scholarly journals Perpetual decline or persistent dominance? Uncovering Anglo-America’s true structural power in global finance

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Fichtner

AbstractThe prediction of America’s decline is a regularly recurring phenomenon; this also pertains to the pivotal field of global finance. This article argues that, first we have to consider the United States together with the other Anglophone countries. The English-speaking countries and territories – Anglo-America – have deep common political and socioeconomic roots, of which the unique global Five Eyes intelligence cooperation is merely one manifestation. In finance, New York and London (NY-LON) constitute the decision-making core of this transnational formation. Second, to analyse the highly complex phenomenon of structural power in the globalised international political economy we have to dig deeper to uncover truly meaningful data. Thus, this article evaluates data for nine central segments of global finance from around the year 2000 to 2014. Contrary to the assertions of many declinists, these data show that Anglo-America’s dominant structural power has been persistent during this period. Moreover, four novel visualisations show that the US-UK axis is the fulcrum of the international financial system. However, contemporary global finance is characterised by a high degree of latent fragility; significant imbalances, inequalities and contradictions persist and are even likely to grow, potentially undermining the legitimacy and the stability of the whole system.

Author(s):  
Danylo Kravets

The aim of the Ukrainian Bureau in Washington was propaganda of Ukrainian question among US government and American publicity in general. Functioning of the Bureau is not represented non in Ukrainian neither in foreign historiographies, so that’s why the main goal of presented paper is to investigate its activity. The research is based on personal papers of Ukrainian diaspora representatives (O. Granovskyi, E. Skotzko, E. Onatskyi) and articles from American and Ukrainian newspapers. The second mass immigration of Ukrainians to the US (1914‒1930s) has often been called the «military» immigration and what it lacked in numbers, it made up in quality. Most immigrants were educated, some with college degrees. The founder of the Ukrainian Bureau Eugene Skotzko was born near Western Ukrainian town of Zoloczhiv and immigrated to the United States in late 1920s after graduating from Lviv Polytechnic University. In New York he began to collaborate with OUN member O. Senyk-Hrabivskyi who gave E. Skotzko task to create informational bureau for propaganda of Ukrainian case. On March 23 1939 the Bureau was founded in Washington D. C. E. Skotzko was an editor of its Informational Bulletins. The Bureau biggest problem was lack of financial support. It was the main reason why it stopped functioning in May 1940. During 14 months of functioning Ukrainian Bureau in Washington posted dozens of informational bulletins and send it to hundreds of addressees; E. Skotzko, as a director, personally wrote to American governmental institutions and foreign diplomats informing about Ukrainian problem in Europe. Ukrainian Bureau activity is an inspiring example for those who care for informational policy of modern Ukraine.Keywords: Ukrainian small encyclopedia, Yevhen Onatsky, journalism, worldview, Ukrainian state. Keywords: Ukrainian Bureau in Washington, Eugene Skotzko, public opinion, history of journalism, diaspora.


2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-437
Author(s):  
Xiangfeng Yang

Abstract Ample evidence exists that China was caught off guard by the Trump administration's onslaught of punishing acts—the trade war being a prime, but far from the only, example. This article, in addition to contextualizing their earlier optimism about the relations with the United States under President Trump, examines why Chinese leaders and analysts were surprised by the turn of events. It argues that three main factors contributed to the lapse of judgment. First, Chinese officials and analysts grossly misunderstood Donald Trump the individual. By overemphasizing his pragmatism while downplaying his unpredictability, they ended up underprepared for the policies he unleashed. Second, some ingrained Chinese beliefs, manifested in the analogies of the pendulum swing and the ‘bickering couple’, as well as the narrative of the ‘ballast’, lulled officials and scholars into undue optimism about the stability of the broader relationship. Third, analytical and methodological problems as well as political considerations prevented them from fully grasping the strategic shift against China in the US.


1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 271-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRUCE CUMINGS

At the inception of the twenty-first century—not to mention the next millennium—books on ‘the American Century’ proliferate monthly, if not daily. We now have The American Century Dictionary, The American Century Thesaurus, and even The American Century Cookbook; perhaps the American Century baseball cap or cologne is not far behind. With one or two exceptions, the authors celebrate the unipolar pre-eminence and comprehensive economic advantage that the United States now enjoys. Surveys of public opinion show that most people agree: the American wave appears to be surging just as the year 2000 beckons. Unemployment and inflation are both at twenty-year lows, sending economists (who say you can't get lows for both at the same time) back to the drawing board. The stock market roars past the magic 10,000 mark, and the monster federal budget deficit of a decade ago miraculously metamorphoses into a surplus that may soon reach upwards of $1 trillion. Meanwhile President William Jefferson Clinton, not long after a humiliating impeachment, is rated in 1999 as the best of all postwar presidents in conducting foreign policy (a dizzying ascent from eighth place in 1994), according to a nationwide poll by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. This surprising result might also, of course, bespeak inattention: when asked to name the two or three most important foreign policy issues facing the US, fully 21 per cent of the public couldn't think of one (they answered ‘don't know’), and a mere seven per cent thought foreign policy issues were important to the nation. But who cares, when all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds?


