral. Analysis was limited to bivariate relationships between the independent and dependent variables (i.e., possible outcomes). Cases tested included examples from the outbreak of World War I to the present. The author discovered that disengagement would most likely succeed in a geographically and ideologically distinct Country, one previously neutralized, that had little military value, a politically organized population, and some military capacity. The most unpromising candidate would lack clearcut ethnic borders, internal homogeneity, and political unity. Disengagement, while no panacea, offers the advantage of many opening moves in a conflict reduction situation.