1994 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-249
Author(s):  
Briar McNutt

The incidence of HIV infection and AIDS in children has grown at an alarming rate. Approximately one million children worldwide have HIV infection. By the year 2000, an estimated ten million children will suffer from the disease. Currently, the United States has a population of an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 HIV-infected children. As of June 30, 1993, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 4,710 known AIDS cases in children twelve years-old and younger. At that point, New York City reported 1,124 pediatric AIDS cases which represented twenty-four percent of all cases in the United States.With the rising number of HIV-infected children, the medical community in the United States has begun to search for HIV-and AIDS-related treatments particularized for children. In addition to establishing guidelines for HIV-infected children's frequent check-ups and timely immunizations, the medical community has initiated research studies involving HIV-infected children.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 77 (5) ◽  
pp. 781-782
Author(s):  
KATHERINE K. CHRISTOFFEL ◽  
TOM CHRISTOFFEL

THE ISSUE There are an estimated 40 to 50 million handguns in the United States, with approximately 2 million more being manufactured annually1 (The New York Times, July 9, 1985, p 16). The high prevalence of handgun injury in the United States is unique in all the world and is increasing. Children are among the growing legions of US citizens harmed by the handgun epidemic.2 The effort to control handguns is focussed on developing laws to control their manufacture, importation, purchase, possession, and use. Opponents of these legal approaches claim that gun control endangers constitutional freedoms. When asked, the US Supreme court has consistently rejected that position in favor of the view that the Second Amendment protects a collective, not a personal, right to bear arms.3,4


Author(s):  
Bibi Imre-Millei

How is gendered language utilised to position the United States in relation to target states to morally justify Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) strikes? State discourse of the US during the George W. Bush and Barrack Obama administrations projected an image of remotely piloted systems as mechanisms of masculine protection. US officials assert that RPAs not only protected Americans at home, they protected populations vulnerable to terrorist attack abroad. While the RPA itself was coded as masculine, RPA pilots are feminised because they are protected from battle while using the RPA. The RPA takes the position of the ultimate masculine protector and its operators become feminised in US rhetoric. The surveillant assemblage of pilot, RPA, and sensor-analytics systems sustaining the RPA, is examined through a rigorous discourse analysis of state officials’ statements during the Bush and Obama administrations. Statements are taken from a number of reputable publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, CNN, and BCC, among others. Statements are also taken from the report “Living Under Drones,” from the law schools of Stanford and New York University. This research begins to answer the question of how technology is gendered in relation to RPAs and RPA strikes.


Author(s):  
Andrew Glazzard

‘You will be amused to hear that I am at work upon a Sherlock Holmes story. So the old dog returns to his vomit.’1 Arthur Conan Doyle to Herbert Greenhough Smith Sherlock Holmes, who died in Switzerland in May 1891, returned to the world on 23 October 1899. The location for his rebirth was, somewhat surprisingly, the Star Theatre in Buffalo, New York. Early the following month, Holmes moved to New York where he could be found in Manhattan’s Garrick Theatre on 236 separate occasions, before making his way across the United States. In September 1901, Holmes went back to Great Britain, arriving (like so many travellers from the US) at Liverpool, before reaching London on 9 September 1901. He was so much in demand that on 1 February 1902 he received an audience with King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. In 1902 he was again in New York, was seen travelling across northern England in 1903, and for the next thirty years popped up repeatedly in various American towns and cities....


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (20) ◽  
pp. 109-135
Author(s):  
Veronica A. Wilson

For personal or political reasons undocumented and controversial to this day, Greenwich Village lesbian photographer Angela Calomiris joined forces with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during the Second World War to infiltrate the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). As Calomiris rose through CPUSA ranks in New York City, espionage efforts resulted in the Attorney General's office declaring the avant-garde Film and Photo League to be a subversive communist organisation in 1947, and the conviction of communist leaders during the Smith Act trial two years later. Interestingly, despite J. Edgar Hoover's indeterminate sexuality and well-documented harassment of gays and lesbians in public life, what mattered to him was not whether Calomiris adhered to heteronormativity, but that her ultimate sense of duty lay with the US government. This article demonstrates how this distinction helped Calomiris find personal satisfaction in defiance of patriarchal conservative expectations and heteronormative cold war gender roles. This article, which utilises FBI files, press coverage, some of Calomiris's papers and her memoir, concludes with a brief discussion of Calomiris's later life in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she continued to craft her identity as a left-liberal feminist, with no mention of the service to the FBI or her role in fomenting the second Red Scare.


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